blanketcove red mound of her belly rose and fell, and she started to
whimper again.
Haig was still in the theatre. He had stripped off his battle-jacket
and, in his vest, he stooped over the basin washing. He did not look
round as they wheeled the woman in.
'Get her on the table, he said, working the soap into suds up to his
elbows.
The trolley was of a height with the table and, using the blanket to
lift her, it was easy to slide the woman across.
'She's ready, Haig,' said Bruce. Haig dried his arms on a clean towel
and turned. He came to the woman and stood over her. She did not know he
was there; her eyes were open but unseeing. Haig drew a
breath; he was sweating a little across his forehead and the stubble of
beard on the lower part of his face was stippled with grey.
He pulled back the blanket. The woman wore a short white jacket,
open-fronted, that did not cover her stomach.
Her stomach was swollen out, hard-looking, with the navel inverted.
Knees raised slightly and the thick peasant's thighs spread wide in the
act of labour. As Bruce watched, her whole body arched in another
contraction. He saw the stress of the muscles beneath the dark greyish
skin as they struggled to expel the trapped foetus.
'Hurry, Mike!' Bruce was appalled by the anguish of birth. I
didn't know it was like this; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children
- but this! Through the woman's dry grey swollen lips burst another of
those moaning little cries, and Bruce swung towards Mike Haig.
'Hurry, goddam you?' And Mike Haig began his examination, his hands very
pale as they groped over the dark skin. At last he was satisfied and he
stood back from the table.
Ignatius and the orderly came in with two more lanterns.
Ignatius started to say something, but instantly he sensed the tension
in the room and he fell silent. They all watched Mike Haig's face.
His eyes were tight closed, and his face was hard angles and harsh
planes in the lantern light. His breathing was shallow and laboured.
I must not push him now, Bruce knew instinctively, I have dragged him to
the lip of the precipice and now I must let him go over the edge on his
own.
Mike opened his eyes again, and he spoke.
'Caesarian section,' he said, as though he had pronounced his own death
sentence. Then his breathing stopped. They waited, and at last the
breath came out of him in a sigh.
'I'll do it,' he said.
'Gowns and gloves?' Bruce fired the question at Ignatius.
'In the cupboard.'
'Get them!
'You'll have to help me, Bruce. And you also Shermaine.'
'Yes, show me.' Quickly they scrubbed and dressed. Ignatius held the
pale green theatre gowns while they dived into them and flapped and
struggled through.
'That tray, bring it here,' Mike ordered as he opened the sterilizer.
With a pair of long-nosed forceps he lifted the instruments out of the
