None But The Brave: A Novel of the Surgeons of World War II

by Anthony A. Goodman

  “Listen, Steve,” Hamm said, “why don’t you go on back to your bunk for a few hours and leave the OR to us. It’s pretty quiet. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  Schneider said, “Yeah, thanks. I’ll do that. Not sure I can go to sleep, though. Maybe I ought to get some chow and then settle in.” He turned and left the OR tent. Hamm didn’t see him again until nearly noon.

  Hamm finished three more cases that morning, all shrapnel or gunshot wounds. There was one burn case left that occupied a lot of personnel, but the medics had it under control by the time Hamm got there. By then another surgeon was free. So, he dropped his dirty scrubs into the hamper and changed into his khakis. His boots were starting to look like hell, and he wondered whether they would last the war…however long that was going to be.

  Hamm walked over to pre-op, delighted to find the place nearly empty. He had operated on more bodies in the past eight days and nights than he had in all his years of civilian practice. He couldn’t remember the names of the wounded GIs, their injuries, or just about anything. Sometimes he got to the end of the shift, and when he went into post-op to see how they were all doing, he had to look at the chart to remember what he did to a particular GI. That was a little scary.

  Everyone kept saying “Home for Christmas,” but he didn’t buy it. The Germans might be on the run now, but they were still putting up a hell of a fight.

  He detoured to the showers before lunch. The shower trucks had just arrived, and the lines for them were not yet long. There was only lukewarm water, but plenty of soap, and he was feeling particularly dirty. The food could wait a bit longer.

  After he got cleaned up—although clean was a relative term by this time—Hamm strolled over to the mess tent, enjoying the lull in the arrival of the battle casualties. For some reason there weren’t even the usual sounds of distant gunfire. The sun was trying to poke through the mist that typically shrouded the morning. He passed the final resting place of their Number One OR tent and shook his head. He didn’t know what he would have done had he been trapped under there as Schneider had been. Hamm had always been a little claustrophobic. Actually, a lot claustrophobic. It even took him a while to learn to be comfortable wearing a mask over his nose and mouth all day long in the operating room. The mental image of suffocating to death under the canvas folds of an OR tent made him shiver.

  He walked through the flap of the mess tent and was stunned by what he saw. The place teemed with people. It looked like Saturday night at a dancehall. The WACs had arrived in force and were sitting with all the officers and other men. This close to the front, they didn’t have the luxury of separate mess tents for officers and enlisted personnel. A good thing, Hamm thought; the logic of separate mess tents eluded him. They were, after all, fighting for the same thing, and it didn’t seem reasonable to separate officers and WACs from the enlisted men in battle. Just as people did in civilian life, everybody in the medical and surgical teams understood the chain of command.

  He grabbed a metal tray from the stacks and proceeded through the mess line. Lunch was Sloppy Joes and an undistinguished soup that too closely resembled the scrub water that ran off his elbows as he prepped for surgery. He took a Sloppy Joe and some coffee and passed on the soup. Then he looked around for some friendly faces in the mob and spotted Schneider sitting at the far end of the tent at an almost completely full table. He pushed his way through, trying not to spill his coffee, and found a seat at the edge of the bench next to Schneider.

  “Shove over, pal,” he told Schneider, “make room for a friend.”

  “Hey, Hamm.”

  At the table were Schneider, McClintock, Antonelli, and five WAC nurses. No wonder the tables were packed, Hamm thought. What a refreshing addition these nurses were to their terrifying, but dreary lives. Schneider made the introductions.

  “Hey, everyone, this is Major John Hammer—Hamm to all of us—an old and dear buddy of mine.” There was a chorus of welcomes from the WACs.

  “Hamm, this is Captain Molly Ferrarro,” Schneider said, gesturing to the very attractive woman at his right. Hamm did a double take. The Captain was one hell of a stunning woman. He figured her to be about thirty or so, with shocking red hair and green eyes that nearly made him light-headed. Her skin was a creamy white, and her face just beautiful. The picture didn’t fit with the name Ferrarro, but with a first name of Molly, Hamm assumed she was Irish and had married someone Italian. But most prominent in Hamm’s consciousness was the inappropriate tingle he felt just being near her. Inappropriate for a married and faithful man.

  Schneider woke Hamm out of his trance-like state and continued with the introductions.

  “And this is Ruth, Betty, Alice, and Mary. I’ll get all the last names later.”

  Hamm noticed that Steve had barely taken his eyes off Molly as he made the introductions of the others. He could see a look in Schneider’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. It made Hamm very uneasy. Both of them were married, and while Hamm had no designs beyond window-shopping, he was afraid from that very moment in the mess tent that Steve would get himself into a difficult situation.

  Hamm smiled and nodded to everyone. Antonelli was practically salivating, and McClintock looked very peaceful. He talked with each of the WACs at the table, one by one.

  “So, Ruth. It is Ruth, right?” McClintock said.

  “Yes,” she said. “You’re good at names I see,”

  “I’m good at lots of things, darlin’,” McClintock drawled. His accent was markedly ratcheted up for this social moment.

  Schneider and Hamm groaned.

  “And you are…mmm…Betty?” McClintock went on. It was obvious to everyone he was making a mental address book. He was staring deeply into the WAC’s eyes directly across from him.

  “Actually, I’m Alice. But nice try, Hamm.”

  “Actually, I’m not Hamm, I’m Ted,” McClintock said. A bit of his bloated ego sagged.

  “Actually, I know who you are. I was just pulling your leg, Ted. And I’m Betty. She’s Alice,” Betty said, pointing to the dark haired woman seated on the bench right next to McClintock.”

  The whole group burst into laughter, but without a beat, McClintock leaned toward Alice, their thighs touching and their faces very close. He said, “Hello, Darlin’. I’m Ted. But you already knew that.”

  The happy group continued their banter. Names exchanged and quick biographies given. The war was so far away for them all just then. And no one was in a hurry to return to battle.

  Only Schneider appeared nervous, but Hamm put that down to his terrifying experiences of last night. It had been a very close one. But maybe it was more than that.

  “So,” Hamm said to Steve, not wanting to ignore everyone else, but wanting to know the score, “you recovered from last night?”

  There was a silence for a moment as all eyes fell to their food plates. Hamm felt as if he had touched on something unspeakable.

  “Yeah, I’m OK. But there were no operative survivors from that tent, Hamm,” Schneider said. “When the tent crumpled, the weight of it pretty much disrupted all the connections. IV lines were pulled out; anesthesia machines toppled and disconnected from the airways. Most of the patients had their chests or their abdomens open, and they were just knocked to the floor off their tables, spilling their guts while they were still under anesthesia. I hate to say it, but until we were pulled out, it was every man for himself. I mean, there was just nothing we could do to help the poor bastards.”

  Schneider looked at Captain Ferrarro and said, “Excuse me.” Then he went on. “It was the worst nightmare you could ever imagine. Everyone trying to claw their way out. Bodies all over the floor, overturned equipment…and the darkness….”

  Schneider paused as the recollection of his terror swept over him like a shadow. Then he shook his head. “There was no air. I could smell the anesthesia leaking from the overturned machines….”

  Schneider looked away, again suppressing the resurgence of fear
that welled up in his throat at the memory of it all.

  “Jesus,” Hamm said. It was all he could say.

  The new WAC nurses were silent, some of them appearing to be on the verge of tears. Captain Ferraro had her head cocked, and her brows wrinkled. She was following Schneider’s description intently, probably trying to figure out how she was going to keep her girls from falling apart.

  Hamm focused on the reality facing these young women. Here in the middle of a great world war they would be as exposed to danger as every other GI. But they looked so damn young and fragile that Hamm couldn’t help himself. He thought of them as girls, young and frail and afraid.

  McClintock said, “What happened to your scrub team?”

  “Most of them are lying down over in their tents,” Schneider said.

  “Maybe I’ll go on over and check in on them. I’m not very hungry anyway,” McClintock said as he rose and nodded to the WACs. “See y’all later, ladies.”

  He got up and left, leaving his full tray on the table. It was the first time Hamm or Schneider ever saw McClintock walk away from food—let alone a table full of women.

  “So, there weren’t any survivors at all?” Hamm said.

  “None from the operating tables, anyway. Most of the staff and the pre-ops got out; that is, got rescued. Nobody could have gotten out without help. Whoever cut me out of there…well….”

  Captain Ferrarro cut in. She was ashen, and the hand which held her soup spoon in midair was trembling, as was her voice.

  “How could they do this? How could they bomb a hospital? Dear God! What are they?”

  Schneider put a hand on her shoulder and said, “You’re right, Captain. We can’t believe it either. But their snipers have been shooting at the medical personnel, too. And we hear worse things than that. Scuttlebutt maybe, but, I’m beginning to think it’s true. We—you—have to assume that you’re a target, and be very, very careful. Don’t rely on your noncombatant status to protect you. It won’t.”

  Schneider shook his head sadly and returned to his coffee. He hadn’t touched his food. Suddenly, Hamm wasn’t so hungry either.

  “So…? How do we protect ourselves?” Molly asked. “I mean, if they’re willing to strafe and snipe and bomb hospitals—clearly marked hospitals—then why should we think they’d hesitate to overrun us right here. And who’ll protect us then?”

  “Well, you’re absolutely right, we’re unarmed,” Hamm said. “And we’re supposed to be unarmed. Not that a gun would do me any good. I have no experience with firearms. And you don’t either, do you, Steve?”

  “Me? I’d be more of a danger than an asset. Might shoot myself or my friends. I’ve never even held a gun.”

  “Well, I have!” All eyes turned to Molly. “I grew up in the country with four older brothers. I learned to shoot when I was six. Twenty-two’s and deer rifles. Pistols. Even my dad’s .45 automatic—though we generally didn’t tell him when we borrowed his gun. By the time I was ten, I could outshoot all my brothers. Not that they were very happy about that.”

  Schneider cut in. “Well, we’re very glad you’re on our side. Too bad there’s no deer rifle for you. Maybe we can scrounge one up. Along with a deer or two. I’m sick of sloppy Joes.”

  Molly smiled. “Maybe….”

  Mercifully, it quieted down for a few days after the WACs arrived. There was still a steady stream of casualties, never a complete lull, but when no seriously wounded were coming in, the medical team had time to go back and do some cleanup surgery. They debrided infected wounds. They cut away any dead tissue that was not apparent on the first go-round. They did some of the unending paperwork, too. Everyone hated that part—all those forms. But different doctors would be treating these wounded GIs at every stop on their way home. Those doctors needed complete records to know what had been done earlier.

  Then there was the triage tent. Whenever Hamm had the time, and sometimes even when he didn’t have the time, he made his way over to triage to talk to the dying—to give them something, anything.

  And again on that day, Hamm walked over from the mess tent and pushed his way through the double blackout doors of the triage tent. There were about ten men in there now. Actually, they were boys to him. At his age of thirty-nine, they all looked like teenagers. The stretchers covered almost all the floor, and the men were covered with layers of blankets up to their necks. They tried to keep the wounded warm and pain free with lots of morphine. There were wounds that were so bad, it was impossible to save them, and they couldn’t waste valuable resources that were needed for men—boys—who could be saved. But they did have a hell of a lot of IV fluids to keep them from feeling thirsty and enough morphine to keep them in never-never land.

  So that’s just what they did.

  The triage ward was very quiet. Most of the men were nearly comatose anyway. They wouldn’t last long. Maybe hours. And the trucks heading back to the beaches for evacuation to England or to hospital ships were constantly filled with seriously wounded men—but men who could be saved if they reached help in time.

  Hamm could do little from a medical standpoint, but he felt an obligation to give them, if nothing else, the comfort they deserved. When he was in training, one of the surgeons told him that he always spent time with the dying whenever he could. Even if it was just to sit at the bedside and hold a hand or talk to the families. His teacher had said that the gall bladder patient you did that week didn’t need you so much. He was going to get better and go home soon, no matter what you did. It was the hopeless patients who really needed your care, even if that care was not going to help them to survive. Hamm thought it was some of the most important advice he had received in all those years of training.

  He found one young kid who was awake enough to know Hamm was there. Like many of the soldiers who end up in the triage tent, he had third degree burns over 90 percent of his body. Parts of the burned skin hurt like hell. Nothing on earth short of a miracle was going to save this poor kid, and there just weren’t enough miracles to go around.

  Hamm sat down on the canvas floor next to the stretcher and touched the boy on the shoulder. “Hey, Private,” he said softly, “how’re you doing?”

  The boy looked up at Hamm through a narcotic haze and said, “Oh, hey, Major. I’m OK…I guess.”

  There was that look in his eyes that told Hamm the boy knew very well that he was not OK. It was almost a state of peace. Or resignation. There seemed to be no fear in this young man, who hadn’t yet lived long enough to know much about anything.

  “You need anything? Anything at all?”

  “Yes, sir. I need to go home. Soon as possible,” he answered with a little laugh. “But I guess that ain’t gonna happen too soon.”

  “Not just yet, son.”

  What am I going to say, that he’s going home in a casket? Jesus!

  Hamm was suddenly having a hard time getting his breath. He had to resist the urge to flee. He could take the bleeding and the shrapnel and the torn and bloodied bodies of his patients. At least he had a chance with those. But this….

  “Well, now that you ask, sir, I kind of need to take a pee.”

  Hamm looked down to make sure the boy had a catheter, and seeing the tubing leading from the bottle up under his blanket, said, “Actually, it only feels that way. There’s a tube in your bladder to empty the urine so you won’t have to go.”

  He didn’t tell him that there was no urine coming out anyway because his burns were sucking up all his fluids and plasma faster than the medics could pour it in. His kidneys were failing rapidly because the decision had been made not to give him the valuable plasma. Just salt water to keep the boy from being too thirsty.

  “Funny, it sure feels like I have to pee.”

  “Yeah, I know. The catheter is irritating your bladder. Makes it feel that way. Maybe a little more medicine will make that go away.”

  Hamm flagged down the solitary nurse who had just arrived this morning and was already on the job in
that awful place.

  “Up the dose of morphine for this young man, will you please?” He wrote down a frighteningly large dose on the order sheet, but the nurse never flinched. “And a belladonna and opium suppository for his bladder spasms, as needed,” he added.

  “Yes, Major Hammer,” she said. She wrote quickly and finished saying “…and a B&O suppository PRN.”

  Hamm nodded.

  How did she know my name so soon? I don’t know hers. He wondered if she were one of the nurses at the table and felt a little ashamed that he had forgotten everyone’s face and name already.

  A hand touched his shoulder, and there standing over him was the only nurse he hadn’t forgotten. Truth be known, it was not possible to forget Captain Molly Ferrarro.

  “Hello, Captain,” he said. “Pull up a pew.”

  Molly knelt down next to him and turned immediately to the young soldier.

  “Hi…” she turned over his dog tag and read, “James. Do you need anything?” But James was sound asleep now from the IV morphine he had just been given. They stared at him for a few minutes, and each wondered how the flames had failed to touch his handsome young face. Odd. Even with no time to shave in the field, his skin was smooth as a baby’s. The boy slept deeply. Hamm and Molly both noticed that his breathing had slowed to a dangerous rate. It was the morphine, they knew, and that would be both his salvation and his end. He could die a respiratory death under the merciful smothering of Morpheus, the Greek God of dreams.

  Hamm choked back the sorrow that was building in him. He took a deep breath. It was time to leave. He didn’t want to be there to pronounce the boy dead. Just two or three sentences with him had been enough to get too close. It was better when they came in unconscious; he operated on them, and they went out to post-op still asleep. He didn’t know them then. Now, he knew James too well. He hadn’t even asked him his name. Molly had. He didn’t thank her for that, but Hamm knew it was the more courageous thing to do.