Read Online The White Plague by Frank Herbert - Free Book Online Page B

then?”
    “Some soldiers are being asked to volunteer, but they’ll not be along until the afternoon.”
    “I didn’t volunteer, sir.”
    “But you swore an oath to do your duty and that’s what I’m asking of you now!”
    As he pressed his way out of Mulvaney’s, ignoring the questions still being shouted at him, Flynn recalled that telephone conversation. There had been more orders and things he must do now.
    The rain had turned to a light mist as he emerged from the bar. He got into his car, not looking at the angry faces peering at him from Mulvaney’s. Starting the motor, he turned around and drove slowly down to the concrete apron overlooking Achill Sound and the fishboats anchored there. He could see a fast patrol boat spreading a wide bow wave as it sped down from the Bulls Mouth. It appeared to be no more than five minutes away, for which he was thankful. He parked on the concrete and took his shotgun from its rack, feeling strange with the weapon in his hands. The superintendent had been firm with his instructions.
    “I want you on armed watch, Denis, until they pick up those small boats. I want it understood that you’ll use your weapon if necessary.”
    Flynn stared bleakly across the water at the approaching patrol boat. Seabirds were wheeling and calling over the strand. He inhaled the familiar salt odors, the smell of the seaweeds and the pungency of fish. How many times had he looked on this scene and never thought it strange? Flynn wondered. Now, though… the differences sent a shuddering through his thin body. The thing he had wanted to say back at Mulvaney’s, the thing that had filled his throat with sourness, stood uppermost in his mind.
    But his superintendent had been adamant on the need for secrecy. “A great many women are sure to die, perhaps all on the island. We count on you to keep the peace until help arrives. There must be no panic, no mobs. You must be firm in keeping order.”
    “I should’ve told them,” Flynn muttered to himself. “They should be bringing in the priests. It’s sure nothing else will help them now.”
    He stared out at the moored fishboats, feeling a deep loneliness and a sense of inadequacy.
    “Lord help us now in the hour of our need,” he whispered.
     

 
Not since the Black Death struck Ireland in the winter of 1348 has there been such a terrible time with disease.
– Fintan Craig Doheny
     
     
    O N THE day before the Achill Island quarantine, Stephen Browder and Kate O’Gara drove off together to Lough Derg, planning to lunch near Killaloe and then drive on to a cottage on the lake near Cloonoon. It was to be a stolen three days together before examinations and a hectic summer schedule for Stephen, who now planned to specialize in high-pressure medicine.
    The cottage, a remodeled farmhouse, belonged to Adrian Peard, who had graduated six years ahead of Stephen and already was recognized as an important researcher in pressure medicine and the ailments of divers. Peard, scion of a wealthy old County Cork family, had established a vacation and weekend base at the cottage on the lake, installing a large steel pressure-decompression tank in the barn behind the cottage. Stephen had been several times to the cottage, earning money as a guinea pig in Peard’s experiments.
    Since their first sexual experience beside the Mallow Road, Kate had rationed them to one or two repeats a month and then only at her least fertile times. She had resisted this outing at first because it coincided with her highest fertility period, but Stephen had promised to “be careful.” Kate, not certain what that meant, had warned:
    “We’ll not be having any bastards in our family, Stephen Browder!”
    They had arranged the outing with care. Kate ostensibly was with her friend, Maggie, on a holiday in Dublin. Stephen supposedly was boating with friends near Kinsale.
    Peard, who had guessed the nature of Stephen’s involvement with Kate, had volunteered the use of his