Her heart sank. Of course. The appendix.
No Grady.
Well, what was so unusual about that? she asked herself harshly. She’d been used to it for four years. She needed to get used to it again.
Robbie…
‘The child who was here,’ she ventured. ‘Do you know where he is?’
The man smiled. ‘He’s a great kid, isn’t he? He gave us some fantastic footage.’
‘But…’
He got her worry then, and his smile died. ‘I’m sorry. They were arguing as I arrived.’
That was what she didn’t understand. Robbie didn’t argue. At least, not with Hubert.
‘I overheard it as I walked up the scree,’ the man said apologetically. ‘Do you want to know what about?’
‘Yes.’ Then, because her voice had been a little bit desperate, a little bit raw, she repeated herself. ‘Yes, please.’
Still there was a tremor in her voice and the cameraman gave her an odd look before continuing. He couldn’t understand her fear. And maybe…please…the fear was illogical.
‘I heard Robbie say he’d guessed a place where someone called Hamish might be,’ the man told her. ‘He wanted to go there but Hubert was saying he had to wait for you. As I came within sight, the kid seemed to lose it. He yelled that he’d waited and waited and he had to go now, because Hamish would be stuck. When Hubert said he couldn’t go by himself he said he’d take Elspeth. Would that be the dog?’
‘Right.’ She bit her lip. Where…?
‘Will you go search for Robbie straight away?’ The cameraman cast an uneasy glance at Hubert, and Morag shook her head. An appendicectomy meant that both Grady and Jaqui would be fully occupied. She’d have to stay with Hubert until one of them could take over.
But Robbie needed her. He needed her so much.
He’d needed her all day and she’d left him alone.
‘Hey, it’ll be fine,’ the cameraman said gently, and she caught herself and managed a faltering smile. She was scaring him. She was the doctor. She was in charge. So she had to get on with it.
‘I… Of course it’ll be fine.
‘We’ll take the old man down to the hospital and then we’ll find your kid.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It makes good copy,’ he told her.
‘I didn’t think you were supposed to be involved in breaking news,’ she told him, striving for lightness. ‘If you’re not careful, you’ll be on the front page of your paper as a hero.’
‘It’s you who’s the hero,’ he told her. ‘And there’s not a man, woman or child on this island who’d disagree with me.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DOWN at the hospital tent, the cardiograph showed no significant change. No significant damage. Morag read the tracing and breathed a little easier.
Maybe Hubert would be lucky. At ninety-two he could hardly complain that he hadn’t had a good innings, but the old man was part of the fabric of this island. If he died…
The island was going to die anyway, she told herself bleakly as she adjusted his intravenous line and wrote up his medication.
Louise was normally a beaming, bright-faced nurse who saw the world through often infuriatingly rose-coloured glasses, but the woman who helped settle Hubert was white-faced and silent.
‘They’re saying we have to leave the island,’ she whispered.
‘Hush,’ Morag told her, but Hubert had drifted into a drug-induced sleep and seemed unaware of their presence. For a moment Morag was stung by a pang of pure envy. To just close her eyes…
‘It’ll be OK,’ she told the nurse, and Louise hiccuped on a sob.
‘No, it won’t. My Bill…he set his little goat cheese dairy up from scratch. Do you know not a goat was killed? Not a single one? They’re the cleverest creatures. Bill went up to the dairy last night and they were all there. We wanted to expand, and to say we have to leave…’
But Morag had no comfort to give. She had her own anguish, and her own desperate need.
‘Louise, have you seen Robbie?’
‘Robbie?’
‘He had an argument with Hubert. I imagine he’ll have come down here to find me.’
‘I haven’t seen him,’ Louise told her. ‘I’ve been on the front desk, so I’d have noticed.’
Damn, where was he? She couldn’t leave until she had back-up for Hubert, she thought desperately, and Grady and Jaqui were totally occupied. ‘The appendix is messy?’
‘It’s burst and it’s awful,’ Louise told her. ‘Dr Reece has been working in there for well over an hour.’
So here it was again. The medical imperative. She needed Grady-or Jaqui-but Grady and Jaqui were both totally occupied.
She had to find Robbie, but if Hubert suffered cardiac arrest…
She couldn’t leave.
‘I need to find Robbie.’
‘You said he’s coming here…’
‘No. I assumed he was here.’ Morag was trying hard not to panic. ‘If he was coming here, he’d be here now. He said he was going to find Hamish.’
‘But Hamish drowned,’ Louise said blankly, and Morag winced.
‘We don’t know that.’
‘It’s…it’s a reasonable assumption. By now.’
‘No.’ Morag bit her lip. ‘It’s not a reasonable assumption. Nothing’s reasonable.’
Help! She felt like kicking something, she thought desperately. Or weeping. Or yelling in sheer frustration.
Or all three.
Robbie, she thought frantically. Grady. Dear heaven, she needed Grady.
She couldn’t have him. He had his life and she had hers.
‘Will you sit with Hubert?’ she asked Louise, and the nurse searched her face and gave her a swift hug. These first hours after a coronary event were vital and they both knew it. In a normal intensive care unit, there’d be monitors set to a central desk. Here everything had to be done the old way.
‘Of course. But you’ll stay within call? Oh, Morag, what are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ Morag told her. ‘I don’t have a clue.’
She couldn’t leave. Not until Jaqui or Grady were free to leave the operating theatre could she go out of call of the old man. Even with Louise sitting by his bed, with Hubert in the early stages of coronary trouble, there had to be a doctor right there.
But Robbie… Robbie…
Someone else would have to search.
She’d call Marcus, she thought, but no sooner had she thought it than the man himself walked through the entrance of the tent. Marcus looked grim. But, then, the whole island looked grim.
‘Morag.’ He must have been looking for her, as his face changed as she emerged from Hubert’s canvas cubicle. But it didn’t grow lighter. ‘Thank God you’re here.’
More problems? She wasn’t sure she could cope with anything else. She glanced across in the direction of Grady’s makeshift theatre. The lights they’d set up were brilliant, oozing through the canvas and telling her that Grady and Jaqui were still a hundred per cent occupied.
She could hear a man’s low, gravelly voice giving orders. Grady. If Grady wasn’t here, it’d be she who was trying to cope with Mary’s appendix, she thought grimly. She should be thankful for that at least.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, forcing herself to turn back to Marcus. To the next problem.
Marcus hesitated. ‘Maybe it’s nothing.’
‘Tell me.’ She knew he didn’t want to. They knew they were both carrying intolerable burdens, and to place more on each other seemed impossible. But if something else dreadful had happened then she had to hear it, and Marcus knew it. The lines round his eyes grew tighter. There were dark shadows underneath them.
‘May’s just been with me,’ he told her. ‘She asked if I could set up a radio link so she could contact the Sydney hospital where her family is.’
Of course. That made sense, Morag thought. Peter and Christine and Lucy were May’s family. She’d be desperate
about them, as they’d be desperate about Hamish. ‘Did she get through?’
‘Mmm. That’s why I came to find you.’
‘Christine?’ The head injury. Dear God…
‘No. Christine’s not worse.’ Marcus could see where her thoughts were headed and moved fast to reassure her. ‘She’s fully conscious and she’s been given the all-clear. But Lucy’s with her parents now. That’s why I’m here. You know Lucy wouldn’t speak to May?’
‘She’d hardly speak to anyone.’
‘That’s right. But now her mother’s made her talk. It seems she thinks she knows where her brother might have gone.’
‘She knows where Hamish went?’
‘She’s guessing. Apparently he’s been doing…what he’s been doing for a while. Lucy knew she should tell her parents, but she didn’t, and then when the wave came she realised he must have been killed and she felt like it was all her fault. And she couldn’t tell you either because…well, it’s Robbie.’
Robbie. Her heart seemed to stand still.
‘What about Robbie?’
‘She thought…she assumed they were together.’
‘Doing what?’
There were small trickles of terror inching down Morag’s spine. There was something about the way Marcus was speaking. It was as if he was giving really, really bad news. He was giving her bad news about Hamish, but where was Robbie?
The vision of Hamish’s cheeky face was suddenly before her. Hamish and Robbie. The two little boys treated this island as their own personal adventure playground.
Where…?
‘It seems they’ve been robbing petrel nests,’ Marcus told her.
‘Petrel nests?’ She forced her panic to the backburner. Panic was useless. She had to think. The petrels were big seabirds, twice the size of gulls and many times more fierce. They nested on the far side of the island, on rugged, crumbling cliffs that dropped straight to the western shore. The sea there was a mass of jagged rocks and savage breakers. This was the place where the Bertha had gone aground all those years before, with the loss of a hundred and sixty-eight lives. A dreadful place.
‘They’ve been climbing the cliffs?’ she whispered, appalled.
‘Lucy said Hamish boasted about it one day when she’d called him a baby,’ Marcus told her. ‘It’s a game. One of them climbs up and grabs an egg, then he has to bring it down without smashing it, holding it in his hand to keep it warm. The other has to get it back to its original nest. Then he chooses another egg and it starts again. They push themselves to reach harder and harder places. When he told Lucy what they were doing and she threatened to tell Christine, Hamish said it wasn’t really dangerous because there were rocks at the bottom and they could climb around from the beach on the south side. It was only the birds that worried them.’
‘Only the birds?’ Morag drew in her breath in horror, thinking of the birds with their razor-sharp beaks and fierce claws, attacking the little boys as they defended their young. ‘Only the birds? Marcus, they… How…? When…?’
‘Apparently they’ve been telling you and Christine that they’ve been going to the school playground,’ he said ruefully. ‘With their skateboards.’
She closed her eyes. A nine-year-old, to be putting himself in this sort of danger. What sort of a guardian was she? What sort of a-?
‘Hey, Morag, I did it,’ Marcus said ruefully, eyeing her with concern. ‘My dad caught me and my brother at it when I was their age and we got what-for. I’d forgotten about it. But apparently they’ve thought of it again all by themselves. And maybe… If Hamish’s alternative was to spend his Sunday afternoon doing homework or practising his new skill by himself-well, I know what I’d have done.’
She looked at him as if he were mad. There was even a hint of admiration in his eyes. He had to be kidding! Admiration at such a time. When a little boy could be stuck… Could be washed off.
One little boy?
Or two?
Where was Robbie? On that awful cliff?
For one awful moment she thought she might faint. The world wavered, but just as she started to sway a man’s hand gripped on her shoulder.
Grady. It was Grady, still in his theatre gown. He held her, steadied her and waited for the dizziness to pass.
‘What’s happening, love?’ he asked gently, and she winced. But somehow the feel of him was enough. Somehow she collected herself. Love… What on earth did he think he was doing, calling her love?
‘Don’t call me love,’ she whispered, and it was all she could do not to burst into tears. She turned her attention frantically back to Marcus. ‘Marcus, surely those cliffs have been searched?’
‘Maybe not,’ he admitted. ‘I mean…hell, Morag, you know how rough they are. Why would we look there? But now… I was just coming to find you. I thought-if you didn’t mind-we’d take Robbie out in one of the fishing boats and get him to show us exactly where they climbed.’
‘But Robbie’s gone,’ Morag said blankly. ‘He’s gone to find Hamish. He ran away from Hubert about an hour ago. Dear God, if he guessed where Hamish might be, he’ll have gone to the cliffs.’
‘He can’t have,’ Marcus told her, while Grady watched in concern.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘The base of the cliffs, where they’d usually scramble around…the force of the wave knocked it into the sea,’ Marcus told them. ‘I’ve noticed the collapse on our way in and out of the harbour as we’ve been searching. That’s what makes me think, if Hamish was up on those cliffs when the wave struck-if he was high enough to be safe from the wave-there’s a possibility that he might not have been able to get back. He might be stuck. It’s just a small hope but it’s worth a look.’
‘Well worth a look,’ Grady said firmly. He put his arm around Morag and pulled her hard against him. She couldn’t pull away. She’d have fallen over if she had. ‘I overheard what Marcus has been saying,’ he told her. ‘So we have two missing boys-one of whom might be on the cliff face.’
‘But Robbie?’ She was past thinking coherently. ‘If he was trying to reach Hamish…’
‘He’d see pretty fast that he couldn’t get round from the bottom,’ Marcus said.
‘He wouldn’t try and climb down from the top?’ Grady demanded, and his hold on her firmed as she winced in disbelief.
‘He’d be a damned fool to try,’ Marcus said bleakly.
‘But if he thought he knew exactly where his friend might be…’
‘I’m taking the boat around now,’ Marcus told them. He hesitated, looking at Morag’s bleached face in concern. ‘The fastest way to look is from the sea. Maybe…maybe I can take you-or Grady-in case.’
‘OK.’ Grady moved straight to operational mode now. This was what he was trained for, and it showed. ‘Marcus, can you send a team of locals overland to check the clifftops, then organise your boat to play floodlights over the cliff face? I’ll bring the chopper from overhead. It’s hard to search cliff faces from the air, but we can do it. I’ll scramble the team now.’
‘Not with Hubert…’
Too much was happening too fast, but there was still the medical imperative. Briefly Morag outlined what was happening to Hubert, and Grady’s face grew more grim.
‘OK,’ he conceded. ‘Morag, you stay here.’
But that was too much. ‘I’m going.’
‘But-’
‘I’m going!’ Enough was enough. Medical imperatives had just been overtaken by the personal. ‘If it’s Robbie… You must see that I need to.’
Grady searched her face and came to a decision. ‘OK. Maybe that’s for the best anyway. Jaqui will only be minutes while she’s reversing Mary’s anaesthetic. Then she can take over Hubert’s care. Marcus, you take Morag on the boat-with a decent complement of competent people. With life jackets. I’ll check Hubert and hand over to Jaqui as soon as I can. Tell me who I can take in the chopper to direct us.’
‘May’s outside, waiting,’ Marcus told him. ‘She’s Hami
sh’s grandmother. There’s not a lot of people know the island better than May, and she’s desperate to help.’
He’ll refuse, Morag thought wildly. May was an elderly lady. To take her in the helicopter in the dark on such a mission as this…
But Grady was made of sterner stuff. ‘Tell her to be ready in five minutes,’ he told them. ‘Meanwhile, you two go. We’ll be right behind you.’
Then, before Morag could react, before she could begin to guess what he intended, he bent and he kissed her.
Her world stilled. The panic inside her froze. For these few short seconds… Everything else disappeared.
For this was no light kiss of reassurance. This was the kiss of a man who was giving a message to his woman. His woman. It lasted for long seconds, communicating information that was as unmistakable as it was real.
I love you. You’re mine. I’ll be with you in this, my heart.
The words were unspoken yet unmistakable, and for those few seconds, Morag felt herself surrendering to his kiss. Surrendering to her own desperate need. She was taking as well as receiving. Laying a claim of her own.
I need you, now and for always. Stay with me?
There could be no such claim-no such question. This man was here only as part of a medical team, to save lives and then use his medical knowledge to declare this island unfit for human habitation. The tough decisions would be made and he’d move on to the next crisis. To the next need.
But for now that need was hers. She clung and took her strength here, where it was offered. She melted into him for this one harsh kiss, this kiss that must end…
They knew it.
It tore Morag apart. It seemed in this overwhelming chaos that all she had between her and madness was the touch of Grady’s mouth.
He’d stay with her whatever it took, the kiss said, but she knew it wasn’t true.
He’d stay with her only until tomorrow.
The Doctor’s Rescue Mission Page 15
