Highly inappropriate that he had smiled at the memory...
But this particular prototype had to be just right for it was going to a big convention in the US and the army was hoping for enough orders to balance out the considerable amount of money they had already spent on it, perhaps even enough to enable them to expand the programme.
So he worked and tried hard not to think about Kate, glad in some ways for the difficulties he was encountering so he had little time to brood over their short time together.
He’d done the right thing, he knew he had, in making it ‘just for now’, but now could have lasted a little longer, surely.
He could contact her when he got back to Sydney, hook up again—
And when the next call came?
Probably from China where components of the tents would be manufactured once they had the prototypes right, or would the army decide he’d been dithering around with this business for long enough and send him back into mainstream army life—Special Ops awaiting him if he wanted it.
Maybe the spirit-breaking training he’d have to do would take his mind off Kate!
* * *
The next call, when it came, was a relief from the seemingly endless petty problems that had had him tied in knots. Landslide in the Snowy Mountains, several chalets affected, people trapped inside, and while he felt for all those injured or in danger, he also felt a thrill that his tent—had they brainwashed him at Bondi Bayside that he kept thinking of it that way—would finally be tested.
He figured, as he flew back to his base in an air force jet, that the mountains were probably closer to Melbourne, so disaster relief response would come from there.
He was being fed more information as they travelled. It was cold in the mountains, still too early for too much snow, although the snow blowers had been working on the slopes. Apparently, plenty of visitors had been taking advantage of the last of the cheaper off-season accommodation, so the affected lodges had been full.
Then there’d been rain in weather not quite cold enough to turn it into snow, and more rain, and more rain, and the sodden ground had shifted, just slightly at first but eventually carrying the ski lodges and the people inside them down into the river valley.
Floodwaters?
There’d be army engineers there by the time he arrived so that wouldn’t be his problem.
Back at the base, helicoptered from the air force runway, he had a quick word to the commander, grabbed some clean clothes and a heavy, waterproof jacket, shoved the small pile of mail that had been just inside his door into one pocket, and headed back to where another helicopter waited, his precious tent and two add-on accommodation tents already packed inside, along with his regular support crew.
The view as they circled the mountains prior to landing was spectacular, but his attention was more on where they could set up their rescue mission. There was a relatively flat area below where the chalets had been, close to where they’d ended up, and he could see one helicopter already there.
‘Enough room to land beside it?” he asked the pilot, and received a thumbs-up in reply.
The whine of the engines changed as the pilot decreased speed and within minutes they were on the ground, the crew already out, dragging the cumbersome bundles with them and carrying them to a clearing closer to the devastated buildings, unzipping and unfolding as they moved, working like a well-oiled machine.
Angus joined them and the chopper lifted away. He’d already seen the familiar SDR logo on the other helicopter, although it was probably a Victorian response unit.
* * *
Kate was crawling through a space the USAR team had shored up when she heard the helicopter.
Good, more help on the way!
She could hear the tap, tap, tap of wood on wood, the sound that had told the USAR team there was someone alive ahead of her. But although she called to the tapper, she received no reply, so it was only when she glimpsed the shoulder she alerted those up top to her find.
Because whoever it was couldn’t speak? Crushed chest? The taps told her she was getting closer, although there were fewer of them and they were getting weaker.
Don’t go beyond the red ribbon, the USAR fellow had said, but she could see the shoulder of someone just beyond it and there was no way she could stop now.
Very cautiously—she’d done an Urban Search and Rescue training course herself—she moved what looked like a corner of a pool table, edging it sideways so she could see further into the wreckage.
It was a woman, blood colouring her blonde hair a deep pink.
‘I’m here, we’ll get you out,’ she told the woman, although that could well prove to be a lie. More of the pool table—thankfully not slate—had fallen on the woman’s legs and one leg of the table, thick, heavy wood, lay across her chest.
There was no room for her to get past the woman to try to lift the obstacles, so she dug, slowly and carefully, one small piece of rubble at a time. She could see the table leg was jammed at both ends so it wouldn’t—shouldn’t—give way as she excavated.
When she felt she had sufficient space cleared beneath the woman, she slid her arms beneath her shoulders and pulled as gently as she could.
A little movement!
She tried again. The table leg stayed stable as she edged the woman from under it, but the material that had come down on her legs was coming with them.
Talking all the time, she eased the woman inches closer, until she was free enough for Kate to examine her—well, the top half!
She pulled a thick triangular bandage from the bag that she had dragged along beside her, and found a decent-sized piece of timber to wrap it around it to support the woman’s head.
Felt for a carotid pulse—regular, but weak—let her fingers feel around the scalp, an open wound but no ominous grating of bone or bone indentations to hint at skull fractures with likely brain damage.
If she could find the woman’s hands, she could find a viable vein and start a drip, adding a little pain relief to keep the woman comfortable until someone could get to her. It was pointless calling for more help yet, as any helper coming in would have to use the same tunnel so would have to wait until Kate crawled out.
Hands were at the end of arms, so should be easy to find, but the first arm she felt carefully along had a piece of what felt like metal protruding from it. Heart hammering, Kate’s fingers continued the exploration.
Not good! The metal—a rod as thick as her thumb—was through and through, the woman was held by whatever the rod was connected to. At least while it remained in place there’d be less bleeding, but remembering she’d already shifted the woman, Kate felt carefully around the entry and exit wounds and sighed with relief when she could find no extreme blood loss.
Best she get herself out and leave it to the experts. She’d give the woman pain relief and go for help.
Easier said than done. No room for turning so she had to inch backwards on her stomach, all the while being careful not to bump against any shoring props or anything else that might bring the whole building crashing down on her.
And her patient!
When it seemed as if she’d been worming backwards for ever, she felt someone take a good grip on her ankles and haul her the rest of the way out.
Paul!
He put out a hand to help her to her feet.
‘I hope you didn’t go further than the red ribbon,’ he said with mock severity as she brushed dust and mud and sawdust from her clothes.
‘Not much further but there’s a badly injured woman in there and we need to get her help now!’
‘I’ll get some of the USAR team back here,’ he said, and jogged away, while Kate wiped more dust from her eyes and finally looked around.
Looked around in disbelief!
While she’d been deep in the bowels of the destroyed building, a huge
white tent had appeared. A huge white tent with a red cross on the roof and a tall, broad-shouldered, angry-looking man bustling around it, yelling orders to the crew securing guy ropes and generally getting things shipshape.
Or tent-shape in this instance.
The crew were obviously not doing it quickly enough for Angus, who was acting as if imminent disaster might befall them all if his tent wasn’t ready in whatever time-frame he’d promised. Of course he’d be anxious—this was the first trial of his tent in a real emergency situation, rather than the practice sessions it would have been through.
But although her feet wanted to cross the uneven ground towards him, and she could almost feel his presence on her skin, duty took her back to Blake, where she reported on the state of the woman and asked for her next job.
‘In the tent if ever Angus gets it up to his satisfaction,’ Blake said, finding a smile in spite of the chaos all around them. ‘We’ve moved about four survivors into it already and Sam’s in there with a couple of paramedics.’
So she’d get to be closer to Angus anyway, Kate thought, but after the initial flutter of excitement she’d felt at seeing him, she was now uneasy. The ‘now’ was over so how would he be? How should she be?
Casual, old friends—that would be the best way to play it, and forget excited nerve endings and little tugs low in her belly.
She headed for the tent.
CHAPTER SIX
AS IT HAPPENED, it wasn’t until the end of a very long day spent dealing with casualties inside the tent that Kate caught up with Angus, who’d spent his entire day ironing out glitches in the setting up of the primary tent then erecting accommodation tents, army issue, for the relief workers, and a mess tent to feed the masses.
He came into the mess as she was in line to grab a hamburger, Paul behind her, telling how they’d managed to extricate the woman by opening another tunnel and coming in at a right angle to where she was trapped. She was one of the rescued who was airlifted to hospital without stabilisation in the tent, her injuries serious enough that another of the specialist doctors would stabilise her the best he could in flight.
Kate shook her head as she thought about the woman, knowing that the piece of steel would still be through her arm, no one wanting to move it in case it caused catastrophic bleeding.
‘They had to put fire-retardant padding around her body because they needed a small, battery-operated angle grinder to cut through the steel to release her and it could have spat sparks.’
‘The poor woman,’ Kate was saying, when the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention only a second before a deep voice said, ‘Fancy meeting you here.’
Paul turned first, greeting Angus like an old friend.
‘Look, Kate, it’s Angus. I thought that tent was pretty special, and I wondered if it was his.’
Kate closed her eyes briefly. The way Paul spoke it was obvious the hospital gossip mill hadn’t linked her and Angus.
She said thank you to the young soldier passing the hamburger and turned towards the man she’d thought she’d never see again. Not that seeing him again meant anything. She knew that! Knew the ‘now’ was over.
‘Hi!’ she said, as brightly as she could, considering that actually looking at him had sent her heart rate rocketing and she could feel blood drumming in her ears.
‘Hi, yourself,’ he said, his eyes moving over her as if to take in all of her, caressing her somehow.
Or perhaps it was just the smell of the hamburger making her feel weird.
‘Your tent’s fantastic to work in,’ she told him, desperate to break what was becoming an awkward silence. Desperate to think of anything apart from touching him, feeling his skin beneath her hand, her body pressed to his...
But now Paul had been served they could both walk away.
‘Just fantastic,’ she added to Angus, and followed Paul to a table at the far side of the mess, hoping it looked as if she was walking normally, not fleeing from the man who, by simply being there, had thrown her body into turmoil.
* * *
Well, that went well, Angus thought to himself as she walked away. He turned to watch her until he realised he was probably drawing attention to himself, propped like a post in the middle of the mess.
And wasn’t it for the best?
Didn’t her brush-off—what else could you call it?—indicate that she’d realised the time they’d had together was over?
Which it was, wasn’t it?
Hadn’t he set up the programme that way?
Explaining that because he never knew where he’d be from one day to the next, he couldn’t offer permanence?
Except seeing her at a distance when someone had pulled her feet first out of a tunnel—dusty and dishevelled—his body had tightened and a strange pain in his chest had made breathing difficult for a moment.
And he’d certainly thought, once assured she was on her feet and okay, Great, we can get together again!
But that’s what he’d done to Michelle—on and off—and not only had it not worked but it had hurt her, making her feel she was little more than a casual companion. Made her feel used, she’d once told him. Convenient.
He couldn’t do that to Kate.
Because Kate was different?
Because he’d wanted to find out what had changed her, and he’d been pleased to see glimpses of the old Kate re-emerging as they’d enjoyed time together?
Hmm! He was thinking of excuses now—excuses so he could make the most of this unexpected reunion.
Hardly fair on Kate, though, would it be?
He walked out of the tent, dinner-less, too confused to stay inside, too aware with every fibre of his body of the woman sitting not twenty feet away from him.
* * *
Kate watched him go. Her outward reaction to seeing him must have been the right one—cool and casual so he would know she wasn’t expecting their...whatever it had been would continue.
So why was there an ache right through her body and a heavy sadness pressing down on her chest?
Why was her inner reaction so...?
Wrong?
Paul was telling her about another rescue, and about a new lot of shoring the USAR team was putting through to the second building. There’d be work to do and if there was one thing she’d learned over the past few years, it was that work was the perfect way to blot everything else from her mind.
She finished her food and while Paul lined up for more, she went back outside to where the sunset was painting the snow on the higher mountains a rosy gold.
‘There’s a safe passage through to the other building now,’ the site manager told her, repeating Paul’s news, but this man pointed the way. ‘As far as we know, there are at least three families in that lodge, not sure how many kids.’
Kate slung her bag over her shoulder, checked her pockets for gloves, and headed for the new tunnel.
Blake was at the end of it, supervising the removal of a man on a stretcher, easing the rigid equipment around a bend.
‘Just do what you can,’ he said. ‘They’ve set up lights but it’s still gloomy in places. Check under anything that might have been a bed or a table for kids that were pushed there to shelter.’
Kate nodded, going forward now the stretcher had passed, joining other relief workers on what was, for now, the front line.
A quiet sobbing took her to the right, stepping carefully over broken timber and shattered windows, glad her boots and tough overalls were at least protecting her body. The noise was coming from down near her feet, so she knelt, very tentatively, making sure the ground was solid beneath her knees in case she sent debris raining down on someone.
‘Hello. Can you hear me?’
Wait ten seconds and call again, but before she got to ten, a little voice said, ‘Here.’
Great! Kate tho
ught, but at least the child—the voice had been a child’s—could speak.
It had come from a mess of bedding and broken wood, and Kate poked her arm in underneath as far as she could.
‘Can you see my arm?’ she asked, waving her hand about as much as she dared.
A tight grip on one finger gave her the answer, and she pulled out her torch and bent lower so she could see beneath the mass of damage.
‘I’m going to shine a torch so shut your eyes for a minute,’ she said, keeping hold of the little hand that had now sneaked into hers.
Lying flat again, she shone the torch and made out the face of a small girl, eyes shut tight.
Shining it away from her face but deeper into the hole where the girl was, she said, ‘You can open them now and have a look around. Can you move your legs and arms—just a little bit?’
‘Yes,’ came the answer. ‘I was in another place and I couldn’t find Mummy and so I crawled in here.’
‘Good girl,’ Kate said, bringing the torch back to shine on her own face. ‘I’m Kate. What’s your name?’
‘Libby.’
‘Okay, Libby, I need the torch to look around to see how we can make a hole big enough for you to get through, then if I need some help to make it safe for you, I’ll give you the torch so you can hold it while you wait for me to get back. Okay?’
The answering ‘Okay’ was so wavery and soft that Kate looked desperately around the tangled material to see if she could get Libby out without calling in someone to shore up a hole.
The damaged mattress she could see was good. It was slung between two what must have been wall joists and would form a stable roof. If she could get Libby that far she’d be safe while Kate shifted other obstacles.
‘Need help?’
It would be Angus and, for all she knew she wouldn’t, she could have hugged him. Although with both of them now stretched prone on the ground that was hardly possible anyway.
Healed by Her Army Doc Page 9
