Wickett's Remedy (35 page)

Sometimes Tommy Fells would ask her to write a letter for him. Though he claimed his handwriting was illegible, she suspected he could neither read nor write. Likewise when a letter arrived for Tommy he asked Lydia to read it aloud, explaining he preferred the sound of a woman’s voice reading the words. Soon Lydia found herself reciting the words of mothers and sisters from across the Northeast, though she refused to be the voice of girlfriends on moral grounds, which exempted Joe Cohen’s letters from her talents.

When on the third morning every temperature reading, throat swab, and blood sample from quarantine continued to indicate that the men remained healthy, she felt something inside herself loosen. Though Peterson and Cole continued to monitor the men’s blood and sputum, even they seemed less intent on their task. Foley must have shared their growing ease because she finally allowed Lydia to insert a thermometer between a volunteer’s lips.

That afternoon Dr. Gold announced the inauguration of a second test in the west ward involving ten more volunteers. In an empty room in all other respects identical to the one in which ten men were celebrating their enduring health with homemade cookies sent by Teddy Evert’s mother, Lydia affixed ten new names to ten footlockers. The tentative sense of well-being that had stolen over her in recent days diminished with each additional name, until by the tenth footlocker she felt as ill at ease as on the first morning. In the afterglow of the east ward’s daily defiance of sickness she had forgotten that those ten men represented a beginning and not an end.

The next morning she once again found herself behind an equipment-laden cart that included a bottle filled with milky liquid. The familiarity of these objects was consoling. Having observed their harmlessness once, she had reason to believe they might again prove benign. Apprised of the first group’s good fortune, the second seemed less cowed by the doctors, and her cart received fewer apprehensive glances. This time Peterson explained the inoculation would taste salty, and he avoided terms like Mather’s coccus.

Trailing Foley from bed to bed, Lydia found herself comparing each bed’s occupant with his counterpart in the east ward. Paul Louden was similar in build to Harry Able but lacked the affability of his predecessor. Lawrence Matthews seemed a pale imitation of Tony Cataldo. Ronald Nestor was as young as Teddy Evert but had close-set eyes that aroused Lydia’s suspicion. None of the men had the easy bearing of Frank Bentley. As she continued from bed to bed she tried to banish such comparisons from her thoughts. Had these
men been her first patients, she would surely be holding Joe Cohen and John Kipling up to standards set by Fred Paley and Leonard Osterman rather than the other way around—but despite this intention, the men of the east ward remained at the forefront of her mind as Dr. Peterson traveled from bed to bed inoculating compliant noses and throats.

Perhaps because she had one such test behind her, the second round of inoculations seemed to elapse more quickly. Soon Percival Cole was heading toward the laboratory and Nurse Foley was returning to the east ward for the second temperature reading of the day, an event whose results were so consistent that the men had taken to predicting their temperatures beforehand. Because Cole tended to read or write as he walked, he was quickly outpaced by Peterson and Foley and it was easier than Lydia thought to find herself alone with him in the hospital corridor.

“Cole,” she began, keeping her voice low. “Dr. Peterson told the volunteers that the inoculation would taste salty this time. What was different about it?”

“It’s a different isolate this time,” he explained while continuing to write in his notebook. “Dextrose bouillon was the growth medium for the cocci, but this time we used crude secretions from three acute cases. Which are naturally saline, of course, hence the saline suspension.”

“What’s a crude secretion?” she asked.

“Just what you’d expect,” he answered to his notes. “Mouth, nasal, and pharyngeal washings, also bronchial sputum. Think of them as naturally occurring broths, if you will. Made inside the body’s own laboratory.”

Cole continued down the hallway, unaware he was no longer accompanied.

“Percy,” she called. She was grateful Foley and Peterson were by this time out of sight and hopefully beyond earshot. Cole froze and, for the first time, looked up from his notebook.

“Doesn’t it—” she began, but stumbled. The courage her question required vanished with Cole’s gaze. She wished he was still walking—it would have been easier to address his retreating back. “I understand our objective, but to give them
secretions
—” She was trembling, but she knew this would be her only chance.

“Do you hate them?” she asked, the words practically bursting from her after their long confinement. “Do you hate them for what they did—for their crimes? Is that why you can do this like it’s nothing at all?”

Cole cocked his head to one side as if to allow the words a more direct route into his ear. “Their crimes,” he repeated pensively. “You mean because they’re gray-backs?”

She nodded, her heart pounding.

He paused for a few moments more before answering. Whenever he spoke he gave the impression of having carefully considered every word, checking and cross-checking for alternate meanings before offering each up for conversation.

“I don’t hate them,” he answered. “If anything I would say I sympathize with them. I would have made a terrible soldier,” he shrugged. “It’s not in my nature.”

She sought some sign that this was an elaborate joke, but they were alone in the hallway and Cole was not known for his sense of humor. He looked toward
her now with the same patient, reasonable expression that distinguished all their conversations.

“But if that’s really how you feel,” she said, her voice echoing up and down the corridor, “how can you have done what you just did?”

He gazed at her with incomprehension. “But Miss Wickett, the stated purpose of this study is the transmission of influenza! I know that, the volunteers know that, you know that—”

“I didn’t know that we’d be helping to kill people,” she blurted. She swiped contemptuously at the tear that had appeared on her cheek.

“Oh dear!” Cole cried, closing the distance between them. Without preamble, he removed his white lab coat and placed it on the floor, then gestured for her to sit. She was too surprised by the gesture not to comply. He knelt beside her. He smelled comfortingly antiseptic, as though his skin were made of soap. She had never seen Percival Cole without his lab coat; he wore it even in the dining room. He was surprisingly solid.

“Is that how you’ve been thinking of our work?” he asked, his voice solicitous. “That’s not at all descriptive, you know. While it’s true that this is a particularly virulent strain of influenza, the mortality rate is still only ten percent.” His voice had grown so soothing that his words, no matter how academic, could not help sounding like a lullaby.

Cole nodded with small, quick jerks of his chin, his cerebral machinery practically made visible. “Considering the level of care they are receiving,” he continued, “I would submit that the chance of one of our volunteers succumbing is really quite lower than that. Yes. Quite lower.” A final, decisive nod. “Which still poses
a risk, of course, but man’s greatest accomplishments have always involved a modicum of risk.”

In that moment she became certain he had younger siblings, and that as an older brother he was adored. She was on the verge of asking him this when he stood and gestured for her to do the same, whisking his coat out from under her as she did. Once the coat had again disguised his frame, the previous moment was so thoroughly effaced that it seemed possible that she had invented it.

“The chance to make history rarely comes even once in a lifetime, Miss Wickett,” he said. “I, for one, feel lucky to have been given that chance and I suspect the volunteers do as well, or else they wouldn’t be here.”

To her shock, he placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the first time since arriving at Gallups that she had been touched and she feared for a moment she might have to sit down again.

“Please don’t upset yourself,” he urged. “You do yourself and this study a disservice.”

“Oh,” she stammered. Footsteps sounded from around the corner. Cole removed his hand.

“Good day,” he offered quietly before hurrying away.

It’s a matter of viability—it’s common sense, really. The samples from the acute cases were extracted between thirty and seventy hours after onset, correct?

Sure.

For the purpose of discussion let us assume that is early enough in the disease cycle to obtain infectious material, though I have my doubts. But for the sake of
argument, let us say they begin as viable, infectious samples. How long does it take these samples to reach Gallups? Almost
two hours.

Outside a human host.

Exactly! Outside a human host. And how are they transported? In an uninsulated glass bottle inside an assistant surgeons pocket, for the love of Pete! A damn lot of good that’ll do when it’s practically winter! I tell you those cultures were dead before they docked.

Then explain the presence of
Streptococcus viridans
, explain the presence of
B. influenzae
! These organisms were produced in the control cultures. You saw them yourself. They were
not
dead cultures.

Maybe they were dead for influenza.

Are you deaf?
B. influenzae!

Well, then maybe
B. influenzae
doesn’t cause influenza.

Come on! Go tell that to the Surgeon General. “Excuse me, Rupert? You know that flu vaccine your boys are cranking out? I’m sorry to tell you, but you’re wasting your time.
B. influenzae
is useless.” Next you’ll be saying that influenza isn’t even bacterial!

Okay, Cecil. You win. But we’ve got to be doing something wrong if all we’re getting out of these gray-backs is a few sore throats.

Fine, Dick, but I’m telling you the fault lies with the transfer medium, not the organism. I think
B. influenzae
loses potency in suspension—there’s no evidence that the samples grown in the control culture are as powerful as the organisms extracted from the nasopharynx.

That’s your theory.

Of course it’s a theory! Krikey, Dick, if someone knew the answer none of us would even be on this rotten island!

At the very least they could have gotten us more nurses.

From where? Wickett isn’t Public Health Service. Hell, she isn’t even a nurse! The nurses are too busy taking care of sick people. We’d have better luck getting dancing girls.

There’s an idea.

Foley’s got the legs for it, don’t you think?

Forget it, Cecil. She won’t even give you the time of day.

What about Wickett then?

The girl doesn’t know how to play bridge. She eats bacon like it’s filet mignon. She washes her clothes by hand rather than send them to the laundry. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, Cecil, but she’s strung a clothesline behind her quarters. And that accent!

What accent?

She works hard to cover it up; perhaps the poor thing even took diction lessons, but if you listen closely you can hear it.

You ever been to South Boston?

You couldn’t pay me to go.

It’s not so bad. When I was a boy we had a delicious maid from Southie.

As tasty as Wickett?

I’ll be happy to let you know should the opportunity for comparison arise.

Opportunity indeed. Half the so-called gentlemen of this world are merely cowards.

Does that make you a coward then?

I, for one, would rather be a living coward than a dead soldier.