Chapter Text
Prologue
Proverbs 28:13 – Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses en renounces them finds mercy.
Sweat was dripping down the side of her face. Her ragged breathing muffled through facemask, as she was pushing with her outstretched arms down on the patient below her. Counting with each compression as Pippa stood in front of her, standing by. She stopped when she hit thirty and paused, trying to level out her breathing and elevated heart as she watched Pippa check his breathing.
“Stopped the bleeding!” Came the muffled voice of Dr. Tippets on her left.
They were performing an amputation when the patient started having cardiac arrest and uncontrollable bleeding.
When Pippa met her eyes and shook her head, she cursed. “It doesn’t anymore Corcoran,” she announced and tore off her face mask after climbing off the surgery table. “He’s dead.”
Dr. Tippets looked at her before putting his surgical tools away. “Shit.”
“Miss Hawkins, please inform the medical staff and remake sir Richard’s former bed, for the next patient. I will take of the sir himself.” Pippa nodded at her command and walked away instantly.
“Miss Walker, I will ask nurse Branagan to prepare the body along with miss Crane, if you don’t feel up for it,” Dr. Tippets suggested. He walked towards her, removing his gloves. He placed a warm hand on her shoulder, his eyes gentle.
Evelyn Walker looked away, feeling drained. Not only physically, but also mentally. This was the second patient today and the fourth in three days. The Penbroke Hospital almost began to turn into a morgue.
“I would appreciate that, Dr. Tippets,” she finally whispered. Honest to herself and her own needs; which was seclusion at the moment. Perhaps she could talk with Pippa about it later, get it off her chest.
“Get washed up, I’ll take care of it.”
Evelyn nodded and wiped off her bloodied hands along her apron. She walked out of the operating suite and down the hall, eyes cast downwards and feet flying fast. Nurses and patients alike walked passed her, none of them sparing a look. The long-term patients and staff were already used to the daily blood and death; the sickening truth of the ongoing epidemic. The longer Evelyn though about it, the sicker she felt.
It was 1918.
The Spanish flu ravaged the world that was just recovering from their First World War. An unusually deadly influenza pandemic. A pandemic that killed the usually strongest group; the young adults to adults. The working class. The would-be pioneers, families, scholars and workers. The future. It was heart-breaking to be confronted with your own age group that who were dying like flies. Each week on her way home Evelyn could see the orphanage take in more and more children. Sometimes even the children weren’t spared and neither were the elderly.
Mass graves were dug around whole of London. Bodies dumped. Some burned. It was horrifying even as a nurse who was seen a lot (too much) in the first year she started working in Penbroke Hospital.
She rushed around the corner and noticed just in a time a pair of feet before she collided against its owner. “Sorry,” she excused and looked up. It was Dr. Swansea.
“Ah, miss Walker. Don’t worry about it. I was just showing the hospital to our newest member of staff,” he began with his usual jovial voice that was higher pitched than usual. It tend to be that way when he was telling something exciting. Dr. Swansea stepped a little to the side with a gesture.
The well-clothed man behind him took a small step forward, coming in to her full view of vision.
Evelyn’s stomach churned.
He was tall, towering over Swansea (who was even shorter than her) not just by his length but also his energy. His black hair was combed back, short at the sides, and his beard full but neatly trimmed. Beneath his dark eyebrows a pair of eyes stared back at her. Even though it was hard to determine their color, they were haunting and off. She looked down to escape it, bile forming in her throat and mouth.
“I see,” she began and raised her hand to her mouth.
The man outstretched his hand and started to introduce himself, “I am Doctor-” but before he could even finish his sentence Evelyn squeaked out an apology before running away. She snatched a bucket from a staff member passing by and relieved herself from her stomach contents.
After a few retches with content and several heaves of air later, she felt that the danger of another vomit attack had passed. Evelyn looked to the shocked nurse and shot her an apologetic look.
“Sorry, I will take care of it.” Flushed with embarrassment and because of the retching, Evelyn left. Holding the bucket with content at arm’s length.
Afterwards she would worry what an image she might have portrayed; a nurse with a bloodied apron, beet-red and sweaty. Holding a foul smelling bucket with the tips of her fingers. Very professional Evelyn.
When she finally disposed of it and managed to trade her messed up apron for another clean one and washed her face, hands and neck. Evelyn finally felt a bit presentable. She stood in the doorway of the hospital and took off her nurse cap, stuffing it briefly in one of the pockets of her new pristine white apron as she readjusted her hair.
“Hey Evelyn.”
Soft words caused the woman to glance over her shoulder and met Pippa Hawkins’ eyes, managing a small but fruitless smile on her lips as a greeting.
“Hey Pippa.”
The young dark-haired woman joined her side in silence in the open doorway. It was cold outside, a light drizzle coming down from the dark skies. Evelyn took out the cap from her pockets and fastened it on her head, where it belonged.
The two women stood there for a time, silently. Nurse Crane worked on one of the patients in the tents. The tents were alas a necessity for they lacked beds inside.
“Shouldn’t we just move the stretchers inside? Surely we can make enough room?” Evelyn suggested with a soft voice. “I think it must be horrible inside those tents. What if they leak?”
Pippa handed her a cigarette which she took, sucking on it as her friend ignited the end. The smoke instantly irritated her lungs, but she managed to restrain the coughing. Smoking was not really a habit of hers, but the welcome distraction she needed right now.
Her friend did not answer her, more because of her ramblings were just an outlet of her thoughts. Pippa had known her since the beginning of her ‘career’ at Pembroke. They just clicked then, and became friends quickly.
“How are you doing? I heard you puked-”
“Inside a bucket,” Evelyn said quickly and smiled. “I think it was Lilith, the new girl, whom I snatched it from. She looked quite horrified.”
Pippa chuckled and shook her head, taking another drag from her cigarette. Saying nothing, before Evelyn finally yielded to her question.
“It’s my fourth in three days, Pippa. I don’t know how I should feel. It’s part of the job, I guess.” Evelyn hugged herself, getting cold. She took a slow drag, but even though it was just half gone she then threw it down the steps into a puddle. The taste became vile on her tongue.
“It seems almost futile doesn’t it?” Pippa whispered and took a hail from her cigarette. “Sometimes I wonder what we are doing here. If it even matters.”
“Everything matters Pippa,” Evelyn reassured her (or herself?). Putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We offer even the tiniest chance of hope. We should not let us become depressed and forfeit.” Pippa looked up at her with her green eyes, her doubt visible but being slowly replaced with a determination Evelyn wished she had herself.
“For those who need us.”
“For those who needs us,” Evelyn repeated. Then they hugged. Pippa’s flowery scent and her arms were comforting. They reminded her of the past.
“I’ll go and see Miss Branagan. See if she need any help. See you at break.” And with that Evelyn parted from Pippa and headed back inside. Walking down the corridors she knew at her finger tips towards the surgery room.
On her left, out of the ward, Dr. Ackroyd brushed past her. She picked up snippets of his furious mumbling like; ‘Who does he think he is?’ and ‘Fool’.
She stopped in her tracking with a flush of anger. The kind Dr. Strickland was only trying to help patients just like he and all of them were.
“Could you just stop-”
“There is no need. He was merely talking about me,” an unexpected deep voice interrupted her.
Evelyn’s eyes met those of the man whom she had run away from to empty her bowels. They were less haunting than before and filled with a mirth that was unusual at Pembroke hospital.
He was amused at Dr. Ackroyd’s insults.
“May I ask why?”
He approached her with a few steps and looked in the direction Ackroyd had disappeared to. “I think because I advised him not to complain and accept our different approaches on patients. That he should be open-minded.”
Evelyn looked at him, waiting for a more detailed explanation. The man just shrugged. “Long story.”
“Yeah about that, sorry to run off earlier. I kind of needed to- yeah,” she paused awkwardly.
“I heard. Upsetting a trainee, hm?” There was that twinkle of mirth again. Evelyn could not help but to smile and looked from him to the hallway, thinking back on the girl’s expression.
“Yeah. At least it was not all over her. Been there and that was not nice.”
A hand was stuck out to her, large and calloused. Nails trimmed to the flesh and neat. “Allow me to introduce myself properly. My name is Doctor Jonathan Reid. As from today I will be working nightshifts here at Pembroke.”
Evelyn took his hand. It was cold. Almost as cold as a-
“I am Evelyn. Evelyn Walker,” she voiced. Forcibly halting her train of macabre thoughts.