She smoothed back one of the pages. “Uuuh.” The picture drew her breath from her like a vacuum. Her stomach felt as though she’d been kicked by a horse.
Johan grabbed it from her and snapped the pad shut.
Her gaze darted to his. Her breath came quick and hard.
He stared back at her, his eyes black. “A patient is asking for you, Nurse.”
Glorie rubbed the palms of her hands down the sides of her skirt and tried to calm her runaway heartbeat before turning to find out which patient had called to her. The nurse-smile that was as much a part of her now as her uniform slid into place.
The soldier didn’t need her nursing skills. His blankets were tangled around his feet, and with one arm it was difficult to release them. Most of the other patients in the room could have helped him. Glorie suspected he only wanted the attention of a woman. She chatted with him about homey things while straightening the bedding.
When she was done, she moved to the center of the ward. “May I have your attention, men?”
It took only a couple moments for everyone to stop what they were doing and look her way.
Glorie caught her hands behind her and gave them her most radiant smile, looking at any of them but at Johan. “I stopped in to let you all know that I’ve been reassigned again.”
A groan went up in one large wave.
Gratitude toward them for appreciating the service she’d given them surged through her. “I’ll be working in the flu wards, so I won’t be able to visit you for awhile.”
“Ah, no!”
“Don’t go there!”
“Tell them we won’t allow it.”
“Now there’s a reason to get the flu.”
She held up her hands in laughing protest. “I’ve enjoyed working with you all. When I’m free to visit again, I’ll stop back to this ward and say hello to any of you who aren’t discharged.”
She left the room without looking back.
She’d only gone a few feet down the hall when she heard the ward door bang open and steps falling hard on the marble floor behind her. A strong hand grabbed her shoulder. “Glorie, wait, please.”
Immediately she stopped and looked up at Johan. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. The sketch. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy.” There was so much more she wanted to say. Her chest hadn’t stopped aching since she’d seen the picture. It was only a moment, but she was sure the scene depicted was etched in her mind for eternity—the battlefield as only those who had been there had seen it. The horror of what he’d seen, what he had lived among, had leaped from the page.
He started to pull her close. A nurse passing by shot them a sharp and disapproving glance.
Johan took Glorie’s arm and ushered her around a corner where they could be alone. He dropped back against the wall and pressed the palms of his hands over his eyes. “You weren’t meant to see that. No one was.” His voice was gruff, almost as coarse-sounding as it had been when she’d met him. “I thought if I put it on paper, maybe … maybe I could get it out of my head. Out of my nightmares.”
She slid her arms around his waist, pressed her cheek against the rough wool military jacket covering his chest, and hugged him as hard as she could. She didn’t say anything. What could she possibly say to take away the images he lived with? She only tried to surround him with her love and prayed silently for his healing.
He dropped his hands from his eyes and wrapped his arms around her so tightly, she wondered if it was possible she might break. She felt a tear against her hair and squeezed her eyes shut to keep back her own tears.
Glorie didn’t know how long they stood that way. She wasn’t about to move if he needed to draw strength from her. Even if the head medical officer for the entire fort walked by, she wouldn’t budge.
After a long while, Johan’s arms loosened. He sighed, ruffling her hair. “You always smell like spring flowers. Much better than the antiseptic hospital odors or mess-hall food.”
“Anything would smell good next to them.” She forced a lilt to her voice, though her emotions were still gripped by the pain he’d allowed her to share.
His chuckle released some of the tension. A wide fingertip slid along her chin line, sending a shiver through her. Barely touching her skin, the fingertip continued its path to her eyebrow, across her cheekbone, and on to the edge of her lip. She closed her eyes, relishing his touch.
His kisses traced the path he’d blazed, his lips as light as gentle raindrops against her skin. They left her breathless. When his kisses reached her lips, they lingered there, long and sweet. They felt like a promise.
When his lips left hers, they moved again to her hair. She sighed with contentment and tucked her cheek against his shoulder.
“Do you have to take the assignment to the flu wards?”
The question jolted her back to the reality of their world. She nodded, the wool scratching against her cheek.
“You’d say so even if it weren’t true. You’re like one of Uncle Sam’s doughboys. When duty calls, you answer, and give 110 percent.”
“I won’t be able to see you until the epidemic is over.”
Neither spoke for a few minutes. Glorie wouldn’t allow her thoughts to dwell on what might happen. Instead, she memorized the feeling of shelter in Johan’s arms and the strength of his chest rising and falling beneath her cheek, so that she could keep them with her while the flu war separated them.
Johan cleared his throat. “I started reading your grandmother’s journal from the Civil War last night. It’s fascinating. War and people don’t change much, I guess. When I first reached the front in France, I wished someone waited for me back home, a special girl, like you.” His embrace tightened slightly in a squeeze. “Later I was glad there wasn’t a girl to mourn if I didn’t make it back. Then I came home and a miracle happened. I met you. Now we’re in the same hospital, and we’ll be as far apart as Lucy and Jere during the Civil War.”
“God brought them through it and they found each other again.” Was she assuming too much, saying that? Surely not, when he’d just told her she was special to him.
“I’ll be praying for you, Glorie. Remember the rainbows.”
His arms tightened around her waist. “Don’t let it get you.” His voice broke on the words. “Don’t let that flu bug take you from me.”
Johan’s chest felt like a shell hole when he returned to the ward half an hour later. The thought of Glorie heading into a ward filled with Spanish flu patients terrified him. His mind flashed a picture of her in a doughboy’s tin hat, going over the top with a thermometer in her hand instead of a gun.
Was this what it was like for the women and families who waited at home for the soldiers who went to war? And he’d thought the soldiers were the ones who had it tough.
He flopped onto his bed, setting the springs creaking. Snoring came from close by. Joe was taking a nap.
Johan rolled onto his back, picked up his sketch pad, and started paging idly through it. He paused at a picture of Elisabeth asleep in Grace’s arms. It was one of his favorites. He was crazy about Glorie. If they ever married, would their children look like Elisabeth?
That wasn’t a safe path to follow right now.
He flipped through a few more pages. A flash of red, reminiscent of gory battlefields, stopped him. His heart skipped a beat. It can’t be.
The familiar sweet yet metallic scent told him it was blood. It had only been applied to one page, the caricature of Kaiser Bill. “Hun Lover” was written across the kaiser’s face in an American soldier’s blood.
Johan’s gaze darted about the room, searching for the perpetrator. Some men slept; some visited together; some read; three were playing cards.
Only one man paid Johan any attention. Captain Smith’s dark gaze met Johan’s without wavering, without smiling, without smirking. There’s nothing in his eyes but hate, Johan thought. He was certain Smith was the guilty party. He couldn’t have pulled it off without at least a c
ouple of other men seeing him do it, but Johan doubted anyone would go against the captain to tell about it, except maybe Joe, but Joe was asleep.
Johan made his shoulders relax. He ripped out the offensive page, balled it up, and tossed it into the wastebasket beside his bed. The blood had soaked through a number of pages. One by one he removed them, the sound tearing through the deceptive quiet.
Chapter 6
The second wave of influenza was like reliving a nightmare.
The wards overflowed with sick soldiers. Most recovered after three to five days. Some died within forty- eight hours of the first symptoms. The healthiest-appearing men often were the ones who didn’t make it.
Usually the onset was sudden. A headache, a general sense of not feeling well, then chills or fever. Within a few hours the temperature shot to 101 degrees or higher. Fevers lasted three to five days. A cough developed, short and dry, lasting a week or two beyond the flu itself, if the person was fortunate. Back and leg muscles and joints ached, causing the patients the most distress of any of the symptoms. Eyes watered and swelled. A few patients experienced nausea and vomiting.
The medical staff had little to offer the patients, other than to attempt to keep them comfortable. Isolating them was necessary in an effort to contain the disease as much as possible. Quinine and aspirin powders reduced some of the symptoms but didn’t cure anything. Keeping the patients hydrated with water and juices and nourished with any food the patients could be convinced to eat was important.
Everything the patients touched needed disinfecting: blankets, handkerchiefs, bedclothes, eating utensils. The staff couldn’t keep up with the demand.
During the first wave of influenza in October, enlisted men stationed at the fort while waiting to be called overseas were drawn into service at the hospital to help nurse the ill. Now there were no enlisted men to call upon. The overseas men at the hospital for reconstruction and convalescence were in no shape to help with flu victims. The dozen doctors and 120 nurses had only themselves and the Almighty to rely upon. And when the doctors and nurses began falling ill, the pressure increased. Neither nurses nor doctors were available from other hospitals, or even from training schools. Everywhere the need exceeded the supply, not only at Fort Snelling.
Red Cross volunteers helped out, as they did everywhere in every emergency. Even though most hadn’t any medical knowledge, they could perform many of the necessary mundane procedures. Until they too fell ill and became patients.
Glorie was glad she didn’t see Grace among the Red Cross volunteers. She didn’t want Grace bringing the disease home to her husband and Elisabeth, or to their parents, or Grandmother Lucy and Grandpa Jere.
Even in the midst of the flu battle, Glorie always had an awareness of Johan. He wasn’t foremost in her thoughts, but the knowledge of his caring was like a soothing background melody. When she allowed herself a moment to dwell on him, it was with a prayer that he be saved from the flu.
Time sheets and schedules were forgotten. Everyone worked until they were too fatigued to move and then worked awhile longer. Glorie and other nurses bandaged their ankles to help them keep going when they’d been on their feet too long. She became adept at recognizing staff members behind their gauze masks.
It wasn’t the flu that killed, but the pneumonia that often followed the flu. When the patient appeared to be recovering, he was in the most danger. Glorie came to dread the cheerful patient with a heliotrope coloring to his skin. The combination was a sure sign that the patient wouldn’t be alive in twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
The wards were never silent, even in the middle of the night. Even when nurses and volunteers weren’t hurrying in and out, or urging patients to drink more fluids or take their medicine, or changing bedding, or bathing patients, the flu’s dry cough was constant.
It was only two days before Christmas when Glorie walked into a flu ward, stopped short, and rubbed a hand across her eyes. Surely she wasn’t seeing right; it was only fatigue causing the illusion that a masked Johan bent over one of the beds, sponging off a patient’s face.
He wasn’t an illusion.
Nausea threatened to overwhelm her. She fought it down. She’d faced so many fears the last few months, but seeing Johan in the midst of the flu victims …
She rushed to him, dodging a Red Cross girl whose arms were piled with clean towels.
Glorie reached to lay a hand on Johan’s arm but hesitated at the sight of the patient in his care. “Captain Smith.”
Johan turned. The blue eyes above his mask were heavy with fatigue.
“How long has he been ill?”
“A few hours. Complained of the headache about 0900, according to the guy in the bed next to him. He’s running a fever already. He’s sleeping now.”
“That’s probably the best thing for him.”
“Joe’s ill, too. I brought him down here an hour ago.”
“Oh, no. Johan, we need to talk. Come out in the hall, will you?”
They walked quite far down the hall, searching for privacy. Glorie launched into her attack before they stopped walking. “Why didn’t you let the staff bring him down here, Johan? It’s dangerous for you to be in this ward.” She hated the way fear slid her voice up the scale.
“Joe has been sleeping in the bed next to mine since Armistice.” His voice was low and soft. To Glorie it sounded as though he was trying to quiet a hysterical child. It only added to her upset.
“But here everyone has the flu. Everyone except the staff, and I’m not so sure about some of them.”
“The flu’s everywhere, Glorie. Everyone knows we’re short on nurses here now with so many down sick. I’ve more strength than most people in this hospital. I can’t just sit up there on my bed and try to protect myself when I can do something, anything, to help.”
She stamped her foot in frustration. “Don’t you understand? The gas may have weakened your lungs. You mustn’t take the chance of getting ill. If you develop pneumonia, you could die.”
“I’m not going to—”
She covered her face with her hands. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you….”
His hands were warm and strong on her shoulders. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I caught the flu when I was in France, before I was gassed.”
Glorie lowered her hands as far as her chin. “Are you telling the truth or just trying to comfort me?”
He grinned. “Both.”
“This is no laughing matter, Lieutenant.”
His chuckle filled the hall.
It infuriated her. “Why are you laughing?”
His arms encircled her waist. “Are you always going to call me Lieutenant when you’re angry with me, using that upset-mother tone of voice?”
She pressed her palms to his chest and shoved him away. “Why won’t you be sensible? You shouldn’t be holding me. I’ve been exposed. And I’m not so sure catching the flu once means you won’t get it again.”
“Glorie …”
“Oh, do go back to your bed.” Frustrated, she started back to the ward. Her view of a Red Cross girl heading toward her carrying a pitcher grew hazy, cleared, and grew hazy again. I must get some sleep soon, Glorie thought.
She bumped into a table filled with glasses, then grasped it to steady herself.
From a great distance she heard Johan call her name, deep and slow like a Victrola record running down. Her knees seemed to dissolve. She heard something crash. Then she was falling into a deep, soft, foggy sea.
Chapter 7
A white curtain separated the cots of ill nurses from the ill soldiers. A dozen of the 120 nurses at the fort had developed the disease.
Johan refused to leave Glorie’s side, except when modesty demanded, despite urging by doctors and nurses to rest. The second time the doctor checked on her, Johan made a quick trip to the ward where Joe and Captain Smith were located. Both still fought fevers. The captain ignored Johan when he stopped.
“Guess he�
��ll never forgive you for being born German-American.” Joe paused, then continued in an uncertain tone. “So, have you forgiven him? Couldn’t believe you helped him down here.”
Hands in his trouser pockets, Johan looked over at the captain’s bed. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about the war. None of us were raised to kill. People think the hard thing about going to war is risking your life. They forget our country asks us to put aside everything we’ve been taught and take lives. It’s easier to kill if you can hate the people you’re fighting.” He shrugged, self-conscious at opening up this way. “I expect that’s what’s happened to the captain. A person is an enemy or an ally, no gray lines. Easier that way.”
Johan tried not to act rushed while talking with Joe, but as soon as possible he hurried back to Glorie, stopping at his ward to pick up his Bible and the cedar box with Jere and Lucy’s letters that Glorie had lent him. The twenty minutes since he’d last seen her seemed like a lifetime. There was no change in her condition.
He sat beside Glorie’s bed, praying for her, loving her, trying to will strength and health back into her body. Her collapse had sent fear spiraling through him, fear as strong as anything he’d experienced on the battlefields. Twelve hours passed before she slipped bleary-eyed into consciousness. She struggled to get out of bed, grabbing her hip, which he knew ached like those of all the flu victims. “I can’t lie here. The men need me.”
Johan pushed her gently back onto the mattress. “You can help them best by getting your strength back.”
“But there aren’t enough nurses.”
“Take care of yourself, then you can take care of them.”
The head nurse repeated his words a few minutes later, invoking her rights as a superior officer to turn the suggestion into a command.
Johan tried to temper the joy that flooded him at Glorie’s awakening. He knew it was only the beginning of her fight.
He bathed her face with a cool, damp cloth.
The Valiant Hearts Romance Collection Page 57