“I’ll have another word with Olive,” said Saithe in an effort to placate Saracen.
“They do have the option of walking out,” Saracen reminded Saithe.
“I can’t see them doing that,” said Saithe. “Can you?”
“No, damn it, but it’s immoral to count on that, besides, some of them are so near to breaking point that they may not be able to carry on.”
“I’ll make sure everyone concerned is aware of the situation,” said Saithe.
The second school was officially declared open at two thirty and for the next three hours it was agreed that the General would screen all plague cases to give the County Hospital a break. All confirmed cases would be sent on to the new school. Saracen screened twenty two patients in the first hour. All were clear cut, men, women, children from all over the town. The wild cards had sown the seeds of disaster.
Saracen knew that Jamieson in A amp;E had been trying to get hold of him for the last thirty minutes but he had been far to busy to get in touch. He had had to put a hold on all calls until his area was clear. It was clear at the moment though he knew that this would not last for long; it was just a lull in the storm. He washed thoroughly and slumped down into a chair beside the phone to call A amp;E. His limbs felt leaden and he rubbed his eyes as he waited for Jamieson to answer.
“I’ve got a patient here I would like you to take a look at,” said Jamieson.
“You’ve what?” said Saracen angrily.
“Before you say anything else I know how busy you are and I wouldn’t have called you unless there was a very good reason…”
Saracen calmed down and said, “Tell me.”
“I really think you should come over,” said Jamieson calmly.
Saracen considered for a moment and then said, “All right, give me five minutes.” He struggled out of his protective gear and washed again before hurrying over to A amp;E.
“He’s in here,” said Jamieson, pointing to the end cubicle. He handed Saracen his notes and followed behind as Saracen read them on the move. Francis Updale, aged thirty seven, heating engineer, 22, Bread Street, Skelmore…being treated for glandular fever by his GP, suddenly became so ill that his wife had put in a treble nine call after failing to contact their GP.
“But why wasn’t he taken to the County?” asked Saracen. “All fever cases go there.”
“The County has a problem,” replied Jamieson. “They stopped admitting an hour ago and requested that we take their emergencies.”
Saracen could hardly believe his ears. “What kind of a problem?” he demanded.
“I understand that Dr Moss and several others have been taken ill,” said Jamieson.
Saracen froze in his tracks. Never had the words sounded so ominous. “Taken ill,” he repeated softly. “Jesus Christ.”
“Mr Updale is in here,” said Jamieson to break Saracen’s trance.
Saracen found the man conscious but in severe distress as he pulled back the covers to begin his examination. He made reassuring sounds to the patient but in truth he was conducting the examination on autopilot. This went on until alarm bells started to ring inside Saracen’s head. He was not finding what he expected to find. “This isn’t glandular fever,” he whispered to Jamieson.
“That’s what I thought. That’s why I called you over. I remembered what you said about taking nothing at face value…”
Saracen’s pulse quickened. “But he’s not like the others, there’s no pulmonary malfunction, he’s…” Saracen examined the man’s groin and found what he had been dreading. He showed what he had found to Jamieson and said, “Do you know what that is?”
Jamieson looked and said, “I saw it earlier but I haven’t come across anything like it before. What is it?”
“It’s the primary bubo,” said Saracen. “This man doesn’t have pneumonic plague, he has the bubonic form.” Jamieson’s questions were lost on Saracen as his mind flirted with a new nightmare.
“You’ve got a patient with what?” exclaimed MacQuillan when Saracen called him. “Are you absolutely sure?”
Saracen said that he was.
“And he was admitted to the clean area at the General?”
“No one realised what the symptoms were. He is different from the other cases.”
“What a mess,” muttered MacQuillan. “How the hell did he get bubonic plague?”
“I was hoping you were going to tell us that,” said Saracen.
There was a long silence before MacQuillan said, “The disease can be transmitted by human fleas as well as rat ones. If this chap has been living rough…”
“He’s a clean living heating engineer who lives with his wife and daughter in a nice area and has never been in contact with anyone who has since contracted the disease.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“Frustration was beginning to gnaw at the edges of Saracen’s temper but he refrained from pointing out that there seemed to be an awful lot that the experts failed to understand about the Skelmore outbreak. Instead he asked, “How are things at the County?”
“You’ve heard then?”
“That’s why we got the patient.”
“Five of the staff have gone down.”
“Moss?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Saracen put down the phone and repeated the same expletive over and over again in a whisper. He pulled himself together and returned to the treatment room to arrange with Jamieson that Updale be admitted to Ward Twenty.
“Will you have a word with his wife?” asked Jamieson. Saracen said that he would.
“Could your husband have worked beside anyone who has since gone down with the disease Mrs Updale?”
“Frank works for himself. He has his own business.”
“Did he do any work on the Maxton estate?”
“No, he has the contract for an installation in a hotel in Beverley Road; he’s been working there since before all this business started.”
“Nowhere else?”
“No.”
Saracen shrugged his shoulders in failure and sighed.
“Wait; there was one day when Frank took on another job. A man called him at home, ‘said he’d got Frank’s name from Yellow Pages, ‘wanted him to have a look at his heating. Frank said that he was sorry but the man insisted that he would make it worth his while so, in the end, Frank took the day off to do the job.”
“Where about was this job?”
Mary Updale shook her head. “I didn’t think to ask and I don’t think Frank ever said. Is it important?”
“Probably not,” said Saracen. “But if you should happen to remember let me know.”
Tremaine came on duty at four and was apologetic about his earlier behaviour. Saracen assured him that there was no need and said that he was going to stay on at the hospital until MacQuillan had heard from Porton. In the event Saracen joined Tremaine in plague reception a few minutes later on hearing that two military ambulances were on their way with two entire families on board.
“I’m not sure about the boy,” said Tremaine as he and Saracen examined the latest admissions. “Would you have a look at him?”
Saracen finished with the patient he was dealing with and went over to join Tremaine at his table. “I don’t understand it,” whispered Tremaine, “His mother, his father and his eight year old sister are all text book cases but he is completely atypical.”
