Wickett's Remedy (33 page)

Cole opened a notebook and began writing. Nurse Foley gestured to Lydia, who approached the first bed with her cart. The cart squeaked when she pushed it, causing Dr. Peterson to glare as if she had made the noise herself. At the sound, ten gazes converged on the cart’s contents.

“Able, is it?” Peterson asked, referring to Cole’s notebook.

“Yes sir,” Harry Able replied, still staring at the cart, his hands gripping and releasing as if he was squeezing an invisible railing. Harry was older than the other
men by a few years, with a face that appeared both kind and disappointed—the latter quality perhaps the result of the former not having done him much good. He had what Lydia’s mother would have called a tippler’s nose, burst capillaries alluding to the path that had led him to his gray uniform.

“We will now examine the nasopharynx of Subject One,” Peterson dictated while Cole duly scribbled. Having forced his eyes away from the cart Harry now stared intently at the door through which he had entered as if he might, through the power of his gaze, compel himself to the other side.

“All right, Able,” Gold continued, “we’ll need you to open your mouth and say ah.”

Harry opened his mouth but his eyes remained fixed on the door. He had ceased squeezing his palms and instead stroked one trembling hand with the fingers of the other as if the former was a small, nervous kitten.

The room was silent save for the sound of Cole writing. The eyes of the other nine men focused on Harry with an intensity Lydia could practically feel on her skin.

“Tonsils are slightly enlarged, with minimal congestion of the pharynx,” Peterson dictated to Cole. Peterson swabbed Harry’s nose and throat with such casual efficiency that they might have been furnishings from which Peterson was removing dust. The doctor then handed the swab to Nurse Foley, who smeared it across the interior surface of a culture dish. Gold took Peterson’s place, gazing into Harry’s mouth a little longer, his expression pensive.

“Very good,” Gold remarked, as though Harry had performed a clever trick. “Nasopharyngeal examination and culture complete,” he announced to the accompaniment of Cole’s assiduous note taking. “And now for the blood sample. If you would be so kind, Able, as to expose your inner arm.”

“I don’t much care for shots,” Harry protested in a gravelly voice while he pushed up his sleeve, his eyes fixed on the cart from which Lydia handed Nurse Foley a syringe. The skin of his arm was pale and soft and seemed too vulnerable to belong to a man with such a rough voice.

“Don’t worry, Able,” Gold assured him. “Cynthia is a veritable angel with a needle, isn’t that so, Nurse?”

Foley nodded. “You’re not even getting a shot,” she cooed as she swabbed a small patch of Harry Abie’s flesh just above the crook in his elbow in a manner that again reminded Lydia of housecleaning.

“A shot’s when you have something put into you and I’m—” She slid the needle into the skin with one deft, seamless motion. Harry did not even flinch.”—taking something out.” The nurse drew the stopper steadily up, the space it revealed filling with red. The syringe was replaced with a wad of cotton gauze and the forearm bent upward to hold it in place.

“Blood sample obtained. We will now proceed to the inoculation,” Peterson continued, his eagerness leaving a sour taste in Lydia’s mouth. “Able, please lie on your back and open your mouth while keeping your face as relaxed as possible.”

“What’re you putting in me, Doc?” Harry asked, remaining upright. His eyes darted from the doctor’s
face to the glass dropper Peterson now held in his hand.

“Quit mewling,” muttered George Denson. “This ain’t dancing school.”

Harry blushed. “I’m gonna do everything the doc here says,” he mumbled. “I just wanna know.”

“It’s an enhanced dextrose solution,” Peterson explained. Harry looked at him blankly. “In other words, sugar water. Now lie down, open your mouth, and hold still.”

Slowly, as though he were afraid he might come down on something sharp, Harry lowered himself down, nine wary gazes following his progress, the room silent save for the creaking of his bed. Once Harry was supine, Peterson administered drops to his subject’s nostrils and mouth. Harry began to cough. “Try not to do that,” Peterson instructed. He dictated, “We are now administering one point five ccs of Mather’s coccus solution via both nose and throat.”

“What the Jesus, Joseph, and Mary did you just say?” Harry demanded, bolting upright.

“Able!” Peterson squawked. The dropper fell to the floor. “Now look what you made me do!” Peterson’s face flushed red. The glass dropper lay in several pieces at his feet. “Now lie back down or I’ll have to readminister the inoculation.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t care if there are ladies present. Hell, I wouldn’t care if it was Mabel Normand herself.” He blew his nose and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I wanna know: who’s this Mather bastard?”

“Well, Able,” Peterson sniffed, “you’ve just wiped inoculation all over your sleeve. Now I’ll certainly have to repeat the procedure. Mather, if you must know, is
the individual who isolated this particular bacterial sample. Hence, Mather’s coccus.”

The room gave a sigh. Several men snickered. Harry Abie’s face turned the color of his nose.

“What is so amusing?” asked Peterson. Oblivious, Cole continued to write in his notebook. Nurse Foley’s face, rather than blushing, lost all color, lending her the appearance of a blanched almond. Finally a bemused Dr. Gold leaned toward Peterson and whispered in his ear.

“Oh!” Peterson exclaimed, grinning weakly. “Oh dear, now I understand. No, no, Able, it’s nothing like that! Oh dear. Mather’s coccus. I suppose it does sound rather—awkward, doesn’t it?”

Harry lay down again. “Yeah, Doc,” he replied. “It sure does.”

After Harry had been reinoculated, the rest of the men made a show of complying as nonchalantly as possible to Gold’s and Peterson’s requests, making a point of smiling at Harry all the while.

“Mm, tastes good!” murmured Cohen.

“I can’t believe you was afraid of a little sugar water,” Gray teased.

“I think you oughta give Harry more of that coccus,” suggested Kipling. “I think he secretly likes it.”

“Aw, you’re all wet,” Harry scoffed. “Go ahead and talk.”

“Hey Doc,” Frank Bentley asked once all ten inoculations had been administered. “How long you want us lying down?”

Peterson explained they would soon be permitted to sit up, at which point they could do anything they liked so long as they remained inside the room, which would
be locked from the outside to prevent against accidental exposure. Throughout the period of quarantine, their temperatures would be monitored three times daily and regular blood and throat samples would be taken. Dr. Gold encouraged the men to relax and to enjoy themselves, and to remember that they were doing a great service for their country. Lydia did not understand how anyone could be expected to enjoy himself inside a locked room where he was waiting to fall ill, but if anyone else found the suggestion inappropriate, he did not show it.

As the doctors made their exits, Lydia turned her attention to the shattered dropper. When she heard the door to quarantine open and close, she sensed a change, as if the room had exhaled. She finished her task to find herself alone with the men, who were looking about the ward as if for the first time. John Kipling and Sammy Harris nodded at Lydia as they made their way toward the card table. Harry Able grinned. It was as if Sunday suits had been traded for more comfortable clothes.

She made a show of tidying her cart, trying to think of some small duty that might allow her to stay.

“You’re from Boston?” Frank Bentley asked her as though resuming an old conversation. He had moved to a table with Tony Cataldo, who was setting up a checkerboard.

“South Boston,” Lydia answered. “D Street,” she added when Frank Bentley smiled.

Tony Cataldo looked up from his game. “Did I call it, or what?” he boasted. “I got a cousin who runs a fruit store on Emerson. I figured you for a Southie girl.”

Frank grinned. “It’s strange, ain’t it? Being so close to home somewhere that feels so far away?”

Lydia was too surprised to do more than nod.

“It’s like that for me,” Frank continued. “I’m from Waltham. Never been to Boston before I enlisted, not to mention Southie, but now I guess I know the pier as well as anybody.”

“You were at Commonwealth?” Lydia asked.

“Sure,” Frank replied. “Most of us were, one time or another, before getting sent up to Deer Island. The only good thing about the brig was still being able to watch the gulls. Waltham’s got a piece of the Charles running through it, but it’s a shoelace compared to the Harbor.”

“But you don’t at all seem like you belong in prison!” Lydia exclaimed, blushing before the words had left her mouth.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Frank grinned. “Of course, we may seem harmless, but in reality—take Harry over there. Hey, Harry, what was it you were in for?”

“Aw, come on, Guvnor,” Harry groaned. Frank scowled, but Lydia thought the nickname suited him. Frank Bentley struck her as the sort of fellow who would make it his business to know everyone and everything doing on his block.

“You don’t gotta be nasty about it, Harry. I’m just trying to give our nurse here an idea of what she’s up against.”

Harry eyed Lydia. “Dereliction of duty,” he mumbled. “I overslept. Overslept and was late to K. P. You happy now?” He glared at Frank and then glumly returned to his cards.

“I’m sorry,” Lydia offered.

Harry shrugged. “No point in being sorry for something you’ve nuthin to do with. If I’m lucky the Navy’ll take me back after all this.”

“Harry here’s a glutton for punishment,” Sammy chimed in from behind his card hand.

“Best job I ever had,” Harry grumbled. “Three square meals, a clean bed, and pocket money. I was planning to stick around.”

“Then maybe you oughtta thought twice before signing up for flu duty,” Sammy teased.

“Knock it off,” Frank growled. “We’re all gonna come out of this just fine.”

“Hey, Frankie, we playin’ checkers or what?” Tony complained.

“I should be going,” Lydia said without moving toward the door.

“I suppose we’ll be seeing you?” asked Frank.

“I’ll be bringing your meals and anything else you might be wanting while you’re in here,” she confirmed. “I’ll also be assisting Nurse Foley with the examinations, but she’s made it clear that I—” She looked toward Harry Able. “I’m not really a nurse, you see. I’m hoping to learn enough while I’m here so that after all this—” She gestured at the room.

“What were you before?” Harry asked, pushing his cards aside. They were all looking at her now.

Lydia gave Harry an appraising glance. “Mr. Able, I have a pair of gabardine trousers in imported wool that would look absolutely stunning on you. They’re the smart thing for the season and also a timeless addition to any wardrobe. Let’s see. … If I’m not mistaken, you’re a forty-four inch waist, thirty-two inch inseam.”

Harry looked down at his legs and then back to her, his mouth agape.

“At one of the fancier places too, I bet,” Frank said.

Lydia nodded. “If someone had brought me a man dying of flu, I could have sized him up for a smart dinner jacket in no time at all.”

Harry nodded, then Sammy. Lydia moved her gaze from man to man, meeting each pair of eyes as she went.

“Well, Nurse Wickett,” Frank said, resuming his game and capturing two of Tony’s checkers. “I’d say we’re in pretty good hands.”

She was out the door before she realized that she was expected to lock them in, a task that had not crossed her mind when provided the key. She wondered if the click of the bolt falling into place caused the men to shiver as she did or if their time on Deer Island had inured them to the sound. The door secured, she pushed her cart down the hallway, its squeaky wheel sounding like an alarm.

How come it’s luck if I win and science if you do?

If you gotta ask I sure ain’t telling. You want in or not?

Go ahead and deal.

Hey Evert, howya feeling?

All right, I s’pose.

Stop asking him, wouldya Harry? You’re making it worse. Who wants checkers? How ‘bout you, Joe?

Can’t you see I’m busy?

How many does that make, Cohen?

Four.

You write the same thing to all of ’em?