PROLOGUE

❝ A hospital alone shows what war is. ❞

August 1916

Amiens, France

For Rose Salvage, the only thing worse than war was the smell of it. That acre, sickening smell that spread around her, filling her nostrils, attacking her lungs and threatening her very existence just because she dared being in the same space as it.

It was not just the blood or the sweat or the dirt, it was the smell of death itself glued to every body, reshaping every soul. Rose knew that once someone felt such a smell, they could never come back from it. Not as they once were. Something in them had to change, for they had seen and had been seen by Death and must now carry that encounter in their lives.

And in twenty three years of life, Rose had seen more death than she should have, and learned that the worst part of it were the screams that preceded it, the piercing, agonizing screams of the wounded soldiers as they bled out in the white sheets for their country, for a home they would only get to see through a coffin.

This was France now, an endless graveyard where the only things that seemed alive were the howitzers and the machine guns, not the people behind them. They were far behind the lines, but war didn't just happen in the battlefield or the trenches, it happened in the hospitals, in the captured villages, in the destroyed cities and fields, in the mind of the soldiers, and in her heart.

Even after two years of serving in the Red Cross, Rose could still not stand the smell or the screams, and everywhere she turned, there were bodies being covered and soldiers that silently cried to a God who never seemed to listen.

The hospital she had been assigned to was located in Amiens, near the River Somme, and the decrepit building had been bursting at the seams ever since the Battle of the Somme had begun the month before. Considering the amount of injured they had received, Rose was under the impression it would be a terrible battle, perhaps one of the most bloodied in that damned war. And yet it was her job to treat them, to make sure they could return to it, or at least home. But when it came to that, and like in any war, Rose had had more defeats than victories.

"Rose... Rose..." a soft voice spoke from behind her as hands tried taking her away from the soldier on the bed. "There's nothing you can do. The poor dear is dead. All we can do is let him rest."

Rose turned her head to the side, to the nun who always stared at her with trained empathy. She was resigned. She made the sign of the cross and moved on. Rose could not.

"What's the point?" She asked, and she didn't know who she was speaking to, if the nun, if the God she spoke for, if someone else entirely, if herself. "If we can't save them, what is it that we're doing here?"

"Rose, dear, you're young. You're so young. Soon you'll learn you can't save everyone."

"Then what can I do, Mother? Pray? Give them a few words of comfort and watch them die? Some of them are not even eighteen! This soldier was not even eighteen! What kind of God allows that?"

"Rose, I understand you're upset, but we must not question our faith. There are things above you and me, things only God can decide. We are not here to question why."

"Well, I am. Why this? Why France? Why my friends, my compatriots, my father, my brothers? No. I refuse to accept this, any of this. There's no meaning in a war, there's just death. And it feels that here, instead of fighting it, we're letting it win."

"You're a woman of many questions, Rose," the nun said, placing a comforting hand to her shoulder. "Such thing will get you in trouble. You must learn that men ask the questions and we women try to get them the answers they need. That's all we can do."

"Because they've been handling society so well. Killing each other for such futile reasons. If anything, war just taught me how stupid men are," Rose snickered, but then her attention drifted to the window and to the ambulances arriving from the front lines, and she watched in terror as a horse fell down with a loud, shrieking howl, twisting and turning on the grass in visible pain.

"Why doesn't anyone do anything?" She huffed in despair.

"As you can see, everyone is too busy attending the injured."

"But that horse is injured too. He's in pain!"

"They will deal with him as soon as they can, I'm sure. The horse will have to be put down, he's beyond our help now."

"He's just another lost cause, isn't he?" Rose questioned, and every shriek of the horse was like a stab to her heart. She hated it. She hated seeing people suffer, but she died when horses did.

"Yes. And we do not waste time on lost causes. We cannot afford it, unfortunately."

"Too bad," the young woman retorted, nails digging into her skin. "I do. They seem to be my specialty."

Another desperate yelp made Rose's heart ache like a hundred shells had just been dropped on it. She had seen so much already, treated and consoled men, written letters to widows and orphans, many of whom she knew, telling them their husbands or fathers would not be returning, and yet with each death she still felt completely outraged, completely robbed. She could feel herself giving in to the anguish, to the helplessness she felt every time a soldier died in her hands, to the fear of knowing the same could be happening to her father or brothers.

She was kept awake at night by the possibility of having to write her own mother a letter with the worst of news, and yet the only thing that kept her going was the duty towards those men who bravely gave their lives to defend her country, many of them not even French, and the hope she could make a difference, that she could help, that in the face of death, she could make others live. But sometimes, all she could give was mercy. That horse was going to have a slow, miserable death, and Rose could do something about it.

She stepped away from the window and turned around.

"Rose, stay here, I will need your help with the men!" The nun ordered as Rose started walking away. The horse's cries were the worst thing she had ever heard. It felt like Death itself was dying. "You can't save him, Rose! Good Lord, what are you going to do?"

Ignoring the nun calling after her, Rose quickly got to the door and grabbed a forgotten pistol before stepping outside and making her way between the horde of stretchers and soldiers with a heavy heart but clear mind. Around her, men were yelling for someone to make the howling stop, but before anyone could, Rose had come close to the dying horse.

She pointed the gun at his head and shot once. The horse's shouts ended, replaced by those of the nuns and the soldiers.

"Rose, oh dear Lord, Rose, what did you do?" Mother shouted from above.

"I ended his misery, that's what I did," she replied. Perhaps at the cost of starting mine. 

"Guns are not for women, mademoiselle! Give that to me," a soldier ordered, forcefully taking the pistol out of her hand, more bothered that a woman had used a gun than that she had used it to kill. But Rose was not listening, watching the stream of blood coming out from the hole of the bullet. The horse was dead, and Rose felt like some part of her was too. She was staring at him and remembering how she had wanted to be one as a child, because they seemed so free with their manes in the wind. Now he was lying on the ground in front of her along with all of her childhood dreams. They were all wrong, and all dead. War didn't just take lives, it took dreams and ideals too.

Not standing to be there any longer, she returned to the building, ignoring the disapproving words of the nuns and going to a different wing. Most of the soldiers there were in convalescence and they seemed to like her, and her smile, many often trying to crack a joke just to see it.

"Did you hear that horse, Rose?" One asked as Rose approached him to change his bandages. The others around him perked up at her arrival, as if she was the only thing that kept them from dying. But Rose didn't feel like a medicine to anyone. If anything, like shooting that horse had proved, her thorns had poison.

"Yes. That's why I killed him."

"I'm relieved you did," he said after a moment of silence. "I couldn't stand his yells anymore."

"Neither could I. It's just cruel, dragging animals into wars. At this rate no man will ever step foot in heaven. We all have our place in hell."

"Don't let the nuns hear you, Rose. They don't like you much already."

"How can you be okay with it?" She mumbled, shaking her head. "How do you not rebel? Emperors and generals make wars and then they make the horses and the soldiers pay for it. It doesn't seem like a very fair trade to me. Your lives for their glory."

"You're an intelligent woman, Rose," another one chipped in. "No wonder you haven't found a man yet. They all must be terrified of you."

"Well, they should," she retorted. "But it's true. If all men refused to fight, there would be no war."

"But men fight. It's in our nature," said a third soldier. "Like it's in your nature to take care of us."

"No, that's my job," Rose replied, a ghost of a smile on her lips. "And it's not that I haven't found a man. It's just I haven't found one smart enough for me."

"Rose, you're mending our bones but breaking our poor hearts."

 "Don't get me wrong, boys, I like you. But you're too French for my taste."

"Rose, don't tell us you prefer those pretentious Rosbifs? They're so pompous!"

"No, they're not," Rose chuckled, and that smile soldiers talked about when she was gone and that was known in the entire hospital made them smile too.

"Do you have sisters, Rose?" One asked and Rose's smile grew when she nodded. Thinking of her sisters always made her smile. "Are they as beautiful as you?"

"They're more beautiful. But I'm the cleverest," she said, smirking slightly.

"Are they nurses too?"

"No. After the men went to war and I volunteered as a nurse, our mother forbad anyone else from leaving the house. It's better for them anyway. No one should have to witness such horrors. And my sisters... they're not like me, you see? They still believe the world is good."

"Maybe it's not, but it can't be all bad, Rose. Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

"You're too kind, mon cher," Rose smiled again, kissing the soldier on the forehead and making some of the others clap and whistle. "Don't let war take that from you."

"Rose, the day you find a mec, that's the day you'll make him the luckiest man on Earth, and the day you'll make all the others the unluckiest."

"You have too much faith in me, boys."

"Well, you have not failed us where God has. Who knows, perhaps that day is today and—"

"Are there any available nurses in here?" A nun asked from the door. "We need all the help we can get, a new shipment of soldiers has just arrived and they're all bleeding worse than a lamb on a slaughterhouse."

"Be back soon, Rose, you're good for us," the soldier asked as she stood up and followed the nun to a much more crowded area. Rose's nose instantly scrunched up at the smell and her vision was invaded by horrible images of mutilated bodies and gruesome wounds. The war was this. The complete perversion of the word human.

"Do what you can," the nun advised the young nurses. "But remember we need the beds, and the equipment is scarce. For those who are at death's door, we can only try to make them comfortable, and pray for a safe passage."

The nurses dispersed in a frenetic haste, and amidst so much pain Rose didn't know where to start. But then her shin bumped into a bed and her eyes landed upon a man who was strangely serene. His eyes were closed and his face was just mud and blood, and so bruised Rose did not dare to imagine what he had gone through.

The man seemed dead, and certainly someone had already thought he was because the sheets were over him as if he was going to be taken away. But his chest was still rising, and so Rose got closer to him, moved by that hope she couldn't put out, that she could heal more than she could harm. Taking a closer look at him, Rose realized he was unconscious, and bleeding terrible from an ugly wound on the abdomen.

"Excuse me, sir, why is this man not being taken care of? He's wounded," Rose asked the nearest doctor urgently, who barely gave the soldier a second look before answering.

"He's a lost cause, that one. We can't afford to waste time or resources on him."

"No, he's still alive. He certainly needs surgery, but—"

"Look, miss, we need to help those who actually have a chance to make it. Our job is to return as many soldiers as we can to the front lines. If you think we're here to save lives, you're wrong. We're just delaying deaths until the Allies win."

"Of course. Because they are cannon fodder. Dispensable."

"Miss, I advise you to keep your mouth shut and your hands full if you don't want to get in trouble," the doctor spat out before leaving. Rose looked at the soldier again, knowing that any sane person would give up on him. He did seem beyond saving. But Rose couldn't. After the horse, she couldn't.

"Excuse me, sir!" She called another doctor in a resolute tone. "Could you please help me? This man, he needs surgery and..."

The doctor looked at her, then at him. He shook his head once and left. Refusing to give up, she grabbed the arm of another one, her voice more vehement. She was different in that aspect. The more people told her no, the more her will increased, rather than waning.

"Sir, I need you to take this soldier to the surgery wing as soon as possible. He's got a serious hemorrhage, the liver and the spleen have surely been injured, and the longer he waits, the greater the risk of infection."

"Miss, I do not need you to tell me how to do my job. That man's a dead man. Focus on the living."

She returned to the bedside in frustration, analyzing the wound and considering doing the operation herself. She had aided in many, so maybe she could pull it off.

"Rose, give up on him. Come help me," one of the nurses asked. "There's nothing you can do for him."

If there was one thing Rose had always hated, it was being told what she could or couldn't do. Her mother always said it would be her doom, her willingness to take chances on people. She looked around the room, hoping to find one of the few doctors that appreciated her hard work instead of disregarding her for not being a man.

"Sir!" She ran after one. "Sir, please, I need your help. There's a man with a serious injure in his abdomen who needs to be operated as soon as possible."

"Miss, everyone in this room needs to be operated as soon as possible."

"Please, sir... just come see him," she took his hands in hers when he didn't move. "Please, I beg of you."

The doctor sighed but followed her, his brow furrowing once he saw the state of the quiet soldier. "I doubt he would survive surgery. There's plenty of others who might."

Rose squared her shoulders. This was a war she knew she could win. "Sir, with all due respect, I killed a horse today. Don't make me be responsible for this man's death as well."

The doctor sighed again, pinching his nose. "Bring him to the surgery wing."

***

Rose had lost count to the number of men she had attended to that day, and yet her mind couldn't stop thinking about that particular one. There was something different about him, and she couldn't tell what. Maybe it was the fact he was the only peaceful thing Rose had seen since the war had started. She had assisted his surgery as she could but had been called to other duties before she could know if the man had survived, so as soon as she had a free second, she searched the hospital for the doctor.

"Did he make it, sir? Please tell me he made it."

"Miss Salvage," the doctor said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He looked absolutely exhausted and Rose could guess so did she. "Yes. He made it."

A wave of relief washed over her as her heart jumped like someone had just opened fire in her chest. "Thank you," she said, grabbing his face and kissing him twice on each cheek. "Thank you."

"He's still not out of danger, however. He's in recovery, and we'll need to keep a very watchful eye on him because the risk of infection is still very large. It's a miracle, if you ask me. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of men that survived an operation like that. He puts up a good fight, I'll give him that. And you saved a life today, miss Salvage. Seems like you have a fitting surname."

"I need to see him."

"I figured you'd say that. Come with me," the doctor led her through corridors and corridors until they arrived at a large room relatively quieter. "Last bed on the right."

Rose made her way towards it, sitting on the bed beside him. He was impassive still, and that impressed her. Many of the soldiers screamed and squirmed after an operation and yet there he was, so serene for a second Rose feared the worse. But he was breathing, and in his sleep, his fingers moved. Without thinking, her hand grabbed his, perhaps just to feel the warmth of it, the life in it. She would never see this man again and he would never know her. But Rose hoped he could survive this war, go back home, and do good with this second life he had been given.

British, Rose thought as she stared at him. And possibly handsome, in good health.

She stood up to go back to duty, intercepting a nun on her way to the door. "Excuse me, Mother, do you happen to know this man's name?"

"Let me see..." the nun frowned and looked at the board in her hands. "His identification was faded when it got here. All we got was Michael S."

***

"Rose?" A nurse called as Rose finished giving dinner to a group of soldiers. "Was it you who attended to Michael this afternoon?"

"Yes, why?" She asked worriedly, having to place down the bowl of soup due to the sudden shaking of her hands.

"He's asking for you. Or at least, for the 'pretty nurse'. I assumed that was you since it didn't seem to be any of the nuns he was offending with that statement."

"How... he didn't even see me..."

"Oh, men always do," the other woman chuckled. "You're lucky, he's a real treat. I see why you prefer the British."

"I don't prefer the British," Rose rolled her eyes but made her way to the soldier again. He seemed to have fallen asleep in the meantime, so Rose suppressed her disappointment and adjusted the blankets around him. Knowing she should go back, she sat down instead and was almost falling asleep herself when he spoke.

"Are you familiar with the poem 'In the bleak midwinter'?" He asked, eyes closed and mouth barely moving. Rose was taken aback, if not by his question, by his steady, low voice and strong, unfamiliar accent. Rose couldn't tell where it was from, but she could tell she wanted to know.

"Yes, I am."

"You are," he ran his tongue over his lips and for some reason her eyes got stuck on the movement. "Well, if I die, I want you to recite that poem to me. Yes?"

"I... yes," Rose answered, her voice above a mere whisper. This was a man recovering from a critical surgery and lying on a hospital bed and he still managed to be more intimidating than many officials she had met. "But I won't have to. You will not die."

"Yeah? How can you tell, love? You read me tea leaves?"

"Well no, for that I'd need tea and we only have bitter coffee," she chuckled, and the man shifted ever so slightly at the sound. His eyes didn't open, though, and Rose couldn't help but wonder what color they were. "But I see life in you, nonetheless. And I feel like as soon as the doctors allow it, you'll go right back to the front line when most men would be running home."

"I have my brothers in the front line. If I return, it's for them."

"Speaking of return, I must go," Rose said, noticing the nuns staring at her. They never liked when she spent too much time speaking to a man, even if 'too much time' for them was everything above a minute. "And you must rest. In the bleak midwinter? That's a good poem."

"Yes. It's a good poem."

Rose stood up and walked away, a smile blossoming from her lips like the first flower of spring.

"Rose, I'm sorry I told you to give up on him," the nurse from that afternoon told her. "But I'm glad you didn't listen to me. Then again, you never do. You never listen to anyone," she smiled and gestured towards the soldier on the bed. "You really can't stay away from lost causes, can you? Tell me, what did you see in him?"

Everything.

"A man worth saving."

author's note.

I hope you liked this chapter! Please make sure to vote and comment if you did, it helps A LOT with motivation :)