Pay the Devil - Jack Higgins [44]
Clay moved back to the table with the empty cup, face grave. “Who’s been attending to her previously?”
Joanna nodded toward the woman by the fire. “Old Mrs. Byrne there is the village midwife. She’s tried everything, but the child refuses to come.”
“I’m not surprised,” Clay said. “It isn’t in the correct position for a natural delivery.”
“Why not?” she said.
He shrugged. “Many reasons. She’s probably been working too hard for one thing, but it’s immaterial now.” He started to take off his coat. “You’ll have to help me. Strip her quickly and get her onto the cleanest sheet you can find. We’ve no time for modesty.”
“Are you going to operate?” Joanna said. “What do they call it—a cesarean?”
He laughed grimly. “Not a chance—especially under these conditions. The mother always dies and the child usually does. It’s only a form of homicidal witchcraft.”
He rolled up his sleeves and poured whiskey over his hands. He dried them on a clean cloth as he watched Joanna and the old crone make the woman ready.
By now she was completely under the influence of the opiate, and after they had stripped her naked, she lay in the dim light of the oil lamp, breathing heavily. They drew up her knees and he made a further examination.
“What do you think?” Joanna said.
“It isn’t going to be quite as difficult as I first thought.”
He took a pair of forceps from his instrument bag and went and knelt on the end of the bed. It took him several patient minutes to secure the head of the child, but finally he gave a grunt of satisfaction and locked the two handles together.
At that moment, the door of the cottage burst open and someone entered the room. Clay glanced quickly over his shoulder. Peter Burke stood there with two of his Scotsmen and they were carrying shotguns.
Clay turned back to his task and said evenly, “Tell them to get out, Joanna.”
Joanna straightened up, her face white and angry, and Burke said, “No use, Miss Hamilton. We’ve got strict instructions from your uncle. The Cooneys must go. They’ve had their chance.”
“You wouldn’t treat a dog like this,” she exploded. “Do you expect the child to be delivered in the middle of the street or in Cohan’s bar parlor, perhaps?”
He shrugged. “The colonel can have time to deliver the child, but after that Mrs. Cooney must go. Someone will take her in, no doubt.”
Clay wiped sweat from his brow with one hand and said to Joanna, “Pass my bag, will you?”
She placed it on the end of the bed, and he smiled. “I think you’ll find a pistol in the bottom somewhere.”
Her hand emerged from the bag clutching the heavy Dragoon Colt, and the lamplight glinted on its brass frame. “All you do is thumb back the hammer and pull the trigger,” Clay said. “I’ll be happy to extract the bullet from Mr. Burke after I’ve finished here.”
Joanna moved past him, the Colt held in both hands, its barrel trained on the exact center of Burke’s waistcoat. “I’ll give you five seconds to get out of here,” she said coldly.
“I should do as she says if I were you, Burke,” Clay added. “That gun has a hair trigger.”
The two Scotsmen gave ground at once, but for a moment Burke hesitated, glaring at Joanna. She thumbed back the hammer, and as the deliberate metallic click echoed through the stillness, he turned with an oath and the door banged behind him.
Joanna moved quickly and bolted it and then she went back to the bed and replaced the Colt in the bag. “Hold her knees,” Clay said. “In spite of the opiate, she may feel some pain. Whatever happens, keep her still.”
He took a deep breath, made sure the handles of the forceps were securely locked, and pulled down. The child began to move. He straightened the forceps and then started to pull steadily upwards, and miraculously, the child was there on the sheet at the end of the bed.
Clay dropped the forceps and examined it carefully. Except for