Healing Her Brooding Island Hero

by Marion Lennox

  Thoracostomy to cope with such a wound, inserting a needle catheter to release the air trapped in the pleural space... She’d studied the basics during her post-grad training as nurse practitioner, but doing it in the field, with a patient with other life-threatening injuries... If Hugh hadn’t been here, she knew the outcome would have been death.

  But the fact that their patient was still alive and obviously stable enough to be transported spoke volumes. Hugh strode in now beside the stretcher but one look at him told her it hadn’t been easy. His face was almost haggard. Haunted? Yet she glanced at the stretcher and knew his patient was alive.

  And overriding her reaction to his expression was the knowledge that she had a doctor. Here.

  For a fraction of a moment she let herself savour relief, finding strength in the knowledge that she wasn’t alone. And then she opened her eyes and Hugh’s gaze was on hers. Holding.

  ‘Next?’ he asked simply, and the haggard look had gone. It was replaced by an expression of determination. And of trust. One professional to another. He’d left it to her while he’d coped back there, and now he was deferring to her to decree priority.

  She headed towards him, swiftly, so they could speak without being overheard, and for an insane moment she felt like hugging him. The expression she’d caught on his face... But it was gone—maybe she’d even imagined it—and there was no time for questions.

  ‘Gladys,’ she said. ‘The lady firefighter. Her arm’s burned, not too badly, but it’s broken and I’m losing pulse in her hand. It’s been pretty much colourless for five minutes. If you could...’

  ‘I’m on it,’ he said, but unexpectedly he reached out and gripped her shoulder. ‘You’re okay?’

  ‘I’m not going to faint, if that’s what you mean,’ she said with asperity.

  ‘I can’t imagine you fainting.’ His smile was a bit crooked, but it was still a smile. He looked past her, at her almost orderly ‘casualty department’.

  And unbelievably, that was what it looked like. Orderly. She had patients on the ‘beds’, three metres or so between them. She had two people with each patient, one on each side, watching, gently talking, touching if possible. Reassurance was a huge factor in treating shock, and leaving patients alone waiting treatment was a recipe for disaster.

  She had a prep area—urns on a trestle table at the end of the hall, people pouring off boiling water to cool, people cleaning used equipment and linen. Chairs were set up there, too, and three women were attending a group of people with minor injuries. These would be people who’d been second to arrive at the fire, reaching the outskirts of the scene just as the blast hit.

  She motioned to the ladies helping the injured. ‘Meet our third tier of medics,’ she said, following his gaze. ‘Now you’re here, you’re in charge of the life-threatening, I’m on the urgent and these ladies are for the rest, with instructions to shout if there’s the least chance of upgrade. Sensible ladies, all of them—they put their hands up when I asked if anyone had done any first-aiding courses. Directions are to gently wash everything, using heaps of water—heaven knows what was in that blast. Apply antiseptic, leave things open for us to check later unless it’s actively bleeding, and refer anything suspect to me. There are lacerations, which they’re putting pressure on until we can reach them. Ralph Henry has a foreign body in his eye, which looks serious. They’ve washed it and washed it and I have it covered—he’s lying on the far bed waiting for you.’

  Then she gazed down at the guy on the stretcher, drugged and only barely awake, but still alert enough to be watching her. Recognition obviously dawned. ‘Hey, Ray,’ she said and smiled. ‘Remember me? I’m Babs’s great-niece. I believe I dated your little brother for a whole six weeks back in eleventh grade.’

  ‘Gina,’ Ray breathed, and Hugh thought how close he’d been to death, how tricky it had been to get the needle where it needed to go. And also how much Gina had achieved while he was doing it.

  ‘Hey, are you okay yourself?’ Gina asked, and he realised she was talking to him. It needed only that—that she was worried for him.

  ‘I’m needing to apologise for calling you a muppet,’ he said faintly. ‘But moving on. I’ll see to Gladys. Can you keep an eye on Ray?’ He glanced around the hall. ‘As well as everything else you’re seeing to?’

  ‘Of course I can,’ Gina said promptly. ‘I’ll delegate—delegation is my principal skill. We’ll be right, won’t we, Ray?’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Ray muttered, his voice a thready whisper but amazingly it held a trace of humour. ‘Maybe Mum and Dad shouldn’t have told Luke you were a waste of space. Welcome home, girl. You know Luke’s still available? You want us to set you up with another date?’

  * * *

  And then it was just sheer hard work, with more than a bit of skill on the side. Medics from Gannet Island, two doctors, two paramedics, arrived half an hour later. By the time they did, Gladys’s hand was turning pink again, circulation restored. That had been a bit of tricky surgery, where Hugh had needed Gina’s skill as a theatre nurse. Any lingering doubts as to her skill had dissipated in those fraught moments as he’d needed to focus to reposition the arm, as he’d fought to stabilise that tiny thread of circulation. She’d assisted as if she’d been twenty years a theatre nurse.

  In the fraction of consciousness he had for anything but the job at hand, he’d been reflecting on his months of building anger at her, for not coming home to her great-aunt.

  Babs could have told him, he thought grimly, but then Babs never said a word more than she had to.

  And neither had he. He’d looked out for her, especially after he’d found her after her heart attack, but he’d never asked more than basic questions.

  ‘My great-niece will come,’ she’d said with asperity when he’d pushed. ‘When she’s finished gallivanting round the world on those cruise ships.’

  Gallivanting. Wrong word. Whatever Gina had been doing for the past few years it hadn’t been gallivanting. The skills she had... It almost looked as if she coped with emergency medicine every day of her working life.

  And when the team from Gannet Island arrived, she greeted them smoothly, professionally—and even with friendship.

  ‘Hey, Elsa!’ she called as they arrived. The woman doctor from Gannet—obviously pregnant, but, like all of them, intent and focussed—stopped in her tracks. ‘We’ve got some work for you.’

  Elsa looked stunned. ‘Gina? It’s never Gina Marshall? Hey, you’ve lost your nose rings.’

  ‘Bit of a nuisance where I’ve been working,’ she said briefly. ‘Frostbite’s a problem and frozen nose rings are the devil. You guys know Hugh? He’s caught up with a compound fracture—far end of the hall. Let me walk you through the rest.’

  He was dressing Gladys’s arm, stabilising so his work wouldn’t be undone. One of the paramedics moved to assist, the rest listened to Gina’s fast, incisive handover and then sorted priorities for themselves.

  Wow, she was good. The new arrivals meant every patient was getting optimal field treatment within minutes. Hugh could finally relax.

  Move back.

  Stop being the chief medical officer in charge of a nightmare.

  During all this time, memories had been swirling, the scene he’d just come from mingling horribly with memories of scenes he never wanted to recall. He’d fought to block them out and, somehow, he’d managed, but now... He felt sick.

  But more assistance was pouring in. More medics. Police from Gannet. Joan had disappeared briefly. She now reappeared wearing her official policewoman’s uniform, ready to take the officers from Gannet to the explosion site. Things were under control.

  Sort of. One dead. Others with injuries that’d take months to heal. Traumatised islanders.

  His own trauma? That had to be shelved.

  He worked on, almost on remote control, doing what had to be done
. The Gannet Island team organised evacuation. Blessedly the sea was calm enough to use the ferry. Ray and Gladys would both need skilled stabilisation before they could be airlifted to Sydney for the specialist burns treatment they needed, so they were to be ferried to Gannet. Three others would be flown to Sydney tonight, the two injured fireys plus Ralph Henry, who’d need specialist surgery if he wasn’t to lose his eye.

  ‘We should leave you with another doctor.’ Marc, the head of the Birding Isles Medical Group, husband of Elsa, was looking concerned as they organised the evacuation process. ‘But with this lot coming in, we’ll be tight for staffing on Gannet, and you look like you have things under control.’

  ‘We’ll need replacement medical supplies,’ Gina told him. ‘We’ve used almost everything Hugh had.’

  ‘There’s no rush,’ Hugh said grimly. ‘That kit was for emergencies only, and I’m damned if I’m taking on something like this again.’

  ‘Unless you have to,’ Gina said softly, glancing at him, looking worried.

  ‘We know you don’t want to work as a doctor,’ Marc told him, and reached out and gripped his hand. ‘But we’re bloody grateful you did. And you, too, Gina.’ At some stage during the drama he’d been given a brief résumé of her qualifications, and there’d been no time for questions. ‘What a godsend that you were home.’

  ‘Yeah, all that luxury cruising and finally I get to use a bandage,’ she said, with a sidelong look at Hugh. She grinned. ‘But I’m with Hugh on this one. No more drama, please.’

  ‘There’ll be coroner stuff,’ Marc warned. ‘The police are up there now, poring over the site. Good luck to them finding anything of Jefferson’s body but if they do...’

  ‘Then we’ll call you back,’ Gina said, and Hugh caught her taking a sidelong glance at his face. ‘You’re a helicopter’s ride away and Hugh’s done enough. He doesn’t need to cope with what remains of a low life who not only killed himself, but also put every islander at risk. Let’s not ask more of him.’

  Hell. How much did she understand? But Gina was fixing Marc with a look that said what she was saying was inarguable—don’t mess with me. And Marc glanced at her and nodded.

  ‘I can finish here if Hugh wants to head home,’ Gina said. There were still minor injuries to be dealt with. A few of the lacerations had been pulled together hurriedly with Steri-Strips and could use stitches. There were probably others who might present when they thought the drama was over and they weren’t being a bother. There’d also be shock to deal with.

  ‘We’ll cope together,’ Hugh said gruffly, and Marc nodded.

  ‘So you’re a team—well, thank God for it. You don’t know how much we’ve wanted a team out here. The island’s too small for it, we know that, but with these injuries, that you were here today... You know you’ve saved at least one life and prevented long-term damage. May you both stay for ever—that’s all I can say.’

  And then he hesitated. ‘But tomorrow...with this amount of minor injuries there are bound to be niggles to clear up.’

  ‘I have Australian registration as a nurse practitioner,’ Gina said briefly. ‘Leave me equipment and I’ll deal.’

  ‘She’s good,’ Hugh said gruffly. Almost reluctantly. He heard the tone in his voice though and regretted it. ‘Very good,’ he amended. ‘There’d probably have been deaths without her.’

  Marc glanced at him then, assessing. ‘And you’ll back her up?’

  More medicine. Ongoing minor stuff. Checking for infection. Stitches. Coping with delayed shock, or injuries that onlookers hadn’t brought to their attention because they’d seemed too trivial in the face of what had happened to others.

  He hesitated, for just a moment too long.

  ‘I’ll only call you if I need you,’ Gina said generously, and he knew she’d got that he didn’t want any further involvement. ‘If I can have this place for an hour or so tomorrow morning, just to check...’ She frowned. ‘But it’d be good to have a doctor as backup if I need it. Isn’t there any medical service on the island at all?’

  ‘One of our docs comes over once a week,’ Marc told her. He hesitated, looking at the evacuation currently taking place. ‘Our centre’s good but it’s not huge, and I suspect all available staff will be needed on Gannet. When we come, we use rooms set up at the back of the general store, but it’ll be hard to staff it tomorrow.’

  ‘Then I’ll staff it,’ Gina said, and then looked uncertainly across at Hugh. ‘Um...backup?’

  ‘I’ll help if I must,’ Hugh said, goaded. ‘But we’re not talking long term here.’ He needed to get that out, even though he’d said it to Marc time and time again. ‘It’s time this island had a doctor based here.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ Marc said. ‘But you try getting a doctor to agree to working on an island with a permanent population of four hundred. Even a permanent nurse would be good.’ He raised an eyebrow at Gina. ‘Interested?’

  ‘Hey, not me.’ She raised her hands as if to ward him off. ‘Let’s not go down that road, especially when I’ve been on the island for less than twenty-four hours. I lived here for two years and that was enough. I’m here to look after my great-aunt and then I’m off again. But for the time being, I’m happy to help.’ She fixed Hugh with a considering stare. ‘So... Can I call if I need you?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘I guess not,’ she said, cheerful again. ‘Seems we’re both between a rock and a hard place, professionals whether we like it or not. We should both have trained as belly dancers.’

  ‘Belly dancers,’ he said faintly.

  ‘Okay, not you, but that was once my life’s ambition,’ she conceded. ‘I see you more as a lumberjack, complete with axe. That’d let us both off the hook now—what use are lumberjacks and belly dancers when someone has an infected toe? But here we are, one false move in our career choices and we’re stuck. So, moving on... Let’s go.’

  * * *

  It was almost dark by the time they finished, and weariness was coating Gina like a thick grey blanket. It always did after drama.

  But at least she hadn’t been alone. There’d been frightening incidents during her time on the boats, times when she’d have sold her soul to have a doctor on hand. The engine-room explosion... Yeah, don’t go there.

  And then she glanced across at Hugh.

  His hands were clenched on the steering wheel. His knuckles were white, and his face... The trauma...

  The story Babs had told her had been scant. Foreign aid. A bomb. It must have been something truly appalling, she thought, and she wasn’t thinking just physical injury. It seemed he’d run to Sandpiper Island to hide, but by the look of his face he hadn’t run far enough.

  So what to do? Leaving trauma in place wasn’t Gina’s style.

  One thing she’d learned while working with expeditioners was that buried trauma surfaced when it was least wanted—or needed. She’d worked on scores of expeditions now, many dangerous, and almost all of them long. As lone medic—and often lone woman—she’d found crew members often began to depend on her as separation and hardship took their toll. After years of practice, she’d learned that when she sensed problems, the best option was to ask the hard questions early.

  This man wasn’t one of her expeditioners, but he was traumatised, and he was heading home to solitude. In her book that could be a recipe for disaster. So do something, she told herself, whether it was her business or not.

  But what? After such a short acquaintance, demanding he tell all was never going to work.

  But she knew a way that had worked in the past. Shared experience. The last thing she wanted was to talk about her own trauma, but exposing herself...making it about her fears... Maybe it was worth a try?

  So she closed her eyes for a moment, letting herself return to a scene she’d tried hard to forget. Then, deliberately, she pulled the plug and let it o
ut.

  ‘I never thought I’d have to cope with something like this again,’ she said, conversational, but almost to herself. ‘All day I’ve been trying to block it out. I guess it helped today, having had that experience, but I have no idea...how do I process both these now?’

  He glanced across at her. His hands were still clenched on the wheel. He looked as if he was in some nightmare place, but he could hardly not answer.

  ‘What?’ he demanded, gruffly, and she felt a tiny sense of satisfaction. This man held himself rigid, emotions running deep. The scars on his face weren’t terrible. She suspected what lay beneath was.

  And he’d opened the gates to trauma. Just a crack but maybe enough for her to wriggle through.

  ‘I copped something like this a couple of years back,’ she told him.

  ‘Like this...’

  She shrugged. Forcing herself to go on, opening her own can of worms.

  ‘We were heading down to McLachlan Island,’ she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, as if the accident had been a simple part of her professional life, not something that haunted her still. ‘There were twenty of us on board. The weather was atrocious—well, the weather’s always atrocious down there. Then a fire started in the engine room. Four of the crew were in there trying to get it out, and bang. I still don’t know what happened, but suddenly there were flames everywhere. Blast injuries. Burns. We got the fire out, otherwise I wouldn’t be here talking about it, but then we were stranded, wallowing without an engine in appalling seas, with injured crew on a knife edge between life and death. It took twenty-four hours to get us airlifted off. Twenty-four hours where I’d never felt so alone. They all recovered, but a couple carry scars which would have been a whole lot less if I’d had your skills. So today I was thinking, I’m so glad I had your help. And I was so glad to be on an island and not another ship.’

  ‘Yeah...’

  ‘And I’m guessing,’ she said, making her voice matter-of-fact, one professional to another, ‘you’re thanking your stars you’re not in some combat zone as well. And now I can go home to one of Babs’s pies and so can you. You and Hoppy will like that pie.’