Emergency Baby

by Alison Roberts

  He’d be even more protective of a helpless child.

  Especially if that child was his own.

  They were in radio contact with the skipper of the fishing trawler. He spotted the helicopter well before they saw the boat in the heavy seas and was able to help them pinpoint his location. The skipper had a marked Russian accent but fortunately his English was good enough to understand the instructions he was being given.

  ‘Am turning downwind,’ he confirmed. ‘We are ready for rope.’

  Terry glanced back at his crew. ‘Turning base leg,’ he informed them.

  Sam nodded as the helicopter banked, preparing herself to open the door.

  ‘Clear to open door,’ Terry said, seconds later.

  Sam checked one last time that she was securely clipped to her safety line and then heaved the door open, bracing herself for the blast of what felt like arctic, salt-laden air.

  ‘Door back and locked,’ she called. She reached for the hook to pull it in-board and then attached the end of a coiled rope that had a weighted end.

  ‘Deploying Hi Line.’

  Sam started feeding out the weighted end of the rope. She could see the boat beneath them and men waiting to catch the rope. They grew bigger and smaller at an alarming rate as the ship rode the swells. Right now, Sam had to concentrate on making sure the line didn’t get tangled in any of the ship’s rigging but the imminent danger to Alex was still making its presence felt sharply. Any miscalculation in trying to land on the deck and he could end up with two broken legs…Or worse.

  She was relatively safe. Alex had made sure of that, hadn’t he?

  Terry was talking to the skipper of the vessel again. ‘Do not tie the rope to any part of the ship,’ he instructed. ‘Is that clearly understood?’

  ‘Yes.’ The skipper sounded confident. ‘We understand. Men to hold line only.’

  They could all hear him shouting instructions to his crew over the open radio line and Sam saw the weighted end of the rope caught. She waited a few seconds to make sure it wasn’t secured to any part of the vessel. One of the men waved and then gave the universal thumbs-up signal.

  ‘Hi Line in place,’ Sam told Terry.

  The helicopter was drifting further from the boat, which was hardly surprising given the conditions. Sam fed out some slack to the rope as she helped Terry gain a hover reference. ‘Back and left to target,’ she told him.

  Sam moved swiftly now. She connected a quick release hook to an extension line and then to a hoist hook. Alex had clipped the winch hook to his harness and unfastened his seat belt.

  ‘Moving Alex to door,’ Sam informed their pilot. ‘Clear skids.’

  ‘Clear skids,’ Terry responded, giving permission for Alex to move.

  Sam caught Alex’s gaze for a second. Did he really think it was safe enough to go ahead with this rescue? She would do her utmost to ensure his safety, of course, but there was nothing she could do to control the movement of the boat or the danger of a sudden wind gust that could throw the chopper out of its careful hover.

  Suddenly aware of just how much she didn’t want anything bad to happen to Alex, Sam wished she had fought harder to take on the more dangerous part of this job. To protect Alex. Her uncertainty must have shown on her face but Alex simply grinned and stood up on the skids.

  Sam took a deep breath and pushed away the uncharacteristic emotional distraction. She tried to sound calm and professional.

  ‘Clear to boom out.’

  ‘Clear.’

  As Alex’s weight was taken up by the winch, Sam leaned to attach the lightweight stretcher and supply kit to the short extension on the winch hook. The skipper of the boat had informed them earlier that their patient, Dimitri, was now unconscious so the stretcher was the only safe way to try and get the injured man into the helicopter. It would be slower and more difficult than using a nappy harness would have been.

  Then it was time to lower Alex. To try to keep the deck of the boat in her line of vision and not to let the hazards of the masts and aerials freak her out. Alex’s head was bent as he looked in the same direction, past his feet, as he swung in the wind. He was estimating his distance from the target in feet to back up Sam’s judgement.

  ‘Minus twelve,’ he called a short time later. ‘Eleven…ten…’

  Terry had the skipper waiting for his next instruction. ‘Pull the line on board,’ he ordered. ‘Slowly.’

  The crewmen pulled on the weighted rope and Alex started moving sideways in a more controlled fashion. Sam held her breath as the boat dipped and rose. Alex had pulled the stretcher up, holding it clear of his legs, but it would be largely luck whether he could time his connection to the deck well enough to ride out the pitch.

  Sam saw him stagger and then fall into the arms of the waiting crewmen. It wasn’t until he was free of the lines holding him and had given a cheery wave, along with the usual signal of an extended right arm with the hand held palm upwards, that Sam released her breath and started her task of withdrawing the Hi Line and winch hook. Now all she and Terry could do was wait, hovering anxiously over the boat as they listened to Alex’s assessment.

  ‘Airway’s clear,’ he reported. ‘But GCS is well down. Not responsive.’

  ‘Good pressure bandaging in place,’ he said a little later. ‘Can’t see any active bleeding. I won’t change it until we’re on board.’

  Sam would have made the same call. If the man was in shock from blood loss sufficient to have his level of consciousness down that much, he was in urgent need of fluid replacement and oxygen, which would need to be administered on board. The faster they cleared the scene the better, and Sam knew she could not have been any faster or more efficient than Alex was being. He used the ship’s crew members to secure the patient to the stretcher and then lift and hold it on the sturdy railing around the deck.

  ‘Deploying Hi Line,’ Sam said again.

  This time the line to the boat was used to bring the winch hook in. Alex attached the hook to the stretcher and then to himself. Sam struggled to take in and release enough slack to counteract the rolling of the vessel. Terry was doing a superb job of keeping the helicopter as perfectly positioned as possible.

  Tension spiralled at Alex’s signal to start lifting and Sam could hear the wobble in her voice.

  ‘Weight’s coming on,’ she warned Terry. ‘You have the weight.’

  It took several agonising seconds to feed out the line until Alex and his burden were clear of the boat and its rigging. They twisted in a slow circle and swayed in the wind but Sam was confident they were ready.

  ‘Clear to winch,’ she relayed to Terry. It was up to the pilot now to make sure his hover reference was secure.

  ‘Clear,’ Terry said tersely.

  Slowly, a foot at a time, the load came up. When Alex was finally close enough to tilt his head and smile at Sam she was tempted to shake her head at his expression. How could he actually be enjoying this? But she smiled back. She could see and understand the undertone of relief in his face. She was feeling that relief herself—in spades. Alex might be astonishingly brave but he was a long way from being stupid. He knew damned well just how dangerous the last fifteen minutes of his life had been.

  ‘Stretcher at door,’ Sam told Terry. ‘Booming in.’

  Alex helped manoeuvre the stretcher head first into the cabin before climbing in himself. Sam coiled the Hi Line as they retrieved the long rope and by the time she had closed and secured the door, Alex had started the resuscitation of their patient. It would only take them about thirty minutes to get to the hospital helipad and they had a lot to do.

  Wide-bore IV lines and fluid replacement under pressure. Aggressive oxygen therapy at fifteen litres per minute and continuous monitoring of his heart rate and rhythm, blood pressure and other vital signs. Alex also administered pain relief, removed the pressure bandage and splinted a lower leg that looked unsalvageable to Sam. Both bones below the knee were shattered and the foot and ankle seemed
attached to the rest of the leg by an impossibly small area of intact skin and muscle at the back.

  Alex examined the limb as carefully as the conditions in a moving helicopter allowed for.

  ‘I reckon there’s a chance they can save the foot.’

  ‘Really?’ It looked dead to Sam. Cold and white.

  ‘They had the leg packed in ice as well as that pressure bandage. I think there’s still some kind of blood supply getting through. Look.’

  Sure enough, there was a faint red stain on the fresh bandaging below the level of the break.

  ‘Blood pressure’s coming up. We’re 95 systolic now. That might explain the fresh bleeding.’

  ‘The foot’s a bit warmer than it was. Could be just that it’s out of the ice now, though.’

  By the time they landed on the hospital roof, their treatment had won an improvement in their patient’s condition. They helped the team from Emergency transfer Dimitri to the resus area of the department and stayed to observe. The call back to the rooftop, which came before the orthopaedic consult was complete, made Alex scowl.

  ‘And there I was hoping we might get an invite to observe the surgery.’

  ‘Should be a quick trip.’ Sam had responded to the request to call Control. ‘Premmie baby coming in from a home birth up the coast. The incubator’s on its way upstairs already.’ Sam gave Alex an encouraging smile. ‘We might be back in time for you to get to Theatre.’

  Alex brightened. ‘I’ll just have a quick word to Scott, then. Meet you on the roof.’

  Scott, the orthopaedic surgeon, would no doubt welcome Alex if he arrived back and had time to observe in Theatre. Alex’s ongoing involvement with many of his patients was well known and Sam couldn’t think of any consultants who weren’t prepared to give Alex the time and opportunity to see and learn as much as he wanted.

  Maybe they, like Sam, found his passion for his job inspiring. Maybe they also found the fact that he genuinely cared about the outcome of so many of his jobs an attractive part of his personality. That kind of caring made up for a lot of his faults and the reminder was enough to tip the positive side of Sam’s mental scales firmly into ascension.

  Alex was cheerful. Protective. Brave and caring. If anything happened to her in the next few years, the best insurance policy she could ever have for any child was to know that such a father would be available as back-up.

  But would Alex even consider it?

  Sam watched him closely as they dealt with the transfer of the tiny baby that had arrived a little early. They took a neonatal doctor with them so there wasn’t actually much for Sam to do at all and there was, sadly, no room for the mother to travel with her infant. She would have to be transported by road ambulance and would arrive in a couple of hours’ time. Sam couldn’t help but notice how Alex managed to ease the young mother’s distress by his promise to take good care of her baby.

  When she saw him hold the minute hand of the infant to assist the doctor in placing an IV line, Sam could almost feel the positive side of those scales hit the table. They couldn’t go down any further. Any negative considerations were now so far up on the other side they were practically invisible.

  Alex looked up just in time to catch the tail end of Sam’s smile.

  ‘What?’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Nothing’s funny,’ Sam assured him. ‘I was just enjoying watching you do all the work for a change.’

  ‘Hmmph.’ Alex did not look convinced. He frowned. His looked moved from Sam, to the baby, and then back to Sam, and the frown deepened.

  He said nothing more until they had finished the job and were moving towards the emergency department to catch up on any news of Dimitri’s condition. And even then it was his silence rather than anything he said that brought the up topic.

  It wasn’t like Alex to be so silent.

  ‘Are you worried about Dimitri?’ Sam queried.

  ‘I certainly hope he’s not going to lose his foot. He’d lose his livelihood as well.’

  ‘You’ve done everything you could to help. A lot of people wouldn’t have attempted a winch in those conditions and he’d definitely have lost his foot if he’d had to wait until the ship got into harbour.’

  Alex grunted his acceptance of her statement but he didn’t seem any happier.

  ‘Something else bothering you?’

  The abrupt halt Alex made startled Sam. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘Actually, there is.’

  Sam lurched to a halt herself. His tone said it all. Whatever was bothering Alex had something to do with her. The extra thump Sam’s heart delivered was uncomfortable.

  ‘What? What have I done?’

  Alex folded his arms and scowled but said nothing.

  ‘Look,’ Sam said hurriedly, ‘I would have been happy to do that winch job. Well, not happy exactly—we both knew it was a bit dodgy but I would have done it. I didn’t ask you to do it instead of me.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And there wasn’t anything I needed to do with that baby. I wasn’t just sitting around, being slack.’

  ‘I know that, too.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘You were smiling.’

  Sam wasn’t smiling now. Her jaw dropped. People brushed past the island of humanity they represented in the corridor and she stepped closer to the wall as a bed was pushed closer.

  ‘You’re having me on.’ Sam stared at Alex. He wasn’t smiling, either. That frown was enough to cause a deep furrow between his dark eyebrows. She’d seen that frown somewhere quite recently, hadn’t she? On their last job, in fact. She gave an incredulous huff. ‘I don’t believe this. You’re mad at me because I was smiling?’

  ‘It was a funny kind of smile.’ Alex shifted his gaze and looked as though he wished he’d never started this conversation. Then he cleared his throat and appeared to change his mind. ‘You’ve been doing rather a lot of it lately, in fact.’

  ‘What—smiling?’

  ‘Funny smiling,’ Alex declared. ‘Weird,’ he added for extra emphasis. ‘And it seems to have something to do with babies,’ he finished darkly. He sucked in his breath. ‘Are you pregnant, Sam?’

  She laughed out loud. She couldn’t help herself. ‘No, Alex. I’m not pregnant.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that!’ The look of relief on his face was more noticeable than when he’d reached the helicopter safely after that dodgy winch job. ‘I was beginning to think I’d have to break in a new partner in the not-so-distant future.’

  A portable X-ray machine was wheeled past, rattling loud enough to make an instant response pointless. Sam needed a moment to think, anyway. Should she confess? She had clearly been emitting stronger vibes than she’d realised.

  The lift further down the corridor opened and a new group of people spilled out. A small girl was carrying a large bunch of flowers. An older boy gazed at Alex’s uniform and the red SERT insignia with open-mouthed admiration. The object of his awe didn’t seem to notice, however. Alex was busy staring at Sam.

  ‘There’s something going on,’ he insisted. ‘You’ve been weird ever since the night of that caving job.’

  ‘Have I?’ Sam widened her eyes, hoping for an innocent expression.

  ‘Yes. And don’t give me that puppy-dog look. I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.’

  Sam shook her head. ‘Not really. Strikes me as a bit weird that you’re complaining about me smiling at you.’

  ‘Funny smiling,’ Alex reminded her. He narrowed his eyes. ‘Sort of…I dunno…smug. Madonna-like.’

  ‘Oh?’ Sam stifled a much broader type of smile. Alex would kick himself when he knew how close to the truth he’d come.

  ‘The first time I saw it was when you were holding that baby you delivered. Remember?’

  ‘Oh…Yes.’ Sam would never forget how that unblinking stare from Courtney’s newborn son had made her feel. It had, after all, been what had launched this overwhelming urge to have a bab
y of her own to hold and love. ‘I remember.’

  ‘You’re doing it again!’

  Sam folded her lips into a straight line. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Alex. This is ridiculous.’ They were running out of time here. If Dimitri was having some fascinating surgery to realign shattered bones and restore nerve and blood vessel function to his foot, they would be very unlikely to witness any of it at the rate they were going.

  And if Sam was clearly so inept at concealing what was going on in her head, she may as well confess now and get it over with.

  ‘All right,’ she said wearily. ‘I give in. I’m not pregnant, Alex, but I am thinking about having a baby.’

  He looked horrified. ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘I’ve decided I want one. Soon.’

  ‘How soon is soon?’

  ‘As soon as possible. I’m thirty-four, Alex. I don’t want to be an elderly primigravida.’

  ‘Too late for that,’ Alex said firmly. Then he shook his head. ‘You’re not serious, are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve been a SERT geek for too long. I want something else in my life. As well as my job,’ she added hurriedly, in case it was the idea of having a new partner that was making Alex look so horrified. ‘You won’t have to break in a new partner long term.’

  Alex looked dazed. ‘And who’s the father of this baby going to be?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Sam said airily. This definitely wasn’t the time or place to suggest any co-operation from Alex. He needed time to get used to what would have to be a startling idea. The woman pushing a trolley load of library books past needed time as well. She gave Sam a very strange look.

  Alex was nodding to himself. ‘So that’s what that pamphlet business was really about.’

  Sam smiled at the library lady, who had turned back for another look. Alex sighed heavily and pushed himself away from the wall he’d been leaning on. Having confirmed his suspicions, he appeared happy to carry on with their mission to the emergency department.