Wedded to War by Jocelyn Green Page A

learned her son had died without her comforting touch. She reached out and touched his scaly arm, dry and brittle beneath her fingertips. She gently moved her fingers into his palm and felt the slightest twitch of his fingers.
    “He knows I’m here?” she asked the doctor.
    “It’s difficult to say,” Dr. Markoe replied. “He is so weak. I’m sure his bed will be empty before too—”
    “Shhhhh, shhhhh, Adam,” Charlotte drowned out the doctor’s words. “It’s going to be all right. You’re doing fine.”
    Dr. Markoe shook his head. All three of them knew it was a lie. Perhaps Adam knew it, too, but his body seemed to relax under her hands.
    “If you please, we need to move on.” Dr. Markoe pushed the spectacles up his hawk-like nose.
    “This boy is some mother’s son, Doctor, and if what you say is true, he is slipping from this world to the next right before our eyes. There
is
a place for compassion, Dr. Markoe, even in the midst of your scientific observations,” Charlotte told him as they turned to leave Adam’s side.
    Dr. Markoe sighed, deeply, slowly. “Sympathy doesn’t save lives. Science does. Efficiency does. If you feel too deeply, it will cloud your judgment, slow you down. I know it’s hard for you women to understand—that’s why medicine has always been a man’s job. But try. So, shall we?”
    For the next three hours, Charlotte and Mrs. Dowell followed on Dr. Markoe’s heels, examining dozens of patients with pneumonia, fever, measles, rheumatism, tuberculosis, and several others whose symptomswere inconclusive. By eleven o’clock, Charlotte’s notebook had several pages of scribbled notes and her head was spinning.
    It was time for a lunch break before the afternoon lectures would begin. But before Charlotte was dismissed, Dr. Markoe caught her attention.
    “Miss Waverly, a moment, please.” She followed him into the hallway outside his ward.
    “Yes, Doctor?”
    “You’re awfully sure of yourself, young lady.” His small eyes bore into hers.
    “Excuse me?”
    “I’m tolerating your boldness because it’s your first day of training. But I can guarantee you, if you pass this course, if you actually get placed under an army surgeon, he will be looking for reasons to dismiss you. And you are giving him several.”
    “I don’t understand!” Her spine tingled. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
    “First and most obvious, you are young and attractive. You’ll be a distraction to the convalescent male nurses, to the medical students, and to the soldier patients themselves. And by distraction, I mean they will be tempted to interact with you in ways that will satisfy their hunger for female … companionship.”
    Charlotte looked down, but her voice was firm. “Since I have kept to every regulation of the nursing uniform, I don’t know what else I can do to become even less attractive. What else would you have me do, shave my head?”
    “Now that’s the second thing I’m referring to. Right there. Your quick tongue is going to get you in trouble. I understand your asking me questions in front of the patients because you are in training, and you are here to learn. But did it ever cross your mind that this is an exception, not the rule? If you question the surgeon like this after you’re given your assignment, it will appear as if—no, in truth, you
will
be—tryingto undermine his authority, as a man, as a doctor, and as a military authority.”
    Charlotte narrowed her eyes into slits as she looked up at him. “You will forgive me, sir, if I do not understand why asking questions is such a threatening thing. Wouldn’t it benefit everyone if I really understood what was going on?”
    Dr. Markoe sighed and rubbed the back of his neck beneath the stethoscope cord. “Your father died a while ago, didn’t he?”
    She blinked. “Yes, twelve years ago, but I fail to see how that has anything to do with this.”
    “It has everything to do with it, Miss Waverly. You’ve