The Doctor’s Rescue Mission

by Marion Lennox

  Jaqui might look an unlikely doctor-a middle-aged woman, almost six feet tall, skinny and shiny in her canary yellow overalls-but there was no doubting her skills as an anaesthetist. The bleeding had been stemmed and the otherwise healthy fisherman now had a chance to fight back.

  Finally, as Grady worked over the dressing, Morag found herself with time to step away. For the first time since she’d seen that awful wall of water, she had time to assimilate what had happened.

  Marcus was standing behind her. The big fisherman was waiting in the shadows, as if he, too, was taking a breather from the horror he’d been working with. She stepped back to him, taking in his shocked and haggard face. She knew her own face must mirror it.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘The world’s arrived,’ he told her in a voice that was barely audible. It was as if every ounce of strength had been sucked out of him with the shock. ‘The chopper that these people came in on was a forerunner. Two Chinook helicopters full of army personnel are here now, using the paddock up the top of the fells as a landing base. Teams are searching the island. There’s boats out to sea, still searching.’

  ‘People are still missing?’

  He lifted a piece of paper and stared down, unseeing. She followed his eyes and flicked through the names-and winced.

  ‘The Koori community are missing about eight of their people,’ he told her. ‘They were on the beach. They saw the water being sucked out and went to get a closer look. They ended up being washed everywhere. Lots of lacerations but some of their kids… And some of ours…’ His voice broke and Morag put her arms around him and hugged. Hard.

  And tried not to think about a name she’d seen on the list.

  ‘We can get through this, Marcus,’ she said softly. ‘But we can’t break. Not you and I. Too much depends on us.’

  ‘You’re right.’ He wiped his face on the back of his sleeve and his face tightened. ‘You’re bloody right, Doc. I’ll be out again in a bit, but I just came to see how Sam was going.’

  ‘He’ll make it. Thanks to these people.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a good thing there’s an outside world,’ Marcus said grimly. ‘And maybe it’s the only thing left to us. I’ve seen the town. The houses…’

  ‘Don’t think about it.’ She glanced back at the table to where Jaqui and Grady were still working. They could do without her now. It was almost sunset. It was time to move on to her next priority. ‘Marcus, I need to see to the lighthouse. What if the light’s not working? And I need to see Robbie. He’ll be frantic.’

  ‘Yeah, you go, lass,’ he told her. ‘With two doctors here, they should be able to manage. You carrying your radio?’

  She gestured to it on her belt. ‘Always.’

  ‘You’ll need to walk,’ he told her. ‘Most of the roads are washed out.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’d imagine my car is floating somewhere in the Pacific.’ She shrugged. ‘I can walk. I can even run. But…’

  Marcus saw her hesitation and had no trouble identifying it.

  ‘I’ve been on the line to some expert from Sydney. The Centre for Seismology or some such. She says the wave was from the shock caused by the earthquake. She also says the epicentre was miles from here. There were two smaller waves after the big one but they’ve settled. The scientists are on full alert for any more shocks, but she says more waves are incredibly unlikely-and even if they happen, we’ll now get heaps of warning.’

  ‘So we’re safe?’

  ‘Yeah. Sort of. Robbie’s been watching all afternoon but he’s off duty now.’

  She managed a smile. ‘The whole island’s been dependent on a nine- and a ninety-year-old. My guess is that Hubert won’t choose to die this week.’

  ‘I surely hope not. We’ve had enough deaths.’ Marcus’s smile matched hers-weak and with no life behind it. ‘OK.’ He shrugged. ‘I need to go. I shouldn’t have come, but I couldn’t bear to leave Sam.’

  ‘He stands every chance of recovering.’ Morag glanced once more over her shoulder to where Grady was completing his work. He had no attention to spare for her, and she had none to spare for him.

  But he was here. The thought was overwhelming in the measure of comfort it gave her. This afternoon had been her worst kind of nightmare, and she was taking any vestige of comfort wherever she could find it. So she let herself look at Grady for a moment longer, taking in the solid competency, his air of command, the presence he exuded without ever seeming aware of it.

  Enough. She was being silly. His presence was a comfort but there was nothing more to be done here.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she told Marcus-and she turned away from Grady to follow Marcus, out of the cricket pavilion and into the mess of the island that had once been their home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE lighthouse was a priority.

  Morag had two jobs on the island. One was island doctor, the other was lighthouse-keeper, and who could say which was more important? They both saved lives.

  Once, being lighthouse-keeper had been a full-time job, but now it was simply a matter of ensuring that the light was still functioning, and that was a vastly different task than in the days when kerosene had had to be carted up the tower every night. Now the light was powered by electricity, with solar back-up.

  Normally an alarm would sound if the light was dimmed in any way, but the alarm was in the lighthouse-keeper’s cottage. Morag’s home. And the cottage was at the foot of the lighthouse, not high enough above sea level to avoid damage.

  It had been early afternoon when the wave had struck. Now the last rays of sun were sinking over the horizon and the darkness caused more problems. The streets were a mess, the streetlights were history, and a walk that usually took five minutes took her half an hour.

  She made her way along the devastated main street, skirting the massive build-up of clutter smashed there by the water, clambering over piles of what had been treasured possessions but were now sodden garbage, stopping occasionally to speak to people searching through the mess that had once been their homes.

  People stopped her all the time. People were desperate to make contact, to talk through what had happened.

  But there was no longer an urgent medical need for her. Grady and his people were coping with medical needs for now, and she had to move on.

  She must. The light…

  She came to the end of the street and turned from the shelter of the ruined buildings onto the tiny, wind-swept promontory that held the lighthouse.

  The lighthouse itself was still standing. Of course. It was built of stone, built to withstand massive seas, built to cope with anything nature threw at it.

  The cottage, though…

  She stood and stared, seeing not the ruins of the whitewashed building that had been her home for the last four years but seeing what it had once held.

  Robbie’s memories. Photographs of Beth and her husband. Robbie’s precious teddy, knitted for him by his mother when she’d been so ill she’d hardly been able to hold needles. The furniture carved by Morag’s father, splintered, ruined…

  The lighthouse. Concentrate on the lighthouse. She choked back tears and looked up to find the light blinking its warning into the dusk.

  At least one thing in this dysfunctional world was still working to order.

  She stared upward for a long time. Stay away from here, the light was saying. The light was supposed to be warning ships that here were rocks to be wary of, but this day the danger had come from the sea itself, and the wreck was inland.

  Her home was ruined.

  She’d have to find Robbie.

  She turned away, blinded by tears, and someone was standing in her path.

  Grady.

  Grady was right…there.

  ‘They told me you’d come here,’ he said, in that serious voice she’d known and loved all those years ago. A lifetime ago. He was looking down at her in the half-dark and it was all she could do not to fall on his chest again. Only, of course, she co
uldn’t. How could she? And why would she? Sure, this was a tragedy, but it was her tragedy. It had nothing to do with this man.

  He was here because it was his job to be here, she thought bleakly. He had nothing to do with her.

  ‘Aren’t you needed back at the pavilion?’ she asked, and his gaze didn’t falter.

  ‘I thought I might be needed here. With you.’

  ‘There’s nothing to do here. The light’s still working.’

  ‘You really are the lighthouse-keeper?’

  ‘Like father, like daughter. Yes.’

  ‘Morag, I’m sorry.’

  She had no idea what he was sorry for. So many things…She had no idea where he intended to start.

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t help.’

  ‘This is your house?’ He gazed at the battered whitewashed buildings. The light was fading fast now, and the beam from the lighthouse was becoming more obvious, one brief, hard beam out over the waves each fifteen seconds. The waves were washing gently over the rocks, their soft lapping making a mockery of the wave that had come before.

  From where they stood you couldn’t see around the headland into the town. The ruins were hardly apparent-unless you stared into the smashed windows of the cottage and saw the chaos that had been her home.

  ‘Do you need to do anything for the lighthouse?’ he asked, and she shook her head.

  ‘No. The electricity’s cut but we have solar power back-up. The solar panels on the cottage roof seem to be just under the high-water mark, and the connections must still be intact. That was what I was most worried about. I needed to check that the light was OK.’

  ‘To stop further tragedy?’

  ‘Without the light…yes, there’d be further tragedy.’ She gazed across the great white tower, following its lines down to where it was anchored on solid rock. ‘It doesn’t look harmed. One wave couldn’t wash it away. Unlike…’

  ‘Unlike the rest of the island.’ He hesitated, watching her face as she turned again to face the wreckage of her home. ‘It was some wave.’

  ‘It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen,’ she whispered. ‘I thought everyone would be dead. I couldn’t believe that so many would live. But still…there’s so much…’ She let herself think of the lists Marcus had held-and the name that among them all had her cringing the most. Doctors shouldn’t get personal, she thought. Ha!

  Somewhere there was a little boy called Hamish. Robbie’s best friend.

  Enough. The little boy had probably been found by now, and even if he hadn’t, she couldn’t let herself think past a point where madness seemed to beckon. She gathered herself tight, allowing anger to replace distress. ‘Why aren’t you back at the pavilion? I wouldn’t have left if I thought you and Jaqui weren’t staying.’

  ‘We have things under control and I can get back fast if I’m needed,’ he told her. He was still watching her face. ‘There’s two doctors on the Chinook-the helicopter we’re using to evacuate the worst of the wounded. We’re evacuating those now. Peter and Christine Rafferty. Iris Helgin. Ross Farr. You’ve done a great job, Morag, but multiple fractures and internal injuries need specialist facilities.’

  She nodded. ‘How about Lucy Rafferty?’ she asked tightly. ‘Did she go with her parents?’ Peter and Christine had been badly hurt-Peter with a badly fractured leg and Christine with concussion as well as fractures, but their thirteen-year-old daughter hadn’t seemed as badly hurt.

  And their son? Hamish? She thought the question but she didn’t add it out loud.

  ‘We didn’t have room for Lucy,’ Grady was saying. ‘And we thought-’

  She nodded, cutting him off. She knew what he thought.

  ‘And Sam?’ she managed. He could hear how involved she was, she thought. He must do.

  But so what? she demanded of herself. The medical imperative-not to get personally involved-how on earth could she ever manage that here?

  ‘You can’t act at peak professional level if your emotions get in the way,’ she’d been taught in medical school, and she wondered what her examiners would think of the way she was reacting now.

  Well, it was too late to fail her. They were welcome to try.

  ‘We’re making sure Sam’s stable before we transfer him,’ Grady was saying. ‘But he’ll make it. I’m sure he’ll make it.’

  ‘Without his leg,’ she whispered. ‘No more fishing.’

  ‘But still a life.’

  ‘Maybe.’ She stared again at the ruins of her cottage. The water had smashed its way everywhere. Through gaps where once there’d been window-panes, she could see a mass of sand and mud and sludge a yard deep.

  Where to start…

  Robbie.

  Hamish. Dear God.

  ‘I need to find my nephew,’ she said bleakly.

  ‘Beth’s child?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Grady asked, and then added, more urgently, ‘Morag, do you know where he is?’

  What was he thinking? she thought incredulously. That she’d only now thought of the little boy’s whereabouts?

  ‘Of course I know where he is,’ she snapped. ‘I never would have left him if he hadn’t been safe. I would have stayed. But I had to go. Sam…Hamish…the others. But Hubert will take care…’

  She wasn’t making sense, even to herself. Grady looked at her, his face intent and serious in the fading light.

  ‘So he’s with someone called Hubert. Where’s Hubert?’

  ‘Up on the ridge above the town. Hubert’s cottage is the high point of the island. I was up there when…’

  ‘When you saw the wave,’ Grady said. ‘You were very lucky. Marcus told me what happened. If it hadn’t been for your quick thinking…’

  ‘Yeah, if I hadn’t been here,’ she said, and it was impossible to keep the bitterness from her voice. ‘If I hadn’t been where I belonged, we’d all be dead. But I was. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Grady, I need to find my nephew.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and he took her hand, whether she liked it or not. ‘You’re as much a victim as anyone else on this island, Morag. Your home is in ruins. You possess only the clothes you stand up in. You’re shocked and you’re exhausted. I’m taking you in charge. We’ll go up together and fetch Robbie and then I’ll take you to the tents they’re setting up on the cricket grounds to care for all of you. Learn to accept help, Morag. You’ll have to take it over the next few weeks, like it or not.’

  She stared at him. Helpless. Lost. And when he held her hand tighter, she didn’t pull away.

  She was going to need this man over the next few weeks? Right. She did need him.

  The only problem was that it wasn’t just for now. She’d needed him for four long years and that need had never faded.

  She’d needed him then and she needed him desperately now.

  Grady.

  Her love.

  It was all a mist, she thought. A delirious dream where horror and death and Grady and love-and sheer unmitigated hopelessness-all mingled.

  They had to walk up the fells, scrambling up the scree to Hubert’s cottage. The goat track was hard to find in the dim light. Grady had a flashlight and it picked out the path.

  He held onto her hand all the way. To do otherwise seemed stupid. The fact that his touch made her sense of unreality deepen couldn’t be allowed to matter.

  Maybe she should release herself from his grip, she thought inconsequentially. She wasn’t nervous of the dark. Brought up to know every nook and cranny on the island, Morag was as at home here as she was in the city on a well-lit street. Grady needed the flashlight but she let her feet move automatically.

  Dear heaven, this was so dreadful…

  The thought of Angie kept filling her vision. Angie’s tiny cold baby. And Mavis. And so many dead…

  And Hamish?

  No.

  She couldn’t think. Somehow she blocked h
er thoughts until the only thing she was aware of was the presence of this man beside her.

  It helped. It stopped her getting her head around what had happened this day.

  So much had happened since she’d last walked up here that Morag was having trouble believing that any of this was real. This afternoon she’d strolled up the path with Robbie by her side, happy because it was a glorious Sunday afternoon and the island was the best place to be in the entire world. Robbie had kicked his soccer ball along in front of him, letting it roll down the scree, whooping and hollering and occasionally returning to her side to keep up his latest plea for a puppy.

  ‘Please, Morag. We need a puppy. We need a dog. We need…’

  Then there’d been the talk of Elspeth.

  I wonder how many island dogs have survived? she thought, and then thought even more savagely, I wonder how many dogs need new owners?

  Her head was right back into the tragedy. How could she escape it?

  ‘It’ll be OK.’

  ‘How can it be all right?’ she said into the night, not really talking to Grady. She was talking to herself. ‘How can things be righted? So much destroyed…’

  ‘The chopper pilot on the way over said there’d been talk of resettling the islanders,’ Grady said cautiously. ‘Making this an unpopulated island. With so much of the infrastructure damaged, maybe that’d be the way to go.’

  Oh, right. Smash homes and then rip the island out from under them.

  ‘Yeah, the government would like that,’ she said bitterly. ‘It costs them an arm and a leg in support-to have ships drop off supplies, to provide things like mail, telecommunications, health services…’

  ‘You are the health services.’

  ‘I know, and if I wasn’t here they’d close the island in a minute,’ she told him. ‘They’ve decided again that the lighthouse can manage unmanned. They don’t want to provide infrastructure and it drives the powers that be nuts that I agreed to stay here. I’m the only reason this island can function.’ She shook herself, trying to lose the feeling of nightmarish unreality. ‘And now there’ll be more pressure. How the hell can we rebuild? All these people? There’ll be so many problems. I can’t cope…’