Una’s elation at having survived the operating theater lingered through the following day and the next. She didn’t grumble dragging herself from bed in the predawn darkness. She didn’t roll her eyes waiting for mealtime prayer to end so they could finally eat. She didn’t yawn conspicuously listening to Dru prattle on about her day. The genius of her plan—to hide at the school until things on the streets cooled down—was irrefutable. Never mind that only a few days before she’d been so fed up with Nurse Hatfield and Dr. Pingry she was ready to handcuff herself and walk straight to the nearest police station.
Three days on, however, Una’s cheer, if not her resolve, had begun to wear thin. Morning sickness still plagued Nurse Cuddy, and not just in the mornings but throughout the day, leaving Una to scurry about the ward preparing fomentations, applying leeches, and dressing wounds in addition to her usual duties. What she’d thought she’d gained by covering for Miss Cuddy in the operating room—namely an alliance in which she held all the trump cards—proved to be a more complicated and less beneficial relationship. Una was now complicit in Miss Cuddy’s secret. A fact Miss Cuddy could and would use against her. “But Miss Kelly knew all along,” was all she need say, and Una would find herself back in Miss Perkins’s office and, shortly thereafter, on the streets. Yet another reminder why Una should keep to herself. After all, she had secrets enough to bear.
A new patient arrived on the ward just after midday. “Was mindin’ me own business when a horse and buggy came outta nowhere and run over me leg,” the man told Una as she settled him into a bed. But judging from the strong smell of whiskey on his breath and the shabby state of his clothes, he’d likely passed out in the gutter after a night of drinking and been mistaken for a pile of trash. Lucky for him it was his leg and not his head in the wheel’s path. As it was, his lower leg—or tibia and fibula, as Una now knew thanks to Dru’s tutelage—was shattered and tomorrow would have to be amputated.
She cut off the man’s trousers and helped him out of his muddy shirt and coat. He smelled not only of liquor but of horseshit and sweat. His head and his nether regions teemed with lice. One look at him, and Nurse Cuddy was suddenly and conveniently too ill to help bathe him. Instead, she sat by, cataloging the man’s meager belongings as Una fetched soap and water and scrubbed the man clean.
It reminded Una of her younger years, after her mother’s death, when her father would pass out drunk in his own vomit, leaving her with a bleak choice: clean up the mess or inhale the sour smell all night long. She’d hated her father in those moments. Hated the war and all the soldiers who came back whole, while her father left the better part of himself behind. Hated her mother for dying and leaving her in his blundering care.
Una had been nine when her mother died in a tenement fire. The blaze began from an unwatched oven in the basement bakery. The building, some thirty years old and constructed entirely of wood, was quickly consumed in flame. Earlier that year, the city had passed a law requiring all tenements to have fire escapes—a law many landlords soundly ignored. So there had been no escape for her mother and the needy family she’d gone to visit until the firemen arrived with their ladders.
They’d argued about it, Una’s parents, just the night before. Why did she insist on goin’ out into the meanest parts of the city, her father had said, helpin’ those that ought right help themselves, stretching their own food and money thin?
“ ’Tis the goodly thing to do,” her mother replied. Then—so quietly Una, listening through her bedroom wall, could hardly hear—she said, “’Tis my money anyway. You haven’t worked in weeks.”
A bottle smashed against the wall then, sending Una scrambling back into bed. The front door slammed. A few moments later, she heard the swish of the broom, the tinkle of glass, and the muffled sound of her mother’s tears.
Una jogged her head. She hadn’t thought of such things in years. Her nerves crackled like live embers beneath her skin. No point in wasting time on things done and gone, she reminded herself. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe she’d been unfair in her anger.
When she’d finished the man’s bath, Miss Cuddy handed Una a cotton sack with the man’s belongings. “Nothing but tattered clothes and instruments of the devil. Take it all outside to the waste dump.”
Instruments of the devil? That was sharp censure coming from a woman apron up and not married. But Una didn’t say so. Nor did she complain that her feet were tired, back sore, and nerves raw. Never mind that she’d already made two trips to the dump that morning. She took the sack and headed for the stairs. Whatever these instruments were, Una wanted to know.
Instead of heading to the overflowing waste barrels in the back yard, Una exited onto the front lawn overlooking the East River. She’d swam in the river as a girl, diving for bananas and other exotic fruits that spilled over the brimming decks of the ships arriving from the Caribbean. After she’d left her father and was on her own, she joined a gang of river pirates who were impressed with her dauntless swimming. In the cover of night and fog, they’d row with muffled oars along the wharves, casing the sailing vessels moored along the river. When they found one to their liking, the men would climb aboard and grab whatever loot they could carry one-handed down the rope ladder back to the rowboat. Una’s job was to dive for whatever they dropped. It was dangerous work, as you had to be on the lookout for both coppers patrolling the river and the ship’s crew. One boy, little older than herself, was thrown overboard by an irate coxswain and drowned before they could reach him.
Una leaned against a tree and rummaged through the sack. It hadn’t been the boy’s death, nor the constant threat of arrest, nor the icy chill of the water that had driven Una to other means of grifting after only a few nights with the gang. She’d left when she realized, according to the men’s harebrained calculations, a wee thing and lass to boot wasn’t entitled to but a paltry share of the spoils.
Her fingers brushed the cool smoothness of a bottle. Whiskey, judging from the patient’s breath. She rattled the bottle inside the sack. No more than a swig or two remained. She also found a small pouch of tobacco. Instruments of the devil indeed. Una smirked and glanced about for someplace hidden to enjoy them.
A broad entrance beneath the north wing of the hospital caught her eye. She peeked inside. Eight hardtop wagons were parked one beside the other in a large open bay, each painted black with the word AMBULANCE emblazoned in gold along the side. One of the wagons—No. 3 according to the designation painted on its front panel—already had a horse harnessed to the chassis.
In the far corner of the bay sat a man in a black uniform. His legs were propped up on a low stool and his cap was pulled over his eyes. Una started to turn away when the fire-gong mounted on the back wall suddenly sounded. The sleeping man startled awake and scrambled to his feet, hurrying to a small table where a telegraph receiver sat. The fire-gong sounded twelve times, then a short string of clicks chirped from the receiver.
Una heard footfalls clomp behind her. She flattened against the wall just inside the entrance and watched from the shadows as a doctor hurried down the front steps of the hospital. He carried a large black surgical bag. The man who’d taken down the telegraph message was already seated on the driver’s bench, reins in hand, by the time the physician reached the ambulance and clambered into the back with his bag.
The driver made a clicking sound with his teeth, shook the reins, and the ambulance sped out of the bay. Una’s skirt fluttered in its wake. The wagon dashed across the yard in front of the hospital and out the unfinished gatehouse, sounding its bell as it turned down Twenty-Sixth Street. Passersby scrambled out of the way.
She watched until the ambulance disappeared from view, then tiptoed deeper inside. The bay sat quiet and seemingly empty now. A large clock ticked high above on the wall, reminding her that Miss Cuddy would soon be griping at Una’s long absence. Let her gripe, Una decided, heading past the line of wagons. She deserved a moment of peace after bustling about all morning attending to both of their duties.
A stable adjoined the far end of the bay. Hay crunched beneath her boots, and horses whickered as she passed. The air smelled of dust and horse sweat and manure, but it was a pleasant change from the commingled scents of dying flesh and disinfectant on the wards.
Una found an empty stall and slipped inside, skirting the piles of dung. After a furtive glance over the walls at the neighboring stalls, she reached into the sack and pulled out the man’s liquor bottle. A flea had hopped from the man’s filthy clothes onto her shirtsleeve. She flicked it away and used her sleeve to wipe the mouth of the bottle. The whiskey burned her throat as she swallowed.
Little over a month had passed since she’d drunk that stale, weak beer at the bar, counting down the minutes before meeting Traveling Mike, but it
seemed like half a lifetime ago. She drained the last few drops of whiskey, letting them settle on her tongue before swallowing.
She’d been too preoccupied escaping and evading the coppers to notice any of the ill effects of drying out. If there’d been any at all. Una had never been a boozer. Not like some of the cons she knew. Not after seeing what it had done to her father. But the whiskey, rotten as it was, tasted divine. Like her old life. She upturned the bottle one more time, shaking it in vain above her open mouth. Then she rummaged through the sack for the man’s tobacco, rolling the last of his leaves into a squat cigarette before realizing she didn’t have any matches. She upended the sack onto the ground and squatted over its spilled contents. He must have a matchbook stowed somewhere.
“Can I help ya?”
Una started, falling back onto her rear, just missing a pile of horseshit. A man with orangish-blond hair stood in the doorway of the stall. His black trousers matched those of the driver she’d seen earlier, but instead of a brass-buttoned jacket, he wore only a flannel undershirt and suspenders.
“I . . . er . . .” Una stuffed the scattered clothes and empty liquor bottle back into the sack. Where was the damned cigarette? She looked around the mess of hay but couldn’t find it. “I was just taking these things to the waste barrels and got a little lost.”
The man extended his hand and helped her up. “I’ll say. You one of them new probationers?”
Una nodded. She heard the faintest trace of a brogue in his vowels, like one who’d left Ireland very young or took great pains to hide his accent. “I best be on my way,” she said, brushing her hands on her apron. “If you’d be so kind as to direct me toward the dump.”
He didn’t move, his broad frame blocking the doorway of the stall, his pale blue eyes fixed on her like tar on a sail. Una fought back a shudder.
“Forgive me for staring, but ya look mighty familiar,” he said.
Una’s heart plummeted into her stomach. Did he know her from the slums? Had he somehow seen her photograph in the rogues’ gallery? He was a large man, with arms and shoulders muscled like a boxer’s. His hands were workman’s hands, strong and callused. But Una rarely forgot a face. One good look at a man, and she could recall the cut of his chin or crook of his nose years later. This man, she didn’t know. It unsettled her all the more that he seemed to know her.
She shimmied around him and started toward the ambulance bay.
“Wait, ya dropped something.” The man trotted after her, holding up the cigarette.
Una grabbed it and stuffed it inside the sack. “What instruments of the devil these patients bring in with them.” Her voice sounded more thin than pious, but the man nodded.
“I hear ya. Satan’s circus, this city is.”
Una nodded, too emphatically, and started again for the exit. The man kept pace beside her. “What’s your name, if ya don’t mind me asking?”
“Miss Kelly,” she said without looking at him. She didn’t want to give him any more chances to connect her face with whatever memory it was attached to.
“Kelly, eh?” He seemed to ponder the name a moment, and she wished she’d had the sense to lie. They were halfway through the ambulance bay when he stopped and slapped his thigh. “That’s it. That’s where I seen ya.”
Una stopped too. Her heart now beat somewhere near her toes. It was nearly two hundred yards from the ambulance bay to the half-built hospital gate. She could run, but she’d never make it to the street before he caught her. Instead, she slowly turned to face him.
“St. Stephen’s,” he said, grinning. “I’m sorry?”
“Kelly. You’re Irish, right? I saw you at mass last Sunday at St.
Stephen’s. Second to last pew if my memory serves me.”
Una exhaled. She had indeed been at St. Stephen’s last Sunday, the first time she attended mass in years. The other women at the nurses’ home who hadn’t been called to the wards had scattered to their Episcopal and Congregational and Reform Dutch churches. It would have seemed suspicious had Una not done the same. The incense had stung her eyes. The weak wine and stale wafer roiled her stomach. Or maybe it was the specter of her mother chanting Credo in unum Deum and Agnus Dei beside her.
“I’m Conor McCready,” the man said, holding out his hand until Una shook it. His skin was warm and not as rough as it had seemed. “Glad to see they’re letting our kind into the school now.”
Una managed only a thin smile. Miss Hatfield certainly wasn’t glad, and Una suspected she wasn’t the only one. “You . . . er . . . work here?”
“Ambulance driver,” he said with a proud smile. “Let me show you around.”
Una hesitated. She really ought to get back to the ward to help Miss Cuddy. But part of her was curious too. How many times had an ambulance’s gong sounded in the slums, or the shiny black wagon raced past her on the street, and Una wondered what was going on inside?
She glanced at the clock ticking high on the wall. Two hours before Nurse Hatfield made her rounds. “All right, just a quick peek, then.”
Mr. McCready—Conor, he insisted—walked her around the nearest ambulance, describing how it was made from the best and lightest-weight materials. The cabin sat high above the wheels so the patient was less apt to be jostled about on uneven roads. Gas lanterns and reflectors helped with night travel. He let her climb onto the cushioned driver’s bench and depress the foot pedal that sounded the warning gong. It echoed through the bay and stables, making the horses stomp and whinny.
She climbed down, and Conor brought her around to the back of the wagon. The cabin had a moveable floor, he told her, that could be drawn out to receive patients. He climbed inside and offered her a hand. Una waved him off.
“I better not,” she said, affecting a shy smile. “Superintendent Perkins wouldn’t approve.”
His pale cheeks colored slightly. “Oh, of course.”
Superintendent Perkins would not have approved of her climbing onto the driver’s seat and sounding the gong either. She wouldn’t approve of her being here at all, Una suspected. But a twinge of unease in her stomach— probably from the sour whiskey—made her glad to have a ready excuse not to climb in beside him.
She watched from the ground as he pointed to a bench for the surgeon and another for the patient, if he were well enough to sit. The cabin also stored a stretcher and a wooden box stocked with splint material, oakum, handcuffs, a stomach pump, a straitjacket, and a quart of brandy. Other supplies, he told her, like bandages and a tourniquet were kept in the surgeon’s bag. From the carefully arranged cabinet to the mud-free wheels to the polished side panels, it was clear Conor took great pride in the wagon and was meticulous in its upkeep.
He climbed down and latched the back gate, boasting no one knew the city’s layout better than him and the other drivers. “There isn’t a street or alley or turnabout we don’t know. And we’re quick too. Why, I can cover a mile in five minutes flat. Less if it ain’t the business district.”
Una apparently did not look duly impressed, for he quickly added, “The coaches and broughams I bet you’re used to traveling in don’t break a ten- minute mile, if that.”
Unless she counted the police wagon, Una hadn’t ridden in a carriage for years. Certainly nothing as fancy as a coach. But she wasn’t about to correct him. “Is that so? I confess, I never paid much mind to how fast I was traveling. But thank goodness you do, seeing as you drive with such noble purpose.”
His cheeks colored again.
“I better be getting back to the ward. Thank you for the tour.”
“My pleasure, Miss Kelly. I’ll see you Sunday at St. Stephen’s, then.
Maybe we might share a pew.”
Una staved off a grimace and nodded. She’d hoped to double back to the nurses’ home after everyone was gone to church and steal another hour of sleep. So much for playing hooky. Besides, it seemed wise to stay on friendly terms with Conor. Una had enough enemies.
