They slipped through the narrow service pantry behind the medicine room. Their boots stepped over heaps of empty carbolic carboys and dried moss bandages that had frozen into brittle gray nests on the floor. Bram carried Heth tight against his chest, his head ducked low to clear the whitewashed cedar rafters, his breathing loud and harsh in the freezing draft.
The sub-basement washhouse was dark, lit up only by the thin gray pencil of fog dropping through the open laundry chute. Old Martha stood where they had left her, huddled behind the dead copper vats, her shawl pulled up over her ears, her red, swollen fingers clutching her flatiron like an iron club.
In the corner beside the empty peat bin stood the laundry handcart.
It was a heavy-duty work cart built forty years ago for hauling wet woolen hospital blankets. A heavy timber frame of seasoned northern ash, two high wicker sides woven from thick peeled willow osiers, and two large iron-rimmed wooden wheels mounted on a cold-rolled steel axle. The axle had been greased with sheep fat that had congealed in the frost. But the wheels turned true when Len gave the frame a test shove with his uninjured right hand.
