Bushfire Bride

by Marion Lennox

  He was laughing, but Rachel hardly noticed. Her fury was threatening to overwhelm her.

  ‘You slept at the motel?’

  Michael heard her anger then. Everybody did.

  ‘I thought you cancelled,’ she said carefully. ‘When they wouldn’t let us bring the dog.’

  ‘They rang me later and said it was too late to cancel-they were keeping my deposit,’ Michael muttered. He had the grace to look a bit shamefaced, but only for a moment. He regrouped fast. With an ego the size of Michael’s it was easy. ‘And by then you’d agreed to sleep here. For heaven’s sake, Rachel, you know how small the car is. Do you want me to hurt my back?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Look, it’s immaterial anyway,’ he told her, moving right on. ‘It’s just as well I had a decent night’s sleep as it happens. Hubert Witherspoon’s had a heart attack.’

  Hubert Witherspoon? The name had its desired effect. Rachel’s fury was deflected-for the moment.

  Hubert Witherspoon was probably the richest man in Australia. He owned half the iron ore deposits in the country. What the man wanted, the man got.

  ‘He wants me,’ Michael told her.

  ‘What-?’

  ‘The Witherspoon family aren’t risking road blocks due to bushfire. They’ve sent a helicopter to take me back to Sydney.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It should be landing right now and they want me to leave immediately. Can you show Penelope for her final judging and bring her home afterwards?’

  Hubert Witherspoon…

  Hubert’s death would be a national catastrophe-at least for the financial markets. It should have made Rachel’s eyes widen in awe.

  It should have made her do whatever Michael wanted. But-Michael had been swimming. He’d slept in a motel. In a bed.

  While she’d been sitting with Penelope, feeling just dreadful about leaving Sydney. For such a reason…

  ‘You want me to show Penelope?’ she managed, and he smiled, the smooth, specialist-to-junior-doctor smile that had persuaded her to come on this weekend in the first place. Why did it make her think suddenly of snake oil?

  ‘You’ve been watching the other dogs being shown,’ he told her. ‘You saw how I handled Penelope this morning.’ He checked Rachel from head to toe with a judge’s critical eye. ‘Penelope will be fine. You might want to get yourself cleaned up a bit first, though.’

  If she didn’t slug him it was only because they were surrounded by a score of onlookers, but it was a really close thing. Somehow she managed to keep hold of a shred of dignity. A scrap. ‘Right.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You want me to drive all the way back to Sydney by myself?’

  ‘Of course. Unless the bushfires block the road. I’ll understand if you’re delayed.’ He tossed her the car keys and she was so astounded she caught them. But that was all she was doing.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Rachel…’ His tone became patient-consultant talking to slightly stupid junior. ‘You know I can’t be replaced. Hubert needs a cardiologist and he needs the best.’

  ‘I have hay in my hair,’ she muttered through gritted teeth. ‘I can’t show a potential Australian champion.’

  ‘Yes, you can. You just need a-’

  He got no further. She lifted the car keys and threw them right at his freshly shined shoes. ‘Your dog, your problem. I’m going home,’ she told him, one syllable at a time. ‘I’ll hitchhike if I must, but I’m not touching your car.’

  ‘Rachel-’

  ‘Stuff it. Stuff you.’

  ‘But Hubert-’

  ‘Hubert can die for all I care, but he won’t die because you’re not there. He’s over eighty, he’s grossly overweight and there are at least five cardiologists in Sydney who are as qualified as you are to care for him.’

  ‘You know that’s ridiculous.’

  ‘I know nothing of the kind.’

  ‘Can I make a suggestion?’ It was Brown Eyes. Hugo. But Rachel wasn’t in the mood for interruptions. She wheeled and gave him a look to kill.

  ‘Butt out. This is my business.’

  He held up his hand, placating. ‘Whoa…’

  ‘I’m out of here.’ She leaned back into the cubicle, grabbed her overnight bag and hauled it out. It was a fine gesture which didn’t come off quite as planned. She hadn’t snibbed her bag shut, and it flew open. Out tumbled her spare jeans, her toilet bag-and a bra and a couple of pairs of very lacy, very scant panties.

  They were Dottie’s offerings. Her mother-in-law. ‘You never know what’s going to happen, dear,’ she’d told her. ‘And I do so want you to be prepared.’

  Dottie was right. You never did know what was going to happen, but one thing Rachel did know. She’d been a fool to ever agree to come here. She closed her eyes as her belongings tumbled everywhere. A bra flew past Digger’s nose. He snagged it and held on, seemingly bemused.

  Everyone was bemused.

  Dear heaven, let the ground open under her. She had to get out of here.

  ‘The dog can keep it,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster, stuffing the rest of her gear into her bag and fighting a wave of burning mortification. ‘He’s so smart he can probably work out how to wear it.’ She pulled the remains of her bag shut, tugged the shreds of her dignity around her and stalked toward the door.

  They watched her go, Hugo with laughter in his eyes and Michael with his jaw somewhere around his ankles.

  She didn’t care. If she didn’t see any one of them again she’d be delighted. She was getting out of here.

  She didn’t make it.

  She stalked out of the pavilion, took a couple of deep breaths and regrouped for a moment to try and figure out the location of the main entrance to the showgrounds-and a dogfight broke out just behind her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SHE stopped.

  Of course she stopped. The sound of the dogfight was unmistakable, the vicious, ear-splitting snarls breaking through everything else.

  And then a high-pitched scream of human terror.

  She’d have to have been less than human to ignore it. She turned and stared, as did everyone else close enough to hear.

  The dogfight was at the entrance of the pavilion she’d just left and it wasn’t a fight-it was a massacre. A faded old cocker spaniel, black and white turned to grey, had been held on its lead by his teenage owner but the pit bull terrier had no restraint and it was intent on killing. The dogs were locked in mortal combat, though the cocker clearly had no idea about fighting-no idea about how to defend himself.

  The spaniel’s owner-a girl of maybe fifteen or so-was the one who’d screamed in terror. She was no longer screaming. She was trying desperately to separate them. As Rachel started forward-no!-the girl grabbed the pit bull’s collar and hauled. The dog snarled and twisted away from the spaniel-and bit.

  ‘No!’

  Rachel was screaming at her to stop-to let go. She was running, but it was a good fifty yards back to the entrance to the pavilion.

  The man-Hugo-was before her. The dogs were everywhere-a mass of writhing bodies with the girl beneath…

  She had to get them apart. The girl would be killed. Rachel dived to grab a collar to pull the pit bull from the girl, but her arm was caught.

  ‘Keep back!’ Hugo’s harsh command had the power to make her pause. He was reaching for a hose snaking across the entrance and he hauled it forward. ‘Turn it on.’

  She saw instantly what he wanted and dived for the tap. Two seconds later the tap was turned to full power. The massive hose, used to blast out the mess in the pavilion after showtime, was directed full at the dogs.

  Nothing else could have separated them. The blast hit the pit bull square on the muzzle and drove him back. The hose turned to the spaniel, but he was already whimpering in retreat, badly bitten by the pit bull, while Rachel launched herself at the prone body of the girl.

  ‘Her leg…’ she breathed.

  The girl’s leg was spurting bright arterial blood, a vast pulsating s
tream. Oh, God, had the dog torn the femoral artery? She’d die in minutes.

  The dog had lunged at her upper leg and the girl had been wearing shorts! Dear heaven…

  ‘Someone, get my bag. Fast! Run!’ Hugo was shouting with urgency. ‘The car’s by the kiosk.’ Car keys were tossed into the crowd-swiftly, because Hugo’s hands were already trying to exert pressure. Rachel was hauling her T-shirt over her head. They needed something for a pressure pad-anything-and decency came a very poor second to lifesaving.

  She shoved the shirt into Hugo’s hands and Hugo wasn’t asking questions. He grabbed the T-shirt and pushed.

  ‘Kim, don’t move,’ Hugo was saying, and with a jolt Rachel realised he was talking to the girl. He was good, this man. Even in extremis he found time to tell his patient what was happening. ‘Your leg’s been badly bitten and we need to stop the bleeding. I know it hurts like hell but someone’s gone for painkillers. Just a few short minutes before we can ease the pain for you, Kim. I promise.’

  Could she hear? Rachel didn’t know and she had to concentrate on her own role. Hugo would want a more solid pad than one T-shirt could provide. She stared up into the crowd. ‘Michael,’ she yelled. Hugo was too busy applying pressure to haul off his shirt and he needed something to make a pad. And Michael could help with more than a shirt. He had the skills.

  But Michael was gone.

  It couldn’t matter. ‘Take mine.’ A burly farmer had seen her need and was hauling off his shirt. She accepted with gratitude, coiling it into a pad.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw her overnight bag, sprawled and open in the dust where she’d dropped it as she’d lunged for the tap. More clothes. Great. As Hugo looked up, searching for whatever she had, she handed him a pad. She made another with what was in the bag. Then she shoved the pad hard down over his and pressed. He pressed with her. Even their combined effort wasn’t enough to stop the flow.

  ‘I need forceps,’ he said grimly. ‘My bag…’

  ‘Clive’s gone to fetch it,’ the farmer told them, hovering over both doctors as they worked, his face ashen with concern. ‘He’ll be back any minute. He’s the fastest runner.’

  ‘Good.’ They were working together, their hands in tandem. Hugo was breathing fast, using all his strength to push tighter, and Rachel realised that she was hardly breathing at all. Live. Please. It was a prayer she’d learned early on in her medical training, and had used over and over. Skills were good but sometimes more was needed.

  Luck?

  Still the blood oozed. ‘Push down harder,’ Hugo told her. ‘Don’t move off the wound.’

  ‘I’m not moving,’ she said through gritted teeth. The bite resembled a shark bite-a huge, gaping wound that, left untended, would release all the body’s blood in minutes.

  Even if tended…

  She was pushing down so hard it hurt.

  ‘I need forceps.’ Hugo’s voice was growing more urgent as the situation became more desperate. ‘Damn, where’s my bag?’

  ‘Here.’ A youngster, a boy of about sixteen, was bursting through the crowd, carting a bag that was three times the size of any doctor’s bag that Rachel had ever seen. A country doctor’s bag.

  ‘Haul it open.’

  The boy flicked the bag open and Rachel’s eyes widened. Forceps. There were several and they were sitting on the top as if prepared for just this emergency. She lifted a hand from the wound and grabbed the first pair.

  ‘We’re not going to stop this without clamping,’ she muttered. ‘The femoral artery has to have been torn to explain this.’

  He accepted her medical knowledge without a blink. ‘I agree. Clive, take a shirt and clear as much blood as you can while we work. Let’s go.’ He grabbed forceps himself and then looked across at her. ‘Ready?’

  She took a deep breath. This was a huge risk. They needed the pad to stop the spurting, but the only way to stop the bleeding altogether was to remove the pad and locate the source. They had only seconds to do it or the girl would die beneath their hands.

  ‘OK.’ She took two deep breaths. ‘Now.’

  They lifted the pad away from the wound. The blood spurted out and they were working blind, searching in the mess that was the girl’s leg.

  Where in this mess was the artery? Dear God, they had to stop it.

  ‘Take the swab right away, Clive. Just for the moment,’ Hugo said. ‘Be ready to replace it.’

  And in the tiny millisecond before the wound refilled with blood…‘There!’ Rachel pushed in and grasped, and the forceps linked to the torn artery. She clicked them shut-and the pumping died.

  Not enough.

  There were more. As well as the femoral artery, two or three minor vessels had been torn. They could kill all by themselves.

  Hugo’s forceps clamped shut on another blood vessel and the flow abated still further. Another pair of forceps was in Rachel’s hands and Hugo had another.

  She was working like lightning. Without the pads there was no pressure-the blood simply pumped out.

  ‘Gotcha.’ Another one was under Hugo’s forceps. He clamped.

  And another.

  And that was it.

  The blood was still oozing, but slowly now. The pumping had stopped. It’d be flowing from the ripped veins but they’d done what they had to do. For now.

  ‘We need to continue with pressure,’ she said, and sat back as Hugo set to work with another shirt, forming another pad. They’d been lucky. Trying to find the blood vessels in these conditions…

  Yeah, they’d been lucky-but this man was good!

  Hugo was tying the pad firmly around the leg. He gave her a curious glance. There was still urgency but they were working with minutes now rather than seconds. They’d blocked off the blood supply. Now they needed to prevent shock setting in. They needed to replace fluids and they needed to save a leg that no longer had a blood supply.

  ‘Pete, ring the ambulance,’ Hugo snapped into the crowd. ‘Tell them I want plasma and saline on board and if they’re not here in thirty seconds I’ll have their hides. Dave, can you and a couple of the men find those damned dogs and deal with them before we have another disaster? Toby… Where’s Toby?’ He looked out into the crowd, searching for his little boy. ‘Myra, can you take him?’

  ‘The first two are already being looked after,’ someone said. ‘The vet’s got the cocker and a couple of guys have gone after the pit bull. The ambulance is on its way.’

  Which left Toby.

  A middle-aged woman stepped from the crowd of horrified onlookers and took Toby’s hand. The child had been standing white-faced and shocked as Hugo and Rachel had worked. ‘Come on, love,’ she told him. ‘Come with me while Daddy looks after Kim.’

  Kim…

  Rachel looked up to the girl’s deathly white face. Kim’s eyes were open but it wasn’t clear whether she was conscious or not.

  ‘You’ll be OK, Kim,’ she told her, taking the opportunity to take the girl’s hand in hers. What she’d most need now would be reassurance. Not panic. ‘We needed to hurt you a bit to stop the bleeding but we’re both doctors. We know what we’re doing. The bleeding’s stopped now.’

  The girl’s eyes widened. She was conscious.

  ‘Mum… Knickers…’

  ‘Someone find the Sandersons,’ Hugo ordered. ‘It’s OK, Kim. We’ll find your mum and dad now, and Knickers is with the vet. You know Rob will look after Knickers just as I’ll look after you.’

  The flaring panic in the girl’s eyes subsided. They were winning. Kind of. For now.

  But…was one of the reasons the bleeding had eased because the blood pressure itself had dropped?

  ‘She hasn’t lost too much,’ Hugo muttered, and Rachel realised he was thinking the same as she was.

  Too much blood…

  There was certainly a lot. Rachel herself was covered with a spray of gore. She was wearing only a bra above the waist and she looked like something out of a vampire movie. Paramedics were supposed
to wear protective clothing, she thought ruefully. If Kim had any sort of blood-borne disease, then she and Hugo were now also infected.

  They couldn’t care. Not now.

  Hugo was swabbing the girl’s arm and Rachel moved to get a syringe. By the time Hugo had the line ready she was prepared.

  ‘Five milligrams morphine?’

  ‘Yeah, and then saline. We need plasma. Hell, where’s the ambulance?’

  It was here. There was a shout and then someone was pushing through the crowd. A couple of ambulance officers.

  Rachel almost wept with relief. They’d have plasma, saline-everything Hugo needed.

  They’d take over. This wasn’t her place. She could go back to being a horrified onlooker.

  But…

  ‘Your husband’s a cardiologist?’ She’d gone back to applying pressure as Hugo inserted an IV line.

  Her husband? She stared blankly and then realised who he was talking about. Michael, her husband. What a thought! But now wasn’t the time for fixing misconceptions. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’m the only doctor in town,’ he told her. ‘Can you ask someone to find him? He’ll be able to help.’

  ‘He was catching the helicopter back to Sydney,’ Rachel said blankly.

  ‘There’s a helicopter’s taking off now,’ a voice said helpfully. ‘You can hear it.’

  He’d left? Michael had left?

  Maybe he hadn’t even noticed what had happened. Rachel had stalked out and it’d be just like Michael to have left as well. He’d have heard the dogfight but he wouldn’t have turned to investigate. She knew him well enough after this weekend to know he wouldn’t deviate from his chosen plan for anyone.

  ‘He’s taken the helicopter?’ Hugo searched the crowd to find the farmer who’d been the first to offer his shirt. ‘OK, it’ll have to come back. Matt, get onto the radio. Get the chopper returned here. Tell the pilot we need priority. Kim needs emergency surgery if we’re to save this leg. She needs vascular surgeons. We need to evacuate her-now!’

  ‘Will do,’ Matt muttered, and ran.

  There was a crowd of about twenty onlookers around them now, but it wasn’t the sort of crowd you saw in city accidents, Rachel thought. There was horror on everyone’s faces. They all knew Kim. They were all desperate to help.