“Now my wife, in her fragile state will need lots of your expertise. You came to my attention due to the expedition of your studies and the why. I think you will be perfect for my wife if what I read is true. She needs a companion and someone of her own sex to confide in. She’s delicate you know.”
Cass hadn’t felt like Mrs. Anderson was ‘delicate’ the way she took charge, not at all. “But sir, wouldn’t my skills be better served at the hospital attending the wounded?”
He nodded. “Yes that will be attended to after you take care of my wife. It is important to me, it is important to us, that nothing happens to this baby.”
“Would you like me to work at the hospital until the baby is born sir?” Cass was still a little confused by it all. The heat was affecting her nerves she was sure of it, it was cooler here in the house though than it had been outside, much cooler, unnaturally cooler.
“No, no, you won’t have time for that,” he said waving it off as unimportant. “You will have to attend my wife full time. As I said she is fragile, she needs constant attention and I am just a man,” he opened his hands as though he were helpless. “I need to know she is taken care of while I’m working, it’s important work I do here directing the hospital and its staff.”
“Are you a doctor sir?” she asked wondering if he knew something she didn’t about his wife.
“No, my doctorate is in English Literature,” he informed her. “However, I have managed various interests for years so my administrative duties do not tax me too much.”
Cass was flabbergasted; she had assumed that the doctor that ran a hospital, even a Lieutenant Colonel Doctor would be a medical doctor.
“You will notice that my home is cooler than outside, in fact we are very fortunate to have a new prototype of an air conditioning unit installed here in my home. My wife insisted when I was assigned out here. I couldn’t of course deny her and I didn’t want our long separation so I made certain provisions to have these luxuries brought in.” He waved to the décor and Cass nodded to show she was listening. He went on to explain how difficult it had been to have these things shipped out to him in the last four months, how his wife had worried that this pregnancy, their third, would also end in heartbreak. It was only his promises that she wouldn’t be discomfited that she had agreed to come along with him.
“Sir, this is a war zone, isn’t it dangerous to have…” Cass began only to be cut off.
“We are at the end of a long archipelago of islands that the Americans have taken. The Australians back us up. This is a perfect place for a hospital and safe as any American city I assure you. Our men and boys will make sure you ladies are safe and you in turn will take care of my wife as you would your own m…,” he changed his mind about what he was going to say. “Your own sister!” he finished triumphantly.
“But sir, while we wait for your wife to deliver wouldn’t it be a better use of my nursing skills to…” she tried again.
“No!” he thundered now angry at her pig-headedness. “My wife’s condition is paramount. I need a son and by Jove it is your job to ensure he is born healthy and happy! Do you understand me Lieutenant?” he glared angrily at Cass who nodded mildly.
“Yes sir,” she sounded meek but inside she was just as furiously angry.
“Furthermore, your free time is your own but I suggest you avoid most of those people at the hospital. There is a decided lack of morals apparently among the staff and I’ve had to censure several of them for their behavior. I’m sure they get it from the islanders, those heathens. I don’t want you caught up in that. Do you understand me?”
“Yes sir,” she answered, again meek and mild to calm him.
“I don’t want you doing anything else but attending my wife and her pregnancy. That is your job and nothing else.”
Cass nodded as she looked him directly in the eye. She had the distinct impression the Colonel was not all ‘there.’ His power as a Lieutenant Colonel had obviously gone to his head and as the moral police for this island it must keep him busy.
“You’re dismissed,” he told her sternly and then smiled as though they had just had tea and cookies.
Cass took her leave and was never so glad to get out of a commanding officer’s room. She didn’t even like going through the master bedroom to the hallway and back to her room. If she had a choice she would leave this house and perhaps the island and get far, far away, from this, whatever this was. She found Mrs. Anderson going through her things hanging up her clothes.
“What a lovely gown, where did you get it?” she asked as she look through the plastic that covered it and the petticoat.
“I purchased it in Hawaii for a dance,” she informed her. She looked around; her things had been well and truly ‘rifled.”
“I hope you don’t mind, I know unpacking can be such a chore and I thought I would help you,” Mrs. Anderson said gaily.
Cass nodded stiffly and her eyes spotted the pictures she kept with her. She had insisted that Stephanie and the children have pictures taken so she could take them with her. Matching ones, blown up were hanging in the living room of the farm house. She’d had one of herself taken at the same time for Stephanie who had insisted and cried about it the night it was taken. She’d been worried that Cass wouldn’t come back to her and this would be the only way she would remember her. Cass had sent her the ‘official’ portrait of her in her dress uniform that the Army took of her. Already Stephanie wrote that she looked ‘different.’
“Is that your family? Your sister?” Mrs. Anderson had noted where her eyes had gone.
Cass nodded, she wanted to correct her and say ‘my wife,’ but caught herself in time. She couldn’t say her ‘housekeeper,’ that not only sounded pretentious but if Annette could see through it others could too. “It’s my best friend Stephanie and her children. They live on my farm with me and help me,” she thought that was a good explanation and no one would be any wiser about it.
“Oh that’s sweet, she keeps house for you and keeps you company?”
Cass nodded as she looked again at the pictures and a feeling of homesickness came over her. She missed them all dearly.
“We have a housekeeper here but she only comes once a day and I have to watch her like a hawk. She’s an islander and they aren’t to be trusted you know,” she confided.
Cass looked up, the islanders she had met in Hawaii were the best people she had found them happy, generous, and kind. She had assumed the ones here would be similar.
“Can’t trust any of them,” she repeated lowering her voice conspiratorially. “They don’t understand our sense of property and they steal given the chance so I have to follow her around to make sure she is doing the work and doesn’t take anything.”
Cass was appalled, not only was she to be the caretaker for this selfish woman but she was prejudiced against the natives. It was not going to be a good situation. To change the uncomfortable conversation she asked, “How far along are you?”
“Oh, we don’t need to talk about that,” she dismissed.
“But Mrs. Anderson…” Cass began.
“Please, call me Trish and I shall call you Cassandra.”
“Cass,” she corrected automatically. “I’m here to take care of you, please let me do so.”
“I’m fine,” she assured her.
Cass didn’t like what she was hearing. “Mrs. Anderson,” she began but at the look she received she tried again. “Trish, I have to examine you so I can know how far along you are and how you and the baby are doing.”
“The Colonel,” she made it sound like she was saying ‘His Highness.’ “Said you used to be a midwife doctor?”
Cass nodded not correcting her that she was merely a nurse now.
“That’s good, then you know how women are at times like this, moody and all that. You need to settle in, get your feet on the ground before you examine me. Why you don’t even have a doctor’s bag!” she said triumphantly.
Cass’s eyes narrowed
but the woman was right, she had no instruments to examine her much less anyone. She would correct that tomorrow for despite the Colonel’s warnings she was going up to the hospital.
“Let’s have a martini and relax in the kitchen, that’s the coolest room in the house.”
“You are drinking?” Cass asked her.
“Of course, don’t you?” Trish asked her.
“How often do you drink Mrs…Trish?”
“Oh I have one during the day to relax me and a couple before dinner with the Colonel, maybe one before bedtime.”
“That is going to have stop,” Cass informed her.
Trish stood stock still. “Completely?” she asked astounded.
Cass nodded. “Yes, completely.”
“But why?” she whined.
“Alcohol has shown to be harmful to babies; you don’t want to harm your baby do you?”
For a moment it looked like Trish wanted to say yes but she sullenly shook her head.
“You can have a glass of wine with your dinner but no more than that.”
“Wine? I don’t like wine!” Trish said stamping a foot.
Cass wasn’t surprised; her impression of spoiled brats was confirmed with that foot stomping.
It was the first of many battles between the two of them. Trish had thought since Cass ‘worked’ for her and was white that she was something like a live in maid. As she didn’t trust the native woman who house kept for her she tried to have Cass do it. Cass refused. She explained to Trish that the Colonel had been very explicit about what her duties entailed. It had led to Cass being admonished by the Colonel for upsetting Mrs. Anderson. Cass had explained about the alcohol and much to Trish’s chagrin the Colonel had agreed with Cass.
Trish hadn’t liked it when Cass hiked through the village and went to the hospital to seek out her friends and the supplies she needed. Pamela and Annette were horrified to find out how wasted Cass’s skills were being. They too had a poor opinion of the Colonel and to find out Cass was just there to deliver the heir apparent was such a waste. They helped her get the supplies that she would need and found a bag, not black or like a medical bag but it had a big red cross on it to hold her things for the delivery.
Cass examined a reluctant Trish a few days later after she avoided her for that long but only after she insisted and got the Colonel involved. The Colonel stood outside the door. Cass was very thorough poking and prodding, asking pertinent questions listening to her patient’s heartbeat, listening for the baby’s, checking her blood pressure. She was horrified to find that all Trish did all day was sit around and eat, why she wasn’t huge was a surprise but she was in her fifth month if a bit small and Cass immediately stated that she must exercise or this would be a difficult birth for her. She suggested that Trish and the Colonel take evening walks through the village around the hospital and its grounds, and back. The Colonel thought this a delightful idea and Trish sulked.
Cass found it easy to manipulate the two spoiled adults she had been brought across the globe to attend. If Trish didn’t want to do something that Cass told her to she worded it carefully to the Colonel so that he would insist.
“This wouldn’t have happened if I could have found some slippery Elm in that godforsaken Hawaii,” Trish spat at her as she began to balloon up in her sixth month.
Cass stopped where she was rolling bandages for her friends at the hospital under the guise of preparing the room for the baby. She knew what slippery Elm was used for. It was a way to make a woman lose her baby. She questioned in her own mind how Trish had lost her last two babies. She was probably the least maternal woman she had ever met. She was absolutely selfish, totally self-absorbed, and it was obvious that she didn’t want this child.
Cass met up with Pam and Annette whenever their duties would permit. Patients came in in waves and they were busy by varying degrees. Walking with them and chatting, catching up, kept Cass in the loop about the goings on in the hospital much less the world. Talking with Trish and the Colonel she found them woefully ignorant about anything outside their own needs and desires.
“Pamela has found a new beau since she had to leave the one behind,” Annette teased. The men were always hitting on them since there was a distinct lack of white females on the islands. The other nurses complained that even if they weren’t married they weren’t here for the men to hit on. The Army was very strict about their nurses not being married. The men were like boys and had to try. The doctor’s weren’t much better. The wounded took up a lot of their time and Cass’s friends as well as the other nurses she met through them found the whole situation sad. Some of these boys and men would never make it back alive, their infections, their horrors were just too much for a human body to survive. Harmless flirtation hurt no one.
“And how about you Missy,” Pamela teased back, the men, especially a few of the doctors had tried valiantly but Annette had shot them all down.
Annette smiled mysteriously but didn’t answer. She had let people think it was because her fiancée had died at Pearl Harbor. She didn’t need another beau.
“How’s it going at psycho central?” she asked Cass in the second month they were on the island, they were taking a rare walk together, Pamela off with one of her new beaus.
Cass laughed through her nose, the snort catching her unawares. They both ended up laughing at it as well as the irreverence that Annette was showing their commanding officer. They all thought him too eccentric to actually run the hospital. If it weren’t for a competent staff and good people it would be bad, very bad for them all. But apparently someone thought Lieutenant Colonel Anderson was doing a good job and he hadn’t been replaced and had been allowed his perks, including furniture, and a midwife for his wife’s exclusive use. “Oh it isn’t so bad; Trish decided the house wasn’t cold enough and that this heat was going to ruin her skin. As a result I have to wear a sweater when I’m in the house.”
“Are you kidding? They should have something like that for the hospital, those poor boys,” Annette stated indignantly.
“It would never occur to them that the men should come first,” Cass told her but Annette understood. She hated that Cass was an indentured servant, bored out of her mind except for the medical books that Pamela and Annette lent her.
“Did your letter finally get sent?” Annette asked concerned. Cass had written to Stephanie and found that her mail was gone through by a ‘concerned’ Trish who apparently worried that Cass would complain to someone. It had been found by Cass by accident in the bathroom trash bin and when confronted with the evidence Trish at first had confessed no knowledge of it and later fessed up when she worried that Cass was angry with her. After all, Cass was now her ‘best friend.’
“Yes, Pamela took care of it for me; she made sure it got in the mail bag as it headed to the jet.”
Annette shook her head. Cass would be a prisoner if that woman had her way.
“You know what she told me the other day?”
Annette stopped and looked around to make sure they weren’t being over heard, she knew Cass didn’t gossip or carry tales but she did need to vent. She waited for Cass to continue.
“She thought that if she jumped up and down really fast after sex that the sperm would get confused and she wouldn’t get pregnant.”
Annette couldn’t stop the snort that came out in her laughter and she didn’t even try. They shared a belly laugh that had both of them in tears over the woman’s ignorance. “How did she manage that with the Colonel in the room, he must have thought she was crazy?”
“She would go into the bathroom afterwards and ‘clean’ herself up. Then she would jump up and down, once she hit the toilet which resulted in a trip to the hospital for stitches in Honolulu.”
Their laughter was good for the soul but they felt bad that they so disrespected their commanding officer and his wife. The two of them enjoyed each other’s company so much that Cass wasn’t surprised the night that Annette tried to kiss her. For a moment she r
esponded, pulling Annette close but as their tongues began to touch, enticingly together, Cass nearly groaned as she pulled back.
“No Annette, I can’t, you know I can’t.” She held up her hand as she took a step back. They were in the shade of some giant palms and no one could see them.
“I’m sorry Cass, it was an impulse, it won’t happen again.”
“You know if I didn’t have Stephanie…” Cass began and then stopped herself. She wouldn’t be unfaithful to Stephanie in thought, word, or deed. She loved her. It was tempting though, being so far away to give in. Stephanie would never know but Cass would and she wouldn’t dishonor Stephanie or herself by being unfaithful.
“I’m sorry Cass,” Annette repeated and began to turn away.
“I don’t want to lose your friendship,” Cass grabbed her arm to keep her from going.
Annette put her hand on Cass’s and tried to see her face in the darkness. “You won’t, it’s just that I’ve been so lonely for so long.”
Cass could understand that. Nights in her lonely bed all she thought of was home and Stephanie. She had woken up many times from making love to her in her dreams, the bed had been wet from her endeavors, touching herself wasn’t as good as when Stephanie had but at least it was a release. She craved the feel of her against her again. She didn’t dare put it in the letters since she knew they could be read, not only by her commander, his wife, but by the Army sensors. If anyone knew she was a lesbian her Army career would be immediately over. She wished she could somehow let Stephanie know beyond the mundane how much she loved her.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stephanie was having a similar problem. As the months wore on her young body craved release. She hadn’t learned to do it herself. In the time she was with Cass it hadn’t been necessary to learn. She was angry by turns for Cass’s absence, not only sexually but physically. She was angry at everyone but especially Cal for Cass not being there.
Cal was trying. His injury was healing but it was taking a long time. The crutches were well worn as he tried to do things on the farm to please Stephanie, for Cass’s sake. He wished he could leave though; the woman was a termagant and made his life a living hell. His friend Running Bow came looking for him to see why he didn’t return to the woods but didn’t understand why he didn’t saddle up the mules and leave. It was taking too long for his friend to heal here in the white man’s world. He would heal better in the deep woods. Cal tried to do too much but that backfired on him when he ripped tendons and set him back by weeks, perhaps months in healing time. Stephanie was not happy with that, she felt he was a burden and if he had just ‘been a man,’ and gone to serve in the war that Cass would be home and they would all be happier.
The Journey Home Page 27
