A squeak as Bridie wheeled in a second baby crib. She murmured, For when it’s needed.

Honor White hissed through her teeth, God be with me, God help me, God save me.

A red puddle was forming around her hip. Old brown blood coming out during labour was quite usual, but this was very bright.

Her eyes followed mine to the scarlet. She wheezed, Am I dying?

I said, Oh, birth’s a messy business.

But by the time Dr. Lynn bustled in, Honor White’s bleeding was distinctly heavier.

I gave a rapid report.

Thirty-six weeks, said the doctor, that’s only a week from early term, so the lungs should be well developed, at least. And most stargazers do come out on their own.

Stargazers?

That was Bridie.

I explained over my shoulder: Born faceup, looking towards the sky.

Dr. Lynn muttered, No, it’s the mother’s pulse force that concerns me, and the haemorrhage. Most likely the afterbirth’s come away already.

Honor White bore the internal exam wordlessly.

At the sink after, scouring her hands again, Dr. Lynn said, You’ve done splendidly, Mrs. White, but we’re going to get your baby out without further delay. Forceps, please, Nurse.

My stomach clenched. I asked, French or English?

French.

The long ones. That told me the bad news: the head wasn’t very far down the passage yet.

Bridie was all agog, but I hadn’t time to explain.

I fetched a pair of long Andersons, with their handle grips and finger ring, as well as carbolic solution, a scalpel, ligatures, scissors, cloths, a needle, and thread. I filled a syringe with cocaine hydrochloride.

I’d seen women left botched by forceps, their infants with skulls dented or mashed, sometimes spastic for life. Don’t think about that.

Dr. Lynn was asking Honor White to lie on her back.

She cried, Wait!

She gripped the towel and pushed, a vein standing out at her temple.

The doctor asked, Ready now?

Honor White nodded. Her cough sounded sharp enough to crack a rib.

Local anesthetic, Doctor, as she won’t take chloroform?

Dr. Lynn accepted the syringe of cocaine hydrochloride and injected it into Honor White’s soft parts while I held her legs.

Once the area was numbed, the doctor made the snip. Working fast, before the oncoming pang, she slid the first flat branch of the forceps all the way up and alongside the foetus’s skull. Then the next.

Honor White cried out then.

Blood ran even faster; I wondered how the doctor could see what she was doing in this gaudy mess. That was the paradox of forceps—if they didn’t get the baby out right away, they could worsen a haemorrhage.

Faster, faster.

Dr. Lynn clicked the handles together at the midpoint and locked them.

Honor White writhed and coughed as pain struck her like lightning.

I helped her up a little so she could catch her breath and wiped the catarrh from her lips.

Dr. Lynn murmured to herself, Easy does it.

Gripping the awful tongs, she worked on. I wedged myself behind Honor White, holding her as still as I could as she leaked more and more scarlet across the sheets.

Holy Jesus, Honor White said, gasping.

Dr. Lynn straightened up and gave me a preoccupied shake of the head. Ah, not quite within reach yet.

She slid the forceps out in one piece and rested them on the tray. Perhaps ergotoxine to strengthen the contractions? But it’s so unpredictable…

I’d never heard Dr. Lynn dither. Awkward, I looked away and busied myself taking Honor White’s pulse. Twenty-six in fifteen seconds, so a heart rate of one hundred and four. What worried me wasn’t the speed but the lack of force, a feeble music under my fingers.

I bent lower to hear what the patient was whispering: For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

When I put the back of my hand to her grey cheek, it was clammy with sweat. Are you nauseated, Mrs. White?

I thought she nodded but I couldn’t be sure. Her pressure’s dropping, Doctor.

(She might lose consciousness at any moment.)

Dr. Lynn stared; for once she seemed at a loss. In that case, she said, I doubt saline will be enough. Mrs. White needs blood, but the hospital’s stocks are awfully low. I wonder, would there be any walking donors in the building?

Donors on the hoof, that was the jocular phrase. My mind cleared and I told her, We nurses are all on the register. I’ll do it.

Oh, but—

I’m right here. You wouldn’t even need to do a cross match, my type is O.

The universal blood donor; that made the doctor’s face brighten.

I hurried to get the sterile kit from the top shelf.

Behind me I heard Honor White cough shrilly as the next pang pulled her back into the eye of the storm.

The doctor told her, Keep pushing if you’re able.

Honor White groaned as she bore down. The bed was a sea of red.

I readied my left arm by whirling it a dozen times.

Bridie watched as if witnessing some arcane ritual.

I checked the other patients. Mary O’Rahilly was somehow sleeping through all this, but Delia Garrett asked, What on earth—

Just transfusing some blood, I said as glibly as if it were something I did every day.

No room for a chair by her cot, so I perched on the edge and unbuttoned my cuff with my trembling right hand. I wasn’t afraid, only thrilled at the prospect of giving exactly what was needed.

Dr. Lynn said loudly, Mrs. White, I’m going to put a pint of Nurse Power’s blood into you.

No response. Was she sliding beyond our reach?

I took her pulse again. It’s climbed to one hundred and fifteen, Doctor.

(Her heart was pumping faster to compensate for the fact that she was bleeding to death.)

Bridie, said the doctor, a glass of water for Nurse Power.

I almost barked, Don’t waste time. But I was a patient now, so I held my tongue.

The doctor would need my artery for fresher blood and stronger flow to help her pump it faster into the sinking woman. So I offered her the thumb side of my wrist, hoping she had the knack of locating the deep radial pulse.

Dr. Lynn refused it. No, no, those little arteries hurt like the devil, and there’s the risk of leakage and embolisms.

I really don’t mind—

You’re too necessary to risk your health, Nurse. Besides, I read an article that said vein to vein, assisted by gravity, will do in a pinch.

In a pinch; was that where we were now? And had the doctor never actually tried this vein-to-vein technique before?

She slid her warm hand into the crook of my elbow. When she found the best vein, she bounced on it a few times.

I looked away and drained the glass of water Bridie was holding out; oddly enough, I was squeamish when it came to anything piercing my own skin.

Dr. Lynn took only two goes to get the needle in, which wasn’t half bad for a physician. A dark line of blood filled the tube, and she turned the stopcock before it could spill. Rapidly, she bandaged the apparatus onto my arm.

But Honor White’s head was falling back; her eyelids closed. Were we too late? Another contraction seized her now, ghastly to watch—an unseen monster shaking her limp body on a crimson bier.

I said, Do it!

Dr. Lynn was calmly attaching my tubing to the other metal syringe. She tied Honor White’s arm to make the veins stand out, but they were flat as string.