The Lieutenant's Nurse

by Sara Ackerman

  “We need to bait them,” Clark said, though how, he had no idea.

  “What do we bait them with?” asked Hammersmith.

  Ford said, “Any of you ever been to Midway?”

  Heads shook. No one had.

  A light went on in Huckleberry. “I haven’t been there, but when I was at the university, we had to engineer a project using salt water and coral on Midway...” His voice trailed off.

  “And?” Ford said.

  Everyone perched on the edge of their seats, waiting for the answer they knew was brewing. You could have heard a knife slice through the air.

  Huckleberry got up and began pacing, then said, “Fresh water is a premium, so if we have the folks at Midway radio us something about a failure in the water filtration system, the Japs will be on it like flies. Wake will pick it up and relay it to Tokyo.”

  As simple as that, they had a plan.

  * * *

  Twenty-six hours later, Clark was consulting Ford on his latest translations when Hal Dunn stormed over. As of late, his beard looked like it could house a few sparrows, but when you were one of the top navy cryptos, you got away with being a nonconformist. It went with the territory.

  “Dangnabbit, those idiots on Midway, what are they thinking?” Hal fumed, whipping down a yellow notepad covered in chicken scratch.

  “What happened?” Ford asked, raising an eyebrow to Clark.

  Hal stabbed the paper with his ink-stained finger. “This message was sent in plain language! The bastards didn’t even encrypt it.”

  “You know none of us can read your writing. What does it say?” Ford said.

  Hal’s face was purple. “It says, ‘At present time we have only enough water for two weeks. A mishap at the water distillation has left us critically short. Please supply immediately.’ Of course, Wake immediately passed it on to Tokyo.”

  Clark realized that no one had mentioned their plan to Hal, who had been off yesterday. Ford pulled out a chair. “Sit down.”

  “Whoever sent this should be court-martialed,” Hal said.

  By now, everyone in the room had an ear in their direction.

  Ford lowered his voice. “We set this up, buddy. It’s a trap. Tell me word for word the transmission from Wake to Tokyo.”

  Hal looked as though he’d been slapped in the face. “Jesus, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You weren’t here.”

  “It would have been nice to know,” Hal huffed.

  “You know now.”

  From his notepad, Hal read. “Wake says, ‘There appears to be an emergency at AF and that the water distillation broke down. AF asking Pearl to send water quickly.’”

  AF. Midway. Indisputable.

  Ford high-fived Clark. “Nice going, Lieutenant, you may have just won us the war.”

  Clark felt a swell of pride. “It was mostly Huckleberry.”

  “You planted the seed,” Ford said, slapping him hard on the back, enough to knock the wind out of him.

  “Genius,” Hal said.

  It was a moment he would never forget. All those damp, smoky hours poring over translations. Countless spotty nights’ sleep. And the nagging sensation that Pearl Harbor had somehow been his fault. All worth it. They might not have been able to stop the Imperial Japanese Navy at Pearl Harbor, but they damn well would now.

  TALKING STORY

  May 20, 1942

  Eva arrived early to the auditorium. The whole island was now in bloom and fragrant trees lined the courtyard. Sunny plumeria, pink and red hibiscus, and vines of passionflower creeping along fences and attracting half the honeybees in the Western Hemisphere. War was still a sore reality, though the edges had softened some around here. The army and navy had come back swinging and now were hell-bent on throwing every ounce of force at the Imperial Japanese Navy. Still, fear lurked in everyone’s minds.

  It felt surreal to walk into the same lecture hall where she’d heard the first bombs fall five months ago and men had run in wide-eyed and hollering that Pearl Harbor was under attack. Just the thought caused a hitch in her heart and almost brought her to her knees. The drone of engines and taste of smoke in the back of her throat would always be there. Today, the building seemed even larger than it had back then, with enough room for an army. And indeed, the seats were filling up quickly. Sweat formed on the back of her neck. How had she let him talk her into this?

  Eva sat in the front row, fidgeting with her hair and reviewing her notes. Public speaking never had been a strength, but now she would be addressing a room full of doctors. She’d be lucky if she didn’t faint. The army had asked Newcastle, and Newcastle had all but forced her into accepting to speak on the dangers of general anesthesia in patients with severe shock.

  I have faith in you, he had said.

  In the months since Eva came clean with her secret, the two of them had become something resembling a team. Looking back, the other nurses had made him out to be worse than he was. Oh, he had his share of offenses, but the difference between him and Brown was an open mind and a willingness to change. If a nurse knew more than Newcastle, it might pain him to admit it, but given enough proof, he could be swayed. He was willing to listen, an ingredient entirely missing from Brown. In those first days after the attack, Eva had proven to him that in the area of anesthesia, she had a leg up on him. Not from any lack of training on his part, but from different experiences. And what are humans, but a culmination of their own experiences?

  The doors closed and the lights went on. Brandy lay at Eva’s feet looking very official in her newly sewn vest with a red cross stitched across the back. It had taken a petition organized by Grace, but they won Dr. Newcastle over in the end. Every man in the hospital had signed it, some with lipstick, some with blood. Eva reached down and scratched behind Brandy’s ears. Doctors from around the islands, as well as army and navy surgeons on their way to the Pacific Theater, crammed together for the lecture.

  Dr. Newcastle stood up and began his introduction. “Gentlemen, thank you for coming on this beautiful Hawaiian morning. Let me start with saying that it was Hippocrates who wrote, ‘He who would become a surgeon should join an army and follow it.’ For all the chaos and atrocities it brings, war has the potential to advance medicine at an accelerated pace. In peacetime, none of you would ever see the same number of patients in a lifetime as you saw in a week during wartime. In those first few hours after the attack, we took in close to four hundred wounded at Tripler, and the naval hospital saw even more. A crash course in trauma medicine if there ever was one.” That elicited a few chuckles in the audience, though none of this was a laughing matter. “Among the madness, one nurse stood out in particular. Not afraid to challenge me when needed, this woman turned out to be one of our greatest assets both in the operating room and at the bedside of the wounded. We are fortunate to have Miss Evelyn Olson sharing her expertise today on anesthesia and shock. Please give a round of applause.”

  One clap, then another, then a couple more. That was it. Winning over this crowd would be a rough go. But her job was not to win them over, it was to give them critical information to take with them into the jungles and beaches and field hospitals of faraway lands. Just then, the door at the back of the auditorium opened and a tall man dressed in uniform walked in and sat in the last row. His familiar, handsome face gave her the boost of courage that she needed. The butterflies settled a notch.

  You can do this.

  Eva stood at the podium feeling very small. She exhaled and said, “Let me tell you a short story before I begin. I learned the hard way about the lethal combination of sodium thiopental and severe shock, and I’m hoping that by sharing my story, it will prevent needless deaths on and off the battlefield...”

  Murmurs rippled through the audience—some probably having heard of the scandal—when she got to the part of Dr. Brown being asked to leave Hollowcreek Gen
eral. Two months after Ruby’s Christmas letter, Eva had received another letter, this one a full apology from Jed Lemon. Nothing could have been sweeter than having her reputation restored and the knowledge that justice had won out in the end.

  “Due to its depressant effects, sodium thiopental should never be used in patients with chest wounds or in a hypovolemic state...”

  As Eva continued, her voice steadied and she made it a point to make eye contact with her audience and pause long enough for her words to sink in. A man in the front row with bushy eyebrows and suspenders, the two Japanese doctors in the second row, a serious-faced navy man toward the back. They were all rapt. She might be a nurse, she might be a woman, but Lord did she know her facts. And no one could argue with science and firsthand knowledge.

  When her speech finally came to an end, Dr. Newcastle and Clark both stood and clapped. Ten seconds later, the whole room was standing and the sound of applause hummed through Eva. Pride tore at her seams. If only her father could be here to see this. Or Ruby. But she had a feeling there would be more days like this, more opportunities to share what she knew and to save future lives.

  It was just the beginning.

  * * *

  They held hands the whole drive out. By some fluke, Clark had managed to get the rest of the afternoon away from the Dungeon, and he seemed both giddy and preoccupied. Every so often Eva would catch him sneaking a glance at her. The rest of the time he was staring off into space with a smile on his face. Goodness, how she loved him.

  Looking back, life had thrown her a whole wheelbarrowful of coconuts, and she had come out the other side a changed woman, not unscathed, but a stronger, better version of her previous self. Love, war and sticking to your truth would do that to a person.

  The blossoms on every corner made the air heavy with fragrance. Eva admired the green-soaked mountains, the pineapple fields and the lightly rippling sugarcane as they traversed Oahu. In the backseat, Brandy hung half her body out the window. It always worried Eva, but Brandy seemed sure-footed as a goat. On the radio, Bing Crosby belted out “Hawaii Calls,” and Clark sang along.

  “Something’s gotten into you,” she said finally.

  He squeezed her hand. “Today’s a good day, what can I say?”

  She sensed it was more than that, but kept quiet, enjoying the rest of the drive with idle small talk. Instead of turning right at Haleiwa, they went left, toward a beach with an unpronounceable name. “Moh-koo-lay-ee-ah,” Clark repeated a few times slowly.

  “I don’t have the knack for languages that you do,” Eva said.

  “Come on, humor me.”

  Ten minutes down the road, across from Dillingham Airfield, they turned off onto a dirt lane hidden by towering ironwood trees. Had she blinked, Eva would have missed it. A heavy chain blocked the way.

  “Hang on,” Clark said, hopping out.

  Thirty seconds later, he had the lock off and they bounced their way to a powdery beach that stretched down the coast like a white ribbon. There was no sign of life in either direction, only thick coils of barbed wire.

  “I get the feeling we aren’t supposed to be here,” she said.

  He winked. “We’re on official business.” From the back of the jeep, he pulled out a cardboard box and an army blanket. “Pretend this is a picnic basket and a red-and-white-checkered sheet, okay?” he said.

  For the time being, Eva would pretend whatever he wanted. The war could go to hell for all she cared.

  As soon as he spread it out, Brandy trampled sand all over the whole thing, then took off for the water.

  “Aye, aye, Lieutenant.”

  On the blanket, he popped open two Coca-Colas and handed her one. “When I make a promise to show a lady around, I mean it. I apologize for not bringing you out here sooner.”

  Eva laughed. “As if you don’t have a good excuse.”

  Clark held up his Coca-Cola. “Cheers, my utsukushıˉin. To a beautiful future without war and hate and shrapnel.”

  The metal hunk was still lodged near his heart, but Dr. Jensen, a top-notch cardiologist, would be arriving in Honolulu in two weeks’ time and had agreed to assist Dr. Newcastle in removing it. Eva would rest better once that was handled.

  Their bottles clinked. This stolen moment, she would take.

  “Something happened in the Dungeon today, didn’t it?” Eva said.

  He smiled. “I can’t talk about it.”

  His dimpled smile was enough of an answer as he leaned in to kiss her. Eva had all the faith in the world that this time around, the Americans would come out ahead. No one had more heart than these boys. She’d seen it firsthand. The way they carried each other into the hospital, bleeding and damaged, shell-shocked. How some of them never stopped asking after their buddies only seconds away from taking their last breath. So much love. She would put money on them, stake her life on it and then some.

  * * *

  Author’s Note

  While this book is a work of fiction, the passages in between the chapters are real communications, messages, advertisements, headlines and memos, or are written based on real events. Everyone knows about Pearl Harbor, but what I found intriguing as I delved deeper into my research was how many disparate pieces of information, intelligence, personal accounts and stories are relatively unknown to the general public. Pearl Harbor might have seemed like a surprise attack, but was it? There are numerous opinions on the matter, none of which are definitive.

  One tidbit of information that I found particularly interesting and ended up basing part of the book upon was the story of Leslie Grogan, second radio officer aboard the Matson Steamship and Navigation Company’s SS Lurline, and how over several nights he picked up a series of “repeat-back” radio signals from Tokyo that led him to believe a fleet of ships was headed northwest of Honolulu. I began to wonder what happened to his report after it was handed in to a lieutenant commander of the Fourteenth Naval District, as well as what was in the ship’s logs, which were confiscated by a USN boarding party upon arrival of the Lurline back in San Francisco. Grogan had written his own “Record for Posterity,” which later went missing from the naval archives in San Bruno. This made me curious and became the jumping-off point for my story, and a case of what-if concocted purely by my own imagination.

  Other real-life players that inspired characters in my book include Dr. John Moorhead, an emergency medicine surgeon from New York who traveled to Hawaii to give a series of lectures at Queen’s Hospital on traumatic injury. His lecture on the morning of December 7 was interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and Dr. Moorhead and fellow doctors ended up rushing to Tripler to take part in the massive job of tending the wounded. Commander Joe Rochefort, who is best known for his cryptanalysis and intelligence work at Station HYPO that enabled the victory at Midway, also played a less known but equally important role at Pearl Harbor. And my grandmother Helen Iverson Larsgaard, who was not a nurse, but sailed to Hawaii aboard the Lurline to meet my grandfather Herman, whom she hardly knew at the time. On the journey, she fell for a navy officer, but to her dismay my grandfather was waiting on the dock and dropped down on his knee and proposed to her as soon as she disembarked. My grandmother said yes, but she never forgot about that officer and talked about him throughout the years, and I’ve often wished I knew his name and could go back in time and find out more.

  As one does in a work of fiction, I have taken liberties with historical record to suit the story. I owe much to the following works for offering up so much information. I could not have written this story without them and encourage anyone who would like a better understanding of Pearl Harbor to read them:

  Borch, Fred, and Daniel Martinez. Kimmel, Short, and Pearl Harbor: The Final Report Revealed. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2004.

  Carlson, Elliot. Joe Rochefort’s War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway. Reprint edition.
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2011.

  Fessler, Diane Burke. No Time for Fear. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1996.

  Helling, Thomas. Desperate Surgery in the Pacific War: Doctors and Damage Control for American Wounded, 1941–1945. Jefferson: McFarland, 2017.

  Krantz, Lynn Blocker, Nick Krantz, and Thiele Fobian. To Honolulu in Five Days: Cruising Aboard Matson’s SS Lurline. Berkley: Ten Speed Press, 2001.

  Nelson, Craig. Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness. New York: Scribner, 2016.

  Villa, Brian, and Timothy Wilford, “Warning at Pearl Harbor: Leslie Grogan and the Tracking of the Kido Butai,” Northern Mariner, Volume XI. Ottawa: The Canadian Nautical Research Society, 2001.

  Acknowledgments

  I am forever grateful to the following people for helping to bring The Lieutenant’s Nurse to life. Elaine Spencer, my wonderful agent, editor and champion. Without Elaine, none of this would be possible. Margot Mallinson, my editor, who has an incredible knack for zeroing in on brilliant solutions and is always there to answer my thousands of questions. She does such an amazing job of steering the whole ship. Also, to Meredith Barnes, Mary Sheldon and all the wonderful people at MIRA who believe in my books. As always, to my mother, Diane McFaull, and my second mother, Marilyn Carlsmith, who help shine a light on what it was like to be kids in Hawaii during the war as well as always being there for me. And last but not least, for my boyfriend, Todd Clark, the best man in the world.

  Love and aloha to you all,

  Sara

  The

  Lieutenant’s

  Nurse