Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

Then he left the way he had come, discarding his coat by the fence. It was stained with the contents of the syringe.

‘Is that the parcel?’ Thwaites enquired, as Wolff climbed into the motor car beside him.

‘This? This is Delmar’s box,’ he remarked grimly. ‘Fetch Masek — we need to leave — at once.’

On the journey to the hotel he told them what he’d seen and done.

The little he knew of anthrax he’d learnt as a boy growing up on a farm; a contagion in horses, cattle, sheep — a killer.

‘Evil,’ Thwaites declared, and he repeated it many times, and that only the Germans would behave so dishonourably. ‘Are you afraid you might be infected?’ he bellowed over the roar of the road.

Wolff said he was too tired and hungry to be afraid.

‘And the poisoner,’ he shouted, ‘did you kill him?’

‘Knocked him out.’

‘Pity.’ He glanced across at Wolff. ‘You should have, you know — killed him, I mean. He saw you.’

‘For God’s sake, man,’ Wolff exclaimed, thumping the door of the car. ‘What do you take me for?’

At the hotel they wrapped the box in brown paper as before and wrote on it: Handle with Care . Their courier caught the last train to New York. ‘I’ll telephone Wiseman — warn him it’s on the way,’ said Thwaites. ‘Have a bath, old boy, you smell of horse shit and you should,’ he hesitated, ‘well, you know — you have to be careful.’

Later, they sat in his room and drank too much whisky — antiseptic , Thwaites called it. After a time he observed with the tearful sentiment of the tipsy that no one could doubt they were fighting a war for civilisation. ‘You — you — you’ve had your doubts, I know,’ he slurred, ‘but you can see now, can’t you — you can see what we’re up against.’ Wolff sipped his drink and wondered why poisoning animals made it a war for civilisation when so much that was an abomination had been done already. He was confused and a little drunk, exhausted too — he ached all over. Was the poison working through his system?

Thwaites prodded his knee. ‘I know what you’re thinking — you — you’re thinking “animals — just animals” — but what if they’re using it on us, eh?’

‘Then why poison horses?’

‘Who knows how far this Delmar will go. I don’t understand why, why… a doctor would do such a thing.’

Wolff gazed at him for a few seconds. ‘Men like us have to, well, prove we belong somewhere.’

Thwaites looked at him quizzically. ‘Don’t… don’t… follow…’

‘A bad joke, that’s all.’

‘You know there have to be laws, Wolff,’ he muttered, then louder, ‘There… there have to be limits — without them there’s no civilisation.’

THERE WERE TELEPHONE calls, telegrams, and on the second day Thwaites caught the train to Washington, but he was back in the hotel at dusk. ‘We’re to sit tight while they put the pieces together.’ Time had meant little to Wolff in a Turkish cell with only dreams and memories to measure the dark hours between interrogations. A wristwatch and a square of leaden sky made for harder time, the hours trickling like grains of sand through a glass. Too bored and restless to read, he sat on his bed wrapped in a blanket, fighting the future, his past, civilised society and his feelings for Laura. After a few drinks he recalled her large blue-green eyes gazing up at him with a smile; a few more and he wanted to kick down the door.

‘Are you sick?’ Thwaites enquired warily.

‘Aren’t you? Delmar may be halfway across the Atlantic.’

‘Ah. I see.’ Thwaites couldn’t disguise his relief. ‘Don’t worry — Masek’s people say there’s nothing unusual. Hinsch is still aboard his ship, Hilken in his Hansa Haus. The man at the remount depot may have kept his mouth shut.’

Wolff didn’t think so.

‘This anthrax — it’s very nasty,’ said Thwaites uncomfortably. ‘You know, Sir William thinks you should see someone.’

‘Oh?’ He muttered impatiently. ‘It isn’t necessary, I feel fine.’ It was a lie; he felt terrible — hungover and out of sorts.

‘Don’t be an ass,’ Thwaites chided. ‘It’s for your own good — and mine.’

The Johns Hopkins Hospital was a five-minute cab ride, its tissue culture laboratory on the third floor of a red-brick neo-Gothic block that resembled the station hotels of the last century.

‘I’ve told Sir William I want to keep you a while,’ Dr Reid said, breezing into his office in a spotless white coat; ‘a few tests, a skin and a blood culture.’ He bent over his desk, distracted for a moment by some paperwork. He was a tall man with boyish features and a shock of ginger hair he must have spent most of fifty years trying to tame. ‘Blood,’ he muttered in his Scots American brogue; ‘blood,’ and lifting his gaze to Wolff at last, ‘How are you feeling? Any shortness of breath, sneezing, light-headedness? Fever? Any itching or blisters?’

No aches and pains that couldn’t be placed at the door of a longshoreman with fists the size of dinner plates, Wolff assured him.

‘We’ll see. Put this on, would you,’ and he handed Wolff a surgical mask. ‘Just a precaution, and please — don’t touch anything.’

As old as man, he explained as he guided Wolff along the corridor to the tissue laboratory. Bacillus anthracis : one of the biblical plagues. Grazing animals ingested or inhaled its spores from the soil and once they were infected they could spread the contagion to man. ‘Through the skin or sometimes by breathing in the spores — tanners and wool workers have picked it up from animal hides. Here we are… no, no, let me get the door,’ he said, placing a firm hand on Wolff’s arm. ‘Don’t touch anything, remember.’

His laboratory was larger and better equipped than most, perhaps; brighter than some, with arched windows facing south, and emptier than many at midday, with just a single research student bubbling a flask at a bench.

‘This won’t take long,’ Reid declared, summoning his assistant with a wave. ‘Cutaneous infection from a diseased animal is the most common cause — the tiniest unseen abrasion on your skin is enough, or by touching eyes, nose or mouth.’ He was busying himself with a microscope and some slides. ‘Here, this is a gram stain — it’s the rod-shaped bacilli between the cells.’ Wolff bent over the eyepiece. The bacilli looked unnervingly like tiny jointed worms and he said so. ‘If you’ve spoken to Sir William, you’ll know…’

Reid had closed his eyes and was shaking his head irritably. ‘I live here now and whatever dirty little war is being fought behind the backs of the authorities…’ He sighed heavily. ‘Yes, it can be used as a weapon. It spreads quickly — horses brushing against each other. If you’re asking me about people…’ he paused, his gaze fixed on the microscope slide. ‘It’s a zoonosis. Human-to-human transmission is rare. The reservoir for the infection is the animal.’

For a few strained seconds they stood in silence while the laboratory assistant laid syringes and dishes on a surgical trolley. Reid reached for some rubber gloves. ‘You can thank the Germans for this test,’ he said with a sardonic smile.

He took some mucus from Wolff’s nose, some blood from his arm; he examined his mouth for ulcers and his skin for blistering, tapped his chest and prodded for signs of soreness. ‘I’m fine,’ Wolff repeated, hoping to God it was true.

‘Yes, you’re probably free from infection,’ Reid conceded a little reluctantly. ‘Too early to be sure. Did you bring some things?’

But Wolff refused to stay. ‘I’ll let you know if I find any blisters.’