Thirst (Thirst Series)

by Guy N Smith

  ‘Not half as crazy as you, Cummins.’

  The three of them looked at each other in silence.

  ‘We need to start right away.’ Carol moved across and shone her torch on the sick child again. ‘Tomorrow morning may be too late.’

  ‘We'll have to carry him,’ Ron Blythe replied. ‘Cummins and I will take turns.’

  ‘Which hospital are we going to make for?’

  ‘Rather than go back to the General, we'll make for the East Birmingham, the one where my sister-in-law was taken. From there we can head for one of the checkpoints on the Coleshill side.’

  ‘And you still haven't figured out how we're going to jump the cordons,’ Cummins sneered. ‘The way you're behaving at present you'll probably get cold feet and decide we ought to stay in Birmingham after all. Well, if you do, you'll stay here dead. And that ain't no idle threat!’

  ‘We'll find a way.’ Blythe began rolling Paul Merrick into a couple of blankets and picked him up, cradling him in his arms like a baby. ‘We've had a good run of luck amongst the bad. We're still alive. There was water in the tank of this house. Even some food left in the larder. We'll make it.’

  ‘I hope for your sake you're right,’ Cummins muttered, following them down the stairs and out into the smoky night.

  Paul Merrick coughed and moaned in Ron Blythe's arms.

  ‘Mummy, mummy,’ he began to cry.

  ‘Let me.’ Carol Evans took the boy from Blythe. ‘I think he'll be better with me, to begin with anyway.’

  ‘Keep your eyes skinned, Cummins.’ Ron peered around, alert for any movement in the orange-greyness that was night in Birmingham. ‘We've got to push on, and we don't want our heads taken off by these discs the yobs are throwing at each other.’

  Doctor Peters had remained inside his house throughout the days of turmoil. Tall, with thinning grey hair and a reddish complexion which was due to high blood pressure, he had fought a battle with his own conscience.

  He should have been at the hospital in the early stages of the poison outbreak, helping and encouraging overworked colleagues. But instead he had stayed at home. To have left would have been to desert Elsa, his wife.

  Elsa had been one of the early victims. Doctor Peters had been called from his bed in the early hours of that fateful first morning. One of his patients, a pensioner, lay in a saturated bed, the ulcers weeping their venom.

  The doctor had tried to phone for an ambulance. Even the emergency lines had been jammed. He had given the old man a shot of morphine and promised to return as soon as possible. He had broken that promise. Of course, like thousands of others, the patient would have died long ago. Nothing could have saved him. But that wasn't the point. The GP should have gone back, if only to administer another dose of pain killer and make the end that much easier. He'd been forced to abandon his car just outside Saltley. As far as he knew it was still there.

  But Peters had not gone through his front door after his return home. He couldn't leave Elsa.

  Elsa had been sitting in the kitchen when he had got back, a chair pulled up to the sink because she was too weak to stand. She drank one pint of water after another. As the doctor walked in, she looked up.

  ‘It's nice to see you back,’ she smiled, a kind of grimace. ‘Have you enjoyed yourself, Henry?’

  ‘You're ill,’ he said staring at her, and a feeling of horror began to creep over him as he noticed the beginnings of a rash of white-headed ulcers just above the neckline of her night attire. ‘You were all right when I went out.’

  ‘I'm all right now.’ She took another swig of water and laughed, a rasping hollow sound. ‘You've been out drinking, so I thought I'd start drinking at home. I'm going to get drunk, just to spite you.’

  ‘You won't get drunk on water.’ He stepped closer.

  ‘It isn't water. It's … it's vodka.’

  ‘All right, it's vodka.’ He decided to humour her.

  ‘You've been unfaithful to me, haven't you? Lots of times.’

  ‘No,’ he frowned, noting how the pupils of her eyes dilated. ‘Never.’

  ‘Oh yes, you have. I'm glad, because I've been unfaithful to you lots of times. I don't want to go back up to bed. I haven't got drunk properly yet.’ She filled the glass again, and drank half of it at one gulp. ‘I've had it away with Doctor Beambridge. And Mr Culmington.’

  ‘All right, you've had it away with them.’

  ‘And you don't give a damn.’

  ‘Come on. We'll go back up to bed.’

  ‘I don't want to go to bed with you. I want to go to bed with Mr Culmington.’

  ‘Mr Culmington's in hospital. Having a prostrate operation. He wouldn't be much good to you.’

  ‘Then I want Dr Beambridge to fuck me.’

  Henry Peters' jaw dropped. He had never heard Elsa say more than the occasional damn and then only under extreme provocation.

  ‘It would be against professional ethics for Dr Beambridge to … to fuck you.’

  ‘I don't care. I'm going to stop right here until he does.’

  Peters let out a deep sigh. This was all very difficult.

  ‘Look, I'll tell you what. Let me help you up to bed, and then when Dr Beambridge comes round he can come right up and … and fuck you,’ he said.

  She drank the rest of the water, refilled the glass, and sat with a perplexed expression on her face.

  ‘All right.’ She looked up at length, coughed, smiled sickly, and nodded. ‘But I'm going to take my gin up to bed with me.’

  ‘I thought you said it was vodka.’

  ‘I didn't,’ she snapped. ‘It's gin. Any fool can see that it's gin. Here. Smell it if you don't believe me.’

  It took Doctor Peters twenty minutes to get his wife up into the bedroom. Her thirteen stone seemed to contract into a dead weight that was beyond the strength of both her limbs and his. Twice on the journey up the stairs she sat down, and only coaxing promises of a visit by Dr Beambridge, and the exertion of every ounce of Peters' strength, had her on her feet again.

  Panting heavily, Henry Peters stood back looking at the gasping, wheezing form of his wife lying in a nest of rumpled sheets and blankets. The ulcers seemed to have spread. He told himself that they could not have done so in such a short time. They were certainly breaking out, though.

  ‘Get me some more … vodka,’ she croaked.

  ‘All right, but first I want to have a good look at you.’

  ‘No!’ She caught at his wrists, and her fingernails dug into his flesh in a sudden temporary return of her strength. ‘Dr Beambridge is going to do that. Now, get me some more vodka.’

  He went out to the bathroom and filled the glass. He shook his head. He was deliberately taking his own wife a glass of poison. But it made no difference. He knew that nothing could save her.

  When he returned to the bedroom he held the tumbler in his left hand. Secreted in his right was a hypodermic syringe.

  He felt the sharp point sink into her, pressed the plunger. She screamed, but her resistance was feeble. His only fear was that she might snap the needle.

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘I've given you an injection.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To make you better.’

  ‘I'm not ill.’

  ‘Dr Beambridge will be here soon.’

  She lapsed into silence. He blew out the small candle, and she did not appear to notice. Oh, God, what was he going to do?

  He went back downstairs and poured himself a stiff glass of bourbon from the cocktail cabinet in the lounge. The night was filled with the wail of police and ambulance sirens. He knew he ought to be out there, over at the East Birmingham Hospital, treating the casualties as they were brought in. Shot after shot of morphine, and one hoped that the patient died before the drug ceased to have any further effect.

  That was how it would be with Elsa. Hopefully one long sleep from which she would never awake. But Doctor Peters had to be sure. He had to watch over her. He c
ould not leave her until she died.

  Throughout the night he sat there at her bedside, dozing, and towards dawn he fell into a deep sleep. The morning was well advanced when he awoke, and with some surprise he noted that Elsa was still alive. More than that, she was sitting up, staring at him, her protruding tongue puffed and swollen. The ulcers had spread to her chin, and were now creeping upwards, like a column of tiny advancing spiders, towards her mouth.

  She grunted something unintelligible. Her eyes were wide and pleading, her fingers constantly plucking at the bed sheets.

  Doctor Peters stood up and went into the bathroom. Water - Elsa would not be needing anything else from now onwards.

  She gulped the liquid down and grunted for more. He obliged her, and gave her another shot of morphine. Within a few minutes she was sleeping soundly again, and he went downstairs.

  Once more he wrestled with his conscience. He should have been at the hospital. In normal times … he laughed bitterly. In normal times this would not have happened to Elsa.

  He tried the telephone again. All lines were engaged. In a way it was a sop to his conscience. He had tried.

  The sudden jangling of the front doorbell startled him. He stood there, not knowing what to do. Patients frequently called upon him; that was the penalty of being one of the ‘good old-fashioned’ GPs. His role was a combination of father, confessor and medical adviser. Not like these modern upstarts, fresh from college with their airs of superiority, deliberately creating an atmosphere of mystique. To them, patients were numbers, almost guinea pigs. Give them so-and-so and see how it reacts. If A doesn't work, try B. But don't get involved. Don't mix socially with patients. Familiarity breeds contempt.

  But right now Henry Peters wanted to become one of this new breed of faceless doctors. He didn't want to see anybody. He couldn't bear to be on the losing side.

  Moving stealthily to the window he peered outside. A man in his mid-thirties stood on the step with a boy of about eight. The child was fretting, crying and clutching at his father's arm.

  Grim faced, Peters watched the attempted consolation. In all probability the youngster was in the early stages of Weedspray poisoning. He knew the man by sight, a car worker from the Longbridge plant.

  The doctor was aware of a lump in his throat and a misty blurring of his vision. He fought against it, summoning up a streak of ruthlessness which he did not know that he had. He could have invited them in, administered a dose of pain killer. But the father, in all probability, wouldn't be satisfied. Peters had a reputation for having the instant cure for all ills. His patients trusted him. And at this stage he did not wish to betray that trust. Anyway, he had Elsa to think about.

  He stepped back. The bell rang again two or three times and then, after some minutes, he saw father and son shuffling away down the drive, disappointed and dejected.

  For five days and nights Henry Peters nursed his dying wife with water and morphine. She sank slowly, but still clung to life, delirious but unwilling to surrender.

  On the sixth day he came to a decision, contrary to all the teachings of his profession. Elsa must suffer no more.

  He found another syringe, filled it, and went back upstairs. She was conscious, staring at him. And she knew. He could read it in her eyes, those wide staring orbs filled with terror at the prospect of death, mutely screaming at him – murderer!

  He looked away, and almost abandoned the idea. It was the most controversial issue of the whole medical profession. A few doctors had even admitted to euthanasia. Probably the outcome would never satisfactorily be settled - except for Henry Peters, right here and now.

  His hand shook as he turned back, the syringe held ready. Elsa tried to shy away. She had not the strength. Gurgling noises came from her mouth, stifled by the swollen tongue.

  Peters found the vein, closed his eyes, and pressed the plunger. Elsa was aware of what was happening, cursing him. He tried to close his ears to the unintelligible sounds, but it was impossible. He would hear them, night and day, until the end of his life. Murderer!

  He extracted the needle and dragged himself away, turning and rushing out of the room. Downstairs in the kitchen he dropped the syringe into the waste bin and just made it to the sink before he started to vomit. Oh, Jesus Christ, he wanted to die.

  When he had finished retching his thoughts turned to suicide. So easy - Elsa and he would be together in the hereafter then. She would understand.

  He stared down at the discarded syringe. But he knew that he would not go through with it. If he did, then it would make a mockery of his whole life, everything which he had lived for. He should have released Elsa from her agony six days ago. Almost a week had been wasted, skulking here in the house when it was his duty to go out and do what he could for others.

  Miraculously, he was not poisoned himself. That was because he had avoided all contact with water, even taking care not to splash any on himself when he filled Elsa's tumbler. He had drunk from the cocktail cabinet. The soft stuff first - orange squash, tonic water, dry ginger. Eventually he had got round to the whisky. He had needed it.

  He poured himself a liberal shot now. It helped to steady his nerves somewhat. Standing there, holding on to the table for support, he considered his plans for the future. It was imperative that he went to the hospital. He could not save lives but he could ease the suffering, maybe help one or two to take the easy way out.

  He paused to listen. All was silent upstairs, not even a cry for water. It was all over for Elsa. Sinking down into the nearest chair he gave way to the sobs that had been building up inside him these past few days.

  It was 4 am when Doctor Henry Peters left his house, carrying his black valise and closing the door gently behind him, a gesture of respect for the woman who lay at peace upstairs. He knew that he would not be returning. Even if things reverted to any semblance of normality he would not return here - the memories, for one thing. In any case, they would find him out. He could be charged with a lot of things from breach of professional conduct to murder, and when that happened it was time to take his own life. But until then there was work to be done.

  He coughed in the smoky atmosphere as he turned into Alum Rock Road. It took time for his eyes to adjust to the murky orange-tinted blackness and, as he saw the pile-up of cars, the debris and the corpses littering the streets, full realisation of the extent of the disaster registered in his tired and tortured brain.

  There were people about even at this hour. Some wandered aimlessly, others shrank into the shadows at his approach. He too began to move carefully. It wasn't that he feared for his own personal safety but that he was afraid in case he might be deprived of the chance to help his fellow men.

  He stepped over some bodies, and as he did so a hand fastened around his ankle, bony fingers clutching in desperation.

  ‘Help me … water!’

  Doctor Peters almost overbalanced. He tried to wrench his foot free, but the grip was too tight.

  ‘Help me …’

  He hesitated, peering down. He could not discern any details: a black shape in the shadows, but the voice was old. At least, he thought so. It was difficult to tell.

  ‘All right, my friend, I'll help you.’ He set his valise down on the pavement, unfastened it, and groped along the row of syringes in the clip. The second from the end …

  ‘Water …’

  ‘Be patient. I'm a doctor, and I'm going to ease your suffering.’

  Silence. Henry Peters sensed the other's trust, a relaxing of the hold on his ankle, the wheezing of breath in a gasp of relief.

  He caught hold of the man's arm and pushed the sleeve up. The limb was thin, the skin coarse and hard. In places it was soft and squelchy. The doctor clamped his teeth shut and felt the bile rise.

  The man stiffened as the needle went in, whimpering like a distressed child.

  ‘It won't take long, my friend. You'll soon be out of your misery.’

  Peters replaced the syringe in his case and stood u
p. This time the feeling wasn't so bad. That was because he was not personally involved, the way it should be, the way the law decreed it had to be.

  He walked away and by the time he came to Belcher's Lane he knew that the old man was dead. Oh, God, Peters thought, I've no right doing this. It's like being God, taking away life.

  Technically it was murder. He had killed twice in one night. And he knew that he would do it again before long. A doctor with a conscience had no alternative.

  It was daylight by the time he reached the hospital. Nothing moved around him, and as he stepped into the main entrance hall he saw the full horror of it all. Dead lay upon dead, on beds, improvised beds, and no beds at all. One came here with hope and died in hopelessness - men, women, children and babies. The stench of death was heavy in the air, a scene from the mythical halls of Hades itself, the atmosphere thick with disease and putrefaction.

  Nobody came here any more. There was nothing to come for.

  He looked into one of the wards: more bodies, two or three in a bed, others having clambered up on to the coverlets and died. A sudden bump at the far end made him jump. A body had fallen from one of the beds and slid to an unnatural posture against the wall. The head was twisted round. The lips, a mass of dead sores, were parted in a mirthless grin. Dead eyes stared accusingly, cursing him for breaking the silence, disturbing with his vibrations those at peace.

  Henry Peters stepped back a pace. His instinct was to turn and run, screaming hysterically. With an effort he pulled himself together. He had seen death before, here in this very city during the war, the entire workforce on a factory floor blasted by a Nazi direct hit.

  This was worse, however. The suffering that had gone before, the wait for death, trapped in a city, denied aid; the burning thirst, the pain and the ulcers - death was a relief after the process of dying.

  He left the ward and made his way down towards the staff quarters. It was no different here. Weedspray was indiscriminate, striking down doctors and nurses as well as patients. He wondered if there were any parts of the city that had escaped the liquid death. There had to be areas where the poison had not yet reached, even if the fear and the panic had spread everywhere.