by Tina Beckett
Maybe she could pull the truck up.
Maybe not. This wasn’t a huge SUV.
‘Polly...’ From below Hugo’s voice sounded desperate. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Being a Girl Guide,’ she yelled back. ‘Prepare to be stabilised.’
‘How...?’
‘Pure skill,’ she yelled back. ‘How’s Horace?’
‘Slipping.’
‘Two minutes,’ she yelled back, twisting the rope and racking her brain for a knot that could be used.
Reef Knot? Round Turn and Two Half Hitches? What about a Buntline Hitch? Yes! She almost beamed. Brown Owl would be proud.
She knotted and then cautiously shifted the SUV, reversing sideways against the cliff, taking up the last slack in the rope. Finally she cut the engine. She closed her eyes for a nanosecond and she allowed herself to breathe.
‘Why don’t you do something?’ It was Margaret—of course it was Margaret—still crouched on the verge and screaming. ‘My Horace’s dying and all you do is...’
‘Margaret, if you don’t shut up I’ll personally climb the cliff and slap you for Polly,’ Hugo called up, and Polly thought: Uh oh. He must have heard her previous threat. Some introduction to his new employee. Medicine by force.
But at least he was backing her and the idea was strangely comforting—there were two doctors working instead of one.
‘Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable,’ she told the woman. She had a jacket draped over her shoulders. ‘Is this Doc Denver’s jacket?’
‘I...yes. His phone’s in the pocket. It keeps ringing.’
You didn’t think to answer it? she thought, but she didn’t say it. What was the point now? But if Emergency Services were trying to verify their location...
‘I want you to sit in Doc Denver’s truck,’ she told Margaret. ‘If the phone rings, can you answer it and tell people where we are?’
‘I don’t...’
‘We’re depending on you, Margaret. All you have to do is sit in the car and answer the phone. Nothing else. Can you do that?’
‘If you save Horace.’
‘Deal.’ She propelled her into the passenger seat of the SUV and there was a bonus. More ballast. With Margaret’s extra, not insubstantial, weight, this vehicle was going nowhere.
‘I think you’re stable,’ she yelled down the cliff, while she headed back to the verge for Hugo’s bag. She flicked it open. Saline, adrenaline, painkilling drugs, all the paraphernalia she’d expect a country GP would carry. He must have put it down while he’d leaned into the truck, and then the road had given way.
How to get it to him?
‘What do you mean, stable?’ he called.
‘I have nice strong ties attaching the truck tray to your SUV,’ she called. ‘The SUV’s parked at right angles to you, with Margaret sitting in the passenger seat. It’s going nowhere.’
‘How did you tie...?’
‘Girl Guiding 101,’ she called back. ‘You want to give me a raise on the strength of it?’
‘Half my kingdom.’
‘Half a country practice in Wombat Valley? Ha!’
‘Yeah, you’re right, it’s a trap,’ he called back. ‘You know you’ll never get away, but you walked in of your own accord, and I’m more than willing to share. I’ll even include Priscilla Carlisle’s bunions. They’re a medical practice on their own.’
Astonishingly, she giggled.
This felt okay. She could hear undercurrents to his attempt at humour that she had no hope of understanding, but she was working hard, and in the truck Hugo would be working hard, too. The medical imperatives were still there, but the flavour of black humour was a comfort all on its own.
Medical imperatives. The bag was the next thing. Horace had suffered major blood loss. Everything Hugo needed was in that bag.
How to get the bag down?
Lower it? It’d catch on the undergrowth. Take it down herself? Maybe. The cab, though, was much lower than the tray. There were no solid saplings past the back of the tray.
She had Hugo’s nylon cord. It was useless for abseiling—the nylon would slice her hands—but she didn’t have to pull herself up. She could stay down there until the cavalry arrived.
Abseiling... A harness? Nope. The nylon would cut.
A seat? She’d learned to make a rope seat in Abseil Rescue.
Hmm.
‘Tie the cord to the bag and toss it as close as you can,’ Hugo called, and humour had given way to desperation. ‘I can try and retrieve it.’
‘What, lean out of the cabin? Have you seen the drop?’
‘I’m trying not to see the drop but there’s no choice.’
His voice cracked. It’d be killing him, she thought, watching Horace inch towards death with no way to help.
‘Did you mention you have a kid? You’re taking your kid to the beach for Christmas? Isn’t that what this locum position is all about?’
‘Yes, but...’
‘Then you’re going nowhere. Sit. Stay.’
There was a moment’s silence, followed by a very strained response.
‘Woof?’
She grinned. Nice one.
But she was no longer concentrating on the conversation. Her hands were fashioning a seat, three lines of cord, hooked together at the sides, with a triangle of cord at both sides to make it steady.
She could make a knot and she could let it out as she went...
Wow, she was dredging through the grey matter now. But it was possible, she conceded. She could tie the bag underneath her, find toeholds in the cliff, hopefully swing from sapling to sapling to steady her...
‘Polly, if you’re thinking of climbing...you can’t.’ Hugo’s voice was deep and gravelly. There was strength there, she thought, but she also heard fear.
He was scared for her.
He didn’t even know her.
He was concerned for a colleague, she thought, but, strangely, it felt more than that. It felt...warm. Strong.
Good.
Which was ridiculous. She knew nothing about this man, other than he wanted to take his kid to the beach for Christmas.
‘Never say can’t to a Hargreaves,’ she managed to call back. ‘You’ll have my father to answer to.’
‘I don’t want to answer to your father if you’re dead.’
‘I’ll write a note excusing you. Now shut up. I need to concentrate.’
‘Polly...’
‘Hold tight. I’m on my way.’
CHAPTER THREE
IT NEARLY KILLED HIM.
He could do nothing except apply pressure to Horace’s shoulder and wait for rescue.
From a woman in a polka dot dress.
The sight of her from the truck’s rear-view window had astounded him. Actually, the sight of anyone from the truck’s rear-view mirror would have astounded him—this was an impossible place to reach—but that a woman...
No, that was sexist... That anyone, wearing a bare-shouldered dress with a halter neck tie, with flouncy auburn curls to her shoulders, with freckles...
Yeah, he’d even noticed the freckles.
And yes, he thought, he was being sexist or fashionist or whatever else he could think of being accused of right now, but he excused himself because what he wanted was a team of State Emergency Personnel with safety jackets and big boots organising a smooth transition to safety.
He was stuck with polka dots and freckles.
He should have asked for a photo when he’d organised the locum. He should never have...
Employed polka dots? Who was he kidding? If an applicant had a medical degree and was breathing he would have employed them. No one wanted to work in Wombat Valley.
No on
e but him and he was stuck here. Lured here for love of his little niece. Stuck here for ever.
Beside him, Horace was drifting in and out of consciousness. His blood pressure was dropping, his breathing was becoming laboured and there was nothing he could do.
He’d never felt so helpless.
Maybe he had. The night they’d rung and told him Grace had driven her car off the Gap.
Changing his life in an instant.
Why was he thinking about that now? Because there was nothing else to think about? Nothing to do?
The enforced idleness was killing him. He couldn’t see up to the road unless he leaned out of the window. What was she doing?
What sort of a dumb name was Polly anyway? he thought tangentially. Whoever called a kid Pollyanna?
She’d sent a copy of her qualifications to him, with references. They’d been glowing, even if they’d been city based.
The name had put him off. Was that nameist?
Regardless, he’d had reservations about employing a city doctor in this place that required definite country skills, but Ruby deserved Christmas.
He deserved Christmas. Bondi Beach. Sydney. He’d had a life back there.
And now...his whole Christmas depended on a doctor in polka dots. More, his life depended on her. If her knots didn’t hold...
‘Hey!’
And she was just there, right by the driver’s seat window. At least, her feet were there—bare!—and then her waist, and then there was a slither and a curse and her head appeared at the open window. She was carefully not touching the truck, using her feet on the cliff to push herself back.
‘Hey,’ she said again, breathlessly. ‘How’re you guys doing? Would you like a bag?’
And, amazingly, she hauled up his canvas holdall from under her.
Horace was slumped forward, semi-conscious, not reacting to her presence. Polly gave Horace a long, assessing look and then turned her attention to him. He got the same glance. Until her assessment told her otherwise, it seemed he was the patient.
‘Okay?’ she asked.
‘Bruises. Nothing more. I’m okay to work.’
He got a brisk nod, accepting his word, moving on. ‘If you’re planning on coping with childbirth or constipation, forget it,’ she told him, lifting the bag through the open window towards him. ‘I took stuff out to lighten the load. But this should have what you need.’
To say he was gobsmacked would be an understatement. She was acting like a doctor in a ward—calm, concise, using humour to deflect tension. She was hanging by some sort of harness—no, some sort of seat—at the end of a nylon cord. She was red-headed and freckled and polka-dotted, and she was cute...
She was a doctor, offering assistance.
He grabbed the bag so she could use her hands to steady herself and, as soon as he had it, her smile went to high beam. But her smile still encompassed a watchful eye on Horace. She was an emergency physician, he thought. ER work was a skill—communicating and reassuring terrified patients while assessing injuries at the same time. That was what she was doing. She knew the pressure he was under but her manner said this was just another day in the office.
‘Those bruises,’ she said. ‘Any on the head? No concussion?’
So he was still a patient. ‘No.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
‘Then it’s probably better if you work from inside the truck. If I work on Horace from outside I might put more pressure...’
‘You’ve done enough.’
‘I haven’t but I don’t want to bump the truck more than necessary. Yell if you need help but if you’re fine to put in the drip then I’ll tie myself to a sapling and watch. Margaret is up top, manning the phones, so it’s my turn for a spot of R and R. It’s time to strut your stuff, Dr Denver. Go.’
She pushed herself back from the truck and cocked a quizzical eyebrow—and he couldn’t speak.
Time to strut his stuff? She was right, of course. He needed to stop staring at polka dots.
He needed to try and save Horace.
* * *
Polly was now just as stuck as the guys in the truck.
There was no way she could pull herself up the cliff again. She couldn’t get purchase on the nylon without cutting herself. The cord had cut her hands while she’d lowered herself, but to get the bag to Hugo, to try and save Horace’s life, she’d decided a bit of hand damage was worthwhile.
Getting up, though... Not so much. The cavalry was on its way. She’d done everything she could.
Now all she had to do was secure herself and watch Hugo work.
* * *
He couldn’t do it.
He had all the equipment he needed. All he had to do was find a vein and insert a drip.
But Horace was a big man, his arms were fleshy and flaccid, and his blood pressure had dropped to dangerous levels. Even in normal circumstances it’d be tricky to find a vein.
Horace was bleeding from the arm nearest him. He had that pressure bound. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, but he needed to use Horace’s other arm for the drip.
It should be easy. All he needed to do was tug Horace’s arm forward, locate the vein at the elbow and insert the drip.
But he was at the wrong angle and his hands shook. Something about crashing down a cliff, thinking he was going to hit the bottom? The vein he was trying for slid away under the needle.
‘Want me to try?’ Polly had tugged back from the truck, cautious that she might inadvertently put weight on it, but she’d been watching.
‘You can hardly operate while hanging on a rope,’ he told her and she gave him a look of indignation.
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve rigged this up with a neat seat. So I’m not exactly hanging. If you’re having trouble...I don’t want to bump the truck but for Horace...maybe it’s worth the risk.’
And she was right. Priority had to be that vein, but if he couldn’t find it, how could she?
‘I’ve done my first part of anaesthetic training,’ she said, diffidently now. ‘Finding veins is what I’m good at.’
‘You’re an anaesthetist?’
‘Nearly. You didn’t know that, did you, Dr Denver?’ To his further astonishment, she sounded smug. ‘Emergency physician with anaesthetist skills. You have two medics for the price of one. So...can I help?’
And he looked again at Horace’s arm and he thought of the consequences of not trusting. She was an anaesthetist. They were both in impossible positions but she had the training.
‘Yes, please.’
* * *
Her hands hurt. Lowering herself using only the thin cord had been rough.
Her backside also hurt. Three thin nylon cords weren’t anyone’s idea of good seat padding. She was using her feet to swing herself as close to the truck as she dared, trying to balance next to the window.
There was nothing to tie herself to.
And then Hugo reached over and caught the halter-tie of her dress, so her shoulder was caught at the rear of the window.
‘No weight,’ he told her. ‘I’ll just hold you steady.’
‘What a good thing I didn’t wear a strapless number,’ she said approvingly, trying to ignore the feel of his hand against her bare skin. Truly, this was the most extraordinary position...
It was the most extraordinary feeling. His hold made her feel...safe?
Was she out of her mind? Safe? But he held fast and it settled her.
Hugo had swabbed but she swabbed again, holding Horace’s arm steady as she worked. She had his arm out of the window, resting on the window ledge. The light here was good.
She pressed lightly and pressed again...
The cannula was suddenly in her hand. Hugo was
holding her with one hand, acting as theatre assistant with the other.
Once again that word played into her mind. Safe... But she had eyes only for the faint contour that said she might have a viable vein...
She took the cannula and took a moment to steady herself. Hugo’s hold on her tightened.
She inserted the point—and the needle slipped seamlessly into the vein.
‘Yay, us,’ she breathed, but Hugo was already handing her some sticking plaster to tape the cannula. She was checking the track, but it was looking good. A minute later she had the bag attached and fluid was flowing. She just might have done the thing.
Hugo let her go. She swung out a little, clear of the truck. It was the sensible thing to do, but still...
She hadn’t wanted to be...let go.
‘Heart rate?’ Her voice wasn’t quite steady. She took a deep breath and tried again. ‘How is it?’
‘Holding.’ Hugo had his stethoscope out. ‘I think we might have made it.’ He glanced into the bag. ‘And we have adrenaline—and a defibrillator. How did you carry all this?’
‘I tied it under my seat.’
‘Where did you learn your knots?’
‘I was a star Girl Guide.’ She was, too, she thought, deciding maybe she needed to focus on anything but the way his hold had made her feel.
A star Girl Guide... She’d been a star at so many things—at anything, really, that would get her away from her parents’ overriding concern. Riding lessons, piano lessons, judo, elocution, Girl Guides, holiday camps... She’d been taken to each of them by a continuous stream of nannies. Nannies who were chosen because they spoke French, had famous relatives or in some other way could be boasted about by her parents...
‘The current girl’s a Churchill. She’s au-pairing for six months, and she knows all the right people...’
Yeah. Nannies, nannies and nannies. Knowing the right people or speaking five languages was never a sign of job permanence. Polly had mostly been glad to be delivered to piano or elocution or whatever. She’d done okay, too. She’d had to.
Her parents loved her, but oh, they loved to boast.
‘ER Physician, anaesthetist and Girl Guide to boot.’ Hugo sounded stunned. ‘I don’t suppose you brought a stretcher as well? Plus a qualification in mountain rescue.’
