With my right hand I took the pulse on the woman’s other wrist—up to a hundred and twenty now, and so faint.

The doctor still couldn’t find a vein on the dying woman.

Heat? My voice came out almost angry. Bridie, dip a clean cloth in the pot of hot water, would you?

Dr. Lynn murmured, I almost have the bugger.

But for all the probing and prodding, Honor White’s veins kept rolling under the doctor’s fingers.

When Bridie brought over the hot cloth, I snatched it myself, despite my impediments. I flapped it in the air two or three times to release some steam so it wouldn’t burn Honor White, then folded it over and pressed it along her inner arm.

Can you, Nurse Power? Dr. Lynn offered me the handle of the syringe.

Even in the hurry, I respected her for knowing that this was a moment when all her study and experience was no match for a nurse’s.

I grabbed the syringe and pulled the hot cloth off Honor White’s arm. There, on the pink-flushed skin, was a little blue line—a creek in a canyon. I beat out a rhythm on it with my fingertip: Stay alive, Mrs. White. The wary blood vessel rose a little, just enough, and I slid the needle in.

Dr. Lynn took over promptly, bandaging the tube onto the slumped patient so it wouldn’t slip out.

Stand up, she urged me.

I leapt off the cot.

As soon as she opened the stopcock, my blood began to flow down the tube. The doctor seized my left hand and set it on her own shoulder to keep it high; my elbow locked. She pressed my flesh above the needle so hard I almost cried out. She squeezed my arm, milking me of life.

Hearing some commotion in the corridor, I jerked; could that be the police come back, still hunting Dr. Lynn?

Either she hadn’t heard anything or she had nerves of steel. A captain in the rebel army, I remembered. Bullets whizzing past her like hail.

Dr. Lynn murmured, Now, I can’t be sure how much I’m taking, Nurse Power, so do speak up at once if you feel faint.

With my other hand I gripped the head of the bed, just in case. Let it not clot; we hadn’t a minute to change a clogged tube or decant my blood and add sodium citrate to keep it liquid. Flow, flow, red waterfall, keep flowing into this woman. Don’t let us have to cut this infant out of her. Mother and child doing their best to walk in the midst of the shadow of death.

Could I see a slight flush rising in Honor White’s chalky face?

Suddenly the woman blinked up at me.

You’re all right, dear, I assured her.

(Not true yet; a hope in the form of a lie.)

I added, You should be feeling stronger soon.

She let out a husky scream.

The O’Rahilly baby in his crib gave a start and mewed.

Honor White tried to sit up.

Dr. Lynn ordered: Stay still.

Honor White began thrashing about.

I pressed my right hand over the needle in my left arm to keep it there and clamped my left hand over hers so she wouldn’t yank out the tube. Mrs. White!

Was she going into convulsions, like poor Ita Noonan?

No, not that. Red-faced now, shuddering, she clutched her sides as if they might burst, then scratched at her face, her neck, panting, trying to say something. Pale hives rising.

Dr. Lynn muttered wrathfully, Transfusion reaction.

I was appalled. I’d only heard of this, never seen it.

Honor White was wheezing wildly as she clawed at herself, raising livid weals.

The doctor twisted the stopcock and tugged off Honor White’s bandage.

Bridie struggled to hold the woman still. What’s happening?

Something in Mrs. White’s blood doesn’t like mine, I admitted, even though I’m a universal donor.

Dr. Lynn muttered, There are always exceptions. We couldn’t have known.

She whipped the tube out of the needle in Honor White’s arm, and my blood jetted across the floor, unwanted now; noxious.

I pulled the needle and tube right out of my own arm and pressed hard on the puncture to stop the bleeding.

We could do nothing about the maddening itching—Honor White’s body’s way of trying to fight off my alien blood. She was gasping like a consumptive. I bent all my efforts on urging her to calm herself and breathe.

Dr. Lynn was scrubbing at the sink.

At a moment like this, why on earth did she need to wash her hands again?

Then I realised there was no hope but to get this baby into the air before the mother bled out.

I called, You’ll find a sterile pair of forceps on the—

I see them.

Bridie and I gripped Mrs. White and held her as Dr. Lynn went in with the first branch of the forceps.

Honor White let out a long howl.

Then the other branch.

Dr. Lynn muttered, Yes. Staring into space as she tightened her grip and curled her index finger into the ring at the hinge.

I told Honor White, A huge push this time.

Though she didn’t look as if she could even lift her head. Who was I to order this woman to go beyond her powers?

If you’d press on the uterine fundus, Nurse? asked the doctor.

I put my hand at the top of Honor White’s bump, waited for the wave to take her, then bore down.

Urghhhhhhhh!

Steady, steady…and here comes the face.

Without rushing, Dr. Lynn guided the head out in her tongs.

New eyes blinking through a wash of scarlet, turned to the heavens. Stargazer.

Was the infant going to drown in its mother’s blood? I flailed around to find a clean cloth and wiped the nose and mouth clear.

Dr. Lynn murmured, Wait for it. One more push.

I got behind Honor White and held her up to help her breathe. I swore, It’ll soon be over.

(Thinking, One way or another.)

She stirred a little, and her eyes widened. She coughed with a sound of something ripping. On the next pang, she shoved back so hard, the bed rail bit into my ribs.

The whole baby slithered out of her.

Well done!

Dr. Lynn said, Congratulations, Mrs. White. You have a son.

I held out a blanket to take him.

Unprompted, he let out a cry.

At first I thought the doctor’s forceps had cut his mouth. Then I recognised the kinked line—born harelipped.

But a healthy size for being a few weeks before full term, and a good hue.

Dr. Lynn was concentrating on stemming the bleeding. She massaged Honor White’s collapsed belly from the top, persuading her uterus to squeeze out the afterbirth.

Now the cord’s pulse slowed; this infant had had all he was going to get from it. I asked Bridie to bring me over the instrument tray. I tied the slippery blue rope in two places and scissored through.

Could you warm up a pint of saline, Nurse?

I bundled the White baby in a towel, set him in the crib, and told Bridie to watch him. Speak up if he seems to choke or changes colour.

I rushed to mix salt into hot water, then brought over the bottle. Dr. Lynn had already attached a fresh tube to Honor White’s inner arm. I set the bottle up on a stand so the saline would pour into her.

She was less flushed, and she’d stopped scratching at her weals, but she was weak as a rag. What other damage had my unlucky blood done her?

Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners, she was whispering, now and at the hour of our death, amen.

There’s the placenta now, excellent.

The meaty thing surged out, with a huge clot behind it.

Dr. Lynn lifted up the organ to check it was whole, then dropped it into the waiting basin.