Healed by Her Army Doc

by Meredith Webber

  He’d eat then check that great wad of mail he’d picked up on his way through the base, whenever that had been. Probably mostly rubbish but maybe something from family—cousins who kept in touch in a spasmodic fashion, all posted on from base to base as he was transferred or out on missions.

  And there was usually something from someone—in India, or Angola, anywhere, in fact—wanting details of the tent.

  Tent!

  Damn those Bondi Bayside people—he couldn’t think of it by any other name, even to himself!

  * * *

  Kate inched her way forward, tugging at the rope she dragged behind her to keep it free from snags. The only way she’d been allowed back down the shaft had been by promising not to detach it, no matter how awkward it might become.

  The passage through to where the woman had been was easier to negotiate now, much of the rubble knocked away as the stretcher had gone in and out. But once there, Kate knew she had to be careful. The trail of blood she’d seen when she’d first arrived suggested that the woman had crawled to the space in search of a way out or help of some kind. What Kate had to do was find that trail and follow it, being careful that she didn’t obliterate it with a less than cautious step.

  First she listened, listened for a cry. Surely a newborn would be crying?

  Hypothermia. Even if the woman had managed to wrap the baby it would still be suffering from the cold, and in that case unable to cry.

  Carefully threading her way through the crushed building, on hands and knees most of the time, slithering on her stomach at others, she followed the trail of blood.

  It ended abruptly, and Kate peered around in the gloom, shining her torch into every crack and crevice, sure the baby must be here somewhere.

  There had to be a baby!

  Over there!

  About three feet further in—

  A bundle of what could be rags, motionless and silent.

  Dead?

  Kate refused to believe it. From somewhere a random bit of information flashed through her head—something about a newborn being able to live for up to three days untended.

  But probably not in these cold conditions; probably not suffering from hypothermia. Although wasn’t hypothermia good for injured people at times?

  One part of her mind was thinking these things while the other part worked out how she could get to where the bundle was—so near and yet so far at the moment.

  If she moved that blue board a bit to one side she could reach through...

  First, see what else might move with the blue board. She didn’t want to bring half a ski lodge down on the baby.

  She moved the blue board, very slowly and cautiously, checking all the time whether anything else was moving with it.

  So far, so good!

  A little more and she could prop her end of it on that timber over there and—

  Another ominous creak sounded above her and she stopped, but it was soon followed by a crash somewhere out of sight, so she knew she hadn’t caused it.

  She propped the blue board on the timber she’d chosen and reached through the gap she’d made to retrieve the bundle.

  What if it wasn’t the baby?

  * * *

  The thought made her pause, but only for an instant. She grabbed the bundle and lifted it, backing with it out to the relative safety of the space where the woman had been.

  Now she could check it, see...

  The baby was still, so still Kate feared the worst.

  Lips tinged with blue.

  She lifted it—him—and cleared his mouth, blew warm air into his mouth and nose. Then, with him still wrapped, she pressed her fingers to his carotid pulse. Nothing, then the faintest flicker. Keeping him wrapped as best she could, she used two fingers to compress his chest, counting as she went. The faint pulse was still there. She had to warm him. She tugged him out of the old black parka in which he had been wrapped and, ripping open her overalls, she hauled up her singlet and the sweater, and tucked the baby inside, against her skin, manoeuvring him up so his head was near the top and she could feel for breath and warm his lungs with her breath.

  She put her hands on his back, warming him with her body heat, willing him to stay alive.

  ‘You’ll be okay,’ she whispered against the little head. ‘You’ll be okay.’

  Remembering tales of people suffering from hypothermia getting up off tables in the morgue—definitely exaggerated as most morgue stories were.

  But hypothermia shut the body down to maybe one breath a minute and a negligible pulse.

  ‘All okay?’

  The voice in her ear startled her. She’d been supposed to keep talking to the people up the top, or at least make positive noises occasionally.

  ‘All okay,’ she said, although she wasn’t at all sure it was.

  But she held the baby close and breathed warm air into him until she knew she had to move—knew more and better help awaited this child up at the top.

  ‘So let’s get up there,’ she whispered to him, and she began to worm her way back to the bottom of the shaft, where she signalled she was ready to be hauled up.

  The crowd at the top startled her even before the great roar went up. Charlie had come over to help her out of the harness, now fitted only around her waist.

  ‘Someone heard you talking to the baby and the word spread like wildfire. I think everyone needed a good news story as they’ve found a few more bodies.’

  ‘But I don’t know if he is alive,’ Kate whispered to Charlie as he wrapped a thermal blanket around the two of them.

  ‘Well, let them think he is,’ Charlie cautioned. ‘It’s what everyone needs right now.’

  An army vehicle arrived and she was bundled into it, the baby still tucked against her skin.

  She’d have to give him up soon and examine him properly, or let someone else do it, someone not so terribly, terribly tired.

  Someone she didn’t know took him gently from her, and someone else she didn’t know guided her towards the mess.

  ‘A hot drink, food?’ the kind stranger asked, and Kate shook her head.

  ‘Just a bed,” she said. ‘Nothing more.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HOW LONG SHE’D slept she didn’t have a clue, but she awoke to noise and bustle all around the makeshift camp, voices yelling instructions, motors revving.

  She sat up, slowly and experimentally, small movements while still prone suggesting she might be stiff and sore.

  Two words that hardly covered it, she realised as she bent over to unlace her boots.

  Every muscle in her body ached.

  A shower—that would help.

  Somehow she managed to make it that far, pausing only to grab clean army-issue clothing as she passed their neat supply.

  The shower helped—even to the extent she now realised she was hungry. From the noise and yelling outside she presumed they were packing up. She hoped they hadn’t shut the mess tent yet.

  She also hoped, shocked by her original selfish thought, that the movement meant everyone had been accounted for. Hoped the death toll hadn’t been too great.

  The mess was still where it should be but the big tent—Angus’s tent—lay like a deflated balloon on the ground, a soldier Kate didn’t recognise barking instructions about how it should be folded.

  The tent!

  It had brought Angus back into her life, if only briefly—and had brought a very special time with him as well. But this latest reunion—meeting again here—had been pure chance. And now he’d tested his tent in a disaster response situation, he’d be off far and wide—he and his tent. Taking it to wherever it was needed, like drought-stricken or war-torn villages in Africa or disease-riddled refugee camps in South East Asia.

  She closed her eyes briefly, shutting out images of him in dang
er in some foreign land, and bumped straight into a broad chest.

  ‘I was coming to check you weren’t dead,’ he said, steadying her with firm hands on her shoulders, sending messages she shouldn’t feel right through her body.

  ‘I’m fine, just starving,’ she said. ‘I was pleased to see the mess tent still standing.’

  He smiled at her, although for some reason the smile, while kind, didn’t quite reach his eyes, didn’t crinkle the skin at the corners of them.

  Because this was goodbye all over again?

  Because their meeting up like this had been chance, nothing more, and the now was definitely over.

  But he was speaking to her and she had to listen. Something about the mess tent always being the first one up and the last one down.

  ‘Haven’t you heard the term that an army marches on its stomach?’

  She probably had, but it was her stomach troubling her.

  Her stomach and something in Angus’s manner.

  Forget that, she muttered inwardly as she made her way towards the servery. His manner has nothing whatsoever to do with you!

  ‘Did you hear how the baby is? Did he live?’ she asked, when she realised he was walking beside her.

  What she couldn’t ask was had the baby been alive. She really, really didn’t want to think she’d failed to get there in time—failed to save him.

  ‘The baby’s fine,’ he said, and to Kate’s dismay tears began to leak from her eyes, sliding silently down her cheeks. Tears of relief, she knew—but unstoppable.

  She felt a soft touch on the small of her back and a handkerchief pressed into her hand with an extra squeeze of her fingers. Angus’s way of comforting her in the busy and no doubt gossip-rife mess.

  She wiped her eyes but couldn’t stop the tremors of relief that threatened to make a fool of her again.

  ‘Find a seat, I’ll bring food. And coffee?’

  She nodded, and hurried to a seat beside one of the plastic windows, seeing, yet not seeing, all the activity outside.

  ‘Bit late for breakfast, but I thought bacon and eggs were probably appropriate.’

  Angus set down a tray on the corner of the table as he spoke and proceeded to lay out the table—knife and fork, coffee cup and pot, salt and pepper, and finally a covered plate, the cover lifted to reveal not only bacon and eggs but a small sausage and two pieces of grilled tomato.

  Kate smiled up at him, still hovering by the table.

  ‘That looks fantastic,’ she said, and, although disconcerted by the now silent presence by her side, she began to eat, savouring each mouthful as the hot comfort food brought her slowly back to life—conscious life, real life.

  Even if he wasn’t sitting with her, this was probably the last meal she’d eat with Angus, so images of other meals they’d shared rose unbidden in her mind.

  Tender salt and pepper squid in a little café in Manly, the fairy floss—hardly a meal—at Luna Park. They’d only had time for a coffee and tiny muffin at the art gallery—now bacon and eggs before he went away again.

  She set down her cutlery, aware the lump in her throat would prevent her swallowing.

  She looked up at the cause of all her problems—although, in truth, her loving him wasn’t really his fault, especially when he’d warned her from the start that his career and marriage didn’t mix.

  ‘Aren’t you even having coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘I should be outside, supervising things, but I wanted...’

  He sounded hesitant, so unlike Angus she gestured to the chair opposite.

  ‘Sit down, Angus. Sit down and tell me, although if it’s anything to do with this meeting up again—about it not meaning anything, not being part of that “now” we had—then I already realise that.’

  He sat so she could look at him—at this man she loved but couldn’t have—and wondered if her own face looked as gaunt and troubled as his did.

  She hoped not.

  ‘So?’ she prompted.

  He spread his hands.

  ‘It’s hard to explain—the way the army works, that is—to someone not in it. It seems all ordered and regimented, which it has to be to move so many people around the place, continually training them, testing them, sending a group here, a group there. It would be chaotic if there weren’t strict procedures and protocols and everyone in the army understands and obeys them.’

  So, is this part of telling me why he can’t see me again, which I already know? Kate wondered, pushing her half-eaten breakfast aside, no longer the least bit hungry, the lump in her throat replaced by a knot in her stomach.

  ‘But the thing the army does really well—really commits to—is making sure mail gets through. It’s not so important now with email and texts and such but parents still write to their sons and daughters, lovers write to each other, and the army prides itself on getting the letters to the right person, no matter how long it takes. A kind of “the mail must get through” sentiment it’s always had.’

  Angus knew he was making a total mess of this, and the perplexed look on Kate’s face reinforced this knowledge. But he’d been awake all night thinking about it, wondering, coming up with a dozen different scenarios, none of which were very satisfying or even plausible.

  Then her tears earlier when she’d heard the baby was alive and she should have been happy—there were things going on that didn’t add up. Did she regret not marrying the solicitor who’d cheated on her, regret not having a baby—a family—of her own? Or was it something to do with the deep inner sadness he’d sensed in Kate since meeting her again—a sadness he was sure hadn’t been there on the island, for all she’d just cancelled her wedding?

  And was he puzzling over this to delay bringing up the letter?

  Because he wasn’t sure how to approach her about it?

  In the end, here at the table, he pulled the crumpled, much-redirected letter from his pocket and set it in front of them.

  ‘I collected mail before I left the base, and only had time to go through it yesterday. Mostly rubbish and then this!’

  He used one finger to push it across the table towards Kate, who had grown so pale he thought she might faint.

  But she’d picked it up and looked at all the places it had gone to before it had finally reached him, touching each address.

  ‘It partly took so long because letters are usually addressed to us by our ranks. Back then I was a captain so Dr Caruth probably didn’t mean much to whoever sorted it. But the army, as you can see, is persistent.’

  ‘Did you open it, read it?’ she asked, in a voice so hesitant he barely heard the words.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, and waited.

  And waited.

  Until, perhaps realising she wasn’t going to offer any explanation for the brief note he’d found inside the much-abused envelope, he said, ‘You wanted me to phone you.’

  If anything, she grew paler and her fingers on the envelope shook so much she put it down, steadying herself by flattening it against the table.

  More silence, then she raised her head and looked directly at him.

  ‘Not wanted so much, more just a suggestion.’ Hesitated, then added, ‘I really should be going—should find Blake and the rest of the team. If everyone’s pulling out, I need a lift.’

  She stood up, staggered a little, then straightened, and offered one of the most pathetic smiles he’d ever seen.

  ‘It was good to see you again. I’m glad the tent worked.’

  And on that note she marched steadily out of the mess.

  Out of his life?

  Again!

  Not a request, a suggestion?

  He pulled the straightened paper towards him and although he knew the words, he read them again.

  Would you like to give me a call some time? My number is 0623 348 876.

  It
still sounded like a request to him.

  And why had it upset her so much that she’d virtually fled from his presence?

  Embarrassment?

  Confronted with it after so long?

  Upset, even after all this time, over sending a note to someone who had been, as far as she’d known, about to be married?

  He had no idea!

  He shook his head, realising as he did it that women were largely foreign territory to him.

  He’d known Michelle, or had thought he’d known her, yet hadn’t realised just how much he’d hurt her by telling her about Kate. Kate had called him insensitive for telling, yet to him it had seemed the right thing to do—the honest thing to do. Yet looking back he wondered just how well he had known her, or understood the pain and fear she must have felt when he’d disappeared to who knew where.

  * * *

  And other women he’d dated, during times when Michelle had taken a break of her own, well, he’d never really been interested enough to try to work out what made them tick.

  Pathetic!

  That’s what he was!

  A great, big, pathetic lump of material, moulded by his training and the army into something very useful—someone who knew exactly what to do in any given situation in which he was involved.

  But that was useful to the army, not a woman...

  There was something he was missing here. He needed Gran with the common sense she’d tried to instil in him as a child, but she was long gone and no matter how hard he tried to figure out what advice she might give, he came up with a big fat zero.

  Except Kate had sent the note.

  He’d start from there...

  * * *

  Kate found the SDR helicopter as it was about to leave. Paul hauled her on board, whistling at her get-up, Blake saying he’d been about to send out a search party for her.

  ‘I fell asleep,’ she told them.

  ‘Well, you deserved it. You were really amazing,’ another team member said.

  But the words of praise washed over Kate. The knowledge that Angus had her letter had shaken her so much she couldn’t even begin to work out how to think about it, let alone what to think.