I shook my head.

The doctor pursed her lips and went to scrub her hands at the sink.

Ah; that meant it was time to risk an internal.

I said, Mrs. O’Rahilly? The doctor’s going to check you’re coming along nicely.

The seventeen-year-old was meek, doll-like. But when I got her into the examining position—on her side, with her bottom right out over the edge of the bed—and lifted her nightdress, she cried, I’ll fall!

No, you’re grand. Bridie will hold you steady.

Bridie perched on the other side of the bed and took the young woman’s hands in hers.

I told her, I’m making you ready now…

I disinfected her vulva with Lysol solution, scrubbed it with soap, and then douched her vagina with a syringe to make sure the doctor wouldn’t pass any germs from outside to inside.

Dr. Lynn murmured, Relax your muscles, dear, I won’t be long.

Mary O’Rahilly made no protest, but I could hear her breathing quicken. She coughed convulsively.

I knew the doctor was feeling with one finger for the edge of the cervix, hoping not to find it; only when the tissue thinned so much it was undetectable would the woman be ready to start pushing.

Dr. Lynn pulled out her gloved hand. I believe I’ll break your waters now to move things along.

She turned her head to me and murmured, Given the circumstances.

Clearly Mary O’Rahilly wasn’t much further on than when she’d come in this morning. A few months ago, we’d have let her take as much time as she needed, but the doctor wanted to spare the young woman the double burden of the grippe and days of exhausting labour in this makeshift ward.

So I went and got the tray with the long sterilised hook.

She burst into tears at the sight.

Oh, the doctor won’t be poking you with that, Mrs. O’Rahilly. It’s just to make a little opening in the bag of fluid the baby’s swimming in.

She’d probably never heard of the amniotic sac either.

Two towels, please, Bridie?

I folded them under Mary O’Rahilly, who let out a rat-a-tat-tat of nervous coughs. I douched her again. This wretched brownout; I took out my small battery-powered torch and aimed it so Dr. Lynn could see what she was doing. (German manufacture, of course. A miracle it had lasted four years; I never let it out of my sight.)

The doctor deftly opened Mary O’Rahilly with her left hand and slid the hook in, guarded by the fingers of her right, then stared into the distance as if navigating a mountain pass by night.

Amniotic fluid leaked out. It was clear, in the sharp beam of my torch; no greenish, yellowish, or brownish traces of meconium, which would be a strong hint that we should get the baby out fast.

Excellent, said the doctor.

I pulled down Mary O’Rahilly’s nightdress and helped her to sit up.

She shivered and sucked on her cooling whiskey. Will it stop hurting now, Nurse?

Her innocence bruised my heart. Ought I to break it to her that we were trying to make her pangs come faster and harder, powerful enough to squeeze out her baby?

Instead I said, That should have made some room in there and hurried things along a bit.

Bridie took away the wet towels and I straightened up the bed.

I went over to the doctor, who was stripping off her gloves. I said quietly, There’ll be no midwife here once I go home tonight, only a general nurse.

Dr. Lynn nodded tiredly. Then I’ll be sure to check up on Mrs. O’Rahilly before I go off duty, and I’ll ask—who is it, Prendergast?—to look in on her in the small hours.

After she’d gone, Honor White coughed up more sputum. I gave the cup to Bridie to empty and rinse out with carbolic.

The lamps turned back up just then, which was a relief.

I took a fuller look at the newcomer’s chart and noticed that all it said after Husband’s name was White, with no Christian name, and below Husband’s occupation, only a blank. So there wasn’t actually a husband; Mrs. must be a courtesy title. One of those things that had been very shocking before the war but were rather less so now; were there more illegitimate births or did it just seem to matter less when so many men weren’t making it home? A fervent Catholic, though, in a temperance league, and pregnant out of wedlock, perhaps for the second time; that combination did intrigue me. At any rate, I never gave an unmarried patient any grief for her situation—though the same couldn’t be said for some prigs of the old school such as Sister Luke.

At the side, under Transferred from, I recognised the name of an institution just a few streets away, a large mother-and-baby home where women went to bear unwanted children. Or were sent, perhaps; I was hazy on the details. The whole phenomenon was so shrouded in shame. It was known that if a woman got into trouble she’d be taken in by the nuns; these institutions dotted the country, but nobody ever said much about what they were like inside. What had happened to that first child of Honor White’s, I wondered—had it lived?

Over at the sink, where Bridie was washing up, I said in her ear: I know you have a way of chatting to the patients—

Sorry, I’m an awful blabbermouth.

No, no, it sets them at ease. But Mrs. White…please don’t ask anything about her circumstances.

Bridie’s eyebrows contracted.

She, ah, went to school before the bell rang.

The young woman showed no sign of knowing that phrase.

Unwed. (I barely whispered the word.) From one of those mother-and-baby homes.

Oh.

I wonder what’ll happen after the birth, I murmured. It’ll be adopted, I suppose.

Bridie’s face closed up. Go into the pipe, more likely.

I stared; what could she mean?

Nurse Julia, I need the lavatory.

I lifted down a bedpan and brought it over to Delia Garrett.

Not that. Let me go—

Sorry, you’re still on bed rest for at least a few days.

(It was actually supposed to be the full week after a birth, but I couldn’t spare the cot for that long.)

I tell you, I can walk!

I was glad to hear Delia Garrett sounding more like her snappish self. Come on, let me slip this pan under you and you’ll be all set.

With a huff of breath, she heaved up one hip to make room for the cold steel.

I took her pulse. No fever, I could tell from her skin, but I leaned in to take a covert inhalation. I prided myself on having a nose for the first hint of childbed fever, and all I was getting was sweat, blood, and whiskey—but I’d stay vigilant.

I heard the urine let down at last, and Delia Garrett gasped.

Two beds over, the new patient let out a ravaging cough as if her lungs were being torn to pieces. I went around Mary O’Rahilly’s cot and got Honor White propped up against a wedge-shaped bedrest.

Her pulse and respirations were still scudding along. She crossed herself and murmured, It’s just deserts.

Your flu? Don’t be thinking that way, I said soothingly. There’s no rhyme or reason to who’s getting struck down.

Honor White shook her head. I don’t mean just me.

I felt foolish for having jumped to conclusions.

All of us. (She heaved a crackling breath.) Serves us right.

All of us sinners? I wondered. This might be religious mania.

She gasped: For the war.

Ah, now I caught her drift. Human beings had killed so many at this point, some said nature was rebelling against us.