The Army post-surgery ward is chilly. Wearing an old pair of cashmere mittens from several fashion seasons past, Olivia pours fresh drinking water at each bedside table. Army regulations dictate each cot has one standard issue woolen blanket in greyish green and a pillow of indeterminate age. Every small bedside table holds an enameled cup for drinking water and linen cloths in a tin bowl for cooling fevered heads. A small Christmas ornament of cheap decorated tin hangs at the foot of all the cots, looking cheerless and odd amid the wounded.
Each cot cradles a broken soldier laying helpless among a long row of fellow patients. Most are American, some British, and a few German POWs are segregated in another ward. Sharp scented whiffs of medical-strength bleach intertwine with a cloying stench of battle-ravaged flesh. Olivia’s gauze mask is ineffective against the ever-present stink. A quick spritz of French perfume onto her mask is her only defense against Spanish Influenza and recovery room smells.
If it weren’t for the approval of peers in her garden club, she’d rather not be pouring water in such a depressing place. A pushy neighbor made it practically rude for Olivia to ignore brigades of patriotic society matrons attending the wounded.
I don’t want to be here. She’s been volunteering since October and hopes today’s shift will be calmer than usual. Since her first day, she barely says two words to any wounded soldiers. Some are awake to stare at her as she pours water into their tin cup. Total strangers. No proper introduction. Social strata dictate appropriate behavior.
Most patients are newly operated on and require constant checking for fever or chills. Some wake up confused, needing to be calmed. Many patients panic when they can’t feel their lost arm or leg. In these moments, Olivia always calls for a nurse and steps away, far from the cot. Others are awake but can’t see. A few awake only once, fall back asleep, and never awake again. More lie still for long, quiet hours only to be jolted into tremors by ringing clatters of a dropped water bowl or sudden thunder outside the windows. Their nerves are shattered, and their trigger-sensitive minds send them straight back to the hellish trenches in western Europe. Their violent memories are too much for her when the screaming starts. Her reluctance as an angel of mercy increases with each soldier’s cry of disorientation from too-real phantoms.
Moving from cot to cot, Olivia systematically refreshes each cup and bowl with water from a porcelain pitcher. She feels most comfortable with patients who either are asleep or staring wordlessly at the tin tile ceiling. Talking to them would only impede their healing. Yet, she has a lurking feeling of falling short of helping the soldiers. No, I bring water. Meaningful enough.
A very young private, perhaps younger than her son, shyly asks her to help him write a letter to his family in North Carolina. Olivia answers from the security of her societal status. “No, I couldn’t possibly pause in my assigned duty. Many need their water refreshed.” But what bothers her is how her response came out. She sounds as if a soldier herself, with orders being orders. Old-to-soon eyes in his young face continue to plead, shaming her for such an unfeeling answer to his request. My refusal was brusque. Cruel.
Undone by her insensitive response, Olivia pours water into his cup on the table, splashing some on the floor in her hurry to move on to the next cot. But the young private asks again. In his surgery weakened voice he says, “My name is Orville.”
Feeling something knotted start to unwind inside of her, she’s stunned when she tells him her name, “I’m Olivia.”
No Mrs. No last name. But it seems appropriate to say her first name in response to his. Now somewhat introduced, she relaxes and promises to return tomorrow with a proper pen and paper. Orville’s face doesn’t smile but his eyes glow with relief. Olivia is glad she made him happy. Forgetting herself, she reaches down to pat his hand in assurance.
He has no hands. She sees bandaged stumps from surgery to clean-up what was blown away by war. Her eyes jerk away. The rest of whatever is knotted inside of her bursts. The pitcher begins to quake in her hands.
Olivia gives Orville the most difficult smile she’ll ever give. Twisting away, she flees from the long room, holding her tears until safely in the stairwell behind the door. What she hides inside of her is a tight, hidden horror, her untold feelings about volunteering at the hospital. Sobbing with burning tears and gasping, Olivia faces her unspoken dread. Enfolding her hand to her mouth, she admits to herself that which she doesn’t want to see. Orville is among only one of the many young men who could be her own enlisted son. Any of them might be him, hurt and possibly in an enemy hospital too many miles from home.
Is he ill on a German hospital cot? Does he have cups of cool water? Cool cloths for his fever? Is there a decent, loving German mother at his side? Someone who volunteers in a spirit of compassion for young prisoners of war? Olivia chose to believe there would be a woman like that at his bedside. She must exist, as weary of this Great War as Olivia is on the enemy side of the ocean.
Her false pride in following society’s shallow restrictions shatters like a shroud of ice in her mind. For her son’s sake, she must be one of those caring mothers. The broken young men in hospital cots on the other side of the door need more from her, including the German POWs in cots down the hallway. None will be strangers. They’ll each know her by her first name.
With a new purpose, Olivia regains her self-control and daubs wet eyes with her lace sleeve. Removing her mask, she splashes water from the pitcher on her reddened face and dries it with a corner of her hospital apron. She resolves to return with a new definition of proper behavior to the rows of vulnerable young soldiers cast off by war. Ignoring conventional niceties, she will introduce herself first, followed by a smile and a touch. Ready to walk back in, her mask in place and footsteps sure, she feels eager to finish her rounds.
Beginning that morning, each soldier receives a light touch on their forehead and a soft “Good morning, son.” If a cot holds a sleeping soldier, Olivia makes a note to revisit him before she leaves for the day.
Beginning the next morning, she carries paper and pen in her apron pocket and writes hundreds of letters home. She hopes all are lovingly received by anxious families, unfamiliar to her and often faraway. Yet, although all are strangers, they’re bound to Olivia by their wounded soldier lying on a cast iron hospital cot in a cold recovery room.
The End