Two Women Went to War

by L E Pembroke

  I took deep breaths, trying to concentrate on the present, the imminent arrival of my premature baby in unforgettable circumstances. Finally, I managed to pull myself together to some extent. There was so much to do in a very short time, and the first thing was to go to the toilet again. With the blanket gathered around my body, I opened the car door and lowered my bare, blue and freezing cold feet again on to the slushy dirt road. Tentatively, I stepped over irregular small stones and crouched behind a small wattle.

  Looking towards the flooded creek, I imagined the water level was slightly lower. The flood indicator confirmed that the water level had receded, but not enough. The worst thing was that it would take hours. I didn’t have hours. ‘Do you think you could possibly wait a bit longer, baby?’ It was comforting to speak aloud; made me feel less alone in the silent bush. For answer, the infant bore down on my resisting muscles. I gasped, closed my eyes and bent forward. ‘No, I really didn’t think so.’

  I stood, picked my way back to the car and held the waterbag to my lips. It wasn’t heavy enough. In my rush, I hadn’t filled it completely. Exasperated and annoyed with myself, I couldn’t believe that I was going to run out of water on top of everything else. Of course there was always the creek. On second thoughts, no, thanks. It would be full of dead possums, rats and God knows what else.

  Even at that time, I couldn’t bring myself to really believe that the worst was going to happen. It was still possible that someone would come along, might even be Joe and Amelia, and she’d know what to do. All I had to do was hang on for a few hours. My mouth was dry and my lips, too. My headache was still sharp and penetrating; in fact, I was aching all over and wondered whether, on top of everything else, I had strained a shoulder muscle while cranking the car.

  I began to think of the wound on Albert’s head, the probable agony of his death. But it was all over for Albert, so what was the use of thinking about it? Instead I worried about our new home being ransacked. They would steal our horses, the dogs would attack them, so they’d knife them, and of course they’d kill one of the sheep for meat. I saw clearly the whole frightful scenario.

  Despite my overall discomfort, I bent over the railing of the home-made utility, grabbed my suitcase and handbag, then heaved them on to the front seat to extract necessary items for the birth: scissors, disinfectant and tape. I wrapped them in a towelling nappy. My distended uterus cramped all the other internal organs – especially my bladder. Puffing from my exertions, once again I waddled to the side of the road. I complained to the crows who peered down at me: ‘Where is it all coming from? Haven’t had a proper drink for hours.’

  While I was squatting, the baby once again embarked on its tortuous journey. ‘Oh God, help me.’ I began counting. This contraction lasted for fifteen seconds. Since the previous one I’d been given a respite of a mere ten minutes. Could I hang out for a few hours until help arrived? It didn’t look like it.

  It must be lunchtime, but I couldn’t eat a thing – not that there was anything to eat. The last thing on my mind was food. The sun was directly overhead; at last a little welcome warmth. The water level had definitely receded, although water still rushed across the bridge. Surrounding the swollen creek was a wide belt of glutinous mud. The car could easily become stuck in that. Perhaps breaking off a few branches and laying them over the mud would be a good idea. Heartened by the lower water level, I began breaking branches from some of the saplings – exhausting work for someone in my stage of labour. I threw the branches onto the mud closest to the car. There was still plenty to do. I’d better hurry and prepare the rear of the car.

  I worked quickly, trying to get the job done before the next contraction. I slid back the railing preparatory to scrubbing the rear of the vehicle, then took a towelling napkin from my suitcase before squelching in bare feet through the oozing mud to the creek. Awkwardly bent over, I stretched towards the running water and dipped the square of towelling into it.

  Back at the rear of the car, I slowly heaved myself in, then crawled across the tray in an almost futile effort to make the surface moderately clean. First placing the sheeting and some towelling napkins on to the marginally clean tray, I then put the package of necessities and baby clothes adjacent to my primitive birthing couch.

  I shrugged my shoulders. I couldn’t do better than that; plenty of babies have survived in less sterile conditions. Awful pain, the worst yet. I grabbed at the car door for support. Thirty seconds of horror followed. I was certain my lower spine would crack with the pressure.

  The searing pain stopped suddenly, although a continuous dull pressure alerted me that time was running out. I felt weak and clammy while perspiration ran freely from my forehead, between my breasts and down my thighs. Wet hair clung to my face and neck. I climbed into the driver’s seat and rested for a few minutes. The sun disappeared behind increasing cloud. I soon became aware of a bite in the surrounding air. Goose bumps covered my bare legs; my feet were blue. I had pinned a towel around my waist after the waters broke. There was no point wearing a long nightdress; it would just get in the way. My upper body was still protected by my blouse and jacket; both beginning to look the worse for wear. I began to shiver from fear and cold. How was I going to survive? How would my baby survive? I needed guidance and assistance because I knew almost nothing about midwifery.

  With the blanket pulled close around my shoulders and knowing that my time was near, once again, I tried to think and plan logically while watching the water gush and spew on its journey to low ground. My mind raced from one scenario to another, unable to focus on anything but pain and panic. What could I remember about giving birth? The only thing that came to mind was the necessity to breathe easily and regularly and somehow to time my breathing with my pushing. How was I going to do that?

  After a time, I imagined the depth of the water was lower. Dammit, I thought, I’ll give it a go. It would be stupid to sit here when I might get through and be in town in less than an hour. Seize the day – nothing ventured, nothing gained. I fell into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition. The engine fired – a good sign. Slamming the door, I reversed then, aligning the car with the branches, began to nose towards the bridge.

  ‘Slowly, slowly,’ I repeated again and again, although my whole body was crying out: ‘Go quickly! Get it over as soon as you can!’ The wheels crashed through the branches and were soon caked with mud, but it wasn’t deep enough to present a problem. With my head hanging out of the window, I watched apprehensively as the front wheels reached the roadway of the bridge. The rear wheels were still on the branches I had laid on the sloping ground of the rutted road. The front wheels were partially submerged, the water level a little higher than expected. Water was lapping over the running board. Cautiously, I drove the car forward. My heart was racing, but the rest of my body was immobile, alert. The engine spluttered, coughed, choked, died. The car was halfway across and becalmed in less than a foot of water. The shock was intense. What to do? You stupid girl. You should have stayed on the dry road. Now, I shouted at the birds and insects: ‘The bloody thing won’t go!’

  If only I’d waited another hour. Why had I been so impetuous?

  CHAPTER 39

  I glanced skywards, seeking omnipotent assistance. But that was not forthcoming. Instead, the car lurched to the left; the front wheel was no longer level with the rest of the car. I hadn’t heard the sound of splintering because the wooden plank was so water-logged. The suitcase fell against the door. A section of timber had rotted and fallen into the creek below. The left front wheel was wedged in the gap – for how long?

  My heart sank, and hopelessness set in. I curled into a ball and began to sob while I waited for the inevitable crack indicating that the planks and car were about to slide into the river below.

  I held the steering wheel in a vice-like grip to maintain stability. My panic subsided. It was necessary to think clearly. Surely, if one plank had given way from the combined effect of floodwater and the weight o
f the car, how much longer before others do the same? The whole roadway under the car could collapse into the creek taking me, our baby and the car with it. We could be swept away by the fast-running water, down into the swollen tributary of the Darling River. We could drown in an instant. I had to get out of there now. My head was throbbing so that I was unable to think. I tried to ignore the pain. Inevitably, on cue, it started again: that insistent pushing, that deep, dragging, grinding.

  Confined by the steering wheel, I could do nothing to relieve the pain. I knew only that I couldn’t have a baby while I was sitting wedged behind a steering wheel, in a car that might plunge through shattered planks at any moment. Grimy sweat and tears streaked my face. I whimpered, ‘Please God, send someone to come and help me.’ I was too terrified to move; my muscles tightened spontaneously against the pressing infant. The pain – infinitely worse now – was exacerbated by my cramped untenable position behind the steering wheel. I moaned again, ‘Help me, Andrew! Where are you? Please help me.’

  The feeling of helplessness diminished. I was not going to sit there passively. There was no stopping the birth – somehow I had to have the baby and, the minute it was over, carry it to safety.

  I wriggled out of my sitting position, elevated my legs and stretched out on the bench seat. So much for the scrubbed-out birthing couch behind. What a waste of time and effort that was! The risk was too great. To try to crawl over the back of the seat and flop onto that more spacious area would set up a series of vibrations that could send the car crashing into the creek below. I released the towel I’d previously pinned around my waist. My toes pushed up against the suitcase wedged against the passenger door. Half-sitting, my upper back pressed against the driver’s door, I wriggled cautiously out of my confining jacket and flung it across the steering wheel.

  My importunate infant was demanding assistance, but I was hesitant. Perhaps it would be unwise to bear down – it might be too soon – although every fibre of my being was screaming at me to do so. My backbone felt as if it would split in two at any moment. I tried to control my breathing.

  I wanted to move, to scream, but I didn’t dare. I needed to rid myself of this thing within me that I was beginning to think would be the death of me – tear me in two. During these last seconds my baby had become nothing more than an instrument of torture. I drew up my legs. Be careful. Do not utter a sound. My lips compressed to a thin, taut line. Beads of perspiration erupted on my forehead and slid down my face like copious tears. If only I could toss and turn, writhe and wriggle.

  I needed the elementary birthing equipment that was so temptingly near in the utility section of the vehicle, but I daren’t divert from the job in hand. I shuddered. The infant had outgrown the womb. The process of expulsion was underway – everything happened in a second. The torture of the ultimate dilation passed. The relief was instant. The child rushed away from me, coming to rest on the towel draped beneath my buttocks. My sense of relief and release was boundless as I glimpsed the tiny, bloody intact body, the body of a girl. The infant was blue, cyanosed. My medical training dictated my actions. Quick, clear the airway. Get rid of that mucous.

  My movements were concise and compressed. My finger probed the mucous-filled mouth. The baby needed oxygen; all other problems were secondary. Despite the urgency of the moment I was aware of an overwhelming rush of maternal love for this tiny, blue creature. My eyes fastened on the pulsating, purplish-blue cord. Free of the child, I was able to raise my upper body to grope across the back of the seat until my fingers encountered the towelling napkin in which the scissors and tape were wrapped.

  It wasn’t easy to lean forward; my abdomen was still distended, by the placenta no doubt. Nevertheless, like an operating assistant I bent over the child to tie the cord twice. I grasped the swollen section in between the ties. It slid in my hand; I forced the scissors through it – a scalpel would have been so much easier. I lifted the infant by her greasy feet and gave her a careful rap on the back. She protested with a small cry, a mewing sound not unlike a kitten; however, her nascent lungs were jolted into action, albeit arrythmically. We had decided a daughter would be named Catherine.

  I gently picked up my tiny baby, cradled her in my arms and softly breathed into the nostrils. Soon the immature lungs responded. The blue complexion became slightly tinged with pink. I wrapped my little girl in the napkin; over that, I placed my jacket then put the baby to a breast heavy with colostrum. It was time to inspect her carefully. What a frail little thing she was: no bigger than a skinned rabbit. Gently I caressed the hairless head: the fontanel seemed frighteningly large. I lifted a tiny emaciated arm – as yet no fingernails. Immature lungs could be the major worry. The baby’s inspirations were infrequent and haphazard. ‘Don’t let her die,’ I whispered while waiting anxiously for the intermittent sound of that small hiccough of life-giving air.

  Again, that terrible, forcing crippling pain. What’s happened? The expulsion of the placenta shouldn’t be so painful. I placed my little girl, wrapped tightly in my jacket, on the floor of the car. I had to deal with whatever was happening. Whimpering like an animal being beaten, I lay on the bench seat, shaking uncontrollably and wondering whether I was going to bleed to death. If I did, what would happen to my baby?

  The nightmarish pain reached its zenith. I looked down, almost unable to believe what I saw. A tiny baby boy lay between my legs. He screeched with indignation. Crying with shock and relief, I grabbed him. He fastened onto me like a limpet clinging to a rock. Awkwardly, bent sideways, I grabbed at my daughter and put her to the other breast. They were soon asleep, exhausted by the fearful journey they had just made.

  I held them to me until I felt the final expulsion – the afterbirth came away. No time to waste. They had to be kept warm. Wrapping my son in another towelling napkin, I placed them together as if they were bonded and again used my jacket sleeves to tie them close to one another. They were so tiny; together they would have weighed no more than a largish, full-term baby.

  Glinting streams of water still slid over the bridge, but there was little depth to them. Underneath the planks, water swirled rapidly, then surged down the creek towards the junction of rivers twenty miles away. My only priority was the safety of my children. That meant we must move to solid ground. In the car, we were partly protected from the cold creeping over the countryside as the sun dipped lower in the western sky; but the risk of the car falling through rotting planks and toppling sideways into the stream below was too great.

  I fished for the blanket previously discarded carelessly on to the floor when I first decided to drive across the bridge. Was that only an hour ago? I glanced at the sky; it must be at least four o’clock, almost twelve hours since the commencement of my solitary journey. With difficulty, I put aside my fears for the present and concentrated on the safest way to make the short journey to the town side of the bridge. It would be necessary to take the blanket, scissors and tape. It wasn’t only my children who must be protected from the cold. I had become aware that I was shivering, wearing nothing but my brassiere, vest and blouse.

  Tentatively with my free arm, the babies slept in the other protected by the blanket, I pushed open the driver’s door and swung my legs around until my feet touched first the running board, then the wet slippery bridge. Slowly, carefully, I began the frightening walk across the bridge. Every second was as long as a minute; every minute – an hour. What if I fell? Shadows, long and narrow, from the gums on the verge, had fallen across the bridge.

  I reached the muddy approaches; my legs had stiffened with tension. After squelching through the mud heading towards dry land and safety, I placed my children on the ground protected only by my jacket. That wasn’t nearly enough warmth; I knew I must work quickly. Cutting the blanket in half, I folded one half again and again until it was the size of a baby’s rug, lifted the children onto it, untied the sleeves of my jacket from around them, then bound them tightly in the blanket, papoose fashion.

  Shiveri
ng violently from the cold, I forced the scissors through the remaining length of blanket creating six eyelet holes through which I threaded my tape. This makeshift skirt, tied at my waist, buttocks and at thigh level, provided some necessary warmth. I gratefully put my jacket on again.

  Picking up my babies, I allowed myself just a few seconds to gaze into their tiny faces, at the same time feeling the rush of milk in my breasts, but it was necessary to ignore that unique mode of bonding for the moment. It was far too cold. I had to return to the car: the babies needed more protection; the leather suitcase must be their cot.

  After reaching the safety of relatively dry land, I had become aware of an agonising thirst. I was dehydrated; already my lips were dry and cracked. Apart from an intense desire to drink, I would need water throughout the night to stimulate the flow of milk. The canvas waterbag was a necessity. In the worst case, I could be stranded beside the creek for a further twenty-four hours. Andrew might not return until tomorrow, and very few others used this isolated road.

  Distraught at leaving the babies alone on the rough grass near the base of a stubby bush, I turned away from them and began my cautious return. The driver’s door was swinging open. I stepped on to the running board, then knelt behind the steering wheel before leaning across the front seat to reach the suitcase and the canvas water bottle. The afterbirth and all the blood secretions from the births impeded me – ghastly. I quickly folded the towel on which I had lain and shoved the whole mess onto the car floor.

  Glancing back along the road from the direction I had driven ten hours before, I saw a dray pulled by a draught horse near the crest of the hill. Someone had arrived. Thank God, we would be saved. Whoever it was will give assistance. The dray won’t be able to cross the bridge, but the driver was sure to offer to walk to town for assistance. In a few hours we would be safe in hospital. Aware of my exhaustion and that the only thing keeping me going was the critical need to save my babies, I also knew that very soon I would run out of adrenaline.