The Story of Dr. Wassell Read Online Free Page B

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quantity of American cigarettes in the town and left them at the hospital for
the men. He had so little time to catch his train that he could not stay to
receive their thanks; or perhaps that was partly an excuse, for he always
felt embarrassed to be thanked for things. And actually he was eager to get
the Surabaya trip over and done with. He hated going into offices and meeting
his superiors on official matters; it was not so bad afterwards if and when
(and they usually did) they asked him into some neighboring place (and there
usually was a neighboring place) for a drink. But he could never quite escape
the initial feeling that he was a schoolboy again, facing an unpleasant half
hour with the headmaster.
    The Surabaya trip turned out pretty well, as it happened; at any rate, no
fault was found with his reports. The Navy, doubtless, had very much else to
do besides bother with him, and during his short stay in the dockyard town he
picked up a good many rumors which he tried to think were alarmist rather
than alarming. There had been several severe air raids on the town and
harbor, and others were expected at any time; and despite all the hero stuff
that got into the newspapers he did not find one person, whether Dutch or
American or British or Javanese, who really disagreed with him about the
fundamental unpleasantness of air raids. He was quite glad to make the
journey back to a place where people still undressed to go to bed at
night.
    Of course Singapore would probably stand a long siege, and Java was
doubtless invulnerable to full-scale attack (unless the Japs were crazy); but
still, one could not deny the fact that the war was coming closer, and it
might be uncomfortable even in the interior of the island till the crisis had
passed.
    He traveled by night, reaching his destination in the early morning, and
as he walked through the tree shaded streets, thinking about the men from the Marblehead and their problems, he could not help feeling pleased with
himself for having secured permission for them to smoke. There seemed so
little he could do, now that his reports were made, and with the Dutch
doctors all so efficient; it was good to have found something. But then, as
he pondered over it, the thought occurred to him that cigarette smoking could
not be very easy for all of them; some had bandaged hands, or oily bandages
that would catch fire easily, and others had been burned on the lips, so that
the paper from the cigarette would stick to the skin. Perhaps long
holders—the kind he used himself—were the solution. He went into
a shop and bought some ruefully aware that cigarette holders would look no
better than ice cream on a Navy expense sheet. But it was a soundly practical
idea, he thought, if only the men would take it seriously.
    It was, and most of them did, but McGuffey had devised another solution
which, for him at least, seemed definitely preferable. When the doctor
entered the ward he saw the boy lying flat on his back, with bandaged hands
outstretched in an attitude of serene composure, while the little Javanese
nurse whom they called Three Martini sat resignedly at his bedside, holding a
cigarette to his lips and at intervals taking it away to flick off the ash.
It made a charming picture, and the doctor was almost sorry to put an end to
it with the gift of a holder, but the plain fact was that Three Martini’s
time was far too valuable to be spent in such a way.
    She was, indeed, one of the best of the nurses—one of the best
nurses he had ever seen anywhere, the doctor later on decided. She was so
quiet and skillful in all that she did; one wondered when she ever slept, she
seemed to be flitting so constantly about the wards. Despite the efforts of
the men, she learned no English, and seemed not to wish to; it was as if all
her desires were in things that could be done without words. Even in a
hospital so excellently staffed she stood out as someone