Heart's Command

by Meredith Webber

  Again she considered complications.

  ‘Any bleeding or loss of fluid from his ear?’

  Ken shook his head, then qualified the gesture. ‘Well, he was so wet, water was coming out everywhere, but since we dried him off and got him into clean clothes, there’s been no sign. Mary’s doing half-hourly obs—in fact, she’s sitting with him as he’s a bit disorientated still.’

  ‘I’d better see him. Should we stitch the scalp wound?’

  ‘I’ve taped it closed,’ Ken told her. ‘The water business worries me. We stitch it closed and there’s some rare microbe hidden away in his tissues, we could get a wholesale infection.’

  Kirsten agreed, but the problem of what to do with the soldier nagged at her as she went in and reintroduced herself to the young man.

  Mary ducked away and Kirsten sensed she was glad to escape, something she understood when James Ross revealed a very fractious side to his nature.

  ‘You must be able to give me something,’ he complained. ‘To help me remember things.’

  ‘It will come back to you,’ she told him, although no one could guarantee that it would—or when. ‘Rest and relax, give it time. At the moment your body is more concerned with battling the germs you swallowed in your swim than restoring your memory. Once you’ve picked up again, it will come back.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’ he snapped at her. ‘You doctors are all the same. Reassuring liars, the lot of you.’

  ‘Perhaps you should have left him to drown,’ a deep voice said, and Kirsten turned to find a still wet Harry behind her.

  ‘I can always throw him back the way the fishermen do.’ She looked at the puddle he was making on the floor. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting into dry clothes?’ she asked, then smiled when she considered how often they’d had this conversation.

  ‘When I’ve had a word with James here,’ he said, his eyes returning her smile as if he understood exactly what she was thinking. He turned to his subordinate.

  ‘Well, how are you feeling?’

  James eyed him warily.

  ‘The knock on his head has caused temporary amnesia,’ Kirsten explained to the major. She then added to James, ‘This is Major Harry Graham, the boss of your outfit. You usually call him sir.’

  She saw James’s hazel eyes darken with frustration and reached out to touch him on the shoulder.

  ‘Don’t force yourself. Relax. I’m sure the major would be happy to visit you later—when you’ve had a sleep—and tell you anything you need to know then.’

  She gestured to Harry to leave the room, and followed him out, correctly anticipating his immediate reaction which was to turn to her and demand, in a whisper loud enough to echo down the passage, ‘What’s this amnesia thing? How badly hurt is he? Have you called the search and rescue helicopter? Alerted someone that we need him airlifted out?’

  ‘Will you keep your voice down?’ Kirsten snarled at him. ‘In fact, come into my room where we can speak normally.’

  She led the way.

  ‘The floor’s already wet where I dripped on it,’ she told him when he hesitated in the doorway. ‘If you stay off the carpet it won’t be so bad.’

  She found a clean towel and handed it to him. After rubbing it through his hair to stop the water trickling down his face, he dropped it on the floor and stood on it.

  Well trained!

  ‘He needs immediate attention,’ he said, picking up where he’d left off in the passage. ‘Experts. The army has doctors—and access to the best of civilian specialists.’

  ‘No specialist on earth can restore his memory at this stage,’ Kirsten told him bluntly. She took a turn around the room then faced him again, looking into the dark eyes as she tried to impress on him that she knew what she was doing. ‘I’m sure it’s simply post-traumatic amnesia—loss of memory following a blow to the head—and his memory will return. In my opinion it will return faster if he remains with people he knows and in the familiar environment of the platoon, even though you’re not in your regular camp.’

  She waited but when the major said nothing she added, ‘Look. It’s up to you. If you want him sent on, then I’m happy to do it. Heaven knows, we’ve enough on our plates with the waters about to arrive, without taking in extra patients.’

  Harry frowned at her and Kirsten realised he didn’t like the responsibility being thrust back on him. Which was strange because she’d judged him as very much a leader—a man who both accepted and enjoyed the responsibility for his men that was an integral part of his job.

  ‘I don’t know enough about it to make that decision,’ he eventually complained. ‘I don’t have the medical knowledge.’

  ‘Then phone someone who does,’ she retorted. ‘One of your experts. I’m the kind of doctor who welcomes a second opinion. I’m not going to get huffy because you don’t want to take my word for it.’

  He frowned at her for a moment, lifted his shoulders in an ‘I don’t know’ kind of gesture, and hovered.

  The hovering routine unsettled Kirsten. For a start it reminded her he was back in her room, and she didn’t want recurring images of him there.

  And he looked uncomfortable, which made her feel even worse as it prompted a desire to comfort him in some way, preferably a way that included putting her arms around him!

  Not a good idea!

  He broke the silence with a sneeze—breaking also the spell that had been tangling her thoughts and emotions.

  ‘Go!’ she said, pointing to the door. ‘Get out of your wet clothes, make your phone call. Then don’t you have a levee bank to rebuild, or are you going to allow the flood waters to find their own way through town?’

  He stepped off the towel, bent to pick it up and handed it to her.

  ‘I thought doctors were supposed to be overloaded with caring and compassion,’ he complained. ‘Offering solace and comfort rather than ultimatums and orders to go.’

  She grinned at him.

  ‘Not this doctor!’ she said cheekily. ‘Let me know what you decide about the lieutenant.’

  Harry went, hurrying now. He didn’t know why he’d been struck dumb, standing there on the towel in the middle of her room. Not that she wasn’t right about him having plenty to do. He’d left his men struggling to fill the breach in the levee bank, which meant the work on raising the level at the upper end of town had been halted.

  Then there was Lt Ross.

  Kirsten’s words about him staying with friends, in familiar surroundings, made sense, but what if the injury was worse than she realised? If he sent the man to town…

  Thinking about Kirsten’s words, it brought an image of her to his mind, and it was difficult to get past it and back to thoughts of James.

  Get a second opinion, he said to himself. He’d phone the doctor, a mate of his, back at the field hospital at the base and get him to make enquiries—leave the decision up to him.

  ‘What’s she like, the doctor on the ground?’ Major Paul Gamble asked Harry when they were finally connected.

  About five-four, with brown curls and lively blue eyes, Harry’s mind responded, but he managed to answer more sensibly than that, giving as his opinion that Kirsten was definitely dedicated and seemed very sensible.

  ‘What she’s suggested makes sense,’ Gamble told him. ‘But if you’re worried, let me talk to her. I’ll suggest she has a contingency plan should the lieutenant’s condition deteriorate. In fact, I’m not doing much down here, with most of the company off fighting floods. I could get someone to drop me in and check on Ross myself.’

  Harry knew he should have felt relief at the suggestion. If Gamble made the decision it let him off the hook. But the thought of Paul Gamble, legendary lover of the field hospital unit, staying, even temporarily, in close proximity to Kirsten McPherson didn’t sit comfortably with him.

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ he said firmly. ‘And I’ll speak to her about contingency plans.’

  He sneezed as he hung up the phone
and decided he’d shower first.

  Kirsten visited her patients, finding Meg and Libby in with Cathy, and Anthony playing draughts with Chipper. It seemed her arrangement to keep the children in the attic rooms during the day was failing.

  ‘No way! They help pass the time,’ Cathy told her when Kirsten asked if the children were a nuisance. ‘I mean, it isn’t as if we’re all inundated with visitors. And the baby just eats and sleeps—he’s totally boring. Now I’m up and about, I’d just as soon be sitting in with Brett as sitting here by myself.’

  ‘Brett?’ Kirsten echoed, then remembered it was Captain Woulfe’s first name. She must be catching the major’s habit of referring to them by their rank.

  Cathy was telling her something else, about Brett’s home town being not unlike Murrawarra, but she’d lost track because thinking about the major had triggered the memory of his strong arms wrapped around her body as they’d waited for the boat to return for them.

  ‘I’d better check on James,’ she said, firmly shifting her mental gears back to work.

  He was sleeping quietly, and Mary, who came out of Chipper’s room to report she was still doing obs, explained he’d drifted off almost as soon as the major had left the room.

  ‘Perhaps just seeing him, even if he didn’t know who it was, reassured him in some way,’ she said, and Kirsten agreed it could be possible. She didn’t know enough about amnesia to confirm it or deny it.

  ‘Let me know if there’s any change at all,’ she told the nurse. ‘A lung infection is a major worry when he’s been immersed like that.’

  Again she pondered sending him to town. Perhaps she shouldn’t have dumped that decision on Harry’s shoulders.

  Uncertainty drove her back into James’s room where she picked up his chart, before heading to her office. The good thing about country practice these days was the availability of experts on the end of a phone line. Bypassing Vereton, she phoned a neurologist she’d studied under years before. He was now a professor, conducting research into brain injuries, and universally acknowledged as a top man.

  He wasn’t in his rooms but an obliging secretary had him paged and he phoned back within in minutes.

  Once politeness had been observed, she explained the situation, read out the results of the tests they’d conducted and asked for his opinion.

  ‘I’m against moving head-injured patients on principle,’ he told her. ‘Unless there’s need for further investigations—a scan, MRI, perhaps surgery. Your man doesn’t sound too bad. In fact, if loss of memory is all he’s suffering from—and a decent sort of headache, I’d assume—he’s been lucky.’

  ‘So keep him here?’ Kirsten asked, wanting the decision unequivocal.

  ‘Keep him there,’ Charles Gresham told her. ‘But continue obs and be prepared to go in if there’s any sign of pressure building up inside his skull.’

  ‘Thanks for bringing that up!’ Kirsten said dryly, as the thought of having to drill a burr hole in James’s skull made her shiver.

  ‘Are you giving him antibiotics?’ Charles asked. ‘Prophylactically, it might be a good idea—get in before an infection starts.’

  Kirsten, who’d considered it but had then set the option aside, talked this through with him and was convinced it would be advisable.

  Much relieved, she thanked her former mentor and hung up. At least now she’d have some back-up if Harry moved into the attack again.

  She returned to her patient who was still sleeping naturally. Rather than take the risk that he might be allergic to penicillin, she’d wait until he woke and she could speak to him about any reactions, although whether someone with amnesia would remember if he had allergies…

  None that he knew of, was his eventual reply, but Kirsten decided to err on the side of caution. It was after eight and, although one detachment of the soldiers was still working under arc lights, she was fairly certain Harry would be in the building.

  She tried the downstairs room he was using as an office first, but the orderly on duty there thought the major had retired for the night.

  ‘Could you check for me?’ she asked the young soldier. ‘I wanted to ask you about your usual medical facilities. Do you have an army doctor or hospital unit back at your base?’

  ‘Dr Gamble, that would be,’ the young man said. ‘I can put you through to him without bothering the major.’

  Kirsten knew she should find this offer a relief, but even as she asked the soldier to go ahead and get the doctor she was conscious of slight disappointment.

  This wouldn’t do, she told herself sternly while she waited to be connected. The man’s a virtual stranger, a career army officer who will be out of your life before you know it.

  ‘Dr Gamble on the line, Doctor.’

  She took the receiver and said a tentative hello, but the man’s warm response banished any reticence and she was soon chatting to him as if they were old friends.

  ‘You studied at Sydney University?’ she said, impressed by his acceptance into the oldest medical school in the country.

  The talk turned to professors they’d had, subjects they’d liked and loathed, and took a long time to get to the reason for her call.

  ‘I’m assuming it’s about Lt Ross. Harry phoned me earlier.’

  Kirsten explained her dilemma.

  ‘Look, I’m not in my office now, so I can’t pull his medical records. You’re quite right. Allergies will be recorded on them. OK with you if I call you back?’

  Kirsten assured him it was more than OK. James’s medical file might also contain information that could help her in this situation. Previous head injuries. A history of concussion.

  She thanked the man and hung up, then realised she hadn’t given him a number.

  ‘He’ll call back on this phone,’ the orderly suggested. ‘He’ll have the number.’

  ‘Do you mind me waiting here?’ Kirsten asked, and the soldier smiled.

  ‘No ma’am,’ he assured her. ‘I’m so bored I’ve been counting the stones in the wall. Usually on a detail like this there’s filing to do, paperwork, that kind of thing, but out here there’s not much except mind the phone. Communication lines must be kept open, it’s the army’s way.’

  Kirsten asked him where he came from and they discussed city versus country life.

  ‘Would you like a cup of coffee, ma’am? We’ve good stuff here, and a proper pot to make it in because the major likes real coffee.’

  Kirsten guessed this was a special favour and, feeling weary enough to fall asleep on the chair, agreed.

  So she was sitting with her feet up on the major’s table, a cup of his best Brazilian mocha in her hand, laughing at something Paul Gamble was saying on the phone, when Harry walked in.

  She dropped her feet to the ground, shot upright in the chair, spilled coffee down her front, swore, then dropped the phone.

  ‘You’re wet again,’ she said to the cause of her confusion.

  ‘You’re not so dry yourself,’ he pointed out as she flapped her shirt to keep the heat away from her skin. ‘Are you selling my coffee or giving it away, Corporal?’

  Kirsten watched as the young man tried to disappear into the wall that had kept him occupied earlier.

  ‘Someone on the phone?’ Harry asked.

  He lifted the fallen receiver and held it to his ear.

  ‘Hello?’

  Paul must have held on through the confusion, for Kirsten heard his deep voice greeting Harry, then a bit of conversation that sounded like, ‘You sly old dog.’

  It made no sense at all so, having, much earlier, found out what she needed to know, she thanked the hapless young man and, leaving him to bear the brunt of his superior’s wrath, made a cowardly escape from the office.

  James Ross had no listed allergies and had been given penicillin without ill effect when suffering a bout of tonsillitis. Paul Gamble agreed that some antibiotics dripping into him would be a good idea.

  Kirsten and Joan were both kept busy overnight.
Although not feverish, James was still restless and disorientated, and very, very irritable. And to further complicate matters, Brett Woulfe was finding the plaster uncomfortable.

  ‘I don’t think it’s the plaster,’ Kirsten said to Joan when they sat down together over a cup of tea at midnight. ‘He seems to have a rash on his torso and forearms. If that’s affecting the skin on his leg, no wonder he’s uncomfortable.’

  ‘Well, he’s asleep now,’ Joan told her, ‘so why don’t you go to bed? You can’t keep up these twenty-four hour efforts for too long.’

  Kirsten knew she was right, but James’s condition and Brett’s discomfort bothered her. And Moira was deteriorating and she had to make a decision about instituting tube feeding, something Moira was vehemently against.

  ‘I’ll do a quick walk around the patients first,’ she said, ‘then, yes, I’ll go to bed.’

  Mr Curtis was sleeping soundly—thank heavens his dementia hadn’t yet led to wandering. Who knew where he’d end up in the flooded town? Chipper was groaning in his sleep, but that was normal. Cathy, with the baby in a crib beside her bed, was snoring gently, the baby’s snuffly sounds like tiny echoes of the noise.

  Brett, as Joan had told her, was out of it, no doubt exhausted after an uncomfortable afternoon. Mr Graham, propped on pillows to help him breathe, was dozing peacefully, and even James had finally succumbed to sleep.

  She was heading back towards her bedroom when she heard a noise from the foyer and turned that way instead. The big entrance area was illuminated only by the light from the passage, so the form that crossed it was shadowy.

  Kirsten swung her torch towards the figure and turned on the light, catching Harry in its beam. He was dry this time, and resplendent in pyjamas striped in royal blue and scarlet.

  ‘Well, that’s a splendid sight at midnight,’ she joked, although her heart was jolting uneasily—no doubt because of fright, and nothing to do with a pyjama-clad major. ‘Why are you lurking around the place?’

  ‘I’m not lurking!’ he responded. ‘I was pacing.’

  ‘Pacing? Is it a new form of exercise? I’ve heard of step exercise, but pacing sounds more like something horses do.’