try.’
They both knew it was hopeless.
‘Is this the medical centre?’
The voice from down on the cricket ground was strong and insistent, different to the frantic cries for help they’d been hearing. Morag turned, momentarily distracted, knowing she’d reached the end of her resources.
But this was no islander calling for help. They’d been so caught up in the appalling drama that no one had noticed the approach of a small group of yellow-overalled outsiders.
Outsiders.
Help.
Morag looked down at the cluster of people below her. They looked unreal. Like aliens from space. Every islander was mud-coated, battered and torn, either from their own meeting with the wave or from hauling others from the rubble. But these newcomers were clean, purposeful, dressed to work and work hard.
Where had they come from?
‘The helicopter,’ someone whispered. ‘The fishing boats radioed the mainland for help. A helicopter landed ten minutes back.’
Morag hadn’t heard any helicopter, but she had been so focused on urgent need that she’d heard nothing.
She stared down at the group of six. From this distance she couldn’t tell what sex they were—who they were—but they were the first glimmer of the outside world. The first glimmer of sanity.
‘Is anyone a doctor?’ she called without much hope, but a tall, yellow-overalled figure separated from the bunch and strode up the stairs three at a time.
‘I’m a doctor and so is Jaqui,’ he called as he climbed. ‘Ron and Elsey are paramedics and Doug’s here to assess priorities so we can get the personnel we need from the mainland. Who’s in charge?’ His words were cutting through the confusion and the chaos, and his tone was measured to command.
‘I guess I am,’ Morag said unsteadily, glanced despairingly down at Sam. ‘If you’re a doctor…I need help. So much help…’
‘You have it.’ The man passed the group clustered round Sam’s wife at the head of the stairs—and she looked up from Sam and saw who it was at almost exactly the moment he registered who it was he was talking to.
Morag saw shock—absolute stunned amazement. His amazement matched hers, and then she couldn’t register any expression on his face at all.
Just for a moment her vision blurred. Just for a moment her knees sagged.
Then Grady was beside her. His arms were holding her against him, and just for a moment she let herself give way. The shock and horror and fear of the last three hours all culminated in this one moment of total weakness. This man was here where she’d never imagined. At such a moment.
Grady…
Enough. Of course it was Grady. Why should she be shocked? Grady was always dashing to Australia’s disaster areas. That was what he did.
This was a disaster. He was here.
‘Three deep breaths,’ Grady was saying into her hair. ‘Hell, Morag, I’d forgotten… But you’re not by yourself. We’re the forerunners, but there’s massive help on the way. Tell me what needs to be done most urgently.’
She heard him. She took the three deep breaths he’d advised while she permitted herself the luxury of sagging against his chest. Feeling his strength. Feeling for this one moment that indeed she wasn’t alone.
Then she regrouped. She hauled herself away. She looked up at him and searched his face and she saw the same implacable strength she’d seen in him four years before.
And his strength fed hers. The islanders were gazing at her with dismay. If she disintegrated they all could, their expressions said, and this one show of weakness had to be her last.
‘We’ve set this up as command centre,’ she managed. ‘There are teams combing the island, trying to account for every islander. Ten confirmed deaths so far. Multiple casualties. But we can’t cope. We’ve run out of every medical necessity. This is our last bag of saline. I’m out of morphine. Bandages. Everything.’ She swallowed and turned to Sam. ‘Priority here is Sam’s leg.’
Grady had already seen. He moved her aside and checked the IV line. Lifted Sam’s wrist.
Looked down at the mangled leg.
‘I’m operating now,’ Morag said, and he nodded, a half-smile twisting his craggy face.
‘Of course you are. All by yourself.’ Then he turned away to the yellow overalls following him up the stairs. ‘We need operating facilities now,’ he called. ‘Urgent. Elsey, get saline, plasma, everything we need for major surgery right now. Bring it all up here from the chopper. Morag, don’t worry about supplies. We came fully loaded for medical emergencies. Max, we need lighting. Jaqui, will you do the anaesthetic? I’ll operate and Morag here will assist. Rod, can you help with the child’s thigh, there? He looks like he needs an IV line and pain relief. Tell me what his blood pressure is. Morag, is there anything else that’s as urgent as Sam?’
In one broad sweep he’d assessed the chaos. Leaving her speechless. ‘No,’ she managed. ‘Not…not yet.’
He nodded. ‘The first Chinook will be landing in the next half-hour,’ he told her. ‘The army’s sending troops. We aim to have everyone accounted for by nightfall. Meanwhile, let’s cope with this and face the rest of the mess afterwards.’
It was a dreadful operation, done in the most primitive of conditions. Removing a man’s leg, even a leg as dreadfully injured as this, was nothing less than butchering. Morag had seen it done—had assisted before with patients with tumours or with complications from diabetes—and each time the operation had made her feel ill. How much more so now when her world was spinning out of control?
And yet…it was in control again—a little—because of this man. Grady was good. There was no one she’d rather have in this emergency than Grady. Once the emergency lights were set up, he went straight in.
They were using the door as an operating table. There was no screening from the rest of the people using the pavilion. Sterility of the environment was a joke. But it couldn’t be allowed to matter. Grady moved with care, blocking out all else.
He took the leg off just above the knee. He tied off damaged blood vessels, working carefully, quickly and skilfully.
Finally the bleeding eased, and by the time the remains of the fisherman’s leg could be removed and taken away for burial, everyone there knew that Sam had a fighting chance at life. And this had been no butchering job. The remains of the leg were viable. He’d have a stump which could be used as a basis for an artificial limb. The operation couldn’t have been done much better if it had been done in a major city hospital.
For the first time, Morag felt the wash of hopelessness recede. Sam had suffered massive blood loss, but if he was going to go into cardiac arrest, surely it would have happened sooner. Now they had saline and plasma flowing at maximum rate, and Jaqui was watching his breathing like a hawk.
Jaqui might look an unlikely doctor—a
