Storm Haven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE weeks that followed were desolate. Without Luke the house fell silent. Amy became once again a solemn child, and even Beattie forgot to sing as she did the housework.

Beattie watched her young employer with concern, her shrewd eyes taking in the tell-tale shadows on Nikki’s face. If she heard Nikki wandering the house late at night, or saw her lonely figure standing out by the swimming-pool staring at nothing for hours on end, she said nothing.

Somehow Nikki managed to work. Her results came through for her examinations-’a magnificent result’, the letter said. ‘Congratulations!’ She felt nothing. Nikki laid the letter aside and Beattie found it underneath a pile of advertising literature the following morning. Once more Beattie’s forehead wrinkled into a frown of concern but still she said nothing.

It was fortunate for Nikki’s sanity that there was plenty of work. She drove herself mercilessly, shoving aside the lethargy of early pregnancy. There was no time to think of the child she was carrying. She didn’t want to know.

And yet, in a way, she was intensely aware of the new life starting within her. It was a little of Luke left to her. The baby would bring Luke happiness when he heard, she knew. Once he knew he was not sterile he could find someone else-one of the women who had loved him when he was back in Cairns, or someone else-someone who’d be prepared to accept him on the terms he offered. A woman who wanted to be the mother of his children first…

The mother of Luke’s children…Nikki touched her still flat stomach self-consciously as she acknowledged herself as such. That was what she was whether she wanted it or not. The mother of Luke’s child. So why not accept the joy as well?

Because she wanted more. For once in her life, Nikki wanted to be loved for herself-wanted for herself-and if Luke didn’t want her on those terms, then she couldn’t let him near.

She began to plan the mechanics of the next few months as she went about her work. At about five months she would write to him care of the medical board, she thought-or care of the newspaper he wrote for. She would have to write before there was a possibility of his hearing via the medical grape-vine. It would be a formal little note, passing on the news of her condition and also letting him know it could make no difference to their relationship. Even if he came storming up here in another three months, then she must be strong enough to cope with that. She must be strong enough to tell him there was no place in her life for him.

‘Is there anything wrong, Doc?’

Nikki looked up swiftly from what she was doing. She was re-checking Jim Payne’s healing thumb. He had been released from hospital the week before, with no complications anticipated. It was healing beautifully, thanks to Luke’s expert care, and Nikki forced a smile.

‘Nothing’s wrong, Jim,’ she reassured him. ‘This is looking really good. You might have some residual stiffness, but I’ll give you some exercises to do once you get rid of the plaster and it’ll slowly get back to almost a hundred per cent.’

‘I meant-’ the young man frowned down at her ‘-I meant with you. You’re not…well, you’re not as cheerful as you used to be.’

‘I’m not a really cheerful person,’ Nikki told him, somewhat taken aback at his forthrightness.

‘You were when Doc Marriott was here.’

Nikki shook her head. The town would be talking about her and Luke, she knew. How much would the talk grow as her figure filled out?

‘It was good to have him here,’ she said simply. ‘He was a very skilled surgeon.’

‘Don’t I know it.’ Jim looked ruefully at his thumb. ‘I guess I’ll be grateful to him for the rest of my life.’

‘You haven’t heard from your mother?’ Nikki asked, trying to turn the subject.

‘Yeah.’

Nikki frowned. She picked up the scraps of the bandage she had been fixing and tossed them into the rubbish bin. ‘So what gives?’

The boy was silent for a moment, staring at his bandaged hand. ‘I dunno,’ he said at last.

‘You don’t know.’

Jim shook his head. He looked up. ‘Did you know I’m boarding at Sandra Mears’s? That’s…that’s why I was saying you were more cheerful when Doc Marriott was here. Sandra said you were. She reckoned…she reckoned you had something going between you.’

Nikki shook her head. ‘Sandra’s on the wrong track,’ she said tightly. Then she looked up. ‘How are you finding it at Sandra’s?’

‘It’s great. She’s a real good sort. And I like the kids.’

‘Mmm.’ Was this going to work? Nikki turned it over in her mind, replaying the conversation she’d had with Sandra the week before.

‘We advertised and Jim replied,’ she’d said happily. ‘And I’ve always felt sorry for Jimmy. I reckon he’s had almost as bad a deal as me.’

‘Do you think you can cope with the extra work?’ Nikki had frowned and Sandra had laughed.

‘I like housework,’ she’d grinned. ‘Call me daft if you like, but now I’ve a decent house to look after it’ll be no trouble. The kids like Jimmy and his board money will be handy-well, I’m going to start thinking we’re rich.’

So Nikki had smiled and agreed, knowing Jim was reluctant to go home to a father who didn’t seem to give a damn about his only son. But if Jim’s mother were to come…

‘She telephoned me in the hospital,’ Jim said slowly. ‘And…and she asked me to go to Brisbane to stay with her.’

‘Oh, Jim, that’s terrific.’

He shook his head. ‘Maybe not.’ He looked up. ‘She’s remarried. Her new husband’s a widower with three kids. I dunno…’

‘You don’t know where you fit?’

He shook his head. ‘I know Dad seems a selfish bastard,’ he said directly. ‘But Mum…well, she left and maybe if she really wanted to contact me she could have. And here…well, here at least I know the people and I know I’ve got a job.’

‘On your father’s boat.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe I’ll go back to working for him and maybe I won’t,’ Jim said uncertainly. ‘There’s other boats. But fishing’s all I know.’

‘It’s going to be quite a change, living with Sandra.’

‘It is and all,’ Jim said happily. ‘Those kids…’ He shook his head. ‘They’re great kids, Doc Russell, and do you know, the boys have never even been taught to kick a football?’

‘No!’ Nikki breathed in mock-horror and Jim grinned.

‘Well, I’m going to teach them,’ he said resolutely. He took a deep breath. ‘Sandra’s taken a risk taking me in. I know this town and I know it’ll talk even more about her. But we talked it over and reckoned we could ignore it and maybe make it work.’

Nikki sat back on her heels and looked thoughtfully at the young fisherman. He sounded as if he was taking on more of a responsibility than a decision to rent a room for a few weeks. And when the door opened for Jim to leave the surgery and Nikki saw Sandra and the two youngest children in the waiting-room she saw what was happening.

A family was forming out of mutual need. The children came forward to greet Jim as their personal property and he took a hand of each and turned to go. ‘Thanks a lot, Doc,’ he told Nikki over his shoulder. ‘Thanks for everything.’

Nikki watched them walk away-Sandra at twenty-two with the lilt of a girl back in her step and Jim at nineteen playing the father. For heaven’s sake…

She smiled suddenly. It might…it just might work. Crazier things had happened.

And then her receptionist handed her the next card and Nikki turned her attention to Mrs Alphington’s neuralgia. She didn’t have time for reflection-and that was the way she wanted it.

The days dragged on. Nikki found herself staring stupidly at the calendar, as though it had some meaning. Three weeks since she had seen Luke…Four…

‘When will he come back?’ Amy asked for the hundredth time and Nikki strove for patience.

‘Luke isn’t coming back,’ she said gently.

‘He will,’ Amy said stubbornly. ‘Even if it’s just for a visit. Maybe he’ll come for Christmas?’

‘Don’t count on it.’ Nikki winced at the thought of Christmas. She hated it. Christmas-the time of families. Beattie left them every Christmas, flying down to Brisbane for her once-a-year visit to her daughter, and there would only be Amy and Nikki. Some Christmas!

Maybe she should employ another locum-get right away for a few weeks. If she could get somewhere cooler, maybe this awful cloud of oppression would lift.

Summer had arrived with a vengeance-the real tropical rainy season. It rained unceasingly, the rain turning to steam in the blistering heat. Nikki never enjoyed the rainy season and now-it was as if the sky were crying in sympathy with her.

‘It’s real cyclone weather,’ Beattie said darkly as the first week of December neared its end. ‘We’re in for one, you wait and see.’

‘Don’t say so,’ Nikki groaned. The last cyclone near Eurong had passed five years before, cutting a swath of damage. There were still scars in the rainforest from its passing.

Beattie sniffed. ‘Well, there’s no warnings yet. But it’ll come soon.’

She was wrong. For the next few days Nikki worked with her eye on the weather and her ear constantly tuned to the local radio. Cyclone Hilda threatened them for a little, but swerved right away from the coast and blew harmlessly out to sea. There were no other warnings.

Finally Nikki ceased worrying and her thoughts went back to Luke. Where was he? How would he spend Christmas? As she and Amy put up their little Christmas tree she thought of Luke’s family gathering in Melbourne. Would he visit them this year?

What would his reaction be if he knew that a child of his was on its way? That next year he would be a father…

A father in absentia, she reminded herself, and then winced. What if he demanded access? How would she cope seeing him every time he wanted to visit their child?

It didn’t bear thinking of. She made herself concentrate on the silver baubles she was tying to the tree.

‘It’s lovely, Mummy,’ Amy said in satisfaction, and then paused as Beattie hurried into the room. The housekeeper had been packing her suitcase ready for her afternoon flight south.

Something was wrong. The elderly housekeeper’s face was pale and she was obviously distressed.

‘I knew it,’ she said tremulously. ‘It’s a cyclone.’

‘Oh, no.’ Nikki rose, her eyes creasing in sympathy. Beattie had been filled with excitement at the thought of seeing her newest grandchild for the first time. If a cyclone was threatening between here and Brisbane then flights would be cancelled. ‘How close?’ Nikki asked. It wouldn’t have to be too close for the plane to be cancelled.

‘We’re dead centre,’ Beattie said grimly. ‘I just heard it on the radio.’

Dead centre.

Nikki stared at Beattie in dawning horror. Dead centre of a cyclone…The damage cyclones did was enormous, but Eurong had never been directly in one’s path. The destruction caused by being close to the cyclone path was bad enough.

‘But…but there’s been no warning of one imminent. There’s only been Cyclone Hilda, and it’s right out to sea, hundreds of miles north.’

‘That’s the one.’ Beattie was practically wringing her hands. ‘It’s swung inland for some reason and there’s a red alert. They say…they say it’ll hit here in three hours.’

Three hours! Instinctively Nikki looked out of the window. The palms were swaying in a rising wind, but there was nothing to suggest an impending disaster.

This was no time for panic. Amy was watching with enormous eyes, and if Nikki showed she was frightened it would communicate fast to the child.

‘OK,’ Nikki said evenly, striving for calm. ‘Let’s get the storm covers up.’

‘Does this mean you’re not going away for Christmas, Beattie?’ Amy asked, and Beattie and Nikki looked at each other. If that was all it meant they would be lucky.

‘I guess it does. I…I think I’ll take some things down to the storm cellar,’ Beattie said nervously, and Nikki nodded. They hadn’t used the storm cellar for anything but storage for years. Nikki’s father had installed it as a safety precaution and Eurong had decreed him mad. Totally unnecessary, they’d said, but now…Now, it made Nikki feel that there was at least one safe place where she could leave her daughter.

‘We need to open the windows on the lee side a little,’ Nikki said quietly, trying to remember the precautions she’d been taught. ‘If the pressure builds up…’

‘I know.’ Beattie nodded, putting her personal disappointment aside. ‘I’ll do that now.’

‘I’m going to have to go down to the hospital.’

‘I know that too,’ Beattie said grimly. She took a deep breath and looked down at Amy. ‘Come on, then, young lady. You and I have got work to do.’

‘Can we telephone Karen and her mum and ask them to share our cellar?’ Amy bubbled. The cyclone sounded like a wonderful adventure from a four-year-old’s angle.

Nikki nodded slowly. ‘It’s not a bad idea. Sandra’s house is fibro-cement with no protection. Our cellar’s big enough…’

‘I’ll telephone,’ Beattie told her. She nodded decisively at Nikki, and Nikki silently blessed her good fortune at having such a competent housekeeper.

‘OK.’ She stooped to give Amy a quick hug. ‘You promise you’ll both be in the cellar an hour before the storm’s due to hit-whatever happens?’

‘We promise,’ Beattie told her. ‘And you, Nikki Russell…’ She sighed. ‘Well, take care of yourself. Don’t go taking any damned fool risks.’

‘Who, me?’ Nikki smiled, with a bravado she was far from feeling. ‘I’m not one for damned fool risks. I was born a coward.’

The hospital was at peak, bustling efficiency when Nikki arrived. There were three internal rooms that had no windows-the hospital had been built with storms in mind-and when Nikki arrived the nurses were moving their patients into safety.

‘One room will have to be left free as Theatre,’ Nikki said grimly.

We’ve had enough warning for people to be prepared,’ Andrea, the charge sister, said. ‘Surely there won’t be…’

‘People do darned stupid things.’ Nikki grimaced. ‘Especially when they’re frightened. And if we really are in the eye of the storm then many of these houses won’t make it.’

‘But most are built under regulations for cyclones.’

‘Yeah.’ Nikki piled boxes of dressing to carry to the makeshift theatre. ‘But there’s still no guarantee they’ll survive the eye of a cyclone. Remember Darwin…’

They both did. The city had been struck on Christmas Eve several years previously and hardly a house had been left standing. The force had been as great as a major earthquake.

‘It can’t be as bad as that,’ the nurse said nervously. ‘Can it?’

‘Heaven knows. I don’t. Is the fishing fleet in?’

There weren’t any boats too far out to get back into harbour,’ the nurse told her. ‘They’re all back.’

‘Well, that’s something.’

Nikki worked steadily, setting up her makeshift theatre as best she could. With luck the work she was doing could be totally unnecessary. To operate on seriously injured casualties…

She might not have a choice. Even after the cyclone passed it would be hours before the wind died enough to evacuate casualties. Nikki thought fleetingly, longingly, of Luke. She felt desperately alone, knowing the next few hours would bring more casualties than she could cope with.

‘Everyone’s being warned?’ she asked anxiously. Her mind raced over her scores of elderly patients who lived alone. Many wouldn’t have heard the radio warning.

‘The State Emergency Service are doing a doorknock now,’ the charge nurse told her. Andrea was linked to the emergency services by two-way radio. ‘Anyone they’re worried about they’ll bring in here or to the school.’ Like the hospital, the school also had reinforced rooms.

Fine. Everything that could be done was being done. So now there was only time to sit and wait. And hope…

‘I don’t suppose Dr Maybury could come?’ Nikki said uncertainly. If she didn’t have an anaesthetist there was little she could do if there were serious casualties. The elderly doctor was Nikki’s nearest colleague and he was within driving distance if he came at once.

‘I doubt it,’ the charge sister told her. ‘Penrith is thirty miles south, but by the sound of the radio warnings they’re expecting damage there as well. He’ll have to stay.’

Nikki nodded. She knew it already. She was on her own.

The wind rose with relentless fury.

How would Amy and Beattie be coping? Nikki tried to block out thoughts of home as the. storm gathered strength. Her attention was needed here. Half an hour before the eye of the storm was due, every one of the occupants of the hospital deserted the outside rooms and the inner doors of the little hospital were wedged closed.

The telephone lines were already down. There was no way Nikki could contact home, even if she wanted to. Eurong was isolated until the storm was past, and every home was also completely isolated.

As they closed the big inner doors and Nikki saw the outside world for the last time, she wondered how on earth the storm could get fiercer. The huge coconut palms around the hospital were bending almost double in the shrieking wind and, beyond the headland, the sea was a seething white fury.

But grow worse it did. Locked behind their doors, the hospital occupants couldn’t see but they could hear. The wind screamed around the little building and every now and then a crack rang out like gunfire-the sound of a palm giving up its fight for life.

There was little time to listen. Within the room Nikki’s patients were terrified-not so much for the immediate danger but at the thought of what lay ahead when those doors were opened again. Nikki moved from bed to bed, comforting as best she could and listening to nameless fears. She sedated one elderly lady as her fears brought on angina. A full-scale heart attack was the last thing Nikki wanted now. She would have enough to deal with when the doors opened.

The wait was interminable. The sound of the screaming wind went on and on, and when it finally eased Nikki knew that the doors had to stay closed.

Now they were in the eye of the cyclone-and there was a rim to the eye. They had passed through one side of the rim, and the other was yet to come.

If only she knew what was going on at home… The thought of the cellar was infinitely comforting. And Beattie knew about the eye of the storm. She knew not to come out yet. The little radio owned by one of the patients and listened to by all was blazing out warnings of the danger to come. ‘Stay where you are,’ it warned over and over again. ‘Don’t think the danger is over. Stay behind closed doors. Use rooms with the least windows. Think of the pantry-or the broom closet. The bathroom is often the safest room. Stay where you are…’

As long as people were listening. Nikki sent endless silent prayers up to whoever would listen. Please let people stay put. Please let no one be hit by falling trees or flying pieces of corrugated iron…It was a useless prayer but she sent it anyway.

‘I won’t have a house any more,’ an elderly man said flatly as she paused by his bed. ‘My place is old and run-down, and it won’t stand up to this racket.’ His gnarled old face creased into tears. ‘You’ll have to put me in a home after this. My house’ll be matchsticks.’

There was little comfort Nikki could give. Outside the storm struck again as the eye passed and each fresh blast made her wince. To stay here while Eurong was blown to bits…it was the hardest thing she had done in her life.

And then, finally, the worst of the storm was past. The screaming wind settled to howls, and then to a dull whine. The nurses looked at each other fearfully and then at Nikki. Nikki nodded in silent acquiescence. It was time to open the doors.

Maybe it would have been better to stay inside. The nurses and the ambulatory patients walked outside to a deathless hush. It was a frightening new world.

The hospital had survived. The building was intact, but every window had been blasted out. The rooms were full of debris and rain water. Torn curtains lay shredded on the floor in sodden heaps. The wind still whistled in through the broken windows, bringing rain in with it. Steam rose from everything.

Soundlessly they moved outside. The veranda posts had crumpled under the strain and the roof sagged under the weight of a huge coconut palm. Luckily the two posts over the door had held so it was safe to move outside.

If one wanted to. Nikki took one look and decided she might not want to see the rest of the devastation. The hospital gardens were in ruins. Nikki’s car lay where she had parked in the hospital car park, turned up on to its side. It was covered with a mass of torn and twisted debris.

‘Dear God.’ Andrea was beside Nikki and her hand came up to grasp Nikki’s arm. ‘Dear God…’

There was nothing else to say.

Around them the rest of the staff were slowly coming to terms with what they were seeing. They had little time for reflection. As the patients saw and guessed at the damage elsewhere it was as much as the small nursing staff could do to control the rising hysteria.

Nikki conquered it by ordering everyone to work, patients included.

‘I want everyone fit enough to move to start getting the water out of the wards,’ she demanded. ‘I want plastic over the windows. I want the beds made up again dry and ready for whatever comes. Mrs Fletcher…’ Nikki eyed a patient who’d been in hospital with a broken hip. Mavis Fletcher was in tears already and her tears were turning to noisy sobs. ‘Mavis, can you hear me?’

Mavis looked up tearfully. ‘Oh, me dear,’ she gasped. ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know about you but I intend to start working,’ Nikki said grimly. ‘If I’m not mistaken there’ll be people out there who are a lot worse off than we are. If I put you in a wheelchair, can you supervise sandwich-making? Mr Roberts might be able to help. What do you say?’

Mavis gave a tearful gulp. She looked around at the mess and then back to Nikki. To be needed…

‘If you think I can, dear,’ she whispered.

Nikki grinned. ‘I’m sure you can,’ she said solidly. ‘I’m sure we all can.’

It was the last time Nikki had to ask anyone to help. The whole hospital was galvanised into action, even the patients doing what they could to clear the mess and prepare for the onslaught.

And onslaught there was. Five minutes after they emerged from the inner rooms their first casualty arrived-a man carrying his three-year-old daughter. She’d been hit by a block of plaster falling from the roof. The child was concussed and needed stitches to a nasty gash on her head, and by the time Nikki had attended her there were three more patients waiting.

Amazingly there seemed little serious injury. As each casualty arrived Nikki braced herself for tragedy, but, although the stories of property damage were heartbreaking, as yet there were no reports of loss of life. There were a couple of fractures and dozens of lacerations caused by falling debris. Nikki held her breath as she worked. If this was all…

‘The new regulations seem to have worked,’ Andrea told her in a break between patients. ‘And the warnings which everyone’s had since Darwin. People haven’t taken risks, and they haven’t been seriously hurt.’

Nikki nodded. ‘Andrea, could you find out about Whispering Palms?’ she said tightly. The girl working beside her flashed her a look of understanding.

‘Oh, Doctor, I’m sorry. I’ll contact SES. They’ll go around now.’

‘There’s no need to make a special trip,’ Nikki managed. ‘But…but I’ll work better if I know it’s still standing.’

‘Of course.’ Andrea turned to go but before she did they heard footsteps racing along the debris-strewn hall and the door to their inner sanctum burst open.

It was Sandra.

Sandra was soaking wet, her dress was torn and a gash dripped blood slowly down across one eye. She was wild-eyed and gasping for breath.

‘Nikki,’ she burst out. ‘Doctor…Nikki, can you come…?’

Nikki turned from the wound she was dressing. The colour drained from her face. Sandra had been in the cellar at Whispering Palms.

‘Amy,’ she whispered. She clutched the edge of the examination table. ‘Sandra, where’s Amy?’

Sandra caught herself with a visible effort. She took a ragged breath and then another. Silently Andrea moved forward and took the girl’s arm. She looked as though she was about to collapse.

‘It’s not Amy,’ she managed. ‘I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t think…’

‘You were in the cellar at Whispering Palms?’

Sandra nodded. Andrea pushed the girl into a chair and she sat gratefully, her knees buckling under her. ‘Th-thanks.’

‘OK.’ Now that Nikki’s worst fear had been relieved she could be calm again. She knelt in front of Sandra and took her hands. ‘Tell me what’s happened,’ she said gently.

‘It’s Jim…’

‘Jim Payne.’

Sandra nodded. ‘He was with us at the beginning. Helping with the kids. Then, when Beattie rang, he said it was sensible that we all go to Whispering Palms. So he took us.’

‘But he didn’t stay?’

Sandra shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t. He…he made sure we were all safe and made us promise not to leave the cellar. And then he said he had to go to his father…’

His father. Nikki thought of Bert Payne’s tiny rundown house down by the beach. Whatever regulations the council had introduced, she could be a hundred per cent sure that Bert wouldn’t have introduced them. He’d tell any official to mind his own damned business.

‘So Jim’s down at his father’s.’

‘No. Yes.’ Sandra looked up, her face a tear-stained plea for help. ‘As soon as we got out of the cellar I went to try to find him. Whispering Palms is OK and Beattie said she’d be fine with the kids. And…and Jim’s been so good to us. I had to leave the car a quarter of a mile from the house and walk in. There’s trees down all over. And then…then I came to the house.’ She looked up. ‘It’s down.’

‘The house has collapsed?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Jim and his father are inside.’

‘Yes.’

Nikki’s grip on the girl’s hands tightened. ‘Are they dead, Sandra?’

The shock tactics worked. Sandra’s eyes flew open and she fought for some sort of control. She shook her head. ‘Not…not yet. I…Will you come?’

‘Of course I’ll come.’ Nikki was already rising, pulling Sandra after her. ‘Are they trapped inside?’

‘I don’t…’ Again a ragged gasp for breath. ‘Yes. There’s a huge tree over the house. And Jim’s inside and his father’s stuck fast. And Jim says he’ll bleed to death if he leaves him, but the tree’s going to come all the way down any minute, and…’

‘Let’s go.’ Nikki turned to Andrea. ‘Let the emergency services know. I want able-bodied men there as fast as possible. Tell them I want shoring timbers and as much help as I can get.’

‘Do you want me to come?’ Andrea asked.

Nikki shook her head. ‘You’re needed here, Andrea. I’m needed here too, come to that, but if Bert Payne’s bleeding…’ She turned back to Sandra. ‘Does anyone else know?’

Sandra shook her head. ‘I…It was closer to run to the hospital than go back for the car. I didn’t meet anyone…’

‘OK. Let’s go.’

They arrived at what was left of Bert Payne’s fishing shack ten minutes later. The road was impassable with Nikki’s little car, but just as they came to a halt three men in a State Emergency four-wheel-drive vehicle came racing up behind them. They moved Nikki’s equipment over to their Jeep and kept on going.

‘Good grief,’ Nikki muttered, holding on to her seat for dear life. The Jeep bucketed over the debris, strewn as if it were a deliberately placed obstacle course. ‘You’ll kill this car.’ She blinked forward, trying to see what was ahead in the pelting tropical rain.

‘Better the Jeep dies than Jim Payne,’ the driver said grimly and Nikki nodded. Jim…There was concern for the boy but not the father. Bert Payne had made few friends in this town.

Then what was left of Bert Payne’s house was in view and the condition of the Jeep was forgotten.

The house was flattened as if it had been a house of cards, blown flat. Nikki stared at the wreck in horror. There were the remains of a chimney-stack in one corner and nothing else. There was nothing higher than chest height. That someone might still be in there…

The driving wind and rain were almost blinding her, whipping her sodden hair around her face. Nikki pushed it back in frustration. Before the Jeep came to a halt Sandra was out of the vehicle, running to what was left.

‘Jim!’ she screamed. ‘Jim…’

‘Sandra…’ It was a hoarse cry from somewhere under the ruin, barely audible above the sound of the still whistling wind. ‘Sandra…’

‘I’ve got help,’ Sandra yelled hoarsely. ‘Dr Nikki. And men…’

Already the men were in action, following the sound of Jim’s voice. Nikki dragged her bag from the car and then stood helplessly. Where on earth were they?

‘They’re right under the tree,’ Sandra said hopelessly. ‘Oh, God…’

The tree was enormous. It was a vast strangler fig, which had grown originally around a coconut palm. The coconut palm had long since died and the fallen fig now resembled a huge hollow log after the rotting of its host. It was almost twenty feet wide at the base-a mass of thick, twisting wood, smashed down on the tiny house.

‘We’re going to have to cut through,’ the SES chief said grimly. ‘We’ll never lift the thing.’

‘It’s going to come down further,’ Sandra told him. ‘Look…’

They looked. Where the tree had snapped was about eight feet from the base. It had fallen but the base of its broken part had caught on the shattered stump. There was maybe a two-inch rim where the weight of the huge tree rested.

‘My God…’ the SES chief whispered. He swung around to his second-in-command. ‘The shoring timbers we’ve got won’t hold that. Get back to base. I want more men and stouter timbers. If that goes down…’

There was no reason to finish the sentence. They all knew.

‘Jim, where are you?’ Nikki was moving along the trunk of the tree, stepping over debris.

‘In here…’ Jim’s voice was hoarse and tight.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘Yeah…I’ve…I think my arm’s broke…And my head…I keep blacking out…’

‘And your dad?’

‘He’s here. He’s unconscious but he’s still alive. He’s bleeding, though, Doc. I’m holding his leg but…I can’t keep the pressure up.’

‘Are you trapped?’

‘There’s a bit of space behind me. I- reckon…I reckon I could crawl back out. But…but Dad’s stuck and if I leave him he’ll bleed to death.’

Nikki was standing almost over the voice now. She looked around to where the debris subsided. The old doorway was just here…

Clambering down, she peered through. There was a gap in here. If she crawled…

‘Jim…?’

‘Yeah…’

She could see a shape stir slightly in the blackness. The beams of the doorway had slipped down but had afforded protection to a small area-a tunnel of no more than eighteen inches in diameter. Jim seemed about fifteen feet in through this tunnel.

‘Your father’s bleeding from the leg?’ she asked. Behind her, the SES men and Sandra were staring in horror as she wedged herself into the gap, trying to see.

‘The top of his thigh. He’s…The tree’s over his chest. I can’t budge…’ Jim’s voice trailed off. He sounded close to unconsciousness himself.

‘And you’ve lost blood too?’ Nikki spoke loudly and insistently. She didn’t want him passing out now.

‘Yeah…It…it doesn’t matter…’

‘Oh, Jim.’ Behind Nikki, Sandra had started to cry. She clutched Nikki’s arm and pulled her backwards. ‘He’s got to come out. If that tree slips…’ Then she raised her voice. ‘Jim, you’ve got to come out. Your

dad doesn’t give a stuff about you. You’ve got to-’

She broke off and turned away.

‘Jim’s not like his father,’ Nikki told her, rising and putting her hand briefly on Sandra’s shoulder. ‘And if he were…if he were then you wouldn’t be crying.’ She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. ‘Sandra, have you told Jim how dangerous the tree is?’

Sandra shook her head. ‘I didn’t see until now. Oh, Nikki…’

‘Jim, we’re shoring up the entrance to where you are.’ Nikki gave a warning look to Sandra and the men as she raised her voice. ‘I want you to come out.’

‘I’m not leaving. I told you…Dad’ll die.’

‘He’ll die if you stay,’ Nikki said brutally. ‘You sound as though you’re drifting in and out of unconsciousness. ‘Do you have the strength to maintain pressure on that leg, or is it still bleeding?’

‘It’s still bleeding,’ Jim managed.

‘But you can move?’

‘Yeah…but…’

‘Jim, I can’t get in unless you come out,’ Nikki said harshly. ‘And your father needs me.’

Sandra gave a gasp. ‘But Nikki…You can’t…’

She was stopped by Nikki’s fierce grip on her arm. ‘Sandra, Jim’s hurt and I don’t know how badly. This is the only way he’ll come out.’

It was. Nikki had known it since she saw the entrance. It was unpalatable but true. She bent down and peered into the recess. One of the SES men was directing a flashlight through the rubble. ‘OK, Jim,’ she ordered. ‘Start moving slowly backwards. Now!’

‘But Dad’ll die…’

‘The faster you get out, the faster I get in,’ Nikki said ruthlessly. ‘Move, Jim.’

Three minutes later Jim emerged to daylight. Nikki did a lightning check on the dazed young man, satisfied herself that she could leave him to the care of the people around him, and then stooped down. The SES man stopped her as she placed her hand on the door-beam.

‘Doc, this is just Bert Payne you’re risking your neck for,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I…I don’t like this…’

Nikki nodded. ‘I know it’s just Bert Payne,’ she whispered, looking over to where Sandra was holding Jim. ‘But he’s dying in there, and I’m a doctor. I haven’t a choice.’

‘He wouldn’t do the same for you,’ the man said brutally.

‘No.’ Nikki shook her head. ‘But then he doesn’t seem to have passed his cruel attitudes on to his son, thank heaven…And we can’t afford to be like him.’ She took one last look at Jim and Sandra, took a deep breath and lowered herself into the makeshift passage.

Jim had been wearing heavy denim jeans, which had protected him a little from the worst of the jagged splinters and nails, and for the first time in weeks Nikki regretted that she wasn’t wearing the same. Charlotte’s pretty clothes had become part of her-a legacy of her time with Luke. Now the dress she was wearing ripped three feet into the tunnel and she felt a nail jab into her bare leg. She swore and kept going.

I’ll ring Charlotte and give her a hard time when I get out of here, Nikki thought grimly as she felt her way forward through the mass of broken timber. The thought of Charlotte-of Cairns-of somewhere other than this hell-hole-was somehow steadying. She had to think of something other than the tree poised above.

Where on earth was Bert? Jim had backed out this way. Bert Payne must be somewhere here…

She shoved forward, her hands groping in the dim light, and her hand met something soft. Here he was…

Nikki could see nothing. What she was feeling seemed to be a leg. She’d attached a rope to her waist before coming in, and now she turned to tug it after her. Her bag came sliding roughly through the debris, and attached to its handle was a flashlight. Nikki looked back along the tunnel and saw daylight being blocked by anxious faces. She flashed her light at them and then turned back to her patient.

And her heart sank. Bert Payne lay half crushed by the huge tree. It held his body in a vice, and Nikki couldn’t see his left arm or leg. His face was near her, his skin devoid of any colour, and his breathing was shallow and uneven. Nikki’s hand slid down the exposed leg, and met the warm ooze of blood.

Instinctively Nikki felt for a pressure point, but she knew already that her action was useless. There must be massive internal injuries. With her free hand she felt for a pulse, and as she did Bert’s eyes flew open.

‘Jim…’ he whispered.

‘We’ve taken Jim out,’ Nikki said gently. ‘He has a broken arm, but he’s safe.’

‘But…’ The man’s eyes concentrated in a sheer effort of remembrance as Nikki groped in her bag for morphine. ‘But he was here…’

‘Yes.’

‘He came back to see I was all right…’

‘Yes, he did.’ Nikki twisted her body to a position where she could fill the syringe. She turned and drove it home, wondering as she did so whether there was time for it to take effect.

‘I was…I was a bastard to him,’ the big man muttered. He reached forward with his one free arm and gripped Nikki’s hand. ‘You’re sure…you’re sure he’s all right?’

‘He’s safe.’ Nikki was no longer worrying about the oozing blood. It was too late for that now. She gripped Bert’s free hand in hers and held it.

Tell him…tell him I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Nikki told him evenly. ‘I promise.’

‘And tell him…’ The elderly fisherman closed his eyes as if he had reached a point where he could go no further. His words were an almost superhuman effort. ‘Tell him he’s been a good kid and I’m…I’m proud of him. Tell him…’

‘I’ll tell him.’

It was the last thing Bert Payne ever said. Five minutes later he died.

There was nothing more for Nikki to do. She let Bert’s hand rest on the pile of rubble, and pushed her bag back out of the way. There was no point in her staying. Not now…

But as she moved so did the tree. Nikki looked up in fear as the massive trunk started slowly to settle. She flung herself backwards, but it was too late.

The mass of rubble in the tunnel behind her came down in a dust-laden roar. The dust filled her head, blinding her. She put her hands instinctively to her head and waited.

And it came. The huge mass of debris above her head shifted downwards. Nikki felt a blow to her shoulder and then a massive, crushing weight on her head. She tried to cry out, but no sound came. The weight…

‘Nikki!’ The sound came from outside the shifting rubble. ‘Nikki…’

‘Luke…’ Nikki whispered a response uselessly into the shifting, tearing dark. It was Luke. He had come back to her…‘Luke…’

Then she knew no more.