NEW YORK CITY, 1918
The ride took forever, or so it seemed to Ned Duffy. He tried to supervise Mary’s removal from the ambulance but the orderlies brushed him aside.
“You’d best see to those hands,” one of them told him. “There’s a nursing station along the way, they’ll take care of you there.”
Duffy grimaced. “I need a telephone, if there is one.”
“Your editor will be proud of you, seeing to your story before your wounds. There’s one on the wall outside the director’s office.” The orderly pointed in the opposite direction.
But it wasn’t the World that Duffy called. Duffy knew someone in all the station houses of the five boroughs, and Kleinst, the man at the Brooklyn precinct house, promised to send someone around to look up Lovett. It had cost him two seats to next year’s series.
“Now you’d be making a mess on our nice clean walls and that’s not allowed,” a voice said to him.
Duffy turned around and looked down on a nurse barely five feet tall. “They told me that you’d come in with a woman from the train wreck and would be needing help so I’ve come to get you. I can’t be spending my time waiting around for people all day.” She grabbed him by the arm and led him down the hall.
“I had to make a telephone call,” Duffy tried to explain. They arrived at a small, windowless examination room. “Now let’s take a look at those hands. Well, we’ll have to go after those splinters, but first a little carbolic.” Duffy winced with pain.
“Now hold still,” the nurse told him, “and don’t be such a big baby.”
“I ought to be with Mary … uh, Mrs. Lovett,” Duffy corrected.
“Then hold still,” the nurse replied with a hint of exasperation in her voice. “The sooner I’m done here the faster you can leave. It’s not like I don’t have really sick people to attend to.”
“I’m sorry,” Duffy said and winced again as another sliver was drawn from his hand. For the first time he looked at the nurse, really looked at her and noticed her drawn face and dark circled eyes. “You must be at the end of your shift and I’ve held you up,” he said in a placating tone.
“Don’t I wish,” she sighed. “I’ve been on for eighteen hours and it looks like at least six more to go.”
Duffy was astounded. He knew that young doctors who were residents were asked to work as long as thirty-six hours at a go, but he’d never heard of such hours required of nurses. “Is it because of the wreck?” he asked.
“We’re that shorthanded,” she replied and for the first time Duffy noticed a hint of the Old Sod in her voice.
Duffy could deepen his brogue when he wished and did so now with a hushed conspiratorial whisper. “Funny, we’re that shorthanded at the paper as well. In fact, now that I think of it his mates mentioned that the train operator was pulling a long shift too. Everyone seems to be shorthanded. Don’t you think it strange?”
“Not in the least, all things considered.” The nurse looked around, as if a third person could be concealed in the tiny room. “We took in twenty on Monday, thirty yesterday, and more than that today. Eight of our own are lying right here in the wards. And this is only the beginning.”
“The beginning of what?” Duffy asked.
“First the war, and now she’s come. There’ll be more before it’s over.”
“Who’s come?” Duffy asked. He was starting to feel weak and wondered if the entire conversation was a dream.
“She has,” the nurse insisted. “We’re not supposed to say anything, but it’s her. They keep denying it, but I know what I know.”
“Her?” Duffy asked weakly and involuntarily pulled back his hand.
“Here, now,” she said, roughly retrieving his hand and dousing it with more carbolic, “I’ve said enough.”
“Oh shit,” Duffy cried, “that hurts.”
“As it should, me boyo. Trying to get me to say things as I shouldn’t.” She swiftly wrapped his ravaged bands and turned to go.
“Wait,” Duffy pleaded. “You can’t leave me like this.” He gave her his most ingratiating smile.
“Can’t I just,” she said, then paused for a moment. “You can go see Doctor Welsh in a couple of days to see how your hands are coming.”
She lowered her voice until Duffy was straining to hear her. “And while you’re in the neighborhood, go talk to that lying rascal, Royal Copeland, who’s head of public health in this fine upstanding city. Ask him about her.”
Seeing the bewilderment on Duffy’s face she added, “Ask him about the Spanish Lady.”