About this story
Nurse Justine Brent tells you plainly that Dillon will lose the arm, and that management already knows it. When the mill's young, uncertain owner, Bessy Westmore, arrives to tour her property, you lead her off the approved route and into the carding room, where missing ledger pages confirm what Truscomb has been hiding. By evening, his answer to your evidence is your dismissal.
How it opens
Hope Hospital smelled of carbolic, wet wool, and steam heat fighting October damp.
Dillon lay beneath a white screen, his bandaged arm shaped like machinery's unfinished argument.
DillonMr Amherst, they say the hand will work again if I keep myself quiet.
Excitement raises his fever; questions should wait beyond the ward.
Choose
Your family will receive wages this week, whatever the office decides.
I am examining how the accident happened, not blaming you for it.
Rest now; I will return when the doctor gives an honest prognosis.