Holding Their Place by Kelly Wacker

Author:Kelly Wacker [Wacker, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635553383
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2018-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

XI

Julia put on her uniform for the first time since “that day,” as she mentally referred to it. The jacket was borrowed, since hers had been too damaged to repair, but she had salvaged the embroidered emblems and intended to sew them onto a new jacket when she received it. She would be giving an account of “that day” in the colonel’s office in a half hour. She was surprised that she had been allowed two weeks’ reprieve from making a statement, but it probably had to do with her being a woman and the military leadership, male leadership, of course, not really knowing what to do with her. Nonetheless, the army recorded everything, and the amount of paperwork was staggering.

After a soft knock at the door, Helen stepped in. She was dressed in her Women’s Hospital Corps uniform, a skirt with a long jacket of a greenish-grey fabric with red shoulder straps with the blue W.H.C. initials embroidered on them, indicating that she was a medical officer.

“Are you ready?”

“As much as I can be.”

“And you still want me to be present?”

“Yes,” Julia said, furrowing her brow again. “You steady my nerves. Just your presence calms me.”

They walked quietly together to the colonel’s office, an easy silence between them. The colonel’s adjutant, a young corporal, greeted them and asked them to sit. After a few minutes he checked his watch and escorted them into the colonel’s office, then sat in a wooden chair along the wall with a stenographer’s pad and pencil in hand. Another officer, a major whom Julia had never seen before, was standing next to the colonel. Helen didn’t appear to be familiar with him either. His back was rigidly straight, a posture Julia had learned to associate with military men, and his face was so pinched, he appeared as if he had sucked something sour.

“Dr. Connery, Miss March, this is Major Robert Pike from command,” the colonel said. “He will direct the interview. Dr. Connery, please have a seat next to Corporal Webb. Miss March, if you would, please be seated here.” The colonel gestured to the chair in front of his desk. The major sat in one to the side of the colonel’s desk, at an angle that allowed him a direct view of Julia.

“Miss March,” the major glanced at papers in the folder he was holding, “on the sixth of April you had orders to retrieve wounded men from aid stations near the Vollon Ridge. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how many trips did you make, Miss March?” The major stared her in the eye.

“Two circuits, sir,” Julia replied, meeting his gaze. His eyes were dark and cold, and she instinctively did not like him. “The third was not completed.”

The major glanced at the open folder in his lap and nodded. “On your third circuit, as you say, did Sergeant Henderson tell you that you should not pass him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you chose to disregard his order?”

“It was not an order I was obliged to obey, sir.

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