Mission

by Amy Andrews

  ‘So, how come you’re still a sergeant?’

  Richard stiffened and forced himself to keep going. ‘I like being a sergeant.’

  ‘I thought one of the reasons you were so keen to go to Africa was for the promotion opportunities. Isn’t it every soldier’s ambition to become a…brigadier or something?’

  He smiled, easing the tension that had sprung into his muscles at the mention of Africa. ‘I’m happy with my rank.’

  ‘You always struck me as being more ambitious than that.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m not.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘It’s just that you seem to have so much experience and expertise.’

  ‘Look,’ he said, becoming exasperated by her persistence, ‘trust me on this one. I could be in the army till I’m one hundred and I’ll still only be a sergeant.’

  ‘How can you be so sure about that?’ she said, wiping the sweat of her forehead with an even sweatier arm.

  ‘Because…’ He hesitated, wondering if he wanted to go into it, ‘there was an incident in Africa…’

  Aha! So she’d been right. Something had definitely happened while he’d been away. Something that had made him harder. More unreachable. Holly waited for further explanation. None seemed forthcoming. ‘What sort of an incident?’

  ‘I…broke some rules,’ he said, trying to keep it as vague as possible. He really didn’t want to think about it. He avoided thinking about it at all costs. It was bad enough that his dreams took him there most nights. He didn’t want to talk about it in the daylight hours. ‘Suffice to say promotion isn’t ever going to be on the cards for me.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Holly,’ he interrupted, ‘I don’t want to—’

  ‘Talk about it,’ she finished.

  ‘Bingo.’

  Holly huffed out a frustrated sigh. Bloody men! Did he really think he was doing himself any favours by keeping things to himself? She stomped up the incline now. His tough-guy act wasn’t fooling her. She remembered her shock at seeing him again. At how he seemed so much more distant. Machine-like even. Whatever it was, it must have been big.

  ‘Well, I think they’re mad.’ She stopped abruptly and turned around and he almost careened into her. ‘Surely the army is crying out for good leaders? People who are intelligent and dedicated and good at their jobs? I don’t care what rules you broke. If you deserve a promotion, then it should be yours.’

  Richard was surprised at the depth of her feeling. They were standing really close and her voice had husked over as she’d spoken. He couldn’t believe she was showing him more forgiveness and loyalty than the army had.

  John growled at them to keep moving and they turned back to the gruelling task of climbing higher. They stopped for a quick snack when the sun was directly above them and then hiked for another three hours in heavy rain.

  Holly was relieved to finally reach another campsite and they were again herded into a structure similar to the one at the last camp. Holly didn’t care. She was grateful to have stopped moving and sat on the hard earthen floor like it was the comfiest sofa in the world.

  She pulled her socks and shoes off as Richard stoked the fire and wrung out the water from her socks. She lay back on the ground, her knees bent, revelling in the luxury of a horizontal position. Not even everything she had learned today could keep her from shutting her eyes.

  ‘Oh, Holly, your feet!’ exclaimed Richard.

  She roused from the comforting layers of sleep that had quickly claimed her and half sat up. She had large, red, ugly blisters on her heels and over the bony prominence on the side of each big toe.

  ‘Don’t they hurt?’ he asked, lifting each foot and inspecting the damage.

  ‘Not as much as you yanking my sore legs around.’ She winced. ‘I didn’t even know I had them until just now. I think the pain everywhere else is too intense to notice.’

  Richard watched her fall back against the ground and shut her eyes again. She looked totally exhausted. ‘I’m going to get my pack and dress those blisters,’ he said, and wasn’t surprised when she didn’t respond.

  Richard pushed open the door and the two guards placed restraining hands on his chest.

  ‘I want my pack. I want to talk to John.’

  The man appeared before him miraculously. ‘Yes, Sergeant?’

  ‘I need my pack. Holly has some bad blisters, I’d like to dress them.’

  John spoke to one of the soldiers beside Richard and he left. He returned quickly with the requested pack. Richard picked it up and started to take it with him back to Holly.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t. You take out what you need. We’ll keep the pack.’

  Richard felt his ire rise and gave John a mutinous stare. ‘I gave you my word we wouldn’t escape.’

  ‘Take only what you need. The pack stays with me.’ John’s steely voice brooked no argument and Richard bunched his hands into fists by his side. He found the dressings, extracted them and then turned on his heel.

  Holly stirred momentarily as he picked one foot up and then sighed in her sleep as he gently dressed her wounds. Blisters in such a moist, bacteria-rich environment could be a real problem, turning very nasty very quickly. The dressings he applied protected and cushioned them.

  He replaced her feet back on the ground and watched as she turned on her side. Asleep she looked younger. Barely twenty. He shook his head and deliberately turned away so his back was to her and watched the camp activity through the wooden slats of their jail. He memorised every detail, knowing that he would be debriefed once they got back and any intelligence he could relay would be helpful. And he really needed to concentrate on something else!

  He saw John approach an hour later and he rose to his feet and faced the door as it swung open, not wanting to wake Holly.

  ‘We need you. One of our children has malaria, she’s not doing very well,’ said John.

  Richard knew because malaria was his field that the young were hit hardest by this disease and that worldwide infant mortality from it was frighteningly high. Cerebral malaria, which was fatal, was too often a progression of the disease mostly seen in children.

  He entered the darkened shelter and pushed through a small group of women who were huddled around a low bed. The baby, a girl, was lying naked and very still, and Richard noted her pallor despite the poor lighting.

  He knelt beside the sick child and felt for a pulse. A commotion broke out around him. The elderly woman who had been holding the little girl’s hand pushed at him and jabbered loudly, lifting the girl into her arms away from Richard’s touch. She rocked the baby and her cries bordered on wailing. The other women joined in and Richard stood and looked enquiringly at John.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘The girl is very sick, I need to examine her.’ Richard tried to keep the alarm at the baby’s condition out of his voice but even a cursory glance had told him she was severely dehydrated.

  ‘Tuti’s grandmother doesn’t want a man. It is an old custom, not practised much any more. Girls are to be doctored to only by other women until they are married. I didn’t think the old woman would be too fussy given the condition of the child.’

  Having worked in many areas where local customs were sacrosanct, Richard appreciated the situation. But it was frustrating nonetheless. ‘Where is the mother?’ Richard asked.

  ‘She was a victim of the typhoon. Mundi has cared for Tuti ever since.’

  Richard’s mind raced. They were wasting valuable time. He needed to rehydrate the baby and get her medical attention.

  ‘Get Holly,’ he said to Richard. She could be his eyes and his hands.

  Holly was dragged out of a deep sleep by determined shaking. A rebel soldier, gun slung over his shoulder, was prodding her arm and jabbering insistently at her. She looked around for Richard, feeling frightened, but as he pulled at her arm it seemed he just wanted her to follow him.

  She accompanied him, her heart banging in
her rib cage. What had happened? What did he want? Where was Richard? The soldier hurried through the centre of the camp, startling chickens and children in his wake.

  They entered a very noisy, crowded shelter and she almost sagged in relief when she saw Richard. There was a low, deep, anguished sound reverberating through the crowd of women and Holly got goose-bumps. It sounded mournful and her skin prickled with apprehension this time. Had somebody died?

  ‘Holly, I need you,’ he said curtly, grabbing her by the arms. ‘We have a very sick baby on our hands. As a man, I’m not allowed to treat her. You’re going to have to do it for me. Are you up for it? She’s going to die if we don’t get fluids into her.’

  Holly didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course.’ She was a nurse after all.

  ‘John, I want all of these women out,’ said Richard. ‘Mundi can stay but I want everyone else to leave.’

  John cleared the shelter. The women were reluctant but John’s authority appeared absolute.

  Holly knelt beside Mundi and assessed the baby. She spoke her findings out loud for Richard’s benefit. She felt for the pulse and lost count it was so rapid. The baby was burning up, its eyes sunken, its lips dried and cracked. She felt the baby’s fontanelle, noting how depressed it was. The baby was otherwise well nourished and Holly was thankful for small mercies. This little girl was going to need every ounce of her baby fat.

  ‘How old is she?’ Richard spoke to John.

  ‘Ten months.’

  ‘How long has she been sick?’

  John spoke briefly with Mundi who was sponging her gran-daughter’s body. ‘Her fever and chills started yesterday. She has also had vomiting and diarrhoea.’

  ‘Has she bled from anywhere?’ Richard asked.

  More consulting with Mundi. ‘No.’

  ‘We have to get a line in, Holly. She’s severely dehydrated. We’ll give her twenty per kilo over an hour. I’ll make up some ten per cent dextrose solution. Her blood-sugar level is probably dangerously low.’

  Holly swallowed and tried not to laugh hysterically. Get a line in? Where? Big veins she could do. But little ones? Dehydrated ones at that? She quickly inspected the baby’s arms and legs for signs of a vein. She was never going to succeed.

  Richard got all the stuff ready for Holly while his brain ticked over. From the description of the symptoms it sounded like malaria. And as much as he despised John, at least he’d recognized an illness that was endemic among the people of Tanrami.

  There was no way he could tell which of the four strains it was. All he could do was treat the physical symptoms and get her to Abeil, where she could have the proper treatment. He hoped he wasn’t too late. He hoped Tuti wasn’t in the stage of developing the life-threatening cerebral malaria and died before he could get her proper medical attention.

  He watched Holly as he mixed some fifty per cent glucose with Hartman’s solution to make the bag about a ten per cent dextrose mix. She was having difficulty finding a vein.

  ‘Try the scalp,’ he said, a needle cap between his teeth as he pushed the sugary solution into the bag of fluid.

  His mind moved on. Weight.

  ‘How much does she weigh, do you reckon?’ he asked Holly. He figured as a midwife she’d be pretty good at guessing babies’ weights.

  Holly assessed the infant, trying to make an educated estimate. Not very much. About seven kilos…maybe?’

  He nodded and filled the burette up with one hundred and forty mils of fluid. Holly could run it in over an hour once she got the drip in.

  Holly inspected the scalp and mumbled thanks to Mundi, who drew a lantern nearer. Luckily the baby was bald so the veins were easier to identify. Or they would have been had there been any! There was nothing. Tuti was just too dehydrated.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Richard, handing her an intra-osseous needle. ‘Use this. We don’t have time.’

  Holly looked at the rather brutal instrument. He was right. It was the quickest and easiest way for them to administer fluids, but she’d never placed one before, although she had seen it done and understood the theory.

  The needle was basically a fancy screw that was twisted into the bone, accessing the bone marrow and using it to deliver fluid and medications.

  She shut her eyes and sent a little plea out into the ether. ‘Tibia?’ she asked.

  ‘Just below the knee, in the broadest, flattest part of the bone.’ He nodded at her encouragingly.

  Her hand shook as she grasped the large knob, positioned the needle so the tip pointed away from the joint space and pushed down firmly, twisting the knob in a screwing motion. She gritted her teeth as the sharp inner trocar ground through the bone. The baby didn’t flinch, cry or move.

  She felt a gentle give as the soft layer of bone marrow was breached and breathed a sigh of relief. The needle stood upright unsupported in the bone.

  ‘Well done, Holly,’ said Richard. It had been a tricky procedure, and she had managed it better than a lot of doctors he had seen. And Tuti couldn’t have afforded her to fail.

  Holy grinned at him, warmed by his compliment, and was surprised by his answering smile. It was a hundred-watt dazzler! He’d obviously been holding his breath too.

  Richard passed her a dressing as she removed the central trocar. She secured the site and hooked up the IV line, adjusting the roller clamp to deliver the fluid in the burette over an hour.

  ‘We need to evacuate her,’ Richard said, turning to John, who was watching them dispassionately.

  ‘No.’

  ‘She needs hospitalisation. If it’s malaria then it needs to be treated or she could die.’

  ‘Many of our children die, Sergeant. What do you care?’

  ‘I care about this child. I’m not going to stand by and watch her die from a totally curable illness.’

  ‘She is a girl.’ He shrugged.

  Holly felt her ire rise and turned from her observation of the baby. She remembered Richard’s warning to keep her mouth shut, but this was really too much! She wouldn’t be silent in the face of such blatant discrimination.

  ‘She is a human being. She has as much right to live and to medical care as the next child.’ Holly’s chest heaved as she swallowed her fear and confronted John.

  ‘She can’t fight and she’s too young to work. She is just another mouth to feed,’ John dismissed.

  The coldness of his statement put a chill right up her spine. ‘I didn’t think the rebels were so primitive,’ said Holly, rising to her feet, pulling herself up to her full five feet two and giving him a look of sheer disgust. ‘Richard has been telling me you lot are dangerous and not to be trusted. I’ve been telling him he’s wrong. Is he right, John? Are you just a band of barbaric savages or are you noble mountain people with a just cause?’

  Holly’s heart was hammering. She couldn’t sit by and let him dismiss this child’s life as worthless because of her sex.

  Richard blinked at her outburst. She might be a woman but at the moment she was an angry one and she wasn’t taking any prisoners. He stifled the caution that sprang to his lips. Maybe she could shame John into action.

  Mundi let out a cry and Holly and Richard turned in time to see Tuti convulsing.

  ‘Get her on her side,’ Richard ordered.

  ‘Yes, I do know that,’ Holly snapped. She hadn’t meant to sound so terse but her run-in with John had made her irritable.

  Holly flipped Tuti on her side and waited for the jerking of her limbs to stop. Mundi sobbed and wailed and clutched at Holly’s shirt. The old woman spoke to her with anguished eyes. Holly didn’t know the words but the meaning was clear. Do something. Help her.

  ‘Do you think it’s related to her fever or a worsening of the malaria?’ Holly asked Richard as the convulsions began to subside.

  ‘It could be either,’ he said, running his hands through his short hair. It was hot in the shelter and he felt a fine sheen of sweat lining his scalp. He couldn’t be certain without vital tests. Tuti needed urgent ho
spitalisation.

  ‘Well.’ Holly turned and glared at John. ‘Are you going to prove him wrong,’ she pointed at Richard, ‘and do the right thing?’

  Richard held his breath. Holly’s goading had hit the mark. John’s face was puce with barely concealed rage. Richard hoped that Holly hadn’t gone too far.

  ‘She needs to go to Abeil,’ Richard said, keeping up the pressure and trying to keep his frustration in check.

  John nodded curtly and stalked out of the shelter. Tuti’s limbs had stilled and Holly encouraged Mundi to sponge her grandaughter down. Richard followed John out.

  John appeared to be organising an evacuation. Two soldiers scurried away and came back a few minutes later with a small stretcher.

  ‘Let Holly go with them,’ he said, interrupting the conversation between John and his men.

  ‘I give the orders here,’ John snapped, ignoring Richard’s presence.

  ‘Tuti needs a medical escort,’ Richard persisted.

  ‘Holly stays. You stay. Tuti and Mundi will go to Abeil as soon as you clear them to move.’

  ‘It will take too long on foot. We could get a chopper from the field hospital—’

  John pulled Richard’s pistol out, cocked it and pointed it at Richard’s head. ‘They go by foot or not at all. Do not test my patience any further.’

  Richard withdrew. He walked back into the shelter seething inwardly.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked Holly, and dredged up a reassuring smile.

  ‘The same. Maybe a little less tachycardic. The bolus is almost finished. What’s happening? Are they moving her?’

  ‘Yep. Organising it now.’ he nodded.

  Holly smiled triumphantly, her spirits and hopes for little Tuti lifting dramatically. ‘See, Richard, I told you. They’re just misunderstood. It’s going to be OK.’

  Richard nodded again. She looked so happy, so righteous, he didn’t have the heart to dash it all. She had had her first real glimpse of the disregard that John and his type had for human life and had managed to put a positive spin on it. He hoped she never got to see it as it really was.