The Resurrections of Rosalind Mull

Watch it Burn

The fourth time she's born is much less disorienting. She wakes up, naked and staring up at a cloudless blue sky. She takes a deep breath, already beginning to form a plan in her head. Without so much as a word or frown of protest, she stands and searches for the kind stranger in this era, wondering what this life will throw at her.

The world is engulfed in war, something which Rosalind learns about fairly quickly. People speak of bombs and the war going on in Europe, what the Germans are doing. Rosalind's never found herself in a more perplexing situation. There's cars now, sleek machines powered by gasoline. There's planes (they fly!) and everything is powered by electricity. The bombs, Rosalind was told, are far more powerful than any fire and can destroy cities in seconds. There's radios in which you can hear people from across the country! There's televisions that play video footage, far better than the cameras of Rosalind's most recent memories. It was a shock, indeed, waking up to impossible things.

One of the first things Rosalind does after befriending a young woman by the name of May Richards, is catch up on her history. The things she finds most fascinating are the stories of World War II, the war that apparently didn't end all wars. She pours over books and watches the news channels religiously. May laughs at her for it, calls her very unladylike, but Rosalind has learned that values should be loose in an ever-changing world.

Despite any previous comments from May, it's her that proposes the idea of helping out in the war in case the United States (such an odd thought to think of this as her country, she remembers when she was loyal to Britain) finally joins the war. They enroll themselves as army nurses and get to training immediately.

There's programs for this; the military is desperate for nurses. Rosalind finds herself glad that she's not the only one that doesn't know what she's doing in training, but if she's good at anything, it's adapting.

She learns the proper sanitization procedures, how to administer anesthesia, how to treat shock and stop the blood flow from a wound. She learns more in that program than she would have ever had the privilege to in any years prior. She cuts her hair short for the first time ever, feeling more free in spite of the constraining circumstances surrounding her. She receives her nurse's uniform with pride at the end of the program.

Another thing Rosalind quickly figures out is that being a person with no identity is twice as hard as it was in the 1800s. If trained nurses weren't such in high demand, Rosalind is sure she'd be left behind while May goes on to work. Luckily, they don't ask any questions she doesn't have a prepared lie for.

Two months after enrollment, Rosalind and May are stationed in the Philippines.

December 8, 1941, the most recent breaking news reaches the Sternberg Hospital in Manila. In Hawaii, Pearl Harbor has been bombed and the U.S. has joined the war. Slowly, the casualties start to trickle in and women start to panic. They are not on the sidelines anymore.

Rosalind finds herself reassuring them, going around to all her fellow coworkers and patting their shoulders, restoring their spirits. "Chin up, ladies. We have work to do."

Rosalind and the nurses there are transferred to the Bataan Peninsula not long after this event. This on-ground war in the sweltering jungle brings in the dead and wounded by the thousands. Rosalind works nonstop for hours on end, wiping her brow and ploughing forward with as much vitality as she can muster.

A steady stream of bombs fall around them, day and night, day and night. Rosalind had thought herself prepared, but when the first one fell, she panicked. Now, she's grown numb and can bandage and treat the sick while the building shakes and the floor threatens to turn her legs to jelly. All the while, rations get smaller until everyone eats two meals a day at best.