Disclaimer: Yadda, yadda, yadda…not L.M. Montgomery or Colleen McCullough…Blah, blah blah…don't own the characters….
Happy summer, everybody! Let the wild rumpus start!!!
Faith Meredith shut off the faucet and replaced the towel on the bar. She pressed her hands into her back, arching slightly until she felt the muffled pop in her lower spine. Her back seemed to hurt more frequently these days. More soldiers were pouring in everyday, needing care, needing lifting. Tonight she would lie on her back on the wooden floor of her room, feet resting up on her mattress in an attempt to bring her vertebrae back into alignment. But for now she would move among the beds and change dressings.
The day had begun inauspiciously. Faith had been in the middle of taking report from the offgoing night nurse.
"You'll need to pay extra attention to Private McInerny," the nurse was saying as they stood at the foot of the bed of the man in question. "I just finished sponging him off again. He's been complaining how hot it is--it makes him sweat profusely."
Then, as if on cue, Private McInerny's body was racked with a harsh, moist cough. He put a towel over his face to spit into, and when he lowered the towel after his fit had passed, the two nurses were horrified to see that his secretions were bloody.
They looked at each other only a moment before springing into action, but they were both thinking the same thing--night sweats and blood tinged sputum--classic signs of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Donning masks and special gowns, they hastily removed McInerny to the isolation ward to await a doctor's examination. And in their hearts they were praying fervently that it hadn't spread...
The procedure of transferring the soldier put Faith back for more than an hour, and she had spent the rest of the day trying to catch up her baths and medications. It was afternoon by the time she able to start her treatments. And now it was getting close to visiting hours.
Waving away a fly that was buzzing lazily by her head--Must have come in through a hole in the screen, I'll have to get one of the soldiers to fix it--she pushed her cart through the aisle between the two neat rows of beds. It was early in the afternoon--the time that all the hospital staff seemed to converge on the ward. Surgeons were there, checking the status of their patients; the Army officers, checking on the morale of their men; the laundresses; the volunteers; the odd member of the kitchen staff, coming to search for this plate or that serving dish that somehow never made it back to the kitchen for washing; the occasional visitor who managed slip past the soldier receptionist at the front lobby (it was too early for visiting hours), and the nurses--always the nurses.
Faith slowed down and maneuvered the cart between two of the beds and smiled kindly at the soldier she was about to take care of. She reached into her jar of methylated spirits for her bandage scissors and one of the long tweezers known as forceps. After carefully wiping the antiseptic solution off her instruments (and turned a little bit away, she discretely took a deep breath as she did so), she proceeded to cut down the bandages.
Faith was trained not to react with horror at any sights that met her eyes on the ward. It would never do if the patient suspected that his nurse was disgusted by any part of his care. He would become angry, or worse, ashamed, and if he was already suffering badly enough, it might worsen his mental state, even to the point of losing the will to live. If trained nurses and doctors couldn't bear to look at him, after all, how would his family and friends react? It was up to the nurse to be matter-of-fact about the patient's condition, neither pretending it didn't exist nor giving it so much attention that it became morbid.
Faith was a true believer in this philosophy. These soldiers were her patients. It was her duty to do everything in her power to make them well. Insofar as she was able, she treated their minds by giving them respect and dignity and she treated their bodies by the physical care she gave.
However, she didn't cease to become human the minute she put on her uniform. Although she was used to sights and smells that would have horrified her family and friends back home, she was not immured to everything she encountered. Therefore, she had developed an arsenal of techniques to deal with the difficult cases.
She learned, for instance, that in the case of an odorous, suppurating wound, before she removed the old bandage, she could take a deep breath of fresh air and hold it inconspicuously. That would buy her enough time to remove the bandage and throw it into the waste can (thank heaven for cellucotton disposable bandages!), observe the wound for worsening or infection, and do a mental calculation of how much fresh dressing would be needed.
Then as she cut the new bandage to size, she could exhale. Casually, as if she were merely looking around the room, she could turn her face away from the patient and take another deep inhale of fresh air. Then, holding her breath again, she could quickly put the new dressing on. After that, she could exhale and breathe normally again, with the patient none the wiser.
This patient's wound was draining profusely. She gathered up a handful of sphagnum moss--which would absorb the drainage--and cut the fresh bandage to fit. But as she allowed her eyes to stray around the room while she took her surreptitious second deep breath, she spied something that made her bristle. It was Ralph.
Ralph was delivering mail and packages today and he was busy doing his assignment just as he was ordered, but Faith noticed that although he smiled and spoke a few words with the soldiers as he made his deliveries, he wasn't entirely paying attention to his work.
It was true--and Ralph would have been the first to admit it. He did pause and talk to the soldiers as he made his way around the room, but in between beds, in between soldiers, he kept one eye on a man who was working his way among the sick and wounded. He was a chaplain, a common sight in an army hospital, but this particular chaplain was a priest.
Dressed in sober black with a purple stole around his neck, the priest moved among the patients, stopping at every bed. He administered the last oil and viaticum to the dying Catholics. To the others, he offered words of encouragement and offered to pray with them. Regardless of religion he did this--some of soldiers were Catholics, but there were also Jews and Protestants, and some who professed no belief at all. But he offered this--what was called "ghostly comfort" in an earlier time--to one and all.
Faith didn't see, but Ralph did, the myriad reactions the priest elicited from the troops. He was too far away to hear the individual conversations, but he could see the soldiers' facial expressions. Some were genuinely comforted, others were blatantly skeptical, but the priest persevered in his task. Nothing was going to divert him from visiting each and every soldier. He had watched the other chaplains, too, and they all did this--visited each soldier. But Ralph took an especial interest in the priest.
One more year, thought Ralph. Then I'll be able to do that. Maybe if the War hasn't ended by then, I could apply to be made a chaplain.
Faith, who didn't know the direction of Ralph's thoughts, was irritated at his lack of attention to his job, even though he hadn't made any mistakes. Taking a breath and holding it, she applied the moss to the wound and wrapped the bandage around it. While she still held the leg elevated above the mattress, she removed the towels that had been placed underneath it to protect the sheets. They were wet now, and she stuffed them into a laundry bag hanging from her cart. She replaced them with clean, fresh towels, smoothing them with only one hand with a practiced technique. Then she lowered the leg gently on the mattress. She pulled up the sheet to the soldier's waist and smiled at him before she continued her rounds.
As Faith now observed Ralph more closely, she realized what had drawn his attention. She didn't have much time for chaplain-watching, but she supposed it was sort of interesting to see. She had noticed that each chaplain had his own particular ritual, each according to his own denomination. And occasionally she would have a chuckle to herself--what would Miss Cornelia have thought, seeing nice Presbyterian boys having their souls' welfare in the hands of their Methodist chaplain? The Protestant chaplains tended to dress the same, but the Catholic chaplain was visible by his stole and the rabbi chaplain, who came very infrequently, by his yarmulke.
But then Faith remembered how busy they all were and became angry with Ralph all over again. Between breakfast time and late afternoon, the ward was a bustling, busy place. For late afternoon was given over to visiting hours and they had to hurry to get the soldiers medicated, comfortable, and presentable for the visitors. It was in the nature of a grim joke that no matter what state the patient was in, they could always pull the sheet up over him and he would look just fine to his family and friends. But heaven forbid they should peek under the sheets...!
Therefore--because she decided that if he had enough time to watch what other people were doing he could be made to do something useful--she felt no remorse when she demanded Ralph push the dirty linen cart down to the laundry even though they both knew perfectly well the laundresses would come up for it.
"Right away, Miss Meredith," he replied mildly. That was the other thing that annoyed her. His attitude was too perfect. To the soldiers he was respectful, man-to-man. To the nurses he was courteous and almost courtly. But no matter how rude or bossy she was to him, he never displayed any irritation. Furthermore, there was nothing servile in his attitude. He followed her directions with an attitude that whatever she demanded from him must be reasonable and that he couldn't possibly lose his dignity by acting in accordance with her. It did work, she reflected grudgingly. He never lost his aristocratic bearing no matter what menial tasks he turned his hand to.
But Faith didn't have time to dwell on her own irritation--she was too worried. Nobody seemed to have heard the results of Private McInerny's examination. Nobody knew if he indeed were suffering from tuberculosis. If he were, he would be sent to a sanitarium for fresh air treatment. There was little else that could be done for TB. Some doctors claimed their patients had success with a drug called "tuberculin", but other doctors scoffed, saying that those patients would have recovered in any case. She heard that some scientists were working on an inoculation that could prevent the disease, but right now there was nothing that could be done.
She dreaded the idea of becoming ill with TB, being sent away to be isolated from her family, possibly to die. If Jem came home--no! --when Jem came home, she wanted to be well and healthy so they could begin their lives together. When Jem came home. When.
