‘I think…so.’ She moved her head, aware now of the clouds of choking dust around them.
Cautiously Dominic eased himself away from her and Claire could see that he was covered in the thick white dust. The enveloping silence was as profound as ever but as Claire lay for a moment on her back and gazed up, the dust cleared a little and she could see that a huge section of the roof had fallen in and the intense blue of the Italian sky was visible. Even as she lay there, she heard a brief snatch of birdsong. Turning her head, she saw that Dominic was crawling across the floor towards what looked like a bundle of rags covered in thick dust and it was then she heard other sounds—the sound of groaning, human voices muttering in bewilderment or frantic with urgency, a woman’s sudden hysterical sobbing.
Somehow Claire managed to struggle to her knees and as she looked around her she saw that the choking dust was beginning to settle. Two huge stone pillars had collapsed and an enormous section of the ceiling and roof had crashed into the old refectory, forming a huge mound of rubble between where Claire and Dominic had huddled for safety and the main entrance. Other figures were stirring now, everyone covered in several layers of the white dust. Claire saw Archie stumbling across the floor in front of her and suddenly Melanie was beside her, coughing and choking.
‘Claire…’ she gasped, ‘where’s Peter? I can’t find him. Oh, God, where is he? Peter!’ her voice rose to a wail.
Claire turned and looked to where Dominic was crouched over the bundle on the ground. Was that Peter? Even as she thought the unthinkable, wondering how she would cope with Melanie if it proved to be so, Dominic crawled back. ‘There’s nothing I can do for him,’ he said.
‘Oh, my God!’ Melanie’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘Peter!’ She would have crawled through the rubble but Dominic restrained her.
‘It isn’t Peter,’ he said.
‘Who is it?’ Claire looked over his shoulder and saw that a rafter had fallen across the body and was partly obscuring its head and neck.
‘I don’t know,’ Dominic replied. ‘It must be someone from one of the other hotels or perhaps someone who works here. Whoever it is, he took the full force of that rafter on his head—he must have died instantly.’
‘But where is Peter?’ wailed Melanie.
‘Mel?’ Suddenly, like an apparition, Peter was there beside them. There was a gash on his forehead and through the white, chalky dust his face was streaked with blood.
‘Oh, Peter!’ Melanie collapsed into his arms. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘No,’ he replied shakily, ‘of course I’m not dead. It would take more than some earthquake to kill me off.’
‘That man is dead.’ Melanie glanced fearfully over her shoulder.
‘Is he?’ Peter sounded shocked, his air of bravado abandoned now in the face of grim reality. ‘Are we sure? I mean, are we certain there isn’t anything we can do for him?’
‘Well, Dominic said he was…’ Melanie glanced at Dominic.
‘Even so…I think perhaps…’ Peter began, but Dominic cut him short.
‘He’s dead,’ he said quietly. ‘Believe me, there’s nothing anyone can do. I’m a doctor,’ he added when it seemed that Peter might be about to argue the point further.
Peter threw him a quick, surprised glance. ‘Do we know who it is?’ he asked after a moment.
‘No.’ It was Melanie who replied. ‘We think he may be from one of the other hotels…But where are the others?’ Wildly she glanced around. ‘We weren’t the only ones in here when it happened…’
‘I saw Archie just now,’ said Claire. ‘He seemed OK…’
‘Ted and May—where are they?’ Melanie looked round, peering through the dust-choked atmosphere.
‘I’ll go and see if I can find them,’ said Dominic.
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Peter.
‘No,’ Dominic replied swiftly. ‘You stay here with the girls.’ Stepping towards Peter, he peered at the gash on his forehead, which was seeping blood now at an alarming rate. ‘Claire…’ he half turned to her ‘…see if you can do anything to stop this bleeding.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Claire pulled her bag towards her, which luckily had been underneath her when Dominic had pulled them to the ground so had escaped much of the dust, and began rummaging inside as Dominic began clambering over the fallen rafters and huge chunks of masonry.
Inside her bag she found a new packet of wet wipes, which she tore open. Peter lowered himself to the floor and she knelt beside him and, using one of the wipes, gently cleansed the area around the wound. Taking a wad of clean tissues from her bag, she pressed it to the wound, applying pressure in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood. ‘It needs stitches really,’ she said, ‘but we’ll have to make do with the next best thing.’
Suddenly Dominic was back beside them. ‘Claire,’ he said, ‘I need you to give me a hand. Melanie,’ he went on urgently, ‘take the pad from Claire and keep it pressed to the wound.’
‘What’s happening?’ asked Peter, peering up at Dominic from beneath the pad of tissues.
‘Well, the entrance is completely blocked,’ Dominic replied. ‘A couple of the guys are trying to see if there’s another way out.’
‘What about Ted and May?’ asked Melanie.
‘Ted is injured,’ Dominic replied briefly, ‘and May has cuts and bruises. There are others who are injured as well but I haven’t got to them yet.’
Scrambling to her feet, Claire took Dominic’s outstretched hand and carefully began picking her way through the debris to a far corner of the refectory. Behind great chunks of plaster and stone she found Ted lying half-propped against the wall with May beside him. The older man’s teeth were clenched in pain, his eyes were closed and his face, beneath his thatch of thick white hair, appeared ashen even through the dust, which clogged his mouth and nostrils and spiked his eyelashes.
‘The falling stonework crushed his thigh,’ murmured Dominic to Claire. ‘I managed to lift it but I think he has a fractured femur. I want you to help me to straighten it and if we can, we’ll try and find something to immobilise it.’ He glanced up and saw that Archie was crouching beside May. He, too, was covered in dust and his glasses were cracked. ‘Archie,’ Dominic went on, ‘maybe you could do that. Find something for a couple of splints if you can.’
‘Right.’ Archie scrambled to his feet and disappeared behind the huge mound of rubble.
‘Ted, we’re going to try to make you a bit more comfortable,’ Dominic began, breaking off as Russell suddenly appeared at their side, his expression wild. ‘Russell?’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘Where’s Diane?’ Russell stared at Claire and irrelevantly she noticed he had lost his straw hat.
‘I don’t know.’ Claire shook her head.
‘I thought she was with you.’ The wild expression in Russell’s eyes turned to one of panic. ‘The last I saw of her she was looking at those statues and you were beside her—I’m sure you were…’
‘No…’ Claire shook her head and at that moment a sudden shout went up.
‘Can we have some help? Over here, please. Anybody. There’s someone trapped under this lot.’
‘Oh, my God! Diane!’ Russell turned and began clambering back over the rubble.
‘We should help,’ said Dominic. ‘Lie still, Ted. We’ll be back, May. Stay with him.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said May, calmly kneeling beside her husband and gently stroking his hand.
Someone was indeed buried under a heap of fallen rubble and a group of at least eight people, including Archie, Dominic, Claire, Russell and Rob Moore, began tearing at the chunks of masonry and wood with their bare hands. As they worked frantically, Claire caught a glimpse of orangecoloured material and even before they finally pulled the person free from the rubble she knew that it was indeed Diane.
By the time they had eased her clear of the rubble and laid her on the floor and Dominic was able to examine her, Russell was almost beside
himself with anxiety.
‘Oh, God,’ he cried as he stood helplessly, wringing his hands, ‘is she all right? She’s not dead, is she? Oh, please, say she isn’t dead.’
From the appearance of Diane’s limp body, closed eyes, white face and blood-soaked hair, it looked as if she could well be dead and momentarily Claire’s heart went out to Russell in his moment of anguish. Then her professionalism took over as she and Dominic worked over Diane to clear her airways and search for a pulse.
‘She’s alive,’ said Dominic at last, ‘but she’s had a severe blow to her head and she’s unconscious.’
‘Oh, thank heavens.’ Russell crouched down beside the inert figure of his wife. ‘But is she going to be all right?’ he demanded.
‘I hope so,’ Dominic replied. ‘But it rather depends on how soon we can get her out of this place and into a hospital. Claire, can you do anything with this wound?’
Claire had slipped the packet of wipes into the pocket of her skirt before leaving Peter and she retrieved them now. Taking a couple from the packet, she knelt on the ground and began to cleanse the wound, which looked larger and deeper than that suffered by Peter and which was oozing blood at an alarming rate. ‘Has anyone got anything I can use as a pad?’ she asked. ‘Clean tissues or handkerchiefs?’
‘Will this do?’ Nicola produced a white cotton T-shirt from her bag. ‘I always carry a spare.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ said Claire, taking the garment from her, folding it and pressing it to the side of Diane’s head.
‘Has anyone found another way out of this place?’ asked Dominic, looking round.
‘No.’ It was a large, burly-looking man with a very red face who Claire vaguely remembered seeing on the coach who answered. ‘The entrance, as you know, is completely blocked. There is another door at the far end of the room. We managed to reach it but we could only open it a few inches because there appears to be something behind it. At a guess I would say it’s more rubble.’
‘So what can we do?’ asked Nicola Moore fearfully.
‘Does anyone have a mobile phone?’ asked Dominic.
There were sudden mutterings and scrabblings amongst the others as if until that moment it actually hadn’t occurred to anyone to use their mobiles. Several people produced phones while there were cries of dismay from others who found they had left theirs aboard the coach. Two mobiles, including Claire’s, had been damaged, another couldn’t receive any signal and the only one that appeared to be working belonged to Rob.
‘Who shall I try?’ he asked in sudden bewilderment as everyone waited for him to dial.
‘What about the hotel?’ said someone. ‘I’ve got the number here on one of their cards.’
‘There’s no reply,’ said Rob after dialling the number and waiting while everyone watched in an agony of suspense.
‘What about the emergency number?’ said someone.
‘OK.’ Rob dialled 999. ‘I hope it’s the same as ours,’ he said, then a moment later added, ‘Well, even if it is, I can’t get through. Trouble is, even if I did, I doubt my Italian would be good enough to be able to tell anyone where we are.’ He paused and looked round at the others for inspiration.
‘You could always try phoning England,’ said Claire suddenly. ‘I read about someone who was shipwrecked off China who rang his family in England. They contacted their local coastguard who mounted a rescue operation and he was saved.’
‘Good idea,’ said Rob. ‘I’ll try it.’
‘Who are you phoning?’ asked Nicola, leaning over his shoulder.
‘My dad,’ he replied.
Moments later Rob had told his father about their predicament and their location and his father said he would phone the police with the details.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Melanie after Rob had rung off.
‘Nothing.’ It was Dominic who replied. ‘We sit tight until the emergency services get through to us—which they will, in time. Those outside—Luisa and Guiseppe and the others on the coach—know we are in here. They will have sent for help and if they haven’t then, thanks to Rob, the English police will have got on to the Italian authorities.’
‘But it was an earthquake, wasn’t it?’ said Nicola, and there was a trace of hysteria in her voice now. ‘What if it’s affected everyone—what if the others are dead or injured, what if there aren’t any emergency services left to get through?’ Her voice rose and Rob put his arm around her in an attempt to comfort his young wife.
‘That’s highly unlikely,’ Dominic replied calmly. All the while they had been talking he had been examining Diane’s limbs for any further injuries. ‘Especially in this area,’ he went on. ‘It is more likely to be severe earth tremors which have caused some structural damage instead of a full-scale earthquake.’
His words seemed to have a calming effect on Nicola but it was obvious that everyone was well aware that there was a possibility, however remote, that they just might be trapped in this place for some considerable length of time.
‘I think there is some damage to her shoulder,’ Dominic said at last, looking at Russell and rising to his feet. ‘I can’t be certain, of course, without an X-ray.’
Taking another of the wipes, which had suddenly become extremely precious, Claire began cleaning the dust from Diane’s mouth and nose. She had almost finished when she heard a voice behind her.
‘Will these do?’ Claire glanced over her shoulder and found Archie standing there with two pieces of wood in his hands. ‘They’re a couple of the legs from one of the trestle tables.’
‘Excellent,’ said Dominic. ‘If you’ve finished there, Claire, we’ll try and get these splints onto Ted’s leg.’
Leaving Diane with Russell and Nicola, who continued to apply pressure on Diane’s head wound, Dominic and Claire returned to Ted. Between them they managed to immobilise his leg with the two pieces of wood, binding them together with strips of fabric torn from Rob’s and Archie’s shirts. By the time they had finished Ted was in terrible pain and Dominic asked if anyone had any form of pain relief with them.
‘I’ve got some paracetamol tablets,’ said May, ‘but I don’t think Ted with be able to get them down without water.’
‘I’ve got a can of Coke,’ said Rob, producing his rucksack.
‘That’ll do,’ Dominic replied, taking the bottle of painkillers from May and shaking a couple into the palm of his hand while Rob pulled the ring on the soft-drink can. Between them Dominic and Claire managed to persuade Ted to take the tablets and wash them down with a few mouthfuls of Coke. ‘I suggest,’ said Dominic as he returned the can to Rob, ‘that you save that. We may well be glad of it later.’
‘You’re obviously a doctor.’ The big man with the red face was back, and when Dominic nodded he said, ‘I think you’d better take a look at a lady over there. She and her sister are staying at the same hotel as me and she seems to be in a lot of discomfort.’
Dominic stood up. ‘Where is she?’ he said.
‘At the back of the room,’ said the man. ‘I don’t think either of them have been injured but, like I say, one of them seems to be in some sort of trouble.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Claire. Looking at the couple on the ground, she said, ‘May, you care for Ted. I’ll be back soon.’
Following the man, Claire and Dominic made their way to the very back of the large room. As they did so the full extent of the damage became evident, from the huge portion of the roof that had collapsed and caved in to a section of the outer wall that was bulging precariously and looked as if it might be about to topple. Claire shuddered as she realised for the first time how fortunate they were to be alive and how easily the whole building could have collapsed and buried them all beneath the rubble.
The two elderly sisters were huddled in the shelter of an upturned trestle table and one of them looked up, her expression one of hope at the man who had brought Dominic and Claire and whom she obviously knew.
‘Dorothy.’ The
man leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees and puffing slightly from exertion and the choking dust that still permeated the air. ‘This man is a doctor. I’ve asked him to take a look at Evelyn for you.’
‘Thank you, Desmond,’ the lady replied. ‘I am rather concerned about her.’ They spoke as if this were any mid-afternoon surgery in an English provincial town instead of the life-and-death situation in which they all found themselves in the aftermath of an earthquake, high in the Italian hills and miles away from the nearest town.
Dominic nodded and smiled at the lady then crouched down beside her sister. ‘Hello, Evelyn,’ he said. ‘I’m Dominic Hansford and I’m a doctor.’
Claire, looking down at the lady called Evelyn, noticed that she was having trouble with her breathing and that her fingers were clutching at the front of her blouse as if she was in pain.
‘She suffers from a heart condition,’ explained Dorothy. ‘She took her medication this morning but she seems to be in a lot of distress at the moment.’
‘Does she have anything with her?’ asked Dominic as he took Evelyn’s pulse. ‘Any tablets, or a spray for angina?’
Dorothy nodded. ‘Yes, she has both but unfortunately they are in her bag in the coach…’
Claire knew that without medication for the pain and oxygen to assist with her breathing, all they could do was to try to make Evelyn as comfortable as possible until her angina attack passed. Once again at a signal from Dominic she took the wet wipes from her pocket and proceeded to clean Evelyn’s face and moisten her dry lips.
‘She’s rather clammy,’ Claire murmured to Dominic as she finished.
‘We need to keep her warm,’ he replied. ‘The trouble is, it was so hot outside no one was wearing much in the way of warm clothing.’
What he said was true. Most of the women, including the two sisters, were wearing thin dresses or skirts and tops while the men were in shorts or cotton trousers and shirts.
Mediterranean Rescue Page 4