Beneath her hands, the ambulance’s engine rumbled reassuringly. She put it into gear and was
rewarded as it rolled forward obediently. It was big and boxy and far more unwieldy than
anything she’d driven before but she’d figure it out. She braked and brought it to a stop.
George appeared at the door to the cab. “It can be driven.”
It was more a statement than a question but Violet answered anyway. “Yes.” She exited the
cab again. “Let’s get the patients loaded into the back. You can ride with me, and the private can
drive the horses back.”
George gave her a curious look but only nodded. “Very good.”
They were helping the last of the patients into the rear of the ambulance when they heard the
first plane. It was a distant drone, and at first, Violet didn’t understand what it was until the
patient in the bloody coat yelled a warning. He yelled in Finnish, and Violet couldn’t understand
him but what she could understand was the urgency and panic in his voice. Comprehension and icy fear lanced through her simultaneously.
She turned to where the young private was standing frozen on the road, holding the team that
still hadn’t been rehitched to the sledge.
“Get the horses off the road,” Violet yelled at him. “Into the trees. As far from the road as you
can get.”
The soldier blanched.
“Go!” Violet shrieked, and he finally jerked into action, leading the animals into the safety of
the dark shadows.
“Those planes will be on top of us before we can unload the patients again,” George warned,
and for the first time tonight, Violet heard fear in her friend’s voice. “We’re going to have to run
if we’re going to survive this.”
“I know.”
George slammed the rear doors shut and bolted toward the passenger door of the cab.
Violet scrambled around the other side and into the driver’s seat. She put the truck in gear,
forcing herself to concentrate so she didn’t stall it. She had to hunch low to see through the
cracked windshield. The growl and rumble of the truck’s engine temporarily drowned out the
sound of the approaching planes. Violet geared up as fast as she could, putting as much distance
between them and the bombed clearing as possible. The burning ambulance was like a damn
beacon, she thought frantically. And the full moon, while providing her the ability to navigate the
road, was not to their advantage either.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” The patient with the bloodied coat and bandaged head
had braced himself in the interior opening behind them. “We should stop. We can’t drive like
this.”
Violet shook her head. “If we stop, we’ll be like a sitting duck.”
The ambulance gained speed, and trees whipped by them in the silver darkness. The cold air
lashed her exposed cheeks through the open window.
“Can you even see?” he shouted.
“I can see just fine,” Violet told him. Not a lie, exactly. She could see enough. She shifted
gears, pushing the truck as hard as she dared.
“I really don’t think—”
“It is not your job to think right now,” she snarled. “It is your job to let me do mine. So cease
talking, sit down, and get yourself secure because it’s about to get rough.”
Violet didn’t look back to see if he’d complied but focused all her attention on the road ahead.
The whine of approaching planes could now be heard over the sound of the labouring
ambulance. She didn’t dare turn on the headlamps, and the truck jolted and bumped over the
frozen, rutted road. She was driving far too fast for the conditions, she knew, but if she could
just get the ambulance up another kilometer or maybe two, the trees thickened enough that she
might be able to get off the main road and hide down one of the smaller lake tracks scattered in
the area.
Beside her, George sat grim and silent, and they both ignored the cries of pain and shouts of
alarm from the back.
The first bomb fell somewhere behind them, a dull, crumping noise that ignited the darkness
and shook the ambulance. George gripped the side of the ambulance door, and Violet gritted her
teeth but didn’t slow. The second bomb detonated in the trees on the passenger side and
threatened to send the ambulance careening. Trees exploded, and rocks and wood fragments
rained down on the ambulance in a deadly shower. Violet eased off the gas while she fought the
wheel, careful not to overcorrect, and cajoled the heavy vehicle from the edge of the road back to
the center.
The third bomb hit the side of the road ahead of the ambulance, and Violet had a brief
impression of an eruption of earth and fire on the driver’s side before everything went dark in
front of the windshield.
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