The spring of 1948 arrived quietly in Kuwait, the sun warming the streets of the city, but by May 3, Shuwaikh arbor stirred with more than the usual activity. The Hartford, the largest freighter under British registry, slid into port like an aging giant, its iron hull reflecting the soft shimmer of the Gulf waters. The crew—twenty men in total—stood restless, eager to stretch their legs on land. Eighteen disembarked with haste, craving desert air and a change of pace from the grueling weeks at sea. They ventured out to explore the streets and the souks, passing stalls draped in vibrant fabrics, the smell of spices lingering thick in the air. They were sailors after all, and the absence of bars and the stricter customs of Kuwait left them with little of their usual distractions. They wandered aimlessly, eventually gravitating toward the shoreline parks, their boisterous laughter trailing behind as they tried, and failed, to catch the attention of young Bedouin girls.
Two others, however, remained behind. Their first mate, a sharp-eyed man named McAllister, had an unsettled feeling gnawing at him. He noticed his crew mates’ complaints of sore throats, fever, headaches, and diarrhea—common enough after long voyages—but the combination of symptoms and their persistence gave him pause. “Better have them looked at,” he muttered under his breath. “Just to be safe.” He watched from the deck as the men were taken ashore to the mission hospital. McAllister’s unease followed them.
Dr. Foster, a stoic man with years of experience treating sailors and locals alike, examined the two with cautious interest. “No signs of anything more than mild infections,” he said aloud, though a flicker of doubt crossed his mind. He kept them overnight, and as the freighter unloaded its cargo, he told McAllister, “We’ll monitor them here for the next couple of days. Just in case.” McAllister nodded, but his expression mirrored the doctor’s concern.
Two days later, Dr. Foster’s worst fears began to crystallize. Two more sailors from the Hartford appeared at the hospital with similar symptoms, and one, a wiry man named Thompson, complained of a stiff neck—a sign that brought the doctor’s mind immediately to meningitis. “I don’t like this,” he confided to his new helper, Janiah, as he examined the men. “Could be viral, something we’ve not seen before. It might pass… but we can’t be sure.”
Foster barely had time to catch his breath before Thompson’s condition worsened- paralysis began to creep up his limbs. The other patient, slightly better off, remained feverish and weak, but stable for the moment. The doctor’s mind raced. What was this?
The morning after, the hospital radio crackled to life. Dr. Foster took the call, his blood running cold as a colleague in Dubai relayed grim news. One of the cooks from the Hartford, a man hospitalized after they docked there, had developed total body paralysis. “He’s not going to make it,” the voice on the other end concluded flatly.
“Polio,” Foster whispered to himself, his fingers trembling as they ran along the spines of old medical texts. The disease had been a footnote in his schooling, scarcely mentioned, but now it stared back at him with terrifying clarity. “Could it be?” he asked, pacing the cramped room. “It fits. Spread through the throat or the gut… the cook might’ve been the first.”
But what now? Kuwait had no immunity to such a thing.
Within four days, the hospital began to see its first local cases. At first, it was only a few—families trickling in with sore throats, mild fevers, and some diarrhea. Dr. Foster tried to hold back the rising dread, but when a five-year-old boy was admitted with paralysis, the reality set in like a stone in his gut.
Janiah, ever helpful despite her age, was there when the child took his last breath. She removed her mask slowly, eyes brimming with sorrow. “He never stood a chance, did he?” she asked, voice thick with emotion.
Dr. Foster shook his head, his own grief suppressed under the weight of duty. “No,” he replied quietly. “There was nothing we could do.”
The epidemic did not stop with that little boy. In the weeks that followed, the number of patients multiplied. Hundreds of cases flooded the clinic, most mild, but the more severe ones came with the same terrible symptoms. Respiratory failure. Paralysis. And death. Janiah worked tirelessly like a nurse; her hands steady even as her back ached from sleepless nights. “We’ll get through this,” she whispered to one of the young nurses, but her own resolve was wearing thin.
On the second week, the illness claimed two more adults and another child. Foster barely had time to mourn. He placed short wave calls to London, pleading for advice from his former professors. The voices on the other end offered nothing useful. “We don’t have much experience with polio outbreaks,” they admitted, and Foster slammed the speaker down in frustration.
Janiah approached him later that day, her eyes heavy with fatigue. “Doctor,” she said softly, “the people look to us. What do we tell them?”
He hesitated, the weight of the epidemic pressing down on him like a lead blanket. “We tell them the truth. This isn’t something we can cure.” His voice cracked, something rare for the stoic man. “But we can help them fight. That’s all we can do.”
In Ahmadi, Grantham, the oil company administrator, took drastic action. He locked down the entire compound, prohibiting any travel to the city. “We’re not letting this spread to our workers,” he ordered, his voice booming across the command post. Food deliveries were allowed only by masked drivers, and miraculously, the cases never reached the oil town. Jabr and Jomana, isolated but safe, marveled at the administrator’s swift actions. “Grantham saved us,” Jabr murmured to his wife one evening, as they looked out over the barren landscape from their compound home.
Back in the city, the epidemic raged on. By the end of the second month, the worst had passed. Cases waned, and the clinic began to breathe again, though the toll was heavy—four children and two adults lost to the virus, dozens more left weakened, some with lasting paralysis. Janiah sat down at the end of it all, her hands trembling in her lap. “We fought it,” she said to herself, though it felt hollow. “But at what cost?”
Foster, his eyes bloodshot from weeks of endless work, placed a hand on her shoulder. “We did everything we could, Janiah. We saved who we could. That’s all anyone can ask.”
And for the first time in weeks, Janiah allowed herself to cry.
The epidemic didn’t vanish entirely. Patients still trickled in now and then, but the relentless tide had slowed. The staff, worn thin from months of battling the invisible enemy, felt a collective sigh of relief. Shifts shortened, and the atmosphere, though still tense, lightened somewhat. Janiah, however, did not slow down.
Her body had borne the weight of exhaustion for weeks, but she kept her complaints to herself. The back pain that flared up one afternoon she chalked up to long hours of bending and scrubbing. A dull headache began to accompany the pain, but Janiah, stubborn and resolute, continued with her duties, her eyes focused on the next task, the next patient.
“Janiah, you don’t look well,” one of the younger nurses, Miriam, noticed, her brow furrowed with concern. She approached Janiah with a thermometer. Janiah resisted, waving her hand.
“I’m fine, child. I’ve had worse aches.”
Miriam, not to be dismissed, took Janiah’s temperature. Her eyes widened. “You’re running a fever. You need rest.”
Before Janiah could protest, Dr. Foster appeared. His usually composed face was etched with worry as he approached them. “Janiah, let me take a look at you.” He examined her briefly, then his tone became authoritative. “You’re off duty. Go to your room and rest. That’s an order.”
Janiah protested weakly. “No need for fuss, Doctor. I’m just a little tired. I can manage.”
But Foster wouldn’t hear it. “I won’t have you collapsing on the job. Now, go.”
Reluctantly, Janiah retired to her small, simple room. She lay down, her body finally giving in to the fatigue she had been ignoring for weeks.
The next morning, when she didn’t show up for breakfast, Foster’s concern deepened. He knocked on her door and, hearing no answer, entered quietly. Janiah lay on the bed, her eyes open but distant. She smiled faintly when she saw him, but her body was still, alarmingly still.
“Janiah, you’re not well,” Foster said, his voice tight with emotion. “Can you move?”
She tried to lift her arms, succeeding only partially with her left. “I’ll be better soon. No need for any fuss,” she whispered, though the strain in her voice was evident. When Foster moved to adjust her pillow, she let out a sudden, sharp cry as pain shot through her neck.
“That’s it. I’m taking you to the main ward.” He quickly summoned a nurse and an assistant, who carefully carried her to a bed near the other patients, but slightly apart, giving her some privacy.
They tried feeding her, but she struggled to swallow, choking on even the smallest spoonsful of broth. When they adjusted her in bed, her pride battled with the growing reality of her helplessness. At first, she resisted their assistance, grumbling that she could manage. But when her limbs failed to obey her commands, she finally surrendered, allowing the nurses to turn and prop her up.
By the next morning, Janiah had lost the ability to move any of her extremities. Her breath came steadily, but by noon, her lips turned a faint shade of blue.
Foster knew what was coming. He made the call to Grantham at the Kuwait Oil Company office. “Grantham, it’s Janiah. She’s fading fast. I need you to send Jabr. If he doesn’t come now, he’ll miss her.”
There was a pause on the line, then Grantham’s firm voice replied, “He can come, but only by one of the supply trucks. Once he’s there, he can’t return until this epidemic is truly over.”
“Understood,” Foster said, his hand trembling as he set the phone down.
Grantham relayed the message, and Jabr, upon receiving the news, rushed to intercept one of the food delivery trucks. Jomana, her eyes wide with fear, urged him to hurry. “Go to her. Don’t waste a second.”
The ride to the mission hospital felt like an eternity. Jabr sat in the truck’s bed, his hands holding onto the rails, his thoughts a swirl of panic, memories, and prayers. When they arrived, he leapt from the truck before it fully stopped, running through the compound gates.
Foster met him at the entrance, his face grim. “She’s waiting for you,” he said quietly, leading Jabr to a corner of the ward where they had placed Janiah.
Jabr approached her bed, his breath catching in his throat as he saw her pale, still form. “Janiah, you left us and now this. You always do too much for everyone,” he whispered, taking her hand in his, which felt so small and cold.
Janiah’s eyes fluttered open, her gaze finding his. She tried to speak, but her voice was barely a rasp. Her lips moved, but no sound emerged.
“Foster…” Jabr’s voice cracked as he looked to the doctor for help.
Dr. Foster approached with his stethoscope. After listening intently, he removed it slowly, shaking his head. “Her heart’s slowing down. If you have anything to say, now’s the time.”
Jabr’s hand tightened around hers. “Janiah… I love you. You cared for me my whole life. The Lord is with us, always.”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and a single tear slid down her cheek. Moments later, her chest ceased its slow rise and fall.
Foster placed a gentle hand on Jab’s shoulder. “She’s gone.”
Jabr stared at her lifeless form, numbness spreading through him. He had made it in time. But that did little to fill the void that had opened in his heart. Another piece of his life had slipped away.
The staff buried Janiah the next day in the mission courtyard, right next to her daughter Khadijah. Their graves were simple but carried the weight of sacrifice and service. Foster and Pastor John stood solemnly at the small gathering, offering prayers for the family of the two women. Their gratitude poured out for the lives of two women who had given so much.
Jaabr stayed on at the mission until the epidemic was done, occupying Janiah’s old room. He tried to help where he could, but there was no replacing her. She had been the heart of the place, and now that heart had stopped.
Pastor John promised that a proper memorial service would be held when possible.
