The Doctor’s Rescue Mission

CHAPTER SIX

SHE might fleetingly remind Grady of the Morag she’d once been, she thought bitterly as the morning progressed, but the old Morag was long gone. The sophisticated career-woman who’d only cared for herself… Ha!

Even that thought hardly had time to surface. Everywhere Morag looked there was need. Aching, tearing need that she had no hope of meeting. The walk back down to the ruined township had her stopping time and time again as people wept on her, people hugged her, people tried to talk through their fears.

But at least she wasn’t the town’s only doctor. At least she had help. They all had help.

It seemed the Petrel Island tsunami had caught the sympathy of the world, and resources were pouring in. Huge Chinook helicopters were ferrying in resources as fast as they could, and already there was order emerging from the catastrophe.

Last night the cricket ground had looked like a massive disaster area. Now huge tents held dormitory-style bunks for everyone. Apparently even those whose homes were undamaged were being advised to stay here. The huge wash of water had caused more than direct problems, with landslips and flooding leading to sewerage and plumbing nightmares.

But engineering problems, thankfully, weren’t Morag’s worry. She had enough to face without that.

The place Grady took Morag to-finally-was another huge white tent. It turned out to be a stunningly set-up field hospital.

People had worked all through the night, Morag realised, dazed and washed with guilt that she’d slept through such an effort.

‘You needed to sleep,’ Grady said gently as they stood at the entrance to the big tent. Damn, how could he guess what she was thinking almost before she knew she was thinking it? ‘You were so shocked and exhausted that you were past operating. Do you want to see Sam?’

‘He’s not been evacuated?’

‘We’re taking him out this morning.’ He grimaced. ‘There was the small matter of his cat.’

‘Sam’s cat.’ Morag thought about Sam’s cat while she stared around her.

The tent had a foyer, just like a real hospital. A woman clad in emergency-services yellow was seated at a desk, directing traffic. Two corridors led off-one labelled EMERGENCY and the other WARDS. Wards? How could they have done this in such a short space of time?

It looked unreal. If it hadn’t been for the grass underfoot, the building could have been a city clinic.

Her head was spinning. She had to focus on one thing at a time. Hamish. The Kooris.

Sam’s cat. That was easiest.

‘I know Oscar,’ she said. The vast, overfed tom was almost an institution on the island. He was fiercely protective of his master, and most of the islanders actively disliked him. He hissed and spat at anyone who came near Sam’s boat. If anyone threatened his Sam-and that might be by saying hello and holding out a hand to be shaken-then Oscar knew what to do. He ruled the island cats with well-sharpened claws, and he wore each of his many battle scars like the tattoos on the toughest of bikie gangsters.

‘He would have been on the boat with Sam,’ Morag said, dismayed. Oscar was definitely not her favourite cat, but she knew how heartbroken Sam would be without him.

‘That’s right,’ Grady told her, smiling. ‘He was washed out of the boat with Sam, and Sam’s wife assumed he was dead. But Sam wasn’t having a bar of it and insisted on staying until he found out. Anyway, about an hour ago Heather came marching into the hospital with the most bedraggled cat you’ve ever seen. She dumped it on Sam’s coverlet and said, “Here, here’s your damned cat, now you can get yourself fixed up properly.” The cat’s fine. Elsey, our chief nurse, tried to be nice and approached Oscar with a towel. Oscar put two fang marks in her hand and she’ll have to have a course of antibiotics. Despite losing his leg, suddenly all’s almost OK with Sam’s world.’

Grady was smiling. And suddenly so was Morag.

This was normal. These were her people, responding as they must to extraordinary circumstances. For the first time she thought there might be a tomorrow.

And this was the worst. From here, it could only move forward.

‘What do you want me to do about it?’ she asked.

‘Explain to Sam why he can’t take his cat to the mainland?’

‘I can do that.’

‘Find someone to offer to look after it?’

‘Harder,’ she admitted. ‘But Oscar hangs around the lighthouse. I can put cat food out. Not that he’ll deign to eat it. He steals food from every kitchen in the island. Then what?’

His smile faded. ‘Morag…’ He hesitated but she knew as soon as he looked at her-as soon as his smile faded-what he was going to ask.

‘Morag, the injuries we’ve got are substantial. The worst have been evacuated but we’ve got twenty beds filled. Sadly, the injured people are mostly those who were in the worst places, and because it was a Sunday they tended to be in family groups. So we have injured people where there’s often a matching death. We’ll bring in trained counsellors, but these people need to talk straight away and you’re their family doctor. We’ve decided that unless there’s further immediate trauma, your most urgent need is to check the lists, get yourself up to speed, then go from bed to bed and talk people through what’s happened. As you have been on the way here. These people need you, Morag, and that need is more for talk than for action.’

She nodded. She’d expected no less.

It was odd, she thought dully. Four years ago she’d wanted desperately to be a surgeon. She hadn’t wanted one bit of personal medicine. The sooner patients were anaesthetised and she could concentrate on technical skills rather than interpersonal stuff, the better she’d liked it.

But now… Interpersonal stuff was medicine just as surely as surgery. She knew what Grady was asking was just as necessary as hands-on trauma stuff, and every bit as important. Maybe even more so.

‘Check injuries yourself as you go,’ Grady was saying. ‘Yesterday was chaos. Look for things that may have been missed. There are still people coming in. My team and I can cope with front-line stuff, but you need to do the personal. Can you do that?’

‘Of course I can.’

‘Good.’ He hesitated and then shook his head. ‘No. I’m sorry. Of course it’s not good. But it’s what you’re here for, Morag. Four years ago it was your decision to be a part of this. For now I’m afraid you have to live with it.’

She did. And maybe she needed to start thinking for herself. ‘I need to go out to the Koori settlement before I do anything else,’ she told him. ‘They’ll need me.’

‘Jaqui’s gone out there now.’

She frowned. That was a waste. If they’d asked her… ‘They won’t let her help.’

‘Why not?’

‘They hardly let me.’

‘She’ll be able to give us an overview at least,’ Grady told her. ‘Surely. But you’re needed here. With only three doctors I can’t afford for you both to be there, and she’s already gone. She’s good, Morag. I think you’ll find she can help. You work here for this morning and if there’s a need you can go out there yourself this afternoon.’

‘There will be a need.’

‘There’s need here, Morag. There’s need everywhere.’

‘Grady, I need to prioritise. The Kooris-’

But Angie Salmon had been standing in the shadows, waiting for them to finish. As Morag caught her eye, the woman stepped forward. She looked distraught to the point of despair.

‘Morag,’ she faltered. ‘I just wanted… I just… I didn’t sleep and the kids are hysterical and Don’s blaming himself and all he can do is cry and… I need…’

Priorities. How could she choose?

She just had to trust that Jaqui could pull off a miracle out in the Koori settlement.

She had to trust in Grady.

So for the rest of the morning she moved from one personal tragedy to the next. Listening.

She listened to Angie, then tucked her firmly into bed and gave her something to make her sleep. ‘You’re no use to anyone if you collapse,’ she told her. ‘Get yourself strong. Others are looking after your kids. I’ll see Don and we’ll work something out so you can both have time out.’

It was no solution-there was no solution-but it was all she could do.

Grady and his team worked a surgery, assessing, treating, assigning beds, organising evacuations. The rest was left to Morag. It was too much for one doctor to handle, but she was the only one who could do it.

And it was mind-numbing work. Dreadful. They didn’t teach you this at medical school, Morag thought as she cradled old Hazel Cartwright against her breast and listened to her sobs. Elias Cartwright had been slightly demented and hugely demanding. When the wave had hit, Hazel had been out walking, taking a breather from her heavy role of carer. The wave had killed Elias instantly. Even though Hazel had expected her husband’s death any time these past ten years, shock had her in a grief as deep as that felt by Angie.

There was little Morag could do but listen to Hazel. There was little she could do for anyone but listen.

Over and over she heard the stories. Where people had been. How they’d felt as the wave had hit. How they couldn’t do anything. The feeling of sheer absolute helplessness, of lives suddenly out of control in the face of this catastrophe.

That was the deepest feeling. Being out of control.

Like Hazel… Death in bed at the end of a long life, death by misadventure, even death by disease-these things could be explained. Somehow. But to have the island decimated like this…to lose faith in their very foundations…

All Morag could do was listen.

But sometimes there were practicalities. Sometimes there was pain she could alleviate.

Like thirteen-year-old Lucy, huddled in bed, miserable and alone and frantically fearful because both her parents had been airlifted to Sydney and her brother was missing. She’d been treated for gravel rash-she’d been swept along a road in the same motion as being dumped by a wave, only this time the beach had been the gravel road outside her home. Her parents had been badly injured, and Lucy had been the one to run for help, so her injuries had been only cursorily inspected by one of the nurses in the first hours when Morag had been so occupied. She needed to be reassessed now.

She didn’t want to be reassessed. Morag reached her bed and the teenager’s face closed, almost in anger. But as she turned away from Morag, she winced.

The gravel rash was on her left. She’d turned to her right. What was wrong with her right side?

Morag put her hand on the girl’s left shoulder and let it lie. Softly. As if she had all the time in the world.

‘Your arm’s hurting?’

‘No.’

‘I think it is.’

‘Everything hurts.’

They should have evacuated Lucy as well, Morag thought, but even if she had gone to Sydney, her parents were in no condition to comfort her. And someone had thought, What if Hamish was found, injured?

But it wasn’t fair on Lucy. She should be with her parents.

‘Where’s your grandmother?’ she asked. May wasn’t on any list. Was the sprightly elderly lady out looking for her grandson?

‘She came in before,’ Lucy muttered. ‘I told her to go away.’

‘To look for Hamish?’

‘Hamish is dead.’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘Yeah, we do,’ Lucy spat. ‘Where else would he be?’

Morag closed her eyes. Deep breath.

‘Your grandma will need you as much as you need her,’ she said, but had a fierce head-shake in return.

‘I don’t want anyone.’

‘Lucy?’

‘What?’

‘Let me see your arm.’

‘My arm doesn’t matter. I want to know what’s happened to my parents.’

Before she saw each patient, Morag did her homework, finding out as much as she could about what had happened to each of their families and discovering, if she could, the extent of the damage to their homes. She’d treated Peter and Christine last night and she’d read the report on the family house. Plus, she’d checked. So now she was able to give as much reassurance as there was to give.

‘I radioed Sydney fifteen minutes ago,’ she told her. ‘Your dad has a fractured thigh and the doctors in Sydney are operating on him right now. Your mum hurt one of her legs as well. It’s a simple fracture that only needs a plaster, but she also hit her head. That’s why she was drifting in and out of consciousness when you last saw her. But she’s conscious now. The Sydney doctors will be doing all sorts of tests in Sydney and we’ll tell you the minute we know.’

‘What are they testing for?’

‘For insurance,’ a man’s voice said behind Morag, and it was Grady.

Grady.

Morag had been working solidly for about four hours. She hadn’t realised how exhausted she was, but when she turned and saw him she felt the pressure lift-just like that. He was dressed in a green theatre gown, with his mask pushed down as if he’d just emerged from surgery. She’d guess that he’d been working as hard as she had, if not harder.

So there was no reason for her to look to him for support. Was there? But as he pushed aside the curtain dividing Lucy’s bed from the rest of the tent, it was all she could do not to stand up and hug him.

He saw it. He gave her a small, reassuring smile, which should have been nothing but it gave her the strength to take another deep breath and carry on.

Grady’s smile had moved to Lucy. Good. The girl needed more reassurance than Morag could give.

‘I was the one who assessed your mother before she left,’ Grady was telling her. ‘She was drifting in and out of consciousness then, but I think shock might have been having an effect, as well as the pain from her broken leg. There didn’t seem to be any intracranial swelling.’

‘Intracranial swelling?’

‘Sometimes when people hit their heads they bleed into their brains,’ Grady told the girl. ‘Pressure can cause major problems. But usually when that happens you can tell. You open people’s eyes and check their pupils. I checked your mum’s eyes and her pupils looked fine.’

‘What would they look like if they weren’t fine?’ Lucy demanded, almost belligerently.

‘When you shine a light in people’s eyes, a normal, undamaged brain makes the pupils get smaller,’ Grady told her. ‘I shone a light into your mother’s eyes and her pupils reacted just as they should. Also, her pupils stayed exactly the same as each other. That’s a really good sign.’

‘So why did you send her to Sydney?’

‘Just as a precaution,’ Grady told her. ‘So if things change or if I was wrong and she does need an operation to relieve pressure, then she’ll be in the right spot. And your dad was going anyway.’

‘Why couldn’t I go?’

‘No room on the helicopter,’ Grady told her bluntly.

Lucy hesitated. ‘What about Hamish?’

‘We’re still looking for Hamish.’

Lucy hesitated. Her face closed in what almost seemed teenage rebellion. ‘I don’t want to stay on this island any more,’ she whispered. The teenager’s eyes were determinedly defiant, but there was more than a hint of moisture behind them now. It was as much as Morag could do not to gather her in for a hug-but she knew instinctively that it wouldn’t help. It was a fine line-when a kid turned into an adolescent and when a hug from an adult became patronising and claustrophobic.

It was only for a few short years that teenagers became untouchable and it was dreadful that this had happened right in the midst of it. But if it got worse…

Grady flicked a questioning look at Morag, colleague asking permission, and he got an imperceptible nod in return. It was fine by Morag. This was no time for being precious about patient boundaries. She wanted all the help she could get.

‘If Dr Morag is worried about your arm, maybe we could look at it together,’ Grady suggested.

‘My arm’s OK.’

‘There’s no medals for heroes in this game,’ Grady said gently. ‘Lucy, I’ve been treating grown men this morning with lesser injuries than you, and some of them have been crying. You don’t need to pretend, and no one will tell anyone if you have a really good howl. Now…let us look at your arm.’

Lucy stared at Grady for a long moment. Grady gazed calmly back.

And Lucy cracked first.

‘OK,’ she conceded.

‘Sensible decision,’ Grady told her, without a flicker of relief that the girl had agreed.

Then, as Morag watched from the sidelines, he sat on the bed and carefully lifted Lucy’s arm.

‘Can you move your fingers?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Try.’

He got a belligerent look, but he met Lucy’s gaze calmly and dispassionately. He was a fine doctor, Morag thought. He had so many skills. But, then, she’d known that about him all along.

‘Who’s looking for Hamish?’ she whispered, and Grady met that with calmness as well.

‘We have every fit islander, plus a team of almost fifty army personnel, combing the island.’

‘He was swept away with the wave?’

‘I guess he must have been,’ Grady told her, feeling each finger and watching her face. ‘The wave hit you and your parents with such force-’

‘But Hamish wasn’t with us.’

Morag stilled. The search for the small boy-for Robbie’s best mate-was centring around the fact that he’d been swept out from his parents’ front yard. His parents had been too dazed to do any more than ask for news of their son, and Lucy hadn’t been questioned. The searchers were working in the assumption that he’d been with his parents when the wave had struck.

Dangerous assumption. She saw Grady focus, and his hand came out to take the girl’s good one.

‘Lucy, we’ve been searching for Hamish around your house. Are you saying he could be somewhere else on the island?’

‘He went over to Morag’s.’

‘To the lighthouse?’ Morag’s heart sank. The promontory that held the lighthouse had been swept clean by the force of the wave. If Hamish had been out there… ‘Did he come over to see Robbie?’

‘Yeah. Mum said he should do his school project but Dad said he it was too good a day to keep a kid inside.’ Her face crumpled and she gave a despairing whimper. ‘It’s not fair. He shouldn’t have gone. Where is he? I want my mum.’

‘I tell you what we’ll do,’ Grady told her, as, like it or not, Morag moved to hug the girl close. Lucy was so distressed that she suddenly almost seemed to welcome it, her body curving into Morag’s like she belonged there. Only for a moment. Only for a second. Then she regrouped and pulled away. But somehow…her hand stayed just within contact with Morag’s.

‘We’ll X-ray your arm. If, as I think, you’ve fractured your forearm, we’ll put it into plaster so it doesn’t move and it stops hurting,’ Grady told her. ‘And then we’ll organise a helicopter flight for you to the mainland so you can be with your dad while you wait for your mother to get better.’

‘But Hamish…’

‘We’re doing all we can, Lucy.’

‘Can I ask your Grandma to come in?’ Morag asked, and the girl’s face closed again.

‘No,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t want to see her again. Grandma started crying. Grandma never cries. I don’t know what to tell her. Hamish…’

‘Can you remember,’ Morag said carefully, trying to make it sound as if it was important but not too important, ‘how long it was between Hamish leaving home and the wave hitting?’

‘He left home just after lunch and we have lunch at one,’ Lucy said fretfully. ‘I remember ’cos Dad said he couldn’t go until we’d done the washing-up.’

‘We left the lighthouse just before two,’ Morag told Grady. ‘He must have just missed us.’

‘Mum said if Robbie wasn’t home he had to come straight back,’ Lucy told them. ‘He had loads of homework to do. It was Dad’s idea to let him go but I think Mum was a bit pissed off.’

‘Where else would Hamish have gone?’ Grady asked her. ‘If Robbie wasn’t home, were there any other friends he’d contact?’

‘I don’t know.’ The teenager seemed to realise Morag was still in contact with her hand, and she pulled back some more, whimpering a little as her arm jarred. She hauled up her bed-covers as if they could protect her from impending pain. ‘I don’t know.’

‘We’ll look,’ Morag promised, but she couldn’t promise that they’d find him.

They knew the odds.

The odds were dreadful.

Lucy’s arm had a simple greenstick fracture. Morag assisted while Grady carefully prepped the arm, wrapped it and then put a backslab on the forearm. There was considerable swelling around the wrist. Given that it had happened over twelve hours ago, it was probably as swollen as it was going to be. It’d have to be checked in a few days.

In a few days Lucy would be in Sydney, Morag thought. Hopefully with her recovering mother and father.

And her brother?

The impending tragedy stayed with them while they worked. Lucy was white-faced and silent, and they knew her silence wasn’t caused by her own pain. She was terrified for her parents and for her brother-and she had every right to be.

‘I’ll contact Sydney,’ Grady said, grim-faced, as they left Lucy with a nurse and came out again into the little reception area. ‘Maybe the father might know where Hamish might be?’

‘I’ll contact him,’ Morag told him. ‘Peter’s my friend.’ She grimaced. ‘And Christine is Robbie’s aunt. Christine’s brother was Beth’s husband-Robbie’s father. He drowned when Robbie was tiny, so they know already what tragedy is.’

That hurt. ‘Oh, hell…’

‘It is,’ she said bleakly. ‘Hamish is Robbie’s cousin and they’ve been extraordinarily close all their lives. If I hadn’t come back when I did, Robbie would be part of their family.’

‘They would have taken him in?’

‘Of course.’

He frowned. ‘So why did you come back?’

Why had she come back? Did he understand nothing?

‘That’s a great question,’ she snapped. ‘Very empathetic. Look around you at this community and use your head. Is Jaqui back from the Koori settlement?’

‘She’s been back for a while.’

Morag stilled. ‘So they didn’t let her help.’

‘I gather not. They said there were no problems.’

‘Oh, sure. No problems? They’d hide them.’

‘Why would they hide them?’

‘They just would.’ She raked her hair in distress. ‘I should have gone.’ None of the Koori people would admit to Jaqui that they needed help, she thought grimly. She’d been stupid to hope that they would.

‘If Jaqui can’t help, how can you?’ Grady asked.

‘They trust me.’

‘But-’

‘There’s no but,’ she snapped. ‘Of course they won’t let Jaqui near them. I should have been out there this morning. Or last night! It’s taken my family two generations to get their trust, and I have it. So I’m needed. Ask me again why I came home, Dr Reece.’

‘I never meant-’

‘I know you never meant,’ she said softly, almost under her breath. ‘You never meant anything.’

First she had to make the phone call to Peter-Hamish’s father-and it was dreadful. For this little family, the drowning of Beth’s husband-Christine’s brother-followed by Beth’s death, was still real and dreadful, and Morag could hear the horror of past pain as well as terror for the future in the way Peter spoke to her. Peter was badly injured himself, just coming around from anaesthesia. His wife was still not out of danger. And…where was his son?

‘I was sure he’d be with Robbie,’ he told her. ‘I was sure. When they said he was still missing… I just said find Robbie and he’ll be there. They said Robbie was up with Hubert so I just assumed…’ His voice broke. ‘I can’t believe I left the island not knowing. I was just so worried about Christine. And I couldn’t find May.’

May was Peter’s mother. At least she could reassure him there. ‘I’ve seen May and she’s OK. She’s worried to death about Hamish, of course, but she was out of range when the wave hit and her house is undamaged.’ She was worried to death about Lucy as well, but Lucy still wouldn’t let her close and she wasn’t about to burden Peter with his mother’s distress. ‘She’ll be here for Hamish when we find him. And you were so badly hurt yourself,’ Morag said gently. ‘Peter, we’re doing all we can.’

‘He must have followed you up to Hubert’s.’ Peter’s voice cracked with desperation. ‘Maybe he’d guess that you’d be up there. Maybe…’

‘I’ll check everything,’ Morag told him. ‘Meanwhile, we’re sending Lucy over to be with you.’

‘But if Hamish needs her… If May needs her…’

‘I’ll be here for Hamish and for May, I promise.’

Distressed beyond measure, she put the phone down and turned to find Grady watching her. His face was etched deep with concern.

‘Dreadful?’

‘Dreadful,’ she agreed. ‘That little family’s lost so much already. I’m worried Peter might crack up completely.’

‘He can’t,’ Grady said bluntly. ‘His wife and daughter depend on him.’

‘Yeah.’ She shrugged, still cringing inside from the pain she’d heard in Peter’s voice. ‘It does hold you up. This feeling that if you fall over it’ll have a domino effect.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Maybe I need to speak to Robbie. He and Hamish were planning to spend the afternoon together before Hamish’s mum said he had to spend the afternoon on homework. I wonder what were they planning to do?’

‘Homework together?’ Grady queried, and she managed a smile.

‘Or not.’ Her smile faded. ‘I need to phone Robbie before I go out to the settlement.’

‘I’ve cleared the way to come with you.’

‘You don’t want-’

‘I need. As you say, there may well be medical imperatives out there. If I’m assisting you, will that be OK?’

‘Maybe. If you’re seen as the junior partner with no authority.’ Her worry receded for a whole split second while she thought of the impossibility of Grady being the junior partner in anything.

‘I’ll be the junior partner,’ he said, with a meekness that had her glancing at him with suspicion, but his face was impassive. ‘Phone Robbie. I’ll start loading gear.’

Robbie knew nothing.

‘I dunno where he’d be.’ Robbie had held up so well, but the thought of losing Hamish had him almost incoherent with anguish. ‘We were just going to do…stuff.’

‘What sort of stuff?’

‘I dunno.’ There was an audible sniff on the end of the line. ‘Morag, can you come and get me? Now?’

‘I need to go out to the aboriginal settlement,’ she told him, almost twisting inside with pain. He needed her. He needed her so much, but she was stuck. To take her with him when she didn’t know what she’d find…she couldn’t. But she had to go.

He had to see it.

‘Robbie, the Koori people…many of them may well be hurt and they won’t let anyone near except me.’

He gulped and she heard him fight back tears. ‘Do you…do you want me to stay another night with Hubert?’

‘If you can, Robbie,’ she said gently. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but so many people here need me. I’ll come up later and share Hubert’s bed again.’

Then she was forced to listen while he fought panic. But finally he managed to do the right thing. The adult thing. The thing that a nine-year-old shouldn’t have to do when he was faced with what Robbie had faced in the past, and what he was facing in the future.

‘I’ll be OK,’ he quavered.

‘You’re a good kid, Robbie.’

‘Sometimes I get sick of being a good kid,’ he said rebelliously, and she winced.

‘You know something, Robbie?’

‘What?’

‘Sometimes I get sick of being a good adult, too,’ she confessed. ‘You reckon one day you and I might run away from home?’

He thought about it, but only for a moment.

‘If they close down the island, we won’t have to run away. They’ll chuck us off.’

‘There could be a good side to that. Maybe we wouldn’t have to be good any more.’

‘Yeah, but you’d just get a job somewhere else and we’d have to be good all over again,’ he told her. ‘We’d better stay here.’

‘OK.’

‘But, Morag…’

‘Mmm?’

‘I’ll stay here and be good,’ he told her. ‘But you find Hamish.’