Plague

They pushed their way into the emergency ward. Dr. Petrie tugged on a tight surgical cap and laced a mask over his nose and mouth. The nurse helped him put on green rubbers and a long gown. She gave him transparent latex gloves, and he pulled them on to his hands as he followed Selmer into the glare of the surgical lamps.

It was the middle-aged man that Herb Stone and Francis Poletto had picked up in Alton Road. His face was drawn and lividly pale, and his eyes were rolled back into his head so that only the whites were showing. Beside the couch, on the luminous dials of the diagnostic equipment, his respiration, heartbeat and blood pressure were slowly subsiding.

The nurse said, 'His breathing is failing, Dr. Selmer. We can't keep him much longer.'

Dr. Selmer, helpless, stood at the end of the couch and watched the man gradually die.

'This is how bad it really is,' he said to Dr. Petrie, in a hushed voice. 'This man's wife told us that he felt sick just after lunch. By the evening, it had gotten so bad that he decided to go and look up his doctor. He was on his way there when he was picked up by the cops for drunk driving. He wasn't drunk, of course. He was dying of plague. Twelve hours from first symptoms to death.'

Dr. Petrie saw the pulse-rate drop and drop and drop.

The luminous ribbon of the cardiac counter was barely nudged by the man's weakening heart. 'Is his wife here?' Dr. Petrie asked.

Selmer nodded. 'We're keeping every relative and friend in the waiting-room, under observation. The way this plague seems to develop, you show your first symptoms three or four hours after you've been exposed to it. We had a young girl brought in about three-and-a-half hours ago, and her father's showing the first signs. Dizziness, sickness, diahorrea, shivering. It's the fastest infectious disease I've ever seen.'

Dr. Petrie said nothing as the man on the couch died. Whoever he was, whatever he did, his forty-five years of life and memory and experience dwindled to nothing at all, and vanished on that hard, uncompromising bed.

Dr. Selmer motioned to the nurse and they drew a sheet over his face and disconnected the diagnostic equipment. One of the doctors called for a porter from the mortuary.

'Poor guy,' said Dr. Petrie, 'He never even knew what it was.'

Dr. Selmer turned away. Though an emergency ward doctor he was torn apart by losing his patients. He was skilful and talented and he never lost his enthusiasm for other people's survival. What was happening here today was, for him, relentless and unstoppable agony.

'There's one consolation,' said Dr. Selmer hoarsely. 'It looks as though we're not going to get it ourselves.'

'We're not? I always thought doctors and nurses were first-line casualties with plague.'

'Maybe they are. But it was nine o'clock this morning when you came into contact with David Kelly, wasn't it? And are you sick yet? I came into closer contact than you, and I'm okay. Perhaps we're going to get lucky, and stay alive.'

'I still think you ought to call Firenza. Tell him again how bad this is.'

Dr. Selmer shrugged. 'It's not that he doesn't believe me. It's his reputation. I don't think he wants to be known as the health official with the highest mortality rate in the history of Florida.'

'That's absurd,' said Dr. Petrie.

'You think so? Go and talk to him yourself. Meanwhile, you can do me a favor.'

'What's that?'

'Tell this guy's wife that he's gone. Her name's Haskins. She's waiting by the water fountain, just down the corridor.'

Dr. Petrie lowered his head. Then he said, 'Okay,' and went back to the wash-up room to take off his mask and robe. He glanced at himself in the mirror as he straightened his jacket, and thought that he looked tall, tired, handsome and helpless. Maybe Margaret had been right all along. Maybe it was futile, caring for rich and hypochondriac old ladies. Maybe his real work was here, in the thick of the blood and the pain, the failing hearts and the teeming bacteria.

He opened the door and peered down the crowded corridor. Mrs. Haskins was standing on her own — a gray-haired woman in a cheap brown print dress, holding a plastic carrier bag with her husband's clothes and shoes in it. She seemed oblivious to the bustle of medics and porters, as more and more sick people were wheeled swiftly into the hospital. Outside, as the doors swung open, the ambulance sirens echoed through the warm night streets of Miami. Mrs. Haskins, alone by the water fountain, waited patiently.

Dr. Petrie walked across, and took her arm. She looked up at him, her eyes pink with tiredness and suppressed tears.

'Mrs. Haskins?'

'Yes, sir. Is George all right?'

Dr. Petrie bit his lip. In a few short words, he was going to destroy this woman's whole world. He almost felt like saying nothing at all, prolonging her suspense. At least she would believe her husband was still alive. At least she would have some hope.

'George was very sick,' said Dr. Petrie softly.

She nodded. 'I know. He was taken bad right after his lunch. He took his swim in the morning, and then he came back and was taken real bad.'

'He took a swim? Where?'

'Where he always does. Off the beach.'

Dr. Petrie looked at the woman's weary, work-lined face. First it was David Kelly, and he'd taken a swim. Then it was Margaret, and she'd taken a swim. Now it was George Haskins. And all along the beaches, raw sewage was floating in from the Atlantic Ocean. Poisonous, virulent, and seething with diseased bacteria.

'Mrs. Haskins,' he said simply, 'I'm sorry to tell you that George is dead.'

Mrs. Haskins stared at him. 'I beg your pardon?' she said.

'George died, about five minutes ago.'

She frowned, and then looked down at her carrier bag. 'But he can't have. I've got all his clothes in here.'

'I'm sorry, Mrs. Haskins. It's true.'

She shook her head. 'No, that's all right,' she said, with an attempt at brightness. 'I'll just wait here.'

'Mrs. Haskins — '

He was interrupted by the public address system. 'Dr. Petrie, telephone please. Dr. Leonard Petrie, telephone.'

He held Mrs. Haskins' hand. 'I'll be right back,' he told her. 'You just wait there, and I'll be right back.'

Mrs. Haskins smiled blandly, and agreed to wait.

Dr. Petrie pushed his way past trolleys and anaesthetic cylinders, nurses and porters, and made his way to the phone outside the emergency ward. He picked it up and said, 'This is Dr. Petrie. You have a call for me?'

'Hold on, doctor,' said the telephonist. 'Okay, ma'am, you're through now.'

Dr. Petrie said, 'Adelaide?'

Adelaide sounded jumpy and frantic. 'Leonard? Oh God, Leonard, something awful has happened! I've been trying to call you for the past twenty minutes, but the hospital lines were all tied up.'

'What is it? Is it Prickles? Is she sick?'

'No, it's not that. It was Margaret. She knocked at the door, and I opened it up, thinking it was you. She came straight in, like she was drunk or something, and she pulled Prickles out of bed and carried her off.'

'She what?'

'She carried her off, Leonard,' said Adelaide miserably, bursting into tears. 'I tried to stop her, but I couldn't. Oh God, Leonard, I'm so sorry. I tried to stop her.'

'You say she was drunk?'

'She seemed like it. She was swaying around and cursing. It was awful.'

Dr. Petrie rested his head against the wall. 'Okay, Adelaide, don't worry, I'll get right back there. I shouldn't think she's taken Prickles far. Just stay there, and I'll get back in ten minutes.'

He laid down the phone. Dr. Selmer was standing right behind him.

'You're not going home?' asked Dr. Selmer. 'I'm sorry, but I came to look for you, and I couldn't help overhearing.'

'Anton, I have to. My wife has taken my little girl.'