She nodded, trying to believe it.

I said, Nature works to her own clock, but she knows what she’s doing.

Mary O’Rahilly stared back at me, one motherless daughter to another. She knew as well as I did what a lie I was telling, but she took what comfort she could.

To think, she’d come in here this morning expecting her navel to open. Practically a child herself, but soon she’d be transformed; she’d have to be the mother.

Knock-knock! A man’s voice at the door.

In walked Groyne with a girl in his arms, like a bride he was carrying over the threshold.

Groyne, what do you think you’re—

He plonked her down on the left-hand cot and said, Shortage of wheelchairs.

(What, had I expected Ita Noonan’s bed to stay empty?)

The new patient doubled over, spluttering. Only when she straightened up could I see, squinting in the brownish light, that she wasn’t as young as Mary O’Rahilly, just similarly undergrown. Wide eyes under straw-coloured hair, and a vast belly.

I put a hand on the knob of her shoulder. I’m Nurse Power.

She tried to answer me but she was coughing too hard.

Wait till you have a sip of water.

Bridie rushed to fill a glass.

The new patient persisted in speaking, but I couldn’t make out a word. She had rosary beads wound twice around her arm, imprinting the skin.

It’s all right, Mrs.…

I held my hand out to Groyne for the chart. I tilted it towards the dim bulb: Honor White, second pregnancy, twenty-nine years old. (Same as me.) Due at the end of November, which put her at thirty-six weeks right now. She’d caught the flu a full month ago, but as so often happened, there’d been complications.

Can’t shift this nasty cough, then, Mrs. White?

She hacked on, eyes streaming. Anaemic, I guessed from that paper-pale skin.

I noticed a little red Sacred Heart on the lapel of her thin coat when I hung it up and an odd bulge in the pocket. The dry layers fragmented and shed in my hand. Is this…garlic?

Mrs. White gasped out, very low: For warding off the grippe.

Groyne let out a yelp of laughter. Much good that did you.

The new patient’s accent was from the far west, I thought. I couldn’t change her clothes until the orderly left.

He was dawdling. So, Nurse Power, how’re you getting along with the diehard?

The word confused me for a moment. Oh, Dr. Lynn? She seems highly experienced.

Groyne snorted. Experienced at agitation and anarchy!

Come, now.

Bridie put in, I heard she was nearly executed.

I stared at her thrilled face. Was my runner taking the orderly’s side now? I asked: Heard where?

On the stairs.

That’s a fact, Groyne assured us. After the Rising, they handed down ninety death sentences—but they spared all the ladies, he added discontentedly, and called off the firing squads after the sixteenth go!

Well. (I was uneasy that my patients were hearing all this.) At least we have a doctor with some obstetrical expertise in today.

Sure Miss Lynn’s probably only here to dodge the peelers, he told me.

I frowned, not following. Why would the police still be after her at this point? Didn’t the government let the rebels out of prison last year?

Groyne snorted. Don’t you read the papers, Nurse Power? They tried to round up the whole traitorous crew again in May for gunrunning with the Germans. I don’t know how Her Nibs slipped through the net, but I tell you, she’s on the run as we speak, she—

He froze.

I turned to see Dr. Lynn sweeping in. Behind her glasses, her face gave no indication that she’d heard a word, but mine burnt.

She scanned the low-lit ward. Good evening Mrs. Garrett, Mrs. O’Rahilly…and who’s this?

I introduced Honor White.

The doctor’s coiled plaits were so sedate, her collar so prim, I told myself it couldn’t be true what Groyne had claimed about her conspiring with a foreign power.

Stay alive, ladies, said Groyne. He sauntered out, singing:

Oh, death, where is thy stingalingaling,

Oh, grave, thy victory?

The bells of hell go tingalingaling

For you but not for me…

With Bridie’s help I got Honor White into a nightdress while Dr. Lynn examined her. No fever, but her pulse and respirations were rather fast. Straining for breath, the woman denied being hungry, wanted only to rest.

Dr. Lynn told me to give her a spoonful of ipecac to loosen her chest.

Does it hurt when you cough, Mrs. White?

She rubbed her sternum and whispered: Like a knife.

You’re not due till the end of November?

Honor White nodded. A doctor said.

And this was how long ago?

A while back. A couple of months.

I don’t suppose you remember when were the first movements?

I knew Dr. Lynn was asking because the quickening usually happened by the eighteenth week. But Honor White only shrugged.

She started coughing again, so I passed her a sputum cup with carbolic sloshing in the bottom. She brought up greenish stuff with dark streaks.

Start her on daily iron for her anaemia, Nurse, said the doctor, but do watch to see if it upsets her stomach.

I went to the jar in the cupboard to fetch a pill.

Dr. Lynn said, I believe you’ve got a pneumoniac infection, which means the flu’s lodged right down deep in your lungs.

The patient’s eyes glistened. She tugged on her holy beads.

But don’t worry yourself, Nurse Power will take great care of you.

(I thought, As I did of Ita Noonan and Eileen Devine?)

Honor White confided in a whisper, Doctor, I think I’m going to split.

She put her fingers to the centre of her bump.

When you cough, you mean?

She shook her head.

Dr. Lynn assured her, It’s common to feel full to bursting this far along.

No, but—

Honor White tugged up her nightdress as modestly as she could, revealing the great pink shiny ball between hem and sheet. She pointed to the brown line that ran straight up past her navel to her ribs. It’s darker every day.

Dr. Lynn managed not to smile. That’s just the linea nigra, nothing but a streak of colour.

Some women get it under the eyes, I told Honor White, and on the upper lip too.

Truly, said the doctor, the brown skin’s as strong as the white.

But I didn’t have it…

Last time, I guessed Honor White must mean.

Delia Garrett spoke up suddenly: My streak stops at the belly button.

Honor White twisted to her left to see her neighbour.

Bill’s mother said that meant I was going to have a girl.

Then Delia Garrett’s eyes flooded with tears.

I couldn’t think of anything to do for what ailed her. No medicine for that grief.

I gave Honor White her iron pill with a hot whiskey for her cough.

But she recoiled from the alcoholic waft, wheezing, I’m a Pioneer.

I remembered the little Sacred Heart on her coat. Oh, it’s medicinal.

She shook her head and crossed herself.

Dr. Lynn said, Quinine for Mrs. White, then, with a hot lemonade. Now, how’s our primigravida progressing?

I looked at Mary O’Rahilly, who was lying back with her eyes shut. Her pangs are still about fifteen minutes apart, I’m afraid.

No sign of her membranes rupturing yet?