Page 67 of Two Wars and a Wedding

She didn’t need to sound so incredulous. “It was only what anyone would do. Are you evacuating?”

“No. We’ve evacuated our wounded, but there’ll be more coming.” A lot more, if the doctor’s grim expression was anything to go by. “You can, if you choose, go back to Athens. Or you can stay here at the Red Cross hospital.”

Not her own little hospital. Betsy looked back over her shoulder at the tumbledown building that had been her home for the past week. It was ridiculous how quickly one became attached to a place.

“If you stay, there is the risk the Turks will overrun Vólos,” Dr. Kalopothakes said coolly. “The Turks have not agreed to respect the Red Cross as a neutral party.”

So, in other words, she could go back to Athens and comfort, as she had wanted from the beginning, with enough nursing under her belt to say “I told you so” to Ava. Or she could stay here and risk a fate worse than death. Or possibly just death.

Betsy touched two fingers to her throat, feeling the familiar outline of the angel through the fabric. “I’ll stay.”

“Good,” said Dr. Kalopothakes.

Chapter Seventeen

It is impossible to overstate the terrible condition of our men. These brave boys, who set out so proudly to liberate Cuba, have been reduced to mere skin and bone by the failure to provide them proper rations and the harsh effects of the local climate. Heatstroke, dysentery, and malnutrition stalk our boys, doing what the Spanish could not.

The Red Cross has worked marvels, providing nourishing gruel, “cider,” and beef stock for those in their care, but their mandate extends to only those men weak enough to fall into their care. Meanwhile thousands of others continue to crouch in damp encampments within range of the Spanish guns. Are these the men who will storm Santiago?

It is the duty of every feeling person to call for immediate relief for our hard-pressed army here in Cuba. . . .

—Miss Katherine Carson for the St. Louis Star Ledger, July 3, 1898

* * *

Siboney, Cuba

July 3, 1898

“Good,” someone was saying, while committing indignities to parts of Holt’s anatomy.

Good was not the word Holt would have used. Whatever was happening, it hurt. He tried to explain; he tried to explain to the doctor, in his rusty black coat, that he hadn’t fallen while sliding down the banister, that wasn’t what had happened at all, but the doctor just clucked at him and wagged a finger and told him lads would be lads and not to be so reckless, eh?

Holt’s leg burned. It was his arm his father had broken, not his leg. Why did his leg hurt?

Someone was gently stroking his head. Water trickled down his face. Tears? No, water. Or maybe water and tears. Holt tried to lift a hand to wipe whatever it was away and saw his hand come away red with blood.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” someone said. “If you don’t stop pulling at it, it will never heal.”

There was something about that voice, so crisp and sure and aggravated, that was strangely reassuring, that made the fog fade for a moment. Holt tried to smile but it made his face hurt.

He had a black eye. Cook had put raw steak on it and the juice had run down his face like something that might happen to the hero in a story in Boy’s Own. Holt gobbled up the story papers as quickly as they arrived, not the drawing lessons and contests and instructions on how to build your own birdhouse, but the stories, stories of boys like him, boys who weren’t afraid of anything, who could wrestle a grizzly bear or make a shelter out of two sticks and a blanket or who thwarted gangs of robbers and emerged triumphant.

He wished he could be strong like them. He tried to be brave like them, but it was hard, when he knew that any sign of defiance was going to be met by punishment, not just for him, but for his mother, whose fault he was. Maybe he was doing it wrong. Maybe it was him, maybe if he were braver, stronger, smarter . . .

Someone was lifting him, putting a hand to his cheek, cupping his face. “Private Holt. Holt.”

Who was Private Holt? His mother called him “Bobby,” or she did when his father wasn’t listening. His father referred to him only by his full name. Or more frequently just “you.”

“Holt. Private Holt. You need to drink this.”

Whoever was speaking sounded rather urgent and there was a cup to his lips, so Holt obediently opened his mouth and drank, or tried to. He choked some of it up again and felt a cloth against the side of his mouth, wiping up the spit, someone’s hand rubbing his back.

“Carefully now. You don’t have to drink it all in one gulp.”

Sometimes you did have to drink it all in one gulp before it was taken away. Holt had learned to squirrel food and water away in his room, for when he was sent there without supper. They’d forgotten him once for two days. His mother had been indisposed; she’d knocked her head. The servants didn’t remember his father had locked him in, not until his mother finally woke up and went looking for him, staggering up and down the hallways, clutching the walls for balance.

He should have done something; he should have protected her better.