The Story of Dr. Wassell Read Online Free PDF

had a fine hospital and were
giving the men excellent treatment; their food was good, too, but naturally
different from the kind the men had been used to in the Navy, or in Wisconsin
or Nebraska, for that matter. The doctor, having lived so many years in China
and having acquired a definite taste for Eastern foods, knew how intolerant
people can be in these matters, and how many a man will lay down his life for
another country more willingly than he will cat that country’s delicacies
without grumbling. So he spent further sums of Navy Department money in
fostering international amity via the stomach.
    And then there were other jobs, especially when a batch of long-delayed
mail came in, crumpled and soaked from sea-water immersion. Most of the men
had letters from home, and most of these had been penned before Pearl Harbor,
so that there were undertones of irony in sentences that the men read out to
one another. The doctor had already helped the men with bandaged hands to
write home (much as he detested the physical act of writing), so it was
natural that now, having been initiated, so to say, in their family affairs,
he was invited to hear further news of Pa. and Ma and brother Joe and Aunt
Nell. And then, also, there was Goode, who had lost one eye and had the over
covered over, so that he could not read the letters he had received. They lay
in a little heap next to his pillow, and the doctor thought it rather odd
that the boy had not asked his neighbor to read them for him. But then Goode
perhaps was odd, if it were odd to be far more depressed by his injury
than Edmunds was, who had also lost an eye. Or perhaps it was Edmunds who was
really odd, for not seeming depressed at all. The doctor could not quite make
his mind about the matter, but he went over to Goode’s bed and asked if the
boy would like to have his letters read, and when the answer was a quiet,
almost indifferent affirmative, the doctor sat on the edge of the bed and
began to read one letter after another in a low voice, so that no one else
could hear. They were all from a small town in Iowa, and the first two that
he read were just family gossip about the farm, and the new automobile, and
Jim’s baby. The third, however, was from someone who signed herself “Helen,”
and after the opening sentences the doctor had a queer feeling that made him
glance ahead and over the page, whilst pretending to clear his throat. He saw
then that it was a kind of letter hardly calculated to raise the spirits of
an injured sailor lying on a hospital cot ten thousand miles from home; for
briefly and leaving out the apologies, it was to tell him that Helen had
changed her mind and had already married somebody else.
    The doctor had to make a quick decision, which was hard for him, and then
to say something glib, which was fairly easy for him when once he had
decided. He finished clearing his throat and continued: “Well, that’s about
all—except that she sends you her love and hopes you’ll soon be home on
leave because she’s simply counting the days…”
    “Why don’t you go on reading what she says?”
    The doctor braced himself for a stupendous feat of improvisation. “Gosh,
boy, that’s what I am doing, only the handwriting isn’t so very clear—I
was just summarizing for you in advance. Here’s her own words—‘Darling,
I’m simply counting the days, and that’s the truth too, because I love you to
death, and when you come back from the war—’”
    “She wrote that on December first,” interrupted Goode. “Don’t tell me she
knew we were going to be at war a week before it happened.”
    The doctor realized he had blundered, but there was nothing for it but to
hold fast. “Why shouldn’t she? I know plenty of people who had a hunch all
this was coming. And she’s a smart girl, from the way she writes—maybe
she did know, or had an intuition or something—”
    “Or maybe she didn’t write any