Doctor and Protector

by Meredith Webber

  ‘You don’t like him?’ McCall smiled at her as he asked the obvious, but Cassie wasn’t going to be mollified. She shot a scornful glance at him, and continued on her way, wheeling into an open ward, with four beds facing inwards, French doors opening onto a veranda between two of them.

  ‘OK, you lot, how’re things this morning?’

  The patients must be used to this less than standard greeting, for they all responded cheerfully, some calling her Cassie, others the less familiar but still casual ‘Doc’.

  ‘This is a friend of mine, Henry McCall,’ she added, moving to the first bed on the right and lifting the man’s chart out of its slot. A nurse appeared at this stage and joined Cassie by the bed.

  ‘He wants to go home,’ the nurse said, nodding towards the elderly man sitting up against his pillows.

  ‘Can Mary cope?’ Cassie asked, and McCall saw the old man flush and his eyes film over with tears.

  ‘Not fair on her, would it be,’ he said gruffly, while Cassie stepped closer to take his hand.

  ‘We can get you some home help,’ she said gently. ‘But you’ll have to talk Mary into it. You know how independent she is. She’s been refusing help for years, but the only way I can let you go back home is if she’ll accept someone coming in every morning to help you shower, and again in the late afternoon to get you ready for bed. The community nurses will come every day as well to give you your injection.’

  She paused, no doubt waiting for her words to sink in, then her patient nodded.

  ‘I’ll talk to Mary when she comes,’ he said, and Cassie squeezed his hand and walked away.

  She spent as much time with the other patients, but McCall sensed her mind was still on the first one, a suspicion confirmed when they walked out of the ward and she muttered to herself, ‘Well, there goes the first of the orders Don’s given me this morning.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have promised quite so much home help?’ McCall guessed, and Cassie turned to smile at him.

  ‘Got it in one. I wouldn’t mind if I didn’t keep remembering that before we had area managers with fancy offices and a mania for meetings, their salaries would have gone towards providing hands-on care somewhere along the line.’

  ‘Are they all that bad?’ McCall asked. He saw some of the tension ease from her shoulders and she turned to smile at him.

  ‘No, not all and, yes, I suppose a lot of them—including Don—do an excellent job in some areas. Don and I have a personality clash, that’s all.’

  But McCall guessed it wasn’t all, and made a mental note to check out the area health manager.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THEY were in a third ward—this one containing only two beds—when an older woman came hurrying in from the corridor.

  ‘Oh, Cassie, I knew you were here and it was easier to come than to page you. There’s been an accident out on Four Seasons—a contract harvester overturned his rig and the man who phoned said they’d need you to stabilise him before they could get him out from the damaged cabin.’

  ‘Call Mike at home and ask him to stand by for any emergencies at the hospital. He can take my place in Don’s meeting if I’m not back. I’m on my way,’ Cassie said, apparently forgetting McCall’s existence as she excused herself to the patient and hurried out of the room.

  As she turned towards the back of the building, McCall caught up and touched her arm.

  ‘Your car’s out the front. Is there anything you need?’

  She looked startled then smiled at him.

  ‘You might have your uses after all,’ she said. ‘And no to your question. The ambulance and fire service will both be on their way, and I’ve a bag in my car.’

  They were out of the building by now, hurrying down the path to the car park.

  ‘Four Seasons is a grain and cattle property about thirty kilometres out of town. It’s a lovely drive because we go around the old dam,’ Cassie told him, then she smiled again. ‘Not that you’ll have much time to notice the scenery.’

  She drove swiftly out of town, not speeding in a dangerous sense but keeping just above the limit.

  ‘That’s the turn-off up ahead,’ she said, when the houses of Wakefield had fallen behind them. ‘Up there where that other car’s indicating to turn right. The dam’s a popular picnic spot so we’ve bitumen to there, then gravel.’

  Traffic coming towards them meant they caught up with the car she’d pointed to before it turned. It was a silvery four-wheel-drive so similar to the one he was in McCall wasn’t surprised when Cassie said, ‘Snap! That car’s the same make and model as mine. Must be a visitor because, although some friends have a blue one like mine, this is the only silver one in town.’

  They followed the other car, Cassie fretting at its slowness because the road, winding its way through a pine plantation, was too narrow for her to pass.

  ‘Ah, here’s the dam. Let’s hope they’re stopping for a picnic, not driving further,’ she said, pointing through a gap in the trees towards a wide sheet of shining water. ‘The road runs across the top of the old packed-earth dam wall. This was originally the town water supply, but as Wakefield grew, it became inadequate and we’ve now got a huge dam out the other side of town.’

  ‘And, of course,’ she added bitterly as the car in front drove through a grove of trees and up onto the road which led across the dam wall, ‘these people would be going our way!’

  She was talking automatically—giving out information like a tourist guide to keep her mind off whatever horrors might lie ahead.

  She had to keep her mind off her companion, too, she reminded herself.

  So she was thinking of McCall when the noise of a shot sounded somewhere ahead of them.

  ‘Car backfiring?’ McCall suggested.

  ‘City boy,’ Cassie teased. ‘This is the country—people shoot things.’

  They drove out of the trees onto the dam wall and saw not the car they’d been following but skid marks.

  ‘It wasn’t a shot—his tyre’s blown out and they’ve gone into the dam,’ McCall said, while Cassie pulled up, clambered out, then gingerly peered over the bank to where the silver top of the car was still visible above the dirty brown water of the dam.

  ‘Call someone. Get police here—a tow truck. I’m going in.’

  He was yanking off his shoes as he spoke, and Cassie slipped out of hers as well.

  ‘There were children in that car,’ she said. ‘We can phone once we get everyone out.’

  And with that she clambered down the bank towards the water, not wanting to dive in for fear of unseen obstacles, splashing in and swimming to where the car was fast disappearing.

  McCall was beside her.

  ‘Stay together—we might both be needed to get a door open. With the mud stirred up you might not be able to see, so work by feel. There’ll be air in the car, but water will rush in when a door opens. If you can’t get someone out, lift them so their head is in the air pocket trapped in the top. Most cars take a while to settle. Remember, they’ll probably all be wearing seat belts—release those first and feel for the child restraints.’

  Cassie took in the information he delivered so succinctly, and though her main concern was for the car’s occupants she felt a niggle of wonder at the clear way McCall’s brain was obviously working. He held her hand and pulled her down under the still rippling surface.

  The driver’s door was open, a man struggling to get out. McCall pulled open the passenger door on that side, put Cassie’s hand on the child restraint, then left. She assumed he was going around the car to help the woman and child on the other side, but her attention was on the little figure in the seat, bubbles rising from his mouth and nose.

  Thankful she’d had plenty of practice with the twins, she undid the restraint, then eased the little body out of the shoulder straps. Once he was free, she lifted him above the surface of the water into the air trapped, as McCall had promised, in the top of the car. The child was gasping and choking, and no doubt had w
ater in his lungs, but at least he was breathing. Cassie gulped in air herself, reassured the child, then felt someone behind her. The father was there.

  ‘Cover his nose and mouth and take him up to the surface,’ she told the man when his head bobbed into the air space.

  ‘But Geraldine—and my wife. I tried to get her out my door and couldn’t.’

  ‘There’s someone helping them. Lay the boy on his side when you get him out. I’m a doctor and I’ll be there soon.’

  She reached across, seeking the other child, wondering if she was already too late.

  A sharp kick told her she wasn’t, and she realised the child had released herself but, disorientated, had gone down instead of up. Cassie grabbed the foot that had kicked her and hauled, getting another kick from the other foot for her trouble.

  She didn’t wait to get the child upright, but backed out, dragging the little girl behind her, then used her own legs against the car to push herself up to the surface.

  ‘My wife, my wife!’ the man was moaning, while the little boy he’d brought to the shore just lay, coughing and shivering, on the rough surface of the dam wall.

  ‘My friend will get her,’ Cassie told him curtly, as she laid the girl on her back beside her brother, checked to make sure her airway was clear, then put her mouth over the child’s mouth and nose and breathed three quick breaths into the girl’s lungs.

  As Cassie lifted her mouth away, Geraldine turned on her side and vomited up what seemed like a pint of muddy dam water.

  ‘There’s a blanket in the back of my car,’ Cassie told the man. ‘Get it, and wrap it around both the children, then hold them to keep them warm. I’ll see if I can help with your wife.’

  Satisfied both of them were breathing, she was about to go back in when McCall appeared, the limp body of a woman in his arms.

  The children’s father rushed to help him, and together they placed the woman gently on the ground.

  ‘She’s got a pulse,’ McCall said, then he bent his head to breathe for her.

  Cassie, realising the woman was in good hands but her husband was virtually useless, went to the car herself. She grabbed her bag, the blanket and a towel she kept for wiping Blondie after a swim in this same dam, then found her mobile, thumbing in the 000 emergency code as she returned to the children.

  In clear, concise words she explained the accident and the need for an ambulance, police and a tow-truck. But as she was finishing the message a vehicle emerged from the trees at the far side of the dam. As it came into full sunlight when it drove onto the dam wall, it was obvious the ambulance had answered her call far more quickly than was humanly possible.

  She blinked in case it was a mirage, but it was already close to where McCall worked on the woman. Cassie hurried back to the children, dabbing them as dry as possible with the towel before bundling the blanket around them.

  They were worryingly silent and she talked non-stop, reassuring them everything would be all right.

  ‘Daddy’s car went in the water.’

  It was the little girl who finally spoke, then, as if the sound of his sister’s voice brought back normality, the little boy began to cry, wailing out pathetic cries of ‘Mummy’ in between his sobs.

  ‘Mummy will be all right,’ Cassie soothed, holding him close to the warmth of her body. Mentally, she crossed her fingers, not liking the way both ambulance attendants were working around the woman, inserting an IV line, putting on a neck brace, bringing the wheeled stretcher close and collapsing the wheels. Mummy was obviously going to hospital.

  Cassie wanted to be there, part of this action. After all, she was the local doctor. But the children needed attention, too, and their father obviously wasn’t going to give it to them. She could have moved closer, with the children, but they were already shocked by the accident and didn’t need the added trauma of seeing their mother unconscious.

  So she sat and waited, the children bundled on her lap, talking to them all the time to keep their minds off what was happening to their mother.

  In the end, it was McCall who came across to her as the woman was loaded into the ambulance. He was frowning, but not, she thought, at her.

  ‘What a waste of space that bloke is,’ he muttered. ‘Still hasn’t given a thought to his kids. I told him to see to them, but did he go? No, he stayed and made a nuisance of himself. His wife’s unconscious, could be from a bump on the head as the car went in.’

  He was squatting beside Cassie, speaking in a quiet voice so the children wouldn’t hear, then he leaned forward and with effortless ease lifted the two of them, still blanket-wrapped, into his arms.

  ‘Come on, kids. Your mum has to go to hospital, so this nice lady—her name’s Cassie—will drive you there so you can see her.’

  ‘What about Daddy?’ the little girl asked, and Cassie was pleased when McCall didn’t repeat his ‘waste of space’ remark but assured the child she’d see her father at the hospital.

  ‘But you’re strangers,’ the little girl said, though she had her head resting on McCall’s shoulder and she wasn’t exactly resisting this form of transportation.

  ‘No, we’re doctors, and we help people who’ve had accidents, so we don’t really count as strangers.’

  McCall was so easy with the children Cassie again wondered about his experience. OK, so he wasn’t married, but maybe he had been. Maybe his children were with his wife and that was why his face had changed this morning in the kitchen.

  The ambulance driver was climbing into his seat when Cassie remembered why they’d been on the dam wall in the first place.

  She turned to McCall.

  ‘I can’t go back to the hospital. I have to get out to Four Seasons. To the accident. Isn’t that where the ambulance should be?’

  McCall shook his head.

  ‘They went out and found it was a false alarm. Apparently they deadheated out there with the police car, and Dave has stayed on at the property to try to find out if the nuisance call came from someone on their staff.’

  ‘A false alarm? What’s happening to Wakefield? These kind of things might be ho-hum in the city, but out here people know the life they might be risking by sending an ambulance out of town could be their own.’

  She was fuming over this as she climbed into the car, so she was belted in before she realised just where the vehicle was—on a single lane track at the top of a dam wall, facing towards the ambulance, with no place to turn.

  ‘You’ll have to back up,’ McCall said, picking up on her dilemma as he strapped himself into the back seat between the children.

  ‘And land another car in the dam? There is no way I can reverse that far in a straight line. The ambulance will have to back up so I can go across and turn.’

  McCall sighed. He didn’t say ‘women drivers’ but she heard it in the air.

  ‘You come in here to keep hold of the kids and I’ll drive,’ he said, releasing his seat belt then clambering awkwardly out of the back seat and opening her door.

  The thought of being in a car going backwards along the narrow top of the dam made Cassie’s blood run cold. She’d have preferred to walk back to solid ground, but the children needed the reassuring presence of an adult so she’d just have to grit her teeth, close her eyes and pray McCall was as good at reversing as he seemed to be at everything else she’d seen him tackle.

  He was, and she finally relaxed when they were off the wall and he swung to one side to allow the ambulance to pass, before turning and following it towards town. He had done it so effortlessly she was compelled to say, ‘I can reverse, you know, it’s just that up there it looked so scary.’

  He turned to smile at her, and she felt as if the sun had suddenly beamed heat onto her wet clothes and warmed them.

  ‘It’s like tightrope-walking. Draw a line on the ground and you could probably walk along it no trouble, but once that line is a rope up in the air, it seems to change its dimensions.’

  Cassie nodded, then turned her attentio
n to the children, finding out from Geraldine that her brother’s name was Ben. She talked to them, drawing out a few responses, even winning a smile from Ben when she pointed out a kangaroo hopping off to the side of the road.

  But though she was talking to the children, she was thinking about the phone call, and about how country towns were losing their innocence.

  ‘It’s probably because of television,’ she muttered to herself. ‘All the crime shows—they give people ideas.’

  ‘We watch the Wiggles on television,’ Geraldine announced, prompting Ben to break into one of the songs the colourful characters sang. As the twins were the proud possessors of at least four Wiggles videos, Cassie was able to sing along, so they drove into the hospital grounds, still working their way through Ben’s repertoire.

  Fortunately, the first person they saw was the children’s father, waiting anxiously at the bottom of the front steps.

  ‘Apparently remembered he has children,’ McCall said, as he lifted Ben from the car, then reached in with his free hand to help Cassie out. The father had opened the other door, and he now picked up his daughter, hugging her and pressing kisses on her wet hair.

  ‘Mummy’s going to be all right,’ he told her, revealing his own deepest fears with the words. ‘She was talking to me just now, and she wants to see you both.’

  They walked in a rather wet and straggly group into the hospital, where the women in the admin office stared at them in astonishment.

  ‘Don’t just look, do something,’ Cassie said. ‘See what housekeeping has in the way of dry clothes. I’ve spare stuff in my office, but the children both need something dry to put on, and you might be able to rustle up something for their father.’

  She turned to McCall.

  ‘Think you can find your way back to my place for a change of clothes? You’ve got the keys, you can take the car.’