Page 39 of Two Wars and a Wedding

Miss Barton looked Major Havard in the eye, and Betsy wondered how she had ever thought her vain or silly. “What about your duty to the men in your care? Will they thank you for refusing aid?”

“That’s army business—not yours. If you’ll excuse me?”

And with that, the major did them the vast discourtesy of turning his back and walking away.

“But—they can’t do that.” Kit stared blankly after the major. “I was there with Nurse Hayes. I saw—it’s a mess!”

“The army has spoken,” said Miss Barton. It was the sort of tone that commanded lightning bolts and turned men to stone. “You. Miss Carson. You will write down every word of that exchange and print it in your paper. I want the world to know what happened here.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Miss Barton gave a curt nod. “Now. All of you. You heard what Major Havard said. Our services are not required. Come.”

“We’re leaving? Just like that?” Betsy didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t wanted to be here in the first place, but now that they were, they couldn’t just walk away.

“Of course not.” Miss Barton’s voice was calm, but there was a militant gleam in her eyes. “We’re merely diverting our mission. If our own people won’t accept our aid, perhaps our Cuban allies will.”

The Cuban hospital, housed in General García’s headquarters, was on the same side of the harbor, only a few minutes’ walk away. If the surgeon in charge was bemused at being accosted at midnight by a party led by the legendary Miss Clara Barton, he recovered from his surprise with admirable speed and led the entire group directly to General Calixto García.

General García was a wonderful old man with a bushy white mustache and a great scar in the center of his forehead.

“He’s a legend,” Kit hissed in Betsy’s ear. Betsy could tell she was dying to whip out her notebook. Her fingers moved on Betsy’s arm as though she were holding a pen. “When he was only twenty, he was already a freedom fighter and shot himself through the head so the Spanish wouldn’t catch him. Under the chin and out the forehead. He shot himself and survived it and kept fighting. He spent years in a Spanish prison. . . .”

Kit was whispering to her about this war and that war, but Betsy just couldn’t stop staring at that scar, where a bullet had gone through his chin and out his forehead. And he’d survived. He’d survived and lived and fought again. He was fighting still.

It was incredible what the body could bear. For some.

Not so much for others.

“The stories he could tell . . .” Kit hastily straightened, pasting on a serious expression as Clara Barton introduced their party to the general.

“We stand ready to offer whatever aid we can.”

“I accept with gratitude,” said the general solemnly. At their surprised expressions, he smiled at them. “I know a godsend when I see one. My men have suffered much in three years. I will do anything I can to alleviate their pain. And,” he added, with a courtly bow, “your reputation precedes you.”

“We do what we can,” said Miss Barton modestly, although Betsy could tell she was blazing with triumph and relief and more than a bit of I-told-you-so.

The chief surgeon murmured something in the general’s ear and the general nodded, the lamplight playing off the shiny skin of his scar. “My doctors ask only that they might have a day to make the hospital fit for your presence. . . . He says it is no place for ladies.”

Miss Barton gave a sharp laugh. “My dear sir, if there’s one thing we don’t fear, it’s dirt! Dirt fears us. Show us your buckets and brooms. We’ll have your hospital fit for health by morning.”

“I should not wish to be a dirt speck in your path.”

“Nor I a Spanish soldier in yours.” The two old warriors smiled at each other in perfect accord. “Sister Bettina, Sister Minnie, Nurse Carson, Nurse Hayes, to your mops! We have a battle to be won.”

Chapter Ten

Darling Ava,

I have been a model student. You would be amazed by my new powers of application, which have lasted for the better part of a week and possibly more. I have maintained a regular presence in the library. I have attended every lecture. I haven’t scandalized the populace with my bicycle for at least a week. I don’t see how Professor Richardson can fail to be impressed, can you?

Please do come, Ava. You know you could do with a season in Greece after the winter you’ve had. I’ve enclosed tickets and a bank draft. Mrs. MacHugh’s coachman will fetch you from Piraeus. You don’t need to worry about a thing. It’s all arranged.

Don’t tell me you can’t accept. If you do, I’ll bestow the tickets on some thoroughly unworthy individual who won’t be nearly as good an influence on me as you.

All my love,

Betsy