Alas, Babylon

He opened his eyes wide. It was Lib, without a white cap. Incredibly, she was presenting him a cup of coffee. He reached his face out and tasted it. It burned his tongue delightfully. It was no dream. He swung his feet to the floor and took the saucer and cup. He said, “How?”

“How? You did it yourself, you absent-minded monster. Don’t you remember putting a jar of coffee in what you called your iron rations?”

“NO.”

“Well, you did. A six-ounce jar of instant. And powdered cream. And, believe it or not, a pound of lump sugar. Real sugar, in lumps. I put in two. Everybody blesses you.”

Randy lifted his cup, the fog of sleep gone entirely. “How’s Dan?”

“Terribly sore, and stiff, but stronger. He had two cups of coffee and two eggs and, of course, orange juice.”

“Did everybody get coffee?”

“Yes. We had Florence and Alice over for breakfast-it’s ten o’clock, you know-and I put some in another jar and took it over to the Henrys. The Admiral was out fishing. We’ll have to give him his share later. Helen has earmarked the broth and bouillon for Dan until he’s better; and the candy for the children.” “Don’t forget Caleb.”

“We won’t.”

Again, he had slept in his clothes and felt grimy. He said, “I’m going to shower,” and went into the bathroom. Presently he came out, towel around his middle, and began the hopeless process of honing the hunting knife. “Did you know,” he said, “that Sam Hazzard has a straight razor? He’s always used one. That’s why his face is so spink and unscarred and clean. After I’ve talked to Dan I’ve got to see Sam.”

“Why?”

“He’s a military man and I need help for a military operation.”

“Can I go with you?”

“Darling, you are my right arm. Where I goeth you can go-up to a point.”

She watched him while he shaved. All women, he thought, from the youngest on up, seemed fascinated by his travail and agony.

Dan was sitting up in bed, his back supported by pillows, his right eye and the right side of his face hidden by bandages. His left eye was purpled but not quite so swollen as before. Helen sat in a straight-backed chair close to the pillows. She had been reading to him. Of all things, she had been reading the log of Lieutenant Randolph Rowzee Peyton, heaved up from the teak sea chest during last night’s burrowing for iron rations.

“Well, you’re alive,” Randy said. “Tell me the tale. Start at the beginning. No, start before the beginning. Where had you been and where were you going?”

“If the nurse will let me have one more cup of coffee just one-I’ll talk,” Dan said. He spoke clearly and without hesitation. There had been no concussion.

Each day when he completed his calls it was Dan Gunn’s custom to stop at the bandstand in Marines Park. One of the bandstand pillars had become a special bulletin board on which the people of Fort Repose tacked notices summoning the doctor when there was an emergency. Yesterday, there had been such a notice. It read:

Dr. Gunn

This morning (Friday) two of my children became violently ill. Kathy has a temperature of l05 and is out of her head. Please come. I am sending this note by Joe Sanchez, who has a horse. Herbert Sunbury.

Sunbury, like Dan, was a native New Englander. He had sold a florist shop in Boston, six years before, to migrate to Florida and operate a nursery. He had acquired acreage, built a house, and planted cuttings and seedlings on the Timucuan six miles upstream of the Bragg house.

Dan pushed the Model-A fast up River Road. Beyond the Bragg place the road became a series of curves, following the serpentine course of the river. Dan had delivered the last two of the Sunburys’ four children. He liked the Sunburys. They were cheerful, industrious, and thoughtful. He knew that unless the emergency was real and pressing Herb would not have dispatched the note.

It was real. It was typhoid. It was the typhoid that Dan had half-expected and completely dreaded for weeks, months. Typhoid was the unwelcome, evil sister of any disaster in which the water supply was destroyed or polluted and normal disposal of human waste difficult or impossible.

Betty Sunbury said the two older children had been headachy and feverish for several days but not until Friday morning’s early hours had they become violently ill, a rosy rash developing on their torsos. Fortunately, Dan could do something. Aspirin and cold compresses to reduce the fever, terramycin, which came very close to being a specific for typhoid, until the disease was licked; and he had the terramycin.