A Good Woman by Danielle Steel

Author:Danielle Steel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Steel, Fiction, Romance, War & Military, Danielle - Prose & Criticism, New York (N.Y.), Fiction - General, Historical fiction, World War I, Historical - General, 1914-1918, Married women, Historical, Upper class women, Military, World War, History, Rich people, Americans - France, France, General, Military nursing, Americans, American Historical Fiction, 1914-1918 - France, Love stories
ISBN: 9780440243304
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2009-08-25T01:16:32.505000+00:00

Chapter 15

Annabelle’s first days at L’Abbaye de Royaumont were grueling. Casualties from the Second Battle of Champagne were coming in at a rapid rate. She assisted in surgeries, emptying surgical pans and soaking up blood, disposed of shattered limbs, emptied bedpans, held the hands of dying men, and bathed men with raging fevers. Nothing she had ever seen before was even remotely like it. She had never worked so hard in her life, but it was exactly what she had wanted. She felt useful, and was learning more every day.

Annabelle hardly ever saw Edwina. She was working in another part of the hospital, and they were on different shifts. Once in a while they ran into each other in the bathroom or passed in a corridor between wards, and waved at each other. Annabelle had no time to make friends, there was too much work to do, and the hospital was crammed full of wounded and dying men. Every bed was full, and some lay on mattresses on the floor.

She finally got a few minutes one afternoon to go to a local bank, and sent a message to her own bank in New York that she had arrived safely and all was well. There was no one to tell or care. She had been in Asnières for two weeks by then, and she felt as though she’d been there for a year. The English and French had landed in Salonika, in Greece, and Austrian, German, and Bulgarian forces had invaded Serbia and expelled the Serbian army from the country. In France, men were dying like flies in the trenches. Thirty miles from the hospital, the front had hardly shifted, but lives were being lost constantly. There were field hospitals set up in churches closer to the front, but as many men as could be were brought to the Abbey in Asnières, where they could get better care. Annabelle was learning a great deal about surgery. And they were also dealing with everything from dysentery to trench foot, and a number of cases of cholera. Annabelle found all of it terrifying but exciting to be able to help.

On a rare morning off, one of the women in her cell block taught her to drive one of the trucks they used as ambulances, which wasn’t so different from Jean-Luc’s poultry truck. She had a hard time getting it into gear at first, but she was starting to get the hang of it when she had to report to work again. She was assigned to the operating room more than any of the others, because she was precise, attentive, meticulous, and followed directions to the letter. Several of the doctors had noticed her and commented on her to the head nurse, who agreed that Annabelle’s work was excellent. She thought she’d make a terrific nurse, and had suggested to Annabelle that she should train formally after the war, but the head surgeon at the Abbey thought she was better than that. He stopped to chat with her after their final operation late one night.

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