Enemy Sighted; Friends Met

Assigned to a field hospital barely held together by rotting canvas and brittle wood, Amelia found herself swept into the relentless tide of the wounded. A constant stream of stretchers bearing moaning men filled the main tent, their muddy uniforms often indistinguishable from the stains of blood. The stench of disinfectant mingled with the sickly-sweet metallic tang of gore, a combination she felt sure would haunt her long after the war.

Amid the chaos, Amelia moved with focus born of necessity. “Corporal! Stabilize that leg!” she called. “Private! More gauze, this man won’t last five minutes more without it!” Though gentle in her civilian life, Amelia had the iron stomach of a seasoned medic and the stern, quick voice of a battlefield commander.

A new stretcher was rushed through the tent flap, bearing an unconscious soldier. This one, younger than the rest, with hair the color of wheat beneath his cap, had a gash slicing down his cheek.

“That one’s mine,” called a deep voice with a tinge of a French accent.

Amelia recognized Corporal Henri Dubois. She’d heard rumors the Frenchman was fierce on the battlefield but gentle with the injured.

Dubois skillfully cut at the young soldier’s uniform while Amelia began cleaning the wound on his face. It was deep, but if infection could be stopped, he might survive. And then, everything froze.

Amelia had expected tattered flesh, broken bones. What she saw sent a gasp shuddering through her body. Under the rough cotton shirt, smooth skin and the tell-tale curve of a breast met her eyes. Not a boy – a girl. With shaking fingers, Amelia signaled Dubois, who raised an eyebrow and followed her gaze.

Lieutenant James Edwards was a woman. Just the whisper of an inward “Oh!” escaped Amelia before Dubois grabbed her wrist and gave a quick shake of his head. The message was clear – speak of this and there would be consequences.

She met Dubois’ dark eyes, and within seconds, an unspoken decision passed between them. This knowledge, this terrible burden, would be held between nurse and corporal alone. But there was something else in Dubois’ gaze – a flickering glint Amelia couldn’t yet decipher. Was it…relief?

That relief quickly vanished. A guttural cry of “Lieutenant!” pierced the tent. Dubois rushed to bind the woman’s makeshift chest, but they all knew. This soldier, unconscious as she was, had been exposed. Before Amelia could blink, a burly captain thrust his way into the tent, the name ‘Edwards’ roaring from his lips. It was time to make another decision. Would this captain report his Lieutenant for treason?

“She’s…he’s…bad, sir,” she choked, stepping in front of Dubois to subtly block the captain’s sight. The lie felt like acid on her tongue, the Lieutenant was injured but hardly critical, sisterly duty whispered louder than shock. “If we don’t get to an operating room…the bleeding…”

The rest of her words choked into the humid tent air. Thankfully, the captain looked harried, not suspicious. With a final glance at the soldier and a grunt, he retreated to the chaos outside. Relief flooded Amelia, only to be swiftly replaced by an even more troubling thought. Was Lieutenant “James” the only secret hidden in this hellish theatre of war? Her eyes swept over Corporal Dubois, a flicker of suspicion now replacing the earlier sense of camaraderie.

“Thanks,” the Lieutenant said as they sat back up. Quietly they whispered “My name’s really Jessica, but thank you for keeping this secret. I just need to get cleaned up a bit and rebind my, ahem, and I should be good to go.”

“Thanks again,” said Dubois. “Name’s actually Harriet, but I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Baptism by Fire

Shock lined Amelia’s face, but the lull after the captain’s departure offered no relief, only a grim tightening of Amelia’s gut. Each thump of distant shelling was a drumbeat counting down to the inevitable. It wasn’t a question of if but when their position would be overrun.

Amelia found Dubois beside her, cleaning blood from surgical tools with meticulous care. Their shared glances revealed more than any whispered words ever could: the Lieutenant was one secret, but how many more walked among them? And more importantly, if the lines broke, could Amelia protect those entrusted to her care?

That question was answered swiftly in a wave of mud-spattered soldiers stumbling, crawling back into camp. “They’re breaking through!” came the ragged scream. “The whole damned sector! They’re everywhere!”

Chaos reigned. Amelia’s orders to triage the newly wounded mixed with shouts of, “Abandon the tents!”, “Grab what you can!”, and worse, the piercing whistle of falling bombs. Her mind reeled, yet something primal snapped into focus. The wounded, she had to focus on the wounded. Her patients couldn’t run – and she wouldn’t leave them.

“Amelia!” The Lieutenant, was at her side, eyes hard, the wounded face strangely stark with a wash of battlefield grit. “Get what you can carry, the able-bodied are headed for the secondary line. Dubois and I will cover you.”

It wasn’t a request, it was a battlefield command. Amelia started to protest, then saw the steel that had transformed the delicate young woman into Lieutenant Edwards. She nodded, stuffing pockets with bandages and morphine ampules – pitifully small weapons against an entire front’s collapse.

Dubois, no longer the gentle corporal, had a gleaming rifle thrust into his hands. With a practiced ease that left Amelia breathless, he checked the sights. “Lieutenant, there’s a machine gun nest covering that trenchline. The wounded won’t stand a chance if we can’t clear it.” His voice, usually warm, was cold and utterly committed.

It was then, watching the transformation of those she’d once simply thought of as comrades, that something in Amelia snapped. It was fear, yes, but not the paralyzing kind. It was cold anger fueled by a fiery protectiveness. “You won’t be alone,” she stated flatly, pushing her way past them.

In the supply cache, she unearthed two bulky ammunition belts. These were meant for rifles, not her small pistol, but she’d make do. Back amidst the bedlam, the Lieutenant was shouting orders, sketching makeshift plans in the dirt. It was madness, yet in the madness there was a kind of brilliance, a desperate cunning Amelia hadn’t expected.

“You can shoot?” Harriet – no, Dubois seemed to ask rather than state. This new persona, battle-hardened and devoid of any softness, filled Amelia with an odd mixture of admiration and fear.

But there was no time for niceties. “I was raised on a farm,” she barked back as they hunkered down behind what was left of a barricade. “It wasn’t for sport, but I can hit what I aim for.”

A grim battle-grin flickered across Harriet’s face. For a mad moment, hope sparked within Amelia. They might do this, might pull themselves and their patients from the inferno. Amelia was not some fainting flower of a nurse. She was, it turned out, the daughter of a country huntsman, the granddaughter of soldiers, and in her bones, there was a warrior screaming to be let loose.

The enemy fire, a rhythmic, stuttering beast, told them the Germans were close. Their plan, such as it was, was simple and suicidal. Amelia was to provide covering fire to pin down the machine gun team, allowing Jessica and Harriet to charge and take it out.

Taking a deep breath, Amelia peered over the ruined sandbags. And then, there was no more room for thought. There was only action, raw adrenaline, and the strange clarity of purpose found in the crucible of war.

Letting the Cats Out

Time twisted strangely after their narrow assault, and subsequent escape. There were weeks in muddy fallback lines, days holding back against overwhelming enemy pushes, and nights where every distant rumble and flash might spell the end. Medals replaced memories; mud and smoke etched out any prior dreams.

Amelia found herself hardened and skilled in ways unthinkable years before. It was grim, bloody work, but she never again hesitated to raise the pistol or sling a rifle beside Corporal ‘Dubois’. They’d survived hellfires together, a shared secret and bloodied battlefield trust the core of their being. Lieutenant ‘Edwards’ rose in respect, the strategic mind behind countless escapes becoming near mythic among the men.

Eternity passed, and eons came and went – the war finally ended not with trumpets but whimpers of exhaustion. Amelia was shipped home, medals for bravery heavy in her bag alongside heavier ghosts. Demobilized, Amelia Hartley went back to teaching in the local Nursing college, a respectable career masking the woman born in fire. Yet, whispers of her war record haunted her—heroic tales of Edwards and Dubois, their true faces never seen by comrades. It ached within her, knowing some truths must forever stay locked away.

Years quickly became decades that turned the Great War into hazy history, usurped by a more violent one years later, until one sweltering November day, Amelia found an invitation nestled in her mail. A veterans’ remembrance. A lump lodged in her throat as she debated; to go meant facing Lieutenant Edwards, her brave Jessica, once again. It was Dubois’ name at the bottom, not as Henri, but as Harriet, who sealed the decision.

At the reunion, under a blazing sun that felt uncannily like that last mad summer at the front, Amelia searched for familiar faces amongst the lines of grey-haired veterans. A flash of dark eyes met hers, softened by wrinkles. Harriet – Harriet with laughing eyes and a firm handshake so unlike the young soldier she left behind. Then, a figure beside her, not in uniform, yet carrying the bearing of a commander. Jessica, still strong-jawed, but with laughter lines at her mouth.

At the podium, medals winked as speeches praised sacrifice and duty, tales of heroes – all men. And Amelia was swept back to that first revelation, to the secret held for decades. Here, she felt it like a live coal in her chest: it wasn’t their truth they’d hidden, but history’s failure to see half its heroes.

Hand trembling, Amelia raised it when her name was called. Not nurse Hartley, but veteran Hartley, Amelia who carried the weight of battle just as her companions did. Yet, stepping towards the stage, it wasn’t her solitary tale she was ready to share.

“I am…not the only woman here,” she began, the microphone amplifying her shaky voice across a suddenly rapt audience. “Lieutenant James Edwards…” Amelia gestured to Jessica, standing tall at attention, “… she never once faltered under fire. Corporal Henri Dubois…” Harriet stepped forth, chin held high in defiance even half a century later, “…he fought like a tiger when every trench needed one.”

Shock rippled through the crowd. Whispers and gasps were swiftly devoured by a silence heavier than gunfire.

“Some secrets…,” Amelia pressed on, “…aren’t betrayals, but born of love – for country, for duty, for one another. These soldiers,” her wave encompassed herself, the two proud women, and the sea of veteran faces, “we all earned these medals…even if some histories never bothered to look properly beneath them.”

It felt like the earth tilted. For years, fear of disgrace had chained these women to silence. But here, they weren’t soldiers or nurses, not wives or spinsters as society demanded, just veterans. For all the horror they’d witnessed, this might be the bravest battle yet.

Then, a lone cheer broke out, then another. Clapping turned thunderous, echoing across the field. Tears, relief, and pride blurred Amelia’s vision as those gathered rose, saluting them and, in doing so, finally acknowledging the battles women have always fought, even from within the shadows.

This is not just their story, Amelia realized, but the story of countless others left out of histories, and the triumph of truth, no matter how belated. This is THEIR final victory.