the rubble-strewn floor with her torch beam, searching for Malu. The combined beam of torch and phone only reached about three feet before the dust killed it.
He must have pulled himself back.
‘Malu?’
‘H-here.’
A pile of stone lay between them. She was over it in seconds. It hurt, she thought vaguely. She was eight months pregnant. Climbing over loose rock, knocking rock in the process, was maybe not the wisest …
She didn’t have time for wise.
He was right by the pile. He was very lucky the rocks hadn’t fallen on him.
Define luck, she thought grimly, but at least he was still alive. And still conscious.
Dust and blood. A lot of it.
He had a deep gash on his thigh where his pants were ripped away. The guys had tried to tie a tourniquet but it had slipped. Blood was oozing …
But not pumping, she thought with relief. If it’d been pumping he’d be dead by now.
She was wearing a light jacket. She hauled it off, bundled it into a tight pad, placed it against the wound and pushed.
Malu screamed.
‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she told him, but there was no time to do anything about the pain. She had to keep pushing. ‘Malu, I have drugs but I need to stop the bleeding before I do anything else. I need to press hard.’
‘S-sorry. Just the shock …’
‘I should have warned you.’
Go back to basics, she reminded herself, desperately fighting the need to cough, and the need to breathe through the grit. Desperately trying to sound in control. Don’t start a procedure before explaining it to the patient, she reminded herself, even if she was trapped in a place that scared her witless.
Malu had relapsed into silence. She knew Malu. He was a large, tough islander from the outermost island of the M’Langi group.
He had a wife and two small children.
She pushed harder.
She had morphine in her bag. If she had another pair of hands …
She didn’t.
His pants were ripped. Yes! Still pressing with one hand, she used the other and tugged the jagged cloth. The cloth ripped almost to the ankle.
Now she was fumbling one-handed in her bag for scissors. Thank heaven she was neat. There was so much dust … Despite the torchlight she could hardly see, but the scissors were right where she always stored them.
One snip and she had the tough fabric cut at the cuff, and that gave her a length of fabric to wind. The miners had tried to use a belt as their tourniquet but it was too stiff. The torn trouser leg was a thousand times better.
She twisted and wound, tying the pad—her ex-jacket—into place. She twisted and twisted until Malu cried out again.
‘Malu, the worst’s over,’ she told him as she somehow managed to knot it. ‘The bleeding’s stopped and my hands are now free. I’ll make us masks to make breathing easier. Then I’ll organise something to dull the pain.’
And get some fluids into you, she added to herself, saying silent prayers of thanks that she had her bag with her, that she’d had it beside her when the collapse had happened, that she’d picked it up almost automatically and that she hadn’t dropped it. She had saline. She could set up a drip. But in this dust, to try and keep things sterile …
Concentrate on keeping Malu alive first, she told herself. After so much blood loss she had to replace fluids. She’d worry about bugs later.
Malu was barely responding. His pulse … His pulse …
Get the fluids in. Move!
Five minutes later Malu had morphine on board and she had a makeshift drip feeding fluids into his arm. She’d ripped her shirt and created makeshift masks to keep the worst of the dust from their lungs. She sat back and held the saline bag up, and for the first time she thought she might have time to breathe herself.
She still felt like she was choking. Her eyes were filled with grit.
They were both alive.
‘Doc?’ Malu’s voice was a whisper but she was onto it.
‘Mmm?’
‘Macca and Reuben … They were carrying me.’
‘I know.’
‘Reuben’s my uncle. You reckon they’ve made it?’
‘I don’t know.’ There was no point lying; Malu would know the risks better than she did. She grasped his hand and held. There was nothing else she could do or say.
The thought of trying to find them, trying to struggle out through the mass of rubble … Even if she could leave Malu, the thing was impossible. The rubble around them was unyielding.
Malu’s hand gripped hers, hard. ‘Don’t even think about trying to dig out,’ he muttered, and she thought that even though his words were meant as protection to her, there was more than a hint of fear for himself. To be left alone in the dark … ‘It’s up to them outside to do the rescuing now. Meanwhile, turn off the lights.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The lights. We don’t need ‘em. Conserve …’
‘Good thinking,’ she said warmly, and flicked off her torch. Then she flicked off the torch app on her phone. But as the beam died, a message appeared on the screen. When had that come in?
She wouldn’t have heard.
The message was simple.
Maddie? Tell me you’re not down the mine. On way with Cairns Air Sea Rescue. Josh.
Josh.
Josh was coming.
Her phone was working. Help was on its way.
It was amazing that the signal had reached down here, but this was a shallow tunnel, with ventilation shafts rising at regular intervals. The simple knowledge that she had phone reception made her feel better. And Josh was coming … All of a sudden she felt a thousand per cent lighter. She told Malu and felt the faint relaxation of the grip on her hand. Cairns Air Sea Rescue would be the forerunners, she knew. The cavalry was heading this way.
She gripped her phone hard, as if it alone was a link to the outside world. Help. Heavy machinery. Skill, technology, care. All the things needed to get them out of here.
Josh was coming.
It shouldn’t make one scrap of difference that Josh would be one of the rescue crew. Their marriage had been over for years. They talked occasionally as casual acquaintances. Friends?
