Now all the voices had receded into the distance. The diminuendo of a set of footsteps tailed off into silence. I’d not been conscious of a generator’s incessant pneumatic drill ratatat until the hoarse engine note abruptly stopped. The only sound was the gentle lap of water against the hull. We were cradled by the gentlest of swells.
‘Alastair.’ There was a trace of urgency in her voice.
‘I’m here.’
‘Give me your hand.’
I lay down beside her and reached across to take her right hand, the one that still had sensation.
‘How long to go?’
‘Nine minutes.’
‘There’s still time.’ Abruptly she made up her mind. ‘Alastair, I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to die like this. Get me out of here.’
But how was I going to carry out the procedure now, when everyone else had departed, and how could I carry her traumatised body unaided, up and out through the gash above our heads?
‘Hush. We’re not going to die.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘Remember how you landed the 172. You’ve said it yourself. You’re a survivor.’
We didn’t talk much for a while. I stroked the fine down on her free forearm. She volunteered, ‘They might have chucked down a couple of flak jackets before clearing off.’
‘Perhaps they’re so monumentally pissed off with us they’ve washed their hands.’
‘Good riddance to bad rubbish!’
‘Yeah.’
‘You could still go. Civil’s right, you know. You should go.’
‘Shoosh already.’
‘How long to go?’
‘Six minutes.’
‘I’m glad it was you.’
‘Mm?’
‘You know, the minute you called me up on the r/t that day in the plane, I knew you were going to turn my life upside down.’
‘Nonsense. You hardly noticed me. I noticed you.’
‘And then at the Burns supper. I was really nervous sitting next to you. I felt completely inadequate.’
‘Bollocks. I don’t believe a word of this. Don’t you know you’re DDG?’
‘What’s DDG?’
‘Drop-dead gorgeous.’
‘Highly appropriate for the occasion.’
‘No it’s not.’
‘How long to go?’
‘Four minutes.’
‘Some people can run a mile in four minutes.’
‘Fancy going to see a movie tonight?’
‘I’d fall asleep. I have such a short attention span. Some of my best cat-naps have been in cinema houses. So yeah, I’ll come. And don’t worry, I don’t snore.’
‘How do you know?’
‘How long?’
‘Time to hunker down.’
I stretched out against her and put both of my arms round her and held her tight. She buried her face in my chest. She said, in a muffled voice, ‘Is this the brace position?’
‘Dunno. But it feels about right.’
‘Mm. Goodnight, Alastair.’
‘Goodnight, my love.’
Behind her head, I watched the second hand on my wrist watch creep up to the hour.
And beyond.
* * *
New Zealand Herald, 26 April
Yesterday, Anzac Day, in an incident uncannily reminiscent of the sinking of the protest ship The Rainbow Warrior at Auckland’s Marsden Wharf in 1985, two bombs have been detonated, at precisely the same site, on the hull of the British Royal Research Ship The Captain Cook. The police are investigating, and treating this as a terrorist act. As was the case in Operation Satanique in 1985, it is thought the first explosion was designed to disable the ship and allow time for general evacuation. The second and more powerful explosion was designed, effectively as it has turned out, to sink the ship.
There is already speculation on social media that there may be a connection between the sinking of the Captain Cook, and the destruction in January on Great Barrier Island of Xanadu, the mansion of the late Phineas Fox.
There are reports of one serious injury. A patient as yet unnamed was transferred from Marsden Wharf to the Emergency Department of Middlemore Hospital.
The patient’s condition is critical.
About the Author
James Calum Campbell gathered much of the material for Seven Trials during a 15-year period in Australia and New Zealand where he was, at various times, Clinical Head of the Department of Emergency Medicine in Middlemore Hospital, South Auckland; Senior Lecturer in Emergency Medicine in the University of Auckland; Director of Emergency Medicine Training in Auckland Hospital; and New Zealand Censor to the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine. He sat on the Board of Directors of the Westpac Helicopter Retrieval Service, and he was New Zealand’s National Medical Advisor to The Order of St John, appointed by the Governor-General. He undertook work for an international retrieval service, and he taught in-the-field first-aid techniques to Special Forces. He was the first person to run the forty-eight volcanoes of Auckland in a single outing.
Copyright
First published 2016
by Impress Books Ltd
Innovation Centre, Rennes Drive, University of Exeter Campus,
Exeter EX4 4RN
© James Calum Campbell 2016
The right of the author to be identified as the originator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 13: 9781907605833 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 9781907605840 (ebk)
Typeset in Garamond MT
by Swales and Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
Printed and bound in England
by imprintdigital.net
The Seven Trials of Cameron-Strange Page 23
