The Brazen Woman

by Anne Groß

  This time, however, Elise leaned out of the window for a purpose other than to enjoy the view into the deep canyon. Instead, she stared at the horizon to steady herself and hoped the wind would slap her back to normal. “Oh God,” she moaned. “For fuck’s sake, Anita. Slow down.” Her words were blown away, unheard. Her stomach surged again as her friend whipped around yet another hairpin. The tires of the bouncing Jeep were barely clinging to the asphalt.

  Elise would have given anything to be back in Anita’s tidy silver Wrangler. It was cruel irony that Richard blamed her for the present situation.

  “None of this is my fault,” she said around the angry tears that were forming. “None of it.”

  She kicked one more time and his hand was finally jerked from her ankle. The slick decking was disgusting—there was no way she’d get down there in her bare feet, no matter how much it embarrassed Richard. Everything was battened down but the people on board, and their buckets. The rule was to do your business at the ship’s head, but in weather like this, the rule didn’t apply. Careless missteps in the dark or a sudden buck of the ship would send a bucket rolling. Elise had gotten used to the stench, but there was no getting used to the feel of something questionable under your feet.

  She compulsively touched her dress where her emerald was tucked under her corset. The action helped recalibrate her. “Did you lose again?” Elise asked Richard. He shrugged and shuffled around in the shadows of the crates to find a dry spot to spread his blanket.

  Elise sighed. She wouldn’t have cared much one way or the other, except now that she was his wife, her fortune was tied to his, and Richard’s bad luck was hurting her effort to stay hydrated. As a camp follower “on the strength,” she was entitled to one half of the rations of a soldier and none of the liquor. This meant either she drank the foul water stored on board in barrels, or she shared Richard’s beer. Given what she knew about water-borne diseases, she selected choice number two. Unfortunately, Richard was constantly gambling away his beer rations.

  On the other hand, beer wasn’t going to help an already churning stomach.

  A moan rose in the damp air. The sound, a waveringly long note, came from behind a blanket that had been hung to allow privacy for another married couple—a convenience Elise and Richard hadn’t felt necessary, given their marital circumstances. Despite her own misery, Elise still had enough strength to roll her eyes. The couple had no business being that happy.

  “It is your fault,” Richard pouted. “Our being here is entirely your fault. You should have let me sell that jewel.”

  “Shhhhh!” Elise looked around to see if anyone had heard Richard. No one was paying attention to them.

  “We could be tucked safe in the Quiet Woman had you done so. Look at you—you’re pitiful,” Richard sneered up at Elise and she felt her self-confidence weaken. She ran a hand through her greasy hair and pulled down the shapeless dress she had currently hitched over her hairy knees. “You are content to remain slattern and unpleasant when wealth could have given you the veneer of social respectability. It was most definitely you who brought me into this position. I blame you.”

  “Go ahead. Blame me then. I don’t care.”

  When they’d first boarded the ship they hissed their arguments at each other, but now they no longer bothered to keep their voices down. The tight quarters made it difficult for others to politely move away when they started bickering, although most still tried. A positive result of their spats was acquiring more space than the others were afforded.

  “It’s not just me you damned to this fate. Tom blames you too. He told me so himself.”

  Thomas. The name was like a hammer on Elise’s chest. She’d tried to give him medical care too after the fight, but he told her he didn’t want her damned poultices.

  She felt her mouth fill with a swell of saliva and she swallowed hard. The memory of her drive into the mountains of Tucson flooded her.

  “Oh my God, Anita. Pull over.”

  “Hang on for just another minute. We’re almost there.”

  “PULL OVER.”

  Elise had the door open before the Jeep even stopped. Her lunch of a strawberry and mango smoothie created a vibrant orange line against the roadside sage. Anita stepped out of the car and came around while looking at her watch impatiently. “We’re going to be late,” she said.

  “Late? Late for what? We’re camping!”

  “Everyone’s waiting for us at the trailhead.” Anita sighed when Elise bent over a second time. “Okay. Get it all out.” She caught up Elise’s hair.

  “I’m not getting back in there.” Elise pointed weakly at the Jeep and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Walk to that tree and back. Then you drive.”

  “No way.”

  “It’ll make you feel better. You can’t get carsick when you’re in the driver’s seat.”

  You can’t get seasick when you’re unfurling the sails. Elise imagined sailors, three decks above, happily stomping their feet in the puddles while the captain pumped a jig from a squeeze-box. It was a pretty fantasy. They weren’t seasick, thought Elise. They were driving. Her stomach muscles rippled nauseatingly.

  Another moan from behind the curtain cut through the gloom. Richard gave up his seat on the floor and climbed the crates to sit next to Elise. She scooted over to give him space. They were comfortable enough together, despite their constant bickering, but there was little chance Elise would be emitting her own full-throated moans any time soon.

  She wasn’t averse to the idea, just indifferent, even though he was unnaturally good looking. While the entire regiment was soaked in the sweat of nausea, Richard’s skin took on a healthy sheen from the humidity and his cheeks remained rosy. When everyone else had turned inward in their misery, Richard thought nothing of pulling out a deck of cards from his pack to seek out the ship’s carpenter and purser for a game and a conversation. It didn’t seem fair. His beauty was wasted, Elise thought as she surveyed his profile. Richard was attractive without any attraction.

  She clenched her fists as another high pitched moan emanated from behind the blanket.

  “Shouldn’t you look in on Mrs. Collins?” he asked.

  “What for? She sounds a little busy right now.” In the weeks that they’d been on board, she’d exchanged very few words with Amanda Collins. There were only about five other women in Richard’s company, including Mrs. Gillihan and Mrs. Collins had the least amount of personality of any of them. Anyway, she hardly ever came out from behind the curtain.

  Richard shrugged. “You know your own business.”

  He reached down to his knapsack and pulled out his fiddle. The squeaking sounds his instrument made as he rotated the tuning pegs and plucked the strings were a welcome distraction. When he drew out a long note with his bow, the other soldiers, suffering as they were, heaved a sigh of relief. It didn’t matter what decade it was, music was eternally a balm. Elise took her bucket and climbed to the top of the stack to avoid Richard’s sharp elbows and settled back against the curved wall.

  The melodies Richard pulled from his fiddle meandered without pause from one song to another. Elise was beginning to recognize the more common refrains that circled back around in various keys and rhythms. The way people would join in making music without any kind of showmanship was one aspect of her new world that she truly appreciated, and she loved it when someone was moved to stand and sing. Only once had Thomas emerged from the shadows to join in with his earthy baritone, and there was barely a man in the company that hadn’t wiped tears from his eyes when he sang, “Man to man, the world o’er, shall brother’s be for a’ that,” except for Sergeant Taylor, who had threatened to break Richard’s fiddle in two for daring such a “republican” song.

  A sudden choked, gasping sound burst from behind the blanket curtain, causing Richard to play four atonal notes in rapid succession as his bow fell off the fiddle.

  “I can’t think why you shouldn’t be calling upon Mr
s. Collins,” he insisted.

  “Why are you so concerned about her” Elise felt her stomach clench again, but this time it wasn’t from nausea. It was caused by sudden fear. She sat up straight. “She’s not pregnant, is she?”

  “Good God, woman. Didn’t you know?”

  Private Collins poked his head from behind the curtain. Even in the gloom Elise was able to detect his wild-eyed look. He walked towards her like a drunk man, careening from side to side. Other soldiers caught him as he passed, thumping him on his back, giving words of encouragement, and keeping him on his feet.

  “Some nurse you’re turning out to be,” Richard laughed ruefully. “You can’t even tell when a fellow female is nearing her time of confinement.”

  “How am I supposed to tell? I can’t exactly ask. I mean, I thought she was just fat.” She reached for Mrs. Southill’s medical kitbag. “How’d she get on board? I thought pregnant women weren’t allowed?”

  “Quite right,” Richard nodded, “but no one could bear to see the couple torn asunder. She was weeping so prettily.” He attempted to take her elbow to steady her as she descended to the floor, but Elise shook off his hand and leapt into the air like a cat.

  The ship began rising up a swell which created a slick ramp for Elise to surf down with one bare foot in front of the other. Private Collins caught her mid-way. “How far apart are her contractions?” she asked as they made their way towards the curtained corner. Collins shook his head, not understanding. “Her pains! How many minutes between her pains?”

  “She’s in a great deal of pain,” he agreed. “It’s her first.”

  Elise ducked behind the curtain. Mrs. Collins, while holding her stomach in the eternal gesture of all pregnant women who loved their unborn babies, was puking into a bucket. She looked up at Elise with glazed eyes and lowered herself into a squat, bracing herself against two crates on either side of her. Her face, pale as a boiled turnip, was streaming in sweat.

  Elise felt her own stomach heave in a sympathetic reaction and gagged on the scent.

  “Will you be all right?” Collins asked, concerned. “Shall I fetch Mrs. Gillihan to help? Perhaps Private Hobert? He’s birthed plenty of lambs.”

  “Hobert? No. God, no,” Elise said in horror. Hobert, formerly a shepherd, was so used to having only his sheep as company that he felt no compunction in sending snot-rockets in all directions whenever his sinuses clogged, which was all the time. Elise considered any area within a ten-foot radius of the man a biohazard zone. “I’ve got this.”

  Amanda Collins’s thighs trembled as she let out another moan. The cries must have alerted the entire deck to the imminent birth and Mrs. Gillihan, unable to resist the call for her opinion, whether or not it was asked for, poked her round head under the dividing blanket. “Is it happening? Oh! It is!”

  “Looks like it,” Elise offered a shoulder to support her young patient, who was trying to find a comfortable position.

  “I’m so thirsty,” Amanda whispered to Elise. Her words were a kick in the gut. Here was a woman who clearly had more need for hydration than anyone else on board, and yet Elise’s hands were tied. “Aren’t you sharing your beer rations?” she asked Amanda’s husband.

  “Beer?” Mrs. Gillihan questioned. “Mrs. Collins drinks water, surely.”

  “My wife doesn’t care for ale,” Collins agreed.

  “You’re not letting her drink that shitty water, are you?” Elise watched in horror as Peter Collins lifted a canteen to his wife’s lips. Mrs. Gillihan recoiled at Elise’s choice of words.

  “If you’ve a better idea, speak up.”

  Better ideas whirled like spun gold in her brain: carbonated water with a hint of lemon, spicy iced cola, coconut water. She’d give her left lung to walk into Eegee’s off Speedway and order a Frozen Strawberry Fizz, but she’d settle for lukewarm water from the tap and be grateful for the hint of chlorine. “You should at least boil the water first.”

  “Boil it? Whatever for? And how are we to boil water here?” He waved his arms to take in the entire belly of the ship.

  “I don’t know, can’t we get boiled water from the ship’s galley?”

  “So all of us in the army can take our tea? Do you suppose the cook will supply us with crumpets as well? You must be joking,” Collins laughed.

  “You run along,” Mrs. Gillihan dismissed Elise. “Go on. I can stay and help Mrs. Collins.”

  “You’ve helped other women before, right?” Elise didn’t trust the woman’s confident self-assessment.

  “I’ve been present for a few births and had four of my own.”

  “You’ve got four kids?”

  “No, the good Lord saw fit to call three of my precious angels to his bosom, but I’ve a daughter in London.” The woman smiled happily, unaware she’d caused Elise even more unease.

  “I’m sorry.” Elise wasn’t sure what more to say. Her offer of sympathy didn’t seem fitting to the situation, somehow. “So, you’re trained?”

  “Trained?”

  “Yeah, trained. You know, to help in deliveries. Midwifery.”

  “Are you?” Collins asked Elise.

  “Well, not midwifery, but nursing. I did study labor and delivery—all nurses have to.” She eased her shoulder under Amanda’s armpit, hoping to steady them both. “But whatever, if you want Mrs. Gillihan’s help, looks like she’s got everything under control here. I’ll just. . . whoops. . .here, take her. . .” Elise shifted Amanda’s weight to her husband and stepped away. “We all good? Yes?” She lifted the curtain and made to duck out.

  “Good? No! Wait!” Peter Collins stammered, his arms full with his wife. “Amanda needs you!”

  “Certainly she does not,” Mrs. Gillihan clucked disapprovingly. “I’m sure Mrs. Ferrington has better things to do. She had quite a spill the other day and a birthing can be quite taxing, you know. Mrs. Ferrington should rest.” Her eyebrows nearly reached her hairline with meaning.

  Elise sighed. “Look, this is stupid. If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. But if you want me to stay, then you have to trust me to call the shots, not Mrs. Gillihan. So, decide.”

  The Collinses looked at each other. They didn’t look confident about their choices.

  “Mrs. Gillihan can sit here and stroke your hair and coo,” Elise tried to reassure them. “That’s cool with me. But cooing isn’t going to get the baby out. Just so we’re clear.”

  “Please,” Amanda said between huffs. “Please stay. Get the baby out.”

  “Dear,” objected Mrs. Gillihan.

  “She will stay,” Private Collins insisted, immediately taking his wife’s side.

  Elise took a deep breath, knowing her next statement wasn’t going to go over well. “So, where I’m from, midwives get paid.” The indignation that followed her statement nearly blew the blanket off the wall.

  “We’ve nothing! How do you expect—”

  “Beer. Richard’s gambled his away and I won’t drink the water. Pay me half your beer ration for the next two weeks.”

  Collins’s mouth dropped open. “My beer? Half?” he stuttered.

  “I can call in Hobert if you prefer?” Elise put her hands on Amanda's abdomen and pressed deep to feel for the baby’s heartbeat and position, knowing she’d already won. “Hobert probably won’t ask for payment, except for maybe, here and there, when he feels a need for a sweet favor from your wife. . .after she’s recovered, of course.” Elise wiggled her eyebrows.

  Amanda’s wail took on an edge of panic. “Give it to her! Give her your beer!”

  “I think your missus would like for me to have your beer,” Elise said wryly.

  Collins grumbled and accepted the terms.

  As Elise continued to probe Amanda’s belly, her concern grew. “How far along are you? How many weeks?”

  “Weeks?”

  Elise sighed again. Poor nutrition, bad water, sea sickness—all these things could cause a premature birth, but there was no way to know if the baby was term i
f Amanda hadn’t been keeping track of the weeks. She was having contractions, so early or not didn’t matter at this point. The baby would come if positioned correctly. “I need hot water, towels, and soap,” she said to Collins.

  “I haven’t got any.”

  Elise turned to Mrs. Gillihan. “Please. This is the perfect way for you to be helpful. We need this area to be as clean as possible. Cleaner than clean.”

  Doubt played across the woman’s features as she weighed the consequences of getting supplies versus leaving Amanda in the care of a woman with questionable morals. “Right,” she said finally, and disappeared. On the other side of the curtain, Mrs. Gillihan could be heard barking orders.

  Time seemed to crawl. Elise distracted Amanda with meaningless chit-chat and rubbed her back as they waited for hot water. Just as she decided to douse her hands in rum and hope for the best, a triumphant Mrs. Gillihan returned with young Bill Stanton behind her holding two buckets of hot water, mostly full, and a lump of lye soap. Mrs. Gillihan held a stack of clean linens cradled in her elbow.

  Setting to work immediately, the two women worked in tandem, the elder using one bucket to scrub the deck, the younger using the other bucket to wash her hands and her patient. Mopping the sweat from Amanda’s brow, Elise tried to gather her thoughts. Despite her bravado, she hadn’t had that many opportunities to help deliver babies as an ER nurse. The pregnant women who burst through the double doors at the hospital were almost always shuttled straight to the labor and delivery ward where an entire crew of medical workers specializing in childbirth waited. Now Amanda only had Elise to rely on, and Elise had no one but herself. She explained what she was about to do and waited for Amanda to nod before reaching between her legs.

  She was barely dilated. Elise looked at her medical kitbag and wished it contained a magic wand. “The baby’s not in position,” she said to Mrs. Gillihan.

  “Breech?”

  “No, sideways.” She tried to hide her worry. She would have given up five years’ worth of beer rations for a simple stethoscope and a watch. She pressed her ear to Amanda’s stomach to listen for the baby’s heart beat and heard gurgling intestinal noises instead. “I’m going to get the doctor,” she announced. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Everyone had been sick for days, but not once had there been any sign of the doctor. She’d almost forgotten he existed.