Heron Fleet

by Paul Beatty

  ‘And that’s the limit. Are there no other circumstances that could make a difference?’

  ‘Not really. That’s the limit. If you’re thinking of what I said about people had being killed in the community in the past, that happened after banishment when people tried to come back. They then got killed by the community but they weren’t members of Heron Fleet at the time, so technically no community member has ever killed another community member.’

  Anya was looking uneasy. She took a deep breath. ‘What would happen if there was a child conceived as a result of a relationship like mine and Jonathan’s?’

  ‘Well then the punishments would be the same but the community would claim the child as theirs. They would never let the baby go even if they banished the mother.’ He paused and saw Anya’s expression. ‘Are you pregnant?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He groaned. ‘It would have been better if that had been raised at the informal meeting.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ interjected Francesca. ‘I knew but I suppose I’ve been trying to ignore it.’

  ‘Well there’s no point in looking back,’ he said. ‘Do you know for sure you really are pregnant?’

  Anya hesitated. ‘I suppose I can’t be absolutely sure.’

  ‘Well then, the best thing to do is to make sure. You must go to the Crèche Nurses and ask that they test you. Francesca will have to ask for you since you’re her responsibility.’

  ‘I’ll arrange it for tomorrow,’ said Francesca.

  ‘No, if you give it a day or two it’ll look better, as if you’ve only just told Francesca. In fact it would look better still if Francesca went to Peter to ask what to do. It emphasises that Anya and Jonathan are obedient to the Rule.’

  Francesca acted on Tobias’s advice. The day after next she went to find Peter and asked if she could have a word with him. She duly told him that Anya suspected she was pregnant.

  Peter sighed. ‘Then she must go to the Crèche Nurses for them to prove it. Thank you for telling me. I’m afraid this matter gets worse and worse and I am fearful of what it will do to the community.’ Then he looked at her and smiled, ‘I must thank you for your maturity in all this. As the one who must have been more hurt than anyone, you’re setting an example to us all of how a Gatherer should shoulder their responsibility.’

  ‘It is not as difficult as it might be,’ she replied. ‘Tobias is a great help and I still love Anya.’

  After talking to Peter, Francesca went to find Anya straight away. Talking to Peter was easy; talking to Anya was going to be much more difficult. While Anya had not objected to going to see the Crèche Nurses originally, since then she had become more and more worried.

  ‘What did he say?’ she said to Francesca immediately.

  ‘What we had expected, that you need to go to the Crèche Nurses to confirm you are pregnant.’

  ‘That’s easy for him to say,’ said Anya. ‘He’s not the one who’s going to get poked and pushed around.’

  ‘It won’t be that bad,’ said Francesca, hoping to sound encouraging despite her own misgivings.

  The fact was that the Crèche Nurses were a mysterious group. They had never been members of the Council and there were never more than six of them. In the normal way no Apprentice would have any dealings with them at all and a female Gatherer would only come into contact with them when she was told that she had been chosen to have a child.

  Even that was shrouded in secrecy. It was said they came in the night and told the chosen women to report the following morning to start tests and inspections. Such was their authority: when you were called you went. The partners of those chosen were never consulted and never allowed to attend anything to do with the impregnation or the birth.

  ‘I know Tobias thinks it is important, but I don’t see the point,’ Anya continued. ‘What difference can it make? We are guilty. We did what we are accused of and more.’ Francesca shuddered. Whilst she had come to terms with Anya having sex with Jonathan and had mostly suppressed her jealousy, she could still be taken unaware by Anya’s remarks.

  ‘But without a successful argument against punishment they’ll banish you and you’ll have to leave Heron Fleet.’

  ‘Would that be so bad?’ said Anya. ‘I’d be together with Jonathan and when it is born we’d have the baby.’

  Francesca was horrified. ‘How could you leave Heron Fleet? It’s our home; it’s everything that keeps us safe and sound.’

  ‘But it doesn’t allow us to love freely or bring up our own children.’

  Francesca floundered around for an argument but all she could come up with was, ‘I think you should ask Tobias a bit more about what the world is like outside Heron Fleet before you decide to wander off into the wild.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Anya. ‘I know you’re doing your best. I’ll be a good girl and go with you tomorrow but I am very frightened about what it will be like.’

  ‘Don’t worry, no matter how bad it is I will not leave you on your own.’

  The Crèche Nurses had a separate building near to the Infirmary. The following morning Francesca and Anya made their way there and reported to the Head Crèche Nurse who looked Anya up and down, making no attempt to disguise her hostility.

  ‘So having defied the Rule that binds us all together and has kept us safe for generations, you now need me to tell you if you and your lover have added insult to injury and conceived a rough child?’ The Crèche Nurse emphasised rough.

  Anya swallowed hard. ‘Yes ma’am.’

  Dealing with the Head Crèche Nurse was much worse than dealing with Peter or even Sylvia, thought Francesca. Partly it was her presence and physical appearance. She was old, possibly the oldest member of the Community, but unlike Sylvia tall and upright, with an added aura of arrogance that Sylvia, as bent and as formidable as she was, did not possess. Her grey hair was cropped tightly to her head, her skin was pale and tight across high cheekbones. Her complexion was sallow and her lips had vertical brown creases at their edges. Clean white nails, that Francesca thought were sharp, exact and could pinch unmercifully if required, were attached to bony hands, with pronounced blue veins on their backs.

  ‘Well I suppose if I must, I must, though personally I would just make both you and him Outcast right now. See how you’d like to survive a winter without the shelter of the Rule. Come this way.’

  Francesca squeezed Anya’s hand as they were led through into a back room, in the middle of which was a wooden table. The Head Crèche Nurse looked at Francesca. ‘You’ve no need to remain. You have done your duty by bringing me these soiled goods.’ Anya flashed a frightened glance at Francesca

  ‘I am responsible for her to the Council,’ replied Francesca as calmly as she could, wondering what she would say or do if this woman ordered her to go.

  ‘Yes, I suppose you are, but my dear, the Council’s right runs weakly here.’ There was no human feeling or sympathy in her voice. Francesca felt a spasm of hatred rise within her. The Head Crèche Nurse went on, ‘Does that surprise you? Well the Rule makes the Council and its Head responsible for the survival of the community each year. They have to plan how to raise and gather the harvest and they settle differences in the community. But they are elected and they come and go.’ She sounded bored and above influence by any ordinary Gatherer. ‘On the other hand, we select our own. We serve for life and we are charged with the survival of the community over the long term, generation to generation, not merely year to year.’

  She went over to a bench at the back of the room and took down from a cupboard above it three small clear glass bottles. One held what looked like water but was more viscous, the second a liquid the colour of blackberry juice and the third had pale green contents. Then she took an earthenware beaker of slivers of wood such as might be used to light a fire and a bowl of washed lamb’s wool. She picked off a piece of the wool and carefully wound it on to the end of one of the spills so it formed a ball. Finally she took from the cupboard a bright metal objec
t like a pair of blunt, flat shears made of silver-steel. The shears were hinged and when the handles of this instrument were squeezed the blades opened outwards.

  ‘Take all your clothes off and stand over by the table,’ she said over her shoulder to Anya. Slowly Anya began to strip until she was standing naked where she had been told. The Head Crèche Nurse turned and looked her up and down in the way one of the Shepherds would have looked at a good ewe but with less humanity and pride. ‘Pity. Good breeding stock but after this you’re no good to me.’ She turned to Francesca. ‘You don’t need to be here, unless of course you want to stay.’

  ‘As I said, she’s my responsibility to the Council.’

  ‘Do I sense a bit of revenge? Hoping I’ll degrade her a bit? Would that serve as a reprisal for her daring to leave your loving bed?’

  Francesca had never met anyone as cruel as the Head Crèche Nurse. She was cruel not in her words but in her exercise of power, though at that moment it was not the power over Anya that made Francesca angry, it was the power this woman had over her. Francesca did not know which was worse, the need to bite back her words because of the importance of establishing Anya’s pregnancy or the travesty of her real feelings that this woman ascribed to her. She desired to claw at the Head Crèche Nurse’s face. To make this unloved and unloving creature see what real love was and how fierce it could make even a lowly, inexperienced Gatherer.

  ‘Well, what I have to do may be a bit degrading but from our point of view you’re all just entries in our stock book.’

  The Head Crèche Nurse walked over to Anya and placed her hands over her breasts, squeezing and pushing them first from the top, then the sides and from underneath. She picked up the bottle with the deep red liquid in it and splashed some on to Anya’s nipples. Then she ran her thumbs across them and waited until they responded and became erect. As she did so a second, younger Crèche Nurse came in. ‘Please, can you make notes for me, Rebecca?’ said her superior.

  ‘Of course, ma’am.’ She was smaller and had a fresh face. Francesca looked at her in the hope of seeing more understanding but whilst she did not openly sneer at Francesca’s glance, Francesca could see a common detached deadness in the young woman’s expression similar to that of the Head Crèche Nurse.

  Rebecca went to a second cupboard with a sloping top. She got out a large black book and placed it on the surface. Then she got out a small pot of black liquid and a small collection of bird’s feathers that looked as though they had been cut and shaped at the end. Finally, she opened the book. ‘Ready, ma’am.’

  ‘You’ll find her record about three pages in. Apprentice twenty-three: Anya.’

  Rebecca turned the pages over. ‘Found it, ma’am.’

  ‘Start recording, please. Breasts firm and nodule-free. Nipples show some enlargement consistent with early pregnancy.’ Francesca watched as Rebecca made a series of black marks on the pages of the book with what must have been a pen and ink.

  The Head Crèche Nurse’s hands moved down to Anya’s waist and hips. ‘No thickening of the muscles above the hips but we would not expect that at such an early stage.’ Her left hand then went down to the base of Anya’s abdomen. ‘Neither is there any swelling above the pubis. Hand me a pan.’

  Rebecca handed the Head Crèche Nurse a shallow earthenware bowl with a broad spoon-like extension. The Head Crèche Nurse handed it to Anya. ‘Stick the end between your legs and piss into it.’ Anya tried to do what she was told but at first couldn’t manage anything. ‘If you have any difficulty, think of the swimming lessons, or the feel of his prick,’ the Head Crèche Nurse added.

  Francesca started to feel sick. Anya’s body was precious to her. To see the breasts she had so often caressed treated like meat was terrible, worse still to see Anya sexually abused by this grotesque woman. But she knew if she called out in protest or even showed emotion Anya too would lose control and that would be a victory for these persecutors. She must concentrate on establishing whether Anya was pregnant and nothing else.

  When a sample of urine had been obtained, a small amount was poured into another bowl and Rebecca added some of the clear liquid. ‘The test is positive, ma’am.’

  ‘Well, if the mucus test is positive then we’ll know for sure,’ replied the Head Crèche Nurse. ‘Get up on the table and put your feet in the harnesses,’ she said to Anya. Rebecca swung out two supports with loops of cloth up at the sides of the table towards one end. Anya lay on the table and put one foot into each strap. The Head Crèche Nurse inserted her fingers into Anya and started to probe around.

  ‘The hymen is completely broken and I can easily feel the cervix. It seems distended and firm.’

  Francesca couldn’t watch any more. She closed her eyes and turned way.

  ‘Give me the speculum.’ Francesca heard Anya groan slightly and Francesca guessed that the metal shears-like instrument was the speculum and that it had been inserted into her lover. The commentary went on.

  ‘I think I have a sample.’ Anya groaned again. ‘Yes, that’s it. You can get down now.’ Francesca opened her eyes. Anya was quietly crying. Francesca helped Anya out of the slings and got her clothes. Clearly a spill with the wool had been inserted into Anya. It lay in another bowl and some of the green liquid had been poured on it. The Head Crèche Nurse and Rebecca were observing it carefully. Francesca could also see into the bowl. Thin swirls of red colour were beginning to form from what was coming from the wool.

  ‘And this tallies with the record of her periods in the book?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Rebecca referred to the book where Francesca could see rows of marks and more writing. They were pointing at one row where there seemed to be a gap. ‘Yes, she missed at the end of last month. She was probably at maximum fertility when she encountered the boy.’

  ‘Well that settles it.’ The Head Crèche Nurse went over to where Anya was trying to get dressed and hit her smartly across the face with an open palm. Francesca had to force her hands to remain at her sides.

  ‘Slut! If it wasn’t for the child inside you I’d poison you right here and now.’

  Then she turned to Francesca. ‘She’s pregnant alright. Now get her out of my sight. I’ve better things to do with my time.’

  Francesca supported Anya out into the open air. They walked a few steps but Anya’s willpower gave way. She collapsed into Francesca’s arms sobbing uncontrollably, while Francesca, through her own tears, tried to comfort her.

  The Founder’s Diary VI

  Day 115

  It has been two days since the new cases of plague were recognised. In that time the total number of infections has risen from three to nine and the infirmary is full. A temporary bed area has been set up in an adjacent room which wasn’t previously connected through, but a door was knocked in the wall this afternoon and that will mean that we can take twenty more patients once extra beds have been improvised.

  I have been briefing volunteers from the Winter’s Hill group to act as nurses. The Commander was against us using any guards in case another fort got wind of our predicament and attacked us. But he’s given us Bill since he knows most about what to do and might, like Miriam and me, still be infectious. We were against using the civilian foragers since Miriam thinks their poor health may make them susceptible to infection, so that left the Winter’s Hill group.

  Miriam and I have talked about the infection risks. We’re not too worried about us having been the carriers now. If we infected Joan then we think we should have shown signs as soon as we got back. It looks as though Joan caught whatever it is from the outside, which would account for the rapid number of other cases and brings the frightening prospect that the infection is already well established in the fort. All the new cases have been from the civilian foragers.

  Day 116

  I am writing this on night duty. Miriam and I have decided to do every other night while the other one gets some proper rest. My job is to supervise the volunteers. We set up a corner where we can brew te
a for everyone who’s on duty. It’s got a mattress for Miriam or me to get some sleep on.

  We had our first death today, which was the same as Joan’s. The man rallied in the morning but went down by mid-afternoon with the black tracks appearing very rapidly. The progress was terrible as his skin became dry and brittle. In some places it split and began to bleed as he writhed around in the last stages. He died fighting for breath and coughing up blood in the evening. Almost as soon as he was dead another patient, who had seemed to be better, totally collapsed and the first evidence of tracks were seen in his groin. I am expecting him to die before morning.

  So as not to disturb the patients who aren’t delirious the infirmary is dark and the volunteers are using oil lamps as they go from bed to bed. Miriam said it reminded her of pictures of Florence Nightingale’s hospital at Scutari. ‘You mean we all look like Ladies with a Lamp,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And the fact we have just about the same level of treatment as she had to offer our infected patients.’

  Day 117

  Another twelve patients today: three civilian children, seven adult foragers and most worryingly three soldiers. Five more have died.

  An orderly burial site has been arranged and along with it a ceremony of burial. The bodies are burned and then their ashes are collected in containers and placed in holes in a patch near to the inner fence. If the person had any particular friends they say something about them. Then the Commander says a few words and then the earth is filled in. It is decent and sombre. I think I know now what the man was doing at the hospital. He was burying his friends. I wonder who will be the last of us to bury anyone.

  Day 118

  All the three soldiers died in the night. The progress of the disease is increasing, ten soldiers, including the second-in-command and the Commander himself. Before he became delirious, he called for James and some of the more experienced soldiers that are left. They talked privately. When they had finished I noticed that the soldiers came to attention and saluted James. He came over to me when they had gone. ‘The Commander has asked me to take over from him if he dies and his men have agreed. I don’t know what I will do if I have to lead everyone who survives.’ Then he walked away, his head hanging.