Leaving Norway: Book 1: Martin & Dagny (The Hansen Series - Martin & Dagny and Reidar & Kirsten)
Page 25
June 26, 1749
Dagny sat by Oskar’s cot and tried to get him to drink more water. He had grown weak so rapidly and wasn’t able to get off the pallet quickly enough when his bowels let go. Dagny begged the captain to assign her a sailor to assist her with the males in her care. She was never allowed to bathe a man in the abbey and she had no desire to begin the task now.
A cabin boy named Frank was pushed into service. At first he resisted Dagny’s washing and draping requirements, but as the passengers they cared for grew in both number and severity of symptoms in only two days, he became a convert.
Now he was explaining the system to one of the wives who insisted on tending to her own husband and not allowing Dagny near.
“I don’t need to do those things,” the woman stated. “I won’t be tending any other ‘sinners’ besides him. And if his desires become inflamed by looking at my face, then a miracle truly will have taken place.”
Frank looked at Dagny and she shrugged. “As long as you don’t touch any of the other passengers, I’ll allow you to forgo my rules,” she acquiesced. “But you must keep your hands to your own tasks only, do you understand?”
Dagny wasn’t certain it would make any difference if the woman licked all the other sick people, but having a chance to give orders to one of the women who had turned on her gave her more than a little satisfaction.
“As if I would be inclined to touch another man!” the woman snapped.
“Or woman,” Dagny clarified. “You must not touch either one.”
The woman made a pshh sound and dropped into a chair beside her moaning husband.
Dagny checked her supply of fresh water, disheartened to see how low it already was. She looked over the salon where nine of the forty-eight passengers lay on their temporary beds. Then she looked out the round window to discern if there might be more rain coming. Alas, the sun glittered across the endless liquid expanse and no clouds were visible in her view.
Someone tapped her shoulder.
“Martin, you shouldn’t be here,” she warned. She placed her palm in the center of his chest and began to push. “Now go.”
“What do you need?” he asked.
She peered at him. Dark smudges underscored his eyes. “Are you well?”
“I’m tired is all,” he dismissed. “Do you need anything here?”
“I need what you can’t give me,” she answered truthfully.
His eyes narrowed. “What is that?”
“Fresh water.”
“I thought you might say that.” One corner of his mouth curved upward. “I have an idea.”
Dagny stared at him. “Can you make it rain?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he teased. “There is a still in the hold.”
“A still?” Dagny exclaimed. “For making alcohol?”
“Normally, yes,” Martin admitted. “But for our purposes it could be used for distilling salt water into fresh water.”
Dagny would have kissed him if they hadn’t been surrounded by witnesses. “Can you bring it up and get it going?”
“No…” the man whose wife attended him grunted and waved a weak hand. “The still is mine. Don’t touch it.”
“Sir, an adequate supply of clean drinking water is essential to the recovery of everyone afflicted, including yourself,” Dagny pointed out. “Surely under those circumstances—”
“No,” he grunted again.
Rage coursed through Dagny’s frame in an instant. “You would deny us the very thing we need to save lives?”
“Mine,” he croaked. He closed his eyes.
“Then you shall have no more of our water!” she shouted, fully aware of how childish her declamation was.
She stomped to the other side of the salon. She was already tired at the end of this second day and knew that another seven days of nursing lay before her—and that was if no one else was infected. The illness took about six or seven days to run its bloody course. She was only just beginning.
“I have never run up against such a pig-headed and selfish being in my entire life!” she groused. “Can you imagine? Having the very equipment we need, and yet denying its life-saving abilities?”
“I’ll talk to Gilsen,” Martin offered. “I’m certain he will override that man’s objections.”
Dagny squeezed her husband’s arm. “Thank you Martin. You are my knight in gold-plated armor.”
He gave her a weak smile and turned to go. He only achieved about three steps before falling to the floor, insensible.
“Martin!” Dagny cried.
Frank jumped to her aid. Together they lifted and dragged Martin to a cot. Dagny wrinkled her nose; his bowels had loosened, releasing a bloody mess.
“I’ll wash him, ma’am,” Frank declared. “You go talk to the captain about that still.”
Dagny hesitated, unwilling to leave Martin’s side.
“Go,” Frank insisted. “But wash your hands first.”
The boy’s repetition of her insistent decree clicked something inside of her into place. Dagny scrubbed her hands with righteous vigor, then jerked the scarf from her face.
“I’ll be back straightaway,” she promised, pointing at him with the fisted linen. “And when he wakes—”
“Give him water,” Frank finished her sentence. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Twenty Nine
Gilsen avoided coming within ten feet of Dagny and she suspected his easily gained consent for claiming the still was in part to get her out of his cabin. Because the contraption required heat, it was set up by the kitchen. Two sailors were instructed to keep it boiling at all times, and to bring Dagny the fresh water every couple of hours.
“At night as well?” one asked.
She had no idea if her authority extended to their schedule, but decided to act as if it did. “Yes. Day and night for as long as we have the sickness among us.”
The pair of crewmen looked at each other, deciding as one to follow her orders. “Yes, ma’am,” they replied in unison.
Dagny ran back to the salon, heedless of what anyone might think about her lack of decorum.
Martin was awake when she arrived. She wrapped her scarf over her face and knelt by his cot.
“How long, Martin?” she asked.
“Yesterday. Maybe the day before,” he admitted.
She grabbed his hand. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
He attempted a smile. It looked more like a grimace. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“You are a fool, Martin Hansen.” She squeezed his hand. He didn’t squeeze back. His eyelids closed.
Dagny watched his chest rise and fall and rise again. As long as he kept breathing, she would keep breathing.
Frank leaned over her shoulder. “Wash your hands. We have another new one coming.”
Dagny sent up a prayer of thanks for Frank, then did as she was bid, moving like an automaton. She couldn’t lose Martin now, having only just found him. She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to find any other weapon to combat the insidious disease.
Her oil of garlic salve was edible. If it worked on the outside of a body, might it work on the inside?
She hurried to her cabin and dug the clay pot out of her little trunk.
The concoction was made with oil and beeswax and she doubted she could get Martin to eat it. But what if she put some in water hot enough to melt the wax? It certainly wouldn’t hurt him, and there was every possibility that it would help.
Dagny hurried back to the kitchen to order a stein of fresh, hot water.
When she returned to the salon, stirring her mixture of the melted salve, she was met with another unhappy surprise.
The newest passenger to fall ill was Torvald.
***
Martin coughed and turned his head away.
“Are you trying to kill me?” he squawked.
Dagny held the mug to his lips. “Drink. I mean it.”
He squinted at her. “What is that horri
d brew?”
“It’s the oil of garlic salve,” she confessed. “I am experimenting on you.”
His eyes drifted shut again. “If I possessed any strength at all I’d knock it from your hand…”
“Martin?” She set the cup down and shook him. “Martin!”
His eyes opened again. They took a moment to focus.
Dagny slid her arm under his shoulder. “Drink and I’ll let you sleep,” she promised.
Martin downed three decent swallows before his head fell back. “No more,” he rasped.
Dagny eased her arm out from behind him. “Later. Sleep now.”
She carried the cup to her station and drew a bracing breath. It was time to attend to Torvald. He watched her approach through half-closed eyes. Dagny kept her expression blank, fighting righteous anger which demanded she let the man die.
“I should have known,” he muttered. “The perfect angel from the abbey.”
She asked him the same question she asked everyone. “How long have you been ill?”
“I had my first bloody stool the day before yesterday,” he sneered the vulgarity. “Now I’m shitting nothing but blood and pus.”
Dagny knew his intent was to shock her, but he only made her angrier. She kept her tone deliberately calm. “What have you been drinking?”
“Whiskey.” He coughed a weak laugh. “Want some?”
“What about water?” she probed.
“Never touch it.” His eyes rolled back and he giggled.
Dagny turned to Frank. “See if he’ll take any water.”
Frank frowned. He clearly knew who this man was. “And if he won’t?”
“Tend to the ones who will.” Dagny turned her back on the liar whom she expected to marry. “If he dies here, we’ll save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the trouble of hanging him.”
Dagny ate her supper by Martin’s bedside. Whenever he stirred, she made him take both cooled water and the garlic mixture. But he slept for increasingly longer periods and remained awake for shorter periods each time.
There was no point in trying to give any of the afflicted passengers food until their diarrhea ceased. Until they were on the mend, only water could help them.
Eleven men and women—one quarter of the adult passengers—were under her care by the end of the second day. She had no idea how many of the crew were affected, and had no time to worry about them.
Martin was right when he chastised her for her concern. She had all she could handle right here.
The smell of the bloody flux was choking as she and Frank struggled to clean up after their charges. While Dagny tried to preserve the dignity of the sick, she yearned for nothing more than a big bucket of water to splash over the mess.
Even so, she couldn’t help but hear the abbey sisters’ voices in her head, demanding that she be Christ to the poor and the ill.
I’m doing my best, Lord.
June 28, 1749
On the third day, they brought her a child.
Dagny cried over the tiny body, draped like a wet towel in her arms. She raised her eyes to the girl’s mother. “How long has she been ill?”
“Four days. But I didn’t know what it was at first,” she replied. “When I heard it was you, I didn’t bring her. I thought—well, I don’t know what I thought.”
Dagny ignored the slight; the dying child in her arms was more important at the moment. “Were you giving her water?”
The mother shook her head. “Broth, mainly.”
That was better than nothing. “Is anyone else in your family sick?”
“No. Not yet.”
Dagny tilted her head toward her nursing station. “Go wash your hands with soap. Then cover your face the way mine is.”
The woman frowned. “Why?”
“Because you are going to care for your own child, and these things seem to keep us from catching the flux,” Dagny explained. “Go, now. She hasn’t much time.”
The mother hurried to obey. Dagny sat her in a corner with a cup of water and instructions to dribble it into her daughter’s mouth.
“Do anything you can to get her to swallow,” Dagny said. “Her skin is already hot and dry. Without water, she’ll die.”
Dagny spun and walked away from the distraught mother, offering a silent prayer for the child. As she did so, she walked past Torvald’s pallet.
“Dagny,” he croaked.
She halted and turned her head slightly in his direction. “What?”
“It wasn’t my fault…”
She looked at him then. “What wasn’t your fault?”
“That it was you…” His eyes were only slits in his pallid face and his jaw hung slack making his words hard to understand. “I had to pick somebody…”
Dagny was incredulous. “If that’s supposed to be a confession of guilt, I’m afraid you’ll need to do better.”
He blew a breath. “I can’t…”
His chest didn’t rise again.
Dagny watched, waiting for the gasp that would extend his life. It never came.
“Frank,” she said, feeling oddly numb.
He was at her side in an instant. He removed his own scarf and covered Torvald’s face. “I’ll let them know.”
Dagny nodded and went to wash her hands.
***
Night came. Dagny sat by Martin’s cot, refusing Frank’s constant urging to sleep in her cabin. In the corner the young mother dozed as she held her child, still living.
Dagny watched Martin breathe, inhaling with him as if her own body’s will could keep his body functioning. She gave him water two hours ago. She would wake him soon if he didn’t stir on his own.
His chest rose, and fell. A pause, then it rose and fell again.
Then nothing.
Dagny leapt to the cot and shook Martin as hard as her exhausted limbs would allow.
“Breathe, Martin!” she cried. “Breathe! Don’t you dare leave me!”
He gasped. His limbs moved without purpose before he went limp again.
No no no—please God, no. Dagny pulled her chair closer, her breaking heart beating itself to death in her chest.
She watched him like a gyr hawk spotting it’s prey.
Martin stopped breathing again.
Dagny gripped his shoulders and shook him. “Martin! Can you hear me? Can you wake up?” she shouted. “You need to keep breathing!”
Another gasp, more twitching of his limbs.
Dagny began to count his breaths—and more importantly, the pauses between them. Whenever she reached five, she shook him. When she, did he inhaled.
Hours passed. Dagny’s body ached, but her soul’s ache went deeper. She kept up a constant dialog with God, forgoing the repetitive pattern of the rosary beads for plain talk. Simply put, she demanded that He spare her husband’s life.
There was no longer any question in her mind whether she loved him. In the short time she had known Martin Hansen, he had proven himself to be of fine character. And Dagny realized this night that when he was returned to health, she would insist that he bed her the way a husband should—and often.
No more fear, no more trepidation. No more barriers between herself and her avowed husband. When he was returned to health.
Not if. When. Do you hear me, God?
She shook him again.
He inhaled.
The night aged. Dagny rested her head on Martin’s hip and her hand on his chest, watching him breathe. The light in the round windows turned gray. Then lavender. Then pink. Dagny shook Martin’s shoulder again.
“Dagny, please stop shaking me.”
She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice. “Martin?” she rasped, sitting up straight and peering into his eyes. “Are you awake?”
“So it would seem,” he said, his eyes closing again. He pulled a deep sigh. “Why do you keep shaking me?”
“So you’ll keep breathing!” she declared.
His eyes popped open. “What?”
“When?” he asked, frowning.
“All—all night,” she said between sobs. “I’ve never been so scared.”
Martin lifted a hand and laid it, hot and heavy, on her shoulder. “It would seem that I owe you my life, Dagny.”
She shook her head and tried to talk past her tears. “No. You saved me twice. I still owe you another life.”
Martin gave a weak laugh.
Dagny used her scarf to wipe her eyes, though her tears still flowed. “How do you feel?”
“Weak as a newborn pup,” he managed. “And hungry as a newborn elephant.”
“No solid food until twenty-four hours after your last expulsion,” she said. “But I can get you some soup.”
Martin nodded. “When can I have something that requires chewing?”
“Supper tonight. I’ll give you bread with your soup.”
“No more of that horrid oil?” he ventured.
“No. I promise.” She stood and poured a cup of the distilled water. “But you have to finish this.”
Martin struggled to get up on his elbows. He let Dagny hold the cup to his lips as he drank it all. He settled back on his pillow as she returned his cup to her station.
“Dagny?”
“Yes?”
Martin’s expression was somber. “What did you think when Captain Gilsen offered to negate our marriage?”
She sat down next to his cot again. She looked at the other passengers, all still sleeping. Frank was curled on a mattress, his soft snores attesting to his level of wakefulness. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted anyone to overhear.
“At first I was confused,” she said softly. “And then I realized he thought you had already deflowered me before the wedding. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes,” Martin grunted.
“And then I wondered if you wanted to be set free. But when I looked into your eyes, I saw that you did not.”