Dr. Selmer looked up from giving a streptomycin shot to a young teenage girl with red hair. ‘What’s it like out there?’ he said hoarsely. ‘Are they still coming in?’
Leonard Petrie nodded. ‘They’re still coming in, all right. How many do you reckon now?’
Dr. Selmer shrugged. ‘If all the hospitals are coping with the same amount of patients – well, six or seven hundred. Maybe more than a thousand. Maybe even more than that.’
Dr. Petrie shook his head. ‘It’s like hell,’ he said. ‘It’s like being in hell.’
‘Sure. Would you take a look at Dr. Parkes? He doesn’t seem too well.’
Dr. Parkes was an elderly physician who used to have a practise out at Opa Locka. Dr. Petrie had met him a few times on the golf course, and liked him. Now, across the crowded emergency ward, he could see Dr. Parkes wiping his forehead unsteadily, and taking off his spectacles.
‘Dr. Parkes?’ he said, pushing his way past two part-time trolley porters.
Dr. Parkes reached out and leaned against him. ‘I’m all right,’ he said quietly. ‘I just need a moment’s rest.’
‘Dr. Parkes, do you want a shot?’
‘No, no,’ said the gray-haired old man. ‘Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be all right. I’m just tired.’
Dr. Petrie shrugged. ‘Well, if you say so. You’re the doctor.’
Dr. Parkes smiled. Then he turned away from Dr. Petrie, and immediately collapsed, falling face-first into a tray of surgical instruments, and scattering them all over the floor.
‘Nurse!’ Dr. Petrie shouted. ‘Give me a hand with Dr. Parkes!’
They lifted the old man on to a bed, and Dr. Petrie loosened the pale blue necktie from his wrinkled throat. The elderly doctor was breathing heavily and irregularly, and it was obvious that he was close to death.
‘Dr. Parkes,’ said Dr. Petrie, taking his hand.
Dr. Parkes opened his pale eyes, and gave a soft and rueful look. ‘I thought I was too old to get sick,’ he said quietly.
‘You’ll make it,’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘Maybe you’re just tired, like you said.’
Dr. Parkes shook his head. ‘You can’t kid me, Petrie. Here – lift up my left hand for me, would you?’
Dr. Petrie lifted the old man’s liver-spotted hand. There was a heavy gold ring on it, embossed with the symbol of a snake and a staff, the classical sign of medical healing.
‘My mother gave me that ring,’ whispered Dr. Parkes. ‘She was sure I was going to be famous. She’s been dead a long time now, bless her heart. But I want you – I want you to take the ring – and see if it brings you more luck than me.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Yes you can,’ breathed Dr. Parkes. ‘You can do it to please an old man.’
Dr. Petrie tugged the ring from Dr. Parke’s finger, and pushed it uncertainly on to his own hand.
Dr. Parkes smiled. ‘It suits you, son. It suits you.’
He was still smiling when he died. Dr. Petrie covered his face with a paper towel. They had long since run out of sheets.
Anton Selmer came across, patting the sweat from his face. ‘Is he dead?’ he asked, unnecessarily. Dr. Petrie nodded.
‘I think I’m becoming immune,’ said Dr. Selmer. ‘Even if I’m not immune to the plague, I’m immune to watching my friends die. I don’t even want to think how many good doctors and nurses we’ve lost here today.’
Dr. Petrie fingered the ring. ‘It makes you wonder whether it’s worth it. Whether we should just leave all this, and get the hell out.’
Dr. Selmer tied a fresh mask around his face. ‘If there was any place to get the hell out to,’ he said, ‘I’d go. I think we have to face the fact that we’re caught like rats in a barrel.’
The ward doors swung open again, and they turned to see what fresh victims were being wheeled in. This time, it looked like something different. A young dark-haired boy of nineteen was lying on the medical trolley, with his right side soaked in blood. He was moaning and whimpering, and when the amateur ambulance attendants tried to ease him on to a bed, he screamed out loud.
Dr. Selmer and Dr. Petrie helped to make him comfortable. Dr. Selmer gave him a quick shot of painkiller, while Dr. Petrie cut away the boy’s stained plaid shirt with scissors.
‘Look at this,’ said Dr. Petrie. He pointed to the fat, ugly wound in the boy’s side. ‘This is a gunshot wound.’
Dr. Selmer leaned over the boy, and wiped the dirt and sweat from his face with a tissue. There was asphalt embedded in the youth’s cheeks, as if he had fallen on a sidewalk or roadway.
‘What happened, kid?’ said Dr. Selmer. ‘Did someone shoot you?’
The boy gritted his teeth, and nodded. With his face a little cleaner, he looked like the sort of average kid you see working behind the counter at a hamburger joint, or delivering lunchtime sandwiches for a delicatessen.
‘Who shot you, kid?’ asked Dr. Selmer, coaxingly. ‘Come on – it might help us to make you better. If we know what kind of gun it was, we can find the slug faster.’ The boy took a deep whimpering breath, tried to talk, and then burst into tears. Dr. Selmer stroked his forehead, and spoke soothingly and softly to him, like a mother talking to a child.
‘Come on, kid, you’re going to be all right. Tell me who shot you, kid. Tell me who shot you.’
The boy turned his head, his eyes squeezed tight shut. ‘We was – we was going to get out—’ he panted. ‘Me and my friend – we heard there was plague – and we was going to get out—’
‘What happened?’
‘We – we took his dad’s old – Buick. We drove up as far as – the turnpike – and they – they sent us back.’
‘Who sent you
