He was silent for a minute then added, ‘And renal failure.’
Grace knew he was talking to himself, adding reminders as he would be the person caring for Peter in the ICU. Mistakes happened and were more likely when people were exhausted by extra shifts, and only by constant checking and rechecking would they be avoided.
‘You staying?’ he asked Grace.
‘Am I needed?’
He shook his head.
‘I think we’ve got things pretty well under control. The worst of the accident victims, a young woman called Janey, is coming out of her induced coma, and everyone else is stable so, no, if you’re not on duty, buzz off home. You look as if you could do with about three days’ sleep.’
‘Couldn’t we all?’ Grace said, but she was grateful for Cal’s dismissal. She could walk home and look for Sport on the way. Later she’d return to SES Headquarters for another shift, but she’d be a far more effective participant in the clean-up operation if she slept first.
She tapped on Jill’s office door before she left, wanting to be one hundred per cent sure she wasn’t needed.
‘Go home and sleep,’ Jill ordered in answer to Grace’s query. ‘You look as if you need about a week to catch up. Go!’
She waved her hands in a shooing motion.
‘We’ve all been able to grab a few hours—mainly thanks to all the extra staff available because of the weddings. Joe’s been marvellous, and even Christina has put in a couple of shifts on the monitors in ICU. They’re both safe and sleeping at my place at the moment, in case you were worrying about them.’
Grace shook her head in amazement that she hadn’t given her friends a thought for the last few hours, although she had known they were at the hospital and so had assumed they’d be safe.
‘Some friend I am,’ she muttered to herself as she left Jill’s office, then her weary brain remembered Georgie and the children. She poked her head back around the door.
‘Georgie?’
Jill frowned in reply.
‘We think she’s OK. A truckie out west picked up a message that would have been sent about the time the eye was passing over. Something about finding two children, but the signal kept breaking up so he didn’t catch it all.’
Jill looked worried but Grace realised there was little they could do until they heard more.
The wind had eased off, but not the rain, so she took an umbrella from one of the stands at the entrance to Reception. She’d return it when she came back on duty, although so many umbrellas were left at the hospital no one would ever notice one was missing.
The scene outside hadn’t improved. The Agnes Wetherby Memorial Garden between the hospital and the doctors’ house had been flattened, but the old house stood, apparently having come through the violent cyclone unscathed. Grace didn’t pause to check it thoroughly—her own home was calling to her.
But as she passed the big house on the headland, she looked down into the cove, staring stupidly at the waves crashing on the shore. It was low tide, there should be beach, but, no, the storm surge had pushed the water right up to the park that ran along the foreshore so the beautifully ugly breadfruit trees and the delicate casuarinas that grew there now stood in water.
Every shop in the small shopping mall had lost its roof, while the Black Cockatoo looked as if it had lost most of its upper storey, although, from the sounds of revelry within, it was still open for business.
Grace turned down a side street, wanting to walk closer to the police station and Harry’s house, hoping she’d see Sport.
Had the dog sensed Harry was in danger that it had taken off?
It seemed possible—
The scream was so loud and so fear-filled all thoughts of Harry and his dog fled. Grace turned in the direction it had come from and began to run, though to where she had no idea, until she turned a corner and saw the floodwaters. Filthy brown water swirling angrily along the street, washing under high-set homes and straight through those set lower.
Treetrunks, furniture, books and toys all rode the water, and further out something that looked like a garden shed sailed on the waters.
Another scream and this time Grace could pinpoint it. The Grubbs’ house, Dora standing on her front veranda, water all around her, lapping at her feet, but seemingly safe, although she screamed and pointed and screamed again.
Grace pushed her way through shallow water towards the house, feeling how stupid it was to be carrying an umbrella with floodwaters up to her waist.
‘No, no!’ Dora cried, waving her arms when she saw Grace approaching. ‘It’s not me, it’s the kids,’ she yelled, pointing out into the maelstrom, towards the garden shed. ‘The pantry broke off the house. I had the kids in there because it was safe and, look.’
‘What kids?’ Grace yelled, wondering if the cyclone had affected Dora’s rationality. From what Grace had learned, Dora’s ‘kids’ were in their thirties and living far from Crocodile Creek.
‘CJ and Lily. I was minding them then Molly had the pups and the kids wanted to be there, and they’re all in that room.’
Peering through the falling rain, Grace could almost imagine white, scared faces in the doorway of what she’d taken to be a shed.
‘It will stop at the bridge,’ she said to Dora. ‘Have you got a cellphone?’
Dora shook her head.
‘No matter, I’ve got a radio. Hopefully it’s waterproof. I’ll swim out to the kids and radio from there, but in the meantime, if anyone comes by, tell them to get onto the police and let them know to meet us at the bridge.’
Meet us at the bridge? she thought as she waded deeper and deeper into the murky water. As if they were going for a pleasure jaunt on the river.
Tourists went out on the river, but that was to look for and photograph crocodiles.
This was the creek, not the river, she reminded herself, but she still felt fear shiver up her spine.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Crocodiles have enough sense to stay out of flooded rivers and creeks.’
She bent into the filthy water to pull off her boots, then began to swim, setting her eyes on the floating bit of house, praying it would stay afloat at least until she got there.
The water fought her, pushing her one way and then another, making her task seem almost impossible. But then she looked up and saw the children. Cal’s son, CJ, and Lily, Charles’s ward, clinging to each other in the doorway of the floating room. Then CJ left the safety of the room, venturing out onto what must have been a bit more veranda, bending over as if to reach into the water.
‘Stay back,’ she yelled at him. ‘Get back inside.’
He looked up as if surprised to see her, then pointed down to the water beside him.
‘It’s Sport!’ he called, and Grace sighed as she splashed towards them. Now she had a dog to rescue as well.
‘I’ll get him,’ she called to CJ, then she put her head down and ploughed through the last twenty metres separating her from the children.
Sport was struggling to get his one front foot onto the decking, and Grace grabbed him and boosted him up, then, fearful that her weight might unbalance the makeshift boat and bring them all into the water, she called to the kids to stay back as far as they could and eased her body up until she could sit on the wooden boards. Then, with caution, she got on to her hands and knees so she could crawl towards them.
She looked around, realising the pantry must once have been part of the veranda because a bit of veranda was still attached, working like an outrigger to keep the structure afloat.
For how long?
With legs and arms trembling either from the swim or fear, she hesitated, breathing deeply, trying to work out what might lie ahead.
She guessed they were maybe three hundred yards from the bridge, and she was reasonably sure the bridge would stop them, but whether it would also sink them was the question.
Kids first.
She crawled forward, wondering where Sport had gone, then entered the
small room, where preserves and cereal and sauce bottles were jumbled in with two small children, two dogs, and too many newborn puppies for Grace to count.
‘It’s like being on a boat, isn’t it, Grace?’ CJ said as Grace knelt and wrapped her arms around the children.
‘It is indeed,’ she said, realising he’d been boosting Lily’s confidence with talk of boats and adventure. CJ had never lacked imagination. ‘And soon it’s going to dock down at the bridge and we can all get off. I’m going to radio for someone to meet us there, OK?’
She detached the children, patted the wet Sport and the only slightly drier Molly—was Sport the father of this brood that he’d come through a cyclone to be with their mother? Did dog love work that way? Like human love?—and walked outside to radio SES Headquarters and explain the situation.
‘Dora Grubb’s been in touch,’ Paul told her, ‘and we’ve notified the police to be ready at the bridge. Have you any idea how you’re going to get them off?’
‘If all goes well and we don’t sink, I’ll pass the two kids over to rescuers then the pups and then the dogs.’
‘Dogs?’ Paul echoed weakly. ‘Dora mentioned her dog Molly and some pups, but dogs?’
‘Harry’s Sport has joined the party,’ Grace told him. ‘Though what a policeman is doing with an un-neutered dog I’d like to know.’
‘I guess Harry thought Sport had already lost a leg so didn’t deserve to lose anything else,’ Paul suggested.
Grace huffed, ‘Men,’ and stopped transmission.
Time to see to the kids and try to work out how to keep them all alive if their fragile craft sank.
Harry was in a meeting with local councillors, electricity officials and city engineers when he heard something different over the radio he had chattering quietly on the table beside him.
He’d been paying little attention to it, but had known he had to keep it on, half listening for any situation where he might be needed. Half listening for a report that Georgie and Alistair had returned with two kids.
But nothing so far.
Flood reports had begun to come in, but nothing serious as yet, until he heard a combination of words—flood, house, bridge, kids, and nurse from the hospital with them.
Instinct told him it was Grace and he turned the volume up a little, then, when he realised the transmission had finished, he excused himself to walk to a corner of the room and use his phone to call the station.
‘No worries, Harry,’ the constable who answered said. ‘We’ve got it all under control. A bit of the Grubbs’ house came adrift with a couple of kids inside, but Grace swam out to the kids and she’s radioed in and reckons the room will stop when it hits the bridge. We’ll have people there—’
‘I’m on my way,’ Harry said, anger and concern churning inside him. Grace accused him of taking risks and here she was, swimming through floodwaters filled with debris, snakes and crocodiles.
Stupid, stupid, stupid woman!
‘Small crisis,’ he said to the people gathered in the room as he strode out the door. Contingency plans could wait, or could be sorted without him—he needed to be on that bridge.
Which, please God, would hold.
How detailed had the engineer’s inspection been? How minutely had he checked the structure?
He drove towards the bridge, passing more and more people on the rain-drenched streets, all with the bewildered expressions of disaster survivors. Rebuilding houses was one thing—could you rebuild people?
Maybe …
Maybe the anger he felt towards Grace was something to do with his own rebuilding process …
He swore at himself for such inane philosophising when his thoughts should be centred on rescue.
Swore at the Grubbs for their ridiculous habit of adding bits and pieces to their house—bits and pieces that could break off and be swept away by floodwaters. Damn it all, he’d seen that bit of the house—it had been ready to slide into the creek without the flood.
Then he was at the bridge and one look at the people gathered there made him shake his head. It was like a party—the fishing competition all over again. How word had got around he had no idea, but there must be fifteen people on the bridge with more arriving on foot and on surf-skis. And, far off, he could hear an outboard engine.
A boat! He should have thought of that first, but then he shook his head. With the debris in the water, whoever was running their outboard was also running the risk of hitting a submerged log and being tipped into the water.
Someone else to rescue.
He stopped the car and climbed out, looking upstream. One of his men came to stand beside him, explaining they’d stopped all traffic on the bridge and were getting the volunteers to spread out across it. Beyond his car an ambulance pulled up, then the hospital four-wheel-drive, a woman tumbling out.
The constable was saying something about ropes being in place and more equipment coming, but Harry barely heard, his eyes on the bobbing, slewing apparition riding the water towards them.
The craft looked for all the world like a Chinese junk floating on some exotic harbour, but then an eddy caught it and twirled it round and round, and above the raging noise of the water Harry heard a child’s shrill scream.
His stomach was clenched so tightly it was like a boulder in his abdomen, and he wanted to plunge into the waters and swim towards the now teetering room.
‘It’s going to hit hard—let’s get some tyres ready to give it some protection.’
Harry turned towards the man who’d spoken, recognising a member of Grace’s SES team, then he saw Paul Gibson, looking grey and ill but there because a member of his service was in danger.
‘There are tyres and rubber mooring buffers on the way,’ Paul said, then pointed to an SES truck pulling up on the road at the end of the bridge. ‘Or just arriving.’
More volunteers poured out of the truck, opening hatches to collect their booty. Soon they were walking across the bridge, mooring tyres and buffers in their arms.
‘We’ll wait until she gets closer,’ Paul said, ‘then work out where it’s going to hit and use the protection there.’
Harry was glad to let him take charge. He was far too emotionally involved to be making cool decisions, and rescuing Grace and the children would need the coolest of heads.
Why he was so emotionally involved he’d think about later.
The wobbly room came closer, moving faster as the main current of the creek caught it and swirled it onward towards the bridge. He could see Grace now. She appeared to have wedged herself in the doorway of the room, and she had the two children clasped in her arms.
It made sense. All around town there were doorways still standing, the frames holding firm while the walls around them were blown to smithereens.
It looked like she was wearing a bikini, which, to Harry’s dazed and frantic mind, seemed strange but still acceptable. Once he’d accepted a room floating on the creek, he could accept just about anything.
He moved across the bridge, trying to guess where they’d hit, needing to be right there to help her off.
And to rescue the children, of course.
A dog was barking.
Sport?
Harry peered towards the voyagers.
Grace couldn’t have been stupid enough to swim out there for Sport?
Love me, love my dog?
His mind was going. It was the waiting. The room was barely moving now, pulled out of the main channel into an eddy. If he got a boat, they could row out to it.
The thought was turning practical when a child screamed again and the structure tipped, taking in water as it met the current once again, and this time hurtling towards the bridge.
Harry was there when it hit with such a sick crunching noise he couldn’t believe it had stayed afloat. Now anger mixed with relief and his mind was rehearsing the lecture he was going to give Grace about taking risks.
He took a child, Lily, and passed her on to someone, took the other
child, CJ, chattering away about his adventure but far paler than he should have been.
‘I’ve got him,’ someone said, and CJ was reefed out of his arms. He turned to see Gina, CJ’s mother, clasping her son to her body, tears streaming down her face.
CJ kept talking but it was background noise. Harry’s attention was on the rapidly sinking room.
‘Here,’ Grace said, coming out of the small room and passing a squirming sack to one of the SES men.
Not a bikini at all. It was a bra, but white, not blue.
Harry reached out to grab her but she disappeared inside again, returning with Sport, who saw Harry and leapt onto his chest. He fell beneath the weight of the dog’s sudden assault, and was sitting on the bridge, comforting Sport, when Grace passed the Grubbs’ dog Molly, a strange Dalmatian cross and no lightweight, across to rescuers.
Harry pushed Sport off him, and stepped around the crowd who’d emptied the sack—Grace’s T-shirt—of puppies onto the bridge and were now oohing and aahing over them.
He was at the railing, reaching out for her, when the timbers groaned and shrieked, then something gave way and the little room was sucked beneath the water and the bridge.
‘Grace!’
He saw her body flying through the air, registered a rope, and stood up on the railing, ready to dive in.
Paul stopped him.
‘We slipped the loop of a lasso over her before she started passing the kids and dogs. She jumped clear as the timber gave way, so we’ll just wait until she surfaces then haul her in.’
Haul her in?
As if she were a bag of sugar-cane mulch?
More anger, this time joining with the crippling concern he was feeling as he and all the watchers on the bridge searched the waters for a sight of her.
He grabbed the rope from the volunteer who was holding it and began to pull, feeling the dragging weight on the end of it, wondering if he was drowning Grace by pulling on it but needing to get her out of the water.
Others joined him, then her body, limply unconscious, surfaced by the bridge. Eager hands reached out to grab her, but as she was lifted from the water, Harry grasped her in his arms, vaguely hearing one of the paramedics giving orders, telling him to put her down, turn her on her side, check her pulse, her breathing.
The Australian's Proposal (Mills & Boon By Request): The Doctor's Marriage Wish / The Playboy Doctor's Proposal / The Nurse He's Been Waiting For Page 46