Page 58 of Two Wars and a Wedding

“When will a chance like this come along again? You’ll be able to work with the best doctors in Greece, doing real work, not practicing on paupers paid to lie on a pallet. We’ll go together,” Betsy said persuasively, swept away by her own eloquence. “It will all work out, you’ll see. I’m doing this for you.”

Ava’s eyes went hard and her lips went tight. “No, you’re not. And don’t you dare try to wheedle me into thinking you are. You’re doing this for you. Because you can’t bear that the professors at the American School haven’t thrown themselves at your feet and declared you their natural heir—without your having to bother to put in any of the work.”

Betsy felt hot and cold all at once. “That’s not fair.”

“No. It’s not. It’s not fair that you’ve always had more than your fair share—of money and talent—and you don’t seem to care.” Ava blinked hard. “You’ve been given everything. You’ve been given everything and you’re throwing it away.”

Given everything? She didn’t have what Ava had. She didn’t have a house full of siblings and a mother who packed her hot lunches for the train ride to Northampton. “I’m not—”

“Oh, aren’t you? Instead of staying and trying to make it right, you’re grabbing the first excuse you can. I won’t do it. I won’t be your excuse.”

Betsy saw red, and not just the wall hangings. “You mean you don’t have the backbone. You’d rather huddle in a mansion in Concord, grooming your cousin’s pet poodle, than risk the fact that you might not be as good at something as you think you could be.”

Ava stood up abruptly, the back of her fragile chair knocking against the wall. “I’m not the one who failed my first aid exam.”

Betsy stood up too. “I’m going to the front,” she said stubbornly. “Because some of us aren’t afraid to take a risk.”

“It’s not just your own life you’re risking. But you can’t see that, can you? All you can ever see is yourself. What you want, what you need—never mind if you kill a few people in the process. Never mind that the man who squires you about is another woman’s husband.”

“Don’t you dare bring Charles into this!”

“Fine. I won’t.” Ava’s voice was very flat, her face very set. “You can do what you want. You will anyway. But if you do something this monumentally selfish, this catastrophically irresponsible, then I want nothing more to do with you. Not here. Not in Boston. Not ever.”

Betsy felt like she was being ripped up into little pieces. But there was nothing she could do about it. “I’ll buy you a ticket home.”

Ava lifted her chin. “You needn’t bother. I’ll find my own passage back.”

Chapter Fifteen

The tents were soon filled to capacity. Hay and blankets were set out on the ground next to the tents, and to these “beds” were sent the less desperate cases, although what seems less desperate in a crisis of this magnitude would seem desperate indeed back at home.

Tonight, by special order of General Shafter himself, Miss Barton was called to serve at the front, in conditions even more dire than those that confront us here on the coast. In charge, she has left Sister Bettina in the surgery tent, Sister Anna in the hospital, and Nurse Hayes in the tent ward. At this point, we have in our care four hundred and seventy-five patients, with more coming in from the front with every passing hour.

Some are brought in loads in army wagons, the only ambulances to be had. Others make the trek on foot eight miles over a harsh, mountainous road, using what little strength they have left to stagger into our care. . . .

—Miss Katherine Carson for the St. Louis Star Ledger, July 2, 1898

* * *

Somewhere in Cuba

July 2, 1898

“We’ll have you back soon. Just another few miles.”

Only a few miles. That’s what their commanders had told them. But a few miles stretched into endless misery when you had to stop and lie on your stomach while the Mauser bullets peppered the air around you and in front of you a ford was piled high with bodies and the mud turned purple with blood.

But you couldn’t move. Oh, no. You couldn’t even crawl. You had to lie there and wait, not moving, not firing, just waiting.

“Holt, come on, we have to move.” Someone tugged on his arm, trying to pry Holt up off the ground.

What was Paul doing standing up like that? He’d be shot.

Holt grabbed Paul’s arm, dragging him down. “Stay low, stay low. Hold your fire! They’ll get you if they see your smoke.”

Paul crouched down beside him, sliding an arm around his back and hauling him up by main force. “Holt, it’s all right. I’m taking you to the hospital. Remember? We’re on the Siboney road.”

The Siboney road. They’d marched down the Siboney road. When? When? Holt couldn’t remember. Everything was blurring and running together, like a painting left out in the rain.