The Story of Dr. Wassell (2 page)

Actually it had been sheer luck (or unluck, whichever way one looked at
it) that had handed him this present job. He had been sorting out medical
supplies on the docks at Surabaya when he had come across a case labeled
‘IODINE that, when opened, was found to contain torpedo noses. Such a thing
was serious, with its possible implications of sabotage, and he was just
entering the Admiral’s office to report the matter when the Admiral himself
chanced to be desperately looking for a doctor. The conversation that ensued
did not quite reach the torpedo noses.

“Ah, a doctor—good—”

“Yes, sir, but—

“Never mind who you are you’re just the man I’m looking for—

“Yes, sir, but I’ve come to—

“Don’t care what you’ve come for—I
must
have a man at the
upcountry hospital—”

“But, sir—

“Dutch hospital—our men—mostly from the
Marblehead
.
Must have a doctor as liaison officer. You’ll do. Go there at once.”

“Yes, sir, but what I really came for was to report about a case
of—”

“No time for reports. Send ‘em in later. There’s a plane leaving in half
an hour.”

“But—”

But the Admiral had gone, leaving the doctor with a torpedo nose in his
pocket (just to prove his case if he had ever been able to get so far) and an
unmistakable order ringing in his ears. “Go there at once. There’s a plane
leaving in half an hour.”

So he had caught the plane, and here he was, at the hospital, staring at
the men whom it was his mission, in some vague way, to look after. Well, he
thought, there was one thing about the Navy: if you simply obeyed orders, you
were all right; you daren’t do less and you weren’t expected to do more. And
those boys, being of the Navy, would know that as well as he did.

Another thing he made up his mind about (remembering certain incidents in
his past career)—he would keep on the right side of the red-tape
machine, even if it meant hours at the job he hated most in his life, which
was the filling up of official forms. And forthwith, as if to symbolize
future good behaviour, he took out a notebook and began to walk between the
rows of beds, taking down particulars of name, age, rank. record, religion,
and so on, from all who were able to give them.

Thus the doctor met the men from the
Marblehead
, and perhaps all
save one, after that first personal meeting, were confirmed a little in their
disappointment. The exception was Sun, a Chinese mess attendant, terribly
burned by a bomb explosion that had flashed through the
Marblehead’s
galley several days before. Sun had made no murmur since then, not even
during the day-long ordeal of the journey from Tjilatjap; he had let the
Dutch doctors work over him without flinching, which was foolish in a way,
for had he showed signs of pain they would have given him extra shots to
relieve it.

Sun had expected nothing, or rather he had been prepared for anything, and
that was why, when the doctor spoke a few words in Chinese at his bedside, he
did not even seem surprised.

The doctor went away and copied all the necessary information from his
notebook into the official documents that he would later take personally to
Navy headquarters in Surabaya. He wrote slowly, laboriously, and with a great
awareness of duty being performed. Then he visited another ward where some
less serious cases from the
Marblehead
, and also some from the
Houston
, had been placed. He made similar notes on these, for he was
liaison officer to the whole bunch, forty-two in all. But like every doctor
he felt drawn to those who needed him most, and he was soon back in the
“serious” ward for a second and less formal visit. It was a fact also that he
enjoyed talking almost as much as he hated writing, and now, with the load of
writing off his mind, he could indulge himself by chatting pleasantly from
bed to bed, with a cheery word and a smile to those who could answer, a smile
without words to those too ill to listen, and a glance of sympathetic
appraisal over those who were still unconscious. During this second visit,
the men began to forget their earlier idealizations, and it was a definite
step towards liking him. He seemed especially interested in where their homes
were, and when one of them said Arkansas, the doctor immediately asked what
county, and, when that was named also, answered in triumph: “Sure, I know it!
I had my first practice near there thirty years ago. Plantation
job—mostly colored patients—couldn’t pay me anything, often as
not—I used to get ‘em to dump a load of wood in my yard, or a sack of
potatoes, or maybe a chicken for Sunday dinner—it was less trouble than
botherin’ ‘em for money. Yes, I had a pretty tough time, what with all the
household chores and ridin’ miles over the hills to some little
cabin—but I’ll tell you what, I had a good horse, so I never needed to
keep awake only one way if I was called out in the middle of the
night—that old horse would bring me home safe while I was fast
asleep—like he knew every road and creek and overhangin’ tree in the
county. Never had a horse like him before or since…”

The Arkansas boy, whose name was Hanrahan, had too many facial bandages to
smile, but his one visible eye lightened as the doctor went on gossiping.

Presently his neighbor, who had been listening, interrupted: “Was that
Chinese you were speaking just now, Doc?”

The doctor swung round. “Sure it was—I lived in China for
years—I was a medical missionary out there…But I’m a regular Arkansas
razorback for all that.”

Hanrahan’s eye gleamed again.

Before he left the ward he addressed the men again from the rail of
McGuffey’s bed nearest to the door. “You boys all remember now I’m here to
help you—anything you want, don’t stand on ceremony, you’ve only got to
tell me and I’ll do it if I can—that is, if it’s not against the
rules.” He saw that McGuffey was giving him a half-impudent look. “Well,
McGuffey, what’s on your mind? Anything you want?”

“Plenty, sir, only you wouldn’t like to hear about it.”

There were a few laughs, but not very many, for the men were not exactly
in a laughing mood. The doctor ignored the reply, because he had met
McGuffey’s type before (or thought he had); they were apt to be a nuisance if
you gave any encouragement to their “freshness.” He waited a moment, hoping
somebody else would say something. Then, from far down the ward, came the
deep melancholy voice of Goode, who had lost an eye.

“There’s one thing all of us want, Doc, and that’s to get home.”

Nobody laughed at that, or even echoed it, but it was as if their very
silence were an echo. The doctor felt this with an odd sensitivity he could
not have explained. Of course the men wanted to go home, it was natural;
however kind and efficient the Dutch were, everyone would rather be on the
other side of the ocean. But there was nothing he could do about it. He took
a few paces along the alley between the line of cots, and said: “I
understand, son. You don’t have to tell me things like that. But you
see—it’s out of my province. I’ve got the job of looking after you
here—Navy orders—you know what that means. Maybe there’ll be
different orders later, it’s quite on the cards…But in the meantime, you’re
pretty lucky—this is a good place, all you’ve got to do is to hurry up
and get well…Matter of fact, I wouldn’t worry about the future if I were
you—our number’s on top.” After that it was a blessed relief to turn
back to McGuffey, even if the boy was fresh. “
Now
then…is there
anything else anybody would like—something practical—something I
can
do? Thought of anything yet, McGuffey?”

McGuffey answered, half-derisively: “Aw, don’t you worry about me, Doc.
But I wouldn’t say no to a chocolate malt.”

The same halfhearted laughter flickered again along the length of the ward
as the doctor walked away.

Across the corridor there was a small room that the Dutch authorities had
allotted, on account of his rank but against his protests, to an officer
named Wilson. He was very badly burned, and the doctor did not think he would
be conscious after the ordeal of the dressings; but when he entered the room
through the open doorway a gruff voice came through the bandages.

“Morning, Doctor.”

“Good morning. How do you feel?”

“Just like a truckload of scorched earth. I overheard most of your little
speech to the men, by the way. Heartily approve. I mean—no standing on
ceremony or anything like that. No salutes if we happen to meet on the way to
the—er—”

“You won’t do that yet for a while,” interrupted the doctor drily. He knew
that Wilson’s brusque facetiousness was something of a pose. Every man had
his own way of fighting agony. “You’ll be flat on your back for a month at
least.” He took out his notebook. “How about supplying me with a few of the
necessary derails?”

“Necessary or nauseating?”

“Both are part of my job.”

“Mine as well. Filing everything in triplicate.”

“That’s okay. We’ll lick the Japs in triplicate one of these days.
Now—just answer these questions.”

“All right but before you
ask
‘em, answer me a few. Tell me about
the men—how
are
they—I don’t even know
who
they
are—are they all going to be all right? And shut that door so you can
speak the truth.”

The doctor shut the door, then came back to the bed and gave the names of
the men, and a rough summary of their injuries.

“But they’re going to recover all of them?”

“Hope so, but burns are nasty things—it’s the shock that kills, not
the injuries themselves. The crisis’ll come a few days from now—most of
‘em won’t know how bad they are till then. Bailey’s pretty bad, and I’m a bit
worried about Edmunds. He’s already lost an eye and he may have to lose a leg
as well—Dr. Voorhuys wanted to amputate tonight, but I begged him to
give it a chance. Not that he isn’t a thundering good doctor—it’s just
that I’d have taken a chance myself and I believe Edmunds would. Goode’s also
lost an eye, and Muller’s arm is smashed up—I don’t quite like the look
of that either…But the rest might be a whole lot worse.”

“What about
me?
Nothing but the truth, mind!”

The doctor did not tell Wilson the truth, because his burns were among the
severest, and he honestly thought he was among those who would die in a few
days. He said with a smile: “You’ll be all right if you keep quiet…Now just
these few questions and I’ll let you sleep.”

He made his notes, and was about to leave when Wilson called him back with
a gruff: “Say, what d’you know about the general situation?”

“Not much,” answered the doctor truthfully. “There was an air raid on
Surabaya yesterday while I was there.”

“Oh, was there? And how d’you like air raids?”

“Not much,” repeated the doctor, again truthfully.

From that moment on, the doctor and Wilson knew they could be friends.

The doctor took the Ford car and Javanese chauffeur that had been assigned
to him and searched the town for ice cream. He didn’t see why he shouldn’t;
he couldn’t remember ice cream as having been listed as either good or bad
for men suffering from burns, but McGuffey’s condition wasn’t serious,
anyway; it certainly couldn’t do
him
any harm. And if he wanted
it…well, it had always been one of the doctor’s ideas that it did people
good (within limits) to give them what they wanted.

So he found a likely looking shop in the main street and made his
purchases. The ice cream came in a little cardboard cup—it certainly
wasn’t anything like a chocolate malt, but the doctor didn’t think it was so
bad for the middle of Java in wartime. Somehow he hadn’t expected Java to be
quite as modern, so that you could walk along a main street and buy pretty
well anything you wanted, almost as you could in Little Rock or San
Francisco. Of course people were a bit jittery; you saw knots of people
talking urgently at street corners, and the roads were full of Army trucks
scurrying about, and there were freshly painted signs pointing to improvised
air-raid shelters at strategic points; but there was still a good deal of
impetus left in a civilized machine that had only partly broken down. After
Surabaya, which would naturally attract air raids on account of its being a
naval base, the inland town seemed almost safe. All its inhabitants were
assuring themselves and each other that there was no real danger except from
casual bombs (one said “casual bombs” as casually as possible), and that no
Jap would ever set foot on Javanese soil. The doctor wasn’t quite so
confident. He thought’ Japs might succeed in landing on a few beaches if they
were ready (as apparently they were) to commit suicide. Of course he hadn’t
the slightest doubt that Java would be held at all costs.

“It’ll last for at least an hour,” said the woman in the shop, referring,
of course, to the ice cream.

The doctor carried it carefully back to the hospital and (because it would
probably not last
more
than an hour) woke up McGuffey to have it. The
boy blinked and stared, and a little Javanese nurse whose name (in Javanese)
sounded like Three Martini began to giggle.

“Well, for the love of Mike…” began McGuffey. “Did you really think I
was serious?”

“Eat it,” answered the doctor. “It’s very good ice cream. I had some
myself.”

McGuffey sat up in bed and smacked his lips appreciatively after the first
swallow. Some of the men along the ward were watching the scene with
amusement, and one of them called out: “Hi, Doc, where do
we
come
in?”

The doctor smiled. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, with sudden
expansiveness. “As soon as you’re all well enough, I’ll get ice cream for the
whole bunch of you…and you too,” he added, nodding to Three Martini.

Then he went out and wondered what the auditors would think—Navy
money spent on ice cream. He had drawn a thousand guilders in Surabaya when
they assigned him to the job—just a round sum to spend any way he chose
on looking after the men, but of course the authorities would expect medical
items, transportation expenses, almost anything, in fact, except ice cream.
And he wasn’t good at concocting a swindle sheet. He made up his mind that if
Nilson passed the crisis he would ask his advice about it.