In the third instalment of a special collaboration between the ODT, the Dunedin Unesco City of Literature committee and the University Book Shop, Penelope Todd's begins the first part her short story Outbreak.
Chapter One - A ship carrying diptheria has arrived so the local quarantine island must ready to take its first passengers.
In the late afternoon the brooding warmth was slammed aside by a southerly wind that sent snow clouds boiling over the harbour hills. At dinner the smell of citrus was thick in the kitchen where a cauldron sat on the bench, a thousand yellow thumbnails of rind soaking in water. After this night, none of the island's workers would ever catch that whiff again without a quickening of the senses.
The chimney above the coal range creaked and sighed. Nurse Liesel, closest to the door, suddenly said, "Listen!'', which made them stop clattering and chewing. The quack of a megaphone reached them, but indistinctly. The matron, Martha, rose from the table, asking Gregor the gardener to accompany her to the wharf. The others ate hurriedly; the strange atmospheres of the day had already pent them up and it seemed only fitting that something was now afoot. Gregor soon came running back to say that everyone must put on work clothes and warm coats.
A small boat had sailed across in the dusk, fighting the wind and the first flurries of snow to deliver to Martha a hasty letter from the officer of health. A ship had arrived in Port with diphtheria rife among the cabin passengers. Martha learned subsequently that its captain had thought to conceal the afflicted, sending them direct to the island in longboats, and putting the rest ashore before the health officers arrived to prevent them. The ill-conceived plan was foiled in its infancy, but rumour suggested that the captain's mind had been addled by the traumas of a stormy voyage on a badly rigged boat, from which 19 passengers, most of them children, had been consigned to the ocean.
There had been no "Yellow Jack'' flag to warn the island of the imminent influx and there would be no parleying or tactful arrangements. The sick might start arriving at any hour. Martha trudged slowly up the hill - not because there was no need for haste, but because she wanted to have a plan firmly in her mind before she stirred the nest, as stir she must. They needed space and they needed distance: the ill segregated from the well, the possibly contaminated from the uncontaminated. The cold and the wind made tent-building an impracticality that she reluctantly dismissed.
They would herd all the current patients into one ward. First she thought that to move the men would be easier: they gathered less clobber about them, and didn't insist on having their own rugs, bottles of lotions and unguents, purses and gewgaws about them. However, on balance, the men were more likely to begrudge the change, to be made anxious by it, or disoriented. A greater number of women, she reckoned, would make of the move an adventure; and the men would be satisfied to play hosts, although maintaining each sex's privacy would take some delicate manoeuvring.
So the diphtheria sufferers would go into the women's ward and extra cots could be brought in if need be. Meanwhile, all the other passengers and crew would have to make do in the main barracks - mercifully empty - which would also be divided between those who had closely contacted the sick, and those who had not.
The preparation was a purposeful shambles and at times during the night Martha imagined that morning would find numbers of them fallen like embattled soldiers on the hillside, inert and softly mounded with snow. She'd heard it said that snow never settled on the island, but over the next few hours it embraced the dry grass and the paths, and clung to boot soles and the hems of skirts and trousers. Most of the workers and those hospital residents not too ill to enjoy it were invigorated by the night's adventure and for a while an almost festive air prevailed. Lights came and went through the swirling white as those trekking back and forth with armloads of cots, bedding and trunks, or shuffling in pairs, sang and called out to one another in order to keep their bearings.
After a surprising amount of bad-tempered protestation (Martha was forced to admit her tendency to overestimate the human capacity, at short notice, for curiosity and novelty) the ambulant women had allowed themselves to be cajoled out into the strange nightscape and around to the men's ward, where the nurses were still realigning beds, lockers and tables, attempting to humour the men, and pressing into service every screen and apology for a screen that could be made to stand upright.
Two of the sicker women were carried by stretcher, then once every patient was allotted a bed and seen on to it, all of the workers trekked back to the women's ward, took up cloths and mops and between them saw that every surface and every remaining item was wiped with carbolic acid.
"Of course it's half-measures all the way, and the blankets should never go straight back on without being hung in the sun, but they'll have to do,'' said Martha to anyone within hearing as she wiped the legs of the central table. She straightened and looked around. "There's only time for a quick airing; we'll let the weather blast through for the remaining hour or two.''
When the work had been done, the candles extinguished, and odd-jobber Jimmy left behind with a lantern to lay the fires, Martha herded the workers out and stood looking back into the dark ward, its windows agleam with snow cloud. It was over a year since she'd seen it empty, and might be years before she did again. It was hard to believe that within a few hours the floors and walls would be echoing with the nurses' hurrying feet, and the voices and confusion of God-in-his-mercy-knew how many sick and bewildered strangers, each with a desperate need for reassurance, comfort and care. Under such urgency, only a measure of each could possibly be issued, but she trusted her nurses to offer all they could and not a morsel less.
Martha strode and slid down the hill and, after satisfying herself that the donkeys were tucked into the dry depths of the macrocarpa hedge, made her way to the lemon-scented kitchen, where everyone was perched or leaning with mugs of soup.
"Here she is. Quick, someone ladle a cup for Matron,'' said Liesel.
Martha took the stool vacated for her. She thanked them for their swift and thorough work. "I thought our guests would be here by now, but thank goodness for the breathing space. You'll all go off as soon as you've had the soup, dress for work and then lie down and get what sleep you can. Have your capes and shoes at hand.''
Meanwhile, she reminded them of the elements of the disease: fever and swollen glands accompanying a sudden, virulent inflammation of the throat - where lesions that produced a thick, occluding exudate might range from purulent to ulcerated and gangrenous.
"Sometimes diphtheria attacks the digestive tract, effecting violent disturbance at either end of it. In the malignant form of the illness, the membranes are broken down so that calamitous bleeding may occur.'' Martha cradled her mug and watched the faces around her. Some blanched but none flinched. "We will pay meticulous attention to our own hygiene. Better to have hands corroded by over-application of lime than ...''
She felt suddenly that she had said enough. Particular instructions would be issued once the extent of the emergency was known.
"Sleep now, ready to come the instant the bell is rung. Then we'll all work, side by side and according to the regime I'll develop as we go along, until we have the situation in hand.'' If such a thing were possible.
Out across the water, hell was breaking loose and preparing to move its furnace into their midst. She looked around at the young people being called upon to contain and alleviate its torments while keeping, if possible, beyond the lick of its flames.
As each one left the kitchen, Martha silently summoned the powers of heaven or earth to protect her nurses, wardsmaids and helpers. Her own strength of will couldn't safeguard them, but she would exercise vigilance and ensure that the strictest rules of hygiene were followed, and morale kept alive by every means at her disposal. Might it prove sufficient in every case.
University Book Shop short story series
