They stared at each other, aware of the tension rising. Ed wondered if it always would be like this between them. And what made it worse was that each was trying to do the best for the other. Both knew it.
‘All right,’ Nick said eventually. ‘The best thing will be if we go together. I can hand over my surgery. You get ready, meet me down at the harbour in half an hour and I’ll find a fisherman to take us out to the ship.’
As he spoke there was the first rattle of rain against the window-panes.
‘Get a good one,’ said Ed. ‘There’s a storm brewing.’
‘They’re all good. Now let’s move.’
Ed went first to the surgery dispensary, where he signed himself out a large quantity of antibiotics. He knew there would be antibiotics on board, medical centres on cruise ships were always well equipped, especially with anything needed to deal with gastroenteritis. But he liked to make sure. Then he drove home, packed a small bag with whatever clothes and toiletries he might need for a two or three day stay. Practice again. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to pack in a hurry.
Then down to the harbour. The rain had slowed a little but now the winds were starting. Ed looked at the sky, at the sea. This was going to be a really bad one.
His father was at the end of the jetty, waving to him. A fishing boat danced madly up and down below him. As Ed strode down the jetty he wondered how his father was feeling. In 1998 there had been a disaster in Penhally. During a storm like this a sea rescue had ended in tragedy. Among others, Nick’s father and brother had both died that night.
So how did Nick feel now? Ed wondered. For that matter, how did he feel himself? His uncle and his grandfather, both remembered, both loved, and both dead.
He reached the end of the jetty, climbed carefully down an iron ladder and jumped aboard the heaving fishing boat. The fisherman grabbed his arm, helped him into the tiny cabin. ‘Going to be a bad one,’ he said, echoing Ed’s own thoughts, ‘and it’s going to get worse.’
They were taken to the lee of the ship where the boarding platform had been rigged. It was still a hard job, jumping across. But both Ed and Nick were fit, and soon they were being taken upstairs and along companion-ways to the captain’s cabin.
Ed took to the captain at once. He recognised the military training, the ability to see a problem and try to sort it out, no matter what the cost.
‘My first concern is the safety of the passengers,’ the Captain told them. ‘And their safety comes before their comfort. I will do whatever you think fit. I’ve been in touch with the port authorities, and the ship in effect is now quarantined.’ He looked at Nick. ‘Dr Tremayne, they’d like you to send them a report. My head office is not very happy—they’re losing money.’ He smiled without mirth. ‘Well, that’s just too bad. Since I spoke to you I’ve spoken to the passengers and explained the situation. All ill or possibly ill passengers will be confined to their cabins, where food and medical attention will be brought to them. I’ve ordered a VSP—a vessel sanitation programme—and had as much of the ship as possible disinfected. At my nurse’s suggestion I’ve stopped self-service at meal times.’
‘You obviously know what to do in cases like this,’ Ed said approvingly.
The captain’s smile was bitter. ‘We’ve been to the Indian Ocean. When passengers and crew return from a visit on shore, each one of them is handed a napkin and told to rub their hands with it. It contains a disinfectant that is supposed to kill all known germs and viruses. My crew constantly wipe down and disinfect all handrails in the ship. And I’ve made sure these precautions have been carried out thoroughly! And then this happens when we’re nearly home.’
Ed nodded. ‘You seem to have done all you can, Captain.’
‘There’s more. I don’t know if you realise it, but all medical attention has to be paid for. The one exception is stomach upsets. Passengers are told very clearly that if they have any suspicion of a gastric problem they are to phone the medical centre and all medical care will be free.’
Ed was impressed. ‘With all these precautions it seems unfair that you should be struck down like this. But you are prepared.’
‘An old military rule. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Now you’ll be taken down to the medical section and I leave you to do what you can. Please, let me know at once if there’s anything you need.’
‘I like a man who knows what he wants,’ Nick muttered to him as they were led along companion ways.
‘You can always tell a military mind,’ Ed muttered back. ‘But I’m desperately trying to lose mine. I’m a doctor, not a soldier.’
Ed still felt a little uneasy. He knew his father was watching him, looking for any sign of weakness. But he had been in large-scale disease out breaks before. The fact that he had lost… He forced himself to keep his memories and his feelings in check. But he knew it would be hard.
There was no one in the medical centre when they arrived and the steward left them there to find the nurse. Both took the opportunity to look around. There was a reception area and two treatment rooms, one of which could double up as an operating theatre. It even had X-ray facilities. There was a minilab, a pharmacy and five tiny wards. To one side was a corridor with the staff’s living quarters leading off it. It was a hospital and GP surgery combined and in miniature.
Behind him Ed heard a feminine voice say, ‘Nick! It’s good to see you again.’
‘Maddy, it’s good to see you, too. You were the best nurse I ever had.’
Ed turned to see his father stooping to kiss the cheek of a petite woman in nurse’s uniform. Then Nick stood aside and said, ‘Maddy, I’d like you to meet another Dr Tremayne. My son Ed.’
Ed held his hand out. ‘Pleased to meet you, Maddy.’ And then he looked at her properly. She was about his own age, and had shoulder-length light brown hair, now carefully tied back. Her body was curvaceous. She was very attractive. Then he tried to distance himself from that thought. He was only a doctor here!
Maddy smiled at him, and he found himself looking into her eyes. They were large, hazel-coloured and rather beautiful. But for the moment it was the expression in them that concerned him. There was apprehension there, but that was to be expected in someone who was faced with an outbreak of illness. And something more. Ed had a sense that something was haunting her, a fear perhaps, or a memory.
He thought that he’d like to know more about Maddy, perhaps help her get over whatever it was that was troubling her. He could feel her anguish—after all, he had suffered anguish himself.
But first he had his duty to attend to! ‘So how can we help you, Maddy?’ he asked.
‘I’d like you to tell me I’m wrong. But I know I’m not. I’ve now got fifteen people confined to their cabins and there are more who’re about to go down sick. At the moment I’m the only trained medical staff but there are stewards who’ve been on an elementary course and they can act as orderlies. They’ve been very good. The illness is…’ She corrected herself. ‘I think the illness is caused by Norovirus. Acute gastroenteritis. But it seems to be much more serious than normal.’
‘Is that possible in this country?’ Ed asked. ‘I thought that for Europeans, who are reasonably well fed, it was nasty but not too dangerous.’
There was a pause. Then Nick said, ‘I’m afraid there are variations. Some quite recent mutations. And some of them can be very unpleasant indeed.’
‘You’ve dealt with them before?’
‘Only in the lab,’ Nick said.
Maddy was pleased to have Nick and Ed there. She felt confident that she could have coped with the outbreak alone somehow. But with the Tremaynes helping her work, coping would be easier.
She could tell the two were father and son. It was not just the physical resemblance—though that was there. The were both big, tall, handsome men. More important was the feelings they inspired, their attitude. They seemed calm, competent, tough.
Or was that just the way she remembered Nick? He didn’t seem
to have changed much since she’d last seen him. His dark hair was perhaps a little more grey, there was the odd extra line on his face. But he was as lean, as erect as ever.
Ed was different. His hair was blond, cut very short. His eyes were blue, unlike his father’s brown ones. And he moved differently, lightly, almost on his toes. Maddy recognised it as the action of a well-trained athlete.
They were both very different from the men she had been mixing with recently. Apart from the crew, most of the men were old. Dr Coombs was short, a bit tubby and was never going to die of overwork. She was feeling more confident by the minute.
‘So what have you got for us, Maddy?’ Nick asked.
She gave a quick summary of what had happened so far. ‘The captain is doing what he can, confining the sick ones to their cabins, taking all possible precautions. The passengers here have been well fed, well looked after. But a lot of them are old, or have come on this cruise to convalesce. I’ve dealt with gastroenteritis before, I know it’s not supposed to be too serious. But the vital signs in some of them are very worrying.’
‘Might I glance through the case notes?’ Nick asked. She had them ready and handed them to him.
He passed half of the pile of notes to Ed and both started to skim through them. After a while Nick muttered, ‘This does seem to be more serious than…’
‘May I see the rest of the notes?’ Ed asked him, and the two exchanged piles. Then there was silence for a moment and Maddy felt her confidence ebbing. It was good to be proved right…but she didn’t want to be right.
Ed spoke first. ‘I agree with you, Maddy. This is bad. I’ve come across an attack like this before. People think that gastroenteritis has just one cause but there can be many. In this case, onset seems far too rapid to be normal, dehydration far too advanced. It looks like a particularly effective bacterium or virus.’
‘Most likely a virus,’ Nick put in.
Ed shrugged. ‘We’ll have to find out. To be more exact, you’ll have to find out. But my experience says that it is a bacterium. Note the consistent high temperatures. More in line with bacterium than virus.’
‘A viral infection is more common.’
‘True. But I intend to use antibiotics until you tell me definitely that this is a virus.’
Maddy realised that this was a small trial of strength between the two men. Between father and son—both doctors. There was a difference of opinion and she knew that Nick didn’t like being contradicted.
There was a silence and then Nick said slowly, ‘We agreed that you are in charge. You must do what you think best.’
Ed nodded. ‘I’d like you to do the necessary tests and let me know the results as quickly as possible. Analysis is one of your strengths.’ He looked at Maddy. ‘How busy were you before this outbreak? You’ve obviously got more cases than these.’
‘I’ve been kept busy,’ she said. ‘There’s the usual small stuff—minor injuries, conditions that need an eye kept on them. This morning I had a man who’d had a TIA—I think.’
‘Would you like me to have a look at him?’ Ed asked.
She appreciated being asked. ‘I’m reasonably happy but, yes,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind.’
‘I don’t mind, I’m a doctor. I’ll be happy to.’ He smiled at her then—she realised for the first time. And it made his face, the some times stern Tremayne face, look so much more attractive.
‘One good thing,’ he went on, ‘is that this condition tends to burn out very quickly. Only a forty-eight hour isolation period is needed. Now, shall we go and check on the patients so far?’
They agreed that Nick should visit the male patients with a steward, and she would visit the female patients with Ed. They set off at once.
As they paced along the corridor she was aware of an odd sensation. At first she didn’t recognise it, it just seemed that the world might not be as bad a place as it had seemed a few minutes ago. There was promise in it. Then it struck her, so suddenly that for a moment she stopped walking. It was Ed Tremayne! He was…she was…she was attracted to him! This was ludicrous!
Her felt her stop, turned to her. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Just something I thought I had forgotten,’ she mumbled. ‘Nothing important.’
She tried to examine what she was feeling. It was just relief, she decided. There was something solid and dependable about Ed. Whatever attraction there was, it wasn’t sexual. Was it? But he was attractive—both physically and in his personality, And there was something hidden about him—she couldn’t work out quite what it was…
‘Which branch of the armed forces were you in, Ed?’ she asked, hoping her voice sounded normal.
He laughed. ‘How did you know that I’d been in the armed forces?’
That was an easy question to answer. ‘Well, there’s the short haircut. But more than that, I’ve had dealings with soldiers before. There’s something about the way they behave that I recognise. It’s the way they look round, assessing everything. Then the certainty that they are right. Often the way they are ready to take charge.’
A small smile. ‘So you expect me to take charge? Maddy, I’ve no intention of doing that. I’ve said it and I meant it—we’re partners. And I’ve always thought of myself as a doctor far more than a soldier. As to being certain that I’m right, well, no. I’ve been wrong, very wrong. And later I’ve realised it.’
His voice went quiet as he spoke, as if an unwelcome memory had flashed across his mind. For a moment she wondered what he was thinking, but she decided it wasn’t the right time to ask. ‘We all make mistakes,’ she said. ‘It’s part of the human condition.’
‘True.’ His voice was mild as he went on, ‘but I do have to own up. I am an ex-soldier and some of the happiest days of my life were when I was in the army.’ He paused a moment and then said, ‘But not necessarily because I was in the army.’
‘Right,’ she said.
CHAPTER THREE
ED HAD skimmed through her notes and decided that this was the patient he wanted to see first. She had been one of the earliest to fall ill, and her condition appeared to be one of the worst.
Miriam Jones was a widow of sixty-eight. She was not happy with her condition. ‘I paid a lot of money for this trip, Dr Tremayne,’ she said after Ed had introduced himself. ‘I do not take kindly to having to spend the last two days of it lying on a bed in my cabin.’
But her voice was weak. Maddy could see that a lot of the strength had gone out of someone who had previously been a tough lady. She was trying to survive—but she was failing.
Ed examined her. Maddy had already set up a giving set to get fluids into the patient but Ed suggested a more rapid rate of flow. He also prescribed a larger dose of the antibiotic that Maddy had already given her. Then he took Mrs Jones’s hand.
‘I’m not going to hide anything from you, Mrs Jones,’ he said. ‘You’re seriously ill. But I’ve got confidence in you, I know you’ve got the strength to pull through. And I know you won’t be as much trouble as some others we’re seeing.’
Mrs Jones’s pale face lit up. ‘No, I won’t,’ she said.
‘Then I’ll be in to see you later. Anything really serious, phone us.’
The next call was totally different. Miss Owen—the new Miss Owen, having previously been Mrs Dacre and now very satisfactorily divorced—had come on this cruise to ‘rebuild her confidence’. Contracting gastroenteritis had shaken this confidence.
Maddy saw Ed handle this patient in a totally different fashion. He joked with her. Even got a smile. And when they left the cabin, Miss Owen was a slightly happier person.
They worked their way through the rest of the cases. Most cabins were occupied by couples. Maddy noticed that when this was the case, Ed was as charming as ever with the sick person. But then he took the husband or wife to one side and had a quiet word with them. She managed to listen to one conversation and was intrigued by it. Ed’s words were partly reassurance and partly a clear stateme
nt of what he expected. Ed knew what the patients needed and was going to see that they got it.
Finally they had seen all the cases and were walking back to the medical centre to meet Nick again. Maddy felt that this was going to be a good partnership. ‘I’m glad you’ve come on board,’ she said. ‘I feel that things aren’t too bad now.’
He glanced at her, smiled. ‘So, for the moment, have you got over your bitterness at the military mind? Tell me, was it the army as a whole or one particular individual?’
This took her aback. Ed was an astute observer, far more perceptive than she had realised. ‘Sorry if I was a bit short with you,’ she muttered. ‘I’m sure we’ll work well together.’
She wasn’t going to answer his question about her being upset by one particular individual. She waited for him to ask again but he didn’t. He knew she didn’t want to answer and that made her even more cautious.
She didn’t want to reveal herself, to be vulnerable. And Ed was getting close to making her feel exposed.
They turned a corner and saw a mother and child coming towards them. The little boy, aged about seven, ran towards her, yelling, ‘Nurse Maddy! Look, I’m a pirate again.’
And a pirate little Robbie Cowley was. He flourished a large plastic cutlass, had a skull and cross bones on his large plastic hat. His T-shirt didn’t quite match, though. On it was the picture of a devil, cheerful rather than frightening. There was a dressing on his right arm.
Laughing, Maddy was about to pick him up then remembered where she had just been. The less contact between people the better.
‘Just stay there, Robbie,’ she said with a smile to reassure him. ‘There might be some nasty stuff on me.’ Then she turned to the mother and smiled. ‘Don’t tell me, Mrs Cowley, he’s still a handful.’
Mrs Cowley, a buxom blonde in her early thirties, smiled and shook her head. ‘I thought when he cut his arm that it would quieten him down a bit. You told him he had to be good, not to run around so much or he might hurt his arm even more. And he was good, didn’t run around. For about twenty minutes.’
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