The War Librarian, page 9
My despair was replaced by ice-hot anger. Ensign Michael was a bully and a brute. I wouldn’t let him get the best of me.
“Sir, yes, sir.” I sat up straighter and took a bite of my cereal. I chewed like I was tearing into the ensign himself. Anger, I was realizing, was an effective distraction from grief.
* * *
—
I made it through the rest of the day, too busy with drill sessions and lectures to wallow in my grief. But when we had free time from 2100 to 2130, I ran to my room and collapsed onto the bed.
Neither Susan nor Linda was there, to my relief, and I let myself bawl for the first time. I told myself it would be the last, too. As the executor of Nana’s estate, I didn’t have time to grieve for her. I had to take care of her apartment, her things, her funeral. I had to notify my mother somehow, and my nana’s friends. I had to write an obituary and send it to the paper.
But now, I cried so hard that my throat felt blistered and my abs were as sore as if I’d just done several rounds of push-ups and crunches. My small, austere cot shook, and my pillowcase grew soaked with water and snot.
I was grateful there was no mirror in our room when I had to force myself up at 2130 for our nightly Blue and Gold meeting, where each company met separately for a review of the day’s performance. I wanted nothing more than to stay in bed forever, but I had no choice. The Naval Academy was all I had to live for now. Not only for myself but also for my nana. It was my way to honor her legacy, her work in the war that had inspired me to get to this point.
So I pulled my body from bed despite the ache in my chest and the swelling around my eyes. I couldn’t afford to be late to the meeting and receive yet another demerit.
I’d already lost Nana; I couldn’t lose this, too.
Chapter 9
Emmaline Balakin
September 1918
When the Red Cross volunteer appeared at my hut in the morning, I was ready. I wore the uniform dress made out of pongee that ended six inches above my ankles, a hat, a tie, stockings, and low-heeled boots. I couldn’t imagine the dress would do much against the elements, but I did love the patch on my arm. The outline of an open book with ALA stitched into its pages, it reminded me what I was here to do.
When the recreation hut door clicked open, a redheaded girl in a Red Cross uniform not unlike Nellie’s walked briskly in, her posture erect. “Miss Balakin?”
“Yes.” I raised my hand like a schoolgirl, though no one else was in the room.
“Martha,” she said by way of introduction. “I have to be back at 18 in half an hour, so we’re going to make quick work of this training. That okay with you?”
“Yes.” I got the sense she wasn’t really asking.
“You’ve already done training in the States, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am. I served at Camp Meade.” I chose not to mention how briefly I’d been there.
“Splendid. The basic tenets are the same. I’m just here to walk you through what might be different. First off, there are nineteen wooden wards and close to thirty smaller marquee tents here at 42, and you’ll need to visit each one at least once a week.”
I scrambled for a sheet of paper to write everything down.
“The men need entertainment, hence our huts.” She gestured around her with confident ownership. “But many of them can’t make it out of the wards. Books serve as portable entertainment. You wouldn’t believe how relieved the men are to get them. But many of them also want books they can use to learn vocational skills for when they return home.”
Many of the Camp Meade soldiers had preferred nonfiction, too.
“Most librarians use tea carts to carry books from ward to ward,” Martha continued. “Occasionally a wagon or a wheelbarrow. There should be something in the storage closet for you to use.”
I nodded. “A wheelbarrow.”
“Excellent. And you know the policies for lending books? No fees, no fines. Cards for checkout are in the back of each book, and they’re all labeled with a bookplate so soldiers know to bring them back to you.”
The bookplate had a picture of a soldier with a bayonet and a towering stack of books, and it read WAR SERVICE LIBRARY: This book is provided by the people of the United States through the American Library Association for the Use of the Soldiers and Sailors.
“There’s an inscription as well,” Martha continued. “ ‘These books come to us overseas from home; To read them is a privilege; To restore them promptly unabused a duty.’ Doesn’t mean they always come back, though.”
There were greater crimes, I supposed. Especially to a man who might have seen his comrades shot and killed in front of him.
“The biggest thing you’ll need to know here that you didn’t at Camp Meade is how to order new books. The ALA and YMCA share a headquarters at the papal legate palace in Paris.”
A Parisian palace sounded like the version of France I’d wished to see. I knew now how deeply the country had been brought to its knees, but part of me still imagined the palace as a place of beauty and refuge.
Martha continued matter-of-factly. “Requests are sent there, and we handle most of the distribution.”
Was Nellie the one to drive to Paris for new books?
“Most of the books here at 42 were donated by the YMCA. You’re the first ALA librarian onsite, so you can request a large order from Paris. Miss Carre, who you met yesterday, will pick them up.”
That answered my question. I hoped I’d be able to see her in person to give her my list.
“Until then, you’ll have to rely on whatever you brought as well as whatever you can find here.” She pointed to the bookshelf against the back wall. “Just be warned—books will go fast. Men want them, desperately. And remember there’s also a books-by-mail program. Men can write to the Paris headquarters on their own to request books, which will be shipped to them as soon as possible. The headquarters handles about a thousand requests a day.”
Martha handed me a sheet of paper. “Here are the regulations and suggestions you’re already familiar with, I’m sure, from your training. I’m at Base Hospital 18 across the complex if you have questions, but do remember I’m not a trained librarian.”
Me neither, I wanted to say. But I kept my mouth shut.
“You’re the expert here,” Martha said, “and the men will look to you.”
Never in my life had men looked to me for guidance, and I wasn’t sure if the chill that ran through me was thrill or fear.
“Any questions?”
Too many to count.
“No,” I said anyway. “Thank you.”
Martha bade me farewell, gathered her skirts, and plunged back outside into the mud. I was left alone in the recreation hut with half an hour before it opened to the men, so I settled down in front of the bookshelf and surveyed the offerings. They were slim, as Camp Meade’s Mrs. Lipscomb had warned me they would be; she’d said the YMCA and Red Cross libraries were full of repeat copies and little variety. My task for this week, then, would be determining what books to order from Paris.
I stood and brushed off my skirt, grabbed my notepad and pen, and sent one last glance at the bookshelf. However spotty its collection of books, it was the only familiar, comforting sight in this godforsaken place. Then I turned toward the door and stepped outside.
It was cool, and goose pimples rose on my skin when the wind blew. I couldn’t conceive of any way to lug a cart full of books through this mud, but I tried to push that concern from my mind. Before worrying about transporting the books, I needed books to transport.
I walked up the row of hospital wards until I got to the first wooden building, then stopped at the door. I’d seen all sorts of horrors at the receiving ward yesterday, and I knew I had to prepare for worse in the light of day. I thought of what my dad would have told me: Derzhi khvost pistolyetom, or Keep your tail up with a gun. It meant not to give up, but the reference to guns didn’t seem as innocent out here as it had in our townhouse in D.C. At least I had that place to return to if this didn’t work out.
I tucked my notebook under my arm and rubbed my thumb across my prayer rope as I stepped through the door, but even the chokti couldn’t protect me from what was inside. I was hit immediately with a chemical smell that turned my stomach. It had a tinge of blood to it, metallic and sharp, with something lingering and rotten underneath.
Keep your tail up, keep your tail up. I was here because I had a job to do. I was here to bring the men books rich with humor and fantasy and romance and everything else that seemed a world apart from war. Things the men had to be desperate to remember. Nicholas had said so in his letter, after all. He craved the escape of fiction, the logic of a world that followed the structure of plot and climax and resolution.
Other men surely yearned for the same. And if they could fight in these conditions, so could I.
I forced myself to focus only on the first man in the row of cots. I knew if I tried to take all the misery in at once, I’d break.
“Good morning,” I whispered, afraid to breathe in too deeply. “I’m Emmaline Balakin, the new hospital librarian.”
The man groaned in response, and I looked at his face. The left side was wrapped in a thick band of gauze, flat where his ear should have been. When he cupped his hand to his good ear, I repeated myself. But he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head when I did. “Too dizzy to read.”
“Right,” I said, “of course.” We’d been trained not to give the men the pity or sympathy that might come naturally, but it didn’t prevent me from feeling them. “I’ll just—move along then.”
I turned to the second bed and nearly recoiled in shock. The bottom of this man’s face was gone; he had no lips, no mouth, no chin. Half his jawbone had been torn off, and what remained jutted from his cheeks in a blinding white. The color was stark against the glittering red of his throat. When I approached him, all he did was shake his head. No books. No conversation.
How was I supposed to help these men when all I could do was suggest books they couldn’t even read?
With these injuries abounding—I remembered the colonel saying maxillofacial wards were 42’s specialty—we’d need funny books and happy endings. Lots of them.
I continued down the row of cots. Bed after bed of men with missing ears, empty eye sockets, flattened noses. I saw jawbones, cheekbones, nose bones.
When I finally stumbled out of the tent, I collapsed into the mud. It soaked through the fabric of my uniform, but I hardly noticed. I was taking great gulping breaths. My head spun, and I started doubting my ability to differentiate the gray-brown mud from the gray sky. Which way was up? And what was wrong with me, that I couldn’t tell?
The cold of the wet ground eventually brought me back, and I rose and shook the mud from my dress the best I could. That was it, I tried to tell myself. I’d gotten the panic out of my system early, and I could carry on and do my job now that I had.
At least, I hoped that was the case. I stumbled into the next ward and the next, both maxillofacial wards like the first. The injuries were gruesome.
The fourth ward, finally, granted me a reprieve. The first man I talked to had a cast on his leg, which was suspended from strings attached to tall poles on his bed. It was nothing compared to the injuries I’d seen earlier, nor even was his neighbor’s injury of two missing fingers. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized how wrong it was that missing fingers had so quickly become a minor injury in my mental rankings, but I didn’t have time to think deeply on it now.
“Good morning,” I told the man, continuing with my same script. “My name is Emmaline Balakin. I’m the new hospital librarian.”
The man’s face, almost as pale as his cast, lit up. “You have books?”
“I—no. Not this very moment. But I’m taking a survey. What sort of books do you want?”
“Anything.” The man emitted a sound that might have been a cough or a laugh or a grunt from the pain. “I’ve had nothing to do for days but count the swirls of grain in the wood.” He lifted an arm and pointed to the ceiling. “I’ll take anything.”
The man next to him, the one with three fingers, rolled to face us. “Our injuries aren’t as bad as some of the others’, though.” He gestured around. “We don’t all stay long enough to read a whole book.”
I remembered what Nellie, Colonel Hodgson, and Martha had all said about the hospital acting like an evacuation hospital recently and having to send many of the casualties back into hospitals in the intermediate or base sections of France. If the majority of these men wouldn’t stay, I had to have a way for them to enjoy my books regardless.
I thought for a moment. “I can leave a box in each ward. If you’re moved to another hospital before you finish, you can drop the book there on the way out.” It was an imperfect solution, and certainly not a groundbreaking one. But still I stood just a hair taller as I moved on to the third bed, because I’d come up with a plan. Soldiers had looked to me for answers, and I’d provided them.
I continued my rounds. Another ward made mainly of maxillofacial cases, another miscellaneous. And then a gas ward, which I entered with a sense of relief. I wouldn’t have to see blood or shrapnel or bullet holes in here.
But still I found myself nauseated when I stepped into the ward. “It’s the gas,” a nurse told me as she whisked by. “Still on their clothes and skin and hair.”
I clamped a hand over my mouth and nose. “Should I be wearing a gas mask?”
The nurse was already gone. I made my rounds in a haze, taking in the men’s blisters as I wrote down their requests. Most of them were too nauseated and disoriented to read, and I was out of the building quickly.
I moved to the next ward, and the patient nearest the door sat bolt upright when I entered. A harsh cough burst from his throat, but he was smiling. “The librarian is here!”
His announcement was met with whoops and cheers. “Having a book to read will be like attending the biggest party of the century,” one man cried.
His joy was infectious, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the comparison. “Do you have a book in mind?”
“Adventure,” he answered immediately. “Do you have Treasure Island?”
I made a note. “I think I might. If not, I’ll have it ordered immediately.”
“Where do the books come from?”
“I’ll be ordering them from the ALA headquarters in Paris.”
The boy shook his head. “But where do they get them?”
“Different ways. In March, the ALA started sending every soldier coming to Europe with a book. They would read them on the way over and then turn them in upon arrival so they could circulate among other men. But the ALA gets them from all over the United States. Kids go door to door collecting books, people throw book drive parties, churches and libraries take up collections.” I smiled, thinking of the books I’d donated after reading Nicholas’s letter. “If you ever get one with Emmaline Balakin or Maria Popova scrawled across the inside cover, it came from me.”
“Maria Popova?”
“My mother’s maiden name.” I didn’t want to tell the cheerful boy that my mother had been dead for years, so I changed the subject back to the books. “Though I’m afraid both she and I owned primarily women’s books. I’m not sure how much of a market there is here for the Brontës and Jane Austen.”
The boy chuckled. “I’d read anything.”
I moved throughout the ward, taking down the men’s interests as I went. Like several of the men in other wards, they were eager for all manner of novels and poetry—Tennyson, Wells, Ruskin, Shakespeare, Emerson—and I had to flip to a fifth page on my notepad to keep track.
* * *
—
Three days later, the tents had joined the wooden wards at full capacity. Casualties just kept coming: from Nantillois in the Argonne; from Ypres, Belgium; and from a battle over St. Quentin Canal. My task today was to tour the marquee tents the way I’d already toured the other buildings.
I steeled myself on the long, muddy walk over and entered the first tent. The smell was a shade less potent than it had been in the solid buildings, I supposed because the tents were exposed to the open air. This small blessing came with its own challenges; the occasional gust of wind would pick up any letters the soldiers were writing or reading and scatter them to the floor. A radiator stood in the front of the tent, but its heat was uneven. It warmed my legs more than anything else, and I imagined that the boys on the far side of the ward would barely feel anything from it. In the first week of October, the weather was tolerable. But I imagined it would get worse.
Aside from the intrusion of the elements and their smaller size, the marquee tents weren’t significantly different from the wards I’d spent the last three days visiting. There were several maxillofacial tents and a few with assorted artillery injuries, then a row for men who had been victims of gas.
I took a break for meat and beans in the mess hall after visiting the gas wards, still woozy from the haze of gas that clung to the men. In the afternoon, I trudged back through the mud to the far end of the camp to resume going through the tents.
I stepped into the one where I’d left off and launched into my prepared greeting. “Good afternoon,” I said to the first patient. “I’m—”
I stopped short when I saw the man’s face. His eyes were closed, but there was something familiar about him. I felt a magnetic pull toward him too strong to ignore. He had muscled arms and big, calloused hands, but there was something about his calm face that warmed me, made me feel at home. I couldn’t quite place my finger on it.
As I inched closer, the man’s eyes opened and settled on mine.
