Page 97 of Two Wars and a Wedding

On board the Seneca

July 14, 1898

Cravenly, Betsy wished Holt were still with her when she gathered the passengers together to announce that there might just be a slight change of plans and would any of them mind abandoning their nice, comfortable cabins to sleep on the deck, or possibly on the floor of the smoking room?

He was a patient, she reminded herself. He was meant to be convalescing.

But there was something so wonderfully steadying about him.

Betsy couldn’t remember why she’d ever found him an annoyance. That felt like it belonged to another lifetime, that the people they had been on that railway line outside of Tampa had been different people entirely. She’d come barreling back from Greece to rescue Ava, and here she was, on another doomed ship, and Ava was exactly where Betsy hadn’t wanted Ava to be. In a strange way, though, her failure was her success. She’d never seen Ava so happy as she’d been in Siboney, up to her elbows in perforated intestines, exchanging sweet medical murmurings with Dr. Stringfellow. Lawrence. Betsy supposed she would have to start thinking of him as Lawrence if he was going to be a sort of honorary brother-in-law, which everyone, particularly Ava, seemed quite determined he would.

She was doing it again, Betsy realized. She was doing exactly what she had done at Smith and in Greece. It was much easier to plan Ava’s wedding than figure out what on earth she could say that might move a group of hardened newspapermen and international grandees to give up their rooms. Just as it had been easier to fling herself into Charles’s arms than it was to face up to the fact that six men who hadn’t had to die had died on the Albania and nothing she said to the authorities was going to make any difference or stop it happening again.

What can I do? Holt had asked, calmly assuming that there was something that could be done.

That they could make a difference. That she could make a difference.

Betsy hauled herself up onto a deck chair, feeling like a poorly carved ship figurehead in her stained and rumpled Red Cross uniform.

Betsy waved her hands about. “Hello? Everybody?”

Not exactly “friends, Romans, countrymen,” but one had to start somewhere.

“Um, as you may know, this ship has been requisitioned to evacuate the wounded from Siboney to New York, where they can receive medical care.”

Some people seemed to be listening. Others were shuffling or whispering or picking their noses. They were a motley lot, the passengers, but they were a motley lot that Betsy recognized from her time in Greece. Not the individuals, but the types. They’d had a Swedish army officer just like that one on the ship to Vólos. The American newspapermen were chomping their cigars with impatience. Unlit, as a nod to her female status.

And, good heavens, she did know that one, the one with the hair slicked down from his part with a strong comb and an excess of cream. A Harvard man. Cabot? No. Coolidge. John Coolidge. They’d danced a polka together. He was squinting at her as though trying to figure out how he knew her.

Betsy didn’t blame him. She barely knew herself anymore.

“Many of these men are gravely wounded. They were wounded fighting for freedom, for liberty, for the people of Cuba. Have they been given the care owed such heroes? No. We’ve crammed them into horrid bunks in the hold.”

They were listening now. Betsy could see them lifting their heads, actually paying attention.

“We have two doctors. Two doctors and one nurse. For the care of ninety-four men.” Betsy let that sink in. “Some are struggling with fragments of shells still lodged in their extremities. Others are delirious with fever. Crammed into the hold as they are, they have very little chance of making it to New York and the care they need. But—”

No one shuffled; no one whispered. Betsy looked around the group, making eye contact with each man, one after the other.

“If you—any of you, all of you—were to give up your cabins, it could make all the difference. You could save a man’s life. Many men’s lives. These men have mothers at home, wives, children.” Betsy’s voice caught as she thought of Kit, Kit talking about her children. “Won’t you help them go home to them?”

There was a moment of quiet. Betsy stood there, feeling painfully conspicuous, the cold of exhaustion seeping through her, the weight of failure heavy on her. This had been her one shot at this. If she’d failed—

“You can bet I will!” shouted Coolidge, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waved his hat in the air.

The Swedish naval officer bowed his head, his face grave. “My cabin is at your disposal, as am I.”

“Thank you,” whispered Betsy.

The Russian representative didn’t want to be behindhand. He cast a dirty look at the Swede before bowing to Betsy. “Mine as well.”

The German officer clicked his heels. “I am at your service.”

“Sure, you can have mine,” said one of the newspapermen. He frowned at the end of his cigar. “But you should know, Sylvester Scovel’s wife is laid up in the cabin next to mine and she’s in a pretty bad way.”

Another newspaperman let out a whistle. “Scovel, eh? That—er.” He remembered Betsy’s presence. “Don’t tell me he’s on board.”

“Course not,” said the first man sourly. “Shoved his wife aboard and left her to fend for herself—he wouldn’t miss the fun.”