The Doctor’s Rescue Mission

by Marion Lennox

  ‘We’ll X-ray your arm. If, as I think, you’ve fractured your forearm, we’ll put it into plaster so it doesn’t move and it stops hurting,’ Grady told her. ‘And then we’ll organise a helicopter flight for you to the mainland so you can be with your dad while you wait for your mother to get better.’

  ‘But Hamish…’

  ‘We’re doing all we can, Lucy.’

  ‘Can I ask your Grandma to come in?’ Morag asked, and the girl’s face closed again.

  ‘No,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t want to see her again. Grandma started crying. Grandma never cries. I don’t know what to tell her. Hamish…’

  ‘Can you remember,’ Morag said carefully, trying to make it sound as if it was important but not too important, ‘how long it was between Hamish leaving home and the wave hitting?’

  ‘He left home just after lunch and we have lunch at one,’ Lucy said fretfully. ‘I remember ’cos Dad said he couldn’t go until we’d done the washing-up.’

  ‘We left the lighthouse just before two,’ Morag told Grady. ‘He must have just missed us.’

  ‘Mum said if Robbie wasn’t home he had to come straight back,’ Lucy told them. ‘He had loads of homework to do. It was Dad’s idea to let him go but I think Mum was a bit pissed off.’

  ‘Where else would Hamish have gone?’ Grady asked her. ‘If Robbie wasn’t home, were there any other friends he’d contact?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The teenager seemed to realise Morag was still in contact with her hand, and she pulled back some more, whimpering a little as her arm jarred. She hauled up her bed-covers as if they could protect her from impending pain. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We’ll look,’ Morag promised, but she couldn’t promise that they’d find him.

  They knew the odds.

  The odds were dreadful.

  Lucy’s arm had a simple greenstick fracture. Morag assisted while Grady carefully prepped the arm, wrapped it and then put a backslab on the forearm. There was considerable swelling around the wrist. Given that it had happened over twelve hours ago, it was probably as swollen as it was going to be. It’d have to be checked in a few days.

  In a few days Lucy would be in Sydney, Morag thought. Hopefully with her recovering mother and father.

  And her brother?

  The impending tragedy stayed with them while they worked. Lucy was white-faced and silent, and they knew her silence wasn’t caused by her own pain. She was terrified for her parents and for her brother-and she had every right to be.

  ‘I’ll contact Sydney,’ Grady said, grim-faced, as they left Lucy with a nurse and came out again into the little reception area. ‘Maybe the father might know where Hamish might be?’

  ‘I’ll contact him,’ Morag told him. ‘Peter’s my friend.’ She grimaced. ‘And Christine is Robbie’s aunt. Christine’s brother was Beth’s husband-Robbie’s father. He drowned when Robbie was tiny, so they know already what tragedy is.’

  That hurt. ‘Oh, hell…’

  ‘It is,’ she said bleakly. ‘Hamish is Robbie’s cousin and they’ve been extraordinarily close all their lives. If I hadn’t come back when I did, Robbie would be part of their family.’

  ‘They would have taken him in?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He frowned. ‘So why did you come back?’

  Why had she come back? Did he understand nothing?

  ‘That’s a great question,’ she snapped. ‘Very empathetic. Look around you at this community and use your head. Is Jaqui back from the Koori settlement?’

  ‘She’s been back for a while.’

  Morag stilled. ‘So they didn’t let her help.’

  ‘I gather not. They said there were no problems.’

  ‘Oh, sure. No problems? They’d hide them.’

  ‘Why would they hide them?’

  ‘They just would.’ She raked her hair in distress. ‘I should have gone.’ None of the Koori people would admit to Jaqui that they needed help, she thought grimly. She’d been stupid to hope that they would.

  ‘If Jaqui can’t help, how can you?’ Grady asked.

  ‘They trust me.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘There’s no but,’ she snapped. ‘Of course they won’t let Jaqui near them. I should have been out there this morning. Or last night! It’s taken my family two generations to get their trust, and I have it. So I’m needed. Ask me again why I came home, Dr Reece.’

  ‘I never meant-’

  ‘I know you never meant,’ she said softly, almost under her breath. ‘You never meant anything.’

  First she had to make the phone call to Peter-Hamish’s father-and it was dreadful. For this little family, the drowning of Beth’s husband-Christine’s brother-followed by Beth’s death, was still real and dreadful, and Morag could hear the horror of past pain as well as terror for the future in the way Peter spoke to her. Peter was badly injured himself, just coming around from anaesthesia. His wife was still not out of danger. And…where was his son?

  ‘I was sure he’d be with Robbie,’ he told her. ‘I was sure. When they said he was still missing… I just said find Robbie and he’ll be there. They said Robbie was up with Hubert so I just assumed…’ His voice broke. ‘I can’t believe I left the island not knowing. I was just so worried about Christine. And I couldn’t find May.’

  May was Peter’s mother. At least she could reassure him there. ‘I’ve seen May and she’s OK. She’s worried to death about Hamish, of course, but she was out of range when the wave hit and her house is undamaged.’ She was worried to death about Lucy as well, but Lucy still wouldn’t let her close and she wasn’t about to burden Peter with his mother’s distress. ‘She’ll be here for Hamish when we find him. And you were so badly hurt yourself,’ Morag said gently. ‘Peter, we’re doing all we can.’

  ‘He must have followed you up to Hubert’s.’ Peter’s voice cracked with desperation. ‘Maybe he’d guess that you’d be up there. Maybe…’

  ‘I’ll check everything,’ Morag told him. ‘Meanwhile, we’re sending Lucy over to be with you.’

  ‘But if Hamish needs her… If May needs her…’

  ‘I’ll be here for Hamish and for May, I promise.’

  Distressed beyond measure, she put the phone down and turned to find Grady watching her. His face was etched deep with concern.

  ‘Dreadful?’

  ‘Dreadful,’ she agreed. ‘That little family’s lost so much already. I’m worried Peter might crack up completely.’

  ‘He can’t,’ Grady said bluntly. ‘His wife and daughter depend on him.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She shrugged, still cringing inside from the pain she’d heard in Peter’s voice. ‘It does hold you up. This feeling that if you fall over it’ll have a domino effect.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Maybe I need to speak to Robbie. He and Hamish were planning to spend the afternoon together before Hamish’s mum said he had to spend the afternoon on homework. I wonder what were they planning to do?’

  ‘Homework together?’ Grady queried, and she managed a smile.

  ‘Or not.’ Her smile faded. ‘I need to phone Robbie before I go out to the settlement.’

  ‘I’ve cleared the way to come with you.’

  ‘You don’t want-’

  ‘I need. As you say, there may well be medical imperatives out there. If I’m assisting you, will that be OK?’

  ‘Maybe. If you’re seen as the junior partner with no authority.’ Her worry receded for a whole split second while she thought of the impossibility of Grady being the junior partner in anything.

  ‘I’ll be the junior partner,’ he said, with a meekness that had her glancing at him with suspicion, but his face was impassive. ‘Phone Robbie. I’ll start loading gear.’

  Robbie knew nothing.

  ‘I dunno where he’d be.’ Robbie had held up so well, but the thought of losing Hamish had him almost incoherent with anguish. ‘We were just going to do…stuff.’

  ‘What sort of stuff?’


  ‘I dunno.’ There was an audible sniff on the end of the line. ‘Morag, can you come and get me? Now?’

  ‘I need to go out to the aboriginal settlement,’ she told him, almost twisting inside with pain. He needed her. He needed her so much, but she was stuck. To take her with him when she didn’t know what she’d find…she couldn’t. But she had to go.

  He had to see it.

  ‘Robbie, the Koori people…many of them may well be hurt and they won’t let anyone near except me.’

  He gulped and she heard him fight back tears. ‘Do you…do you want me to stay another night with Hubert?’

  ‘If you can, Robbie,’ she said gently. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but so many people here need me. I’ll come up later and share Hubert’s bed again.’

  Then she was forced to listen while he fought panic. But finally he managed to do the right thing. The adult thing. The thing that a nine-year-old shouldn’t have to do when he was faced with what Robbie had faced in the past, and what he was facing in the future.

  ‘I’ll be OK,’ he quavered.

  ‘You’re a good kid, Robbie.’

  ‘Sometimes I get sick of being a good kid,’ he said rebelliously, and she winced.

  ‘You know something, Robbie?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sometimes I get sick of being a good adult, too,’ she confessed. ‘You reckon one day you and I might run away from home?’

  He thought about it, but only for a moment.

  ‘If they close down the island, we won’t have to run away. They’ll chuck us off.’

  ‘There could be a good side to that. Maybe we wouldn’t have to be good any more.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’d just get a job somewhere else and we’d have to be good all over again,’ he told her. ‘We’d better stay here.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But, Morag…’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I’ll stay here and be good,’ he told her. ‘But you find Hamish.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘ROBBIE’S taking it hard?’

  Grady hadn’t said a word until they had one of the few undamaged four-wheel-drives loaded and were headed south toward the Koori settlement. He produced sandwiches and handed them to her piece by piece as she drove. She knew the way and it seemed suddenly important that she keep the illusion that she was in control. But Grady was glancing across at her as she drove, and she knew that he saw that her knuckles were white on the steering-wheel.

  And one sandwich seemed enough to choke her.

  ‘Morag?’ he prodded gently, and she had to force herself to respond.

  What had he asked? Was Robbie taking it hard? Stupid, stupid question.

  ‘You don’t know how much.’

  ‘You’ve really dug yourself deep here, haven’t you?’

  ‘No,’ she said tightly. ‘I haven’t dug myself anywhere. The hole’s been dug for me.’

  ‘You elected to come.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said tightly. ‘I did.’

  ‘Were you happy here?’ he asked. ‘Before the wave struck.’

  ‘Of course I was happy. Why wouldn’t I be happy?’

  ‘You don’t miss Sydney?’

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. What a time for an inquisition.

  ‘Why should I miss Sydney?’ she snapped.

  ‘I just thought-’

  ‘Well, don’t think.’ She hesitated. And then thought, No, why not say it? All these things that had built up for so long…

  ‘Why would I ever want to be somewhere other than here?’ she told him, her anger suddenly threatening almost to overwhelm her. ‘I like there being only three shops on the island. I like always drinking instant coffee and wearing the same clothes everyone else wears, and I like it that everyone on the island knows every single thing about my life. I like having dated the island’s only two eligible men-and deciding they weren’t so eligible after all. I like cooking our own dinner every damned night except once a month when Robbie and I treat ourselves to dinner at the pub where we have a choice of steak and chips, fish and chips or sausages and chips. I like being on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and fifty-two weeks of the year. And I like it that Robbie will have to go to Sydney to board for the last few years of secondary school and he’ll probably never come back and I’ll be stuck here for ever…’

  Her voice broke and she dashed an angry hand across her face. Tears? When had she last cried? Before yesterday, she couldn’t remember.

  ‘So if the island is declared unfit for habitation,’ Grady said cautiously into the stillness, ‘you won’t be too upset?’

  She swivelled. They hit a bump on the dirt track and the truck lurched, but she didn’t notice.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘The infrastructure’s been smashed. It’ll cost a bomb to fix the power and sewerage and the buildings. It’d be much cheaper for the government to pay for resettlement on the mainland.’

  ‘Oh, great.’

  ‘You don’t want to be here.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘I think you just did.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t!’ She was so angry now she was almost spitting. ‘I know. I miss things from the mainland. Of course I do. And I feel trapped. But these people… A tiny group of highlanders settled here two hundred years ago and their descendants still live here. Most of the kids now leave the island when they’re about fourteen to go to secondary school and a lot of them don’t come back. But the ones that do…they come because they want to.’

  ‘Maybe they feel obligated. Like you.’

  ‘So you’d say let’s not give them the choice?’

  ‘If it costs a bomb…maybe not.’

  ‘And the true islanders?’ she snapped. ‘The Koori? They’ve been here for thousands of years. They keep apart from the rest of the island. They speak their own language. They’re the most extraordinary artists and craftsmen. Magical. But their way of life hasn’t changed in generations. Except that they get emergency health care and inoculations.’

  ‘Thanks to you, and you don’t want to be here.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I said I missed things. I do. Of course I do. But if I truly wanted to leave, you wouldn’t see me for dust.’

  ‘And if you and I…’

  ‘What?’ She turned and faced him and the truck hit a stump in the road. The truck jerked sideways and she swore and pulled the car to a halt. Maybe driving when she was white hot with rage wasn’t such a good idea.

  ‘There’s still something between us, Morag,’ Grady told her. He was watching her face. Carefully. Choosing his words. ‘You know, I haven’t forgotten you. All these years… If you came back…’

  It needed only that.

  ‘You’re saying we could take up where we left off four years ago?’

  ‘I didn’t realise how much I’d miss you,’ he said softly. ‘Until you left.’

  She closed her eyes. After all these years. At such a time…

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said gently. ‘This isn’t the time.’

  ‘No.’ Her eyes flew wide and she stared straight ahead at the road. Carefully she steered back from the verge, keeping careful rein on her fury. ‘No, it’s not.’ Then, very carefully, thinking it through, she said, ‘Grady, when you came here, were you told to start preparing us for full evacuation?’

  ‘I-’

  ‘I know it’s early,’ she said. ‘The focus is on searching. But there’s a huge number of troops on the island now, yet the main road’s still blocked. And I was talking to one of the men who’s been working on the gas main. He was telling me that they’d succeeded in blocking it completely. Now, that might just be temporary, for safety…’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘So you know that for sure?’ she said carefully. ‘You seem to be taking care of me, but people are deferring to you. You’re some sort of leader in all this. C
an you tell me for sure that there are no plans to declare this island unfit for habitation?’

  She waited. She kept driving.

  There was no answer from beside her.

  She’d expected none.

  ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she said grimly. ‘Well, it’s not going to happen. We won’t all leave.’

  ‘If there are no services…’

  ‘If there’s no services, most of the townspeople will leave,’ she told him. ‘Of course they will. They have no choice. Even the people like Hubert. I dare say if you removed his pension and took away all support, then maybe he’d be forced to go, too. But not the Kooris.’

  ‘Do the Koori need our intervention?’

  ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Of course they don’t. They don’t want us helping in any way, shape or form. They’ll tell you that over and over. So do you believe them? You’d leave them to fend for themselves.’

  ‘If that’s what they want.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about what they want,’ she said dully. ‘You know nothing at all. Just shut up, Grady. Help me if you can, but shut up about the future. I need to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and that’s all I want to do. And as for you and me… Ha!’

  He said nothing.

  It was like he was stepping on eggshells, he thought. Try as he may, he was about to crush things he had no wish to crush.

  And he wasn’t at all sure what it was he was crushing.

  He didn’t understand. He knew nothing. That was what she’d accused him of, and she was right. He had no understanding of this small community, of the dynamics that held it together and why its hold on Morag was so strong.

  And behind everything… The thought nagged.

  There’d been an alternative for Robbie. Robbie had an Uncle Peter and an Aunt Christine and a cousin Lucy, and maybe even still a cousin Hamish. Four years ago Morag had implied there was no one for the boy. That was why he’d let her go.

  No. No one let Morag go anywhere, he thought as he watched her heave her gear from the back of the truck and turn to welcome the two old Koori men who’d appeared to greet her as the truck had drawn to a halt. She was her own woman. She did what she wanted.