Page 38 of Two Wars and a Wedding

Miss Barton did not take well to being overlooked. “I am Miss Barton of the Red Cross and I would like to speak to the surgeon in charge.”

Kit tugged on Betsy’s arm. “While she’s busy up there, I want to go take a look.”

“Kit—” Betsy had a bad feeling about this. It smelled wrong, she realized. There was none of the familiar hospital tang of carbolic that stung the nose and proclaimed a ward from yards away. Instead, the stench of human waste and decaying flesh assaulted her nose.

Kit was already halfway down the verandah. Betsy hurried after her.

“Hey.” There was a man sitting in his shirtsleeves on the verandah, in a rickety wooden chair. He waved his cigarette at Kit and Betsy without bothering to rise. “Don’t go in there. There’s sick men in there.”

The open door next to him let the air in and the stench out. The ward was dimly lit by a few hanging lanterns, but that weak light was more than enough. The men lay where they had stumbled. Or been dumped. There were no pillows, no sheets; they lay on the bare boards of the floor. Even in the dim light Betsy could see the filth that coated it, the things crawling about.

“I’m a nurse,” said Betsy sharply. The words came out of her mouth before she could think them through. I’m a nurse. She had been one, at least.

“Yeah, so am I,” said the man, cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. “That’s my ward.”

Betsy saw as red as the glowing circle of his cigarette. “Then why aren’t you in there?”

The man tipped back his chair, his hat slouching down over his face. “There’s not much can be done.”

Betsy could see a million things that could be done, starting with getting those men off the bare floor and onto pallets. “They’re dirty. They’re thirsty. You could wash them. You could give them something to drink.”

The man looked horrified. “You give one something and then they’ll all want it. What’s one nurse to forty men? If there were ten of me . . .”

They’d be doing as little as one of him. Betsy didn’t trust herself to speak. She turned on her heel.

“Look, what do you expect me to do?” the man called after her.

Betsy stalked straight to Miss Barton. “I just spoke to one of their nurses. I saw better in field hospitals in rural Greece. This isn’t a hospital; it’s a pigsty.”

There was a faint cough behind her. Kit was making horrified eye-popping faces in the lantern light.

“Miss Barton?” Betsy turned to see a very official-looking figure standing there. He did not seem pleased. “I am Major Havard. May I ask to what we owe the pleasure of your company at this unusual hour?”

“The wounded wait not on clocks,” said Miss Barton sternly. She stepped in front of Betsy, who subsided into the background next to Kit. “The Red Cross stands ready to serve. I have with me three doctors and four nursing sisters. We can begin immediately.”

“That is very kind of you, but I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey. We’re not in need of your assistance.”

In the ward behind him, a man moaned in pain, cursing the government, the army, the Spanish. Betsy could smell the nurse’s cigarette smoke against the salt of the sea and the stench of human waste.

Miss Barton drew herself up to her full height. “Major Havard. My nurses tell me you lack the basic necessities. We have a ship full of supplies and trained workers.”

The major brushed that aside. “We have transports with supplies of our own. They’ll be here soon enough.”

“Will it be soon enough? We are here now.”

“With all due respect, Miss Barton, an army hospital is no place for a female nurse.”

Miss Barton didn’t flinch. “With all due respect, Major Havard, I have spent much of my life in army hospitals.”

“In the Civil War, perhaps.” Major Havard casually consulted his pocket watch, waiting a moment to let the insult fully sink in. “We have doctors and nurses of our own.”

“As I see.” Miss Barton looked pointedly at the nurse smoking stolidly away. “And how many men do you expect to survive their ministrations?”

Major Havard snapped his pocket watch closed. “Are you criticizing my arrangements, Miss Barton?”

Miss Barton took a step forward, her starched petticoats rustling. “I am offering my assistance.”

“And I,” snapped Major Havard, “am refusing that assistance.”