The Doctor’s Rescue Mission

by Marion Lennox

  ‘Hey, Morag.’ His hand tightened on hers, holding her, steadying her as she stumbled along a track which all of a sudden wasn’t as familiar as she’d thought. And, dammit, she was too far gone to pull away. Sure, it was his bedside manner doing the comforting, but she needed any bedside manner she could get.

  Liar. She needed Grady.

  Whatever.

  She’d deal with the consequences later, she told herself dully. For tonight-for now-she needed Grady.

  He held on and she gripped him tight in return, and she sensed in the sudden, momentary stillness that her reciprocation had surprised him.

  ‘Morag…’

  ‘Shut up,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want to think about tomorrow. I just need to see Robbie. I need to focus on now. That’s all I can do.’

  There was a candle in Hubert’s cottage window, lit in welcome.

  The electricity for the entire island was cut. The outside teams had brought emergency generators which they were using at the cricket ground, and the lighthouse had its solar power, but the rest of the island was in darkness.

  But Hubert had never had need of electricity and, though the rest of the island was in darkness, here was light. As they walked up to the door, Morag felt a sudden surge of affection for the old man who’d surely surpassed himself this day.

  She entered without knocking, ushering Grady with her. Hubert was sitting at the kitchen table, fully dressed.

  He hadn’t been fully dressed for months, Morag thought, stunned. In his fishermen’s ancient jersey and overalls, he looked far younger than the Hubert she’d treated that afternoon. He looked tough and competent and extremely worried.

  As they entered his face cleared, just a little.

  ‘I thought you’d never come, girl. Thank God for it.’

  ‘This is Dr Reece,’ she told Hubert, and then moved to her first concern. ‘Robbie…’

  ‘He’s fine,’ Hubert told her. ‘Or he’s as well as he can be. We both saw what happened and he knew you were all right. Chris Bartner brought his telescope up to the ridge, and we’ve seen everything that’s happened since. But Robbie’s scared for his mates. For Hamish. And my…for all our friends.’

  Morag swallowed. ‘I haven’t gone over the lists in full.’

  ‘The lists…’ Hubert watched her face and then rose stiffly and crossed to the stove. He lifted the kettle and filled his blackened teapot. His niece would be waiting a while longer for her inheritance, Morag thought dully. Hubert’s teapot was still very definitely needed.

  Then-teapot full-Hubert nodded gravely across at Grady.

  ‘If you’re a doctor, then you must be one of the people who came in by the first helicopter. Thank God for you. Chris’s wife came up half an hour back to tell us we could leave our watching, and she said our Sam would live, thanks to you.’ He hesitated. ‘But, Morag, I need to know. Chris’s wife couldn’t speak for weeping. Elias is… Elias was her grandfather, and her grandmother needed her badly. So Christopher took her away before she could tell me more. Lists or not, tell me what the damage is.’

  So she told him. It still seemed totally unreal. Sitting at the scrubbed wooden table, eating sandwiches that Hubert had magically produced-she hadn’t realised how hungry she was but now she ate without tasting-sipping hot, sugared tea, with Grady sitting beside her, Morag outlined the damage as she knew it.

  All the houses along the seafront were damaged, some irreparably. The flimsier structures, such as the shed that had served as a fire station, had never stood a chance. Even some of the stronger-built houses had been smashed to firewood. There were twelve confirmed deaths now, mostly from those first awful minutes. Death by sheer smashing force or by drowning as people had been caught in rubble, unable to escape the water. Another six had been reported missing. So far. Not including the Koori population, and the initial reports from the settlement were disastrous. She needed to go out there.

  She needed to do so much. So many missing…

  Maybe the missing were still alive, she told herself. But maybe not. The more time passed, the more unlikely it was that anyone would be found.

  But all the local boats were assisting in the search-boats that had, thankfully, been out at sea when the wave had struck. The local fishermen were now combing the coast, trying to find anyone or anything swept away.

  That was the appalling news. That was the news that made Hubert’s face grow grey, and Morag put out a hand, ostensibly to give him comfort but also to check his pulse…

  There was more. Little things she’d learned without realising it came to her now as she sat between these very different men. The loss of Robbie’s teddy. Pets. William Cray’s border collie. William was a writer, who had made the island his solitary home. He considered himself an intellectual-a cut above the islanders. He kept to himself. Yet as she’d walked to the lighthouse, Morag had seen him sitting on the debris-strewn beach, sobbing in appalled disbelief.

  His dog was nowhere.

  And the injured and the missing… Among them…

  No. She wasn’t going down that road. She wouldn’t say it unless she knew for sure.

  ‘What’ll we do?’ Hubert whispered as Morag’s voice finally trailed off. Grady had stayed silent, seeming to know that she needed to talk. By making it real, maybe she could take it out of the realms of nightmare. Maybe it could be something that was over.

  But, of course, it wasn’t.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she told him. ‘But… Thank you for caring for Robbie. I had to trust you.’

  Her voice faltered and Grady’s hand came across the table to touch her. One day four years ago she’d pulled away from this comfort. Not now. Now when she needed him so much.

  His touch was light. Intuitively, he was letting her focus still on Hubert.

  ‘You knew I wouldn’t let you down,’ Hubert told her, his voice becoming all at once fierce. He glanced across the table at Grady, and his old eyes were suddenly defiant. ‘That’s what this island is all about. We depend on each other. We’re tight-knit. And we’re not done yet. No blasted wave is going to smash away our community.’

  He had realised the situation well before her, Morag thought. While she’d been down at sea level tending to medical imperatives, Hubert had sat up here caring for Robbie, watching for more waves and thinking through what this meant long term.

  ‘It’s not the first time Petrel Island’s faced tragedy,’ he told Grady, still fiercely, as if in Grady he saw the threat of the outside world. The threat of the end of this lifestyle. ‘When I was a kid they were still remembering the Bertha that ran aground on the far point. My dad swam out that night and brought four souls ashore, but a hundred and sixty-eight drowned. Then, fifty years back, the diphtheria came through. We didn’t have a doctor-no one on the island was vaccinated against anything-and there are twenty-five more in the graveyard who died before their time.’ He glanced from Grady, who he wasn’t quite sure of, to Morag, who he was.

  ‘You’re a doctor and you try and save us all,’ he told her. ‘But there’s always fate, girl and you can’t rail about it. You take what comes.’

  ‘You fight,’ Morag said.

  ‘Yeah, you fight, and that’s what you’ve been doing today while I’ve cared for the bairn.’ He shrugged and cradled his teacup some more. ‘He’s a good kid, Morag. He knew he couldn’t go down. He knew he’d have to wait up here with me. Waiting’s the hardest but we did it together. He’s in my bed.’ A crooked smile crossed his face. ‘With Elspeth. The two of them are worn out with worrying. I reckon I just might have to put Robbie’s name on Elspeth.’

  ‘Elspeth is Hubert’s golden retriever,’ Morag told Grady. ‘And here he is promising to leave her to Robbie when he dies. But…don’t die tonight, will you, Hubert?’

  ‘Can’t,’ Hubert said bluntly. ‘Someone else is in my bed. You want to join him? It’s a big bed.’

  Morag flashed an unsure glance at Grady. ‘I…’

  ‘You look stuffed to me
,’ Hubert told her. ‘What do you reckon, fella?’ He jabbed Grady in the chest. ‘You agree you’re capable of seeing that our girl is done in?’

  ‘She is,’ Grady said seriously. ‘There’s beds being set up in tents on the cricket ground.’

  ‘Do they need her there now?’

  Grady glanced at his watch. ‘Maybe not,’ he conceded. ‘The urgent medical cases have been seen, the worst have been evacuated and Jaqui’s there now in case more problems arise. We’ll take it in turns to sleep and she’ll call us if she needs us.’

  ‘Then, barring complications, you can both get some shut-eye up here,’ Hubert said in satisfaction.

  Morag gazed across the table in wonder at this dying old man who suddenly wasn’t anywhere near dying. He seemed like a man in charge. ‘Hubert, you’re the one who’s sick.’

  ‘I’m still dying,’ Hubert said morosely. ‘But I’m not sick. There’s a difference.’

  ‘Why are you dying?’ Grady asked, startled, and Hubert snorted.

  ‘’Cos I’m ninety-two and it’s time. They’ve taken my craypot licences off me. But, as Morag says, not tonight. Now…there’s a couple of them camp stretcher things in the shed and there’s a heap of bedding and it’s not a cold night. Morag, you slide into bed with the little fella. He’ll be real glad to see you when he wakes-that wave was the stuff of nightmares. Me and the mainland doc will settle down here unless you’re needed. You both have your radios on?’

  ‘We do.’ Morag was struggling to think, though in truth she couldn’t. Her mind was so addled she was past thinking. The idea of sliding into bed with Robbie and holding him close was overwhelming.

  Staying up here had much more appeal over going down to the huge tents they were setting up on the cricket ground-trying to sleep where everyone would be wanting to talk to her. And to sleep knowing that Grady was nearby…that the responsibility had been lifted from her shoulders… It was an unlooked-for blessing and she could no sooner refuse it than fly. She glanced uncertainly across the table at Grady, and the hand touching hers moved so he was covering her hand entirely.

  ‘I can’t take your bed,’ she told Hubert, forcing herself to concentrate on something other than the feel of Grady’s hand.

  ‘It’s already taken,’ Hubert told her. ‘Don’t be daft. I’ve spent half my life sleeping in fishing boats, sometimes on bare deck. The bairn’s already asleep. Don’t argue.’

  But… ‘Can we stay here?’ she asked.

  Grady was watching her, his face calm. He saw what she was thinking, this man. Of course. He’d always been able to see.

  ‘I think we can,’ he said gently. ‘Hubert’s idea is excellent. I’ll radio in and let my team know what’s happening. If we’re wanted, they’ll call us. But you’re exhausted, close to dropping. We all need to sleep. There’s nothing else to be done until dawn.’

  ‘How can I sleep in Hubert’s bed?’

  ‘Hey, I put clean sheets on,’ Hubert growled. ‘Elspeth’s even warmed your side up. Why can’t you?’

  Because he was her patient, she thought, torn between tears of exhaustion and a sudden inexplicable need to laugh. This afternoon she’d been treating him. To have him suddenly rise from his deathbed and say, Here, I’ve put clean sheets on the bed; you take a turn…

  ‘Hey, and deathbed or not, you’re not allowed to die in it either,’ Hubert told her, and he grinned. It was the first time she’d seen a smile since the wave had struck, and it felt good. Like the world was finally starting to settle.

  Grady was smiling too, the smile she remembered so well from all those years ago, a smile that twisted her heart.

  ‘Go and find Robbie, Morag,’ he said, in the gentle tone she remembered him using with her once before. But this time was different. This time she grasped the comfort of his tone and she held on. It was warmth in a world where there wasn’t warmth. It was hope.

  ‘Go and sleep,’ he said gently. ‘Hubert and I will be right here, watching over you. You’ve done the work of a small army today. Now let someone else take care of you for a change.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Goodnight, Morag. Go to sleep.’

  Grady lay on the camp stretcher beside Hubert, but sleep wouldn’t come.

  The camp bed with no mattress was as hard as nails but he didn’t mind that. It wasn’t discomfort that was keeping him awake. There’d been one mattress, which he’d insisted the old man have. ‘For heaven’s sake, man, I’m trained to sleep in a harness hanging off a cliff face if I must,’ he’d told him, and it was the truth.

  He’d trained himself over the years to snatch any sleep that was available. He needed sleep now. Jaqui knew what he was doing up here was important, and he’d organised that he take first break. He’d relieve her at three a.m., they’d decided, and then he’d be back here by six when the cottage occupants woke up.

  He needed to sleep now.

  Hubert snored softly beside him, and Elspeth wuffled and moaned. That wasn’t disturbing Grady. Grady could sleep in a force-ten gale. He’d done it often.

  He’d never done it while thinking of Morag.

  The sight of her today had knocked him sideways.

  He’d known she was here. Always in the back of his mind he’d known Morag was on Petrel Island. For a while he’d toyed with the idea of staying in contact, but…

  But it was an exercise in futility. Morag was beautiful and intelligent and funny and she was fully, absolutely committed.

  And it wasn’t just commitment to her nephew. It was the commitment to a community that he found so incomprehensible. For Grady, whose life had been spent moving from parent to parent as they’d shifted from one dysfunctional marriage to another, the idea of ties was abhorrent. Ties hurt. His parents had wealth and influence and if there was a problem they paid to have it sorted. They never got involved. He’d learned early that detachment was a way of survival. You showed care and concern when it was appropriate, and then you moved on.

  And Morag… She’d excited him four years ago. In Morag he’d recognised the same hunger for excitement. The same ambition. She had been one of the youngest surgical registrars ever to qualify at Sydney Central. She’d thrived on the adrenaline of demanding cases, life-threatening events. When he’d first met her, he’d thought she was gorgeous.

  She was still gorgeous.

  But she was very different now, he conceded as he stared up at the moonlit ceiling. Her smart little designer suits and jeans, her perfectly shaped curls, they were all things of the past.

  In the shock of the news of the tsunami he hadn’t thought of Morag. And when he’d seen her…

  She’d been wearing ancient jeans that must have been ragged even before the shattering events of the afternoon. She’d worn an oversized man’s shirt, and her tangled curls had been bunched back with a piece of crimson ribbon, like a child’s. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her four years ago, the way every curl had known its place. He remembered her sophistication. Her sureness.

  She didn’t look so much worse now, he conceded. Maybe…maybe even better.

  But sophistication? Purpose? Ambition?

  Hell, what was he doing, lying in the dark thinking about what a woman looked like? Where a woman was going in life?

  Morag…

  She was nothing to him, he told himself as he tossed on the hard little bed and tried to force himself into sleep. He needed to sleep. There were still huge medical needs on the island, and the way to operate at less than his best was to allow his mind to wander when it should shut down in sleep.

  Morag…

  She was just the other side of the wall.

  Yeah. In bed with a nine-year-old. Shouldering the responsibilities of a shattered community. Treading a path he knew they could never share.

  But…

  The briefing he’d had before leaving played over in his head. It had been harsh, fast and to the point.

  ‘Petrel Island is a logistical nightmare, even without the t
idal wave,’ he’d been told. ‘We’ve offered the locals reimbursement if they’ll resettle on the mainland. It’s too early to say but let’s not focus on rebuilding too early. Let’s see what happens.’

  If Morag could be persuaded to leave the island… If the community dispersed, there’d be no real choice.

  Maybe then…

  Maybe he needed to go to sleep.

  Finally he succeeded. Finally he fell asleep-but Morag was in his dreams.

  He’d dreamed of Morag before.

  But this was the Morag of now. Not the Morag of yesterday.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE woke with the first glimmer of dawn.

  For a moment Morag didn’t know where she was. She only knew that she was warm, the first rays of sun were falling across her face and Robbie’s small body was curved into hers.

  And then another thought. Somewhere close was Grady.

  Grady.

  The whole nightmare of yesterday was ready to slam back into place, but as reality hit there were two small comforts holding her steady. Or, if she was honest with herself, they weren’t small comforts. They were huge comforts.

  Robbie was here. Robbie was safe.

  And out in the front room was Grady.

  Why should that be a comfort?

  Grady’s life was disaster management. Grady’s life had nothing to do with hers. But now that she was in the midst of the worst kind of disaster, at least Grady could be here. For a tiny while.

  And then what?

  Reality.

  Hamish?

  Comfort faded. She felt Robbie stir. The sun had just caught the sill and flooded the bed, disturbing them both. Robbie rolled over and found her, his expression changing from one of panic to relief in a moment.

  ‘Morag. You’re here.’

  ‘I’m here.’ She’d hugged him in the night as she’d replaced Elspeth and climbed into bed beside him, but she was unsure how awake he’d been. He’d hugged her back but he’d hardly woken. Now she saw consciousness return. And with it relief-but also the enormity of what he’d been through the day before.