Brides of Alaska (13 page)

Julie rolled up the sleeves of her heavy flannel shirt. While nurses in Nome's hospital wore a recognizable uniform, Julie wore what best suited the climate and elements she would have to combat; warm flannels and wools along with furs and skin pants were of much more benefit to her near the Bering Sea than starched aprons and freshly pressed dresses. She was just pinning up her hair when a young woman burst through the door with her infant child in hand.

“My baby is sick,” she cried as she held the infant up to Julie.

Julie reached for the child. His burning skin told her that he had a dangerously high fever.

“How long has he been sick?” Julie questioned the mother while examining the baby.

“He's had a bad cold for two days. He breathes so hard I can't rest for fear he'll stop breathing,” the little Eskimo woman said as she twisted her hands.

Julie could hear the labored, shallow breathing of the infant. He was perilously close to death. But why? Julie couldn't find any obvious reason for the baby to be so ill. “I must look in his mouth,” Julie told his mother as she pulled a tongue depressor from her bag. “I won't hurt him, but he won't like it.” Julie doubted that the lethargic baby would fight her, but she felt better warning the mother about her actions.

The light was so poor that Julie could scarcely see past the child's tongue and gums. “I need more light,” she called to Charlie and waited until he brought her a lantern.

“Plenty light for the nurse,” Charlie said and went back to his self-assigned task of melting snow at the stove.

Julie positioned the light to give her a good view into the child's mouth. She pried the tiny mouth open and gasped. The back of the child's swollen throat was covered with gray-white patches of dead mucous membrane, the unmistakable calling card of diphtheria. Julie looked up sympathetically at the frantically worried young mother. How could she explain to the woman that her baby would probably die that night?

“Are there any others in the village with this sickness?” Julie asked.

“Yes, there are two other children with sore throats and high fevers,” the woman answered. “Can you make my baby well?”

Julie felt the pain displayed in the woman's eyes. “No, I'm sorry. Your baby is very sick, and I can't help him. We've waited too long, and I don't have the medicine I need to help you.”

The woman's anxious face fell into complete dejection. She grabbed up her baby and began to wail. Charlie came from the stove and asked Julie what was wrong with the baby.

“It's a white man's disease called diphtheria,” Julie said as the crying mother rocked back and forth, cradling her dying child. “I need medicine from Nome in order to save the people from getting the disease. The ones who are already sick may not have enough time left for me to get back and help them. Charlie, I'm going to need your help. Do you have a village council?”

“Sure, sure,” Charlie said, repeating what appeared to be his favorite word. “We got plenty people on council.”

“I need you to call them together. This disease is very contagious. That means it spreads quickly. Charlie, we mustn't let anyone come into the village or leave it. Do you understand? I have to go back to Nome and get the antitoxin.”

“Sure, Charlie understand plenty good,” the old man said with a grave nod. “I keep people here, and nobody else come in.”

“Good,” Julie replied. “Charlie, I need to have the dogs ready to leave in ten minutes. Can you have them ready for me?”

“Sure, but you plenty tired. You need rest to travel,” Charlie answered in a way that reminded Julie of her father.

“Yes, Charlie, I know. But if I don't get the medicine and get right back to the village, many of your people will die. I have to try.”

“You try then,” Charlie said and patted Julie on the back. “But you don't take the ice. Big wind blowing off the water is making it soft. It might be gone in the night.”

“Thank you, Charlie. I'll stick to the land trail,” Julie promised.

After speaking with the council about quarantining the homes of the sick and leaving instructions on how to ease the sufferings of those with the disease, Julie repacked her supplies and readied her sled.

Starting with Dusty, Julie lovingly patted her dogs and checked them for any signs of stiffness or injury. Eager to be back on the trail, the dogs seemed to understand the importance of their mission.

Julie moved her team out and ran alongside the sled for quite a distance. She wanted to ensure that she stayed warm, so she only rode the runners when fatigue threatened her with exhaustion. In record time, she saw the lights of Nome and breathed a prayer of thanksgiving.

Julie pushed the dogs to Dr. Welch's house. Mindless of the hour, she pounded on the door. Surprisingly, Dr. Welch himself appeared at the door, fully dressed.

“Julie, come inside. What is it?” Dr. Welch questioned as he ushered the girl to a seat by the stove.

“Diphtheria! The Sinuak village has several cases. One will certainly not make it through the night, and the others I doubt I can help either. I came back for antitoxin.”

Dr. Welch looked old beyond his years. Julie worried for his health as he ran a hand through his graying hair and sat down at the kitchen table. “I haven't got any. At least not enough.”

“How much do you have?” Julie questioned in a worried tone that matched the doctor's.

“We only have 75,000 units, and I already have cases of diphtheria appearing here in Nome. The two children I was called to care for are dead. I didn't know then that it was diphtheria, as I couldn't get a look inside their mouths. However, little Richard Stanley is also sick, and I saw quite well the patches on his throat. It's diphtheria, all right.”

“What are we to do?” Julie asked as she joined the doctor at the table.

“I don't know,” the doctor answered bluntly. “It takes 30,000 units of antitoxin to treat one sick person. I've already got at least four who are sick with the disease and hundreds of others who are exposed.”

“To make matters worse,” Lula Welch said as she appeared in her nightgown and robe, “the serum we have on hand is over five years old. We'd hoped that the Public Health Department had sent some with you when you returned from Seattle, but they must have been short on it themselves. We didn't receive a single unit.”

Julie sat back and took a deep breath. “So we don't know if the serum on hand is effective?”

“That's about the whole of it,” Dr. Welch said and put his head in his hands. “We must be prepared to deal with a full-scale epidemic. Diphtheria will only take a matter of days to spread like a flame on dried kindling. The entire peninsula is in danger of epidemic. God help us.”

“Yes, He's our only hope now,” Julie agreed. “He's our only hope!”

J
ulie stayed at the Welch home, and that morning word came that little Richard Stanley had passed away in the night. There was nothing left to do, Dr. Welch decided, but to call upon the mayor and announce an epidemic.

Sitting in the office of the
Nome Nugget
, all eyes of the city council turned to the publisher, George Maynard. As well as operating and publishing Nome's only newspaper, George Maynard was also the town's mayor.

“Diphtheria? Are you sure, Curt?” George questioned Dr. Welch. “We haven't had diphtheria in these parts for over twenty years, and with the ports all frozen up, how would we get the serum now?”

“I can't tell you the how's and why's, but facts are facts. I wish it weren't so, but the truth of the matter is I've already got three dead children to prove my diagnosis. I'm getting more reports of people taken with fever and sore throat. Frankly, George, it's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.”

“But don't we have an injection for that kind of thing?” the mayor asked with a hopeful expression.

“We do, and we don't,” Dr. Welch explained as he rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. “There is an antitoxin, but Nome doesn't have it.”

“What are you saying?” M. L. Summers, superintendent of the Hammon Consolidated Gold Fields, questioned.

“I'm saying we have an epidemic, and people are dying. Furthermore, there is a cure, but we don't have it within reach. I have a small amount of antitoxin, but it's over five years old and probably ineffective. There's certainly not enough to stave off an epidemic.”

“What do you suggest we do, Doc?” Sam asked as he moved forward from the back of the room.

“We have to quarantine the sick and keep people from spreading the disease. The first order of business is to close the schools and the movie theater,” Dr. Welch said as he leaned back in his chair. “As this region's director of public health, I would also like to have a board of health formed to enforce the quarantine. We can't have anybody coming in or going out of Nome.”

“Summers, you could take that job on, couldn't you?” Mayor Maynard asked.

“Certainly,” Summers answered, feeling honored to be put in the position.

“I'll run a quarantine notice on the front page,” Maynard said as he jotted down notes on a pad of paper.

“Thank you,” Dr. Welch replied.

“What else can we do?” Sam questioned.

“The biggest problem we have on hand is how to get the antitoxin. I haven't any idea where there might be a supply large enough to help us. It might be in Fairbanks or Anchorage. Then again, it might be as far away as Juneau or Seattle. Regardless, when we locate the serum we'll have another problem on our hands: How do we get it here?”

“If we can locate serum in either Anchorage or Fairbanks,” Mayor Maynard began, “there might be a pilot daring enough to fly it to us.” Everyone looked skeptical at the suggestion. Flying was new enough to the States, but in Alaska, it was almost unheard of, especially in the winter.

“That might work if it were summer, but I don't think we can afford to risk it in the middle of winter. There's no way of knowing if those engines can handle thirty or forty below zero,” one of the other council members said. Murmurs filled the room as the men concurred that flight might be a bad notion.

“Look,” Sam said, suddenly getting an idea, “what if we used dog teams? We know they can make it through on the mail routes from Fairbanks. If Fairbanks has the serum, we could start it west and send someone out to meet it. Maybe even relay it across the territory.”

“But that will take nearly a month,” the mayor argued.

“Not if we send Leonhard Seppala,” Summers said, getting to his feet. “You all know he's the best musher in Alaska. His Siberian huskies are faster than any other team around these parts.” The council members nodded as Summers continued. “Seppala works for me, and I would gladly allow him the time to perform this courageous act.”

“Yeah, those little plume-tailed rats might just pull it off. So we start someone out from Fairbanks with the serum and—”

“So far there is no serum,” Sam interrupted the mayor. “We have to send out a radio message and find the serum before we can move it to Nome.”

“Sam's right,” Dr. Welch said with a nod of his head. “We have to locate the serum first and then worry about how to get it here.”

“Whatever it takes,” Maynard said as he pounded his fist on the table. “No matter the cost. We all remember the influenza epidemic of 1919.”

“Yes, and it didn't help much that the outside had already had its death tolls from it the year before,” Welch added. “We were no better prepared for that epidemic than we are for this one.”

“Dr. Welch, you give a message to the US Army Signal Corps' radiotelegraph station. We're behind you one hundred percent. Just let us know what we need to do,” the mayor replied.

“I'll take you there, Doc. My team's right outside the door,” Sam said as he got up to retrieve his parka.

“Very well, gentlemen. I will rely upon you to work with our new board of health director and the mayor as we strive to take control of this nightmare.” Dr. Welch got to his feet and followed Sam to where the coats had been haphazardly thrown to one side.

“I'll keep all of you informed,” Welch promised and followed Sam out the door.

“This must go priority to Juneau, Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Seward,” Dr. Welch instructed as he handed a piece of paper to the sergeant who manned the radiotelegraph station.

Sergeant James Anderson took the paper and read it, paling slightly as he finished its contents. “Looks like we're in for it, huh, Doc?”

“That it does,” Dr. Welch said as he cast a side glance at Sam.

Sam was deep in thought over concern for the town of Nome, but especially for Julie. He wished it were possible to make the serum appear on the next mail delivery, but wishing wouldn't make it so.

“I'll notify my superiors, and we'll have a man stationed here twenty-four hours a day until we receive an answer,” the sergeant said as he prepared to telegraph the message.