A Watch in Time – Chapter 8, Part 1

A WATCH IN TIME

A Full Length Short Story by Golden Keyes Parsons

Chapter Eight – Part 1

Click here to start with Chapter One

Lily Kate mailed a letter every day to somewhere in Europe to the young pilot she’d met while he was stationed at Rich Field. He captured her heart, then went to war holding her literal future in his hands. Was it her fate to remain in 1918 and wait for the love of her life, or would she wake up any moment back in modern day Waco? Lily Kate needed to return to her real life. But what was real? She didn’t know anymore. And David …was her brother well? How was he explaining her absence in modern-day Waco?

She prayed for Clay, but she wasn’t sure how prayer worked in this other dimension. Visions of the boxy airplanes screaming through clouds and plunging to earth that she had seen in war movies and history books in grainy black and white photos roared through her mind now in vivid color. She imagined him wearing the leather helmet and dashing scarf barely escaping with his life. Sometimes the pictures in her mind exploded in fiery crashes or were swallowed up by the indigo water of the ocean. She closed her eyes and shook her head against the anguished visions. No need to torture herself. He’d been gone almost a year. She knew he was living on borrowed time the longer he was overseas. He wrote only once or twice a week, but what a way Lieutenant Clay Cole had with words. Pages filled with amorous declarations of his love for her made her simultaneously smile and cry. Assurances that he was well and not seeing much action failed to convince her.

She clambered onto the trolley. She had to admit that she was enjoying being a nurse, although she’d never previously considered it as a career.

Blanche looked up as Lily Kate approached the desk at the Red Cross headquarters. “Might as well not get settled in. You’re being transferred to the base hospital at Camp MacArthur. More soldiers coming down with the flu than they can handle. I’ll send you out in the ambulance.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll go right away.”

Thoughts rumbled through Lily Kate’s head as the ambulance rumbled toward the base. The driver, a middle-aged volunteer with a bushy mustache, handled the cumbersome vehicle with relative ease. Will the flu shot she got at the local pharmacy in modern Waco be effective against this strain of the Spanish flu? The young clean-shaven guard at the gate stuck his head into the ambulance window and looked at Lily Kate’s uniform. “We’re sending all the nurses to the mess hall. Too many patients for the hospital.” He pointed to the left. “You can let her off over there.”

Lily Kate got out of the ambulance and waved good-bye to the driver. “Good luck, young lady. This looks like tough duty.”

Walking past the first mess hall where soldiers stood in line, Lily Kate stared at a nurse administering castor oil to the men—using the same spoon for every dose. Lily Kate strode up to her, and grabbed the spoon from her hand “What do you think you’re doing?” The nurse pulled back spilling castor oil on the ground. The men waved their hats and cheered.

“Following orders and trying to prevent the spread of the flu.”

“Well, you won’t do it by using the same spoon for each man without disinfecting it between doses. You’ll be spreading it.”

The nurse scowled. “This is the way we always do it.”

“Not anymore. Go get some alcohol and disinfect between each dose.”

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Join us next Friday for part 2 of chapter 8.

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