Courage in a White Coat

by Mary Schwaner

  Fred’s memoir

  ...some who seemed to have a purpose to help others, although they themselves were starved to the point of invalidism, gathered or tapped unrealized sources of strength. This was true of Mrs. Chambers who continued to give medical help to any and all who called on her. She started out with heavy step but returned with a spring in her step.

  .... never during the internment did she seem to lack the necessary strength to carry on. On the night the camp was taken over by American troops, she, with other doctors and nurses, was on duty for hours without experiencing loss of strength to do what needed to be done.

  So, on Christmas Eve of 1943—615 days into captivity—it was not quite midnight when Dorothy tumbled into bed. She harbored a fleeting moment of jealousy that it was Jeanne who had taken the children to the Christmas Eve gathering. Perhaps taking the children to the event herself might have rejuvenated her. But her patients had to come first. There were no two ways about it.

  Her head pounded from the day’s demands. All she wanted to do was put her head on the pillow. But tomorrow was Christmas, and she had one more task before she could rest.

  In her heart of hearts Dorothy knew that her little family suffered dearly for lack of her attention. Though never intentional, it was always regrettable, merely the insidious byproduct of being the loved ones of a woman whose unique skills demanded that she spend large parts of her day in service to others.

  But for the next few moments, Dorothy would resist her pillow long enough to do something about that.

  From beneath the pillow that so wickedly beckoned she retrieved the small rag she had selected earlier from her wash line. It was threadbare, badly raveled, and long ago bleached of any color it might have had. She held it up in the darkness, looking for some sign of its former self. Had this been one of Carol’s sundresses? One of her own camisoles? She turned it this way and that, searching, her fingers willing themselves to recognize the scrap.

  It seemed important, necessary, to identify it. She’d brought so few things into the camp, how was it possible not to recognize every thread of every ragged garment?

  She rolled it lazily over, barely feeling its thin presence against her slender fingers.

  “Whatever you were, little rag,” she smiled, “it didn’t hold a candle to what you shall become.”

  . . . .

  Dorothy threaded the last string through the placket of the little bag she was fashioning and tied it off. The drawstring worked perfectly. The two little cloth bags she’d just made out of the ravaged camisole would hold her Christmas presents to the children. On the smaller one she embroidered a small dinosaur before placing inside it the three marbles she’d been saving for Bobby’s marble collection. On the larger one she embroidered a cheerful elephant, then placed within it three hair bows and one doll dress for Carol’s baby doll Pippa.

  It was such meager bounty, but she knew the gifts would bring the smiles she anticipated. They were her dearest darlings, never failing to show their appreciation for any small pleasure.

  Carol surely had dim recollections of the joyful Christmas of 1941, when her little voice filled their home with the Christmas carols she was learning to love. It was that Christmas when she’d received her precious Pippa, her toy piano, and so many other small treasures that now seemed like an incredible extravagance.

  But Bobby. Dear little Bobby. He’d turned two years old just a few weeks after Pearl Harbor. That Christmas of  ,42 had been a bit less bountiful, though it lacked for nothing in the joy and delight his little family had taken in celebrating the season. But he remembered none of it.

  Christmas in captivity, with its restrictions and deprivations, with its lack of color and cheer, was the only kind of Christmas he knew. Everyone here over the age of four or five had known at least one traditional Christmas, and could draw those memories as a framework for celebrating. In their mind’s eye they saw the festive colors, envisioned the table laden with favorite foods to be savored, the glorious music, the joyful greetings and candlelight services in grand churches decorated with holly and wreaths.

  But Bobby had none of that. The little palette of his mind was clean, fresh, and was being imprinted daily with the drab, meager existence, with the colorless, lackluster semblance of what a Christmas celebration should be.

  Dorothy was aware that half the camp had been going through the motions for some weeks now, making sure the children had a Christmas celebration. But for many adults, it was somewhat of a necessary bit of play-acting. One could never say there was an abundance of Christmas cheer in the camp, however there was most definitely a wealth of gratitude among the grown-ups. Gratitude to see another Christmas.

  But the actual words, the phrase that could always lift hearts and bring smiles to faces—the words that could always ignite a bit of joy in the soul—were glaring in their absence on this second Christmas in captivity. No one could say it. No one could think it. That simple phrase would be the greatest lie anyone could tell. And so the words just weren’t spoken.

  Perhaps next year they would return to people’s lips.

  Perhaps next year the words would spring from their hearts.

  But tonight as she looped the Christmas surprises over the bunk’s posts and peered at her two sleeping angels, Dorothy wept for the words that simply could not be said. Merry Christmas.

  . . . .

  “Of course, you’re going. We’re all going. Now on your feet, darling girl.”

  Dorothy groaned. “Fred, please. Just a few more minutes.” She yawned heavily and shifted the weight off her right hip that hadn’t stopped burning while she tried to nap.

  Bobby threw a pile of mosquito netting over her so he could scramble under the bunk for his marbles that seemed to perpetually roll that direction.

  Her Christmas gifts had been a success. Carol sat at the end of the bunk trying out the three new bows on her dollie.

  “You have to wear this one, Pippa,” Carol scolded. “It’s Christmas. And this one is red.” She carefully stowed the two other bows in the little washed out bag.

  “See there? Even Pippa’s getting dressed for the party. Now you, too, Dorothy. Up and at ,em.”

  Fred gave her a gentle tug, and it was enough to set her upright.

  They’d had the loveliest little celebration this morning. Fred had arrived with gifts of his own and warmed her heart with his orchestration of their Christmas sharing.

  Now he was insisting they go as a family to the Camp celebration. Of course she would go. But nothing could compare to watching her dear husband work the story of the first Christmas into their morning, using Bible verses and family singing to prolong the anticipation of gifts. It had been the best possible Christmas under the circumstances.

  Dorothy had taken special care dressing, arranging her hair in a more elaborate style and fashioning a rosette from a handkerchief to perch in her hair. Now all she had to do was freshen it up a bit and she would be ready.

  Minutes later they walked hand-in-hand out the Annex door and followed the crowd of families to the intersection of Bodega and Annex road. A fully decorated Christmas tree had been placed in the center, its branches laden with handmade ornaments tied on with patchwork bows.

  They stopped, unable to simply walk with the flow of people past the tree. It seemed a radiant gift meant for them personally, a promise that Christmas could be extravagantly beautiful in the most humble of circumstances.

  “This one’s a little bigger than your Chrissen Tree, isn’t it, Carol Joy?” Fred asked.

  Dorothy looked at him, then down at their daughter, just in time to see the smile spread across her face.

  “It’s beautiful, Daddy. Sooooo beautiful.” She folded her arms and looked toward the angel at the top of the tree. “I think if our Chrissen Tree went to Heaven, then maybe it could have turned into a great, tall tree like this one.” Then her eyes flew wide and she gasped. “Maybe! Oh, maybe! Could this
be our tree come down from Heaven to be here for us?”

  She looked to Dorothy and Fred with wonder in her eyes, and they knelt to draw Carol and Bobby into a hug. There were all sorts of answers they could have had for their imaginative daughter. But none that could be voiced over the tears in their throats. How else could a six-year-old expect something so beautiful to have arrived in the middle of this deprived community, if not sent down from Heaven?

  As the crowd thickened, they were forced to move along, certain nothing could make this Christmas day more perfect.

  Until they stepped around to the other side of the tree.

  The whole plaza ahead of them had been taken over by several dozen plank tables radiating out from the tree. And each table was piled high with the gifts handmade by the craftsmen and craftswomen who’d labored in secret for weeks.

  At each table an elf began distributing gifts.

  Trains, hobby horses, kiddy kars, scooters, metal and wooden boats, jig-saw puzzles, rulers, stilts—all were joyfully received and immediately put to use by the four hundred children of Santo Tomás.

  The pleasure of it all brought spikes of pain to Dorothy’s heart. It was nearly too much, seeing this outpouring of Christmas generosity. People who she knew had no children of their own sought out children who’d received the gifts they’d made in their secret toy shop. The joy and love on their faces brought excruciating delight.

  But it was the words they had for each child they hugged that brought Dorothy to scarcely controlled tears. There was no hope of keeping the salt inside when she heard them.

  Over and over.

  Honest. Sincere. Heartfelt.

  The words she’d longed to hear.

  Merry Christmas.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  DESCENT

  While it was unlike Dorothy to doubt MacArthur’s word, she was slowly becoming convinced that the lauded general had met his match. Each new sunrise found her memory of the hope his rallying cry had engendered long ago fading further and further.

  As the days passed it became a mounting mystery to Dorothy how time could manage to slip by without her noticing, accumulating weeks in the blink of an eye. In her mind, the new year had barely begun. But her makeshift calendar on the wall said otherwise. There were always too many patients and too little energy. Too many daily living chores and too little energy. Too much need to spend time with Carol and Bobby and Fred. And too little energy. But at least she was with her little family. That was a blessing that some might never know again.

  Santo Tomás Internment Camp

  Limited Private Edition - Frederic H. Stevens

  © 1946 - page 62-63

  On February 27, 1944, four internees—S. R. Barnett, J. H. Blair, E. T. Ellis, and Everett B. Harris—the first three living with their wives and families in Camp and the last an elderly man, were taken into custody and removed from Santo Tomás Internment Camp, by the Japanese Military authorities. A few days earlier these four men had been questioned about bringing news into Camp. In the course of this questioning, Mr. Blair had been so badly beaten that he required hospitalization. A day or two later another internee—Earl H. Hornbostel—was also removed from Camp. Neither the Internee Committee nor the families of these men were informed as to the reason for the arrest. The Internee Agents wrote the Commandant on March 9th requesting him to use his kind offices in obtaining information on this matter, but no reply was received to their letter. They wrote again on April 14th invoking the provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1929. There was no reply to this second letter. A stone wall, a grave, could not have been more silent. These men seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

  Some time afterwards—on May 25th—the Camp was notified that E. B. Harris had died at San Lazaro Hospital on May 9, 1944. On August 3rd, news was officially received in Camp that the four surviving internees had received sentences for imprisonment as follows: E. T. Ellis, four years; S. R. Barnett, J. H. Blair, Earl H. Hornbostel, three years. These sentences were to start July 1, 1944.

  The whereabouts of these four internees was not definitely discovered until the Arrival of the U. S. Forces of Liberation. They were found by guerilla troops in the insular prison at Muntinglupa, weak, emaciated, at the point of death. Months of suffering, both physical and mental, had been their lot. They had finally been condemned to death and the firing squad had already set the date for the horrible orgy. Had the rescue been delayed for only a day or two longer, they would undoubtedly have been executed.

  Their offense? Bringing news of American victories into Camp and thus making it harder for the Japanese Imperial Army to win the war.

  . . . .

  An inglorious spate of rain greeted the spring of 1944. One day stretched into the next, one catastrophe narrowly averted before yet another descended upon the small hospital and clinic Dorothy managed. She was both physician and director of the children’s hospital now, which meant not only tending to her patients but having her skill at diplomacy tested daily.

  She hadn’t the energy for it any more, and yet she could never allow herself to abandon her duties. One hundred forty-one cases of measles, three cases of diphtheria, forty-two cases of bacillary dysentery and sixty-two cases of asthma had been reported in camp for March.

  This particular morning had been unexpectedly harried as more and more patients began to turn up with symptoms of whooping cough. They’d no sooner seen a decline in the measles epidemic than the signs of pertussis began to appear. An alarming statistic had been bandied about in the monthly meeting of the medical professionals at Santo Tomás. It seemed that when pertussis patients were living in a barracks situation, a death rate of 15% to 35% could be expected.

  How much higher would the toll be if those patients were children? Might they lose between sixty and one hundred-forty children? Unfathomable. She would not let that happen. The isolation procedures she’d put in place had to work. Stoic parents of the little patients agreed to boil the family’s clothes and bedclothes, even though a number of the most threadbare items might disintegrate in the process. If she could just round up some more sulfa, it seemed that the villainous whooping cough might just have met its match.

  But first she had to address the very sick child she’d just sat with through the night.

  Dorothy scanned the small darkened ward beyond the bed of little Eirik Solden. His temperature of 105° was not abating. So far a diagnosis had eluded her. For three days she’d been battling his fever, bathing him with cool water laced with alcohol. His glands were terribly swollen, but there were no signs of inflamed or infected tonsils. It was frustrating not to know what was going on in his small, fever-ravaged body.

  This scrawny four-year-old was losing even more weight daily. Ounce by ounce his ability to survive was slipping away. Something had to be done or she would lose him. Her three previous checks of the little boy’s throat had shown no evidence of infected tonsils. Yet she knew that infection lay at the root of the boy’s malady. But where?

  She sat by his bed, one hand cooling his brow and the other paging through a thick, well-worn medical book. As always, she was drawn to the illustrations and very nearly turned the page. But two words caught her eye.

  Hooded tonsils.

  Could it be? She’d never seen a case. But the enlarged lymph nodes behind his jaw were tender to the touch, and other signs were consistent. The tonsils could be infected even though they showed no outward sign.

  Now she knew what to do. He needed a tonsillectomy. But that would be impossible until the child’s overall health improved. In short, surgery right now would kill the child.

  Eager to build the child up quickly, and to raise his blood coagulation to a level that would allow him to survive a surgery, Dorothy summoned Nurse Noell.

  “Keep him cool until I get back.”

  “Where are you—”

  “I’m going for a cocktail!”

  Dorothy succumbed to giddy r
elief as she hurried off to the supply room. Noell most likely thought she’d flipped her noggin. But she hadn’t. She’d never been more clear about anything.

  It took her an agonizing three hours to collect what she needed. Dr. Waters had a bottle of calcium powder; Jeanne had one package of gelatin and knew where she could get two more; and Dorothy had a bottle of iron tonic in her bag.

  For two weeks she plied the boy with extra milk and her tonic cocktail. But at the end of the two weeks Eirik’s lab test still showed his blood coagulation to be deficient. Anyone could see that the boy was rallying, but until the coagulation level improved just a bit more, no doctor would expect the child to come through surgery.

  For one more week she continued the protocol, then held her breath until the lab results came back. And when they did, the boy’s mother collapsed in a puddle of tears, clutching Dorothy’s hands and whispering, “Bless you! Bless you!”

  It seemed half the camp knew when the boy was taken out of the camp for surgery. They stopped her in the halls, found her in the chow line, just to ask about the little boy they thought was going to die. The first child the camp would lose. But Dorothy would not allow their gloomy prognoses. At every turn she silenced them, reproved them for giving up so easily on the boy.

  It was with the greatest relief that she was able to report three days later that the tonsils had come out, filled with poison.

  And the boy survived.

  . . . .

  Once Eirik was stabilized and out of the woods, Dorothy found renewed energy to deal with the pertussis.

  She breezed past the medicine cupboard and took quick stock of the sulfa supply. If more whooping cough patients were admitted they’d be in trouble. There was barely enough on the shelves to keep up the current doses for the children already hospitalized. In their seven hundred seventy days of captivity, Dorothy had not lost a single child. But without sulfa, they could come perilously close to that 15% to 35% mortality rate everyone dreaded.