~~~
The new strain of influenza arrived mid-September. At the same time, to the east and southeast of their station, they heard that the combined Allied and American armies were staging their troops for what would, some said, prove to be the bloodiest, most difficult offensive of the war.
Matron Alistair insisted that Tabitha head the team receiving new casualties so that preventive and quarantine procedures were strictly enforced. Tabitha had never worked so hard in her life. There was no respite. Convoys carrying the wounded arrived day and night without advance notice.
The saving grace of a clearing station was that it often had no patients in camp when the next batch arrived, meaning that if new patients brought influenza with them, they could not infect patients already in the wards.
Still, the contagion found them.
“This man!” Tabitha shouted through her mask. “He is feverish and coughing.” She pointed to a sister, an aide, and two orderlies. “The four of you will take him to quarantine. You are now assigned to the quarantine ward. You know the quarantine rules.
“The rest of you—” Tabitha turned aside and dipped her rubber gloves in a bucket of water liberally dosed with carbolic acid.
The staff receiving the casualties knew what Tabitha’s orders signaled. They followed suit, rinsing their hands in the same bucket, and awaited her directions.
“Every patient who came off these trucks must be more carefully evaluated,” Tabitha ordered. “If they show any symptoms at all, have them moved to quarantine immediately.”
The remainder of the casualties and those already unloaded were reexamined. Three patients were sent to quarantine. Tabitha assigned another VAD to the ward.
“We have influenza,” she informed Matron later, “and I have done what we can. Now we must be vigilant.”
She was trembling as she made her report. By all accounts, the virulence of the second wave of influenza would exceed anything they had seen or dealt with. Its arrival in camp evoked the first real fear she had tasted since arriving in France.
“Thank you, Nurse Hale,” Matron replied.
But Tabitha saw a shadow cross her face as she spoke.
That evening before she fell into an exhausted sleep, Tabitha searched her small bag. She exhaled in relief when she found what she was looking for: The corner puzzle piece folded in her handkerchief.
She made herself open the hanky and stare at the piece. As before, the sight of the corner piece called up that same still, small voice.
I call some to be the frame for the work, to make the vision plain. Those whom I call to frame the work are vital to my plans, the voice spoke. They lead so that others may follow.
“Things never come out quite how we expect them to, do they, Lord? I confess to harboring a bit of grandeur in my heart, of thinking I would accomplish great things for you.”
Her laugh was rough. Wry. “I know a little better now, though. Your purposes are far higher than ours—and all the glory belongs to you.”
Turning the piece over in her hand, she prayed, “Lord, you have called me here to lead through the very great danger of this plague. So be it. I . . . I consecrate my life to you anew. Though war surrounds us and disease stalks us, I choose to trust you. Help me to lead unafraid, to offer my service as worship to you alone. Even unto death, Lord, I give you my life.”
She folded the piece back into her hanky and tucked the hanky into the deep pocket of the apron she would wear on the morrow.
“You will remind me why I am here,” she whispered.
~~~
“We must close this station entirely until the contagion is under control,” Matron Alistair insisted, “or we run the risk of every wounded man sent here contracting and dying from this disease!”
The major sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I quite agree, especially as our armies are engaged in the new offensive. I will apprise our command of the situation.”
Every able-bodied man or woman in camp was pressed into nursing the ill. Tabitha policed their preventive procedures and corrected sloppy practices with stern rebukes.
“Who will nurse you if you fall ill, Dunstead?” she chastised one careless VAD. “You cannot, even one time, put your contaminated hands to your face!”
Dunstead did fall ill. Soon after, two of her roommates came down with fever. Then one of the nursing sisters collapsed and was put to bed. Four more joined her. Followed by the cook and several orderlies.
Faced with fewer nurses and more patients, Matron Alistair joined her staff in the wards. “We are in this alone and must all persevere!” she exhorted those about her.
“We may be the only ones left on our feet soon,” Tabitha murmured. Her mind and heart were numb from the suffering around her. She no longer retired to her cot to sleep; she snatched minutes or an hour sitting in a chair in the wards when she could be spared.
She frequently touched her apron, feeling for the outline of the small, precious object tucked within the pocket.
Even unto death, Lord, I give you my life.
The new strain was as lethal as the reports had indicated it was. Their patients’ fevers rose. They coughed, sneezed, and complained of unbearable headaches, sore throats, and aching limbs. Some vomited; others suffered nosebleeds.
A week passed by. Two weeks.
And then, as the infected appeared to be recovering, many of them relapsed. Fevers soared and could not be brought down. Lungs filled with fluids and hemorrhaged.
And the deaths began.
Dunstead, the VAD Tabitha had chastised for her carelessness, died the following day. She was followed by one out of every three who contracted the influenza. The progression of the influenza and its march toward death was brutal. Merciless.
To the station’s east and south, British, French, Belgian, and American soldiers were engaged in what was now termed the Battle of Argonne Forest, the tipping point of the war. For miles around the station the fighting thundered, but the quarantine held, and no wounded arrived at their camp.
The calendar read October 23. More than a month had passed before the medical staff declared that the influenza had run its course. Four recovering patients remained in the wards. When those patients were judged to no longer be contagious, the camp’s quarantine would be lifted.
When that decision was made, the flow of wounded from the raging Grand Offensive would resume.
The news the major reported to the staff that day was of victory after victory for the Allied Forces and American troops. The death toll was terrible, but it was victory, hard-won victory—not defeat, not stalemate.
“My counterparts at Headquarters tell me the Germans are pulling back and considering terms of surrender.”
“Can it be true?” one of the sisters asked in wonder. “All these years . . .”
“They believe it is so,” the major replied. “They tell me it will soon be over.”
Days later, the major announced new orders: “Our station is to be upgraded to a field hospital and will receive those leaving the battlefield for good. We will process the healthy and send them on, but we will also have surgical staff to care for the wounded more adequately before they are moved.”
Tabitha heard the news but could scarcely care. Yes, only four recovering influenza patients remained in the wards, but the cost of saving them had been far too high.
She turned from the major’s briefing and stumbled from the tent. Whipping her apron from her thin, exhausted body, she threw it aside and ran from the camp.
When she reached the woods, she kept running. She kept moving, tripping and stumbling, until she fell upon a dim, solitary place to weep alone.
O Lord! My heart is broken to pieces. Broken! I cannot bear any more. I would rather you had taken me, Lord, than to leave me alone to bear these losses.
Forty-seven wounded soldiers in their care had perished from the Spanish influenza.
Five VADs had died nursing them.
Three nursing si
sters.
Two orderlies.
The camp’s cook.
And Matron Alistair.
~~~
Army trucks loaded with more tents and equipment arrived. They brought fresh personnel: More doctors. More nurses. More support staff. A new matron. Reinforcement troops began to overhaul the clearing station to bring it up to a working hospital in the field.
Tabitha plodded on weary feet toward the dispensary when a familiar voice called to her.
“Nurse Hale! Nurse Hale!”
Tabitha stopped and held her hand over her eyes against the bright morning light.
The woman who had shouted raced across the grounds and came to a stop in front of Tabitha.
“Cor! You are a blessed sight t’ m’ eyes, Nurse Hale.”
“Darby? Darby! You are here?”
“Aye. Bin sent t’ help out, me an’ some of our best.” Ellen Darby was rosy-cheeked and resplendent in clean uniform, cloak, and hat. She pointed with her chin toward the five VADs behind her. All of them, Darby included, appeared healthy and rested.
Darby and her volunteers studied Tabitha; she, in turn, wondered how she must look to them: Her hair, while neatly pinned, had not been washed in a week; her relatively clean uniform was stained and worn beyond repair. And she had missed many meals and far too many hours of sleep.
“We shall be glad of your help, Darby,” Tabitha whispered. “It has been . . . hard going, particularly this last month. We lost many to the influenza. So many. Sister Alistair . . .”
Darby’s brows drew together in stark denial. “Wot? No!”
Tabitha shook her head and stared into the distance, blinking against tears. “She is gone, Darby, and I am too grieved to speak of it yet.
“Let me . . .” She looked back and took a deep breath. “Let me be happy just to see you. To welcome you and your VADs. To feel that hope is alive here again.”
She raised her chin and inspected Darby’s volunteers more carefully: The women were still, orderly, full of quiet strength.
“Your aides are nicely turned out, Darby.” Tabitha smiled a little. “You have done well. I knew you would.”
“’Cause o’ you, Nurse Hale,” Darby insisted. “’Cause ye gave me th’ courage t’ be somethin’ more’n I were.”
Darby’s broad, homegrown Northumberland accent grew broader still and tears stood in her eyes. She leaned toward Tabitha.
“Yer near a legend back o’ Colchester, Nurse Hale. Yer an’ yer band o’ VADs and Sister Alistair and all yer done t’ quash th’ influenzer. Legend! And we’re that proud o’ ye. We are.”
Tabitha lifted her hand and cupped Darby’s cheek, surprising them both. “Oh, my dear, dear Ellen. Our lives belong to the Savior who redeemed us. To him be all the glory,” she whispered.
Darby covered Tabitha’s hand with her own and pressed it; tears rolled off her cheek to drip on their joined fingers.
She sniffed and whispered, “Aye. T’ God be all th’ glory.”
~~**~~
Chapter 27
November 11, 1918
The armistice was signed. The war was over.
Newcomers in camp celebrated. Tabitha and her fellow nurses looked at each other and smiled, but their smiles were heavyhearted. The war was over, but the damage was not. All around them lay the broken bodies of soldiers, many whom would return to their families minus arms or legs. So many more would not return home at all.
The flu had taken its heavy toll, too. Of the station’s surgical and nursing staff when Tabitha and Sister Alistair arrived, little more than half had survived and were still serving in the hospital.
Tabitha could not join in the relief and celebration. She was too numb and too drained to rejoice.
We still have so much work to do, Lord, she prayed. Please help me to remain strong for those who rely so heavily upon my care.
Then she shrugged. But I am grateful, Lord, that no more young boys will be thrown to the cannons and then brought here, wounded and bleeding. Or dead.
She gazed down the long lines of occupied cots and tried to imagine the numbers of them lessening, the flow of the wounded decreasing until no more came.
Her thoughts returned, as they often did, to Mason. I am grateful, O God, that he will never be counted among those who are suffering as these men are suffering. I thank you that I am assured of where he is—that he is free from the heavy cords of this life.
Tabitha touched her apron pocket, but it was empty. At some point while the plague ravaged the camp, her hanky had fallen out. She must not have pinned it well, and now the corner puzzle piece—that visible reminder of the word God had spoken to her—was gone. Its loss stung her heart, but she surrendered even this small grief to God.
It is all right, Lord, she prayed. Your purposes are burned into my heart.
“Nurse Hale!” A doctor called for her.
Tabitha pointed her weighted feet toward his voice and willed them to trudge forward. As she stumbled toward the doctor’s voice, Tabitha recalled the letter she had just received from Claire.
Dearest Tabitha,
The influenza arrived in Boulder in late September. It descended with such virulence upon the military academy at the university that newspapers posted a plea to graduates of the medical and nursing schools: Come back to Boulder and help nurse the sick! Of course, I had to answer the call—how could I not?
I hope you will not be too severe on me. I know my constitution is weak, but I promise I am taking every precaution. They call this influenza a pandemic, a worldwide epidemic, but I would wager you already knew that.
I understand now, at least a little, the horrors you have been through. No one could know how it is without seeing it. Hundreds of young men from the Student Army Training Corps sickened from the influenza. We have lost a few of that number but hold out hope for most of them to recover. We do, however, have a long journey ahead before they are safe.
Who do you think I met while I was nursing in the wards? You must remember your classmate, Cathy Worth, from school. She is a doctor now. I did not recognize her at first, as we all wear masks. When I realized who she was, I spoke to her.
She asked me to pass her regards to you. Of course I told her you had volunteered with the British Nursing Service four years ago now, and that you were nursing the wounded in France.
Well! She expressed such pride in you. “I always knew Nurse Hale would be a credit and an honor to us all,” she said. Wasn’t that wonderful of her?
I, too, am so proud of you, Tabitha. When you come home, perhaps we can do something great for God together. I am praying on it.
It was Claire’s closing line that occupied Tabitha’s thoughts: Something great for God together.
Within a week of the armistice, soldiers released from German prisons began making their way into France. A steady stream of men came, directed to the hospital by the troops tasked with repatriating them. The soldiers arrived by truck. By wagon. On foot.
The French prisoners of war arrived first. Another week went by before British and American prisoners of war trickled into the hospital.
The soldiers were malnourished. They suffered from all the ailments that run rampant where starving, mistreated bodies are packed together in crowded, unsanitary conditions: rickets, lice, fleas, worms, skin eruptions, intestinal disorders, respiratory infections, and festering wounds.
The doctors and the new head nurse, Matron Merriman, ordered strict protocols be instituted to prevent the spread of disease-carrying pests—or another outbreak of the influenza.
Once more the hospital was separated into two sections separated by a large parade ground. One side was for patients who showed symptoms or were suspected of carrying influenza or other infectious diseases, the other side for returning prisoners needing surgical or other nursing care.
Returning prisoners of war who were not in need of urgent care were routed directly to the showers. Orderlies relieved the men of their vermin-ridden clothes and p
iled the rags into wheelbarrows. The men were then herded into the showers where other orderlies helped the weak arrivals to scrub thoroughly with strong disinfectant soap. Two orderlies at the end of the shower administered delousing powders to rid the men of lice and fleas. After delousing, the men received clean clothes.
Gloved and masked women volunteers from surrounding villages collected the soiled garments and wheeled the filled barrows to open-air laundry vats. So filthy was the never-ending flow of laundry, that the many vats of boiling water and lye soap were emptied, scrubbed clean with harsh chemicals, and refilled several times daily.
Once the arrivals were showered and dressed in clean clothing, they lined up for medical exams. The physically depleted men sank down upon the ground where other volunteers fed them small, soft meals as their stomachs were not ready for heavy foods.
Tabitha and her VAD assistant, MacTavish, were assigned to Dr. Clemente as he examined new arrivals and made determinations for treatment. A new British volunteer, a young girl named Margot, took patients’ names and set up their charts as the doctor made his examinations.
Tabitha assisted the doctor in his examinations. Afterward, she and MacTavish administered medications, cleaned and bandaged wounds, and listened. As long as they could, they listened to the men talk.
Most of their patients had not seen a woman since before they had been captured. Some rambled on about lost comrades or sweethearts waiting at home. All expressed wonder that the war was really and truly over, that they would, in short order, be shipped back to their families.
Once the returning soldiers were fit enough to answer questions, the military staff debriefed them. The officers in charge of the debriefings made a record of each man’s account, his sworn testimony of the care he received while in enemy hands.
Lieutenant Smythe blew out a frustrated breath as he talked with Tabitha during a moment of rest. They stood between graying buildings, sheltering from a chilling wind. “They are reluctant to complain about their treatment,” the Lieutenant grumbled, “even those who were horribly abused.”
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