“Go before you miss your plane.”
Because he didn’t want to break down in front of her, he turned away and started toward the door. Hans shouted a farewell, but Robert didn’t respond. Mechanically, he walked through the door, down the steps and onto the street. Around him, snow fell gently, a sharp contrast to the violence snapping in the air. He put one foot in front of the other, barely aware of his feet touching the ground. He counted the steps. One. Four. Ten. A missile streaked across the sky, filling the air with the whistle of impending destruction. Robert barely noticed.
He turned to take one last look at the pub. Lily stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, watching him. She waved, and he wondered how it was that they had come to this point. How he could go on without her. Raising his hand, he waved and felt the rise of grief like a bayonet in his heart. Vaguely, he was aware of the high-pitched whine of a missile. The night sky glowing eerily.
An instant later, the world exploded. The concussion whacked him like a giant baseball bat. He cartwheeled through the air, aware of the heat burning him, of tiny debris tearing through his clothes, searing his body. He hit the ground hard. The violence of the impact stunned him, knocking the breath from his lungs. Pain flashed brutally through his left thigh. He heard bone shatter, would have cried out but there was no air in his lungs.
Disoriented, he lay in the snow and watched another missile glide overhead. Trembling and nauseous, he mentally tallied his injuries. There was a vague sensation of heat in his left thigh. But when he tried to move his foot, pain like he’d never known screamed through him. Groaning, he rolled onto his side and glanced down to assess the damage. He immediately spotted the large piece of shrapnel jutting from his thigh. He stared in disbelief at the growing circle of shiny black blood.
Robert had seen enough shrapnel wounds in the last ten months to know this one was bad. Life-threatening if he didn’t get immediate medical attention. The piece of metal had hit him with such force that he’d sustained a compound fracture. The femoral artery had been spared, but he was still in danger of bleeding out if he didn’t get medical attention soon.
Cursing and groaning as pain radiated up his injured leg, Robert struggled to a sitting position only to have the dizziness and nausea send him back down. He lay silent and still in the snow for a moment, aware of the growing circle of blood, the symphony of pain singing through his body and felt a moment of panic.
Damn it, he didn’t want to die like this.
He rolled onto his stomach, worked off his jacket, then eased out of his shirt. Every movement sent ice-pick jabs of agony shooting down his leg. He spotted a narrow piece of wood nearby, looped his shirt around it and formed a tourniquet. Grinding his teeth against the pain, he twisted the makeshift tourniquet around his thigh, praying he didn’t pass out before he could stanch the flow of blood.
Lily.
Raising his head, Robert looked quickly around to get his bearings. Thick smoke belched from the crater where the bomb had struck ten yards away. He squinted through the smoke and flaming debris, trying to locate the pub. Horror swept through him in a flash flood when he realized the building was gone.
Robert blinked, disbelief and horror rising inside him like vomit. “Lily!” He heard panic in his voice but he didn’t care. The terror ripping through him overrode the pain, giving him the strength he needed to struggle to one knee, his injured leg dragging behind him. He got one leg under him, but when he tried to move his left leg the pain sent him spiraling into blackness.
“Lily…”
Holding his broken leg, he went down in the snow and mud and floundered like a turtle on its back. Agony and terror streamed through him like a cold, black tide. He rode the waves, struggling to stay conscious, struggling even harder to keep his head.
“Lily.” He’d intended to shout, but her name came out as little more than a puff of air between clenched teeth.
Dear God, she couldn’t be dead. Not Lily. She was too strong. Too vital. He loved her.
He lay there in the snow and mud, breathing as if he’d just run a mile, staring at the violent night sky, and cursed fate for being so cruel.
He didn’t hear the jeep approach. Barely felt the strong hands that lifted him onto the stretcher. All he could think about was Lily.
Robert fought the hands pressing him down. “Got to…find her,” he said.
“It’s okay, mate,” a British voice said. “I’m a medic with the Allied Medical Forces. We’re going to get you out of here. Looks like you’ve got a bit of a problem with that leg. Try to relax, all right?”