November Rain

by Donald Harstad

  Alice delivered a sweeping kick to the back of the guy’s legs, taking him instantly to the floor. Almost before he hit on his back, she twisted his wrist really hard, really fast. The knife came away, and skidded across the floor. She used his arm as a lever, and twisted him over on his stomach, wrapped his wrist up toward the middle of his back, and held it there with her knee. It happened so fast that Carson was still backing up when she was completely in control of the assailant. I was very impressed.

  Jane was sitting on the floor, Mr. Hicks standing over her, her back against the wall, and in the fresh silence, she simply said, “He stabbed me. I can’t believe this.”

  “Where?” I was kneeling beside her.

  “Here,” she said, pointing at the area of her left collarbone.

  I pulled her sweatshirt aside. He certainly had. There was a very deep cut, about four inches long, between her collar bone and the back of her shoulder. It was so deep it was spreading, and looked about half as wide as it was long. My first thought was the brachial artery was cut, but the blood was running out freely, not spurting.

  “Where’s the first aid kit?”

  That’s when we heard Vicky yelling outside the restroom. I didn’t quite understand what she was saying, but Alice was off like a shot, leaving Carson sitting on the suspect.

  “Vicky’s got it,” said Jane, dully. Shock.

  “No problem . . .” I said, as I tried to tear her sweatshirt. I couldn’t get the thing started due to the thick seams. I pulled off my sweatshirt, then my tee shirt, and folded it up as fast as I could. It made a poor compress, but it would do for the moment.

  “There. Now that’s going to be all right. How do you feel?”

  “Dizzy.”

  “Normal. No problem.” I pulled my sweatshirt back on. “You should feel dizzy with that. That’s good.” You say the damnedest things at times like that.

  “And kind of cold.” She looked me right in the eye. “Am I going to die?”

  “No.” I said that with all the confidence I could muster. It didn’t look like an immediately fatal wound, but I wasn’t sure about the bleeding. Between shock and blood loss, it might be possible to lose her.

  She let out her breath. “Good,” she said, weakly. “I don’t want to do that.”

  I got out my phone. “What’s the 911 number in England?”

  That got a little smile. “999.”

  I couldn’t get a signal.

  “That won’t work down here,” said Mr. Hicks, who looked and sounded a little shocky himself. “Only in the active stations. . . . Antennas, you know.”

  “Okay . . . you all right?”

  “Yes, how’s she doing?”

  “Okay so far. We need medical help. The sooner the better.”

  “Yes. There’s an emergency connection in the other tunnel. . . .” And off he went at a pretty good trot.

  “It’s so dark,” said Jane.

  “I’ll see if we can get you out to a lighter area soon . . . don’t want to move you now.” As I said that, I covered her right eye and flicked my flashlight beam into the left one. Its pupil constricted instantly. Good. I pressed two fingers of my left hand against her neck, and got a strong carotid pulse. Even better.

  “Can you feel your fingers?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Move ’em for me, okay?”

  She did. “Like that?”

  “Yep. Any tingly sensations or anything?” I kept talking, hopefully getting her attention and delaying or reducing the emotional shock, at least.

  “No . . . no, not really.”

  No nerve damage, either. So far. “Okay, you’re doing great. Now just keep that arm in your lap, like. Don’t move it. Let the clot form.”

  Vicky came flying into the restroom. “Jane, oh my God! Oh my God, is she all right?” She sounded very near to crying.

  “So far,” I said. “She got stabbed by the one on the floor over there. The one under Carson. You’ve got the first aid pack?”

  “Oh, my god, oh, yes, I’m so sorry . . .” she rattled off as she shrugged off her backpack and produced the kit. There was some pretty good stuff in there. Two large compresses, for example.

  “Why?” asked Vicky, and she tore open one of the compresses and handed it to me.

  “What?” I asked, as I took the compress.

  “Why did he do this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I shined my flashlight back onto the wound, and applied the first compress.

  “Was it him?” asked Jane, a little foggy.

  “What, kiddo? Try not to move your arm . . .”

  “Was it him . . . over there?”

  They had both had knives. “I think so . . . I don’t know.”

  I looked over at Carson. He was paying close attention to the man on the floor.

  “But, why?” asked Vicky again.

  That was a very good question. It looked to me that we’d interrupted a couple of vandals, or homeless people, or something. They’d panicked. And I was going to kick myself for years for letting Jane come down into this place, knowing damned well that she wasn’t going to find Emma.

  “We must have interrupted something,” said Carson, still on top of the suspect.

  I thought he might be right, and suspected it was a dope deal.

  “Can I have some water?” That was Jane. I opened my bottle, and she took it in her right hand. I let her bring it up herself, because I wanted to see how she was doing.

  She took three pretty good gulps, no noticeable trembling, and then held it down. “Thanks.” No immediate nausea, either.

  “Keep it. You’re going to dehydrate a little, so keep drinking water. It’s good for you.” I pointed my flashlight at the bottle, just in case there was some trace of blood in it. I didn’t think the knife had gone into her lung, but you never know about these things. It was clear.

  “Where did Alice go?” I asked Vicky.

  “The guy you knocked down . . . he got up, and started to run away. I yelled, and started to chase him.”

  “You should have just let him go,” I said. Just a cop thing.

  “Alice almost got him. He wiggled into this little hole. . . .”

  “He’s gone?”

  “Unfortunately,” said Alice, as she came into the room. “How’s Jane . . . ?”

  “We need help,” I said. “I think she’ll be all right.” Just a little lie. “But I don’t want her to try to go up those steps.”

  “Have you called 999?”

  “Couldn’t get out,” I said, looking back toward Jane. “How you coming?”

  “Okay . . .” but it was a weak okay.

  “Mr. Hicks went to an emergency phone.”

  “Good,” said Alice. “May I take a look at that?”

  She moved the blood soaked compress off Jane’s shoulder, and peered at the bloody wound. “I don’t think it got the artery,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  As Alice and I put the second compress on the wound, I noticed there was plenty of blood pooling in the wound to show bubbles if she had an injured lung. There were none.

  “No bubbles, kid,” I said. “Better and better.”

  “What?” asked Jane.

  “No bubbles in the cut. Your lung is just fine, too. Lookin’ good.”

  “Thanks. . . .”

  When the second compress was firmly in place, Alice went over to our captive.

  “Who might you be?” she asked.

  There was no answer. He did struggle a bit, but he was on his belly, and Carson was pretty strong. He wasn’t going anywhere unless Carson let him. Secured, Alice patted him down thoroughly. She made a neat little pile of personnel effects near him, including a wallet, a cell phone, some papers, and assorted keys.

  She looked in his wallet, and I assumed she’d found an ID card of some sort. “So what brings you here?” she asked. There was no answer.

  “Ask about Emma,” said Jane. She said it softly, but I could have swor
n the guy heard her.

  “Let’s worry about you right now,” I said.

  After that, all we had to do was keep Jane hydrated, warm, and wait for assistance.

  Four bobbies arrived first. They were really good. Two stacked the assailant up, handcuffed him, and kept him securely in a corner. One came instantly to check Jane, and the other started taking names. Alice identified herself, her true self, and began telling them what had happened. As soon as she got to the part where a second man had fled the scene, one of the bobbies who was on the suspect took off with her to try to track him down.

  When the firemen and the ambulance people got there, I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved in my life. It seemed like it had taken them hours, but I was told later that it had been twelve minutes after Mr. Hicks placed his call that they’d gotten down to us.

  They conferred while they examined Jane, and decided while the prisoner would walk up all the stairs to a waiting police car outside the old station, it would be best to flag down a train and take Jane to the next station, where she could be transported up by escalator. I didn’t know they could do that, but they did. With Jane on her stretcher, the rest of us walked to the emergency access door between Down Street and the live Piccadilly line, and waited. Sure as hell, two trains later, one slowed, stopped, and we found ourselves on our way to the Green Park station. There weren’t too many passengers in our car, but they were all pretty dammed curious. Even for Englishmen. When we got to Green Park, up we went to the surface, where we were met by an ambulance and two police cars, and hustled across the Thames to St. Thomas’ Hospital Trauma Unit.

  I rode in the ambulance with Jane. She was getting really groggy, now that real help had arrived and she felt totally secure. When we went flying by Parliament, siren yelping, she looked out the window and said, “Wow.” Then she sort of went away for a few minutes.

  I glanced at the Paramedic who was working Jane. “She looks pretty good to me, now,” I said. “What do you think?”

  “You’re her father?”

  “Yes. I’m also a cop.”

  “Very good. There’s no exit. I can’t say for sure, but it looks like the downward path of the instrument was deflected by her clavicle. We need to do X-ray. Wouldn’t want any possible fragments of the bone to be moving about. Looks like we missed the major vessels, which is good. Might have impacted the scapula. . . . She ought to be just fine . . .”

  Jane was checked again by a nurse, as soon as she got through the door. That’s when I found out that what I called the ER, was in fact the A&E, or Accident and Emergency unit. They referred to it as ‘Resus.’ They said that it was short for resuscitation, but it sounded a lot like recess as in playground the first time I heard it.

  I registered for her, as she was still going in and out of awareness, as the nurse said. They took her into an exam and treatment area, the fourth in a series of five large bays on the left just as we got inside the double doors, and with her surrounded by people in blue scrubs, the curtain closed. The rest of us waited outside. That’s when I really started to get angry at myself. I couldn’t very well say anything to Carson, as Vicky was right there with us. But I kept telling myself that, if I had only told her that Emma was dead, we never would have gone down there in the first place. If I had been more serious, I would have gone in first, of course. But I damned well knew that Emma wasn’t going to be there. So I’d relaxed. And she’d walked right into a couple of . . . what?

  “What do you think they were? Homeless people? The one I got the best look at sure didn’t look homeless. Gang members? Dopers?”

  “I don’t know,” said Carson. “They sure didn’t belong there, that’s for sure.”

  “The one you knocked down,” said Vicky. “Outside? He looked sort of dingy, you know, but not poor. Just hadn’t cleaned up for a few days.”

  “Where the hell did he go?” I hadn’t given that much thought.

  “He ran to this little rectangular hole, about waist high. In a lobby-like area. Alice just about had him, she blew past me like I was just taking a walk. . . .” She looked helpless. “He just slipped right through, just before she got to him.”

  “You should have seen her take out the guy with the knife,” I said.

  Vicky looked at Carson. “I thought that you . . . oh, so Alice did that?”

  “Well, uh, we sort of were there together. She’s, you know, fast. Faster than me, this time.”

  Lame, Carson. I got out my cell phone, and checked the signal strength. Very good.

  “Gonna call your wife?” asked Carson.

  “As soon as I know something for sure,” I said. “She doesn’t know anything right now, so she isn’t worried.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think she’s going to be all right,” I said. “God, I sure hope so. She’s pretty tough, you know?”

  “She sure is,” said Vicky. “She’ll be just fine.”

  She didn’t sound any more certain than I did. I mean, I know about this sort of thing, but I’ve seen just enough to know that somebody can go sour on you at the snap of a finger, and it’s always unanticipated. Something that’s been overlooked, or missed, or just not thought about. So I sat there and worried for about fifteen minutes.

  A nurse came out, and told us that Jane was looking, “Very good,” and was being prepped for surgery, and would we like to “wait upstairs? That’s where we’ll bring her when the surgery is over.”

  She didn’t say how long. They never do, but you always hope they might, just this once.

  Almost two hours after we got settled in the upstairs waiting area, a doctor came out of a door, walked over to us, and said, “You must be with Jane?”

  I told him who I was.

  “She’s doing absolutely fine,” he said. “I’d expect to have her up and about by Monday. The proper angle does make a difference. The blade cut about half way through the clavicle. Lucky it didn’t break. If it had gone in underneath rather than above, things would be very different. As it is, the knife just nicked the brachial vein, and she may have some nerve bruising, but otherwise we merely had to stitch her up. The X-rays showed no debris that we’d missed. She’s lost a bit of blood, and we’ve given her two units.”

  “Excellent!”

  “You should be able to see her in a few minutes. . . . I understand you’re a policeman over in the States?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I suppose I needn’t tell you, but it took a powerful blow to cut the bone like that. If the knife had been dull, it would likely have broken it instead of cutting that way.”

  “Or at a more canted angle . . . yeah, I know. Or a steeper one.”

  “She’s very lucky.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” I said. “Thank you, doctor. For everything.”

  I decided to wait until I actually saw her, before I called Sue. Mothers want firsthand information.

  A couple of minutes later, I was ushered into her room. She was still out, but there were no tubes in or anything, except for a very small drainage tube leading from her injured shoulder, and an IV drip that said it was a saline solution. She was pale, but breathing well. About all I could have asked for.

  I called Sue at home. It was nearly three pm London time, so it was about nine in the morning in Maitland, Iowa.

  Sue answered on the third ring.

  “Hi!”

  “Why, hello! I wasn’t expecting to hear from you this early.” Then intuition started to kick in. Just that fast. “Is everything all right?”

  “Not too bad,” I said. “Unfortunately, Jane’s in the hospital.”

  “What? What? Where?”

  “St. Thomas’ here in London.”

  “Is she sick? Was she in an accident?”

  “No, she’s not sick. She got hurt while we were taking a tour of an abandoned tube station this morning,” I said.

  “How on earth . . . How bad is it? What happened?”

  I was doing a rotten
job, and I knew it. But this beating around the bush was also getting nowhere. “Listen, we stumbled on what I think were a couple of homeless people. One of them had a knife, and Jane got cut.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “She’s just fine, I’m looking at her now, and she’s just fine.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  “Ah. Well, she’s not quite up to that, not just yet. She’s still coming around. . . .”

  “Coming around?”

  “She had to have surgery, on her shoulder.”

  There was a momentary silence. “How serious was this cut?”

  “It was more of a stab, really. But she’s been through the surgery, and she’s just fine. All stitched up. I can hardly see the wound,” I said. That was true. It was bandaged pretty well.

  “When will they release her?”

  “Monday, they say.”

  “Monday?! Monday . . . I’m coming over there. I think I can get there by then.”

  My backside was saved by Jane’s eyes blinking open, and her whispering “Can . . . water?”

  “Sure,” and I reached over to her tray and got her a cup with a curved straw. She took a sip.

  “Who are you talking to?” came over the phone. Jane recognized Sue’s voice, and said, reasonably loudly, all things considered, “Hi, Mom.”

  “You wanna talk to her?” I asked into the phone.

  Of course she did. It was a short conversation, but while they talked, I decided that I wasn’t even going to make a token resistance to Sue coming over. This was really a family emergency, as her school rules defined it. And if they could get me a passport the same day, they could sure as hell do the same for her. We could pay off the credit card cost for a couple of years.