The White Plague

  “No telling, lad. But I’m up here with the driver. Sing out if you need me.”

  Stephen looked at Kate. She appeared pale and her forehead was deeply furrowed. “Why don’t you stretch out and try to sleep, darling?”

  “I couldn’t sleep!”

  “But you’d be safer if you were on the mattress there.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. This is not safe.” She closed her eyes. The baby felt so heavy in her abdomen. And she needed to void her bladder. There was nothing for it but the little toilet they had used at first. She made Stephen turn away while she crawled to the convenience and used it.

  She was hungry then and all Stephen could provide was canned fish and beans, both cold. He insisted she take her vitamins before he would give her the food. He could be so callous, she thought. Studying his medical books at all hours! Never looking up even when she stared at him, needing him. He had no idea at all about her absolute longing for a crisp stalk of celery cold from the garden… fresh green lettuce. Oh, how she longed for it. Or a raw carrot. Surely by now they should have devised a way to sterilize fresh foods for this chamber!

  She lay back after eating and watched Stephen crouched there by one of the ports, staring out at the passing landscape. She had no desire to look at it with him. It would only remind her that she was confined and could not go out there to walk through the fields, breathing fresh air that did not smell of a chemical toilet.

  What would he do if she screamed at him? she wondered. She felt like screaming. What a dumpy little prison this was. More than six months confined like this! And when she complained, all Stephen could do was remind her that this chamber preserved her life.

  Kate had heard descriptions of the plague’s effect on women. Terrifying. She held to a tempting fantasy, though. There must be an island somewhere free of the plague. She and Stephen would go there and walk freely in the open once more. Perhaps that would happen even now. The most awful part of this confinement was the absence of a door out of it. She stared at the sheet covering the sealed port. But they had a door now.

  Something rolled against her left elbow, dislodged by the lorry’s movement. She looked down and saw the little television that had been provided them at the Facility. She put down an urge to break the thing. It was like the portholes. When it was not providing views of the unattainable, it showed them bad news.

  If it weren’t so confining and boring in here! Stephen always reminded her they had plenty to read. Their keepers could sterilize books but they couldn’t sterilize fresh fruits and vegetables! That was because they could use caustic antiseptics and heavy ultraviolet on the books, as Smarty Stephen would point out if she raised the issue.

  Damn Stephen! He made me pregnant and now he won’t even talk to me when I need him!

  “I want out,” she whispered.

  Stephen did not hear her above the sounds of the lorry, which reverberated in the chamber’s confinement.

  Kate tried to imagine what it would be like to step out of the chamber. She would live for a little while, she knew. But it was no longer the world out there that she had known. This world was not the world of before O’Neill. The Madman had changed it. Because of a woman. They killed his wife. Kate knew there had been children killed, too. Two of them. But it was more romantic to think of this having been done for love of a woman.

  Would Stephen do such a thing for me?

  Madman O’Neill had completely changed their world because they killed his wife. Changed. She had heard the news summary from Continental BBC the previous night: in all the world, five thousand men for every surviving woman. This had fascinated her, but Stephen had appeared worried when he looked at her.

  The announcer’s report of the disproportionate numbers had been prelude to comment on a new phenomenon.

  “The Lysistrata Syndrome,” he called it.

  Kate remembered his words exactly: “Women are clamoring for positions of power. Who is to deny them this? Will the Church now refuse to enroll them as clergy?”

  Women priests, Kate thought.

  “As the Catholic Church struggles to choose a new pope in the wake of the Philadelphia tragedy,” the commentator said, “it must also confront the need to recognize a change in the roles of men and women. This world is moving away from its past at a rate never before seen. The new pope, whoever that may be, will be required to make momentous decisions. Every day that we are denied a cure for the plague only makes it more apparent that we, mere mortals, have judged wrongly in the past.” The commentator had cleared his throat, then: “This is George Bailey from the Continental BBC, Paris.”

  Stephen’s only comment had been: “The haves and the have-nots – that has a new meaning now.”

  She knew what Stephen feared would happen: every woman with a dozen or more husbands. Chattel. Women owned by their husbands.

  The motion of the lorry lulled her and Kate fell asleep after a time. Stephen glanced down at her, his expression worried. Poor Kate. It was beginning to get cold in the chamber. He found a blanket and spread it over her. She stirred restlessly under his touch but did not awaken. She remained asleep even when Nylan Gunn spoke again from the lorry’s cab.

  “We’ve just had a signal from Barrier Command, Admiral Francis Delacourt himself. He has our request under advisement but he says also his orders are to assist in any legitimate undertaking associated with plague research. He sounds like a pompous ass.”

  Kate awakened after a while only to use the convenience and inquire if she had heard Gunn speaking or “was that a dream?”

  “Barrier Command’s been asked to provide us with passage to England,” Stephen said, extracting the sense from Gunn’s words.

  Her voice was sleepy as she returned to the bed and pulled the blanket up to her chin: “Why would they send us to England?”

  “I think there’s going to be another civil war in Ireland,” Stephen said. “Doheny wants us in a safe place.”

  “Men,” she muttered.

  The lorry stopped at dusk below the crest of a hill. Stephen, looking out a port, saw eight tanks parked beside the road. A helmeted figure stood out of the lead tank’s hatch and called to the lorry:

  “We’ve the situation in hand! Go straight down to the docks. There’ll be a jeep to lead you at the next intersection.”

  The lorry eased ahead in low gear, topped the hill and gathered speed. Burning buildings could be glimpsed out the ports. They passed a cluster of sprawled bodies beside a shattered wall. Darkness curtained the view by the time they rolled out onto the pier and stopped, but orange spots of fire could be seen on the surrounding hills.

  It was cold on the pier and getting colder. Stephen found a flashlight and pointed it at Kate. There was a glassy look of fear in her eyes.

  “Shut that off! Please, Stephen!”

  He turned off the torch and crawled under the blankets beside her. They could hear the cables being moved and adjusted against the chamber’s metal. There was a grinding engine sound. Voices called out commands.

  Nylan Gunn’s voice intruded from the speaker: “Barrier Command’s providing you with passage to England. They’ve sent in a barge and a tug. Not to worry. It’s going to be all right. Now we’re going to disconnect the compressor again to lift you off. It’ll join you on the barge in a few minutes. Bon voyage!”

  They heard the compressor go silent, more movements of the cables, more engine sounds.

  Metal rapped sharply against the side of the chamber and a voice called out: “Hold on in there! We’re going to lift you now.”

  The chamber lurched and they felt it swing. Stephen put an arm over Kate to steady her. The end port gave them a blurred view of bright spotlights and dark water, orange gouts of fire, then a swinging glimpse of dock buildings.

  “Steady the thing, you idiots!” a voice shouted.

  The swinging stopped. There came a sickening drop. Kate emitted a small shriek. The descent stopped, then resumed at a steadier pace, ending abruptly with a
thump.

  “Pass a line over both ends!” someone shouted. “That’s it! Then around here. Make it fast. Now, the netting. There’s going to be a lot of pitching about out there.”

  Kate wondered about that remark as they got under way. She heard the rumbling surge of powerful engines, then smooth movement detected mostly by watching the spotlights at the dockside recede. Stephen busied himself securing loose objects, tucking them in around the edges of the mattress, wedging them with books under the bed’s plywood base, securing the safety lines.

  The smooth movement changed suddenly to a steady fore-and-aft tipping. Stephen leaned across her to peer out a port on her side. He could see only the dark side of the tug, an edge of a red running light. Within minutes, the tipping became a lifting and dropping with definite pounding of water near the head of the chamber. Spray washed past the ports. Kate tasted a sourness in her throat. This new motion shifted suddenly to a heaving pounding craziness, a twisting at the end of each drop. Stephen wedged himself against the side of their bed and held firmly to Kate.

  Only yesterday, Kate thought, she had been complaining because nothing changed in their quarters. The temperature had always been kept so annoyingly warm. She had used much of the morning to sort and fold their few items of clothing. A lucky thing. It had made the move into the little chamber much easier.

  She gripped Stephen’s arm as the barge under them took that moment to make a particularly sickening descent into a wave. As they came up out of the trough, she felt something warm seep down both legs, then a gush of liquid.

  “Stephen!”

  “It’s all right, love. They’ll get us across.”

  “Stephen, the baby’s coming!” she wailed. She tried to sit up, steadying herself with a hand against the wooden lip that Stephen had added to their bed, but the barge under them was dropping down into another trough, pitching her onto her back.

  It was all wrong, she thought. Weren’t there supposed to be pains first, contractions? And it was too early! The baby wasn’t due for more than a month.

  Stephen groped for the torch, found it and snapped it on. Kate had kicked off the blanket and lay now in a puddle of amniotic fluid. He left her for an instant to rip the sterilized sheet off its covering position over the lock. She helped him draw the sheet under her. It was still damp and smelled awfully of the antiseptic.

  “Weren’t there any contractions?” he asked.

  “Nothing but the water breaking. Something’s wrong, Stephen.” Her voice degenerated into a wail. “I’m afraid.”

  He wedged the torch beside the mattress, pointing it upward to reflect off the metal above them. His face appeared calm, but she knew he had only book knowledge of pregnancy and birth. She felt him taking command, though. He had the ropes rigged around his shoulders now and another rope across her chest. The bed pitched and twisted terribly with the sea’s movements. She heard the keening of the wind, the sodden slosh of water against the tank. The torch fell from its position. Stephen recovered it and wedged it more tightly.

  “I can feel the contractions,” she gasped. “Ohhhhhhhh! Not now!”

  “Be calm, darling.”

  “Why couldn’t it wait?”

  Another contraction brought a cry from her. “I don’t know what to do,” she wailed. Perspiration ran off her body.

  “I know what to do, darling. Let the contractions come.”

  What was he doing down there? She tried to lift her head and look down at him where he crouched between her legs. He pushed her back.

  “Stay flat! Hold on to that rope.”

  “It’s too soon! It’s too soon,” she wailed.

  She could feel the pitching of the barge as it drove Stephen lurching against her legs. Another contraction gripped her. Another.

  “I’m timing them” Stephen said, a hand on her abdomen.

  “First baby,” she gasped. “It may be slow.” At least that was what the nursing manuals advised, she remembered.

  Another contraction. Another. She felt her world devolve into crazy motion and the periodic contractions.

  “I can see the head,” Stephen said. “That roll of dry blankets beside you on the left. I’ll need one. See if you can reach it.”

  She was grateful for something to do. Between contractions, her clutching hand found the blankets and stripped one off. A pitching roll of the barge banged her head against the hard edge of the tank. She cried out but kept her grip on the blanket. Stephen did not look up. She felt his arms against the insides of her thighs. Another contraction set her moaning, but she remembered her training. Bear down with it! She felt the baby slide out.

  “The blanket!” Stephen shouted. He jerked it from her hand. She saw him wrapping the baby in it. “I’ve tied off the umbilicus,” he said.

  “Is… is it alive?” she gasped.

  “It’s a girl and she’s alive!” There was joy in Stephen’s voice. “Is she… all right?”

  “Her fingernails aren’t complete but she’s got hair and she’s breathing. We have to keep her warm now.”

  “What about the afterbirth?”

  “Everything’s out.”

  “It was so quick!”

  “She’s very small, darling.” He loosened one of the ropes holding him and put the blanket-wrapped infant beside her. “Hold her there with one hand while I move these ropes. We’re pitching worse than ever. Can you still reach the blankets?”

  “Yes.”

  Kate stared at a tiny face poking from the blanket beside her. It was an old face… so wrinkled. There was a little puddle of mucus at the nose. It bubbled as the baby breathed.

  “It’s too cold in here!” Stephen said. He passed a rope across Kate, moved the torch to a position nearer her head and dragged more blankets across her. Presently, he cinched the rope down tightly and lay beside her, holding to the rope. He made a tent of a blanket over their heads. “We’ll warm the air with our breathing and our own bodies.”

  “She’s almost two months early, Stephen. She needs more than this blanket over her.”

  “I know.” He extinguished the torch. “But it’s all we have.”

  Kate began to cry softly. “What a terrible way to enter the world. What a terrible world.”

  “It’s the only world she has, darling.”

  The baby made a tiny hiccoughing noise.

  Stephen flashed the torch on her face. The baby’s lips were moving in and out. He sensed a hunger for life in the motion.

  “Let me see her,” Kate said. She raised herself on one elbow and stared down into her daughter’s face. “She hasn’t been named,” Kate said. “We’ve not even thought about a name.”

  “There’s no hurry.”

  “Stephen, if the cables break, this iron tank will sink like a stone.”

  “The cables aren’t going to break. They’ve even put a net over us.”

  “I’ll not have my daughter dying without a name!”

  He stared at Kate in the dim torchlight, feeling the wild motion of the sea, aware of the wind sounds, the waves shocking against the barge. Morbid thoughts were easy to have here, but they helped nothing.

  “They’ve taken every precaution,” he said.

  “It’s a girl, Stephen. Don’t you understand? It’s a girl. The plague… something awful is going to happen. I know it!”

  He could hear hysteria in her voice.

  “Kate! You’re going to be a nurse. You’re my wife and I’ve just delivered our first baby.”

  “It’s dirty in here,” she said. “Sepsis.”

  “We’ll not let you die of a fever, I say! Now, stop this.” He extinguished the torch.

  “Dervogilla,” Kate said.

  “What?”

  “We’ll call her Dervogilla,” Kate said. “Gilla for short. Gilla Browder. It has a nice sound.”

  “Kate! Have you a mind to the name you’d saddle this poor babe with?”

  “You’re thinking of the curse on the original Dervogilla.”
br />   “And on Diarmud, the man she ran off with.”

  “We’re running off.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Dervogilla and Diarmud,” Kate said, “the two of them to wander Ireland and never find peace, never to be together until one Irishman forgives them.”

  “I’m not one to believe too much in luck,” he said, “but that’s a name to tempt fate.”

  Kate’s voice was firm. “It’s the curse of poor Ireland, as well. Don’t speak against it, Stephen. I know why this plague was laid upon us. Because we refused to forgive Diarmud and Dervogilla.”

  “You heard that somewhere. The old men nattering back at the castle.”

  “Everyone says it.”

  “You’re daft.”

  “You must forgive them, Stephen, and say you approve this name for our daughter.”

  “Kate!”

  “Say it!”

  Stephen cleared his throat. He felt on the defensive against this new Kate, this virago. He realized abruptly that she was a mother defending her child in the only way she knew. He felt a wash of tenderness for her and for their daughter.

  “I forgive them, Kate. It’s a pretty name.”

  “Thank you, Stephen. Now, our daughter will live.”

  He felt her moving the baby and turned the torch on her. She was trying to bring the baby to her breast.

  “I don’t think she’ll suckle yet, Kate.”

  “She’s moving her mouth.”

  “It’s when she breathes.”

  “Gilla,” she said. “A pretty name.”

  Stephen once more extinguished the torch. It was getting dim. They might need it.

  Kate closed her eyes. If this terrible motion would only stop. Darkness made it worse. And the wild noises outside. The sourness arose once more in her throat. Abruptly, with barely time for her to put her head out of the blanket shelter and turn away from the baby and Stephen, she vomited. The smell permeated the chamber.

  “It’s all right,” she gasped, reaching for his hand to stop him from turning on the torch. She did not want anyone seeing her like this. “Take the baby.” She rested her cheek against the hard edge of wood beside the mattress, heaving and heaving. It was going into the books under the bed, she realized. The smell was awful. She heard Stephen taking deep breaths to keep himself from being sick. She tried to do the same but her stomach was knotted too tightly.