William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

with himself as he was with others, still real.
    “Of course,” he said at last, finishing his coffee also. “I shall look into that as well.”

  4  
    E
VERY HOUR OR TWO
brought more cases of fever to the makeshift hospital in Limehouse. The only blessing was that it also brought more volunteers to help with what little practical nursing could be done, and willing hands to help with the endless tasks of emptying, cleaning, laundering what sheets and blankets they had, and changing the soiled straw and fetching in new. Local men came and carried away the bodies of the dead.
    “Where do they take them?” Enid Ravensbrook asked as they sat together in the small room where Monk had spoken with Callandra and Hester. It was late afternoon, dark and cold. Three people had died the previous night. Kristian had been there since the previous evening, and he had taken a short break to go home, wash and change his clothes and get a few hours of sleep before going back to his own hospital. There was little enough he could do at the best of times. There was no known medicine against typhoid, only constant nursing to ease the distress, keep the temperature down and some fluid in the body, and the will of the victim to live.
    Callandra looked up with surprise. “I don’t know,” she said. “I admit I hadn’t thought about it. I suppose to—” she stopped. “No, that’s ridiculous. No undertaker’s going to handle fever victims. Anyway, there are too many of them.”
    “They’ve got to be buried,” Enid pointed out, sitting inthe rickety chair where Monk had sat. Callandra was on the other, Hester on the floor. “If not undertakers, then who? You can’t expect gravediggers to lay out bodies properly and observe the decencies. All they know is to bury coffins. Coffin makers will be the only people profiting out of this.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “At least it has got warmer. Or is it just that we have more fuel in the stove?”
    “I’m frozen.” Callandra shivered and hugged her arms around herself. “Hester, have you put more on the fires?”
    “No.” Hester shook her head. “I daren’t, or we’ll run out. We’ve only got enough for two more days anyway. I meant to speak to Bert about that, and I forgot.”
    “I’ll ask him next time I see him.” Callandra dismissed it.
    “I don’t know where he’s gone.” Enid was staring at her. She looked very pale except for spots of color in her cheeks. She must be exhausted. She had not been home for two days, just sleeping on the floor in this room when she had the chance. “He went out over two hours ago,” she added. “I asked him about going to the undertaker, but I don’t think he heard me.”
    Hester glanced at Callandra.
    “There must be so many funerals,” Enid went on, speaking more to herself than to either of them. Her face was very pale and there was a gleam of sweat across her brow and upper lip. She looked up. “What graveyard are they putting them in, do you know?” She turned, first to Callandra, then to Hester.
    “I don’t know,” Callandra said quietly.
    “I should find out.” Enid sighed and pushed her hand across her brow, brushing away her falling hair.
    “It doesn’t matter!” Callandra said, looking past her to Hester.
    “Yes it does,” Enid insisted. “People may ask, relations may.”
    “They are not burying them separately anymore.” Hester gave the answer Callandra had been avoiding.
    “What?” Enid swiveled around. She looked bleached of all color but for a feverish stain on her cheeks, and her eyes were hollow, as though bruised.
    “They are in common graves,” Hester explained quietly. “Don’t grieve over it.” She reached over and touched Enid’s arm very lightly. On the table the candle flickered, almost went out, then burned up again. “The dead won’t mind.”
    “What about the living?” Enid protested. “What about when all this is over and they need to grieve, need a place to remember those they lost?”
    “There isn’t one,” Hester answered. “It happens in war. All you can say to the family of a soldier is that he died bravely, and if it was in hospital, that there was someone there to care for him. There isn’t anything more.”
    “Yes, there is,” Callandra said quickly. “You can tell them he died fighting for a cause, serving his country. Here all you can say is they died because the damnable council would not build sewers, and they were too