Tabitha (31 page)

Tabitha gestured to her cohort of VADs. “These VADs are
trained in the particulars of handling influenza patients. For the next three
days they will hold clinics for your VADs and orderlies to demonstrate the care
of infected patients and the prescribed protocols to protect aides and
orderlies. Sister Alistair and I will do the same for physicians and nursing
sisters. We will oversee the establishment of the separate wards and protocols
until they are working as required.”

The medical staff eyed Tabitha, garbed in her common VAD
uniform yet working side-by-side as a peer with Sister Alistair, and issuing
orders with calm authority. They noted, too, Tabitha’s American accent and the
distinctive medal pinned to her apron strap. Whispers and conjecture about her
circulated among them, but no one questioned her role.

Not all camps Sister Alistair and her VADs visited were
unprepared for the influenza: A few had alert doctors or nurses with knowledge
of the newest epidemic procedures. Those camps needed less assistance from
Sister Alistair’s little band.

In other camps, however, the medical staff did not possess
the authority to demand—and receive—complete cooperation of the camp’s
commandant and staff. In effect, the medical staff were unable to enforce the
protocols necessary to stop the spread of influenza. In those instances, the
overarching authority of Sister Alistair’s orders required the camp’s officers
to accede to her every demand.

Sister Alistair’s and Tabitha’s best hopes were for the
hospitals and posts where the contagion had not yet shown itself. But often
their convoy arrived too late, and the disease was already running rampant
through every part of the camp. The dead were buried in mass graves by the few
who were not ill themselves.

In those situations, Sister Alistair declared a complete
quarantine around the camp itself.

“You cannot mean it!” one exhausted commandant protested.
“We cannot leave or receive reinforcements? No supplies? No mail?”

“No one enters the camp except properly trained nursing help
and no one—
no one
—leaves,” Sister Alistair repeated. “This rule must be
strictly enforced. Supplies and incoming mail must be left at the camp entrance.
No outgoing mail may be picked up lest it spread the contagion. We must have
your complete cooperation in this procedure, sir. The quarantine is not to be
lifted until the camp has been free of infection for two weeks.”

“But what of the wounded? Where will they be taken?”

“They must be rerouted to a field hospital that has
successfully separated the wounded from the infected,” Sister Alistair
insisted. “Even once your quarantine is lifted, incoming wounded—and
anyone
wishing to enter the camp—must first be screened for fever and cough.”

“Yes,” Tabitha added. “Even right now, while your camp is
quarantined, we must still attempt the separation of the infected from those
not yet symptomatic. You will protect some of your patients and staff in this
manner and will be prepared to receive the wounded when the quarantine is
lifted.”

Their group spent one to three weeks at each camp or
hospital, depending upon its size and needs, before moving on. Their convoy
visited so many troop staging areas and medical outposts that Tabitha lost
track of where they were or had been.

She and Sister Alistair, of course, even instructed and
enforced proper protections upon Sergeant Franklin and their drivers. She had
the VADs employ the men to demonstrate chemical-treated handwashing and the use
of face masks to camp orderlies. The three soldiers, having been pressed into
burying the dead several times, obeyed without complaint.

Their vehicles traveled the dangerous and war-torn roads
from troop staging point to field hospital to casualty clearing station. They
crisscrossed the midsection of France from northwest to southeast, but always
west of the fighting.

Their truck bore the Red Cross, the universally recognized
symbol of medical personnel, on its canvas sides and even on its top. According
to the first and second Geneva Conventions, the markings would protect them
from intentional attack.

Still, many of their destinations were near the
battlefields. They often heard the thunder of artillery guns and felt the
ground shake from the impact of shells. One day an artillery missile landed so
close to their speeding caravan that its concussion rocked their truck, tossed
the lead car into a ditch, and covered both vehicles with dirt and debris.

Sister Alistair and Tabitha scrambled down from their truck
and found Sergeant Franklin’s driver pinned beneath their automobile. He
suffered a few cuts, but seemed fine otherwise. Sister Alistair bandaged the
driver’s wounds while the driver of the truck, Sergeant Franklin, and the combined
efforts of the remainder of the nursing team set the automobile back on its
wheels. The truck driver then attached a chain to the car and pulled it from
the ditch.

More than once on their journeys they heard the scream of
German aeroplanes diving toward them, only to hear the planes pull up and roar
away from their tiny convoy as the enemy spied the truck’s Red Cross. The howl
of the fighter’s engines terrified the other women in the back of the truck,
Sister Alistair included. Several of the VADs sobbed or shrieked with hysteria,
but the familiar whine and grumble of engine always turned Tabitha’s thoughts
toward Mason.

You and I crested the waves of the sea, Mason, my love.
It was our honeymoon, and you flew me toward the moon itself. You scribed somersaults
in the sky to thrill me, and we shouted with the joy of it.

How I loved your heart then. How I will always love your
kind, generous heart.

In the last days of July, their entourage pulled back to a
British base and hospital just outside Paris. There they received mail for the
first time since leaving Colchester in March. Tabitha found a letter from Rose
waiting for her.

My dearest Tabitha,

Joy and Mr. O’Dell’s son, Matthew, will soon have a brother
or sister. Matthew is a lovely boy. He is now walking and chattering in the
most darling manner.

We have quite an active nursery when everyone is here,
and I am blessed to be grandmother to them all: Billy and Marit’s Will and
Charley, Minister Liáng and Mei-Xing’s Shan-Rose, Pastor Isaac and Breona’s
Sean, and Joy and Mr. O’Dell’s Matthew—with more to come!

Your friend Claire has become a great favorite with the
children—and with us. She meets us at church every Sunday and spends the
afternoon and evening with us. We love her dearly.

We cannot help but hear and read alarming reports of the
influenza, so we are praying daily for you. Do not be afraid, dear daughter.
The Lord holds you in his mighty hands.

Everyone here sends their warmest love and greetings. Now
that our soldiers have joined the war, it must end soon, mustn’t it? And then
you will come home to us. Please come home to us soon.

Love,

Rose

~~**~~

Sister Alistair’s little band was exhausted beyond measure.
They had traveled and labored steadily for months, yet their orders allowed
them mere days to rest and prepare for their next assignment.

The new orders, when Sister Alistair received them, were a
shock to all of them: Sister Alistair was appointed matron of a casualty
clearing station outside the Argonne Forest, replacing the camp’s previous
matron whose health had broken under the strain. Only a single VAD of Sister
Alistair’s selection was to accompany her.

She chose Tabitha. “You are a strength to me that I cannot
do without, Nurse Hale,” Sister Alistair whispered.

Sergeant Franklin was ordered to escort Sister Alistair and
Tabitha to their station and then return. The remainder of Sister Alistair’s
VADs were assigned to other locations. Their two drivers had already been
dispatched elsewhere—they did not even have the opportunity to say goodbye.

“I do hate for our merry band to be broken up,” Sister
Alistair sighed, “but I am very glad you shall accompany me to our next
posting, Nurse Hale. And I am hoping we have seen the worst of the influenza.”

But the contagion was not played out.

Not by half.

Before Sister Alistair and Tabitha left for their new post,
a doctor returned from Brest, a town near the westernmost point of France. He
reported on a second wave of the infection striking troops there. He addressed
the assembled medical staff with news of the infection’s rekindled threat: a
new and deadlier strain.

Sister Alistair and Tabitha attended his debriefing. His
report was terse.

“As you are aware, influenza deaths normally occur among the
very young, the elderly, the wounded, and the chronically infirm. However, it
appears that the Spanish Influenza has changed. Mutated. With this alteration,
we are seeing fit,
healthy
soldiers contract the disease—and pass away
within days, despite our best efforts to save them. Doctors and nurses in their
prime are suffering the same fate.

“We have received word of this same mutated virulence from
Allied Force doctors in Africa and from the United States. This new strain of
the influenza seems to invoke a very strong reaction in the young and
able-bodied man or woman. The patient’s response to the contagion is so severe
that the infection overwhelms his or her system.”

Sister Alistair and Tabitha glanced at each other. Sister
Alistair bowed her head; Tabitha followed suit.

Lord
, Tabitha prayed.
Where can we go but to you?
Keep us close to your heart.

A grueling three days later, Sister Alistair and Tabitha
arrived at their new post northwest of the Argonne forest. This casualty
clearing station was not one their influenza prevention convoy had visited. The
station was well supplied, but the personnel were exhausted.

Sister Alistair—now Matron Alistair—pressed her lips
together and took up the reins of nursing leadership. She placed Tabitha in
charge of the station’s VADs, but not before she made clear to her staff of
nursing sisters that Tabitha was a trained nurse, every bit as much a nursing
professional as any of them.

“It seems our reputation has preceded us,” she confided to
Tabitha. “The nursing staff is thus also aware of your work with VADs. Sadly,
the previous matron refused to relax the stringent class distinction between
professional nurses and volunteers. She would not allow the sisters to train
the VADs or delegate any but the most mundane nursing work to them.”

Matron Alistair sighed. “What a waste. The sisters are
overwhelmed to the point of breakdown—not unlike their previous matron! I
believe the sisters are willing now to relinquish their bias against VADs and
allow them to share the load more equitably. Therefore, I wish you to train
these aides with all possible speed to assume more nursing duties.”

“Yes, Sister. I beg your pardon—yes, Matron,” Tabitha answered.

Matron frowned. “This station’s influenza containment
procedures must also be revamped. The nursing sisters are so run-down that I am
quite concerned. Should the new strain arrive here, our staff will be quite
vulnerable.”

The task of a casualty clearing station was to save and
stabilize as many wounded as possible before sending them on to surgery in
field hospitals or, if the soldiers could be patched up, to return them to
their units to rejoin the fight.

As the battlefront shifted location, so did their station.
The soldiers and their commandant, a major who had lost an arm in the second
Boer War, stood by only to guard the medical staff and move the station to best
serve the closest battles. The station’s personnel, equipment, supplies, belongings,
and tents often changed location three times in as many months.

The flow in and out of the station was dizzying. As soon as
their patients could be sent elsewhere, they were. Sadly, their station also
became the burial ground for many souls who did not survive their wounds.

“’Tis our lot,” a VAD named Moira MacTavish informed Tabitha
as she walked through the wards the first time. “Been like this since I got
here. Canna remember what a full night’s sleep is. Th’ doctors and sisters
patch up the soldiers best they can and send them on t’ hospital—or back t’ th’
front, poor devils. We VADs do th’ laundry, change th’ linens, scrub th’
bedpans, feed th’ patients, listen t’ them talk and grieve, and write letters
home for them.”

Whether MacTavish understood Tabitha’s role and authority
over the VADs or not, Tabitha appreciated her candor. The young woman glanced
up, and Tabitha glimpsed the pain in her shadowed eyes. “I dinna think I can
bear t’ write one more bonny boy’s g’bye letter—but what choice d’ I have when
they’re a-dyin’?”

Tabitha gripped the VAD’s shoulder. “We cannot do this under
our own strength or courage. We must draw our courage from the One whose
strength never fails.”

MacTavish stared at Tabitha and then nodded. “Aye. You are
right. Thank ye.”

Before dinner that evening, the camp commander and Matron
Alistair called for a meeting of the entire camp. Doctors, sisters, aides,
orderlies, and soldiers assembled on the sunburned grass outside the mess tent.
The August sun beat down on them, sapping the little strength they had left.

“We have just received word,” the commandant told the
assembly, “that a large convoy of wounded is on its way to us. We believe it
will arrive a few hours from now, after dark. Please eat well—I do not know
when or if we shall get to bed this night, and you will need your strength.”

“Do we know how many patients to expect, Major?” Sister
Alistair asked.

“I cannot say, Sister,” the commandant answered, shaking his
head. “‘Large convoy’ was the only information I received. Oh, and our patients
may be from all the Allied Forces: British, French, Australian. Even American.
We shall sort them out to their own hospital units after they are stabilized.”

“Yes, Major. And I should like to press your men into
service as orderlies,” Matron Alistair said in front of the assembly.

The major stuttered and frowned, not appreciating having
been put on the spot in public. “It has not been done, Matron,” he finally
managed.

“And yet they should not stand about idly while the medical
staff are taxed beyond their ability, to the detriment of the wounded. Do you
not agree, Major?”

Staring daggers at Matron, the commandant gave her a curt
nod. “As you say, Matron.”

“Thank you, sir.” Matron Alistair turned to her nursing
staff. “Please pair the new orderlies with experienced ones who can show them
the ropes. And be watching for patients showing influenza symptoms: fever,
cough, respiratory distress. Take all proper precautions and send symptomatic
patients to quarantine immediately. Now, as the major said, eat well. We have a
busy night ahead of us.”

The trucks began to arrive sometime after eight in the
evening. The nurses and orderlies lined up to unload the stretchers. The
station’s personnel were masked and gloved.

Tabitha and two nursing sisters worked to assess the
condition of the incoming wounded. They directed orderlies to carry those
needing immediate care to the surgery. They instructed that the patients who
could wait for care be laid under a tent near the surgeries.

For another group of patients, the nurses simply instructed,
“Keep them comfortable.” It was heartrending to decide when a soldier’s wounds
were so grievous that precious resources could not be wasted trying to save
him. Those patients were carried to yet another tent where, under the care of a
nursing sister, they were administered morphine to ease their pain and their
passing.

The night slipped by in a blur of sweat and labor. Tabitha
identified two of the most likely VADs and summoned them to work alongside her.

“You will be assuming more duties,” she explained, “nursing
duties you were not previously allowed to perform. I expect you to look lively
and follow my instructions immediately.”

The VADs stuttered a “Yes, Nurse Hale,” but jumped to follow
Tabitha’s orders. By the time the last casualties had been unloaded and
cleared, the two women were proficient at several new tasks. At dawn Tabitha
sent them to breakfast.

“Thank you, Nurse Hale,” one of the nursing sisters
murmured. “These women are not stupid and they are willing to learn. I have
been trying for months to pass more nursing responsibilities onto their strong
shoulders, but . . .”

Tabitha nodded her understanding and they stumbled off to
the mess tent in companionable silence.

“Nurse,” the voice was weak, one of the many voices that
called as the figures of the VADs bustled through the ward. “Nurse. Water.
Please.”

With no other VAD in sight, Tabitha poured a glass of water
herself and lifted the patient’s bandaged head to drink from the glass in her
hand. He swallowed with difficulty and sputtered and coughed, dribbling water
down his face onto the sheet.

“Take your time,” she encouraged him. “Drink slowly. I am
not in a hurry.”

Finally, he managed to swallow the glass’s contents. “Thank
you,” was his whispered reply.

Tabitha looked him over with a practiced eye, wiped the
droplets from his chin, straightened his bedding and pillow, and checked the
dressing around his head that covered the side of his face.

“Everything here looks fine,” she said automatically,
although she knew that the horrible wound would require significant care in a
hospital. The man, an American soldier, she noted, would heal, but he would
never look the same.

She unbent, set down the glass, and turned to leave.

“Wait. Please!”

Tabitha paused and the skin along her arms turned to
gooseflesh before she understood why: She knew his voice.

“Tabitha? Is it you? Could it be?”

Slowly she turned back around. With that recognition in mind
and acknowledging the more than twenty years that had passed, she studied the
man in the bed before her.

“Hello, Cray.”

“It
is
you! Impossible . . . but how—”

Neither of them could speak—and yet far too much lay between
them. They simply looked at each other.

Tabitha saw a caricature of the Cray Bishoff she had known,
the young man she had followed blindly into Arizona: He was older, of course,
malnourished and worn from months at the front, and grievously wounded.

“You are a nurse?” he whispered. She heard the wonder in his
voice . . . and the charged questions behind his wonder.

“Yes.” She shrugged, not wanting to say more.

“I . . .” Tears stood in his eyes.
“I . . .”

From far away, Tabitha heard Rose Thoresen’s quiet voice.

Tabitha, you spoke of hate
earlier, the hate you had for the man who left you alone in the desert and who
sold you to Opal.

Cray. Cray Bishoff,
Tabitha had whispered.

Have you consciously, deliberately forgiven him?

I do not know, Miss Rose. I try not to think about him or
any part of my past.

May I suggest, dear Tabitha,
that you think about forgiving him? I suggest this not because he deserves your
forgiveness or has asked for it, but because forgiving those who have wounded
us sets us free. And I would have you perfectly, completely free, my daughter.

Tabitha knew by heart the prayer she had spoken to God that
day:
Lord, I forgive Cray Bishoff. I forgive him for leaving me alone
and . . . for selling me to Opal. I forgive him, Lord, as you
have forgiven me in Christ. I let go of the hate I held toward him. Father,
please set me free in every part of my life so that I can glorify you with
every part of my being.

Amen,
Rose had murmured.

“I forgave you, Cray,” Tabitha murmured. “I forgave you
years ago. Because Jesus forgave me.”

“You-you forgave me?” he stammered. “But-but I-I, but what
I . . .” Even now, he could not speak of the horrible truth
resonating between them.

“Yes, Cray. I forgave you. And I forgive you now, afresh. I
want you to know that Jesus died so that we can be absolved of even the
unspeakable things we have done. Jesus died for
you
, too, Cray. If you
will confess your sins to him, he will forgive you.”

They said no more. Tabitha nodded and, as she walked away,
tears trickled and then streamed down her cheeks.

Thank you, Lord,
she rejoiced.
Thank you for using
Rose to show me how to forgive. I am free, Father. Truly free. You have made me
free in every way.

~~~

The new strain of influenza arrived mid-September. At the
same time, to the east and southeast of their station, they heard that the
combined Allied and American armies were staging their troops for what would,
some said, prove to be the bloodiest, most difficult offensive of the war.