Homefront Hero

by Allie Pleiter

  “You can, and you ought to. Chicago, John, put your mind on that big shiny city. Hey, maybe they’ll snap you stitching with a movie starlet.” Artie leaned against his locker, waved his polishing cloth like a lady’s hankie. “Oh, Captain Gallows,” he crooned in a high-pitched voice, “what fine, fine stitching you do.” His poor imitation was cut short by another cough, causing John to freeze in the middle of his buttons.

  “I’m fine, Gallows, stop it. Go make your mistakes with your knitting teacher and stop mothering me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Leanne washed her hands again as she went off her shift for a lunch break and tried not to think about the hollow fear in Mr. Harper’s eyes. She’d seen plenty of sick men in her short time here. Some of the expressions worn by men in the reconstruction gymnasium could chill her blood. Private Carson often looked worn to the bone. Still, there was something deathly in Harper’s gaze that simply would not leave her.

  “I sure am sorry to hear about Private Carson,” Ida said. Every nurse on camp had been scheduled into double shifts as sick boys kept pouring into the hospital. “Seems an awful shame, even as sad as he was. I was certain he was turning a corner as surely as he turned his sock heel.”

  “It’s heartbreaking, Ida. He was someone’s son. Someone’s brother, perhaps. No one should feel that alone, no matter what their injuries. God rest his tortured soul.”

  “No one will feel alone now. We’re packed in like sardines, and now they’re talking about quarantine?” They’d announced it to the hospital staff not twenty minutes ago. Ida rolled her shoulders with a weary yawn. “The whole base? It can’t be that bad, can it? It’s just influenza.”

  “The head of medical department was rushed over to the capitol building a few hours ago. Perhaps that ‘Spanish Flu’ they talked about in the papers is worse than our usual influenza.”

  “I heard they’re starting to get cases over at the university. Someone said they’d be asking some of us who took classes there to go over and help if things got troublesome.”

  Leanne thought getting away from Camp Jackson and John Gallows might be the best thing for her right now. “I’d go. Would you?”

  “We always made a great team. I’ll tell the head nurse when I go back on shift.” Ida sighed, following Leanne’s gaze out the window in the direction of the officers’ quarters. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “How can I know? What if he’s already one of those sick?”

  “You just saw him yesterday.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Mr. Harper said he was fine in the morning, and he could hardly walk by the time I found him. No one knows how these things get transmitted. John spends lots of his time in crowds, with strangers from everywhere.”

  Ida’s hand came on her shoulder. “You’re not helping yourself thinking like this. He’d have been brought in here if he was sick, you know that. John would find a way to get word to you if something else had happened.”

  Leanne turned away from the window. “He might not. I told him not to come find me before he left. I didn’t think I could stand to be around him, but I find it’s even worse not knowing if he’s all right.” Leanne held her forehead, willing away the headache she could feel coming on.

  “When’s the last time you had something to eat?” Ida asked.

  “I can’t remember. Breakfast, I think.” It was already well past two.

  “Well, there’s half your troubles right there. We’re supposed to be on a meal break, let’s go get some food before they stop giving us breaks altogether.”

  “I do feel rather peaked from all this.”

  “Mama always said the world looks worse on an empty stomach.” Ida held out her elbow to “escort” Leanne down to the dining hall.

  She and Ida found a seat by the windows in the far end of the near-empty hall and shared a tuna fish sandwich, a peach and a pot of tea. The tuna didn’t sit especially well in Leanne’s stomach, but the tea felt wonderfully warm and comforting.

  “A veritable high tea. Feel better?”

  “You’re a good friend to have in a tight spot, Ida.”

  Ida raised an eyebrow and hoisted her teacup. “Y’all remember that when that magazine cover comes out and you’re famous.”

  The thought of being seen everywhere with John, now that they would never see each other again—or at least, not for a very long time—made Leanne put down her cup.

  Ida sat back in the metal chair. “That will be hard, won’t it? Having that picture all over the place, seeing his face paired right up with yours? I don’t think anyone else will see it, but I sure see what went on between you in that photograph. Y’all only have eyes for each other.”

  Leanne rested her head in her hand, tired now that she’d eaten. “I was supposed to look at him with admiration.”

  “Oh, you’re admiring him, that’s for certain. He’s admiring you, too, but nothing in that look has anything to do with knitting.” Leanne squeezed her eyes shut, feeling physically, emotionally and now even photographically vulnerable. “Relax, no one who doesn’t know can see it. To everyone else it’ll just be grand publicity.”

  Grand publicity felt like the last thing Leanne wanted. Her stomach gave a sour little flip, and she let her gaze wander over the scattered chairs and tables, wondering when John had eaten last and if he had any good friends in a tight spot.

  “Leanne!”

  It was funny how she thought she heard his voice. Then she did see John. He was striding across the dining hall, ducking and dodging chairs and tables at a pace far too brisk for his comfort. He never limped if it could be helped, and he was visibly hobbling in his rush. She pushed back her chair and went straight to him.

  He had her by the shoulders before she could even say hello. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course I’m fine.”

  “We’re locking down in quarantine. Within hours if not already.”

  “They just told us. Is it really that bad?”

  John kept his hands on her. “I had to see if you were all right.”

  “Told you,” Ida said with a wry smile. “How about I just head on back upstairs and leave you two to talk?”

  “Someone said you were at barracks fifteen today.” John pulled her down to sit at a table. “Why on earth did you go there?”

  “I went over there to see if Private Carson was all right. He didn’t come to his knitting class. It’s terrible, John. Stanley Carson is dead.”

  “Lots of men are dying. And not just here. Army and navy camps are reporting death tolls in the hundreds.”

  Rumors often exaggerated. “People don’t die like that from influenza. And, John, Private Carson wasn’t sick. He took his own life yesterday. I can’t believe it. We were so sure he was gaining hope, so sure we’d managed to lift his spirits a bit.”

  “I’m sorry about Carson, but do you hear what I’m saying, Leanne? Men are dying from whatever this is, and quickly. If they haven’t yet here, they will.”

  John fought down the surge of fear in his stomach that had continued to grow since his visit to Barnes’s office. It was very likely he had been exposed. He’d wrestled with that, surprised that his primary reaction to this threat was one of regret. Not the regret of perhaps not making it back to the front—for that would have sent him on the next train to Chicago. No, his initial, gut-level response was that he regretted not fighting for Leanne. If he were to meet his end in one of those hospital beds, he did not want to leave things with Leanne the way he had. The only doubt in his coming here was that he might expose her somehow, but what kind of foolish thinking was that? She was a nurse in a hospital about to be locked down in quarantine. She was in more danger of exposure than he.

  The moment he’d walked into that hospital cafeteria and seen her again, he knew. Not in a monumental, defiant kind of way, but the quiet certainty of truth: he would not be on that train tonight. He would not leave her to face this alone, nor did he want to face whatever was comi
ng his way without her beside him. The last time God had dangled him above death his thoughts had been only for himself, and he was finding that truth very hard to live with. If God were to dangle him above death again, he would seize this second opportunity and be worthy of the medal he wore. He would not leave. Hang Barnes and his schemes; this captain was going to stand and fight.

  John allowed himself the luxury of running a hand down her cheek, glowing at how her eyes fluttered as he did so. “You’re not feeling ill—not at all?” She felt a bit warm to him.

  “I’m upset and haven’t eaten well, but not much more is wrong with me than that. John, please tell me what you know and why you’re looking at me like that. Are you well? Surely you’ve been around some of the men who’ve fallen ill.”

  “Have they given you masks to wear?”

  “Of course they have.”

  “Wear them. I managed to wring some facts out of one of the general’s clerks, and what he said made my skin crawl. Leanne, influenza doesn’t kill men off like this. Not by the hundreds as they say is happening. In bases up and down the seaboard. This is no ordinary virus, Leanne.” He took her hand. “I heard one of the doctors use the word epidemic. I doubt they’ll use that publicly, but I can tell you the word is being bandied about behind closed doors.”

  John stared into Leanne’s eyes, struck by the sudden strong urge to kiss her, right there in the dining hall, no matter what she’d asked of him earlier. She could be lying in a bed fighting for breath before the sun set tomorrow, so could he for that matter, and here he was just holding her hand. She’d done something to him, something he both hated and craved at the same time, but something he needed to be near if the world was truly falling apart the way he believed it was. If they came after him in a few days to drag him to Chicago, he’d fight that battle then. For now he must do all he could to ensure Leanne’s safety. He brought his hand up to her cheek again, pleased when she did not resist. “Do all you can to stay safe.”

  “And you, as well. I’ll worry about you when you go. I’m going to pray for your safety every day.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “What?”

  “Change of orders in all this chaos. I’m not going anywhere.” He didn’t like lying to her, but now wasn’t the time to go into everything. “Don’t ask me to stay away, Leanne. I can’t. Not now.”

  The tender look in her eyes told him before her words consented. “I won’t.” He would have fought, worn her down until she consented for her own good, but was doubly pleased she’d agreed without persuasion.

  He’d been defenseless against her prayers, now he found he could almost welcome them. “Would God laugh at my prayers for your safety?”

  Now it was her hand that found his cheek, and the sensation was like a homecoming. “Never,” she said softly. “He would welcome them with more joy than you imagine.”

  John placed his hand over hers, wanting to do so much more. Had they been anywhere but where they were, John was sure he would have dared to kiss her. Instead Ida’s voice came up behind them to break the spell.

  “We’re to go over to the university. It’s starting over there, and they’re turning one of the dormitories into a makeshift hospital. There’s a truck leaving in ten minutes.”

  “More sick?” Leanne asked. “Students?”

  “As bad as here, if not worse.”

  It took John two seconds to decide. He was already packed, after all. “I’m coming with you.” Leanne offered no argument, only tucked her hand into his elbow as they set out.

  As the truck bearing them and a handful of others pulled up to the university dormitory, all conversation stopped. A dozen campus medical staff streamed frantically in and out of the building like white ants. Around them a more gruesome parade of fifty or so students—mostly men in various states of illness—streamed into the building from all directions. Coughing filled the fall air. One man to their left was being carried on a chair by two companions, a bloody handkerchief clutched to his mouth. Two white ambulances, their red crosses standing out like warning beacons, were backed up to the dormitory. Maintenance men, also in masks and looking as if they’d rather be anywhere else, hauled dormitory beds into the medical building at the direction of several more masked nurses. John felt Leanne’s hand tighten against his arm, and for a split second the urge to pull her away gripped him. Fear’s instinctual desire to flee, to take his train ticket and somehow parlay it into an escape for the both of them, wrapped around his throat like a noose.

  Dear God, save us.

  He meant every word of this first prayer, and prayed it wouldn’t be his last.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Mere hours later Leanne slumped against the wall and wiped her forehead with one hand. It had become clear no one really knew what to do. They began by placing patients in neat rows separated by canvas screens to prevent transmission of the virus, but the number of patients exceeded the number of beds within two hours. Workers scrubbed down dormitory floors as fast as they could, but still could not keep up with the stream of new patients.

  The sheer numbers of ill made Leanne’s mind reel. The constant wave of moans, ebbing and flowing from rows upon rows of beds, was like a sea of misery. At first patients would be alarmed by the pain; influenza wasn’t supposed to hurt like this. They’d panic, thrashing about or crying for relief no one knew how to bring. Then, as the illness wore them down, their panic would fade into the most miserable fatigue. Leanne had to lift more than one head for a patient as another nurse struggled to get drops of medicine down his throat. All within hours of her arrival on campus.

  Sweat tainted the air, and the sharp scent of disinfectant often cut through the mixture of odors Leanne associated with any sickroom: blood, urine, vomit, sweat, all in volumes that gave the ward an air of disaster. It smelled like a battlefield. It was a battlefield, with bloody wounds born of no weapons the doctors had ever seen. It was the color that frightened most of all. Those sick would begin to take on a ghastly blue-gray tone, starting with a vague pallor at first and progressing to ghoulish blotches that spread as the disease progressed. No one knew stages or symptoms, new information would be passed from doctor to nurse as it arrived, but all of it felt futile in the face of the onslaught that kept coming.

  They began laying patients on the floors between other patients, forcing Leanne and the other nurses to literally step over groaning men and women to move through the ward. At one point Leanne was darting back and forth between no less than eighteen people, struggling to stay abreast of the soiled sheets, cries of pain and doses of medicines that seemed to do no good. And the blood. The blood was worst of all, for it seemed to be everywhere, unstoppable, staining and spilling and casting its sign of catastrophe over anything left clean and white. Every hour less and less was left clean and white.

  Near the end of her shift Leanne found a Charleston family friend, an agriculture student she’d known last year. She barely recognized Charles Holling as he moaned the most dreadful request she could imagine: Holling was begging to die. He was in the far corners of the first room, a horrid shadow of the handsome boy she’d known back home. His words sent a chill down Leanne’s aching spine, and she sank to his bedside to wrap one purple-blotched and swollen hand in a cool cloth and hold it tight. It was a wonder she recognized him at all, for his blue color and sunken face made him look barely human.

  “Charles, it’s Leanne Sample.” The man’s glassy eyes found her in their roaming and she glimpsed the soul still fighting inside. “Do you remember me? Your brother took me to the St. Cecilia’s Ball.” She pulled down her mask for one second, allowing him to see her familiar face before replacing it as he gave way to another round of blood-spattering coughs. Holling dissolved into pitiful tears when from somewhere in his incoherence he finally recognized her. “Let me die,” he moaned. “It hurts too much.”

  “No, no, you must recover. You must fight and live.” She mopped his discolored forehead.

&n
bsp; “I want to die,” he demanded loudly, as angrily as his racked body would allow. His howl changed the atmosphere of the room as if he’d thrown a shroud over the lot of them, inviting death to hover and prevail.

  Leanne did the only thing she could do in the face of such horror. “May I pray for you?” What else to do or say in the face of such suffering? What other comfort could she give? He gave a whimpering nod despite his hopeless eyes, and Leanne began to pray aloud. It only served to calm his cries to wordless moans, but she was grateful for even that small relief. She mopped his brow again, spooned a bit of water into his foul-smelling mouth and begged God for the worst to be over. If he was among the first to fall, Lord, then let him be the first to recover. Heal his…

  “Nurse!” A young woman gasped as she lay curled and retching two cots over. Holling rolled to his side, lost again to the fog of his now-quieter moaning. Leanne forced her weary body to rise, grab the last two sets of clean sheets left in the room and tend to her next patient.

  Mr. Holling got his wish. Leanne returned to him not twenty minutes later to find his moans had been stilled not by the blessed escape of sleep but the arrival of death. Her first day of classes Leanne had learned to take hold of a wrist to find a pulse. She felt hollow and frail as her fingers told her no pulse was there to find. The room swayed slightly around her as she took the stained sheet and pulled it over the young, lifeless face.

  She knew his family. She knew his name. She wrote it in slow, careful letters onto the tag she affixed to his foot to declare Charles Dayton Holling the first official influenza death on the University of South Carolina campus.

  * * *

  As he stared at the dormitory, watching the patients stream in and knowing Leanne was inside, John battled a wave of helplessness. He preferred his destiny be in no one’s hands but his own. And yet as he watched the chaos swirl around him, John couldn’t help feeling as though he’d been swept up in something far larger than his own will. Really, it was the only explanation. What had he hoped to accomplish by coming to the campus in the first place? Self-determined men didn’t do nonsensical things like disobey orders and throw themselves directly in harm’s way for sentimental reasons. Were Barnes to find him right now and demand to know the motives behind his actions, John wasn’t sure he could give any explanation at all.