The Sculptress by V.S. Alexander (best books to read for women TXT) 📕

“Carry on!” John shouted. “Full speed ahead. And I do mean ahead.”

Virginie gripped the steering wheel throttle like a mechanic, her hands wrangling with the lever, her muddy shoe pressing the left pedal. The truck rocked forward by inches as John pushed. In a flurry of movement, she accidentally knocked the ambulance into reverse. The tires squealed in the mud.

“For God’s sake, watch out!” John screamed. “Remember me?”

“Mon Dieu,” Virginie whispered. She clutched the throttle and crammed it forward while lifting her foot from the pedal. “Maintenant!”

The truck lurched forward violently, nearly throwing Emma into the windscreen. It sped down the road until Virginie grabbed the floor lever. The ambulance slowed to a stop on an incline strewn with pebbles and rocks. Emma turned and peered through the rainy veil behind the truck.

John, spattered with mud, strode toward them in an angry gait and opened the door. He poked his reddened, grit-covered head inside. “You may drive, nurse. I’ll ride the rest of the way in back. Just follow the kilometer posts to Toul.”

“I know the road,” she replied in a calm voice.

The truck sagged under John’s weight as he climbed under the dripping tarp.

The rain relented somewhat as Virginie drove. The nurse dodged the large puddles and sticky mire, maneuvered past the few automobiles on the road, and slipped by slow-moving equine carts. Emma, with occasional shouted comments from John, listened to Virginie recount her hospital experiences, and how lucky John was to find her to work with his mutilés. The nurse also made it clear that he was not solely responsible for her command of English. A friend had taught her as well.

John swiped at his muddy clothes with a rag he found tied to a petrol can. Once he had cleaned up a bit, he became more animated, discoursing about his forays into facial reconstruction and mask-making techniques, giving him self-congratulatory pats on the back when needed.

The conversation died when the fortress city of Toul, enveloped in mist, appeared on the horizon.

“My God,” Emma said. “A soldier on the ship thought Tom might be here.” She turned in her seat and faced John, who hunkered clammy and wet in the truck bed.

He pointed to the east. “And thirty-five kilometers from here, men are dying at the Front—that is if they are fighting at all in this sloppy mess. The hospital isn’t far. I’ve been here a few times.”

In front of them, Toul’s fortress walls rose from the sodden earth. At the perimeter, a cadre of French soldiers stopped the ambulance. After questioning them and inspecting the truck with the Red Cross emblem on its doors, the soldiers let them pass through the Porte de France. Emma had imagined a more pleasant reception for her reunion with Tom. Instead of a village surrounded by lavender fields, flowering pear trees, and a sunny square filled with fountains, Toul lay dank and desolate under the low, suffocating, sky. The city was quaint enough in its own right, but the streets were empty and water trickled in dark streams down its stone buildings. Here and there an electric lamp burned inside a shop, adding a small degree of cheeriness to the day. Emma thought she smelled sulfur in the air, perhaps the faint odor of spent gunpowder, but then considered her nose might be playing tricks on her.

The truck bounced over the cobblestone streets causing John, with each new jolt, to lambast Virginie’s driving.

“Hush,” the nurse countered.

John instructed her to turn left, and the street widened a bit. “There,” he said, “the building with the flags.”

Emma squinted through the grimy windscreen at a solid white structure dripping with French and Red Cross flags.

“Voilà,” Virginie said. “We have arrived—safe and sound—despite the Germans and your driving, Sir Jonathan.”

John elbowed the back of the seat and Virginie flinched.

The nurse attempted to park in a narrow alley next to the hospital, but the lane was crowded with ambulances. She continued down the street and stopped the vehicle in front of a deserted building.

Emma opened the door and stepped into the drizzle. The drive from Paris had taken more than twelve hours.

“Thanks for telephoning Tom last night,” Emma said to John, as he shifted his large frame in the truck bed. “I’ve been so distracted.”

John steadied his bulk against the side of the ambulance until his feet touched the street. “I don’t know why I feel compelled to play matchmaker. One would think a husband and wife who hadn’t seen each other for so long would be in closer contact.”

Emma blushed and turned away.

“Tom was quite content when I talked to him—a bit bothered, but otherwise in fine spirits,” he continued. “A surgeon is always busy during a war.”

Emma led the way to the hospital, a stone building punctuated by a few windows and not as large as she expected. Apart from the word Hôpital over the door, one could have passed by it with little hint of the work going on behind the façade.

The nurse sitting behind the front desk greeted Emma with a flat “Bonjour.” The room smelled of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol. Several bearded men talked quietly or read a newspaper or book, crutches propped against their chairs. Another sat and rocked in a corner, muttered, and thrust his hands into the air, oblivious to the others around him. The left side of his face and top of his head were swathed in bandages.

Virginie took over the introductions in French. Emma picked out a few words—d’accord, certainement, allons—but most of the conversation was beyond her grasp.

“Well?” John interrupted. “Where is he?”

The nurse behind the desk scowled at the doctor.

“She thinks he has just come out of surgery,” Virginie said. “Patience, patience. You English are so pushy.”

“If the French had been more aggressive, this war would be over.”

“You are wet, tired, and in a bad humor,” Virginie said, holding back a snarl. “You must choose your words carefully, Sir Jonathan. Others may not be as forgiving as I.”

“Please,” Emma said, “we’re