The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  He looked up, gauging the distance from the door of Bristow's office to the stairway. He'd have to make a bloody quick exit and hope like hell Old Bill wasn't strolling by as he hit Commercial Street. Once he was on the street, though, he'd be all right. He'd head east, into Whitechapel. There were dozens of places he could hide there, plenty of rabbit holes he could disappear down.

  It would work, this plan, he was sure of it. It would bring Sid back from the straight world. Back to the Bark. Back where he belonged.

  "Mr. Malone, sir?"

  Frankie smiled. "That's me."

  "Mr. Bristow will see you now."

  "Ta very much."

  Miss Mellors ushered Frankie into Joe's office, then closed the door behind him. Joe was seated at his desk in his shirtsleeves. He stood. "Frankie Betts," he said flatly, his hands on his hips. "Trudy said Sid was here. Where is he?"

  "He's right here," Frankie said softly, reaching into his jacket.

  Joe never had a chance. Frankie aimed the revolver and fired. The gun's kick raised his hand slightly. Worried that he had missed his mark, he fired again. Joe staggered backward into the wall, two bullet holes in his chest, and sank to the floor. Frankie threw the gun down and strode out of the office.

  "What's happened? What was that noise?" Miss Mellors shrilled.

  Frankie didn't stop to answer. The charlady was mopping near the door, blocking his exit. He grabbed the back of her dress and threw her out of his way. The door was closed. He wrenched it open.

  "Oi!" the glazier yelled. "I'm working here!"

  Frankie shoved him backward. The old man hit the banister, windmilled his arms, and fell over it. There was a shout and then a thud and then nothing.

  Frankie took the stairs two at a time. He paused in the foyer, wrinkling his nose at the matter leaking from the old man's skull.

  "Come on, come on..." he muttered, glancing back up at the first floor.

  And then he heard it. A woman screaming. Loud enough to shatter glass.

  Frankie smiled. And ran.

  Chapter 61

  "India, you can't possibly be serious," Harriet said. "You just got the clinic open and now you want to leave it?"

  "I don't want to leave, Harriet," India said, pacing the narrow confines of their office. "I don't have a choice. I have to go away. I want you and Ella to take over."

  "For how long? A week? A month?"

  "Permanently."

  Harriet shook her head. "I don't understand this! You worked so bloody hard to make this clinic a reality and now you're going to turn your back on it?"

  India thought of Sid. He had done something she feared he never would--he had left the life, left everyone and everything he'd known. For her. He'd come to see her at the Moskowitzes' two days ago and told her that he had to get out of London for good--the quicker, the better. They'd decided they would leave for America in a fortnight's time. Meanwhile he would lay low in East London and she would continue to stay with the Moskowitzes. They'd thought about going to Arden Street, but it was so far from the East End that the journey took hours out of the day, and India needed to spend every spare minute at the clinic now to ensure that it opened by the time she left.

  Sid, too, had business to finish in East London. She had seen him this morning. He'd come to the caf�or breakfast, and they'd had time for a quick word before she had to leave. She hadn't felt well. Her stomach had been troubling her and she hadn't been able to eat a thing. Sid had noticed, he'd said he was worried about her, but she'd told him it was only nerves. He told her he had to go back to the Bark today, to tie up some loose ends. She'd told him she didn't want him to go, that it made her anxious, but he assured her he would be fine. In and out, and then he was done. Forever.

  She'd kissed him, then watched him go. His step was lighter as he walked now, his head higher. He looked like a different man. He'd told her that he'd gotten out of prison years ago, but he only now felt free. His words had made her so happy. She couldn't wait until they were on the ship with London behind them and their whole lives ahead of them.

  "I mean, really, Indy. It makes no sense at all." Harriet was still railing at her. "What could possibly make you leave the clinic?"

  "Not what, Hatch, who," India said quietly.

  Harriet gave her a long look. "Well, it's certainly not Freddie. Is it who I think it is? Ella says it's--"

  "Don't ask me that."

  "It is. Jesus bloody Christ!"

  "Harriet, please--" India began, but she was interrupted by the pounding of boot heels in the hallway and the appearance of a breathless young nurse in the doorway.

  "Dr. Jones, Dr. Hatcher, come quickly! A man's been shot."

  India and Harriet were out of their chairs, and their office, immediately.

  "Why has he been brought here?" Harriet asked. "We're a women's clinic and we're not even open yet!"

  "The officers said they heard there were doctors here. They said the hospital's too far. He's very bad, Dr. Hatcher."

  "Where is he?" Harriet asked, striding down the hallway alongside the sister.

  "In the surgery. Matron's with him."

  "But the surgery's not ready yet!" Harriet cried.

  "Looks like it's going to have to be," India said.

  The three women fiew downstairs, then ran through the foyer and into the surgical ward. Pandemonium greeted them. Two officers were standing inside the doorway, trying to restrain a hysterical woman, whose clothing was covered in blood. Two more were lifting a man onto the operating table.

  "Mr. Bristow! Mr. Bristow!" the woman keened. "Oh, help him, please! Somebody help him!" She grabbed Harriet and refused to let her go.

  India pushed past them and ran to the operating table. A man was stretched out upon it, unconscious. Ella, already scrubbed and masked, was cutting his shirt off.

  "My God, Ella. That's Joe Bristow, the MP."

  "He's almost gone, India. For God's sake, hurry," she said.

  Joe's bare chest was covered in blood. India could see two bullet wounds through the crimson wash. She ran to the sink to scrub, calling out to Ella for his vital signs. As Ella shouted them, the other nurse, Dwyer, began loading scalpels, clamps, scissors, needles, and suturing thread into the autoclave.

  Behind her, India could hear Harriet shouting at the woman. "Calm down! We need quiet here! Quiet!"

  She turned to India. "You all right?" she shouted.

  India gave her a quick nod.

  "Officers, come with me," Harriet yelled. "This way, please." She somehow managed to usher the constables and the wailing woman out of the room, giving India the peace she needed to work.

  "India, quick. I need you!" Ella shouted.

  Joe Bristow had regained consciousness. He was thrashing his head from side to side. His eyes were open, but unseeing.

  "Dwyer! Chloral!" India shouted.

  Scrubbed and masked herself now, she raced back to the operating table. Dwyer already had an anesthesia mask over Joe's face. He fought it at first, then his eyes fluttered and he was still. When Dwyer removed the mask, blood--bright and foamy--oozed from his nose and mouth.

  "His lungs have been damaged," India said. "How many exit wounds?" she asked Ella.

  "None. One bullet's in the spine. I'm sure of it."

  India swore. "Is the spinal cord severed?" she asked.

  "I can't tell. Reflexes are nil."

  India called for a retractor and a scalpel. She would leave the spinal wound for now--it was bleeding, but not gushing--to concentrate on the second bullet hole. It was far more worrying. It was directly at heart level and the damage the bullet had wreaked was horrifying. Two ribs had been shattered, and the shrapnel-like bone shards had torn the fiesh apart. The resulting mess made it impossible for India to see the position of the bullet.

  She had only seen a handful of gunshot patients during her training, but she knew that bullets usually entered the body at an angle and could be slowed by tissue or deflected by bone. The bullet h
adn't entered Joe's heart. If it had, he'd be dead by now. That was the good news. The bad news was that it could be anywhere. A hairbreadth from the delicate pericardium or buried in his liver.

  India knew she had to get the second bullet out, and she knew if she wasn't careful, she could push it farther in and do more damage. Working quickly, she cut away as much damaged fiesh as she could and picked out the bone shards, but she found she still could not get a good look into the wound. It was too deep, too narrow.

  She asked for tweezers and handed her retractors to Ella, telling her to stretch the wound wide open, but she still couldn't locate the bullet.

  "I need more light," she said.

  "We've got the gas lights on as high as they'll go, Dr. Jones," Dwyer replied.

  "Get me a table lamp, then."

  Dwyer shot out and returned with a kerosene lamp, its wick blazing.

  "Hold it low," India ordered.

  Dwyer did so, but still India couldn't see deep enough into the wound.

  "Lower!"

  "I'm afraid I'll burn you, Dr. Jones."

  "Lower!"

  Dwyer moved it lower, and India felt the heat on her cheek, smelled the stench of her own singed hair. And then she saw it, or thought she did. A bit of a glint. Not the bloody glisten of tissue or bone, but the hard, dull shine of lead.

  "Pull back a little harder. Just a little," she told Ella. Ella, expertly maneuvering the retractors, did so. India took a breath, held it, then inserted the tweezers into the wound. She grasped the bullet, squeezed, and then the tweezers slipped and she lost it. The wound was deep, the tweezers were short, the bullet was slippery with blood. It was nearly impossible to get any purchase.

  "Give me a curette," she said.

  Dwyer handed her a tool that was long and slender and shaped like a spoon. India eased it into the wound, listening for a click of metal against metal. When she heard it, she pushed the stem of the curette into the wall of the wound, hoping to ease the narrow bowl around and under the bullet.

  Joe groaned and thrashed as she did it.

  When he was quiet again, she started to slowly, carefully withdraw the curette.

  "Come on ...come on..." she whispered.

  And then she saw it--the bullet. She'd hooked it. She reached for her tweezers again and this time she could grasp it. She pulled it out and dropped it into a metal pan. A bright gush of blood followed it. Working like lightning, she and Ella packed the wound with sterile gauze, trying to stanch the bleeding. The gauze soaked through immediately. They took it out and started again. And again.

  "Shit," a voice said. It was Harriet. She was holding the metal pan and peering at the whitish substance clinging to the bullet. "Lung tissue. Poor sod. He's cooked."

  "No, he's not. He's got a chance," India said. "It's his lung, not his heart. The ribs deflected it."

  Lung tissue was elastic; it healed better than other organ tissue. Patients with lung wounds recovered--sometimes. If the bleeding stopped soon enough. If the infection was slight enough. If the body was strong enough.

  India looked at the gauze underneath her fingers. It had soaked through again.

  "Bloody hell," she swore. She stared at Joe, frowning, then suddenly stepped back and ripped her gloves off.

  "What are you doing?" Harriet asked.

  "He's lost too much blood," she said. "I want to transfuse him."

  "You can't. It's too risky. Transfusions kill as many patients as they cure. You know that. He could die if we do it."

  "He will die if we don't."

  "We should type him and cross match."

  "There's no time, Harriet! We'll use my blood. I'm C."

  India knew that what she was doing was dangerous. Blood typing was in its infancy. Three major groups--A, B, and C--had been identified. It was known that mixing type A blood with type B caused fatal reactions, and that type C could be mixed with either. No one knew exactly why and at this moment India didn't care. All she cared about was saving Joe Bristow's life.

  "Indy, he needs a lot," Harriet said. "Maybe more than you can give."

  "We'll start with a pint," India said. She had already rolled up her sleeve. She'd grabbed a length of rubber tubing and tied it around her upper arm, and was now pulling it tight with her teeth.

  "Come on, Hatch, you're good at this," she said, handing Harriet a syringe. "You saved a man at the Royal Free with a transfusion. I saw you."

  "And I killed two more," Harriet said, swabbing the inside of India's elbow. She tapped the pale skin there, then sank the needle into a thin blue vein. India clenched her fist and released it, clenched and released. Harriet drew four ounces, called for a second syringe, and drew four more. Then she pressed a gauze pad over the vein.

  "Again, Hatch."

  "India..."

  "He needs a lot. You said so yourself."

  Harriet drew eight more ounces, yelling over her shoulder for Ella to swab Joe's arm. She put the gauze pad back. India took it, pressing it down. Her head was spinning.

  "You all right?" Harriet asked.

  "Fine," India said. "Go. Hurry. Don't let it clot."

  India leaned against the cool tile wall and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, and then another, willing her dizziness away.

  "Is it all in?" she asked, eyes still closed.

  "Just about," Harriet said.

  "Ella, what's happening?"

  "No change. He's still soaking the dressing."

  "Damn it." India opened her eyes. "Come on, Hatch. Again."

  "No."

  "All he needs is another pint."

  "No! For God's sake, India. We're injecting it into him and he's leaking it right back out! He's done for."

  "A half pint then. One more go. Either you do it or I'll do it myself."

  Harriet grabbed a syringe. "Sit down before you fall down," she snapped.

  India sat on the floor. She was glad she had, for by the time Harriet had finished she couldn't have stood if her life depended on it.

  "El?" she said weakly.

  There was no response, then, "It's slowing. It hasn't stopped yet, but it's slowing."

  India smiled. "Well done, Harriet, you vampire, you."

  "We're going to need more blood," Ella said.

  "I'm C, Matron," Dwyer said.

  "Good girl. Swab your arm," Ella ordered.

  "Don't talk. Don't move. Just sit still," Harriet said to India. "You!" she barked at a passing nurse. "Go to the pub on the corner. Get a pint of porter and a sandwich for Dr. Jones. Hurry." The young woman ran out. "Dwyer, make a fist," she added, readying her syringe.

  India waited on the floor, head against the wall, eyes closed, while Harriet transfused Joe again. Her meal arrived. When she had finished it she stood up and walked back to Joe.

  "How's he doing?" she asked Harriet.

  "His vitals are holding. Not great, not at all, but they're holding. I'd say he has a fighting chance now. Because of you."

  "Because of us."

  "I'm going to see to the other wound, dose him with quinine, and then it's time to say our prayers."

  "I'll assist."

  "Actually, the constables who brought Bristow here are in the porter's office. They want the bullet you recovered. And they want a word with you, too. You up to it?"

  India nodded. "How's the woman who came in with him?"

  "Still in shock, but better. I gave her brandy. She's having a sitdown."

  India and Harriet entered the porter's office. Harriet handed the bullet over and told India to sit down. India noticed that a detective had joined the constables. She recognized him. He was Alvin Donaldson--Freddie's man. The sight of him unsettled her. She knew his presence here had nothing to do with Sid, but she was suddenly fiercely glad that they were leaving London.

  Donaldson greeted her, then asked her about Joe's wounds, and if he had said anything intelligible during the operation. India described the injuries and said Joe had been mostly unconscious.

&n
bsp; "Will Mr. Bristow make it?" Donaldson asked.

  "I don't know. We're doing everything we can for him but his condition is extremely grave."

  Donaldson nodded. "It'll be murder or attempted murder," he said to one of the constables, "but either way I've got him. He'll swing for certain this time."