Pestilence

Chapter Thirteen

Saracen found Tremaine in the locker room. He did not look up when Saracen came in but instead continued to stare at the floor. His general demeanour made Saracen wait for the younger man to say something first.

“God knows what we are going to do with them all,” murmured Tremaine, still hanging his head. “It was just an endless stream of people passing through on their way to the grave. There was nothing I could do…” Tremaine looked up and Saracen saw the look of despair in his eyes.

“Absolutely nothing. I might just have well been a plumber or a postman… “

“There’s nothing any of us can do until we get the antiserum,” said Saracen, resting his hand on the other man’s shoulder. He told Tremaine about the opening up of the schools to cope with the increasing numbers of patients. He had intended to ask Tremaine to work on for a bit had now changed his mind after seeing how hard he was taking it. He would cover plague reception on his own and ask Jamieson to work a double shift with Prahesh Singh in A amp;E.

Saracen found that the list of known plague contacts was two days out of date. He phoned the Public Health Department to find out why. When he got no reply he called Saithe’s office and asked about it. He was told that there would be no more lists. “Dr Braithwaite has suffered a complete nervous breakdown,” he was told by Saithe’s secretary. No fewer than four of his staff had gone down with plague and to all intents and purposes the Public Health Department had ceased to function. “Bloody marvellous,” said Saracen under his breath.

There was a phone message mid morning for Saracen. It was relayed to him from A amp;E and said simply that Nurse Rawlings wanted him to contact her. Saracen knew that it had to be something important and called at the first opportunity.

“James? Thank God, it’s Lindeman! She collapsed this morning. I think she’s got it. I think we are all going to get it!”

“Calm down Jill,” said Saracen but his stomach was turning over. “If Lindeman has got it she must have been careless and that’s not surprising the way she’s been overworking; she was bound to slip up sooner or later.”

“But she was the one we all looked up to,” said Jill with a sob in her voice.

“I know,” soothed Saracen. “I’ll come up and see her as soon as I can. I’m also going to see about some proper relief for you and the other nurses. It’s about time you had a break.”

Two hours had passed before Saracen managed to find time enough to go up and see Moira Lindeman. By that time the first of the schools had been made ready and cases destined for it were to be cleared through the County Hospital. This took the pressure off the General until such times as the second school became operational.

Jill came forward to meet Saracen as he entered the plague ward. Like him she was dressed in full protective gear. She gave a wan smile and Saracen smiled back. Inside his head he was suffused with guilt over what had happened with Claire Tremaine. Telling himself that there was nothing to be ashamed of and that there was no commitment between himself and Jill had not helped. He still felt ashamed. Maybe the feeling was telling him something, he reasoned. Maybe he did have a commitment to Jill?

It did not take long to see that conditions in the ward were atrocious and apart from the obvious overcrowding the air was filled with the stench of vomit and the moans of the dying.

“We can’t get enough clean linen,” said Jill. “People in the laundry are afraid to touch our stuff despite the fact that it goes through a steriliser first” Jill opened a door and led Saracen inside. The blinds were drawn but cold, grey shafts of light sought out the cracks and provided enough light for Saracen to make out the forms of eighteen sheet-covered corpses. They were lined up on the floor and were lying two deep. “Our makeshift mortuary,” said Jill. “It was emptied three hours ago.”

Saracen shook his head but could not find words. Jill led him out and along the corridor to another room. “Sister is in here,” she said. This was her office; we thought she should keep it.”

A nurse was sitting by the bed; she stopped sponging Moira Lindeman’s face and got up when Jill and Saracen entered. “Give me a few moments alone with her will you,” asked Saracen and Jill and the other nurse went outside. Saracen looked at the drawn face of Moira Lindeman and saw the sweat glisten on her forehead and the quiver in her lip. He sat down where the nurse had been sitting and gently wiped away the perspiration from Lindeman’s eyes. She opened them and Saracen saw a flicker of recognition. It pleased him. He smiled and Lindeman tried to speak. “Shouldn’t…have…come…”

“I had to,” said Saracen but then he saw that his protective gear had prevented Lindeman from hearing what he had said. He removed his mask and visor and repeated it, overriding the look of protest with a slight gesture of his hand. “Don’t try to speak,” he said gently. “There have been so many times in my life when I’ve wanted to say something and ended up letting the moment pass that this time I thought it had to be different. This time I am going to say it. For what it’s worth my lady you are one of the finest nurses I ever met and one of the most noble human beings.”

The suggestion of a smile appeared at the corner of Lindeman’s mouth but remained stillborn. “It’s worth …a lot,” she whispered, closing her eyes again with the effort.

“Get some rest now,” said Saracen and got up quietly to retreat to the door. “Sleep.”

Saracen left the ward suspecting that he would not see Moira Lindeman alive again. The thought added bitterness to the depression that was growing inside him like a cancer. He phoned Saithe about the need to relieve the nurses in Ward Twenty but with little success. Saithe maintained that he and Olive Riley were well aware of the situation but all the latest nursing volunteers had been used up in staffing the schools. There was nothing that they could do.

“Does Col Beasdale know about the shortage of nurses?” asked Saracen.

“The colonel has all the facts.”

“Then nursing volunteers could be brought in from outside Skelmore.”

“They don’t want to do that,” replied Saithe haltingly.

“Why the hell not?”

“It’s government policy to play down the situation in Skelmore as much as possible, keep the affair local at all costs. They are using the typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen in the sixties as a working model to handle things. If we start making nationwide appeals for help the cat will be well and truly out of the bag.”

“It’s going to come to that sooner or later,” said Saracen angrily.

“They would rather it was later,” said Saithe.

“How much later?”

“They want to give the antiserum a chance. In theory there should be a dramatic improvement in the situation within a few days and we will have control again.”

“But we will need even more nurses when people start recovering,” said Saracen.

“True, but it will be easier and more acceptable to the powers that be if we have an effective vaccine and antiserum at the time of the appeal. If we can synchronise our appeal for help with the announcement that we can now cure the disease then there will be no risk of panic. You do see the logic?”

“I see it,” said Saracen flatly. “Let’s hope the nurses in Ward Twenty appreciate it.”

“I’ll have another word with Olive,” said Saithe in an effort to placate Saracen.

“They do have the option of walking out,” Saracen reminded Saithe.

“I can’t see them doing that,” said Saithe. “Can you?”

“No, damn it, but it’s immoral to count on that, besides, some of them are so near to breaking point that they may not be able to carry on.”

“I’ll make sure everyone concerned is aware of the situation,” said Saithe.

The second school was officially declared open at two thirty and for the next three hours it was agreed that the General would screen all plague cases to give the County Hospital a break. All confirmed cases would be sent on to the new school. Saracen screened twenty two patients in the first hour. All were clear cut, men, women, children from all over the town. The wild cards had sown the seeds of disaster.

Saracen knew that Jamieson in A amp;E had been trying to get hold of him for the last thirty minutes but he had been far to busy to get in touch. He had had to put a hold on all calls until his area was clear. It was clear at the moment though he knew that this would not last for long; it was just a lull in the storm. He washed thoroughly and slumped down into a chair beside the phone to call A amp;E. His limbs felt leaden and he rubbed his eyes as he waited for Jamieson to answer.

“I’ve got a patient here I would like you to take a look at,” said Jamieson.

“You’ve what?” said Saracen angrily.

“Before you say anything else I know how busy you are and I wouldn’t have called you unless there was a very good reason…”

Saracen calmed down and said, “Tell me.”

“I really think you should come over,” said Jamieson calmly.

Saracen considered for a moment and then said, “All right, give me five minutes.” He struggled out of his protective gear and washed again before hurrying over to A amp;E.

“He’s in here,” said Jamieson, pointing to the end cubicle. He handed Saracen his notes and followed behind as Saracen read them on the move. Francis Updale, aged thirty seven, heating engineer, 22, Bread Street, Skelmore…being treated for glandular fever by his GP, suddenly became so ill that his wife had put in a treble nine call after failing to contact their GP.

“But why wasn’t he taken to the County?” asked Saracen. “All fever cases go there.”

“The County has a problem,” replied Jamieson. “They stopped admitting an hour ago and requested that we take their emergencies.”

Saracen could hardly believe his ears. “What kind of a problem?” he demanded.

“I understand that Dr Moss and several others have been taken ill,” said Jamieson.

Saracen froze in his tracks. Never had the words sounded so ominous. “Taken ill,” he repeated softly. “Jesus Christ.”

“Mr Updale is in here,” said Jamieson to break Saracen’s trance.

Saracen found the man conscious but in severe distress as he pulled back the covers to begin his examination. He made reassuring sounds to the patient but in truth he was conducting the examination on autopilot. This went on until alarm bells started to ring inside Saracen’s head. He was not finding what he expected to find. “This isn’t glandular fever,” he whispered to Jamieson.

“That’s what I thought. That’s why I called you over. I remembered what you said about taking nothing at face value…”

Saracen’s pulse quickened. “But he’s not like the others, there’s no pulmonary malfunction, he’s…” Saracen examined the man’s groin and found what he had been dreading. He showed what he had found to Jamieson and said, “Do you know what that is?”

Jamieson looked and said, “I saw it earlier but I haven’t come across anything like it before. What is it?”

“It’s the primary bubo,” said Saracen. “This man doesn’t have pneumonic plague, he has the bubonic form.” Jamieson’s questions were lost on Saracen as his mind flirted with a new nightmare.

“You’ve got a patient with what?” exclaimed MacQuillan when Saracen called him. “Are you absolutely sure?”

Saracen said that he was.

“And he was admitted to the clean area at the General?”

“No one realised what the symptoms were. He is different from the other cases.”

“What a mess,” muttered MacQuillan. “How the hell did he get bubonic plague?”

“I was hoping you were going to tell us that,” said Saracen.

There was a long silence before MacQuillan said, “The disease can be transmitted by human fleas as well as rat ones. If this chap has been living rough…”

“He’s a clean living heating engineer who lives with his wife and daughter in a nice area and has never been in contact with anyone who has since contracted the disease.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“Frustration was beginning to gnaw at the edges of Saracen’s temper but he refrained from pointing out that there seemed to be an awful lot that the experts failed to understand about the Skelmore outbreak. Instead he asked, “How are things at the County?”

“You’ve heard then?”

“That’s why we got the patient.”

“Five of the staff have gone down.”

“Moss?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Saracen put down the phone and repeated the same expletive over and over again in a whisper. He pulled himself together and returned to the treatment room to arrange with Jamieson that Updale be admitted to Ward Twenty.

“Will you have a word with his wife?” asked Jamieson. Saracen said that he would.

“Could your husband have worked beside anyone who has since gone down with the disease Mrs Updale?”

“Frank works for himself. He has his own business.”

“Did he do any work on the Maxton estate?”

“No, he has the contract for an installation in a hotel in Beverley Road; he’s been working there since before all this business started.”

“Nowhere else?”

“No.”

Saracen shrugged his shoulders in failure and sighed.

“Wait; there was one day when Frank took on another job. A man called him at home, ‘said he’d got Frank’s name from Yellow Pages, ‘wanted him to have a look at his heating. Frank said that he was sorry but the man insisted that he would make it worth his while so, in the end, Frank took the day off to do the job.”

“Where about was this job?”

Mary Updale shook her head. “I didn’t think to ask and I don’t think Frank ever said. Is it important?”

“Probably not,” said Saracen. “But if you should happen to remember let me know.”

Tremaine came on duty at four and was apologetic about his earlier behaviour. Saracen assured him that there was no need and said that he was going to stay on at the hospital until MacQuillan had heard from Porton. In the event Saracen joined Tremaine in plague reception a few minutes later on hearing that two military ambulances were on their way with two entire families on board.

“I’m not sure about the boy,” said Tremaine as he and Saracen examined the latest admissions. “Would you have a look at him?”

Saracen finished with the patient he was dealing with and went over to join Tremaine at his table. “I don’t understand it,” whispered Tremaine, “His mother, his father and his eight year old sister are all text book cases but he is completely atypical.”

“Saracen examined the twelve-year-old boy who was only semi- conscious and in great distress. He knew within seconds what the problem was. “He’s the second,” he said almost inaudibly as his throat tightened.

“The second what?” asked Tremaine.

“He’s the second case of bubonic plague I’ve seen today.”

Saracen phoned MacQuillan as soon as the patients were confirmed and waiting transfer to the school for hospitalisation. The twelve year old boy who was too ill to be moved would remain at the General.

MacQuillan sounded as if he would rather not have been told when Saracen broke the news. “No ideas at all?” asked Saracen.

“I suppose you could argue that the boy contracted the bubonic form and then gave his family pneumonic plague but as to how he himself became infected I simply don’t know.”

“But if we don’t find out we could lose the whole town,” hissed Saracen, afraid of being overheard.

“Yes,” said MacQuillan.

Saracen was taken aback at MacQuillan’s apparent complacency. He also thought that MacQuillan sounded a bit strange. “Are you all right?” he asked.

MacQuillan answered the question with a snort.

“Have you heard from Porton?”

“You had better come over.” The phone went dead.

“James!” came Tremaine’s cry from the reception area and Saracen hurried back to see what the matter was. He found that one of the women patients had gone into a coughing spasm. Bloody sputum frothed up from her lungs like lava from a volcano and her back arched in agony making it difficult for Tremaine to keep her steady on the trolley. Saracen did what he could to help but the spasm continued until the woman’s body suddenly went rigid, her eyes opened wide as if in disbelief and her head finally fell back in death. The soldiers took her away.

Saracen and Tremaine cleaned the mess off the front of their suits before returning to the boy patient to find him delirious and clutching at something round his neck. Saracen thought at first that it was a door key but it turned out to be some kind of medallion. He removed it and looked at it briefly before handing it to Tremaine while he dealt with the boy. It was rectangular, about five centimetres in length and had a simple design on it woven round the letter ‘S’.

Tremaine was surprised at how heavy it was. “This is very old,” he said.

“Is it,” said Saracen without much interest.

“In fact, I’ve seen this motif somewhere recently. Now where was

it …”

Saracen had ensured that the boy was more comfortable before calling ward twenty with a request that the boy be admitted there rather than be taken on to the school. He took the opportunity to ask about Lindeman.

“She’s very low, it can’t be long.”

“It was on Claire’s desk!” said Tremaine.

Saracen, who was washing his hands, could not think for a moment what Tremaine was talking about. “What was?” he asked.

Tremaine continued to look at the medallion in his hand and said, “There was a picture in one of her books on Skelmoris of this motif.”

“I think you must be mistaken,” said Saracen.

“No, I’m sure of it.”

“Right now we have two cases of bubonic plague to concern us. I’ve got a feeling they hold the key to this nightmare.”

“But this might be important,” Tremaine insisted. “One of these cases had this round his neck. It might be some kind of a lead. Why don’t you drop it off at Claire’s place on your way home and see what she says?

“All right.” conceded Saracen. He had no wish to see Claire but was too tired to argue. “But first I’m going to see MacQuillan.”

Tremaine dropped the medallion into disinfectant and swirled it around for a while before rinsing it under the tap and handing it to Saracen who slipped it into his pocket.

MacQuillan had his back to Saracen when he came into the room. Saracen coughed and he turned slowly to reveal the fact that he had a glass in his hand and, by the look in his eyes, had had quite a bit to drink already. Saracen looked at him quizzically.

“Drink?” said MacQuillan with a humourless smile. Saracen shook his head. “What did Porton Down say?” he asked.

MacQuillan looked at him for a long moment before saying, “The antiserum we’ve all been waiting for … it’s not coming.” He drank deeply from his glass.

“What the hell do you mean it’s not coming?” demanded Saracen in a hoarse whisper.

MacQuillan smiled bitterly and said. “There is no antiserum; there will be no antiserum. They say that the Skelmore strain is so poorly antigenic that it’s no use at all in antibody production. They can’t make an antiserum; they can’t make a vaccine. Finito.”

Saracen sank slowly into a chair. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

“In my experience he’s usually busy when you need him,” said MacQuillan.

Saracen ignored the comment. Drunken cynicism he could do without. “We’ll just have to ride the storm until it burns out then,” he said.

“It’s not going to ‘burn out’,” said MacQuillan quietly. “That bastard bug has won just as it always did.”

“If we get help from outside and keep our nerve we can still beat it,” said Saracen. “We can’t just give up hope.”

MacQuillan shook his head as if listening to a child tell him that the earth was flat. “There is no hope,” he said. “It’s over.”

Saracen sensed that there was more than cynicism behind MacQuillan’s last comment. “What do you mean?” he whispered.

MacQuillan drained his glass and refilled it. He said, “There will be no help from outside because none will be requested. The bug is immune to everything that medicine can offer. Its epidemiology is all wrong and we are helpless. Beasdale knows this so there will be a reversion to traditional methods.”

“What ‘traditional’ methods?” asked Saracen aggressively but the aggression was born of fear.

“Fire,” replied MacQuillan.

Saracen’s head reeled as he realised what MacQuillan was inferring. “You must be mad!” he accused. “Do you know what you are suggesting?”

“Beasdale will have his orders to carry out if things get out of control and that is now the case.”

“But you cannot seriously believe that he will destroy the town. Christ! This is England in 1990.”

MacQuillan’s silence told Saracen that he did not retract anything. He started to pace up and down the room, occasionally shaking his head in unwillingness to believe what he had heard. “It’s obscene!” he protested. “It’s immoral! It’s…”

“Practical,” said MacQuillan.

“But how can they just wipe out a whole town?”

“I told you. Fire.”

“Fire?”

“Oh I don’t mean soldiers running around putting torches to houses. I mean modern fire, scientific fire, liquid fire, all consuming chemical fire.”

“How do you know this?” demanded Saracen.

MacQuillan’s Scots accent had become more pronounced in drink. “Might I remind you, laddie, that I don’t work at Woolworths.”

“So you work at Porton Down, the defence establishment.”

“Defence! That’s a laugh. Have you noticed? Everyone is defending. No one ever offends so if no one is offending what the hell is all this defence for?” MacQuillan found his own philosophy hilarious.

“How do you know?” insisted Saracen.

“Contingency plans. There are contingency plans for this sort of situation. The strategy is to contain and destroy.”

“Contain and destroy,” repeated Saracen softly. “A whole town?”

“The principle stands.”

“Just how does a government explain the destruction of a whole town to the general public?”

“A tragic accident, some awful consequence of the emergency, a factory explosion, maybe even the gasworks going up through lack of proper maintenance.”

“They’d never believe it.”

“They’ll believe it if they want to,” said MacQuillan.

“What does that mean?”

“Any day now, mark my words, the authorities will start leaking the truth about the situation here in Skelmore. Stories of an incurable plague on his doorstep should put Joe Public in the right frame of mind to accept whatever happens next.”

“You’re a cynical bastard MacQuillan,” said Saracen.

“I’m a realist,” countered MacQuillan. “A blessing in disguise, they’ll say. The ways of the Lord are strange. Some kind of timely miracle. Thanksgiving services and now a look at the weather …”

“You’re drunk,” Saracen accused.

“I am,” agreed MacQuillan, “but that doesn’t alter the fact that Beasdale, this afternoon, reduced the administration staff to a minimum and sealed off the waterworks. No one now leaves or enters. Don’t bother trying to phone anyone either. STD has been suspended, it’s local calls only.”

Saracen had had enough; he got to his car and headed for Claire Tremaine’s flat.

“You look ghastly,” she said.

“I’m just tired,” said Saracen. “Alan thought you should see this.” He handed Claire the medallion.”

Claire took the object and held it closer to the table lamp beside her. “Where on earth did you get this?” she exclaimed and Saracen told her. A sudden look of concern filled her eyes and prompted Saracen to reassure her that the medallion had been disinfected. Claire got up and came back with a book. She showed him an illustration and said, “Same emblem.”

“But it’s what the emblem stands for!” continued Claire, her voice full of excitement. “It’s the crest of Skelmoris Abbey, the monastery we have been looking for!”

“Oh,” said Saracen, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. This wasn’t good enough for Claire who insisted, “Don’t you see? Don’t you understand how important this is?”

Saracen had to remind himself that Claire had no way of knowing what MacQuillan had predicted for Skelmore, no way of knowing the awful secret that made everything else unimportant to him. “Of course, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not thinking clearly.”

“Can you find out where the boy got this?” asked Claire, her eyes bright with enthusiasm.

“He has plague, Claire,” said Saracen. “He’s close to death.”

Claire pursed her lips in frustration. “Damnation, to be so near and yet so far,” she murmured. She became aware of the disapproving look on Saracen’s face and had the grace to be embarrassed. “I’m sorry, that was unforgivable,” she said. “I know you must think this silly and unimportant and you’re probably right but seeing that emblem …” She held up the medallion. “This is the most exciting moment of my career. It proves the existence of the Skelmoris Abbey beyond doubt.”

Saracen nodded. He respected professional enthusiasm but sometimes it was hard to take.

“Can you stay?” asked Claire softly.

Saracen shook his head. “I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Then sleep here.”

Saracen started to protest but Claire was already undoing his shoelaces. He sat down on the couch and put his head back on the cushion. He felt his eyelids come together.

“Don’t worry James Saracen,” whispered Claire, “I won’t take advantage of you, even if you don’t realise how much you love her.”

Saracen awoke with a start feeling disoriented for he had no idea at all where he was until Claire said, “Sorry, I woke you. I dropped my book.”

Saracen blinked against the light. He saw that Claire had put a blanket over him. “How long?”

“Four hours.”

“I’d better get back to the hospital.”

“Don’t”, begged Claire. “You need more rest, go back to sleep.”

Saracen declined and sat up with a yawn.

“You’re still dead on your feet.”

“I’ve just had four hours sleep thanks to you,” said Saracen. “I’m grateful.” He got to his feet stiffly and put on his jacket, shrugging the shoulders to make it fit better before moving to the door.

“Any idea what’s wrong with the telephone lines?” asked Claire.

Saracen felt a chill run down his spine. “What do you mean?” he replied.

“I tried to phone London, couldn’t get through.”

“Happens all the time.”

“No, I tried several different numbers,” said Claire.

“Lack of maintenance due to the emergency,” lied Saracen.

“Probably,” agreed Claire.