XI - Life Under Fall-Out Conditions
It is also a good idea to wear rubber gloves while you are outside.
In the first few days after the attack, Newcastle's three hospitals were overwhelmed. Whilst the worst casualties of the Heddon blast were unable to get across the Tyne, huge amounts of 'walking wounded' - suffering mostly from second-degree burns, broken bones and cuts from flying glass - made their way towards either the Royal Victoria Infirmary, the Freeman Hospital, or Newcastle General.
In these first couple of days, the staff at all three hospitals could do almost nothing to help these souls - there was no electrical power and stocks of all medicines were running out quickly. At the RVI, nearest to the city centre, a stampede occured amid rumours that doctors would only be equiped to treat the next fifty people. Eight were trampled to death. At the Freeman Hospital, mounted police were forced to charge a similar crowd after an attempted rush on the Accident and Emergency department. One rider was pulled off his horse and hacked to death by the wounded mob. It was only after the arrival of two extra SPGs and the decision to use live ammunition and tear gas that rescue services were able to retrieve the officer. His head was never found.
The Freeman Hospital was therefore put under twenty-four hour armed guard by a Territorial Army regiment. No new patients were to be admitted. Those already inside were herded (against the will of the medical staff) into the recently-built annex to the rear of the hospital. The Freeman is now a Category Three hospital.
War Planners had divided projected civilian casualties into three groups. Category 1 patients were the walking wounded - these were recoverable. Category 2 consisted of badly wounded patients for whom treatment was realistic (i.e the time and drugs were available). Category 3 patients were untreatable.
At the behest of the RAMC, the civil authorities were compelled to designate the Freeman as a Category 3 hospital within three days of the attack. Those that turned up at the other two hospitals would recieve a lightning quick assessment by a doctor or nurse - following this, a number would be drawn on their hand and they would be led to the relevant room.
Within a couple of days, when the significance of 'three' became known to the public, a more subtle and daily-changing system of shapes and colours was used to differentiate between the patients.
Those that found themselves in 'three' were bussed (or, more frequently, taken by Army lorry) to the Freeman. Here, they were moved into several 'wards' - with every bed occupied, one could cross the entire hospital atop human bodies without once setting foot on linoleum. The doors were locked and the windows were barred - not that patients in this state were fit to resist. Religious officials of all faiths were allowed in, under armed guard, to attempt to comfort the wounded, but no drugs are to be released. When one nineteen year old nurse was caught trying to smuggle in morphine (to, it is believed, a close relative), she was handed over to the Police and shot.
Plans for the armed forces to deliver 'special anaesthetic' to the Freeman patients are written off due to the sheer scale of the casualties - fears of an ammunition shortage stay the army's hand.
The suicide rate amongst staff at the Freeman levels out at a solid thirty percent. The blind wail and scream, weeping from sightless eyes. They trip over the lame and land upon the burnt. The stench is beyond description - there is no sanitation of any kind within the Emergency wards. Food is two slices of bread and a sip of water a day. Burnt flesh sticks to linoleum. Arrangements are made with the Fire Brigade to bring a high-pressure hose in twice a week for sanitation purposes. The drains get clogged.
They can hear the place for miles around.
The other two hospitals are overworked as well - nurses must contend with broken glass and surgeons must work by gaslight. 18 hour shifts are now mandatory. The only tool a doctor can guarantee will work is a hacksaw. By the third day, the RVI has run out of all medication except for birth-control pills and Calpol.
The daffodils are coming in very late this year.
*
The Controller had to see it. He had ordered it, for Christ sake. For the first time in years, he had raised his voice when the bunker's army officer had tried to stop him.
It used to be a five minute drive to the Freeman, but it took closer to three-quarters of an hour in the back of this Land Rover. Sitting next to his Health Officer, the man steels himself - he knows this will be bad.
He ignores the crisp salute he recieves at the gate, and looks for the nearest nurse. 'Are you absolutely sure, sir?'
The Nurse is as used to it as one can get; she holds a teatowel soaked in Dettol to her face. She offers the Controller one.
'No thank-you, my dear - I can't imagine the smell shall be all that -'
The doors are opened. The Controller snatches the teatowel.
The smell creates a heat all of its own - it is so bad that the Controller feels as if he is walking underwater. He makes his way across the sticky floor (a path around the floor was cleared upon news he was to visit). From each bed, arms reach out at him, begging begging begging. One man, his faced burnt beyond recognition, summons up every last iota of strength in his broken body to ask for death.
A shape stumbles through the door and trips. A balding woman with lidless eyes; the screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming is enough to make the Controller physically recoil. The Health Officer has not bitten his fingernails for years.
'Is-' teatowel away from mouth '...is it all like this?'. A nod. The Controller knows what must be done - he will return to the bunker and bloody order the Officer if he has to.
The place has given him a terrible headache - the fresh air hits him like a benediction. What's that sound?
Half a second of white-hot pain and the Controller hits the ashphalt.
