The Journey Home

by K'Anne Meinel

  As Cass started her third year in the corps she found the sameness of it boring her. She treated patients, they got better, they went home or back to the lines. She never did. Pamela got to go home, she had served her time and while she had contemplated re-upping they had talked her out of it. Pamela, a light, irreverent friend was gone and they all missed her. Annette and Cass didn’t discuss when her own service was over but she was still here, she was still nursing the sick, she wasn’t going anywhere from what Cass could see. Several of the nurses talked about how the Army had changed the regulations on how long they had to serve so that they were stuck here longer. Finding qualified nurses and doctors with experience was becoming harder and harder. It was unfair but the tide of the war was changing, they needed them here to help them win it. Cass couldn’t see they were winning. The war went on regardless of how many shots she gave the hurt men, how many bandages she changed, how many she treated, how many she cried over when they died of a simple thing that could have been cured had they supplies they needed.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Cass woke up when the bed she was in rocked and fell against the one next to it. Woken out of a sound sleep she looked around at the chaos that reigned around her. The women were yelling out, a few were screaming in fright. Someone got to the light and it blew as the current hit it. The light from the hall showed the room rocking to and fro. Cass realized they were having an earthquake. The sleeping mountain was sending out a message or so the villagers would assure her when she talked with them. This time though it seemed different. It was lasting longer than the many others they had lived through. Something was much more serious. Cass climbed over the woman she had fallen against in the bed next to hers and jumped down. She was thrown to the ground from the severe rocking; the room wasn’t coming to a standstill. Cass crawled, several people fell on or against her as they tried to walk or run to the exit. One woman clutched at Cass.

  “Get it together, get out of the barracks,” Cass tried to tell her. She couldn’t hear her through her panic. Cass slapped her, not too hard, but hard enough to catch her attention. “Get out of the barracks!” Cass repeated and the shock of it finally penetrated, Cass’s commanding voice helped, she nodded once and headed for the door doing an odd little dance as she tried to stay erect.

  When they made it outside though it was to see a horrible specter, the island lay east to west and there was a sun rising in the west. That meant that the volcano was erupting, the sleeping giant was no longer asleep. People were panicking everywhere. Cass looked around for Annette but could not see her among the chaos. The rocking stopped for a moment and she returned to get dressed. Sleeping in shorts and a short sleeved t-shirt she felt very vulnerable. She pulled on regulation shorts and a bra before pulling on the t-shirt again and putting on her socks and boots and grabbing a regulation shirt. She wasn’t fashionable but it would do in a pinch. At the last moment she grabbed her picture of her family, and the one of Stephanie and popped them out of their frames and shoved them into her shirt pocket.

  “We’re evacuating the island, we’re evacuating the island,” was announced over the loud speakers. Normally used to play music or occasional but rare announcements it startled everyone to hear. Cass went into drill mode and headed for the hospital. Patients had to be evacuated first and foremost. The hospital was in chaos too. Orderlies running to and fro, patients calling out in terror. Cass went to the first ward she came to. In no time at all she had her own orderlies tying patients down to cots that could be carried out like stretchers for those necessary, those with broken bones that required tension. She jury rigged where she could, several doctors ran in and helped her. The patients were being transported to any and all ships that were in the small harbor. Some would be flown out if there was time. Cass moved onto another ward to help there when hers was emptied of all patients. She had a couple of orderlies packing necessary supplies.

  “Lieutenant, Lieutenant, the island is blowing,” a delusional patient chanted to Cass’s dismay. He was delirious and none of the meds they had were enough to halt his delusions. She consulted with a doctor and between them they gave him an opiate that blessedly put him asleep so he could be tied down and transported.

  Cass stopped to look out the windows that normally had a beautiful view of their mountain. Instead she saw fires all over. It was really quite frightening and the heat was overwhelming. She had heard of huge forest fires in the Northwood’s in years past. This was worse than anything she could imagine. The mountain was spewing rocks the size of Jeeps that crushed anything in its path and started random fires. It was getting hard to breathe as the winds didn’t carry away the heat or the gasses spewing from the mountain.

  Cass and others moved through the wards emptying them of any and all patients. A few wouldn’t make it. They really shouldn’t be moved but they had no choice. They moved these last if they could but ultimately they had to be moved.

  “We’re running out of transports,” one of the doctor’s muttered to Cass.

  Cass looked at him in consternation. What did that mean for the staff? For the villagers?

  “The lava, the lava, she comes!” someone screamed. From the pigeon English it must have been a villager that was pressed to help them remove the wounded. Several stopped what they were doing to look. The lava was streaking down the mountain in several places but one of the flows had reached the other end of the village. Cass couldn’t see beyond it, it was all black or in flames. She could see several palm trees on fire.

  “Where’s the Colonel?” Cass asked someone in passing.

  “He got his wife and kids off first thing,” someone answered with a touch of anger in their voice.

  “He probably went with them,” someone else said.

  Cass was amazed, even in an emergency they were only thinking of themselves. She went with a couple of doctors to make sure the hospital was empty. The wards were and they pushed anyone still trying to pack supplies out the door. There was no time. Cass had her medical bag over her shoulder.

  “Cass!” Annette called as they left the hospital together. “Oh thank God, I thought…you’d been…” she couldn’t finish. She hugged her and Cass’s nostrils smelled a familiar odor, a distinctive one. She looked at Annette in horror as she realized the burned flesh smell was coming from her friend. Looking down she saw the source, Annette’s arm was burned, at least a third degree burn.

  “What happened?” Cass asked.

  “Oh this,” she gestured with the burnt arm. “I was helping some of the villagers and some rocks rained down. I saw one hit the Colonel’s house, it flattened it,” she said gleefully. Her eyes looked feverish.

  “Come with me,” Cass grabbed her and pulled her back into the hospital to one of the surgeries. She threw open doors but many things were gone already. She pulled bandages and some ointment from a drawer. Turning on a light that had a magnifying glass on it she pulled Annette’s arm under it.

  “There is no time!” Annette tried to pull away but Cass was stronger.

  “There’s time, there has to be, this has to be looked at or you are going to get an infection!” Cass yelled at her.

  “Let’s go, they can look at it later!” Annette was beginning to panic.

  “Hold still!” Cass wrestled with her and tried to pluck dead burned skin from the moving arm.

  “The lava is coming, we have to GO!” Annette nearly screamed and then stopped suddenly as Cass slapped her.

  “Hold still so I can do this!” she said angrily and pulled Annette’s arm under the light. With no finesse she pulled the dead and angry looking skin away, tearing much of it and causing fluid and blood to ooze to the surface. She worked quickly and efficiently.

  Annette looked at the bent head and the strong muscles holding her arm still. She began to shake at the reaction of her body to the burns.

  Cass had it all exposed. She needed to put the last of the ointment on and bandage it and they could go. That’s when she saw Annette’s leg h
ad burns on it too.

  “There’s no time!” Annette saw where she was looking.

  Cass finished wrapping her arm and pinned it with a clip. She leaned down and reared up knocking her fist into Annette’s stubborn chin. She was out in an instant, better than anesthetic. Cass wasted no time. She ripped off what skin she could see without the magnifier and then crossing her fingers she poured alcohol on the exposed burns and wrapped them. She knew the pain would be excruciating which was why an unconscious Annette was better than a conscious one.

  She checked the drawer once more for ointment, antibiotics, anything one last time. She saw a drawer that was normally locked was ajar. She was astonished to see several vials of antibiotics. She prepared a shot and gave it to Annette before stuffing her pockets and bag with the rest, ointment, and bandages before she lifted her friend and headed for the exit. She looked to the right and saw a horrifying sight. She had been vaguely aware of a roaring as she worked but there was a lot of noise since she had awoken that she attributed to the volcano exploding and the things around her burning. Now she was seeing what was causing the roaring and it was up close and hot. The lava was coming through the hospital which meant the village was already gone. Cass only looked for a moment before she turned to her left with her burden in her arms and went as fast as she could. She made her way out the back door that led to a manicured lawn that patients enjoyed as they recuperated for a time in their hospital. It wasn’t as pretty as it once had been, no longer the pride and joy of the villagers assigned to keeping it pristine. Now it was full of ash and small rocks that hadn’t been there before. In fact it was raining rocks and Cass could feel the little burns they were causing as she went as fast as she could towards the air field hoping that there was someone there who was waiting for her, for stragglers, for survivors.

  It seemed to take forever to carry Annette to the airfield. The air was becoming harder to breath. Cass knew it was because there were gasses in it that could kill her. She gasped as she stopped and stared. There were no airplanes on the field and none in the hangers. There was not a soul to be seen as she looked around in panic. Had she doomed her best friend and herself by delaying? She adjusted Annette and nearly dropped her. Her arms were giving out. Even with her immense strength and she acknowledged she was stronger than most women she was giving out. She put Annette down for a moment on her own two feet but she was still out of it, from shock or the punch she didn’t know but it allowed her to put her over her shoulder and carry her that way. Her torso down Cass’s long back her hands hanging limply down smacking her backside as she walked rapidly towards the beach. She didn’t dare look back, her one glance showed everything on fire behind her and she thought of the fires of hell when she saw it.

  Walking to and on the beach was harder due to the sand. Her boots sunk into it and she nearly stumbled. She saw no one and she nearly cried. There was nowhere else to go. She looked out at the sunrise and all she could see was smoke. She looked back despite the fact that she didn’t want to, the lava crept towards her and some of it was even ahead of her. There was nowhere else to go but into the ocean. She knew when the time came she would go into it and drown, it was better than burning to death. Annette said something incoherent and Cass wondered if she was coming to, she hoped not, Cass hadn’t saved her to watch her friend die. She was sorry, she was very sorry she had insisted they go back in the hospital but the burns had needed treatment. She stopped on the edge of the sands, the water made the sands harder and easier to walk on. She looked out and thought she saw a boat. One of villager’s boat? She put Annette down on the sand being careful not to get sand in her wounds despite the bandages. She began to wave madly, her exhausted arms crying out in fatigue making it hard to wave above her head. Her incredible strength was giving out. She thought she was imagining the boat she saw out there. Slowly she saw one of the long boats that the villagers used heading towards her. By the time they made it to her she had picked up Annette again and carried her out to the oncoming boat. Several villagers helped her into the boat and over the side. She collapsed in the bottom and they immediately started paddling away. She looked back to see that the lava had reached the beach she had been on. It wouldn’t have been long before her small beach had been gone.

  “What…what’s going on?” Annette asked as she began to awaken in the bottom of the boat. Cass was cradling her head in her lap. She tried to sit up and her head hurt her, her jaw especially. She vaguely remembered getting burned and Cass…Cass had HIT her!

  “Careful there, careful,” Cass warned her as she helped her sit up her legs out before her. Cass’s legs were now propped in a V over the top of them. There wasn’t a lot of room in the boat as the paddlers paddled around them.

  Annette finally sat up, she had a fearful headache and went to glare at Cass but looking beyond her shoulder she saw a horrific sight. The island, the beautiful island was all aflame. The lava was all over from what she could see. Several plumes of burning rock had reached the length of the island were sending clouds of steam up from the ocean it had reached after consuming everything in its path. “Oh my God!” Annette gasped.

  Cass turned to look once again and appreciated the sheer beauty of the destruction of an island that had been home to hundreds of people. She hoped everyone got off. She looked back into the boat to see if she knew anyone. She recognized villagers of course; she had treated some of them from time to time but no one that spoke English. She spotted several boats ahead of their own and they soon caught up with them. It was in one of the other boats that she spotted Leona. She waved madly to see the Lieutenant.

  “Missy Lieutenant, you okay now?” she called. She had liked Cass, she was one of the few whites who had been respectful to her and treated her and the other villagers well. She even trusted her with the babies which was a lot more than the Colonel and his wife had.

  Cass nodded. She was very tired now. She did however need to know something. “The Colonel and his family, they get out?” she called across the water that separated their two boats.

  Leona lost her enthusiastic smile and shook her head, “No, the sleeping giant shot down those big rocks. The whole house gone. The Colonel, he and Mrs. they inside with babies packing.”

  Cass opened her eyes wide imagining it. The Colonel and Trish had both been very material, she could imagine Trish insisting on them packing up the house or taking some of their valuables, even in an emergency. She was sorry they had died but of all the people they may have lost she would cry about that later and shed few tears for those people.

  Leona watched Cass knowingly. She of all people knew of the abuse Cass had to put up, not only when she lived there but when she delivered the second daughter. Somehow Trish blamed Cass for the second daughter. She was furious that she hadn’t been able to produce a son and blamed Cass for it. It was a sad sad situation. It was better that those people were gone.

  The men paddling the boats were strong and used to long hours at this, they didn’t seem to suffer from fatigue. Cass could well imagine men such as this paddling to Hawaii and other islands in search of new lands to conquer. She did not know where they were going but she was too tired to care. The past few hours, her fears, her worry, her physically carrying Annette to the beach, all of it was catching up with her. She yawned and started to snuggle down in the long boat.

  “Cass?”

  Cass opened one eye at Annette.

  She looked cute in her disgruntlement. “How’d we get in this boat?”

  Cass started to laugh, it wasn’t funny but she was so tired it made her a little slap happy. They were out in the middle of the ocean going God knew where and her friend, her hurt friend, had no idea how they got there. Cass explained.

  “You carried me?” Annette was aghast but grateful too. She wished she had been awake; to be in Cass’s arms would have been a bit of heaven she wished she hadn’t missed it.

  Cass nodded but she was so tired she was already falling asleep. She was getting a
little chilled but they were getting far enough from the island the clouds of poisonous gas and the clouds of ash were far away and the sun was coming out and would soon warm them.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Cass came to and they were still going. The men had alternated and others were paddling now. She glanced over at Annette and saw she too was sleeping in the hot sun but she wasn’t warm which was obvious as she shivered. Cass knew she probably needed her bandages changed. She could see the one on her arm and the body fluids had oozed through it. She had few bandages with her. All she had was…she remembered the vials. She prepared a shot for her friend and she should have woken her and told her what she was doing but she administered the shot and Annette came violently awake.

  “What the hell,” she swore.

  Cass didn’t know what startled her more the swearing or that Annette swung at her to stop the pain. She finished giving her the shot, wiped the tip on a clean part of her shirt and put it back in its case and her pocket.

  “What the hell was that?” Annette asked her concerned.

  “Antibiotics, you’re wounds are infected, this will help.”

  “Where did you get antibiotics?” Annette asked, her voice sounded a little slurred from having been asleep.