The Story of Dr. Wassell (3 page)

So the days went by during which the British were falling back on
Singapore and Chiang Kai-shek was visiting India and the Japs were already
landing in Borneo. To the men from the
Marblehead
in the hospital none
of these things mattered much, because at the extremity of human suffering
one is really always alone, islanded from disaster as much as from
companionship. There was little the doctor could do for the majority of the
patients except watch their fluctuating condition and make his daily reports.
There was little that even the nurses could do except wait for the
tannic-acid jelly to wage a long slow battle against shock and poison.

Bailey’s case seemed the worst; he had shrapnel wounds and one could hear
the air going in and out of a hole in his back. Of all the sufferers, too, he
was most inclined to he introspective and to speculate unhopefully on his own
chances of recovery. He was very friendly with Renny in the next bed, and
both men would try to wake at the same time so as to exchange a few words,
even amidst pain. Bailey had made an effort to appear detached and
clear-minded when the doctor spoke to him first; he wanted to discuss his own
injuries, and when the doctor would have none of that, he tried to interest
him in a dream he had had. Fie said he had dreamed he was standing in an
enormous bookshop when suddenly he noticed, sitting quietly reading, a person
whom he half-recognized but whose identity was so terrifying that he wanted
to shriek and shriek and yet somehow couldn’t. “I guess that must mean
something, Doc,” he said.

The doctor smiled not very encouragingly, for he didn’t want the boy to
talk much. “Perhaps it just means you like books.”

“Yes, I do. Don’t you? Especially modern writers. What do you think of
Steinbeck?”

The doctor answered, after a difficult pause: “To tell you the truth, son,
I don’t advance my knowledge by reading near as much as I should—and
that’s more shame to me, I know that, because my mother did her best to give
me a spanking good education, bless her…”

So instead of talking about books the doctor talked about his mother, and
soon, a little happier in mind, the boy fell asleep from the drug that was
given him whenever he woke to pain and consciousness. That night he began
crying out in his sleep and the doctor vas sent for; he touched the boy’s
hand and forehead, gently calming him; then he sat with him while he went on
sleeping.

When Bailey woke he found the doctor still with hind, and beyond the
doctor, separating them both from the outside world, there were high screens
and a curious little lizard that hopped about between the top of the screens
and the window ledge.

“Hello, Doc,” he said, almost cheerfully. “I had that dream
again—you know, about the bookshop. Only this time I
did
shriek
out…Hope I didn’t disturb anybody.”

“That’s all right,” answered the doctor. “No harm done.”

And as the same thing could have been said of Bailey’s entire life (he was
eighteen), perhaps this was why he lay still and comforted, after that, until
he died.

Javanese workmen dug the grave in the local cemetery, and the doctor
attended a service conducted by a Dutch padre. There were no Navy men to make
up a firing squad, but an Air Force detachment came over from the neighboring
airfield. Everything was sunny and bright-colored, and the doctor took a
photograph afterwards of the grave covered with the flowers that the local
people had sent. He thought he would send this photograph later to Bailey’s
mother.

The time of crisis came for most of the men, and they faced it as well as
they might, enduring the pain of dressings and redressings, while the smell
of scorched flesh hung about the ward continually. The doctor had expected
other deaths, but none took place, and there came a day when the crisis
seemed to pass almost simultaneously for several of the doubtful cases, so
that when he entered the ward with his usual cheery “Morning, boys” he was
greeted with a chorus of answers in a new key. “Well, you’re certainly
looking a whole lot worse today!” he cried, striding between the beds and
taking in the new situation. “Anybody want any wooden
boxes?”…Laughter…“All right, then, but go easy—don’t overdo
things.” He took their temperatures, joking with them all in turn. When he
came to Sun he made his jokes in Chinese, laughing at them himself, while Sun
remained respectfully impassive. “One of these days,” he said, turning to
Sun’s neighbor, “I’ll make this fellow smile if I have to stand on my head to
do it.”

Then he put on a deliberately thick Arkansas dialect for Hanrahan’s
benefit, asking the boy how he’d like a dish of sourbelly and cornbread.

Hanrahan said he would, but McGuffey, always ready to bait the doctor,
shouted across the ward: “I’ll settle for a pack of Camels, Doc. Why can’t
you get us some smokes?”

McGuffey had bothered him about that before, and he had had to fall back
On familiar defenses…“Now look here, boys, there’s things I can do for you
and things I can’t—this isn’t an American hospital, you
understand—the Dutch have this rule, they’ve always had it, no smoking
in the wards—very strict…You notice I don’t smoke any more in here
myself—I didn’t know the rule when I came. I can’t go against rules,
especially when the people here are good to us in other ways…”

But now he felt so exultant because the men had turned the corner and were
recovering that he exclaimed: “By golly, I don’t really sec why you
shouldn’t
smoke! I’ll ask the boss about it today.”

He caught Dr. Voorhuys after lunch. Voorhuys was a very big man, with
steel-blue eyes and apple-red cheeks; a fine surgeon and one with the right
kind of personality to run a hospital. He had been educated in England, and
was very proud of his English idiom and accent, which he believed perfect. At
this moment he looked rather worried, as well he might be by the course of
events, but he found time to welcome his American colleague in a few stiffly
cordial sentences and to offer him a tot of Bols gin, which was gratefully
accepted.

“Your men are getting along very nicely,” said Dr. Voorhuys, lifting his
glass ceremoniously.

“Very nicely indeed, sir, thanks to you. There’s only one thing they ask
for—”

“Some of them have made wonderful recoveries.”

“Wonderful, I agree, and now that the period of convalescence—”

“But they still have far to go. They must not think they are well yet. New
skin has to form—”

“Of course, and in the meantime, while they’re waiting, there’s just one
thing as a special favor—”

“You need not ask, my dear sir. They are our honored
guests—everything we do for our own countrymen we will do for
yours.”

“That’s just it—very generous of you, sir, and I’m afraid my men are
wrong to want more than that, but they do—just one little thing
more.”

“I’m afraid ‘I don’t quite understand, sir. What is it?”

“Will you relax the rule about letting them smoke?”

“
Smoke?
” Dr. Voorhuys echoed the word as if it were something
incredible, almost incomprehensible. “That’s it, sir. They just want to
smoke.”

“I am afraid that is impossible. A most strict rule of the hospital.” He
added, Englishly: “Sorry, old chap.”

“You don’t object on
moral
grounds?”

“
Moral?
Oh dear me, no—I smoke myself, but not here. A
question of fire insurance, that’s all.”

“
Fire insurance?
“

Dr. Voorhuys nodded. The doctor from Arkansas took a deep breath, then
began to speak with the slow drawl that was not, as it gathered momentum,
unimpressive. “Dr. Voorhuys…I understand how you feel about a strict rule,
but there’s just this in my mind. A billion dollars’ worth of oil wells and
rubber trees are burning like hell’s delight this very minute. And yesterday
there was another air raid on Surabaya—the Japs are in Borneo, and the
Dutch Government’s in London and Queen Wilhelmina’s in Canada and the
Repulse
and the
Prince of Wales
are at the bottom of the
sea…I sure hope that your fire-insurance policy is a good one.”

Dr. Voorhuys gulped down another glass of Bols. Then he answered: “I get
your point, sir. The men may smoke.”

The next day the doctor had to go to Surabaya to present his official
reports to the Navy authorities, but before beginning the journey he bought a
quantity of American cigarettes in the town and left them at the hospital for
the men. He had so little time to catch his train that he could not stay to
receive their thanks; or perhaps that was partly an excuse, for he always
felt embarrassed to be thanked for things. And actually he was eager to get
the Surabaya trip over and done with. He hated going into offices and meeting
his superiors on official matters; it was not so bad afterwards if and when
(and they usually did) they asked him into some neighboring place (and there
usually was a neighboring place) for a drink. But he could never quite escape
the initial feeling that he was a schoolboy again, facing an unpleasant half
hour with the headmaster.

The Surabaya trip turned out pretty well, as it happened; at any rate, no
fault was found with his reports. The Navy, doubtless, had very much else to
do besides bother with him, and during his short stay in the dockyard town he
picked up a good many rumors which he tried to think were alarmist rather
than alarming. There had been several severe air raids on the town and
harbor, and others were expected at any time; and despite all the hero stuff
that got into the newspapers he did not find one person, whether Dutch or
American or British or Javanese, who really disagreed with him about the
fundamental unpleasantness of air raids. He was quite glad to make the
journey back to a place where people still undressed to go to bed at
night.

Of course Singapore would probably stand a long siege, and Java was
doubtless invulnerable to full-scale attack (unless the Japs were crazy); but
still, one could not deny the fact that the war was coming closer, and it
might be uncomfortable even in the interior of the island till the crisis had
passed.

He traveled by night, reaching his destination in the early morning, and
as he walked through the tree shaded streets, thinking about the men from the
Marblehead
and their problems, he could not help feeling pleased with
himself for having secured permission for them to smoke. There seemed so
little he could do, now that his reports were made, and with the Dutch
doctors all so efficient; it was good to have found something. But then, as
he pondered over it, the thought occurred to him that cigarette smoking could
not be very easy for all of them; some had bandaged hands, or oily bandages
that would catch fire easily, and others had been burned on the lips, so that
the paper from the cigarette would stick to the skin. Perhaps long
holders—the kind he used himself—were the solution. He went into
a shop and bought some ruefully aware that cigarette holders would look no
better than ice cream on a Navy expense sheet. But it was a soundly practical
idea, he thought, if only the men would take it seriously.

It was, and most of them did, but McGuffey had devised another solution
which, for him at least, seemed definitely preferable. When the doctor
entered the ward he saw the boy lying flat on his back, with bandaged hands
outstretched in an attitude of serene composure, while the little Javanese
nurse whom they called Three Martini sat resignedly at his bedside, holding a
cigarette to his lips and at intervals taking it away to flick off the ash.
It made a charming picture, and the doctor was almost sorry to put an end to
it with the gift of a holder, but the plain fact was that Three Martini’s
time was far too valuable to be spent in such a way.

She was, indeed, one of the best of the nurses—one of the best
nurses he had ever seen anywhere, the doctor later on decided. She was so
quiet and skillful in all that she did; one wondered when she ever slept, she
seemed to be flitting so constantly about the wards. Despite the efforts of
the men, she learned no English, and seemed not to wish to; it was as if all
her desires were in things that could be done without words. Even in a
hospital so excellently staffed she stood out as someone probably untypical,
and though she was obedient to rules and regulations there were often ways in
which she acted with a curious patient individuality. For instance, Dr.
Voorhuys was very kind and very efficient, but very busy also; when he went
round the ward to look at the state of the burns, he sometimes tore off dead
skin with a swift movement that was really merciful, because if he had done
it slowly the pain would have been greater. But Three Martini was in no such
hurry, and while Dr. Voorhuys was doing the rounds from one end she would
start at the other, generally getting no farther than the first bed because
she took such care. But there was another reason. The occupant of the first
bed was Renny, who had severe burns, as well as internal injuries, and the
girl paid much attention to this boy. The other patients thought it must be a
romantic interest and chaffed them both about it, but actually it was not
quite that, or else it was more than that; it depended on how one interpreted
the facts, and as nobody except the girl herself (and later on the doctor and
another man) knew them, misunderstanding was inevitable. The chief facts were
that just before the men from the
Marblehead
arrived at the hospital
Three Martini had donated blood, and blood had been transferred to Renny
almost immediately after his arrival. Three Martini was certain (though
perhaps not on absolutely reliable evidence) that it was her blood, and it
gave her a curious feeling for Renny that she could not have explained even
had they had a language to speak in. When, after his friend Bailey’s death,
Renny seemed depressed and not to be making much of a recovery, the girl
attached herself to him in a way that could not be criticized because it
really did not mean that she neglected anyone else. It was a great day for
her (and for him also) when she learned to pluck off his dead skin with
tweezers so that the flesh below was not even touched. None of the other
nurses could do this unfailingly, though all of them tried. When Three
Martini found that the absence of this little extra pain made such a
difference to Renny, she contrived that no one else ever attended to him in
this way; she would stoop over his burned arm as over a piece of delicate
needlework, saying nothing because there was nothing to say either in his
language or in hers. Even when McGuffey talked to her across the ward,
cracking jokes that he knew she did not understand, she would merely smile
and continue her work.