Amy's Touch

by Lynne Wilding

  So much had been written about the flu’s devastation in the newspapers that Amy had decided not to read them any more. She entered the hospital doors and smiled at Joseph, a fourth-year medical student. He and others, such as third-year medical students from several British universities, had been brought in to care for the sick, because a percentage of military medical staff were still treating battle wounds and mustard-gas burns at military hospitals. Civilian hospitals were full to overflowing with flu victims, and the loss of physicians to the epidemic only aggravated the problem. It affected everyone somehow, and some statisticians estimated that one-fifth of the world was or had been infected with the influenza virus.

  Amy groped in her valise for a freshly sterilised gauze mask. She put it on as she walked up two flights of stairs to the infectious ward to relieve Jessie. Checking her pocket, her fingers touched the letter she had received yesterday from Private McLean. He had sailed from Southampton several weeks ago and arrived in Sydney, and was preparing for the next leg of his journey home to Adelaide, by train. It had taken the Australian Army more than three months to ship him and thousands of other soldiers home, and his two-page letter, written in neat copperplate, was full of interesting pieces of news about his day-to-day life and some of the patients she had nursed. She made a mental promise to do her best to reply as soon as she could.

  Walking the length of the long ward she noted half a dozen empty beds. One eyebrow lifted in acknowledgment. It had been a busy night.

  A weary Jessie gave a grateful grin as she saw Amy. She murmured through her mask, ‘I thought my shift would never end. It’s been a hellish night. Four deaths, but on the good side, two people were well enough to go home early this morning.’

  ‘Were you the only sister on duty?’ Amy asked, wide-eyed at the thought of Jessie having to tend to almost twenty very ill bed-ridden patients by herself.

  ‘No. Sadie, the first-year nurse, was on, and one of the medical students, Manny Kloster, helped out. We managed.’ She punctuated her breathy words with a dry cough.

  Amy frowned and gave Jessie a closer look. ‘Are you all right? Your cheeks are flushed.’ A thought crossed her mind: what if Jessie was catching the Spanish Flu? No, she dismissed the idea. It was just a cold coming on.

  ‘I’m fine. Just a tad tired,’ Jessie replied. Her tone was positive. ‘What I need is a hot cup of tea, a bit of sunshine and some fresh air.’

  ‘A few days off wouldn’t do you any harm,’ Amy suggested. Not that any of the nursing staff had had any time off over the last three months. The patient situation had been and still was too hectic.

  ‘I’ve left my report on the desk.’ Jessie spied one of the unattached doctors making rounds at the other end of the ward with a trainee nurse. Her features brightened. ‘There’s Dr Matthews. I’d better speak to him before I go off, about the patient in bed fifteen.’ Suddenly she sneezed twice. She blew her nose. ‘Oh, damn, now I’m getting a cold. I can do without that.’

  ‘Go home, Jessie, and rest,’ Amy suggested. She knew Jessie had eyes for young Dr Matthews, and when he was in a ward where Jessie was working she contrived to spend a few moments with him, in the hope that ‘something’ might develop. Amy spared Jessie a brief glance before she picked up the patients’ report sheet. Underneath was a two-day-old newspaper with the headline SPANISH FLU CAUSES A SHORTAGE OF COFFINS, MORTICIANS AND GRAVEDIGGERS. Shaking her head, Amy turned the newspaper over so that only the back page could be seen.

  When was there going to be an end to…Her blue eyes gazed about the ward, studying the patients, all at various stages of the influenza. Some would last the day, some would not…And, contrary to expectations, it was the younger patients, those in their early twenties to around forty, who were, as a general rule, succumbing to the disease. Amy gave herself a mental shake to dissipate the sense of gloom inside her. She couldn’t allow herself to become depressed; too many people depended on her. Don’t think, just get on with things and do your work, she reminded herself. Straightening her apron and smoothing down her skirt, she moved towards the bed closest to the nurses’ desk.

  It took two nurses to sponge-bathe the heavily built Mr Fredericks in bed number ten. His fever had broken during the night, and if there was no recurrence and he didn’t develop pneumonia, he had a fiftyfifty chance of surviving. Today all but one of the empty beds had been filled, and halfway through Amy’s shift two stretcher-bearers brought in a newly admitted patient to take up residence in the last available bed.

  Amy was shocked when she saw that it was none other than her friend Jessie Mills, who’d shown few symptoms other than a slight head cold just on five hours ago. She now had a high temperature and was bordering on being delirious. Dr Matthews was in attendance.

  ‘Give her the normal dose of sulphur compound and sponge-bathe her as often as you can to get her temperature down.’ He ran his stethoscope over Jessie’s chest. ‘Her lungs are filling up with fluid, so prop her up with several pillows.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Amy asked hopefully.

  The doctor was thoughtful for a moment. The expression in his eyes was controlled, because he knew Amy and Jessie were friends. ‘A prayer or two wouldn’t hurt,’ he suggested. After which he moved on to the next patient who needed his attention; like the nursing staff, the doctors were stretched to the limit, overworked and sleepdeprived.

  Amy smoothed back some loose strands of Jessie’s curly red hair, which was damp with sweat. She sponged her friend’s face and did her best to make Jessie comfortable, even managing to get her to take a few sips of water. As Amy plumped up the pillows she saw that her hands were trembling. The Spanish Flu couldn’t be happening to Jessie. Not to one of them. Jessie Mills was strong, and full of life. She had plans, and she had told Amy about them one night over several cups of tea: if she couldn’t find a suitable husband—and so far things weren’t looking positive in that department—when she went back home she intended to open a haberdashery store in Adelaide with one of her three sisters.

  ‘Sister Carmichael, Mrs Henderson in bed three is having trouble breathing.’ The voice interrupted Amy’s thoughts.

  ‘See if you can find Dr Matthews or Manny Kloster,’ Amy instructed the second-year nurse. She wanted to stay by Jessie’s side and watch her like a hawk, but that wasn’t possible; other patients needed her. Patting down the covers on Jessie, she turned and walked briskly towards bed number three.

  An hour and a half passed before Amy found a few minutes to check Jessie again. Her temperature had risen to 102 degrees Fahrenheit, she was soaked in sweat yet shivering, and was visibly wheezing from the fluid building up in her lungs. Amy and the second-year nurse, Yvonne, sponge-bathed Jessie as she slipped in and out of consciousness, rallying only to cough weakly, then becoming unconscious again.

  ‘Sister Carmichael, your shift ended an hour ago,’ Yvonne reminded her.

  Amy stifled a yawn. ‘I know. I’m not leaving till Jessie’s fever breaks. I’ll stay all night if I have to.’

  ‘That you, Amy?’ Jessie croaked, her eyes still shut. She was alternately shivering with cold and trying to throw the bedcovers off because she was too hot. ‘I was dreaming about home. We’re on the ship, aren’t we, going home?’

  Under her mask, Amy’s mouth twisted in a sad smile. ‘Yes, Jessie,’ her tone was gentle. ‘We’ll be home in a few days.’

  ‘Good. I thought I could smell—’ cough ‘—the sea…’

  Yvonne frowned and was about to speak till she saw Amy shake her head.

  ‘Don’t talk, Jessie. Save your strength.’ Amy’s mouth tightened to prevent her lips from trembling with emotion. Too often she had watched the Spanish Flu take its course. If Jessie’s fever didn’t break soon, her body would be too weak to continue to fight the infection.

  In the early hours of the morning Jessie’s fever broke. Amy had been nursing her exclusively for four hours—sponge-bathing her, dosing her with medication, keeping her comfortable as she lapsed
in and out of consciousness. Jessie’s breathing was becoming more laboured, not a good sign, and periodically she would gasp and struggle to drag in a mouthful of air. Sitting in a hard-backed chair by the side of Jessie’s bed, emotionally and physically exhausted, Amy managed to doze off.

  The night nurse shook her shoulder. ‘Amy, Amy. It’s Jessie. She’s slipping away,’ the woman whispered.

  In the soft light of the lantern used to check patients during the night, Amy saw the telltale signs of Jessie’s deterioration. Bloodtinged froth dribbled from her nose and mouth. Her skin had taken on a bluish hue, as cyanosis, due to lack of oxygen in the blood, increased. Jessie was drowning in the fluid her body was making. And there was little that Amy or any doctor could do to improve the situation.

  ‘No!’ Amy fought to deny the truth her eyes were seeing. Already Jessie’s breathing was so shallow her chest barely moved. Thankfully she had lapsed into a coma; Amy knew it would deepen as life ebbed out of her friend. ‘No, no! It isn’t fair!’ It took some doing, but she blinked the tears back. They could come later. For now, all she could do was hold her friend’s hand…until it was over.

  In the pre-dawn light, her face streaked with tear stains, Amy walked away from the hospital to her digs. Jessie’s sickness and rapid death had drained her. She felt sure that she had nothing left to give, but she was also sensible enough to know that the depression she was experiencing was only temporary. Not for the first time, she thought about calling it quits and going home rather than continuing to live with the misery that the epidemic had become. Miles’s letters constantly asked when she was coming home, and so did her father’s. It was only the occasional letter from young Danny McLean that didn’t hold such questions. He filled his letters with newsy bits of information. What he would do when he reached Drovers Way and how wonderful it was going to be to work with his brother. She enjoyed reading Danny’s letters and replying to him because he didn’t put her under the pressure that Miles and her father did.

  No one was at home at the flat she shared now with just Sara and Genevieve. They were on duty, so Amy could grieve in peace without having to explain what had happened. Amy was going to miss her bright, bubbly friend Jessie, with her carrot-top curly hair, her mass of freckles and her lopsided smile. Jessie had been an endearing, warm-hearted character who reminded Amy so much of home, of Australia.

  Amy flopped into an armchair, exhaled a long sigh and removed her nurse’s veil. It was now a known fact that more patients survived La Grippe than died from it, but it still had a high infection rate of fifteen per cent worldwide and an as-yet-unsubstantiated death rate of one in four people infected, according to the professionals. But with Jessie’s death so swift and cruel in its execution, and still so clear in Amy’s mind, the survival percentages brought her no comfort whatsoever.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Getting a lift from Joe Walpole in his latest obsession, a superbly maintained Rolls-Royce automobile—highly impractical for driving on rough country roads but certainly eye-catching—saved Danny the trouble and expense of hiring a horse for the run out to Drovers Way.

  Joe had been excused from joining the war effort because of his father’s contacts. According to Joe, a dicky knee, courtesy of a riding accident several years before, had left the enrolling sergeant little choice but to deem him unfit for service, because Joe would be unable to march for long periods of time. It was a weak excuse, to Danny’s mind, but Joe was all right, he reckoned, apart from the invisible streak of yellow that ran down his back.

  ‘What have you been doing these past four years?’ Danny wanted to know. His glance took in the tall, angular man who was the same age as himself. They had been classmates at Gindaroo’s one-room school. Joe, with his dead straight, straw-blond hair, parted in the middle, beaky nose and crooked white teeth, was not known around the district for his charm or personality; quite the opposite. Indulged by his father and mother as their only son and the heir apparent to the Walpole properties, Joe didn’t just walk, he swaggered, and spoke with an air of condescension to others who weren’t as well off or didn’t have the same standing in the community as his family.

  ‘The usual. Following the horses, chasing a bit of fluff whenever I can, and,’ he looked at Danny and pulled a face, ‘helping the old man run his properties. He’s acquired five all over the district, which can’t all be properly managed from Ingleside, so I get sent to check on them.’ He gave Danny a sly grin. ‘That’s how I got him to fork out for this.’ He slapped the steering wheel with his hands. ‘He’s a tightfisted old so-and-so! I said I wouldn’t be his bloody roving supervisor unless I had good transport.’ He winked at Danny. ‘The women, my sister Beth included, love driving around in it ’cause not too many fellows around here own expensive automobiles.’

  Danny nodded, understanding. ‘Automobiles and motorbikes made a huge difference during the war, transporting troops and supplies. Quicker and more efficient than horses and carts.’ Then he added as an afterthought, ‘And Beth, has she married yet?’

  ‘No,’ Joe said with a snort. ‘Too damned fussy. Beth’s well past the usual marriageable age and Mother reckons she’ll end up an old maid.’ Gaze narrowing, he gave Danny a speculative look. ‘You interested in settling down?’

  Danny’s hands rose in protest. ‘Definitely not. Just curious, that’s all.’

  ‘I see.’ Joe smiled smugly. ‘So you’ve met someone, you sly dog.’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Danny began to feel sorry he’d asked about Beth Walpole. He didn’t want Joe to know that he had a yen for a certain military nurse in Britain, even though it wasn’t likely to come to anything.

  As the automobile motored along a straight stretch of dirt road, Joe glanced at Danny again and changed the subject. ‘So, what was it like, mate? The war. The fellows who’ve already come back don’t seem to want to talk about it.’

  Danny grimaced. He’d been asked the same question several times while having a beer in the Royal Hotel in Gindaroo. How could he explain to someone who’d never experienced the ear-splitting sound of shells exploding, or faced a bayonet charge, or seen men gutted and left to die? The noises alone—rifles firing en masse, wounded men groaning, officers screaming orders, grenades exploding and occasional sorties from German biplanes overhead, diving to drop small bombs and fire their machine guns—were enough to inspire nightmares. And then there was life in the trenches…It wasn’t really life; it was just trying to survive until things got better.

  ‘Pretty bad. Lots of blood and death, losing mates. There’s nothing heroic about war, Joe.’ Danny’s voice slowed as the grimness of the memories settled over him. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  Glancing across, Joe saw the look on Danny’s face, the strain caused by remembering.

  ‘If you can imagine what hell would be like then multiply it ten times over and you’ll have an idea of what war is like,’ Danny said in a small voice.

  There was a short stretch of silence as the vehicle chugged its way to the top of a rise. ‘Stop for a moment, will you?’ Danny requested.

  On the downwards side of the rise, towards the east, was the beginning of Drovers Way. In the distance Danny could see the house, its three chimneys visible between the stand of eucalypts that partly surrounded it. His throat tightened with emotion as he gazed at the place he’d dreamed of returning to for four long years. Never had the wide, undulating plains looked so good to him; nor the creek, which he could glimpse through the trees, so welcoming.

  ‘Randall’s been back a while but no one’s seen much of him,’ Joe said. ‘If I was a war hero I’d be strutting around town and basking in the adoration, especially from the womenfolk.’

  ‘Randall’s not like that,’ Danny defended his older brother. ‘Like me, all he wants is to forget about the war and get back to doing what we do best: raising sheep and cattle.’

  ‘I reckoned you’d say something like that.’ Joe put the automobile into gear again and they continued down the road t
o the property.

  Outside the double front doors of the house, which were wide open, stood a large cart pulled by two draught horses that were almost big enough to be Clydesdales. Roped to the cart was an assortment of furniture and several rolled-up rugs and paintings in ornate gold-leaf frames. Randall and another, older man were struggling but managing to lift a chiffonier onto the cart. Eventually they began to tie it down.

  Danny caught a snippet of the conversation as Joe pulled up near the cart, careful not to get too close to the horses.

  ‘That’s it, Randall. Any more weight and Bessie and Vi won’t be able to pull it up the hill,’ the man said. He climbed up into the cart and reached for the reins. ‘I’ll come back for the rest tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks, Bert.’ Only then did Randall turn towards the automobile, surprise registering on his features as he recognised Danny. He left Bert and moved towards Joe’s vehicle, reaching it as Danny stepped on the running board and then down to the ground.

  ‘Danny!’ The brothers hugged each other for a moment or two, then, as if embarrassed by the show of affection, drew apart. ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming? I wasn’t expecting you till next week.’ Almost as an afterthought he acknowledged Joe. ‘G’day, Joe. Thanks for giving Danny a ride out.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ Joe responded with unusual good grace. His darting, appraising gaze studied the furniture in the cart then did a sweep around the homestead, taking note of the all-too-obvious signs of neglect. ‘Refurnishing, are you, Randall?’

  Randall’s smile froze and a frown cut furrows across his forehead. ‘Something like that. Getting rid of a few of the heavy Victorian pieces. Dad and Mother loved them but they’re bulky and terrible dust-catchers.’ He turned his attention back to his brother. ‘You look great. The sea voyage must have agreed with you.’