‘But most are built under regulations for cyclones.’
‘Yeah.’ Nikki piled boxes of dressing to carry to the makeshift theatre. ‘But there’s still no guarantee they’ll survive the eye of a cyclone. Remember Darwin…’
They both did. The city had been struck on Christmas Eve several years previously and hardly a house had been left standing. The force had been as great as a major earthquake.
‘It can’t be as bad as that,’ the nurse said nervously. ‘Can it?’
‘Heaven knows. I don’t. Is the fishing fleet in?’
There weren’t any boats too far out to get back into harbour,’ the nurse told her. ‘They’re all back.’
‘Well, that’s something.’
Nikki worked steadily, setting up her makeshift theatre as best she could. With luck the work she was doing could be totally unnecessary. To operate on seriously injured casualties…
She might not have a choice. Even after the cyclone passed it would be hours before the wind died enough to evacuate casualties. Nikki thought fleetingly, longingly, of Luke. She felt desperately alone, knowing the next few hours would bring more casualties than she could cope with.
‘Everyone’s being warned?’ she asked anxiously. Her mind raced over her scores of elderly patients who lived alone. Many wouldn’t have heard the radio warning.
‘The State Emergency Service are doing a doorknock now,’ the charge nurse told her. Andrea was linked to the emergency services by two-way radio. ‘Anyone they’re worried about they’ll bring in here or to the school.’ Like the hospital, the school also had reinforced rooms.
Fine. Everything that could be done was being done. So now there was only time to sit and wait. And hope…
‘I don’t suppose Dr Maybury could come?’ Nikki said uncertainly. If she didn’t have an anaesthetist there was little she could do if there were serious casualties. The elderly doctor was Nikki’s nearest colleague and he was within driving distance if he came at once.
‘I doubt it,’ the charge sister told her. ‘Penrith is thirty miles south, but by the sound of the radio warnings they’re expecting damage there as well. He’ll have to stay.’
Nikki nodded. She knew it already. She was on her own.
The wind rose with relentless fury.
How would Amy and Beattie be coping? Nikki tried to block out thoughts of home as the. storm gathered strength. Her attention was needed here. Half an hour before the eye of the storm was due, every one of the occupants of the hospital deserted the outside rooms and the inner doors of the little hospital were wedged closed.
The telephone lines were already down. There was no way Nikki could contact home, even if she wanted to. Eurong was isolated until the storm was past, and every home was also completely isolated.
As they closed the big inner doors and Nikki saw the outside world for the last time, she wondered how on earth the storm could get fiercer. The huge coconut palms around the hospital were bending almost double in the shrieking wind and, beyond the headland, the sea was a seething white fury.
But grow worse it did. Locked behind their doors, the hospital occupants couldn’t see but they could hear. The wind screamed around the little building and every now and then a crack rang out like gunfire-the sound of a palm giving up its fight for life.
There was little time to listen. Within the room Nikki’s patients were terrified-not so much for the immediate danger but at the thought of what lay ahead when those doors were opened again. Nikki moved from bed to bed, comforting as best she could and listening to nameless fears. She sedated one elderly lady as her fears brought on angina. A full-scale heart attack was the last thing Nikki wanted now. She would have enough to deal with when the doors opened.
The wait was interminable. The sound of the screaming wind went on and on, and when it finally eased Nikki knew that the doors had to stay closed.
Now they were in the eye of the cyclone-and there was a rim to the eye. They had passed through one side of the rim, and the other was yet to come.
If only she knew what was going on at home… The thought of the cellar was infinitely comforting. And Beattie knew about the eye of the storm. She knew not to come out yet. The little radio owned by one of the patients and listened to by all was blazing out warnings of the danger to come. ‘Stay where you are,’ it warned over and over again. ‘Don’t think the danger is over. Stay behind closed doors. Use rooms with the least windows. Think of the pantry-or the broom closet. The bathroom is often the safest room. Stay where you are…’
As long as people were listening. Nikki sent endless silent prayers up to whoever would listen. Please let people stay put. Please let no one be hit by falling trees or flying pieces of corrugated iron…It was a useless prayer but she sent it anyway.
‘I won’t have a house any more,’ an elderly man said flatly as she paused by his bed. ‘My place is old and run-down, and it won’t stand up to this racket.’ His gnarled old face creased into tears. ‘You’ll have to put me in a home after this. My house’ll be matchsticks.’
There was little comfort Nikki could give. Outside the storm struck again as the eye passed and each fresh blast made her wince. To stay here while Eurong was blown to bits…it was the hardest thing she had done in her life.
And then, finally, the worst of the storm was past. The screaming wind settled to howls, and then to a dull whine. The nurses looked at each other fearfully and then at Nikki. Nikki nodded in silent acquiescence. It was time to open the doors.
Maybe it would have been better to stay inside. The nurses and the ambulatory patients walked outside to a deathless hush. It was a frightening new world.
The hospital had survived. The building was intact, but every window had been blasted out. The rooms were full of debris and rain water. Torn curtains lay shredded on the floor in sodden heaps. The wind still whistled in through the broken windows, bringing rain in with it. Steam rose from everything.
Soundlessly they moved outside. The veranda posts had crumpled under the strain and the roof sagged under the weight of a huge coconut palm. Luckily the two posts over the door had held so it was safe to move outside.
If one wanted to. Nikki took one look and decided she might not want to see the rest of the devastation. The hospital gardens were in ruins. Nikki’s car lay where she had parked in the hospital car park, turned up on to its side. It was covered with a mass of torn and twisted debris.
‘Dear God.’ Andrea was beside Nikki and her hand came up to grasp Nikki’s arm. ‘Dear God…’
There was nothing else to say.
Around them the rest of the staff were slowly coming to terms with what they were seeing. They had little time for reflection. As the patients saw and guessed at the damage elsewhere it was as much as the small nursing staff could do to control the rising hysteria.
Nikki conquered it by ordering everyone to work, patients included.
‘I want everyone fit enough to move to start getting the water out of the wards,’ she demanded. ‘I want plastic over the windows. I want the beds made up again dry and ready for whatever comes. Mrs Fletcher…’ Nikki eyed a patient who’d been in hospital with a broken hip. Mavis Fletcher was in tears already and her tears were turning to noisy sobs. ‘Mavis, can you hear me?’
Mavis looked up tearfully. ‘Oh, me dear,’ she gasped. ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know about you but I intend to start working,’ Nikki said grimly. ‘If I’m not mistaken there’ll be people out there who are a lot worse off than we are. If I put you in a wheelchair, can you supervise sandwich-making? Mr Roberts might be able to help. What do you say?’
Mavis gave a tearful gulp. She looked around at the mess and then back to Nikki. To be needed…
‘If you think I can, dear,’ she whispered.
Nikki grinned. ‘I’m sure you can,’ she said solidly. ‘I’m sure we all can.’
It was the last time Nikki had to ask anyone to help.
The whole hospital was galvanised into action, even the patients doing what they could to clear the mess and prepare for the onslaught.
And onslaught there was. Five minutes after they emerged from the inner rooms their first casualty arrived-a man carrying his three-year-old daughter. She’d been hit by a block of plaster falling from the roof. The child was concussed and needed stitches to a nasty gash on her head, and by the time Nikki had attended her there were three more patients waiting.
Amazingly there seemed little serious injury. As each casualty arrived Nikki braced herself for tragedy, but, although the stories of property damage were heartbreaking, as yet there were no reports of loss of life. There were a couple of fractures and dozens of lacerations caused by falling debris. Nikki held her breath as she worked. If this was all…
‘The new regulations seem to have worked,’ Andrea told her in a break between patients. ‘And the warnings which everyone’s had since Darwin. People haven’t taken risks, and they haven’t been seriously hurt.’
Nikki nodded. ‘Andrea, could you find out about Whispering Palms?’ she said tightly. The girl working beside her flashed her a look of understanding.
‘Oh, Doctor, I’m sorry. I’ll contact SES. They’ll go around now.’
‘There’s no need to make a special trip,’ Nikki managed. ‘But…but I’ll work better if I know it’s still standing.’
‘Of course.’ Andrea turned to go but before she did they heard footsteps racing along the debris-strewn hall and the door to their inner sanctum burst open.
It was Sandra.
Sandra was soaking wet, her dress was torn and a gash dripped blood slowly down across one eye. She was wild-eyed and gasping for breath.
‘Nikki,’ she burst out. ‘Doctor…Nikki, can you come…?’
Nikki turned from the wound she was dressing. The colour drained from her face. Sandra had been in the cellar at Whispering Palms.
‘Amy,’ she whispered. She clutched the edge of the examination table. ‘Sandra, where’s Amy?’
Sandra caught herself with a visible effort. She took a ragged breath and then another. Silently Andrea moved forward and took the girl’s arm. She looked as though she was about to collapse.
‘It’s not Amy,’ she managed. ‘I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t think…’
‘You were in the cellar at Whispering Palms?’
Sandra nodded. Andrea pushed the girl into a chair and she sat gratefully, her knees buckling under her. ‘Th-thanks.’
‘OK.’ Now that Nikki’s worst fear had been relieved she could be calm again. She knelt in front of Sandra and took her hands. ‘Tell me what’s happened,’ she said gently.
‘It’s Jim…’
‘Jim Payne.’
Sandra nodded. ‘He was with us at the beginning. Helping with the kids. Then, when Beattie rang, he said it was sensible that we all go to Whispering Palms. So he took us.’
‘But he didn’t stay?’
Sandra shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t. He…he made sure we were all safe and made us promise not to leave the cellar. And then he said he had to go to his father…’
His father. Nikki thought of Bert Payne’s tiny rundown house down by the beach. Whatever regulations the council had introduced, she could be a hundred per cent sure that Bert wouldn’t have introduced them. He’d tell any official to mind his own damned business.
‘So Jim’s down at his father’s.’
‘No. Yes.’ Sandra looked up, her face a tear-stained plea for help. ‘As soon as we got out of the cellar I went to try to find him. Whispering Palms is OK and Beattie said she’d be fine with the kids. And…and Jim’s been so good to us. I had to leave the car a quarter of a mile from the house and walk in. There’s trees down all over. And then…then I came to the house.’ She looked up. ‘It’s down.’
‘The house has collapsed?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Jim and his father are inside.’
‘Yes.’
Nikki’s grip on the girl’s hands tightened. ‘Are they dead, Sandra?’
The shock tactics worked. Sandra’s eyes flew open and she fought for some sort of control. She shook her head. ‘Not…not yet. I…Will you come?’
‘Of course I’ll come.’ Nikki was already rising, pulling Sandra after her. ‘Are they trapped inside?’
‘I don’t…’ Again a ragged gasp for breath. ‘Yes. There’s a huge tree over the house. And Jim’s inside and his father’s stuck fast. And Jim says he’ll bleed to death if he leaves him, but the tree’s going to come all the way down any minute, and…’
‘Let’s go.’ Nikki turned to Andrea. ‘Let the emergency services know. I want able-bodied men there as fast as possible. Tell them I want shoring timbers and as much help as I can get.’
‘Do you want me to come?’ Andrea asked.
Nikki shook her head. ‘You’re needed here, Andrea. I’m needed here too, come to that, but if Bert Payne’s bleeding…’ She turned back to Sandra. ‘Does anyone else know?’
Sandra shook her head. ‘I…It was closer to run to the hospital than go back for the car. I didn’t meet anyone…’
‘OK. Let’s go.’
They arrived at what was left of Bert Payne’s fishing shack ten minutes later. The road was impassable with Nikki’s little car, but just as they came to a halt three men in a State Emergency four-wheel-drive vehicle came racing up behind them. They moved Nikki’s equipment over to their Jeep and kept on going.
‘Good grief,’ Nikki muttered, holding on to her seat for dear life. The Jeep bucketed over the debris, strewn as if it were a deliberately placed obstacle course. ‘You’ll kill this car.’ She blinked forward, trying to see what was ahead in the pelting tropical rain.
‘Better the Jeep dies than Jim Payne,’ the driver said grimly and Nikki nodded. Jim…There was concern for the boy but not the father. Bert Payne had made few friends in this town.
Then what was left of Bert Payne’s house was in view and the condition of the Jeep was forgotten.
The house was flattened as if it had been a house of cards, blown flat. Nikki stared at the wreck in horror. There were the remains of a chimney-stack in one corner and nothing else. There was nothing higher than chest height. That someone might still be in there…
The driving wind and rain were almost blinding her, whipping her sodden hair around her face. Nikki pushed it back in frustration. Before the Jeep came to a halt Sandra was out of the vehicle, running to what was left.
‘Jim!’ she screamed. ‘Jim…’
‘Sandra…’ It was a hoarse cry from somewhere under the ruin, barely audible above the sound of the still whistling wind. ‘Sandra…’
‘I’ve got help,’ Sandra yelled hoarsely. ‘Dr Nikki. And men…’
Already the men were in action, following the sound of Jim’s voice. Nikki dragged her bag from the car and then stood helplessly. Where on earth were they?
‘They’re right under the tree,’ Sandra said hopelessly. ‘Oh, God…’
The tree was enormous. It was a vast strangler fig, which had grown originally around a coconut palm. The coconut palm had long since died and the fallen fig now resembled a huge hollow log after the rotting of its host. It was almost twenty feet wide at the base-a mass of thick, twisting wood, smashed down on the tiny house.
‘We’re going to have to cut through,’ the SES chief said grimly. ‘We’ll never lift the thing.’
‘It’s going to come down further,’ Sandra told him. ‘Look…’
They looked. Where the tree had snapped was about eight feet from the base. It had fallen but the base of its broken part had caught on the shattered stump. There was maybe a two-inch rim where the weight of the huge tree rested.
‘My God…’ the SES chief whispered. He swung around to his second-in-command. ‘The shoring timbers we’ve got won’t hold that. Get back to base. I want more men and stouter timbers. If that goes down…’
There was no reason to finish the sen
tence. They all knew.
‘Jim, where are you?’ Nikki was moving along the trunk of the tree, stepping over debris.
‘In here…’ Jim’s voice was hoarse and tight.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Yeah…I’ve…I think my arm’s broke…And my head…I keep blacking out…’
‘And your dad?’
‘He’s here. He’s unconscious but he’s still alive. He’s bleeding, though, Doc. I’m holding his leg but…I can’t keep the pressure up.’
‘Are you trapped?’
‘There’s a bit of space behind me. I- reckon…I reckon I could crawl back out. But…but Dad’s stuck and if I leave him he’ll bleed to death.’
Nikki was standing almost over the voice now. She looked around to where the debris subsided. The old doorway was just here…
Clambering down, she peered through. There was a gap in here. If she crawled…
‘Jim…?’
‘Yeah…’
She could see a shape stir slightly in the blackness. The beams of the doorway had slipped down but had afforded protection to a small area-a tunnel of no more than eighteen inches in diameter. Jim seemed about fifteen feet in through this tunnel.
‘Your father’s bleeding from the leg?’ she asked. Behind her, the SES men and Sandra were staring in horror as she wedged herself into the gap, trying to see.
‘The top of his thigh. He’s…The tree’s over his chest. I can’t budge…’ Jim’s voice trailed off. He sounded close to unconsciousness himself.
‘And you’ve lost blood too?’ Nikki spoke loudly and insistently. She didn’t want him passing out now.
‘Yeah…It…it doesn’t matter…’
‘Oh, Jim.’ Behind Nikki, Sandra had started to cry. She clutched Nikki’s arm and pulled her backwards. ‘He’s got to come out. If that tree slips…’ Then she raised her voice. ‘Jim, you’ve got to come out. Your
dad doesn’t give a stuff about you. You’ve got to-’
She broke off and turned away.
‘Jim’s not like his father,’ Nikki told her, rising and putting her hand briefly on Sandra’s shoulder. ‘And if he were…if he were then you wouldn’t be crying.’ She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. ‘Sandra, have you told Jim how dangerous the tree is?’
Storm Haven Page 16
