MIRACLE ON KAIMOTU ISLAND/ALWAYS THE HERO

by Marion Lennox

  She went back to hugging Button. Apart from the siren, it was incredibly peaceful. It was a gorgeous autumn afternoon. The sun was sinking low on the horizon and the grass underfoot was lush and green.

  But there were cattle in the paddocks, and every beast had its head up. Because of the siren?

  Um...no. Because the earth had just shifted and neither man nor beast knew what would happen next.

  And then the siren stopped.

  Ben’s field glasses swung around until he found what he was looking for.

  ‘We send the siren out from four points of the island,’ he said slowly, thinking it through as he spoke. ‘The sirens are set off from the seismology centre on the mainland. They’re supposedly quake-proof and they get their signal via satellite. If they’ve stopped we can assume that boffins somewhere have decided there will be no tsunami. Thank God.’

  ‘Thank God,’ she repeated, and once again she got an odd look, the knowledge that he saw more than she wanted him to see. Earthquake or not, she knew now that there was a world of stuff between them, and she also knew it was stuff he’d hunt down until it was in the open.

  ‘It’s okay, Ginny,’ he said gently. ‘We can work side by side, I promise. This is professional only. We treat it as such. We go see what the damage is and how best we can start putting things back together again. And we put everything else aside until later.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ON TOP OF everything else, she was fearful for her farm manager. Henry now lived on the headland beyond the vineyard, on his own.

  ‘His place is so remote. Ben, we need to check...’

  ‘We can’t,’ he said, as gently as he could manage. ‘Henry’s four miles that way overland, the coast road’ll be cut and we’ll have casualties coming into the hospital now. Ginny, I’m sorry, but triage says hospital first. We have to get to town.’

  She knew he was right but it didn’t make her feel better. Her car was a sedan, not capable of going cross-country. Ben’s Jeep was their only mode of transport. They needed to travel together and there was only one direction they could head.

  Henry was on his own and it made her feel ill. How many islanders were on their own?

  They headed down the valley. It sounded simple. It wasn’t.

  Driving itself was straightforward enough. Ben had wire cutters in the Jeep, so if they came to a troublesome fence they simply cut the wires. The ground was scattered with newly torn furrows where the earth had been torn apart, but the Jeep was sturdy and Ben was competent.

  Ginny thought they’d get back to the hospital fast, and then they crossed the next ridge and her nearest neighbours came into view. Caroline and Harold Barton. Caroline was sitting by a pile of rubble—a collapsed chimney—and she was sobbing.

  ‘He went back in to try and get the cat,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t get the bricks off him. And the crazy thing is...’ she motioned to a large ginger tom sunning himself obliviously on a pile of scattered firewood ‘...Hoover’s fine. Oh, Harold...’

  There was a moan from underneath the bricks and then an oath.

  ‘Would you like to stop reporting on the bloody cat and get these bricks off me?’ Harold’s voice was healthily furious.

  Ben lifted Button from the Jeep and handed her over to the sobbing lady.

  ‘Button, this is Mrs Barton and she’s crying because she’s had a fright,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘But now she’s going to introduce you to her cat. Caroline, your job is to keep Button happy. Ginny, how are you at heaving bricks?’

  ‘Fine,’ Ginny said, knowing how desperate Ben was to get to the hospital but knowing they had no choice but to help the hapless Harold.

  Ten minutes later they had him uncovered and, miraculously, his injuries were minor.

  ‘Felt the bloody thing heave so I dived straight into the cavity itself,’ he said. ‘It could’a gone either way, on top of me or around me, so I was bloody lucky.’

  He was, Ginny thought as Ben cleaned a gaping gash on his arm and pulled it together with steri-strips. It’d need stitching but stitching had to wait. The important thing to do now was stop the bleeding and move on.

  Triage. The hospital. What was happening down in the town?

  Bricks had fallen on Harold’s leg as well. ‘There’s possibly a break,’ Ben said, but Harold waved him away.

  ‘Yeah, and you might be needed for something a bit more major than a possible ankle break. Caroline can put me on the tractor and we’ll make our way down to town in our own good time. With the cat. With this ankle I’m not even going to be able to kick him so there’s not a lot of choice. Get yourself down to those who need you, Doc.’ And then he turned to Ginny. ‘But thank God you came home when you did, girl. When you were a kid we always reckoned you belonged here. Seems we were right. You’ve come home just in time.’

  They passed three more houses, with three more groups of frightened islanders. They crammed two women, three kids and two dogs into the back. There was nothing wrong with them except scratches and bruises, but they were all stranded and they wanted, desperately, to be in town with community support.

  ‘I’m hoping someone’s set up a refuge,’ Ben said tightly to Ginny. ‘I need to be there.’

  He couldn’t be there, though. At the next farmhouse they came to, an entire stone barn had collapsed. Once again they found a sobbing woman but there was no humour about this situation. One of the women distracted the kids while the rest grimly heaved stone. The elderly farmer must have been killed instantly.

  They left old Donald Martin wrapped in a makeshift shroud, they tucked Flora into the front of the Jeep, and Flora sobbed all the way to the village—and hugged Button.

  Button was amazing, Ginny thought. She was medicine all by herself. She even put her arms around this woman she’d never met before and cuddled her and said, ‘Don’t cry, lady, don’t cry,’ whereupon Flora sobbed harder and held her tighter. A normal four-year-old would have backed away in fear but Button just cuddled and held her as Ben pushed the loaded Jeep closer to town.

  He was desperate, Ginny thought. The hospital, the whole town was currently without a doctor. It was now almost five hours since the quake. They’d seen a couple of helicopters come in to land and Ben had relaxed a little bit—‘Help must be coming from the mainland.’—but she could still see the tension lines on his face. Why wasn’t he at the hospital?

  If he hadn’t been calling in on her... If he hadn’t been bringing Button’s test results...

  ‘Ben, I’m so sorry,’ she told him from the back seat, and Ben swivelled and gave her a hard stare before going back to concentrate on getting the Jeep across the next paddock.

  ‘There’s no fault,’ he said grimly. ‘Cut it out, Ginny, because I won’t wear your guilt on top of everything else. I don’t have time for it.’

  And that put her in her place.

  It was self-indulgent, she conceded, to think of guilt. She was crammed between two buxom women. She had kids draped over her knees.

  Ben didn’t have time to think about guilt, she thought, and then they entered the main street and neither did she.

  * * *

  The first things they saw were road cones. Orange witches’ hats were stretched across the main street, forcing them to stop.

  The light was fading but they could see the outlines of the buildings. They could see devastation.

  Porches of old, heritage-style shopfronts had come crashing down. A car parked at the kerbside was half-buried under bricks and stones—and maybe it was more than one car, Ginny thought, gazing further along the road.

  Right near where they’d been forced to stop, the front of Wilkinson’s General Store had fallen away. So had the front of Miss Wilkinson’s apartment upstairs. The elderly spinster’s bedroom lay ripped open as if a can opener had zipped along
the edge. Her bedroom, with chenille bedspread, her dressing gown hanging on the internal door, her teddy bears spread across the bed, was on view for all to see.

  She’d be mortified, Ginny thought, appalled for the gentile old lady. And then she thought, Please, God, that she’s safe enough to feel mortified.

  There were no lights. At this time of day the streetlights should be flickering on, but instead the scene was descending into darkness.

  A soldier was approaching them from the other side of the road block. A soldier?

  Ben had the Jeep’s window down, staring at this uniformed stranger in dismay. For heaven’s sake, the man even had a gun!

  ‘The main street’s been declared a red zone,’ the soldier stated. ‘It’s too dangerous to proceed. My orders are to keep everyone out.’

  ‘I’m needed at the hospital on the other side of town,’ Ben said with icy calm, and Ginny felt like reaching out from the back seat, touching him, reassuring him—but there was no reassurance to be had. ‘I’m a doctor,’ he said. ‘I have people here who need treatment.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, you still need to follow protocol,’ the soldier said. ‘You can pull the car to the side of the road—as far away from the rubble as you can, sir, and report to Incident Control Headquarters.’

  ‘Incident Control Headquarters?’ Ginny demanded, because Ben seemed almost speechless. She could see where his head was. Soldiers coming in and taking control of his island? ‘Where exactly is Incident Control Headquarters?’

  ‘Um...it’s the tourist information centre,’ the soldier said, unbending a little.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ben said tightly, and parked the Jeep, and he and Ginny ushered his tight little group of frightened citizens round the back of the shattered buildings towards the sounds and bustle and lights of...Incident Control Headquarters?

  Here there were people everywhere. Floodlights lit the outside of what was normally tourist central. Serious men and women Ginny didn’t recognise, wearing hard hats and bright orange overalls, were spilling in and out.

  Ginny was clutching Button and holding Flora’s hand with the hand she had spare. She was feeling ill. Ben was carrying two of the toddlers they’d brought down from the ridge, and he looked as grim as she felt.

  It was almost five hours since the quake had hit, and what five hours ago had been a peaceful island setting had now been transformed. These people represented professional disaster management, she thought. They’d have been brought in by the choppers they’d seen.

  Kaimotu Island must now be officially a disaster scene.

  And then there was Abby, flying down the steps to meet them. Abby was also wearing orange overalls and a hard hat. A grim-faced man came behind her, obviously keeping her in sight, but Abby had eyes only for Ben.

  ‘Ben—oh, thank God you’re okay,’ the nurse said. ‘I’ve been so worried. Where have you been? We’ve been going out of our minds. Your mum—’

  ‘She’s okay?’ Ben snapped, and Ginny had a further inkling of what he’d been going through. What he still was going through.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Abby said hurriedly. ‘As far as I know, all your family is okay. Doug’s out with the searchers. Your house is intact and your mum and Hannah have set it up as a crèche.’

  ‘Flora!’ It was a cry from inside the hall. A group of ladies was dispensing sandwiches. One of these ladies darted forward and Ginny realised with relief that it was Daphne Hayward, Flora’s sister.

  And then she thought, irrelevantly, I know these people. I haven’t been near this island for twelve years but I know them.

  I’m one of them?

  ‘Can you clear the entrance, please?’ a soldier asked, and they all turned round and glared at him, Ginny, too, and Ginny thought incredulously, I’m an islander.

  And then Ben lifted Button from her arms and she let her be lifted because it was the natural thing to do, to let Ben help her.

  Ben. Her friend.

  Her island, in trouble.

  ‘Why aren’t you at the hospital?’ Ben was asking Abby as he hugged Button close. ‘Who’s in charge there?’

  ‘Things are as under control as they can be,’ Abby said, but her voice was tight and strained. Really tight and strained. ‘We’ve had four choppers arrive containing emergency personnel, including two doctors. Margy’s doing triage, and every nurse on the island’s with her. One of the helicopters has already evacuated Percy Lockhart and Ivy Malone—both have serious crush injuries. One of the doctors is a surgeon. He’s reducing a compound fracture now—Mary Richardson’s arm. It’s bad, Ben, it’s really bad.’

  Her voice faltered and she motioned to the grim-faced man behind her. ‘This is Tom Kendrick. I... We know each other. He’s with Search and Rescue from the mainland. We’ve been out. They wanted a nurse who knew people. I... I...’

  The stranger behind Abby moved in closer, and Ginny saw his arm go round her waist. That was odd, she thought, but Ben was standing really close to Ginny, and she was sort of leaning against him. In fact, her own arm was suddenly round Ben. It was because she needed contact with Button, she told herself, but she knew it was more.

  She wanted contact with Ben, and if Abby needed contact with this stranger...it sort of gave her permission to ask for contact herself.

  But even as she thought it, she looked at Abby’s face, she saw the lines of strain and fear—and suddenly she got it.

  ‘Abby, where’s Jack? Where’s your son?’

  ‘On...on the bus,’ Abby whispered. ‘We’ve just come back to get the chopper. Tom’s organising a drop of blankets and food.’

  ‘What the...?’ Ben started.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Tom reassured him, solid, professional, assured. ‘We had a tense time for a while when we couldn’t locate the school bus but we have it now. One of the fishing boats has seen it from the sea. It’s trapped on the coast road round past the mines at the back of the island. There’s been two landslips and the bus is trapped between them. As far as we know, they’re all fine, but we’re not going to be able to get them out until morning. Hence the airdrop. We’ll drop a radio in as well.’

  ‘So it’ll be okay,’ Abby said, still in that tight, strained voice, and Ginny wondered what else was wrong. But she had to move on. They all had to move on.

  ‘They need you at the hospital,’ Abby said, forcing her voice to sound almost normal. ‘Here’s Hannah— Ginny, is it okay if Button goes with her? You and Ginny are needed for medical stuff. Please, go fast. There are so many casualties. But Tom and I need to go now. We need this food drop done before it’s completely dark. Tom, let’s go.’

  * * *

  New Zealand was set up for earthquakes. Emergency services stood ready twenty-four hours a day. It had been years since there’d been a major quake but that didn’t mean they’d relaxed.

  The personnel who’d arrived were moving with clinical precision. As Ben and Ginny walked through the almost abandoned town, skirting damaged buildings, they saw teams moving silently from house to house, quickly checking, in some cases with dogs by their sides, making sure everyone was out and then doing lightning assessments of each building.

  Using spray paint. Numbers. Colours or degrees of risk. Miss Wilkinson’s general store came under the ‘Do Not Approach Under Any Circumstances’ heading and Ginny thought bleakly of those little pink teddies and a dignified old lady having to bunk down in the school hall tonight without her dressing gown and her pink friends.

  Ben was holding her hand. Ginny hardly realised it, but when she did she didn’t pull away.

  This was too big to quibble. If Ben needed reassurance...

  She even managed a slight smile at that. Who was she kidding? Her hold on his hand tightened and he gave her a reassuring smile in the dark.

  ‘We’ll get through this.’

&nbs
p; ‘Oi!’ It was a soldier, one of the many patrolling the streets. ‘You guys need to get to the evacuation centre. That way. This street’s not safe.’

  ‘Doctors,’ Ben said briefly. ‘We need to be at the hospital.’

  And all of a sudden they had a military escort and Ben held her hand tighter and it seemed even more...right that she held his. And held and held.

  It was so silent, so dark—and then they rounded the bend and the hospital was in front of them and it wasn’t dark at all.

  Kaimotu Hospital was a small weatherboard hospital up on the headland, looking over the town. Once it had been a gracious old house overlooking the harbour. Over the years it had been extended, with a brand-new clinic at the rear, a doctor’s apartment to the side, the rooms expanded to make a lovely ten-bed hospital with most rooms looking out over the veranda to the harbour beyond.

  It had been expanded even more now. Some sort of camp hospital had been set up on the front lawns overlooking the sea. It was a vast canvas canopy, lit by floodlights on the outside and by vast battery-powered lanterns inside. A huge red generator was humming from the side of the tent, and the lights were on inside the hospital.

  Ginny, who’d thought bleakly of dealing with casualties in third world conditions, felt herself relax. Just a little.

  ‘Docs,’ the soldier escorting them said briefly, as yet another soldier came forward to greet them. ‘Two of ’em. You can use them?’

  ‘Doctors?’ A fresh-faced kid who looked about eighteen pushed aside the canvas door and looked at them. ‘Real doctors?’

  ‘Ben McMahon and Ginny Koestrel,’ Ben said, and held his hand out in greeting. ‘I’m a family doctor with surgical training and Ginny’s an anaesthetist.’

  ‘Whew.’ The guy whistled. ‘I’m Dave Marr, doc with New Zealand Search and Rescue. We have Lou Blewit here as well but I want to send her back with the next chopper. I have a guy with a crush injury to his chest—breathing compromised. He needs a thoracic surgeon. If you guys can help...’

  He was dressed in green theatre garb. He might look young but he didn’t sound young, Ginny thought. He sounded every inch a doctor, like he knew exactly what he was doing.