A Plague on Both Your Houses

by Ian Porter

  Mrs Burchardt did not speak to Patemann personally about it. She thought that given people of his sort live so much closer together, they must surely be more prone to catch the flu, so for the time being the less contact she had with him the better. It was bad enough that she was having to meet him soon with regard to their elephant enterprise. Instructions were thus given to Frauline Emmerich, the cook, for her to relay to him when he came to the house.

  Fritz had been his usual, your-wish-is-my-command self, and promised to return with the required medicines as soon as possible. But on making enquiries, it had become clear that there was no black market in flu remedies. There were too many cure-alls that one would could buy legitimately. But undeterred Fritz had managed to get hold of some bottles of medicine from Spain, which were apparently pretty much the same stuff that you could get in any German pharmacy, but crucially the advertising stickers on the front were in Spanish. This gave them a certain exotic air, and coming from the country from where the disease was apparently spreading, Fritz thought such medicine could be sold as the latest high quality product that the Spanish upper classes were successfully taking to stave off the disease.

  When Fritz had received his orders from the cook, he had asked after Aldo, and was told she’d had the flu for a couple of days and was in quite a bad way. And during his asking around the underworld about the flu, he had been informed that many people started to make a sudden rapid recovery after three days. So two different Spanish remedies were sold to Mrs Burchardt at such an outrageously high price, it was obvious that this was the very best money could buy. One medicine was for her to take immediately to assist in keeping the flu at bay. But if she were to go down with the disease, she should start to take the other remedy on the third day of the illness. And of course, she could try it on Aldo immediately.

  The timing had been perfect. Aldo, into her third day of illness, had been plied with the second remedy and had made a speedy recovery thereafter. Mrs Burchardt was impressed. She contacted her entire social circle about it, and soon Fritz was being contacted by the cooks and maids of many upper crust households on behalf of their mistresses.

  ******

  Every Sunday the stations and trains overflowed with German city dwellers heading for the countryside. Berliners would sell whatever they had for whatever a farmer like Klaus might give them in return. A best coat for some meat; shoes for some eggs and half a pound of butter. And when they had nothing left with which to barter, they cadged or even begged for some dripping.

  Klaus kept a secret supply of everything for which city dwellers were looking. But as far as he was concerned, this was done out of a sense of protest against the war. He was profiteering merely at the government’s expense. He had no desire to rob his fellow Germans. It was why he was generous on Sundays. He did not drive the hard bargains that he knew other farmers extracted from the desperate. A man would offer him a suit for some meat; he would accept just the jacket, handing back the trousers telling the man he should keep them because the pockets were useful for carrying things in. The man would take back the bottom half of his suit, to find it rather heavier than when he had handed it over.

  “As you know,” said Klaus, “selling you potatoes is prohibited by the government, so I cannot sell you potatoes.”

  His placing of emphasis on the word ‘sell’ allied to the meaningful glint in his eye told the man that the extra weight he could feel was a potato in each of the suit’s pockets. Slipped in there by the farmer, gratis.

  It wasn’t much. Not much at all. Certainly not enough to assuage the guilt he felt for being only the most grudging, minimal part of his country’s war effort.

  He had remembered an old classroom history lesson. A medieval English king had set up his own church. Not because he had wished to leave his faith. But because he did not agree with the running of his existing church. Klaus believed he knew how the man must have felt. Klaus did not wish to leave his country. He wished his country well and hoped it would win the war. But he did not believe in those stupid men who so unnecessarily started the conflict; the men who continued the war even after it was obvious it was a huge mistake; the men who had slaughtered all his pigs, all his cows, and taken away his livelihood and self-respect.

  He could not start his own government as that Englishman had started a new church. But he needed to do something. He had written to Fritz. The reason he worked with him, rather than any of the other shady black market characters who had offered their services over the past few years, was that Klaus recognised Fritz had some element of respectability in him. He was breaking the law, but he was not a crook as such. He was a businessman. Just as Klaus believed himself not to be a crook. He was a farmer.

  Fritz had even managed to feed many of his fellow countrymen in their hour of culinary need, thanks to that ridiculous elephant carcass escapade. And it must have left him flush with funds into the bargain. Money that perhaps could be used to help Germany in some way.

  In his letter Klaus had wondered if there was something the two men could do together that was both profitable for them and also of help to their country, using Fritz’s capital and Klaus’ farm. He had an idea regarding photography.

  Just before the outbreak of war, Klaus had started to make some money selling animal bones to a freight forwarder, who then supplied the Perutz camera film company with gelatin for the emulsion that was needed on camera film. With Klaus’ farm and his slaughterhouse contacts, and Fritz’s capital and business acumen, they could cut out the middle man and work directly with camera film companies. The profit the freight forwarder made was outrageously high. They could make good money. And with the profit there must be some way of investing in the flu epidemic. It was the fastest growing market out there after all. Perhaps they could go into gauze mask production or cleaning materials or drugs or something? And this would be how they could give something back to German people.

  Could Fritz travel out to talk things over with him? Fritz replied that he certainly liked Klaus’ ideas. The irony was that he was so busy at the moment supplying black market flu remedies that he would not be able to visit the farm any time soon. But he would certainly get out there as soon as he could.

  ******

  Dorothea had sent word to Peter’s family to let them know what had happened to him, and was only too pleased to have contacted the army to report that a soldier who had been struck on the head during a riot was being tended to by a professional nurse in her own home. Peter thought she must have laid it on a bit thick about the seriousness of the blow for them to have accepted he would not be returning to his post at the end of his leave. Admittedly the authorities had stated in their reply that they would be sending a member of the army’s medical staff along to check on the story, but this had as yet not happened. With the flu taking such a hold on the Home Front and the war also suddenly starting to go so badly militarily, one more soldier falling through the administrative cracks was apparently neither here nor there.

  But the information had not quite fallen on the death ears she and Peter had assumed. Someone must have passed on her details to the Kriegsrohstoffabteilung, the government department in charge of production. They had written, asking her to become a factory nurse in a large company employing mostly women.

  Dorothea didn’t know anything about the subject so had asked her more streetwise suffrage colleague, Ursula Wende, round for advice over a cup of ersatz coffee.

  She felt a little awkward about having Ursula visit her home. They were more associates than real friends. Their relationship had only ever been one of shared beliefs being discussed at meetings. She regarded Ursula in the same way she did her tennis club acquaintances. She simply shared a love of a game with them. Chatting over a cup of tea after a political gathering or a glass of water after a set of doubles, was hardly what she considered a friendship. Dorothea liked to keep these relationships somewhat at arm’s length. But now Urs
ula was going to see her rather comfortable home, complete with the antique furniture, soft furnishings and potted plants of a middle class lady. It was not the humble abode one might expect of a widowed ex-nurse. Dorothea wondered whether there may be some inverse snobbery issuing forth from her friend.

  But she need not have worried. On arrival Ursula did not appear to register her surroundings at all. She didn’t notice the well sprung sofa that she had been beckoned to sit on. It was just somewhere to sit while she got down to business.

  Ursula was less than positive about the government’s summons.

  “Factory nurses are known as company midwives. Before the war they were a good thing. They looked after women in all matters relating to safety, health, hygiene, but these duties have been suspended now. They want us to work harder, longer and cheaper than men used to, but our health is not important. You are no longer a nurse. You have to deal with all the problems women suffer at home as well as in the factory. You have to deal with their childcare, food, transport needs. You even have to run their hostels.”

  “So what is your advice to me Ursula? Nursing Peter has made me realise that working on a market stall is a waste of my talents. I need to nurse.”

  “I am told the war is going badly,” replied Ursula abruptly. “Curse the king, the king of the rich, who can’t know our misery, who won’t rest until he has exacted the last from us and lets us be shot like…”

  “What shall I do?!” interrupted Dorothea, exasperated that her friend was prone to jump on her soapbox at every opportunity these days.

  “I do not apologise Dorothea, but I am contrite, I forget myself sometimes,” said Ursula quietly before continuing in a more business-like manner. “There are huge losses at the Front. The most serious injury cases are starting to be transferred back here to makeshift hospitals, where the army or Red Cross are setting up in schools, auditoriums, theatres and other large buildings. You should offer your services.”

  “Very well, I will ignore the summons and make enquiries about these hospitals as soon as I have Peter fully recovered. Until then I will remain at my post in the marketplace.”

  “Oh yes, you must look after Peter,” said Ursula softly, conspiratorially, her tone completely changed from a moment ago. “For sure he is a good looking fish to have in your net.”

  The sudden change from barrack room lawyer to coquettish friend took Dorothea completely unawares. She got up from her chair, turned on her heel and busied herself in the kitchen making coffee before the blush she could feel in her cheeks became evident. No longer having a servant to do the job certainly had its benefits.

  Chapter 18

  “Scandalous. It was time more doctors were sent home from the Front.”

  Doctor at an inquest, Manchester Evening News 1918

  Ruby had started to feel unwell on the tram home from London. It soon became clear she was going down with something. By the next morning Nash was concerned that his wife might have caught the new deadly version of the flu.

  Nash had never felt such panic in his life. He cared for his wife the best he could until Maud walked through the door having just finished her early shift at the munitions factory. She agreed to look after Ruby while Nash went looking for the doctor. On her way home Maud had picked up Rose at the nursery, so quickly popped her back there, partly so she could give Ruby her full attention and partly to keep her daughter as far away from the flu patient as possible. With his wife in safe hands, Nash rushed to Dr Alice’s surgery, then her house, and when these trips proved fruitless, toured the streets stopping all and sundry to ask them if they had seen the good doctor. Some had, but each line of inquiry failed to track her down. By the time he had to get back to attend to his wife because Maud needed to pick up Rose at the nursery’s closing time, he had left countless messages throughout Bow asking Alice to visit Ruby as soon as possible.

  But with several local doctors now down with the flu themselves, Alice had spent much of the day and evening outside her usual jurisdiction attending patients in Mile End. She had not received Nash’s message.

  Having arrived home late at night, exhausted from a twenty hour duty, Alice had not even made it into her bedroom. She had slumped onto her kitchen chair, put her arms on the adjacent wooden table and within a second her head was resting on them.

  The next thing she was vaguely aware of was someone banging on her door. She pulled her head up, straightened and immediately grimaced at the pain in her lower back. Her neck ached too. How long had she been asleep at the table? It was just starting to get light outside, which answered the question. She dragged herself to her feet and sloped groggily up the passage to the door.

  On her way to another early shift, Maud had knocked on the off chance of catching the doctor in. On seeing the weary state of Alice, she apologised for the intrusion, but the doctor reassured her that it was probably just as well. Any longer sitting in that position and goodness knows what state her body would be in. The important thing was that she had managed to snatch some much needed sleep before she saw another patient.

  Five minutes later she was knocking at a front door herself. Nash answered. He was carrying a candle, and nodded for Alice to come in.

  “Good of you to come Doctor.”

  The formality in the greeting impressed upon Alice how worried Nashey must be. It was the first time he had ever called her anything other than Doc or Al.

  “Take this here candle. I got the black-out going on in there. She just wants to sleep all the time but not before she kicked up a fuss about there being too much light.”

  He went on to tell the doctor that he was concerned Ruby’s initial symptoms of headache, drowsiness, body pains, chills, feeling giddy and lack of appetite had changed for the worse.

  “She’s been coughing up green yellow puke. Reminds me of poor bastards I’ve seen coughing their guts up who’ve been invalided out the trenches ‘cause they’ve been gassed. She won’t eat nothing neither.”

  The doctor examined the patient and took her temperature. It was one hundred and two.

  “Has she been sneezing Nashey?”

  “No, funny enough that’s something she ain’t done. It’s a rum sort of flu and make no mistake.”

  “The desire for darkness is photophobia. A fear of light,” said the doctor. “Her symptoms suggest she has one of the new diseases which are cropping up. I’ve heard there are many cases of this in the trenches. It’s rather indeterminate at the moment I’m afraid. I’ve tried to get some information about it from the local medical officer of health, but he tells me the higher authorities are keeping things under wraps. Don’t want the Germans to think we’re weakening, that sort of thing. But it appears to be a form of purulent bronchitis rather than influenza as we know it. One thing I do know, it gets worse if you try to shake it off. Now I know how tough Ruby is, but if she starts to fret about needing to get to work or anything of that nature, on no account allow her to get up.”

  “I’ll see to it she don’t get up, don’t you worry”, assured Nash with grim certainty.

  “Good. Now I’d like to start her on steam inhalation to begin with.”

  The doctor gave Nash his nursing orders and said she would try to return the next day but with the proviso that she was so busy at the moment, that she could not promise anything. If Ruby’s condition worsened he should attempt to contact her immediately.

  ******

  As Dr Alice had expected, pressure of work had meant she had not been able to return to see Ruby for the best part of three days. But on entering the Nash household, all seemed well.

  “She had a fever for a couple of days but she seems on the mend now right enough.” said Nash, before adding with a hint of nursing pride in his voice. “I’ve managed to get some Lillian down her.”

  That was a new one on Alice. She tried to work it out. Lillian Gish – fish? She couldn’t help but be
amused by Nash’s predilection to shorten everyone’s names but also use rhyming slang which often lengthened words.

  “She has eaten some fish? Excellent.”

  “She is awake you know” said Ruby, propping herself on an elbow.

  Alice shot Nash the quickest of wry smiles before changing her expression to absolute seriousness as she turned to her patient to examine her.

  “Cheeky little mare ain’t she doc?” said Nash.

  There was relief in the accompanying smile which betrayed the concern he had felt over the past few days.

  Examination duly completed, the doctor diplomatically ignored Nash’s comment on his wife, simply confirming that Ruby was indeed on the mend. Most importantly her fever had broken and her temperature was almost back to normal. She also had some news of the illness.

  “I was off the mark with my diagnosis of bronchitis,” she said. “It is a form of influenza. It’s being called the three-day fever, because once the fever element has subsided after three days, one makes a full recovery within a week. So Ruby, I recommend you do not return to work for another week.”

  Alice knew full well that Ruby would return to work as soon as she could put one foot in front of another without keeling over, but she hoped that telling her to stay at home for a week might at least keep her indoors for one more day.

  “I’ll see she do Al, don’t you worry,” said Nash with a certainty that reassured the doctor but brought a sigh of exasperation from the listening patient.

  He then changed tack to something that had been at the forefront of his mind during Alice’s previous visit but only now could he bring himself to enquire about it given that his wife was clearly on the road to recovery.

  “I’ve heard this here flu’s killed some of the lads in the trenches Al. Quite a few of ‘em as a matter of fact. That’s why I was so worried about Ruby. How can that be?”