Saving Maddie's Baby

by Marion Lennox

  ‘You’re going to blame yourself?’

  ‘If I’d stayed on top...’

  ‘You made a call. Malu’s need was greater.’

  ‘I didn’t even assess...’

  ‘It wasn’t compromised when you saw it. It was an unstable fracture and it moved. It’s okay. We got it in time.’

  She hesitated but she really wanted to know. ‘What else did I miss?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Then why the sag in your voice? What aren’t you telling me?’ She knew this guy. He hid his emotions, but not well enough. Maybe that was why he’d had to walk away from her; because somehow she’d seen behind the wall.

  ‘Maddie...’

  ‘If you don’t tell me I’ll assume there’s some sort of gas leak and it’s on its way in here now, creeping in, inch by inch, ready to swallow—’

  ‘Maddie!’

  ‘So tell me!’

  He hesitated again, but finally conceded. ‘We lost a patient. The first guy out.’

  ‘Kalifa?’ She was incredulous. ‘He had a broken leg.’

  ‘Cardiac arrest. Sixty-seven years old. Overweight. He should never have been down the mine in the first place.’

  ‘None of them should,’ she said bitterly. ‘But Kalifa... His heart... Oh, no. I should have—’

  ‘Cut yourself some slack,’ he said curtly. ‘You were one doctor in the middle of a disaster. You did what you could. There were a couple more injuries from guys trying to be heroes after you disappeared but we’re thinking they’ll be fine. How’s the battery on the phone?’

  Her battery was okay. It had to be. This link to Josh seemed the only thing keeping her same. ‘I have backup but I’ll be careful. Josh?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘You need to go back to work.’

  ‘I do. We’re stabilising, then we’ll get everyone we can to the hospital here or out to Cairns. But I’ll be staying at the mine mouth.’

  Why did that make her feel a thousand times better? Why did his voice make something inside her settle, something that had been unsettled for years?

  ‘Bugsy’s been here,’ he said tangentially. ‘I saw him when I first got here. How come you get to keep him on the island when you’re fly in, fly out?’

  ‘He’s become our hospital dog. Everyone loves him, but officially Hettie looks after him when I’m in Cairns. Hettie’s our nurse administrator. She’s tough on the outside, marshmallow on the inside.’

  ‘Like me,’ Josh said, and she heard his smile and why it made her want to weep again she didn’t know.

  Still that strange feeling. But she was over Josh, she told herself. She had to be.

  ‘You’re okay?’ he demanded, and she struggled to make herself sound okay. The cramps... The pain in her back... But what was the point of worrying him? It wasn’t like he could wave a magic wand and get her out of here.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t sound fine.’

  ‘Okay, I’m sure my lipstick’s smudged but I can’t find a mirror.’

  She heard him chuckle, but she knew the chuckle was forced. ‘I’ll ring you again in an hour, if Keanu’s not watching,’ he promised, and she managed to smile, and managed to tell herself the cramps weren’t bad and she wasn’t going to cry and she didn’t need Josh here, now, holding her.

  ‘And if he is?’ she managed.

  ‘I’ll ring you anyway. I promise.’

  * * *

  She was trying not to think of Josh. She was also trying not to think of contra—of cramps. If she lay very still the cramps weren’t so bad.

  If only they weren’t so regular.

  They were every ten minutes or so, sweeping through her entire body. She had to fight not to gasp. Not to cry out.

  If I lie very still...

  She lay very still.

  She lay in the dark and stared at nothing and her hands cradled the swell of her belly.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I should have thought of you first.’

  ‘Maddie...’

  ‘Mmm?’ Malu was stirring.

  ‘Time for another of those wee jabs?’

  ‘Pain scale, one to ten?’ she asked, and he thought about it.

  ‘Eight,’ he said at last. ‘And you?’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Lying? I’m damned sure you are. You want to take your legs out from under mine?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Or I’ll shift ’em myself.’

  ‘Malu...’

  ‘There’s two of us in this mess,’ he said morosely. ‘We keep things fair.’ And then he hesitated. ‘Though that’s not true, is it? There’s three.’

  ‘Don’t...’

  ‘You are hurting. I can hear it in your breathing.’

  ‘I told you, I got bumped.’

  ‘How many weeks are you?’

  ‘I... Thirty-four.’ She was lying. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d gambled and she’d lost, big time.

  Not catastrophically, though, she pleaded. Please...

  ‘Maddie!’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she managed. ‘We just need to be patient. You want another sip of water?’

  ‘Yeah.’ But there was a world of meaning in that word. A sip... What they both wanted was a river. Or six.

  ‘Pearl says you don’t know who the daddy is.’

  ‘Leave it, Malu.’

  ‘You don’t want to talk about it?’

  ‘I don’t want to think about it.’ She’d just got through another cramp and her fear was building by the minute. ‘I don’t want to think about it at all.’

  * * *

  ‘No one’s going near the mine until the engineers arrive from Cairns.’ Pete, the sacked mine manager, had been lowered by chopper. He was still in his fishing gear and smelled of bait, but he was competent and authoritative. He was also adamant. ‘The seam they’re in...well, suicidal’s not the word for it. Even Lockhart... He was greedy for every ounce of gold the mine’d give him. He knew it was a rich seam but the ground’s unstable granite. Burrowing into it’s like burrowing into rocky sand. It’s a miracle the shoring timbers have stayed up as long as they have.’

  ‘But we have two alive and two don’t-knows in there,’ Josh said bleakly. ‘How—?’

  ‘We worry about getting them out when the engineers arrive.’ Pete was standing in front of the mine entrance and his body language said that anyone who wanted to go in there had to go through him. Which would maybe take a bulldozer. ‘But initially we can check the ventilation shafts. There’s a possibility we might be able to get lines through, enough to check air supply and to get them water.’

  While they waited for rescue that might never happen? That might be too dangerous to even consider? The words were left unsaid but they didn’t have to be said. They were so loud in Josh’s head that everything else seemed muted.

  The initial rush of trauma-related work had abated. The guys with the fractured arm and the suspected ruptured spleen were on their way to the airstrip, and then to Cairns. A doctor who’d been conducting research out on Atangi had been on the fishing boat with Pete. He’d agreed to fly back to Cairns as acting medical officer.

  That was Josh’s job, but Josh wasn’t moving. Instead, he was pacing, like a trapped, caged animal with nowhere to go.

  There was nothing to do.

  Engineers were due to arrive at any minute. They had another couple of hours of daylight.

  How much air was down the mine? How to get fluids down?

  And then there was a shout.

  ‘Hey, someone’s down there. Someone’s coming up.’

  There was a surge towards the mine entrance but Pete was still in blocking mode. He spread his
arms so no one could get past him—and then Pete saw who it was and forgot about security, making a surge himself.

  And two minutes later he was helping Macca support Reuben for the last few yards. As the dust cleared, and the surge of miners parted, Josh got a clear view. Two miners, both islanders. An older man, in his fifties, staggering, dragging a leg behind him. A younger guy, tall, filthy, supporting his mate.

  The younger guy’s hand holding... Bugsy. Maddie’s dog. Though it was kind of hard to tell—the usually gold of the retriever’s coat was now matted black.

  The big dog was wagging his tail, but even as Josh watched him he tugged sideways, looking back at the mine entrance.

  ‘Hold, Bugsy,’ he snapped. He was fifty yards away and he could see exactly what the dog intended to do.

  And Pete was quick. He snagged the dog’s collar and handed him over to the nearest miner before helping lower the injured guy to the ground. ‘Doc...’

  All Josh wanted to do was go to Bugsy, figure out how he’d done what he’d done and, more importantly, figure out if he could do more, but his attention had to be on the men.

  Caroline, one of the island nurses, was with him, and judging by the fleeting embrace he’d witnessed between them, she was involved with Keanu. She had scissors out already, even as Pete was lowering Reuben to the ground.

  Please, let him not need me.

  It was silent prayer as he started work. Another compromised blood supply or similar would take all his attention.

  But this leg was good. This leg was great.

  Or...actually not. It’d hurt like the devil for a week or more but it wasn’t broken. It needed careful cleaning, debridement, but it wasn’t urgent.

  The urgent stuff had been dealt with. And Keanu was here.

  ‘You’ll be okay,’ he told Rueben. He glanced at Caroline, then at Bugsy, then back to Reuben again. ‘We’ll give you something for the pain and get you to the hospital but this looks like bruising and lacerations, not a break.’

  And then he looked at Bugsy again.

  ‘Do you think Bugsy could find Maddie?’ Caroline whispered. He and Caroline were still kneeling over Reuben, but Caroline was following his gaze. ‘He’s Maddie’s dog...’

  He wasn’t the only one thinking it, then. He glanced at Caroline and saw her fear.

  ‘You’re her friend?’

  ‘Yes, not only am I her friend but I’m a Lockhart. My uncle was supposed to be taking care of this mine and these workers. He clearly failed at that. He’s gone and now Maddie’s in danger. This is partly my fault. I ordered the closure of the mine but I should have seen that the workers would be in desperate need. I just can’t believe that Maddie went in there...’

  She looked sick. This was bad for the outside rescue workers, he thought. How much worse would it be for those who’d lived and worked every day with those trapped underground?

  And as if on cue, Caroline’s phone rang. She flicked it open.

  ‘Maddie. Oh, my God, Maddie, are you okay?’ She cast Josh an uncertain look and then flipped the switch to speaker so he could hear. But all he heard was silence.

  ‘Maddie, you’ve rung the duty phone,’ Caroline said urgently into the silence. ‘This is Caro.’

  ‘I wanted...’ Maddie’s voice faltered. ‘Caro, I wanted Hettie. I forgot you’d have the phone. Can I...? I need...’ Her voice broke on a gasp.

  It was too much for Josh. He took the phone from Caroline’s hand and spoke.

  ‘Maddie, what’s wrong? We can get Hettie to ring you but it might take a few minutes. You sound distressed. Can you tell us what’s happening?’

  There was another gasp from the end of the line. Pain. Maddie was hurting, he thought. Worse. Maddie was terrified.

  ‘Maddie...’

  ‘I need Hettie,’ she whispered. ‘I need...’

  ‘Hettie’s doing the communication for transport. She’s based at the hospital. We’ll have her ring you as soon as we can, but you need to tell us why you’re hurting.’

  Silence seemed to stretch forever, or maybe it was the fact that Josh wasn’t breathing. The whole world seemed to be still. And finally Maddie answered.

  ‘Hettie’s the island midwife,’ she whispered. ‘I need...I need someone to talk me through this. My baby’s coming. I think I’m in established labour.’

  * * *

  There were noises around them. Keanu was giving orders in the background. A truck was backing up, ready to transport patients. Beth was talking to someone on the phone.

  All Josh could hear was white noise.

  Established labour.

  There was more silence. He could hear Maddie gasping through the phone. Breathing through a contraction? He knew she couldn’t talk.

  ‘How pregnant?’ he demanded of Caroline, and it physically hurt to say the words. It physically hurt to wait for the answer.

  ‘She says thirty-four weeks,’ Caroline whispered, sounding terrified herself. ‘But I suspect... She needs the money to support her mother in that gorgeous nursing home. I know she wants to work for as long as possible. She’s due to finish here at the end of this week but I looked at her yesterday and thought the baby’s dropped. There’s a chance she’s a couple of weeks further on.’

  Thirty-four weeks. Maybe thirty-six.

  Who’s the father? But he didn’t say it. He hardly even thought it.

  Maddie. Underground. In labour.

  Thirty-four weeks. A premature baby?

  ‘Maddie,’ he said, more urgently, but there was still no answer.

  He thought suddenly, searingly, of Maddie five years ago. Maddie lying in the labour ward, holding her tiny son. Mikey had been born impossibly early, never viable from the moment they’d recognised placental insufficiency. But the grief...

  Maddie had held their son—their son.

  He’d walked away. He’d been unable to share his grief and he hadn’t been able to help her.

  ‘Maddie?’ And this time she answered.

  ‘Y-yes?’

  ‘How far apart are the contractions?’ Somehow he kept his voice calm. He was desperately trying to sound like a doctor, when all he wanted to do was to drop the phone and start heaving rocks from the collapsed shaft.

  ‘T-ten minutes. Maybe a bit less.’

  ‘Thirty-four or thirty-six weeks, Maddie? Honest.’

  ‘Thirty-six.’

  He breathed out a little at that. It made a difference. For a prem baby, underground, with no medical technology at all, two weeks could make all the difference in the world.

  ‘Malu,’ he managed. ‘The guy down there with you. Is he your partner?’

  There was an audible gasp, and then, unbelievably, he heard the trace of a smile in her voice. ‘No. Malu’s married to my friend. He has two kids.’

  ‘Can he help you?’

  ‘No.’ The sliver of humour disappeared as fast as it had come. ‘I need...I need to talk to Hettie. She’ll talk me through—’

  ‘I’ll put you back to Caroline,’ he said in a voice he knew sounded strangled. ‘She’ll try and organise a line to Hettie. Hold on, love, and—’

  ‘I’m not your love.’ It was said with asperity.

  ‘No.’ He took a deep breath and somehow steadied himself. Asperity was good, he thought. Asperity meant she still had spirit, strength, the grit he knew and loved. ‘The important thing is not to panic,’ he told her, but he was all for panicking himself. There wasn’t a shred of him that wasn’t panicking. ‘Hold on, Maddie. We need to do some fast organising.’

  He handed the phone back to Caroline.

  ‘Keanu,’ he managed in a voice he hardly recognised as his own.

  ‘Yeah?’ Keanu was with him in an instant, thinking from Josh’s voice it was something urge
nt, something medical.

  It was.

  ‘I want refills of morphine, saline, electrolytes,’ he snapped, grabbing his bag then reaching for Keanu’s and helping himself. There was a coil of thin rope lying nearby. He slung it over his shoulder. How much stuff could you cart down a collapsing mine? Not enough, but maybe enough to make a difference. ‘Can you take over here?’

  ‘What the—?’

  ‘I’m heading down,’ he snapped.

  ‘You’re going nowhere.’ Keanu’s hand landed on his shoulder. ‘No one goes down that mine.’

  ‘Bugsy’s been down and come back again,’ Josh snapped, reaching for one of the massive torches one of the miners had set aside. ‘If he can, so can I.’

  ‘Bugsy’s a dog.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s a dog. He has no dependants and he’s expendable if necessary. Mate, that’s what I am. No one’s waiting for me at home and I might make a difference. We have a pregnant woman in labour, an injured miner and the possibility that I might be able to reach them. I’m not trying to dig like the other idiots did. I’m following the path Bugsy’s already found. I’m fit and I’m used to tight places. I’m asking no one to come in and rescue me—the responsibility’s mine.’

  ‘There’s no way.’ Keanu growled. ‘I can’t allow it.’

  ‘You don’t have a choice. As I don’t. This is my wife.’ And suddenly that’s exactly what it felt like. He’d walked away from their marriage vows five years ago but she still felt...

  Like part of him.

  He wasn’t married, he thought grimly as he sealed his bag. He didn’t do marriage. He hadn’t been able to help Maddie in her grief when he’d been unable to handle his own, and it’d almost killed him.

  ‘Pete says the mining engineers are due here in the next half-hour,’ Keanu said, urgently. ‘They’ll assess the risk.’

  And he knew exactly what they’d say. They’d seal it. They’d work in inch by painstaking inch. They’d take days to reach her.

  Reach them.

  They’d have the manpower and the authority to stop him. Keanu did, too, if he gave him time to call Pete, to block the mouth by force, to muster all the sensible reasons why he shouldn’t try.

  ‘Sorry, mate.’ He grabbed a discarded hard hat with attached head lamp and shoved it on his head. ‘But this is my wife, my call. Clean things up here. Reuben, I’m leaving you in the best of hands. Oh, and if my boss calls, tell him I’m on family leave. Starting now.’