Page 86 of Two Wars and a Wedding

Betsy pressed his hand hard against her cheek, trying to still the sudden panic in her chest. “It’s a fever, Charles. You have a fever.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Yesterday, after a week of tense anticipation, the truce ended, and we braced ourselves for an influx of wounded. The sound of the guns reverberated all the way down to the coast. But before the worst could come, the flag of truce flew again, and not a moment too soon. News has come of relief for our hard-pressed heroes in the form of fresh troops, not yet weak and fevered from months of poor rations and inhospitable conditions.

Fevers stalk our troops. Tertian fever (which some call malaria), typhus, and other infections run rife among our weakened men. There are whispers of the dreaded yellow fever, which claims lives wherever it roams.

Your own correspondent will admit to feeling not quite herself. . . .

—Miss Katherine Carson for the St. Louis Star Ledger, July 12, 1898

* * *

Siboney, Cuba

July 13, 1898

“You have a fever. How can you have a fever?”

Holt would have protested but his teeth were clattering together too hard to speak. He couldn’t have a fever; he was too cold to have a fever. He felt like he was encased in frost. He wasn’t sure how it had happened. He’d just woken up this way, soaked through and shivering for all he was worth, as if someone had dumped him in a lake in winter.

Nurse Hayes’s familiar face swam into view. Holt tried very hard to stop shaking; it felt embarrassing, somehow, which was silly, since Nurse Hayes had already seen him in every possible condition. But he didn’t want her to see him this way. Helpless. Unable to control the movements of his own body.

“No. No, no, no. What did I miss?” She scrabbled at the bedclothes, peeling away the sodden sheets. Holt was curled in a ball on his side. She rolled him over to get at his leg, yanking down the bandage to peer at his wound, nose to thigh. “It’s not infected anymore. It’s closing nicely. What else? What am I missing?”

Holt made an effort to pat her hand. “S’all right.”

“No, it’s not all right!” She glared at him, then grimaced. “I’m meant to be soothing you, not the other way around.”

Holt felt like there was something he should be saying to her, something important, but the cold claimed him again, making his whole body convulse.

Red-hot pincers drove into his brain. “Head hurts,” he mumbled, and felt like a baby for admitting it.

Don’t tell, that was the mantra of his childhood. Never admit pain. Never admit weakness. Hide until it passed.

But where could he hide? Nurse Hayes had seen him inside and out.

“Stay here,” Nurse Hayes said. She appeared shortly thereafter—at least, Holt thought it was shortly; time did funny things—dragging Dr. Stringfellow behind her. Nurse Hayes had the doctor by the hand and was yanking him forward like a very determined tugboat.

“I don’t understand it. The wound looks clean. What did I miss?”

“Ah, you again,” said Dr. Stringfellow, looking down at Holt.

“Hello,” Holt managed. His eyes hurt. Everything hurt.

But his head was clear. Aside from the pain, that was. It wasn’t like last time, when he’d been drifting. He knew where he was. It was just his body betraying him this time, not his mind. He wasn’t wandering the halls of his father’s house. He was here, in a tent, with Nurse Hayes, and aside from the pain and the chills, he would have been content to stay where he was so long as Nurse Hayes was there with him.

Nurse Hayes grasped Holt’s hand. He wasn’t sure she realized she was doing it, but he liked it there, so he didn’t say anything. “Well?” she demanded.

“It’s not wound fever. You did a good job with that leg.” Dr. Stringfellow yanked the dressings back into place. “He’s picked up an ague.”

“How?”

“How do you think?” Dr. Stringfellow scrubbed his spectacles against the side of his jacket. “They’re weak, they’re packed together, sickness spreads.”

“Not in my ward!” Nurse Hayes appeared to be taking it as a personal affront. If he could have spoken without his teeth banging together, Holt would have vouched for her. Everything they touched was boiled and bleached. She peeled back one of Holt’s eyelids. “Look. No yellow. It’s not yellow fever.”

“I never said it was.” Dr. Stringfellow glanced at his pocket watch, clearly impatient to be gone. “It could be any number of things. It might be a malarial ague, it might be typhoid. . . .”