Page 4 of The Silent Sister

Cassia hugged Sophia, who looked confused. The two men were speaking in English, so she had no idea what they were saying.

‘They’ve found her, Sophia. They’ve found her.’

The old lady let out a scream of pure delight.

Looking at the expression on Sophia’s face, Cassia wondered if she’d been premature in telling her friend the news.

What if it was the child’s body they’d found, not the living little girl of whom Sophia spoke so fondly?

How was she going to deal with it? She put her fingers to her lips so she could hear what the men were saying.

‘That’s it. You hold her head while my mate and I lift this door away from her chest,’ said Tom. ‘It looks bad, bless her. The wood has splintered and cut deep into her arm. I don’t think there’s any wood left in the wound, though. After three — one, two, three.’

Cassia heard a child’s whimper. Her heart raced as she imagined how frightened the little girl must be.

‘There, there, agápi mou . We’ve got you now.’ It was the reporter’s voice soothing the young victim.

Cassia called out to them. ‘Is there anything we can do?’

‘We’re bringing her out now.’

Soon, he emerged with a small child flopped in his arms. Dried blood covered her head and her pallor resembled the colour of milk. Her limbs were covered in blue-black bruises, and one of her arms hung at an odd angle below the elbow. Cassia gasped.

Sophia wailed, ‘My poor, poor Eléni.’ She rushed to Tom and the little girl. Tom shielded her from being touched by the old lady. ‘Cassia, tell her she’s in a very bad way. We need help immediately.’

By now, Rhodri Jones was at his side with the other sailor. ‘Go to the Red Cross centre and get a stretcher. She needs to be lying flat. And warm,’ Tom told them. His eyes were brimming with tears.

The two men raced off to get help. Cassia comforted Sophia. ‘At least she’s alive after all this time. She must be a strong little girl.’

Sophia sat down on the ground, exhausted. She looked up into the sky as if searching for her God. ‘ Efcharistó. Efcharistó.’

‘There’s a long way to go yet, I’m afraid. Her pulse is very weak. I wish they’d hurry up.’ The strain on Tom’s face showed.

Cassia went to the end of the street and shouted back to them. ‘I can see a Jeep with a red cross on its side weaving its way through the debris.’

When Cassia returned to wait with the others, Eléni whimpered. Tom was doing his best to keep her still. For a second, her eyelids fluttered as she opened her eyes. Then she lost consciousness again.

‘She’s waking up,’ said Sophia. ‘She’s going to be all right. My prayers have been answered.’

Tom caught Cassia’s eye and shook his head. They both knew there was a distinct possibility the little girl would not survive and would be joining the rest of her family before very long.

The Jeep stopped in front of them. Two Red Cross personnel jumped out and went straight to Eléni.

‘You’ve done the right thing keeping the patient as still as possible, sir.

Before we put her onto a stretcher, we need to get her arm in some sort of splint.

’ The medic handed Tom a blanket. ‘Can you wrap her in this to help get her body temperature back up to normal? We are all sweltering in this heat, but the little one feels icy cold.’ He looked at Sophia.

‘Could we use your walking stick , parakaló?’

Happy to help, Sophia handed over the stick, which the men laid along Eléni’s arm before binding it tightly with a bandage. Next, they laid out a stretcher on the ground next to Tom and lifted the little girl onto it.

Putting Eléni into the back of the Jeep, the driver looked at Cassia and Sophia.

‘I think the little one would like her mamá and yiayiá to come with her. It’s quite bumpy out there, and it would be good if you could help keep her as still as possible until we can get her to the base.

If only the town’s hospital hadn’t been razed to the ground.

But we’ll do our best.’ He turned to Tom.

‘Thank you, sir. I think you saved the little one’s life.

’ He nodded at Rhodri Jones. ‘Make sure you put that in your report.’ No one else had noticed that the journalist had retrieved his notepad from Cassia and was busily scribbling away.

Sitting either side of Eléni in the back of the Jeep, making sure she was as still as possible, Cassia reflected on what the Red Cross man had said.

Eléni didn’t have a mamá or a yiayiá anymore.

If she survived, what would happen to her?

She had no one. Cassia didn’t know anything about her and had seen her for the first time as she’d been brought out from the rubble by Tom.

Sophia knew the child, but she was too old and frail to look after a three-year-old.

A wave of emotion washed over her. She closed her eyes.

The handsome face of Tom Beynon entered her mind.

Tom would know what to do. Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?

Eléni isn’t out of the woods yet! She has a lot of healing to do.

Sophia must have been having the same thoughts. ‘Who is going to look after her now? She can’t go to one of those homes. She can’t.’

Eléni whimpered as the Jeep hit a bump in the road. Cassia reached across to stroke the little girl’s face, then patted Sophia’s hand. ‘That’s a long way off yet. We have to get her better first. We’ll let the Red Cross do their job. We’re almost there.’

Large grey bell tents had been erected to fill the empty space in Maitland Square.

Men and women wearing white uniforms with large red crosses were busy seeing to patients.

There was a queue at every tent with people having head wounds cleaned and bandaged, gashes on legs and arms stitched, and breakages splinted and cast in plaster.

The Jeep stopped outside a larger oblong tent housing a ward of seriously injured patients, where Eléni was rushed to a waiting bed.

After giving as much information as they could between them, Cassia and Sophia were asked to leave.

Both said their goodbyes, and as Cassia leaned over the little girl to kiss her, Eléni opened her eyes for the first time.

She didn’t make a sound but reached out with her uninjured arm, gripping Cassia’s arm like a vice.

The terror in her large brown eyes told her everything she needed to know.

That little girl was not going into a children’s home.

If there was no one to look after Eléni, Cassia was determined to do it herself.

She didn’t know how, but if anyone could help her, she knew who it would be.

Before leaving, she did what she’d intended to do that morning. She told Sophia of her plans and that the old lady was to make her way back to their shelter alone.

‘If they take me on, I’ll be able to look out for Eléni. Sit with her at times. I’ll come and check on you, and let you know how she is.’

‘Thank you, Cassia. It would mean everything to me. I’m hoping my daughter will come from Athens once she’s allowed to get in. All I want is for that little girl to get better and for you to look after her.’

Cassia kissed her friend and dismissed the idea of taking in Eléni herself. For now.

She found the tent where volunteers were registering to help. She reckoned if she worked at the base, she’d be able to see Eléni every day and observe the progress she was making.

‘Name? Have you any nursing experience?’ asked one of the men in charge.

‘Cassia Makris. No, but I’m willing to learn.

I must do something. I just want to help.

’ How she wished she’d done what her sister, Eugenia, had done and trained as a nurse, much to her father’s approval.

Instead, she’d learned lacemaking and embroidery from her mother.

When she and Nikos had fled south after the argument, she’d had a stall in the market and had enjoyed seeing her beautiful tablecloths and antimacassars snapped up by admiring customers. All that was of no use now.

New casualties were arriving every minute, and they were short-staffed.

‘Here, put these on.’ The man handed Cassia a uniform and told her to do what she could. ‘Watch the trained staff and follow their instructions to the letter. Do you understand?’

Cassia nodded and put on her uniform over her clothes. A nurse who introduced herself as Athina rushed into the tent. ‘Are you free? We need an extra pair of hands.’

The two women broke into a run and entered another tent, where a man clutched his head and had blood streaming down his face.

‘Wash your hands there,’ Athina told Cassia, pointing at an enamel bowl of warm water on a table in the corner of the tent.

‘Then press this on the wound to stem the bleeding.’ The cold pad was wet and, from the smell, had been soaked in some form of antiseptic, judging by the yell the man made when she held the pad on the wound.

‘Sorry.’

‘It will stop an infection,’ said Athina, taking over from Cassia and checking that the wound was clean.

‘It looks worse than it is. I don’t think it will need stitching.

Watch me do this first one and then it can be your job as the casualties arrive.

There’s a queue already. Press a clean pad on and then bandage firmly round his head.

You’ll need to secure the ends by tucking them in like this.

’ She turned to the man, asking what had caused his injury.

‘All done. Try to keep the dressing clean. Impossible, I know, in this mess. And you should try to rest. You’ve had a nasty bang to the head.

’ She walked away to bring in the next patient.

‘ Efcharistó, ’ called the man after her. He turned to Cassia. ‘I have to get back to my street. They’re still pulling people out alive.’ Tears formed in his eyes. ‘My mother is still missing. I can’t rest while I could be helping the rescuers. I should go.’

A spot of blood had appeared on the man’s bandage.

‘You must take care.’ Cassia was concerned for him.

‘You want to be there when your mother is pulled out alive, don’t you?

Don’t resume the digging yet. Wait for your wound to stop—’ The man got up and left.

‘Bleeding.’ She wondered how soon it would be before he had to return to the centre for more treatment.

Cassia spent the next few hours cleaning and bandaging wounds, passing on any that were too serious for her to deal with.

The queue seemed never-ending. Her back and legs ached from standing, but the feeling of doing something to help outweighed the tiredness and any discomfort.

Through the doors of the tent that were tied back, she’d seen the sky change through a whole spectrum of oranges and corals as the sun had set.

It was now pitch-black out there and the tent was lit by oil lamps.

Athina came to her. ‘You can take a break now. You’ve done a great job. I should’ve asked you your name?’

‘Cassia. I’m glad I could help. Efcharistó, I just need to check on my neighbour who’s under one of the shelters. And I’ll be back here at first light if you can use me.’

‘That’s good to hear, Cassia. I’ll show you where to leave your uniform.’

She didn’t mention there was someone else she wanted to check in on, too.