The Story of Dr. Wassell (7 page)

While the men still slept he telephoned the local airfield, where there
were British and American planes. After a long delay he got through to an
American Air Force major, introduced himself and explained his position, then
waited for an answer to a question he had not yet asked.

He got another question. “How many are there of you?”

“Eight stretcher cases. And one other.”

“Making ten with yourself?”

“Right.”

“It’s possible. We haven’t any definite orders yet. We’re hanging around
ourselves waiting for them. Call back in an hour and I’ll let you know. But
you’d have to pack up quick.”

“Quick as you want us.”

“Okay.”

Then he tried to telephone the Naval officer in Tjilatjap, but could not
get through. He did, however, speak to some other man in authority, who
replied brusquely: “Get out with your men any way except through here. We
were raided last night and expect more today. And there are subs outside the
harbor that got two of our ships.”

“Not the
Breskens
?” queried the doctor in sharp alarm.

“Don’t know. Don’t know any of the details.”

He waited till the hour was over, then telephoned again to the airfield.
The major said merely: “We’ve only thirteen planes and there’s a crowd of us
have to go—but we can make room for you on the last one.”

“Sure, that’s fine. We’re not superstitious.”

“Not what? Oh, I see—you mean the thirteenth plane?…Well, anyway,
your bad cases can lie down—more or less. It’ll be damned
uncomfortable, but it won’t last long—that is, if we’re lucky.”

“How long?” inquired the doctor.

“Say nine or ten hours. That means extra gas, so we can’t take luggage.
Not even a razor blade. Get that?”

“Sure. When do you want us at the field?”

“I’ll call you an hour ahead of time. It’s three miles—you’d better
know the way. Is an hour long enough for you?”

“Plenty.”

“All right, I’ll call you. It won’t be till night.” The doctor went back
to the ward and looked at the sleeping men. It was still high afternoon, with
the sun warm but not oppressive. He went to each plan’s bed and stooped over
him, knowing that many had worsened and none could possibly have improved
after the ordeal of the previous day. He caught Three Martini’s eye on him
when he stood at Renny’s bedside, and he wondered what was in her mind, and
if she could possibly be reading his.

Sun, the Chinese, woke when he approached; still in considerable pain, the
boy had no complaints. The doctor spoke to him, making a little joke as
usual, but there was no smile.

The doctor said in Chinese, for something to say: “You are like a Chinese
boy I once knew in China. You are
very
like him—even in
appearance. Many people in my country think that Chinese people all look
alike, but of course that is not so to me, because I have lived in China many
years. This boy served me at a mission station in Wuchang. He was a nice boy
and I was deeply attached to him. And he was just like you.”

Sun answered: “Yes, he was very like me. He was my brother.”

“
What?
“

Then Sun explained. It was not such an extreme coincidence, after all, for
it was on the doctor’s recommendation that Sun had become a mess boy on one
of the Yangtze gunboats of the American Navy. The doctor did not remember
making the recommendation, but he had such regard for Sun’s brother that he
would doubtless have done so without hesitation. “So you are here because of
me,” said the doctor, hoping that this would make Sun smile.

“Yes,” replied Sun, but he did not smile.

The doctor had hoped that the men would wake about the time that McGuffey
had finished his job in the kitchen, but actually, towards five P.M., the
long shrill whine of the air-raid siren came over the air. Dr. Voorhuys
entered the ward almost immediately, ordering that the men be awakened. All,
he said, must be carried to the air-raid shelter at once; but as the shelter
was some distance away, across an open space, and as at that moment came the
first crash of bombs, Dr. Voorhuys shrugged and said maybe after all they’d
better stay where they were. The concussion was shaking heavy pieces of
plaster from the ceiling; one of the pieces, as large and heavy as a golf
ball, fell on Renny’s bed and narrowly missed his face. “Pull the mattresses
off and have the men lie on them under the beds,” ordered Dr. Voorhuys, and
showed how this could be done without disturbing the men more than a little.
Then he left, very competent and brisk, to see after the patients in other
parts of his hospital. But one still had the impression that he was
surprised.

When he had gone the doctor supervised the carrying out of instructions,
telling the grumblers that it really was a worth-while precaution, because
although a bed wouldn’t save anyone from a bomb, it might stop those sizable
chunks of roof that kept falling. Presently he had them all under cover, and
crossed the corridor to recommend the same for Commander Wilson. But Wilson
stoutly refused.

“I’m not getting under any damned bed, and I defy anyone to make me.
Besides, my roof isn’t falling.”

And that was true, since it was made of different material, so the doctor
smiled and let it go at that.

When he got back to the ward he found that some of the nurses, both Dutch
and Javanese, had accepted shelter with the men, and most were enjoying
cigarettes, judging from the wreaths of smoke that fringed every bed as if
the beds themselves were on fire. The doctor thought it was a very odd
spectacle, especially with the murmur of conversation and a few girlish
giggles; it reminded him of something, he could not exactly say of what, and
perhaps it was best not to remember. He was not sorry about the smoking and
giggling; there were worse things that could happen during air raids. As the
bombing and the fall of plaster continued he shouted: “All right,
boys—you’re okay—nothing to worry about!”

Then suddenly he saw a bed whose mattress still lay on top. McGuffey’s, of
course. “Where’s McGuffey?” he thought, and almost exclaimed; but it occurred
to him that wherever McGuffey might be, this was no moment to look for him.
So he got under McGuffey’s bed, not bothering about the mattress, and saw a
piece of plaster as big as a cocoanut crash to the floor within reach of his
hand. “Gosh,” he thought, “getting under here was certainly a good idea.”

Three Martini and Renny were under the bed next to his at one side; they
were not talking or giggling or smoking, because Renny was too ill. But on
his other side were Edmunds and a rather pretty Dutch nurse who spoke a
little English.

“Say, Doc,” Edmunds called out in a rather impudent voice, “what made you
go in for being a doc?”

The doctor did not mind the impudence, if it amused them and kept their
minds off the raid. He answered: “Well, it was like this. I was bit by a mad
dog in Arkansas when I was a kid and they sent me up to Johns Hopkins at
Baltimore for the Pasteur treatment. I guess that impressed me a lot one way
and another.”

There was an immediate outburst of laughter, as if it were great fun to be
bitten by a mad dog in Arkansas.

“Oh, you’re kidding, Doc…”

“No, I’m not. It was a mad dog all right. But I guess even a dog had a
right to be mad that year. A hundred and ten in the shade, it was, and so
much humidity…Why, they say even a snake sweats in Arkansas in August.”

“Ever been bit by a snake, Doc?” somebody else asked.

“Sure I have. I lay down in a field once right on top of a rattler. Didn’t
rattle soon enough—I guess that snake was as tired as I was…”

The men went on laughing. When, half an hour later, the all-clear signal
sounded, the doctor felt they had already half forgiven him.

As if in swift reaction the ward became quite cheerful during that early
evening. (Except for the few men who were still in heavy pain and could not
escape from it save by fresh doses of artificially induced sleep.) The sun
went down over the hills, and the waking men and the nurses ate heartily
together and enjoyed themselves. And suddenly, in the midst of it, came an
intrusion that might have been depressing, or at least sobering; but which,
in the mood they were all in, made the atmosphere almost gay. A British
Tommy, from whose legs had just been extracted two machine-gun bullets, was
wheeled in straight from the operating theater, and for a moment it seemed as
if the men from the
Marblehead
must hush their voices out of respect
for a more recent sufferer. But the Tommy soon relieved them from any such
obligation. “Gawd,” he exclaimed, as they laid him gently down. “A bed, a
bath, and a square meal! I ain’t ‘ad any of ‘em for a month—it’s worth
a couple of Jap bullets, strike me if it ain’t!”

The doctor would not permit the square meal, but he gave consent to a less
ambitious one, and also to a smoke afterwards; whereat a shower of cigarettes
was aimed at the newcomer from all directions.

He was such a cheerful little bloke. He told them he had been shot in the
recent raid on the airfield; he wasn’t badly hurt, he didn’t even seem to be
in much pain. “You boys ain’t ‘arf lucky to be in a place like this,” he
said, grinning at the Javanese nurse who was attending to him.

The doctor had not liked to hear of the attack on the airfield. He said to
the Englishman: “Before you go to sleep, and I think you ought to go to
sleep, tell me this…was anything hit at the airfield?”

“Dunno, mate—because they ‘it me first, the bastards…But they’ll
come again for another try, don’t you worry. Them bloody Nips don’t give up
so easy…”

“I know. Nov try to sleep.”

“Don’t feel sleepy, some ‘ow…Excuse me, but you’re a Yank, ain’t
you?”

The man from Arkansas did not like to be called a Yank, but he said
tolerantly: “Yes, that’s right.”

“I got a cousin in America—place called Cleveland. Ever heard of
it?”

The doctor admitted he had heard of Cleveland, but said he had never been
there.

“Reckon you wouldn’t know ‘im then…Gimme another fag, will you?”

“Sure, and after that you must sleep.” He lit one and placed it between
the boy’s lips.

“Thanks, mate. These American fags ain’t like the English fags.”

“You don’t like them as well?”

“I didn’t at first. Funny what you can get used to, though…and that’s a
fact. Sellin’ tripe and trotters dahn the Mile End Road three years ago, I
was, and then I lost me bloody job and joined the bloody army and now look at
me…”

He stopped talking rather suddenly, and the doctor did indeed look at him,
wondering when the drug would begin to take effect. Two Jap bullets and a
dose of morphine—really, the fellow could almost be called impervious.
The doctor waited till his eyes closed, then gently took away the cigarette
still burning between’s the man’s fingers.

The doctor did not see this man again. An hour later, evidently on
instructions from outside, he was whisked out of the ward and out of the
hospital. He was still asleep, but the men stuck cigarettes in his pyjama
pocket as the trolley rolled past them.

Night fell, and the doctor found himself walking backwards and forwards
along the corridor where the telephone was. He knew he was growing anxious
about that call from the airfield. Towards nine o’clock he went into Wilson’s
room for a chat, and was suddenly minded to take the commander into his
confidence about the possibility of getting away by air. “But I haven’t told
the men, and I won’t till the last minute—I’m afraid of another
letdown.”

Wilson said he thought that was very wise.

The telephone rang in the corridor. “That’s probably for me,” said the
doctor.

When he came back a few moments later his face was rather pale and he
carefully closed the door of Wilson’s room before speaking. “They can’t take
us,” he said. “One of their planes was smashed up in the raid—that
means they can’t make room. And they’ve just had orders to move at once with
all their crowd. Doesn’t seem to be their fault. The fellow I talked to
seemed very upset.”

“Like hell he was, and like hell we should be,” retorted Wilson. “Live Air
Force personnel is more important these days than wounded crocks like us.
This is no women-and-children-first war—it’s fighters first, and no
sentiment about it!”

The doctor was grateful to him for the harsh words.

But later that evening, under a bright moon, a great roaring filled the
sky over the hospital. It woke some of the men, who stared through the
windows, wondering at first if it were another air raid, until McGuffey cried
out: “That’s one of ours—you can’t mistake those four motors—the
Japs haven’t got anything like it!”

The roaring died away in the distance and then another came across the
sky, and then another. The men, all awake now, were suddenly
exultant—thinking that long-awaited reinforcements had arrived at last,
and that the planes they had heard were en route to bomb the enemy at sea or
on adjacent islands. It was a tonic thought to them lying there—that
overhead the tide was already turning, that monster weapons from Seattle and
Santa Monica and Long Beach were racing at last to their rescue.

The doctor, wandering in and out of the ward in a state of intense
restlessness, said nothing to dampen this feeling.

The roaring went on, plane after plane, until, when it seemed to end, an
argument sprang up among the men as to how many had flown over
altogether.

“Twelve!” cried Hanrahan.

“Thirteen!” retorted McGuffey. “I counted right from the
beginning—
you
were asleep.”

Somebody else joined in: “No, twelve. I’m sure it was only twelve.”

“Thirteen, I tell you!”

Renny, who was still in a good deal of pain, muttered from his bed: “Can’t
you boys find anything better to argue about? Twelve or thirteen—what
the hell does it matter?”