There were very few times in my life when I was reminded that I was poor, and even fewer that I cared. But for this occasion wouldn’t it have been wonderful to send everyone tickets to come to Montreal? What a fine time I would have had showing them the city.
I was graduating six months earlier than originally planned. The ambitious program combining nursing with military training, casualty evacuation, army discipline, all that, had not been feasible. So the military part was postponed, to allow us to become nurses. After graduation we would report to Ottawa to receive a concentrated preparation for battlefield conditions.
The year and a half had passed, one day so like another. Routine melded it together. The faces changed, the names changed, but the cot numbers didn’t. The work gradually became more specialized, more intensive, and the responsibility had grown, but it wasn’t that different from my first days. Now graduation was only a month away. After that I had no idea what my life would be.
Mandy and I had long conversations on the subject. We agreed that we wanted a posting overseas. After our strenuous apprenticeship we thought it should pay off with actual combat service. Mandy was keen for the Pacific theater. She wanted to see coral sands and palm trees, and experience warmth in winter. It seemed a likely prospect, as the Americans were retaking island after island. But the European front was seeing some of the most hard fought battles of the war. One thing Mandy and I were determined on, we would stick together.
I had sealed up my letter when Mandy came in breathless and flustered. “I just heard, Kathy. They’ve apprehended someone. But it’s all right,” she hastened to assure me, “the girls say he’s an outsider.”
“You mean there really is someone?” I’d convinced myself that Boycroft had tossed that out as a cover for letting things drop. Apparently I had misjudged the situation, and he had no intention of letting it drop.
“Outsider or not,” I said severely to Mandy, “we can’t let some innocent person—”
“It won’t come to that. He’s the wrong man. They’ll discover that and let him go.”
“Maybe,” I said, but I knew from Papa Mike that the law could stumble as badly as the rest of us.
“Anyway,” Mandy concluded, “Boycroft wants us in his office.”
“What, again?”
“Trisha and Ruth too. And maybe some others.”
Trisha and Ruth were already there, looking scared and guilty. In real life, I thought, people play their roles backward. The more innocent you are, the guiltier you look.
“Now then,” Boycroft began, “it’s been brought to my attention that you four were all on duty at one time or another during the tenure of Charlie Smith.” He was observing us closely.
Each in turn denied she knew any Charles or Charlie Smith.
“What about you, Kathy?”
“Charlie Smith? I don’t know any Charlie Smith either, sir.”
“I thought you might. He’s an aboriginal. Drives one of the trucks for the army vehicle pool.”
“Oh,” I said, breaking in on him, “that Charlie Smith. Yes, I know him. Surely he’s not under suspicion?”
Boycroft tapped the surface of the desk with his pen. “You know what a private’s pay is. He had opportunity and motive.”
“And he’s Indian,” I finished for him.
“Now see here,” he said, suddenly flustered, but the next moment regained his composure. “That has nothing to do with it.”
“Yes, sir.” I saluted. The other girls were staring at me. “I’m glad to hear you say so, sir.”
This was the point at which Mandy would speak up. She would say something like, “It’s Robert Whitaker II you want.”
She didn’t.
She didn’t say anything.
Boycroft dismissed us.
Mandy joined the other girls, forming a small knot in the hall. I ran past them to our room and got the wolf tail from the back of my closet.
“He doesn’t have the right kind of name,” I whispered into the fur. “The one they call him by, Charlie Smith, won’t stand up in court, it won’t stand up against Robert Harley Whitaker II. They need to find a guilty party, close the case, get it off the books. A poor Indian called Crazy Dancer fits the bill. You’ve got to help him.”
I heard Mandy at the door and shoved my talisman back on the shelf.
She came in.
“What is the consensus?” I asked. “That the Indian did it?”
She didn’t answer.
Without Mandy to back him up there was only Crazy Dancer’s word, the word of an Indian.
And if I implicated Robert, put the blame where it belonged? But again it was a question of names, who he was and who I was.
“Mandy, you’ve got to speak up. Crazy Dancer did you a good turn. You owe him, Mandy. For God’s sake, Mandy, you owe yourself the truth.”
She regarded me stonily.
Apparently Mandy and I had nothing to say to each other. And this was the friend I wanted to share a war with.
I MADE ROUNDS in a preoccupied fashion. If I gave testimony, I saw what the consequences could be. We were both Indians, weren’t we? Probably in cahoots. For an army nurse to aid and abet was a serious offense. Was that what I had done? How? By putting ice on Mandy’s cheek?
On my way to breakfast Sister Magdalena stopped me with the usual refrain, “Colonel Boycroft—”
“I know—would like to see me.”
The stiflingly small room held the same young women, but I was scarcely conscious of this. I focused with every sense in my body on Crazy Dancer. He was standing there, looking debonair, even genial. Boycroft, I’m sure, had been affable. And Crazy Dancer would have expanded on his answers. Especially when the girls came in. Had he told about doing a shaman dance? Poor, vulnerable Crazy Dancer. He had no idea how serious the white man considered this, and probably figured that since they were on a wrong tack, the whole thing would blow up in their faces.
Each of us in turn was asked to identify Mr. Smith as the private who delivered the medical supply shipments.
“Yes, he’s the one.”
“It’s him.”
I too nodded in the affirmative and uttered, “Yes.”
Surely Mandy—But looking at her, she appeared cool, restrained, and in perfect control. “I’d recognize him anywhere” was her contribution.
When it was too late, when a pair of uniformed MPs came in and took out handcuffs, I could see realization set in. This wasn’t a game. These people were going to take him into custody, arrest him.
Up to now Crazy Dancer had avoided looking at me, afraid I would spoil his fun. Now, with a bewildered glance he sought me out.
My eyes fell before his expectant glance. His wrists were clamped behind his back, and he was marched from the room.
Mandy was waiting for me in the hall. “Don’t worry about Crazy Dancer. It’s just to throw them off the track, delay things while we think what to do. I know I can count on you, Kathy. I never doubted your loyalty.”
I pushed her roughly into the storeroom.
“As it happens, you’re right. I am loyal. But my loyalty is to Crazy Dancer. If you think I’m going to let Crazy Dancer take the fall for Robert, you’re wrong. It’s Robert’s mess, and one of you is going to clean it up. If you don’t go back in there and tell Boycroft the truth, I will.”
“You’re sticking by him because he’s Indian.”
“There’s also the fact that he’s innocent,” I reminded her.
“That’s why it isn’t as serious for him as it is for Robert. For Robert it means court-martial—maybe even . . . You can’t ask me to do it.”
“I’m not asking. I’m telling you, you have to.”
“I can’t, Kathy. I simply can’t do it.”
In a way I was proud of her not being able to. Of course she couldn’t. She loved him.
“And what about me?” she went on. “If I tell on him, I’m dragged in.”
In spite of myself I almost smiled.
I had never known Mandy to put herself second before.
“After all, I’m army too. What if I’m sent to prison? I’d die. My family would die. They would never get over it.”
“I think they would.” But mention of her family shifted my thinking, and I struck out in a new direction. I remembered the Brydewell plaque in the hall. We shouldn’t leave her powerful, influential family out of the equation. “You’ve given me a clue. Your father’s a lawyer. You’ve got to phone him, level with him.”
Mandy recoiled in genuine horror. “You don’t know him or you wouldn’t ask me to do such a thing.”
“It’s the only way. I’ll place the call for you.”
“You mean right now? I tell you I can’t.”
“You can.”
“All right, I won’t. I’d rather die.”
She had repeated that once too often. “If that’s your decision, very well.”
Mandy shot me a wide-eyed glance. I could see she was struggling. But there was no question, we had to have help. And there was no one else.
“All right,” Mandy capitulated, “place the call.”
We went into a vacant office, and she guarded the door while I dialed the number she gave me and handed her the phone.
It was her father’s office, and she was passed through a receptionist and a secretary. I stood beside her as she cleared her voice. She began by asking how everyone was, including the dog. Then in a rush of tears the whole miserable story poured out.
She listened intently to her father’s reply. He did not modulate his voice, and I heard enough to know his decision was final.
Mandy hung up and looked at me. “I hate you.”
“He isn’t coming?”
“He is!”
Mandy walked away without another word.
I had nothing to say. I had answered the appeal in Crazy Dancer’s eyes. What else could I do?
NEXT DAY MR. Brydewell arrived. He was the eye of the storm, a gentleman used to having his way. Jurors must have felt this and quailed before him—judges too. He came in, trailing an expostulating Sister who was explaining that there was an adequate waiting room on the floor below, and that gentlemen were not allowed. . . He paid no attention but demanded that we accompany him to the office of the Mother Superior.
Colonel Boycroft was already there. The size of the room and the opulence of the appointments, in such contrast to his own cramped quarters, seemed to diminish his authority. There was no armed guard at the door, but the nun who acted as receptionist was as formidable.
Brydewell was quite at ease in these surroundings. He neither threatened nor bribed. Addressing Reverend Mother with deference, he said how delighted he was to meet the head of an institution that his family had been connected with for years. He let her allude graciously to the gold perpetual donor plaque, and even managed a disparaging gesture.
Turning to Boycroft, Brydewell mentioned his own service in World War I, and dropped the names of a couple of majors and a general. When his daughter telephoned, relaying the salient points of this unfortunate incident, the first thing he’d done was inquire into the reputation of the officer in charge. And he could report quite honestly that he heard fine things about the colonel’s integrity and fairness. At which point his mind was much relieved.
Brydewell accepted a cordial from the hand of Reverend Mother, and continued. Regarding the matter at hand, a confused and totally incorrect version had been bruited about. It misrepresented the circumstances grossly. Regrettably, his own daughter, while in the care of the good Sisters and on his, the colonel’s, watch, had been abused and physically beaten into taking a part in this wretched affair.
Without mentioning the word lawsuit, the implication was there. He left no doubt he considered the hospital extremely remiss in its supervision. If not exactly in loco parentis, the institution had a responsibility for young people who volunteered to serve their country. The fact that the true criminal was a member of the hospital staff and most particularly an army doctor placed the armed forces in an awkward position as well.
Mother Superior listened attentively, offered no defence, gave no advice, and rendered no judgment. However, she radiated a benign atmosphere of reconciliation, so that at the end of the interview both men understood each other perfectly, set down their drinks, and shook hands with great cordiality.
I felt dazed. I didn’t know exactly what had happened.
When I got back to our room, Mandy was packing. “They won’t let me graduate. After all the work I put in. Isn’t that the pits?”
I put my arms around her. “Mandy, you don’t know how lucky you are.”
She shrugged this off. “My dad isn’t going to do anything for Robert. He told me he deserves what he gets. The only good thing to come out of this is they’re releasing Crazy Dancer.”
“The only charge they could have held him on was being an Indian.”
“Kathy, I wouldn’t have let anything really awful happen to him. I intended to come forward if, well, you know, if things got worse.”
“I believe you, Mandy. You always were soft-hearted.”
“Soft-headed, you mean.”
“That too,” I agreed.
At lights-out, after the final bell, I heard her bed creak. I reached out my hand, but she wasn’t there.
I sat up. I could discern her by the glimmer of moonlight. She pulled her skirt on over her head, got into her coat, and came, shoes in hand, to the side of the bed.
“I’m going home with Dad in the morning. And in the morning they’ll arrest Robert. But it isn’t morning yet.”
GRADUATION!
The day came at last. But neither Mandy or I would be seeing palm trees. I’d had an interview with Reverend Mother, in which she asked me, after I finished the three-week officer training course, to return to the hospital as nurse instructor. The position was traditionally offered to their top graduate, and she thought I would be of most service helping train the new crop of student nurses.
I didn’t mind. With Mandy gone, the adventurous aspect was gone too. To me war was simply a vast ravening horror that mutilated and maimed. Where I confronted its carnage made no difference. If I was wanted here, here I would stay.
The line of graduates, of which I was a part, straightened in anticipation as Mother Superior welcomed the audience, which consisted of the Sisters, a few ambulatory patients, and a sprinkling of friends and family who happened to be local. I was conscious of the gap beside me where Mandy would have stood.
Poor Mandy, no one spoke of her. They had reprinted the program, erasing her name. I rearranged the yellow roses in my hand as the line prepared to move. This hard-won day, the day I had looked forward to for a year and a half, was not the wonderful, exhilarating event I had hoped for. There was no one here for me. I hadn’t expected there would be, but I felt a twinge thinking of Mandy, thinking of Mama, Connie, Georges. I had hoped Crazy Dancer would be in the audience. But he wasn’t. The long line began to move.
Then I saw him. Crazy Dancer must be going on Indian time because he was late. This didn’t embarrass him in the slightest. He came down front and took an aisle seat. People noticed and pointed him out; the drug debacle was fresh in everyone’s mind. And the entire hospital was following the court-martial of Robert Whitaker II. The sentiment that predominated seemed to be: “I hope they throw the book at him.”
But that didn’t happen. I’m sure that Robert was not the first young officer to stand before an army court, humbled and repentant. The fact that it was wartime loomed large in determining judgment. The accused was a surgeon. They needed surgeons. Especially in North Africa where Rommel was pounding away at Monty’s Eighth Army. It was explained to Robert that there was such a thing as hazardous duty, and if he were to volunteer for it, that would go a long way toward squaring things.
Crazy Dancer appeared unaware that he was a subject of interest. He had come to see me graduate. And as I stepped up to receive my diploma from Mother Superio
r, I felt a surge of—not happiness, but joy. I was Oh-Be-Joyful’s Daughter.
With a whoop I sailed my cap into the air, and Crazy Dancer caught it.
I DIDN’T SEE him until Wednesday, which was odd. He never came on a Wednesday.
I ran out to find out what was up. “It’s Wednesday,” I said.
“A good day,” he replied, “to visit my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes, I think it is time. She is a whirlwind of a woman, on the council, into politics, and, besides that, a recognized power woman. She will make the blanket ceremony over us.”
“The blanket ceremony? Isn’t that . . . ?” I stopped, confused, wishing I hadn’t started that sentence, hoping he would finish it.
He did, in a straightforward way. “Yes. It is the way we in the First Nation pledge ourselves to each other.”
“A marriage. You’re asking me to marry you?”
“I am, and in all the ways possible: with Guiche-Manitou looking on, in a courtroom with a piece of paper, in a Catholic church with a priest.”
Crazy Dancer loved me. And I experienced the same joy I had when he showed up at graduation. Joy is a feeling that wraps you and lifts you like frosty breath in the air.
But now Crazy Dancer was saying something else. “I want to know that you are here for me when I come back.”
My joy bent like a stalk about to snap, and I waited, knowing, but waiting anyway.
“They called my unit up. We are being shipped out in two weeks.”
So this was the way it was to play out. I wasn’t going overseas, but he was. I’d seen what shells and shrapnel did, I’d seen the pattern of abscesses under ulcerating skin, I’d dug out fragments of metal, probed for spent bullets.
Crazy Dancer said gently, “I see by your worry for me that you love me a lot. You do, don’t you?”
The Search for Joyful Page 14
