August wiped a hand across his sweat-stained brow and moved to the next cot. Two weeks on the third floor of the U.S. General #12 kept him busier than he’d expected. The nurses complained of the influx of work left to them with so many of their colleagues shipped across the ocean to war, but there was no help for it. Everyone worked to exhaustion.
August shared a closet room away from the sick with another assistant, an American named Thomas Lennox. The young man seemed nice enough, commenting how August spoke so well that he wouldn’t have guessed he was German. But there was no time to get to know Mr. Lennox, because they split shifts with the twenty-six men, and occasionally, were called to the lower floors to assist with the care of the soldiers.
“What about those Red Sox, August?” Tom grinned as he passed, taking over the shift. He patted August on the shoulder. “Babe pitched like a dream.”
August laughed, looking down to examine Tom’s shoes. “Red Sox? Babe?”
Tom’s brow crowded with confusion. “You don’t know who the Red Sox are? Babe Ruth?” He enunciated the words with such passion, spit flew in the air.
“No.”
Tom released a massive sigh. “World Series? The Red Sox played the Chicago Cubs. Won their third series. Babe pitched twenty-nine scoreless innings. It’s all over the papers.”
August patted his pocket. “I only read this type of paper, and my books.”
Tom tossed a hand. “Aww, you and that girl of yours.”
Yes, his girl. His beautiful, strong girl.
“If you need help on your shift tonight, find me. A new shipment of wounded soldiers came in the last hour and Nurse Riley from downstairs said a few are in very poor condition. You’ll be busy.”
“More soldiers? Where are we gonna put ‘em?” He shook his dark head, not waiting for an answer before he disappeared down the hall.
August slid into the tiny room and collapsed onto his cot, tugging a coveted envelope from his pocket. Jessica’s familiar writing marked the page, her newest letter. He split the seal and reclined back onto the shallow pillow. Suddenly, the distance closed with the first sentence.
September 10, 1918
My dear Alien,
Will you take a walk with me? Take my hand. Do you feel it? My palm rubs across the careworn lines of yours, sliding into a perfect fit as we find our step together. The sky is bluer today—an autumn blue—and the leaves have begun their wintry tilt of color. The trees crowd overhead, arching our path through the forest like a rainbow canopy, and the breeze wakes our faces with the tiny blush of cold.
You tug me closer, warding off the chill with your presence, and I laugh. Can you hear it? I hear yours. Deep, and filled with your effervescent joy. Yes, you are always with me, my dear August. I close my eyes, as I sit on the back steps of my grandparents’ home, and see us together, taking in the day with the leisure of a peaceful world and a beautiful life.
The chapel waits, robed in fall roses and welcoming its newest bride and groom.
Some days, I can march through the hours, longing for you but able to crowd my mind with daily duties enough to keep the yearning to a low ache, but then there are days when I need to see you. Feel you. Remember your touch.
And on those days, in the quiet of the evening, you take me for a walk to the chapel and I see you as you last stood—dressed in your beige summer suit, pale blue bowtie, and hair admirably tamed into a stylish wave except for your rebel curl. My favorite. The strand of hair that portrays your true mischief, unrepressed by the rules of the camp or society. It falls over your forehead, a little secret to me of who you are and who I love.
So today, as I long to hear your voice and kiss your lips, close your eyes and join me. Ease the longing of this moment, because one day, we will take this walk with our eyes open, and I want to know the way.
I love you,
Your Mause
“I think you might have to postpone your trip to Asheville, girl.”
Her grandfather entered the clinic, his gray brows a storm cloud. Amy looked up from her study of hearing aids and deaf education, a personal goal for the driven fifteen-year-old since she learned of Sylvie’s hearing aid.
“What’s wrong?” Three weeks! August’s train left three weeks ago and oh, how she missed him. How much longer would she have to wait to see him again?
Grandpa braced his hands upon the counter and breathed out a heavy sigh. “Pete Russell arrived home from the War last week, wounded in the leg. He told me Tuesday he wasn’t feeling well, so I traveled up to check on him this morning.” He groaned and ran a hand over his face, looking every bit of his sixty-nine years. “His whole family was dead.”
“Dead?” Jess shook her head in an attempt to comprehend. “The whole family?”
“Was it a feud?”
Grandpa turned to her, weary shoulders bent. “No. Worse. I just returned from visiting Mr. Donaldson.”
Jess’ chest tightened at the warning in his voice.
“He’s... he’s down with a severe fever. Delirious. Bloody sputum, bluish pallor.”
Her brain refused to acknowledge the growing awareness those symptoms created. “What is it?”
“Our first victims of the Spanish Influenza.” His turbulent gray eyes found hers. “We must prepare for the worst.”
A chill crept up from her chest into her throat, clawing through her lungs with icy fingers. Rumors like ghost stories traveled the railways, whispering of the dreaded disease. A virulent strain of influenza, quick and deadly. Of course, Mr. Donaldson would be one of the first infected. Even though he was a retired station master, he kept time at the depot, helping as his health allowed. Anything coming from those rails met him first. “I’ll go home and prepare Granny and the children. Should I find Cliff too?”
He nodded, the worry lines firming with purpose. “Amy, I need you to take a letter to Dr. Dorland and the school. He needs to prepare his students.”
She stood to the ready with a nod. “What else can we do? How can we prepare?”
Grandfather looked back at her, his shoulders stiffening to take the brunt of whatever the future brought. “We cannot prepare for this, Amy. All we can do is pray... and wait.”
Jess pressed her fist into her stomach, a nauseous roil nearly overcoming her. She’d kept up with the news in the papers. Only a few days ago, the Surgeon General dispatched advice on how to recognize the symptoms of the flu, followed by a short list of treatments, but the accounts spreading from town to town contradicted the mild response of the government’s reaction.
News correspondent Jack Sterling’s description from his stay in a camp hospital gave the most vivid and vile first-hand witness, inflaming Jess’ concern. Ten men in the camp went from healthy breath to violent death in twelve hours or less. The recent news from Boston, DC, and Philadelphia? The same. Devastating.
And Grandpa had been exposed. She slowed her pace. So had she.
She drew her handkerchief from her pocket and continued her walk, topping the street to where only a month before, barbed wire and wood fencing shrouded the Mountain Park Hotel and grounds. As the internees left, the boarding houses emptied of their associated wives and children, except for Anna Fischer Carter. Jess almost allowed a smile, but her thoughts darkened as she surveyed the drowsy Main Street.
Hot Springs had returned to its quiet, five hundred number population, and sat as ill-prepared for this Influenza epidemic as it had been for its German invasion. Less prepared, actually. The Germans never attacked the Appalachian natives. This Spanish Influenza wouldn’t be so kind.
***
Nurse Riley, August’s connection to the lower two floors of the hospital, ushered him forward with a terse gesture. He stifled a yawn. The day brought three more deaths of his comrades and five for the American soldiers. A new threat hung in the air like a dense fog. August overheard the doctors and nurses discuss it in whispered fear. As he’d helped load the coffins of his comrades onto the horse cart, the undertaker and orderly voiced the word with trepidation. Influenza.
An illness that killed with speed, impartiality, and violence. Often.
Already, the doctors reported fifteen cases. He worked the entire morning, directly off of an evening shift. His body ached for a few hours’ rest, but two doctors and three nurses lay ill and three more medical personnel worked through exhaustion, just like him.
“I wouldn’t ask for your help if it wasn’t necessary, but I just don’t have a choice,” she said, leading him to the first floor. Her gaze shifted from his, and her voice trembled. “Dr. Lippard died a few moments ago and Tom is assisting with emergencies on the second floor. I need help getting his body to the front.”
August had little memory of Dr. Lippard... tall, young, with a severe expression.
Her hand paused on the door handle. “There are twelve beds in this room for some of our most severe cases. It is not an easy sight, Mr. Reinhold. Prepare yourself.”
A sickening odor hit him first. The air was thick with a sticky stench, hot and heavy with a blend of blood, bile, and death. August closed his eyes and swallowed, stepping over the threshold into the room. The first shocking revelation came with the color of the patients’ skin. Faces of various hues of blue, gray, and even ash, contrasted with the stark white sheets. One nurse bent over a young man, holding a cloth to his bloody nose. Another adjusted the pillows for a woman who scratched at the blanket, her breath a rattling squeeze for air.
“Here.”
August pulled his gaze from the excruciating scene to the bed before him. A white cloth covered the body, giving blessed relief from the terrifying views on all sides.
“Help me lift him to the stretcher and carry him downstairs.”
August looked from her small frame and back to the man’s shape on the bed. “Do you have an orderly to assist?”
She tilted her chin up, her bottom lip offering the slightest tremble. “There are no others, Mr. Reinhold.”
He scanned the room again, taking closer inventory of the faces and counting the medical staff one-by-one. With a deep breath, he faced her. “What do you need me to do?”
***
August spent the day helping tend tens of men with this ‘Blue Death,’ along with preparing three bodies for burial, until he had no strength of heart or body to continue. The narrow back steps led the way to his small room, and he dragged his legs up each one to the third floor. Another letter from Jessica had arrived in the afternoon, but his gloomy occupation kept him too busy to read it, and his current exhaustion nearly stripped him of curiosity.
He pushed open the door to the third floor and entered the hallway, dimly lit by a few electric lights. His room door loomed at the end of the hall, promising a few precious moments of sleep. He frowned. From the visions in his head of the day’s events, he doubted the dreams would be sweet.
Suddenly, out of his periphery, two men approached. Young and fit... soldiers. He turned to greet them when the first rallied a severe punch into his stomach. August buckled from the impact, pain blinding his vision.
“You and your bloody kin brought the Grippe, didn’t you?”
A fist rammed into his face, sending him backwards. “We read in the papers, your kind released the epidemic here. Haven’t you done enough?”
August caught the next fist and shoved the boy backwards until he hit the wall on the other side of hallway. “I had nothing to do with the sickness.”
August dodged another fist, but felt the full impact of a second against the side of his head. His vision blurred and he crumbled to his knees.
“Get out of here or I’m calling Dr. Stephens.” Thomas rushed through the blur as August struggled back to his feet.
“Don’t protect him, Thomas.” August tried to blink the angry man into view. “His kind need to learn their place.”
“You heard what Dr. Stephens said as well I. The sickness comes from the trenches in France, not from Germans.” Thomas kept his position as barrier between August, his palms out as an added shield. “For all I know, you could’ve brought it back with you.”
The men exchanged glances and then rushed away. August bent forward, giving way to the moan of pain roaring from his chest.
“I’ll fetch some gauze and icings.” Thomas ducked beneath August’s arm and provided extra support to the room.
August stumbled to the cot. “Thank you, Thomas.”
Thomas patted the doorframe on his way out. “And August, if there’s a way to keep everyone from knowing you’re German, just until this flu passes, I think you’d be smart to make it work. People are scared, and fear makes them dangerous. Be careful.”
***
Thirty cases reported in one week and three deaths. Jess walked from one cot to the other in the clinic, ten poor souls packed within the three small rooms. Kimp struggled for breath in the back room, his wife at his side, their futures in the balance. Mr. Donaldson recovered and even helped bring Miss Jessup to the clinic when the symptoms started.
Jess stretched out her back and then adjusted the mask across her face. Its flimsy cloth felt much too thin to combat the severity of this illness. The simplest symptoms of a headache or sore throat quickly erupted into a deathly fever and suffocating cough. The worst cases died within hours.
Grandfather and Dr. Peck spent their mornings visiting homes to check for more victims and the small town, far from the greater populations of Asheville or even Winston, quietly succumbed to this unseen enemy. A person appeared perfectly healthy one moment and within an hour, lay at death’s door.
There was a bone-weariness to the treatment, to the unpredictability.
With a heavy heart, Jess sent Jude and Faith to stay with Cliff and Anna, away from the illness she carried on her clothes every day. She missed them, ached for her children, but the very thought of seeing them suffer as these people did, striving for the next breath, secured her decision. She prayed as she’d never prayed for those struggling, for those dying, and for the survivors left to grieve the sudden loss.
“When do you think I can go home, Nurse Ross?”
Jess stopped by Sarah Ruth’s cot, the new widow’s pale face gaining more color with each passing hour. “From my limited experience with the illness so far, you should be free to leave by the morning.”
She nodded and turned her head away. “I need to take care of Joe’s body.”
Jessica’s shoulders caved forward, her heart gouged by the mere imaginings of such a loss. She remembered Cliff’s grief, the daunting and long shadows lost love left behind. Jess took the woman’s hand and bent low. “Sarah, I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The hard edge in the woman’s eyes dissipated into watery pools. “He was a good man.”
Jess smiled and nodded, remembering the gentle factory worker. “Yes, he was. Always a kind word.”
Her hand moved to her swollen abdomen. “My young’un is going to know about him. You just wait and see. I’ll make sure he knows what a good man his daddy was.”
Sarah had gotten sick first. Jess would never forget the look of pure grief on Joe Ruth’s face when he carried his young bride through the door of the clinic and begged them to save her. He’d sat by her bed for two hours, praying, stroking her hair, begging for God’s healing. Finally, Grandpa found him collapsed across her bed, already in the severe stages of the disease. He died within the hour.
To fall asleep ill one moment and wake up a widow the next? Oh, how Sarah must grieve! The room grew suddenly small, death closing in. The coughs and the rattled breaths pressed in from all sides, and she rushed to the door to breathe in fresh air and sunshine.
Oh God, please help us.
The flaming leaves of fall rose above the quiet town, framing Hot Springs with the colors and vitality the streets lacked in the wake of such a devastating blow. The mountains called to her, rebellious sirens urging her to flee the monochrome devastation of the hospital for the freedom of fresh air and heavenly vistas. Her throat tightened with the need to cry.
A lone figure walked forward, her worn, straw hat at a careless tilt on her caramel hair. Amy. She carried a package, one delivered yesterday, but they’d been too busy to retrieve it from the post office. Jess and her grandfather couldn’t have managed the influx of needs without the fifteen-year-old spitfire. Her quick wit, energy, and her own self-initiation pushed her to stretch her own abilities. Jess offered the girl a wave but paused, her hand in mid-air.
Something was wrong with her gait. It was slow... stumbling. The chill of realization crawled up Jess’ spine just as Amy’s glossy gaze met hers and the young girl collapsed to the dusty ground. No!