Page 56 of Healing Hazel

As she and the others returned to the infirmary beneath the canvas, the first thing Hazel noticed was empty places where patients had been the day before. Some must have improved during the night to the point where they had risen from their pallets and returned to duties around the camp. But others...

She looked around the clearing, seeing men digging at the far end. The sight made her heart heavy.

The camp had only cold water since the rebels still refused to light a fire, so Hazel gathered up some blankets and strips of bandages and took them to the stream. It was hardly more than a trickle of water, but it was frigid, and within a moment, Hazel’s hands were red and numb.

She coughed again, and it made her lungs hurt. When she had rinsed the linens as well as she was able, she spread the blankets out on the ground to dry in the sun. She objected to the lack of sanitation but saw no alternative. Each time she bent over to straighten a corner or pull a bandage tight, her head swam. After a few moments, she sat on the ground. Her chest hurt, and she felt dizzy.

A few of the rebels came to join her, and seeing the task, they made quick work of spreading the remainder of the blankets and bandages. Hazel got to her feet, thanked them, and returned to the hospital tent.

When she stepped beneath the canvas, Jim called to her, and she joined him at the side of a patient. The man’s neck and one side of his face were completely burned. Dr. Laurent had told Hazel the day before that the injuries had been caused by his rifle misfiring.

Jim was removing the bandaging from the day before, pulling the cloth carefully away from the skin. Even though they’d used ointment, the bandages still stuck to the skin, and the man winced as it was pulled away.

At Jim’s direction, Hazel poured cool water over the bandage, loosening it enough that it could be removed completely.

Jim inspected the injuries, and once Hazel applied more ointment, he bandaged it again.

Hazel took the soiled bandages and the bucket of water and stood, swaying as she did. She dropped what she was carrying and coughed again, bending nearly in two. Her lungs felt tight and hot. Darkness speckled the edges of her vision, and she couldn’t balance on her feet. She reached out for something to hold on to, but there was nothing.

Jim caught her before she fell. “Hazel, you’re... you’re burning with fever.”

His voice sounded far away, and Hazel couldn’t find the energy to respond before the darkness closed in.

Chapter 18

“Dr. Laurent!” Jim called acrossthe camp. He knelt to lay Hazel down in the shade of the canvas, snatching someone’s rucksack from the ground nearby and putting it beneath her head.

Dr. Laurent rushed through the patients, coming to kneel on her other side. “What happened?”

“She fainted,” Jim said, his fingers on the pulse in her nek. He counted the beats, frowning at their rapid speed. He felt the glands beneath her jaw.

Lucía and Camila joined them, bringing blankets and putting them over and beneath Hazel.

Hazel didn’t react to the movement, her lack of response escalating Jim’s worry. Her symptoms were much more serious than those of a simple cold or the aftereffects of a poor night’s sleep.

Dr. Laurent touched Hazel’s forehead and sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Such a fever. How long has she been zhis way?”

“I don’t know,” Camila answered. “She seemed tired and pale this morning.”

“I believe I heard her cough earlier,” Lucía said. “A dry cough.”

Jim put the end of the stethophone into his ear, holding the bell against Hazel’s chest and side. Her heart beat quickly and her breathing was shallow. He moved the bell, listening to different sections of her lungs. After a moment, he turned her over to listen to her back, and Camila assisted. In Hazel’s right lung he heard crackling—the sound of fluid moving through the tissue—and in some areas nothing. Parts of her lungs were not receiving breath. He gave the stethophone to Dr. Laurent and loosened the buttons of Hazel’s collar.

Dr. Laurent listened through the stethophone as well, his frown deepening.

Lucía brought towels and a water bucket, and the women bathed Hazel’s skin, trying to cool her fever.

She shivered and began to cough.

“Zhe right lung,” Dr. Laurent said somberly, listening through the cough.

Jim nodded, his gut sinking in dread.Pneumonia.For a moment, his worries overshadowed his thoughts, but he pushed them away. Now it was time for action. “The willow bark,” he said, handing the kit containing the medicine to Lucía. There was no hot water to make a tea, so the soldiers had been chewing on the bits of wood to draw out the fever-reducing properties. “If she can’t chew it, soak it in water and administer it cold.”

Lucía nodded.

Camila wrung out a towel, placing it on Hazel’s forehead. She picked up the nursing cap that had fallen off when they’d moved Hazel, then carefully put it in her pocket.

“She needs zhe hospital,” Dr. Laurent said. His expression was grim.

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