It was early evening when the real pains started. There was no one there, save for the soldiers in the ward next door. Keep walking. Pacing the room, holding on to a bed for support when the spasms hit hard.

A vice began to grip her pelvis, tighten, tug and wrench her apart, so she caught her breath. There’s nothing to fear. It loosened its grip. She would be fine. The pain began to roll again, hammer blows smelting so her limbs felt on fire, stretching and moulding her ligaments. Dora knelt on all fours on the floor in the smaller ward, shut her eyes, screamed, waited as the blows cooled and faded. What if she had complications? The baby was premature, weak, could be stuck in the birth canal. The pains were too close together. It was moving too fast. Who can deliver it, take the forceps, free her? The cramp again, a tank with steel treads trampling her bones, crushing her spine. Dora cried out. She wanted someone there, to hold a hand. It will be all right.

The baby was pressing down, a hard, heavy skull at the base of her spine. Not too fast. She tried to ride the next pain, to breathe light as a fairy, puffs to blow the spasms away, but it was an army inside her, routing her flesh. She wanted to push, to expel the hard mass within. She hoped she was dilated, knew to be cautious, but the next advance took her breath away. Why was no one here? Dora shut her eyes. She could not think. The pain was tearing her limb from limb, a lump as hard and big as a football bearing down and down. And down.

The slap across the face jerked her back into consciousness. She could smell Agnes, a dank blast of foetid breath grabbing her shoulders.

‘Tot, tot,’ Hoffmann was screaming. ‘Es ist tot.’ Dead. Dora could see her running out the door with the baby. Tot.

Agnes walked around Dora where she still lay on the floor.

‘List’s whore,’ she said. ‘He won’t be able to protect you now.’ She pulled a string out of her pocket. ‘You’ve no brat, no special status, not anymore.’ She flexed the string, pulled it taut. ‘Get up.’ She stuffed the cord back in her pocket, started to shout. ‘Get out. You’ve buggered their plans.’

She smirked, walked out of the door.

Dora lay back on the floor, felt the placenta tumble from her, thick and wet as liver.

Nurse Hoffmann went on leave the next day and did not return.