“Staff Rawlings told me about Nurse Travers,” said Saracen. “It looks as if the contacts are beginning to go down.”
“I wish I could disagree,” said MacQuillan.
“That means that there could be half a dozen or more people scattered over Skelmore about to develop plague. It’s like having incendiary bombs in a wood-pile.”
“Braithwaite’s people are bringing them in and isolating their families.”
“But will they be in time?”
“It’s touch and go. It could go either way that’s why I’ve requested a government order.”
“Government order?”
“From 6a.m. tomorrow morning nothing moves in or out of Skelmore.”
“Can the Police cope?”
“It will be a military affair,” replied MacQuillan. The town will be under martial law.”
“Good God!” said Saracen. “That has an unpleasant ring.”
“There’s no other way.”
“Staff Rawlings said that ward twenty is being opened and staffed with volunteers.”
“And you are wondering about the volunteer angle?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a moral dilemma involved,” said MacQuillan. “We know that the patients admitted to twenty will almost certainly die but they have to be cared for. On the other hand there is some doubt about the efficacy of the vaccine offered to staff as protection. While that doubt persists I felt we had to make the job voluntary.”
“About protection for the staff…” Saracen began.
“I’ve placed an urgent request for respirator suits from the Ministry of Defence. They will be here by tomorrow morning. In the meantime we have isolated Nurse Travers in a plastic cocoon.”
“Is there anything I can do?” asked Saracen.
“Get some sleep while you can,” replied MacQuillan. “And if you’re a praying man now’s the time to do it.”
The sound of the National Anthem woke Saracen up. He got up from his chair rubbing his neck and turned the television set off before padding over to the window to look out at the rain. Something told him that he had just had all the sleep he was going to get.
The phone rang at two a.m.; it was Moss.
“Where are you?” asked Saracen.
“At home. The hospital just rang to say that four of the other Archer contacts have developed full blown plague.”
“Which ones?”
“The two ambulance men, the police constable who attended the incident and one of the porters.”
“How about their families?”
“The Public Health people are working at full stretch trying to reach them in time.”
“I don’t envy them.”
“Braithwaite is beginning to fray at the edges.”
“Have they established any link between the dead workman and the other three cases from the Maxton?” asked Saracen.
“The woman was having an affair with the dead man. Braithwaite isolated the man’s family but no one told him about the other woman. Just about everybody knew but no one liked to say. You know how it goes.”
“And the kids?”
“Two belonged to the woman; the other was a school friend who happened to be staying.”
“God, what a mess.”
“I believe ‘tangled web’ is the expression.”
“You’ve heard about the quarantine order?”
“From 6am. Yes.”
“Do you know when the public are being told?”
“In the morning when the road blocks are in place and it’s too late to decide on a snap visit to Auntie Mabel in Birmingham.”
“Makes sense.”
“The Police have had a meeting with the heads of local radio and television. It’s been decided to present the measure as a sensible precaution and a chance for Civil Defence bodies to have a major practice. Appeals will be made to British common sense etc.”
“It’s still hard to believe this is happening.” said Saracen.
Moss murmured his agreement.
Saracen lay back on the headboard with his hands behind his head and listened to the sound of the rain outside in the darkness. There was no way that he was going to be able to sleep. He swore softly and got out of bed.
Chapter Eleven
Tremaine looked surprised when Saracen walked into A amp;E. He looked at his watch and saw that it was five am.
“Couldn’t sleep,” said Saracen.
“Things that bad?”
“And getting worse. How was the locum?”
“No problems. He’s just having a cup of tea.”
Saracen had asked about Malcolm Jamieson, one of two locum housemen appointed to compensate for the loss of Chenhui Tang and Nigel Garten.
“When does the other chap arrive?” asked Tremaine.
“Tomorrow, if they let him in,” replied Saracen. He told Tremaine about the Quarantine order on the town.
“Claire is going to love that,” said Tremaine. “She was planning to go to London for a few days.”
“Can’t be helped. I’ll just take a shower and then I’ll have a chat with Jamieson.”
Saracen showered in the locker room under the pitiful trickle that eventually emerged from the sprinkler head after a noisy journey through endless overhead piping. The room, like all the others in the General, was at least fifteen feet from floor to ceiling and tiled with tiles so crazed that they appeared brown. The ventilator fan had been broken for some months so, on days when it rained, the window glass acted as a condenser for the steam and water streamed down it.
Saracen watched the steam drift up past the metal light shade and hang in a pall round the electrics. “If Legionnaire’s disease doesn’t get you in this place the wiring probably will, he thought. He dressed and returned to A amp;E to speak to Jamieson.
Jamieson, a tall young man with ginger hair and a serious expression, got up when Saracen came into the Duty Room and seemed uneasy at having been caught drinking tea. Saracen put him at his ease and asked, “Have you had your vaccination?”
“Dr Tremaine gave me it last night,” replied the houseman.
“And you know why?”
Jamieson nodded and said that Tremaine had told him. “This is all a bit of a surprise,” he added.
“Wishing you hadn’t come here?” asked Saracen.
“I didn’t say that,” replied Jamieson.
“No you didn’t,” Saracen agreed. He told the houseman about the isolation order on the town.
“It’s that serious then?”
