She sponged her with cold cloths to cool her down. Crushed a quarter of Pulverette no. 67, the brown pill Mrs. McLeod swore by for its analgesic and fever reducing properties. Kate filled Lisbeth’s bottle with warm milk, added the crushed pill and shook it. Lisbeth drank little, listless and burning with fever. Fifteen minutes passed, but nothing had changed. Worried, Kate switched on the lamp and roused Dafydd.
“Her fever’s high, Dafydd. We have to do something.”
Lisbeth’s little legs and arms jerked in Kate’s arms. Then her eyes rolled up her head. Her body went limp. Panic filled Kate. Everything she’d been doing must have been wrong.
They had no telephone but Mrs. McLeod did. “Go next door, call the doctor.”
“She’s not there. She went to her daughter’s on the other side of the island this afternoon,” said Dafydd, pulling on his pants. “That’s a febrile convulsion.”
“What?”
“I had one as a child, my mother told me. Kate, the convulsion itself isn’t serious, but the danger is that it could mean meningitis.”
People died from meningitis.
Here she’d been trying to bring down the fever on her own, wasting precious time, when the situation was too serious for that.
Kate grabbed his keys. “We’re taking her to Doctor Tavish.”
They drove in Dafydd’s staff vehicle, a Tilly, an Austin converted into a military utility rust bucket, over the bumpy pitch-black country road, flying past blacked-out farmhouses and cottages. These were the accommodations Orkney could furnish naval families on wartime deployment on the island.
It was a moonless night, the air thick with a web of fog. Dafydd cursed into the darkness as he drove. “Can’t see a bloody thing.”
Kate grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment. Its weak beam was little help. Lisbeth felt so warm, so still in her arms.
On Rinnigill’s outskirts, she pointed to a dark stone cottage. “That’s Doctor Tavish’s.”
Dafydd hit the brakes. Kate gathered Lisbeth to her chest, climbed down from the Tilly. Even in her fever Lisbeth was clutching her favorite rattle, which jingled softly as Kate ran up to knock on the cottage door. “Doctor Tavish?” No answer. “Please, Doctor Tavish, my baby’s sick. She’s burning with fever.”
Still no answer. Dafydd took Lisbeth in his arms. Now Kate was yelling and pounding on the door. It felt like a very long time before the door opened to a yawning older woman in a dressing gown, her face lined with irritation.
“Why are ye wakin’ me in th’ middle o’ th’ night?”
Kate barely understood the woman’s Scottish dialect, but the meaning was clear. “I’m sorry but please, we need the doctor. My baby’s seriously ill.”
“He’s doon at th’ pub ev’ry night.”
Doon at th’ pub, that much Kate understood. She saw a doctor’s bag by the woman’s bare feet at the door.
“May I just take his bag to him at the pub, would you mind?”
“God be wi’ ye, lass.” The woman’s look had softened as she handed Kate the doctor’s bag. “Hope he’s nae had tae many pints.”
Kate threw a thank-you over her shoulder as she hurried back to the Tilly, where Dafydd, Lisbeth crooked in one arm, had already started the ignition.
“We’re almost there, Lisbeth,” Kate said, taking her back in her arms. Her heart pounded as she rocked her daughter, bracing herself against the door in the bare-bones two-seater. Dafydd hurtled through Rinnigill’s dark countryside, shifting into fourth gear and accelerating toward the pier.
In the distance a loud explosion sounded from the middle of the dark harbor where the HMS Royal Oak warship anchored.
“Is that an attack?”
Before Dafydd could answer, a ship burst into flames, lighting the sky and the surrounding water.
“Bloody hell, either the ship’s cordite exploded or a submarine got through the nets and torpedoed it.”
Sirens wailed as they neared the pub on the pier. Kate trembled, feeling Lisbeth’s blanket damp with sweat against her chest. Searchlights were scanning the cold sky. A Red Cross truck flashed its headlights for them to get out of the way and shot ahead of them, then promptly stopped, blocking further progress down the narrow street to the pub. Rescue workers were unloading equipment and shouting instructions.
“I can’t get any closer,” said Dafydd, pulling over in front of the post office. “It’s too cold outside for Lisbeth and the pub will be rowdy. Go fetch the doctor, we’ll wait here for you.” He opened his arms, collecting Lisbeth from Kate. His face was tearstained as he rocked her. Stricken, she realized he was right. Still she hated to leave them. But what else could she do?
She kissed him hard.
“Hurry, Kate.”
She ran, passing the Red Cross truck, the rescue workers streaming to the pier—what a disaster—and pulled the pub door open.
She squinted through a smoky haze. The pub resounded with raucous laughter and singing. Peaty smells emanated from the beamed fireplace.
“Lookin’ fur a pint, missus?”
“Where’s the doctor?”
“What’s ’at ye say?”
The place was so noisy she could hardly hear herself talk. “The doctor! It’s an emergency!” she shouted.
“Over thar.” The barkeep pointed to the bearded man singing by the fire, a beer in his hand.
She pushed by the laughing patrons, ignoring the invitations for a drink, if that’s what they were even saying to her. As she took the beer from the doctor’s hand and replaced it with his bag, the blacked-out windows in the pub shattered. Bottles fell, spraying whiskey on the bar. The crowd had quieted enough now to hear the wailing sirens.
“We’re under attack,” someone shouted. Men stood and reached for their jackets.
“Hurry, Doctor Tavish, come with me.” He stank of beer but she pulled the doctor’s hand and he stumbled out of the pub door. Behind them men were rushing out to the pier. “Please, it’s this way. My baby’s sick. She’s with my husband—they’re waiting around the corner.”
Suddenly she heard the sickening crash of metal. Then a thundering explosion ricocheted down the chilly street. The ground rumbled, throwing them against a stone wall.
She heard screams. Behind a low row of houses she watched the jagged roofline of the post office blush red. Flames.
Kate pulled herself up, her pulse racing, and yelled over the shouting for the doctor to follow her. She ran forward into a cloud of powdery dust that shimmered white in the heat, choking her. Flames crackled, their combustion sucking the air like a hot wind tunnel.