An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War (39 page)

Now the enemy bombers were nearly overhead and
Warspite
began her own defence. He could see the aftermost Oërlikon gunner, his weapon's barrel pointing nearly vertically, blazing away in an almost continuous stream of fire that flashed from the muzzle. From all over the ship came the single barks of her four-inch, high-angle weapons, the continuous pom-pom-pom-pom from her eight-barrelled two-pounder “Chicago pianos,” and the chattering of other singly and doubly mounted Oërlikons. Clapping his hands over his ears barely lessened the row, and nothing could prevent his nose from being filled with the acrid stench of burnt cordite.

The explosives and lethal metal shards would cut through flesh and bone, arteries and nerves as mindlessly as they would chew into the thin metal skins of the bombers. And all the rounds that were being poured in torrents from
Warspite
were also being hurled in an equal or lesser degree by every ship in the fleet as soon as enemy aircraft came within range. The sky was darkened by the smoke of exploding shells.

He continued to watch the oncoming flight of the enemy squadrons, now reduced by two more aircraft that had hurtled down leaving smoke trails in the sky. Another, he guessed, must have suffered a direct hit to its bomb bay because it flared like a bright sun and then simply vanished. Those unlucky bombers had been insects swatted down by the behemoths below, enraged by the pests' attempts to sting. Yet not another plane had deviated from its alotted bomb run. How did the aircrew find the courage to press on when every atom of self-preservation must be screaming, “Get the hell out of here!” Their cockpits must reek of the smell of fear, but still the planes came on.

He glanced at the lone, unflinching Oërlikon gunner aft. And was that man's courage any more or any less, standing there nakedly unprotected from machine gun strafing and bursting bombs?

What men did for “duty's sake” amazed Fingal, humbled him, and never on this great ship had he ever heard from any officer or man sentimental drivel about “For love of King and Country.” He could hear the voice of his father, the late professor of Classics and English Literature, quoting Wilfred Owen's
“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
,
”
“How sweet and right it is to die for one's country.” The hell it was, although Professor Connan O'Reilly could perhaps be forgiven for being sentimental about warfare. He'd tried to volunteer in 1915, but had been judged to be too old. He'd never seen firsthand the carnage in the trenches, and for what? So the heroes' sons could fight a second round with Germany and her allies? Madness, insanity, and Fingal imagined the Italian airmen, stolid and practical, stifling their fears and getting on with their jobs. It was, as far as Fingal O'Reilly was concerned, bravery of the highest degree. He admired both sides, just as he would treat the wounded without concern for nationality.

He saw a neatly spaced line of bombs exploding in the sea close to a cruiser. The water, filthy from the stain of the explosives, rose in towering columns high, high, above the bridge of the targeted vessel before crashing back into the tumbled ocean and over the decks of the ship under attack.

Warspite
shuddered stem to stern from the recoil of her own weapons and the underwater shock waves spreading out from the exploding bombs. She heeled to port. Her captain must have ordered a defensive change of course.

He felt someone tugging at his sleeve. He turned and saw AB Henson. No, there was a killick badge sewn on his sleeve. Leading Seaman Henson must have achieved his much-desired promotion. He was having to yell over the racket. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he proffered a steel helmet, “but Mister Wallace, my officer, sent me. He said, and I'm quoting him, sir, honest, ‘Tell that silly bugger of an MO to get under cover. Make him understand that falling shrapnel from our own guns can kill. And if—' his words, sir, not mine, honest, ‘the daft sod won't, at least get him to wear a tin hat.'” He offered the helmet once again.

There was an explosion louder than the rest and Fingal turned and stared at the cruiser abeam and to port. He thought it might be HMS
Gloucester
. There was a row of near-miss bomb splashes tumbling back off her far side, but her bridge was a flaming shambles. One bomb at least had hit and he doubted very much if steel helmets would have been much protection for the poor sods on duty there. Farther away a destroyer had hauled out of line and smoke was pouring from her foredeck.

He took a deep breath. He had been thoughtless, even reckless, in satisfying his curiosity instead of reporting to his station, and if a bomb hit
Warspite
all the medical staff would be very busy.

“Thank you, Henson, I appreciate Mister Wallace's concern, but I won't need it. I'm going below now,” Fingal said. “I've seen enough.”

36

Dear Nurse of Arts … and Noble Births

“Thank God you're here and thanks for coming, Doctor O'Reilly.” Dougie Duggan, the sleeves of his collarless shirt rolled up, held open the door of his terrace house in the council estate. “Doreen's upstairs. Her sister Mabel's with her, so she is, and wee Daphne, our daughter, is at her granny's.”

Fingal carried his two maternity bags into a narrow hall with a staircase at one side. Kitty followed.

A quavering moan, which rose in intensity before fading, drifted from above, and the smells of fried bacon and boiled cabbage wafted through the half-open door to the kitchen at the end of the hall.

“You know Mrs. O'Reilly,” O'Reilly said. “She's a trained midwife.”

Dougie Duggan nodded. “I'm very glad you've come, missus.” He rolled down his sleeves. “It's no place for a man when his wife's having a wean, but I reckoned I should wait til someone got here, seeing Miss Hagarty's tied up with another delivery.”

Kitty smiled. “I'd have thought it wouldn't be a bad idea if a husband was nearby to give a bit of support.”

Dougie Duggan tipped his head to one side. “No harm til you, Missus O'Reilly—”

The inevitable Ulster preamble, O'Reilly thought, to a flat-out contradiction.

“No harm, and mebbe things is different in Dublin where you come from, but up here—”

This time the moan was louder. More intense.

Dougie Duggan stared up at the ceiling, shook his head, and grabbed a sports jacket from a peg on the wall. “Up here, men get offside when women is in labour. Always have done. It's only natural. Having wee ones is women's work.” He took a pace through the open door. “Mabel'll know where til get me when it's all over, so she will. Away you on upstairs, Doctor and Missus O'Reilly.” And with that—he fled.

“Things are not different in Dublin where I come from.” Kitty shook her head. “Natural, he calls it.”

“Come on,” O'Reilly said, and started to climb the stairs. “Dougie's right, of course. Whether it's natural or not, it is the tradition. Women do the labouring—and they don't call it that because it's easy—and the men, well, the men disappear—”

“Down the boozer with their pals,” Kitty said. “I know. The Duck may be in for a busy afternoon.”

O'Reilly stopped on the landing. “Mary Dunleavy may be. Her dad's going to be in bed for a week. I'll tell you about it later. Right now,” he pushed open a bedroom door, “we've a job to do.”

He bent and set both bags on a carpeted floor and immediately was aware of the smell of amniotic fluid. The membranes must have burst already. Miss Hagerty had told him that Doreen Duggan's last labour had lasted only seven hours and the contractions of this one were now coming three minutes apart.

The bedroom was big enough for a double bed, two chairs, and a dressing table. Chintz curtains were pulled back, and bright sunlight spilled into the room. “Hello there, Doreen, Mabel. Wee one's on its way?” O'Reilly said.

“It is, Doctor.” Mabel, a beefy brunette woman in her late twenties, was sitting on the side of the bed holding Doreen's hand. “Poor wee Doreen's getting ferocious pains, so she is. I'm very glad youse could come. I'd've done my best if I had til,” she lowered her voice and whispered, “but see that there Dougie? See him? About as much use as teats on a bull.”

O'Reilly hid a grin, but he heard Kitty chuckle. “I'd better get to work and take a quick look. If you'd excuse me?” He wasted no time introducing Kitty. She'd take care of that herself.

As soon as Mabel had moved away from the bed, O'Reilly took her place. “The baby's only two weeks early, Doreen, and the pregnancy has gone very smoothly. Miss Hagarty would be handling your delivery as usual if she wasn't already at another confinement. So there's no need to worry,” he said. “And it sounds like you're moving along so I need to get a look at your tummy.” He turned back the bedclothes and hoisted her flannel nightie.

“Go right ahead,” she said, “and I'm dead glad you're here, sir.” She managed a weak smile that crinkled the corners of her blue eyes.

Before he could do more than lay one hand on the great swollen belly with its silver
striae gravidarum,
stretch marks, Doreen grabbed his free hand and started to squeeze. Again she moaned through clenched teeth. Under his examining hand he felt the uterus, which in labour is simply a huge, muscular piston, contract until at the peak of the labour pain it was as hard as an anvil. His left hand felt as if she was crushing it to a pulp.

He glanced at his watch so when the next contraction came he could assess the duration of this one and the interval between the two. And this wasn't an early labour contraction either. The birth would be soon, he was sure. As he waited for the wave of muscular spasm to pass, he heard Kitty saying, “I'm Kitty O'Reilly. I'm a nurse and a midwife. I'm here to help Doctor O'Reilly.” He smiled. Exactly. The fact that they were man and wife was irrelevant at that moment; that they were trained professionals was important.

Kitty said, “We need your help too, Mabel.”

“Aye, certainly. What'll I do?”

“Can you bring up a good wheen of old newspapers?”

“Aye. I can. There's a brave clatter under the stairs.”

“Then off you trot.”

“Do you not want any hot water, Mrs. O'Reilly? Everytime a woman has a baby on the telly, like in that there
Doctor Kildare
or in the fillums, the doctor always tells someone to boil lots of water, so he does.”

Kitty laughed. “I never know what for unless they all drank gallons of tea.”

“Oh, I see, that's all right then,” said Mabel. “I'll go and get the papers.”

O'Reilly glanced at Kitty. Without any bidding, she was starting to open the maternity bags and prepare the instruments.

Doreen stopped moaning and both the pressure under O'Reilly's right hand and Doreen's iron grip of his left eased.

“Good lass,” said O'Reilly. “When did the pains start?”

Doreen used the back of her right forearm to push back locks of auburn hair that had fallen over her sweaty forehead. “About three hours ago, Doctor, and my waters broke about fifteen minutes back.” His nose had not been wrong.

“All right.” And her last labour hadn't been very long. He told himself to get a move on. It took a very few minutes to complete an abdominal examination and report to Kitty with a running explanation for Doreen, “One baby, right dorso-anterior, that's with its back to the front and to your right, Doreen, and that's as it should be, a vertex presentation right occipito-anterior. The baby's head is coming first with the back of its head to the front and to the right. The head is nearly engaged, and that tells me the widest part of the baby's head is where it should be on its way into your pelvis. You're cracking along.”

“Doctor O'Reilly?” Kitty handed him an aluminium Pinard foetal stethoscope with its circular flat earpiece and its wide trumpet of a mouth.

He took it and with his back turned to Doreen he winked at Kitty and was rewarded with a lovely smile. “Just going to check the babby's heart rate, Doreen.” He put the wide mouth on the abdominal wall, leant with his ear to the earpiece, listened, and counted. “It's going like a liltie at a hundred and forty-four beats a minute, regular as clockwork. Perfectly normal.” He grinned at Doreen and she smiled back in return, but it vanished as she gritted her teeth. “You went to antenatal classes,” O'Reilly said, “and they taught you how to breathe, just like your last delivery. So pant, Doreen, when a pain comes. We don't want you pushing yet. Pant. Big breaths. Biiiiiig breaths.”

The puffing, panting mother-to-be got through another contraction.

“I think this might help, Doctor,” Kitty said, playing the part of the midwife to perfection. She handed him a face mask attached to a small cylinder by a valve and piece of polythene tubing. The initials “BOC” for British Oxygen Company and the word
ENTONOX
were printed on the cylinder.

“Great idea,” O'Reilly said. “Thank you.” He took the equipment and for a moment had a mental image of himself learning to give anaesthetics in 1940 at the Haslar Naval Hospital near Plymouth. “This is a fifty-fifty mixture of laughing gas and oxygen, Doreen,” he said, laying the cylinder on the bed beside her and handing her the mask. “The second you feel a contraction starting, clap the mask over your nose and mouth—” He showed her how. “—and take deep breaths. It'll cut the pain, but it won't knock you out and it won't hurt your baby. Nurse O'Reilly will help you while I go and wash my hands.”

As he was leaving, Mabel returned with an armful of old newspapers. “We're going to spread these on the mattress under you,” Kitty was saying, “and put a rubber sheet on top of them to protect your bedclothes. Can you roll onto your left, Doreen?” Supremely confident that the midwife training Kitty had received at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin had not deserted her, O'Reilly headed along the landing looking for a bathroom where he could wash his hands.