The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

the smoke and salt. Forcing it down, she redressed. Momentarily, blackness encased her. The wool chafed her wet skin. She found the hood, and the chaos on the beach reappeared.

A leper to be feared, she wove her way through the throng, maintaining a safe distance, and stopped ten feet from Ingrid, still draped over Kate’s knees.

Not even the smoke-drenched breeze could budge the singed skirt of the girl’s dress, coated in sand. Dr. Gettler slapped her back, and brine spilled from her gaping blue lips. Still, she didn’t gasp or cough. He rubbed between her shoulder blades, attempting to coax life back into her. “Mein Mäuschen, komm zuruck. Ich brauche dir zuruck zu kommen.” My little mouse, come back. I need you to come back.

Cora twisted the folds of her cloak. Now there was nothing she could do to help the doctor’s daughter, or anyone else. The eleven children she’d rescued were not enough.

The doctor tucked a strand of his daughter’s hair back into her plait and listened for her breathing. “Bitte, mein Mäuschen, bitte.”

A gust of wind blasted the beach. Smoke filled Cora’s nostrils and burned her eyes. She coughed and wiped at them, bringing Dr. Gettler back into focus.

“Ingrid’s gone, sir.” Kate placed her fingertips on the back of his soaked dress shirt, clinging to his slim frame. “She’s with the Lord now,” she said in her gentlest southern drawl.

Cora hated that string of words. Since Maeve’s death, she’d heard it far too often. And now today, it would be uttered over and over. Why would God have let this happen? Hadn’t He taken too much from this island already?

“Nein.” He sliced his hand through the air. “Lay her on her back. This time you pump the arms, I’ll press on her chest.”

Kate didn’t stir from her seated position. From Cora’s vantage point, she could see tears welling in her gentle, brown eyes. She could tell that the nurse would have embraced the doctor if it weren’t for the dead child between them.

“Noch einmal! Do as I say!” The doctor scooped up his “little mouse” and stretched her out on the sand to try the resuscitation maneuver once more. Her blank eyes stared upward. Too early in the summer to be tan from playing in the alleys of Kleindeutschland, her pale face, beneath the bright sun, had a sheen to it.

The nurse pulled Ingrid’s thin arms above her head, and in a quick, pumping motion, brought them to the girl’s sides, right as the doctor jabbed her chest. No water surged from her mouth; she remained silent.

He slapped her cheek. “Wake up, mein Mäuschen, wake up.”

With one hand, Kate gripped his palm; with the other, she closed little Ingrid’s eyes.

The grieving father moaned and pressed his face to his daughter’s. Beyond him, the fire on the steamship raged on.

Cora bit her hand to redirect the pain from her heart. She’d never met this child, but that mattered little. She knew the doctor’s grief.

The same man, whom earlier this morning she’d watched with envy, was now curled in the sand next to his deceased daughter. His wailing overpowered the desperate cries of those around them.

Kate adjusted Ingrid’s arms, her fingers lingering on a silver chain that winked in the sun. “Her bracelet identifies her. Coroner O’Gorman said we should—”

He raised his head. “Give it to me.”

Kate tucked the chain into his palm and wiped a tear from her flushed cheek. Her chin dropped, and her buxom chest heaved. The blond strands that had come loose from her chignon veiled her eyes, but Cora could tell she was weeping.

The doctor rolled the silver wristlet between his fingertips. “It was a gift from Rolene.” His focus darted to the steamship. “Where is she? Ulrich.” He scanned the bodies, many child-sized, some not even two feet long, and his eyes glazed over.

Cora’s entire being ached in sympathy with this man, who’d been so devoted to helping her. She moved to approach him but then forced herself back against the seawall. Holding the next breath of thick air at bay, she took in the scene. An unnerving calm had descended upon the shore. Time had run out for the drowning victims, and the doctors and nurses were now focused on tending the burns and other wounds of those still breathing.

There were only six doctors on the island, five without him. Cora knew one way she could help the recovery effort, as well as her grieving friend: “Dr. Gettler, sir.”

“What?” he moaned without separating from his daughter.

“Look.” She pointed to a burn victim writhing in the surf.

“My Rolene?” He raised his head.

Kate, who’d begun stitching a gash in the leg of a boy about twelve, glared at her. Although the person Cora had pointed out was burned beyond recognition, the physique was unmistakably male.

“He needs help,” Cora said, and a look of understanding passed over Kate’s face.

Still dazed, the doctor rose and lurched toward the burn victim, but his back foot remained rooted beside Ingrid.

Kate tied off the stitches and came to the doctor’s side. “I’ll find a covering, and write her name on her arm.” She wiped her hand clean and pulled a pen from the pocket of her skirt. “Now”—she looked Dr. Gettler square in the eyes—“you must tend to your work, the work the good Lord’s given you.”

He gave a rote nod, as Cora had seen so many patients do in response to Kate’s orders, and grabbed his kit. Single-handedly, he dragged the large figure onto higher ground. After ripping away the remains of the man’s pants, he set about cleaning and bandaging the seared skin that barely clung to the flesh.

“Miss McSorley,” he said without looking up, “find my Rolene and my boy.”

Cora straightened. Finally, a way to be useful. Through the doctor’s stories, she’d pictured the boy playing with his rubber ball, stealing a pretzel from the jar atop the icebox, laying track for his toy train set. Her image of him couldn’t possibly match his actual appearance. The