Page 111 of Two Wars and a Wedding

But somehow, he couldn’t quite work up the nerve to do it.

Instead, he heard himself saying, in a carefully neutral voice, “It’s a one-day sail to New York. Only two days left to go.”

“If they allow us to land.” Betsy let out a deep breath, matching his detached tone. “Could you take charge down here? I need to go and unpack those boxes of medical supplies. Dr. Baird thinks he might finally be able to do something about that shrapnel in Private Allen’s leg.”

Holt watched her go, thinking of all the things he wished he’d said and hadn’t.

Only two more days.

If New York let them land.

Hoffman Island, New York

July 21, 1898

New York City welcomed them, as it had so many other huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Wretched refuse, homeless, and tempest-tossed did about sum them up, decided Betsy, who had reached the giddy stage of fatigue. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d bathed. Or slept in a bed. Or done anything with her hair other than drive a few more pins into it. There were probably tropical birds living in there. Land crabs. Lost tribes. Her dress was so stiff with dirt it could stand on its own. It could probably nurse on its own by now.

Betsy entertained the notion of an autonomous apron, taking temperatures and administering fluids. Relief was doing strange things to her brain. Kit’s fever had broken; a telegram from Cuba had assured her that Ava and her Dr. Stringfellow were both alive and well and happily elbow-deep in intestines; and now here they were, with the prospect of an end to their endless voyage, with proper beds and proper food and someone else to look after everyone. Betsy felt thoroughly bewildered by it all and not quite sure what to do with herself, so she fussed around her patients to keep from thinking, adjusting blankets and changing dressings that didn’t need to be changed yet and dispensing unnecessary quantities of beef tea.

New York welcomed them, but it inspected them first.

The fever patients came in for particular scrutiny. Fourteen of them were marked off as potential yellow fever cases. Like the authorities at Hampton Roads, the medical officer in New York had been warned about the fate of Siboney. A separate launch waited for the fever cases, to take them to isolation on Swinburne Island.

“They’ll be cared for properly?” Betsy demanded.

“We have had fever patients before,” said Dr. Doty, not unkindly. “They’ll be given the best care possible.”

The care she hadn’t been able to give them. The sort of care possible in a proper hospital ward.

Betsy nodded and stepped back. These weren’t her patients anymore.

It felt very strange not being responsible for everyone.

The wounded and ill, including Dr. Hicks, were sent on to Bellevue Hospital for proper treatment. Betsy could see Dr. Baird nearly break down at the relief of it. Not being able to treat them had weighed on him so. She clasped his hand in silent sympathy and felt him shake with what she hoped were unshed tears and not the beginnings of a new case of fever.

The rest of them—the passengers, the close-enough-to-well, Dr. Baird, Betsy—were sent to quarantine on Hoffman Island, a small, man-made island employed expressly for placing the potentially plague-ridden. The accommodations consisted of barrack-like wards lined with cots.

It wasn’t exactly the Hotel Grand Bretagne, but it was a distinct improvement over conditions on the Seneca.

Betsy submitted to being scrubbed and having her clothes taken away for disinfection, by which she assumed they meant “utter incineration,” which was really the only possible outcome, assuming the dress hadn’t attained a state of sentience by which it might fight back.

She took the nightdress that was given her, cleaned her teeth, braided her hair, fell into one of the cots, and slept for the better part of a day and a half.

When she woke, she found Kit sufficiently recovered to lean up against pillows and hold a pen. Kit was scribbling away busily, determined to make up for lost time.

“Go away and stop trying to read over my shoulder,” she said, which Betsy took as a sign that she was starting to feel better.

So Betsy went. There weren’t many places to go. The island itself was tiny; their corner of it tinier still. Betsy followed an attendant’s directions out through a small courtyard to a tiny strip of wind-blasted grass where the Seneca passengers could take the air, filtered through the wires of a strong fence.

Among the flurry of telegrams, one had been sent to Kit’s family, who were going to come to New York and collect her once she had cleared her quarantine.

In a few days, Kit would have her family. Betsy’s wounded were being cared for by doctors with actual surgical instruments and nurses who wore crisp white aprons and didn’t smell like the hold of a ship. As for Holt . . .

He’d probably grow a new mustache and join Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

Somewhere, on the other side of that fence, across those choppy waters, lay the future. In a day, or possibly two, the medical authorities would release them. But to what? Betsy had no idea where she was meant to go or what to do.