The Reluctant Midwife (14 page)

“Wait,” exclaims Lilly. “You forgot apples for applesauce.” She pours half a bucket of the bad ones in a clean white sac that she finds under the counter, this without sight, and she doesn't drop one! I'm surprised when she moves toward me and takes me in her arms. “It will be okay, Miss Becky. We will all be okay. Even this one.” Here she rubs her swollen belly. “We will get through this together.”

“Isaac, today will be different.” I use a soft schoolteacher voice as if I'm talking to a six-year-old and that's about how old Blum seems. He's gone from being a baby when we first returned to Liberty to being a first grader, but still that's progress. “After we make our last delivery, you'll stay with the Bittmans while I go to the CCC camp.”

“You're to do as they tell you. They may have some chores. If there's nothing to do, just sit down on a box. This interview is important. They need a nurse at the camp and I need a job.”

Who knows if Blum's even listening. He has the same blank stare as he always does.

The trip to the CCC camp takes longer than expected. Following Crocker Creek, which roars around boulders the size of an auto, I climb higher and higher with the mountainside falling away on the right.
Am I really going to drive this road in the winter?
Twenty minutes after passing Mrs. Stone's place, I see the first signs of my destination, a dark green arrow that reads
CCC CAMP
.

Here, I turn into a narrow forest drive and am surprised when it ends in a pine-ringed clearing holding multiple log structures and a
row of what I think may be dorms, five in all. Young men are coming and going between the buildings. It's a whole little village of men, and I head for a group of fellows crowded around a tractor in a garage.

The corpsmen look over when I get out of the car, and though I don't think of myself as a femme fatale, I'm very aware of my femaleness.

“Excuse me,” I say to the group. “Can you tell me where I might find the camp director?”

“Headquarters is two buildings down,” an older man answers. It's Loonie Tinkshell from the Texaco station! “Howdy, Miss Myers. What are you doing way up this way?”

I really don't want to share that I'm interviewing for a job, but there's no way around it without seeming rude. “I'm going to talk to the director about employment as the clinic nurse, just a part-time position.”

“Well, holy cow! I'm working here now too.”

“I don't have the job
yet
!” I can't help but laugh.

“You'll get it!” “Yeah, you'll get it.” “Good luck, lady!” a few of the young men chime in, and I smile.
The kindness of strangers
, my mother used to say, and it's true, especially in hard times.

Following Loonie's directions, I turn the Pontiac around and pull up next to a smaller log building across from the dorms.
Here goes nothing
, I say to myself, crossing my fingers behind my back. The many-paned windows reflect my tense face, and I practice a smile and smooth down my hair.

“May I help you?” a big-bosomed woman asks as I enter the building. Her voice is higher than you'd expect from her size and her blue-gray hair is crimped and stiff.

“I'm Nurse Becky Myers. Captain Wolfe asked me to come meet the director today and talk with him about nursing services. I'm sorry I don't have his name . . . the director.”

“The supervisor is out. You can wait if you want to.” She looks at her watch, indicating it may be hours.

“Is the captain here? I've come a long way.”

“No. They've both gone over to Camp Laurel.” She gives me no further explanation and offers no tea or coffee, though I notice she's sipping something from a white mug with a green CCC insignia on it.

“I've come a long way,” I repeat firmly, sitting down and making it clear that I'm not going home. That's all there is, no small talk or questions, and the woman goes back to her typing.

So, here I am and I hope this is not a half a tank of gas and a day wasted. I'm disappointed the men aren't here. I was pretty sure I told Wolfe that I'd come on Thursday, although now that I think of it, there wasn't an exact time.

While I wait, I take in the overly warm room. Directly across from me is a door labeled
INFIRMARY
and next to it a red-and-black poster with a photo of a strapping young fellow in a CCC uniform holding an ax. “A young man's opportunity to work, to learn, and to conserve our national resources,” it reads, probably a poster designed by someone at the FAP, the Federal Art Project, a government program that hires unemployed artists.

From the handmade pine table next to me, I pick up the camp newsletter,
The White Rock News
, and open it to the humor page, but there's no time to read. The door bursts open.

“The doctor? Is the doctor here?” a fellow of about twenty shouts as four young men in bloodstained uniforms stagger in carrying an injured boy. From the looks of him, it's serious. His leg is covered in a crude bandage of white rags drenched in red and his face is alabaster.

The secretary rises so fast she knocks her chair over. “Oh, Lord . . . not another one!” She flings the infirmary door open to reveal four white metal beds with a scale in the corner and a blood pressure cuff mounted on a stand. I jump up, throw my pocketbook on the chair, and, without even thinking, begin to shout orders.

“Here, lay him down. Someone get my medical bag in the Pontiac. What happened?” The young men, by this time, are running out the door, either to get my bag, or more likely, to escape the scene of carnage, but I grab one by the shirtsleeve. “You! Explain!”

“It happened at the sawmill, ma'am. Awful bad. Halfway cut off. Where's the doc? Is the doc here today? Can he save his leg?”

“I don't know. I'll try.” My informant is about to be sick so I let him slink away. “My bag!” I yell after him.

“Mrs. Ross, a pan of hot water. I'll need to wash the wound to assess the damage. Does anyone in the camp know first aid? Is there a medic?”

The round woman is now cowering against the wall. “Come on now, Mrs. Ross! Pull yourself together.”

“No medic,” she whispers.

“Call the physician at the other camp. Tell him registered nurse Becky Myers needs him here as soon as possible.”

“There's no phone. It's a shortwave radio. I can try.” Mrs. Ross starts for the kitchen to get water and then spins around like a top and points to the wooden CB set on a table in the corner. “Which first?”

“Water and clean rags first. Hold on the radio. This may not be as bad as it looks.” Just then the young man who'd given me the report returns with my bag.

“This it, ma'am?” He's no longer so white and a cigarette dangles from the corner of his mouth.

“Yes, thank you, but you can't smoke in here. There's a pair of scissors and a packet of gauze in the satchel, get them out, please. Don't look at the wound if you can't take the sight of blood. I'm going to unwrap his leg.” The young man runs to the door and flips his cigarette out into the yard.

Removing the crude bandage, I finally get a look at the injury. The cut is below the knee and down to the bone, but it's straight, not jagged, and there's no dirt or sawdust in it. Most important, the bleeding seems to have slowed.

The boy rummages around in my bag, pulls out what I need, and places it on the small pine table that Mrs. Ross brings in.

“What's your name, son? And what's the patient's name?”

“I'm Boodean Sypolt. His name is Jed Troutman. I didn't know there were lady doctors.”

“Mmmmm.” The injured man is coming to. He groans and then groans again.

“Boodean, hand me the blue bottle of merthiolate, the one with the cork. Also, I'll need the tin box of suture needles. I'm a nurse, not a doctor. A registered nurse.”

“Fuck!” The victim shakes his head and there are tears in his golden-brown eyes. “What happened? Oh, fuck. What have I done?”

“It's okay, Jed. It's okay. I'm Nurse Becky and I'm going to give you a teaspoon of laudanum before I sew you up.” This I do sparingly, since the liquid in the blue bottle is the last of Dr. Blum's supply. Within moments Jed falls back into a stupor, and I can get on with my work.

For the next half hour, by the big wooden cuckoo clock on the wall, I cleanse the wound, carefully stitch the layers of muscle and skin back together, and anoint the deep cut with merthiolate. Boodean serves as my surgical assistant, cutting my suture when I need it and handing me the instruments, but otherwise concentrating on a poster above the bed, this one in green and yellow, exhorting the virtues of the Forest Army with an image of a tall evergreen and the Civilian Conservation Corps logo below it.

By the end of the procedure, I notice the young man is looking down at the surgical field and actually anticipating my next move. Finally, I'm finished. Boodean stretches his back.

“Nice job,” I tell him, and when he smiles I notice one of his teeth is missing, the eyetooth, the one with the point. Otherwise he's a good-looking lad, with clear skin, kind eyes, and curly brown hair. His nose, which appears to have been broken at some time in the past, is the only other feature that mars his handsome face.

“Thanks,” he says shyly. “I never did nothin' like that before. Will he still be able to work? His mother is counting on the twenty-five a month that Jed sends from his CCC pay. She's a widow with five other children.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. He should heal okay, if he keeps his wound clean. Do you know each other from home?”

“Both our dads went down to Hawk's Nest to work on the tunnel they put under the mountain. Out of the four men from home who traveled together, my dad is the only one that made it back alive.”

I'm familiar with the situation at Hawk's Nest. If you read the news, you couldn't miss it. In 1930, Union Carbide decided to improve their power plant by diverting the New River under Gauley
Mountain. To do this they hired unemployed Appalachians and blacks from the South.

It was a big scandal, even got hearings in Congress and in the federal courts. Four hundred men died, both white and colored, the largest industrial accident in the United States. Some, who had no family living close by, weren't even buried, they were just dumped over a cliff.

Dr. Blum had been livid. “The workers died of acute silicosis,” he told me after attending a medical meeting in Torrington, where the tragedy was discussed. “The silica in the rocks coated their lungs and no one gave them masks or breathing equipment, although management knew enough to wear them. Those workers died within a year. . . . A waste of good lives. A crime.”

Things like that used to really upset him, back when he had his mind.

I'm just washing up when Mrs. Ross cracks open the infirmary door. “They're coming!” she whispers. “Outside . . . the truck just pulled up . . . the captain and the superintendent.”

After getting over her case of nerves when she first saw the victim covered in blood, the camp secretary has become my ally. I stand and straighten my hair. There's a spot of blood on my nylons but hopefully it's not too obvious.

The door bangs open. “Where is he? Is he okay? Why didn't you call me at Camp Laurel?” a loud nasal voice demands.

Mrs. Ross answers so quietly I can't hear her response.

Then the inner door swings back, and two men in uniform enter
the infirmary. Captain Wolfe steps forward and shakes my hand. “Miss Myers. Thank God you were here. How's Jed? The boys outside said his leg was half cut off.”

The man beside him is short and plump, balding on top, with his yellow hair combed over his freckled scalp. Both are dressed in army uniforms and they begin to perspire in the warm room.

“I'm Major Milliken,” the superintendent introduces himself. Since I grew up in New England, I recognize his Boston accent at once. “I'm deeply grateful for your services, Nurse. Is the young man's leg okay? Do we need to transport him to the hospital? There will have to be a report filed. This is awkward, a civilian doing the surgery. . . .”

He paces the floor, mulling things over. “I wonder if we could submit the Pay Inquiry Form 2142 for the registered nurse before we submit the DA285,” he says to himself and then turns toward his secretary. “Could we do that, Mrs. Ross?”

“Certainly, Major. Whatever you say. I'll do it right away. Post the employment 2142 this afternoon and the DA285 tomorrow.”

“Hold on a moment.” I'm not usually so forceful but things seem to be moving too fast. “Are you saying you're hiring me? We haven't discussed the pay for a registered nurse, the hours of employment, or what my responsibilities would be.”

Captain Wolfe kneels at the side of the patient's cot, inspecting his dressing. He puts the back of his hand on Jed's forehead as a parent would, feeling for fever. “You okay, lad?”

“I gave him some laudanum,” I explain. “The laceration was deep, but there will be no lasting deformity, except the scar of course.”

“Young men don't mind scars.” Captain Wolfe laughs, touching his own face. “It's their mothers and wives who mind. . . . Before we go too far, Milliken, don't you think you should interview Miss Myers and be sure she wants the job?”

“Oh, very well. Yes. Will you come into my office, miss?”

There's something about the
miss
that irritates me, but I let it go.

“I believe the current pay for registered nurses is thirty-five to forty cents an hour,” the camp supervisor begins—no “How do you do?” or “Thanks for being here at just the right moment.” “I can give you thirty cents an hour.”

My inner eyes go wide at the insult, but I keep my face still. “Major, I just saved your enlisted man's life. If I hadn't been here, he might have bled to death. I can work for thirty-five cents an hour and no less.

“I'd also like dinner on the days I'm here, and Captain Wolfe told me the camp would fill up my gas tank and make minor repairs on my automobile if needed.” This part about the repairs is a fabrication, but I don't care. The officious man annoys me.