“Who are you and what are you doing?” He asked. His voice wavered, but the rifle stayed steady.

“What I’ve always done.” she said, patiently. “I’m a nurse.” She was seated on a low ammunition crate, olive drab. She was sunk in shadow, her presence highlighted only by the starched white cap and the flash of the winding bandage around her fine, pale hands.

“I delivered my first baby when I was seven: my youngest sister, Eileen.” What she didn’t tell the nervous boy soldier was why. Seven-year-old girls have small hands, small enough even to reach into the womb and correct a breech; small enough to guide the head.

“Fire and water; that’s all you need to sterilise. Add bandages and a few tools and you can suture, amputate, cauterize, perform surgery, birth babies and make tea.

“I took a man’s appendix out in a trench, once. Can you just imagine? Mud everywhere, incessant rain – a few incisions and it was out. The mud was everywhere. One of my nurses firmly believed that if she kept her shoes clean, everything would be fine. Every night she’d clean and polish those stupid little white shoes.” She cut the bandage off from the larger spool, neatly tucked in the loose end and laid it aside in a cooking pot that had long since lost its handle. “I traded mine for a pair of combat boots by the end of week three.”

Slowly, the boy lowered his gun. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Well”, she said, “a nurse is a valuable commodity. You could use a gal like me. I don’t care about ideology; I care about life.” She looked up from her work, and her pale, busy hands dropped into her lap, and lay still for the first time the young soldier had seen. She smiled gently.

She’d sold herself well, so it was a complete surprise to the boy when she picked up a handgun and shot him neatly in the head.