The Exiles and Other StoriesDavis, Richard Harding
General
The Exiles and Other Stories
Davis, Richard Harding
Short stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
They lay on cots so close together that the nurses could not walk
between them. They lay on the wet decks, in the scuppers, and along
the transoms and hatches. They were like shipwrecked mariners clinging
to a raft, and they asked nothing more than that the ship's bow be
turned toward home. Once satisfied as to that, they relaxed into a
state of self-pity and miserable oblivion to their environment, from
which hunger nor nausea nor aching bones could shake them.
The hospital steward touched the Lieutenant lightly on the shoulder.
"We are going North, sir," he said. "The transport's ordered North to
New York, with these volunteers and the sick and wounded. Do you hear
me, sir?"
The Lieutenant opened his eyes. "Has she come?" he asked.
"Gee!" exclaimed the hospital steward. He glanced impatiently at the
blue mountains and the yellow coast, from which the transport was
drawing rapidly away.
"Well, I can't see her coming just now," he said. "But she will," he
added.
"You let me know at once when she comes."
"Why, cert'nly, of course," said the steward.
Three trained nurses came over the side just before the transport
started North. One was a large, motherly looking woman, with a German
accent. She had been a trained nurse, first in Berlin, and later in
the London Hospital in Whitechapel, and at Bellevue. The nurse was
dressed in white, and wore a little silver medal at her throat; and
she was strong enough to lift a volunteer out of his cot and hold him
easily in her arms, while one of the convalescents pulled his cot out
of the rain. Some of the men called her "nurse"; others, who wore
scapulars around their necks, called her "Sister"; and the officers of
the medical staff addressed her as Miss Bergen.
Miss Bergen halted beside the cot of the Lieutenant and asked, "Is
this the fever case you spoke about, Doctor--the one you want moved to
the officers' ward?" She slipped her hand up under his sleeve and felt
his wrist.
"His pulse is very high," she said to the steward. "When did you take
his temperature?" She drew a little morocco case from her pocket and
from that took a clinical thermometer, which she shook up and down,
eying the patient meanwhile with a calm, impersonal scrutiny. The
Lieutenant raised his head and stared up at the white figure beside
his cot. His eyes opened and then shut quickly, with a startled look,
in which doubt struggled with wonderful happiness. His hand stole out
fearfully and warily until it touched her apron, and then, finding it
was real, he clutched it desperately, and twisting his face and body
toward her, pulled her down, clasping her hands in both of his, and
pressing them close to his face and eyes and lips. He put them from
him for an instant, and looked at her through his tears.
"Sweetheart," he whispered, "sweetheart, I knew you'd come."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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