shocked. She’s in considerable pain, and her pulse is quite thready—of course I don’t know what her sats are or her BP. I’ve morphine in my bag so perhaps you’d dig it out. Any sign of outside help yet?’
‘I’ve rung for an air ambulance, seeing nothing else can get through here at the moment,’ said Denovan, rummaging through Kerry’s bag to find the morphine. ‘The reception was incredibly bad, but I think they’ve got the gist of it. It sounded like a ten-minute ETA.’
Sirie’s grip on Kerry’s hand was fierce. ‘Will they be long getting me out?’ she whispered, screwing her eyes up. ‘I don’t know how long I can stand this …’
‘It’s all right, Sirie, you’re going to feel more comfortable very soon. Dr O’Mara’s just going to inject you with something that’ll make you feel much easier.’ Sirie’s eyes fluttered open. ‘What about my girls?’ she whispered. ‘I’ve got to pick them up from their Brownie meeting.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll make sure that they’re looked after. One of the mothers will take them to her house,’ Kerry assured her. Thank heavens for a small, close-knit community, she thought. They did look out for each other here.
Denovan tested the syringe he was holding, then smiled down at Sirie. ‘Hang in there. Ten mils of this magic stuff will help you to relax. In fact, you’ll feel on top of the world, as if you’ve had two double whiskies …’
Sirie’s face flickered into a frail, brave smile. ‘I’m teetotal, Doctor,’ she whispered. ‘I never touch the stuff!’
‘Well, now you’re about to find out what you’re missing,’ he joked. He turned to Kerry, his voice low enough so that Sirie couldn’t hear him but audible to Kerry above the noise of the voices of the men and the howling wind. ‘We’re nearly there now. Keep your fingers crossed.’
Kerry bit her lip, watching the last stones being inched away from Sirie’s legs, praying that the muscles in the legs wouldn’t be badly crushed. Whatever damage Sirie had suffered, it was imperative that she was hospitalised as soon as possible.
She watched the men grunting and groaning as they tried to lever the stones up without slipping in the thick mud around the site. Denovan and two other men had placed the stretcher on the ground as near to the bridge as possible and were waiting to pull the victim out as soon as they dared. It was a tense few minutes and Kerry kept up a low flow of conversation with Sirie, distracting her from the shouting and noise of falling rubble that was going on around her.
At last, with infinite care, Sirie was lifted away from the broken bridge and placed as gently as possibly on the stretcher. Kerry and Denovan bent over her to examine the damage that had been done to her legs. One lay awkwardly, bent at a strange angle with multiple contusions and a large gash down the shin bone.
‘We might have guessed Sirie wouldn’t get away without any injury,’ said Denovan, straightening up. ‘That left leg’s almost certainly broken, from the way it’s positioned. It’s taken the brunt of the fallen wall, but I don’t see a protruding bone, so hopefully it’s not a compound fracture.’
Kerry squeezed Sirie’s hand comfortingly, and Sirie’s large, scared eyes looked from one doctor to the other. ‘Am I going to have to have an operation?’ she asked in a quavery voice.
‘Until you’ve had X-rays we won’t know for sure. First thing we need to get you to hospital.’ Denovan squatted down next to the frightened woman and smiled kindly at her. ‘You’ve been absolutely great—really brave. Just hang on a little longer.’
Kerry was amazed at how sensitive Denovan could be, what a contrast to the impatient doctor of an hour or two ago. He seemed to have another, softer side to him that he’d hidden well when she’d first met him—perhaps he was just very good at acting!
He was looking at the raging river a few feet away from them. ‘Perhaps we’ll move Sirie nearer the car first and then strap her leg.’
Kerry followed his glance and swallowed hard. Was it her imagination, or did the water seem higher than it had been? It looked as if the river would burst its banks any second and completely cover the road.
‘OK, Doc, but let’s do it before the whole damn things goes,’ urged one of the men. ‘Hopefully the helicopter will be here soon. It’ll land on the field at the top of the village.’ They slid the stretcher into the back of the estate car, although it wouldn’t go in completely, and Kerry bound the affected leg above the site of the fracture to the splint—just securing it enough to stop it from being bounced around. Four men, including Denovan, supported the stretcher as Kerry drove very slowly back through the village to The Larches. As she left the scene, she heard a sudden commotion behind her—a roar of water, the cracking of trees.
‘What’s happening back there?’ she shouted, keeping her eyes glued ahead of her.
‘The river’s burst its banks—we got Sirie out just in time,’ yelled one of the men.
Oh, the relief when the little entourage eventually reached the medical centre—three stalwart figures in familiar orange and green emergency suits were racing down the road to meet them.
‘We’ve managed to land in the field at the top of the road,’ panted one of the paramedics. ‘You did well to get this lady out when you did. I believe the river’s completely out of control now. We’ll just do an assessment of the victim before we move her any farther—get a take on her oxygen levels, BP, etc.’
Kerry leant against the car and watched Sirie being monitored by the medics. If the men in the village hadn’t managed to free her so quickly, there might have been a tragic end to the story, she thought with a shudder. She glanced across at Denovan, who was talking to one of the paramedics and watching as they assessed Sirie’s condition.
‘Can you get word through to the other emergency services that the village needs help?’ he asked one of the paramedics. ‘My mobile’s not getting through to anyone at the moment and someone’s just told me some power lines are down.’
Sirie was eventually taken away, wrapped in a foil heat blanket to keep her body temperature up, and soon the clatter of the helicopter’s rotor blades were heard as it rose in the air and headed off across the valley. Kerry brushed a weary hand of relief over her eyes—what a way to finish the last twenty-four hours! Adrenaline had been pumping through her for the last hour, but suddenly the drama was over and she felt drained of all her energy.
‘Tired?’ asked Denovan, his eyes looking critically at her exhausted-looking face.
‘A little,’ she admitted, then added with sudden can-dour, ‘Actually, I feel I could go to sleep on a clothesline for three days after all that’s happened. I’m going to leave the car here, I think, as I thought I heard something important give a horrible crack as we set off with Sirie, but I’ll look at it in the morning.’
‘You need a hot drink,’ he ordered, mock-severely. ‘And perhaps something a little stronger, if you’ve got anything in. Come on, I’ll walk you to your house before I pick up Archie.’
‘You’ve no need to,’ protested Kerry firmly. ‘It’s late. You go and get Archie now.’ She wasn’t about to get too chummy with an unpredictable man like Denovan just because he’d helped out so much that evening. She was still smarting at the conversation she’d had with him earlier.
‘Your
