Kiss the Hare's Foot

by Janet Wakley

  Jeremy Holmes was a plasterer by trade. He was good looking with a shock of dark brown hair, mostly held in place by gel. He had kind blue eyes and a soft husky voice that had won her over at a party some seven months previously. Despite his cheerful disposition, his rough-and-ready appearance, his tendency to always be late and casual regard for social manners had hardly endeared him to her parents, who at best tolerated his presence in their home. Mel knew that for them it was with great relief, only a few days ago, that she had ended the relationship. Although they had never expressed the view that he was not an appropriate match for their only daughter, she had been aware of the strained atmosphere that sometimes existed when he was in their presence. He had been fun, though, and was apparently unconcerned by the outmoded and superior attitude of her ageing parents. She recalled how as a plasterer by trade, he had once carved a portrait of her face on a plaque of semi-dried plaster on a square board and she smiled even now at the laughter they had enjoyed at his less than artistic efforts.

  Their liaison had finally come to an end over Mel’s planned holiday to Greece. Unable to take time from work to accompany her, he had resisted her desire to go alone which had caused endless arguments over jealousy and mistrust. How she missed his strong arms around her now. Due to the animosity of their parting, would he care that she had gone missing? Would the police even accuse him of abducting her to prevent her leaving the country? As her troubled thoughts chased around in her head she eventually fell into a restless sleep.

  The sudden rattle of the cellar door bolt woke them all with a start. Three of the guards burst in. “Get up! You and you!” He indicated to Mel and Clive with a kick of his foot on the bottom of their mattresses. “You’re needed upstairs, now!”

  Mel and Clive scrabbled to find their shoes and push them on without waiting to tie laces. Still disorientated by broken sleep, they were quickly ushered out of the cellar and hurriedly escorted to the room where Charlie lay. The young lad Danny stood anxiously over his father; fear now torturing his usual placid expression. The sick man in front of him, who now lay on his side partially propped onto one pillow, was struggling for breath. Each inspiration was strained and accompanied by a raucous rattling sound emitting from low in his trachea. His pallid skin was translucent with perspiration and his eyes, though partly opened, were unseeing and oblivious to his surroundings. He looked close to death. Tubing to a litre bag of saline was now connected to a cannula which Silas had earlier inserted into a vein in the back of Charlie’s right hand. The fluid still dripped very slowly, providing minimal re-hydration. They saw that Silas had improvised a drip stand to elevate the fluid bag and allow gravity to supply the saline to the casualty by tying a piece of string through the loop of the bag onto the back of the bedside chair. The bag was still half full, Silas’s intention that it should last until the morning. Instinctively Mel pushed forwards to reach the failing man. Shaking his shoulder she spoke his name, but there was no response. The large veins in the side of his neck stood proud and could be seen pulsating slowly and rhythmically.

  “The stuff we got tonight. Where is it? Bring it here, now. And we need that oxygen cylinder, too.” Clive almost shouted to Hood whose sour down-turned mouth looked more like a bulldog than ever. With a grunt he turned immediately and retraced his steps out of the room, locking the door behind him.

  Releasing the watchstrap from his wrist, Clive thrust it at Mel who immediately took pulse and respiration timings. Both were fast and weak. Clive opened the small plastic clamp on the drip tubing fully, allowing the liquid to flow rapidly into the vein. “Let’s turn him onto his back and sit him up a little.” Clive took control and together they lifted the man’s shoulders and pressed a cushion from the chair into his back for support.

  Minutes later Hood returned together with Danny and a second guard carrying between them the two large yellow sacks and two heavy toolboxes. The second guard left again immediately, returning a few moments later, puffing heavily, as he carried in a large black and white oxygen cylinder, complete with valve and flowmeter. Clive snatched one of the toolboxes. After removing the upper tray, which contained an assortment of basic tools, he delved into the lower compartment, which was packed with boxes of drugs and a polystyrene box containing several small plastic packets of liquid. Pulling open the lid, he extracted a bag of O-negative universal packed blood cells and as the saline bag gave up the last of its fluid, he deftly replaced it with the new container. This done, he pulled back the covers and palpated Charlie’s abdomen.

  “How did you get hold of the blood?”

  “Got a couple of units from the hospital blood bank. Some of these hospitals really need to take a look at their security. Let’s get some O-2 into him.”

  Mel immediately attached the oxygen cylinder to a length of tubing and a face mask from one of the sacks she recognised from her own haul. Securing the loops of the mask round Charlie’s ears, she turned on the cylinder to give four litres per minute. Clive, meanwhile, added drugs via a syringe to the cannula situated in the back of Charlie’s hand. They paused, watching the face of their patient, both desperate to see some small improvement in his condition.

  “Catheter?” Clive spoke first.

  “Yes, but I’m not sure which bag,” Mel hesitated before searching into the depths of both yellow sacks.

  Half an hour later, a urinary catheter instilled into his bladder, oxygen supplied through a face mask and a further litre of intravenous fluid dripping slowly into his arm, Charlie at last began to breathe more calmly. His vital signs were beginning to respond to the medical interventions, but how long the improvement would last only time would tell.

  Eventually Clive sat down in the chair beside the bed and leaning forwards, wearily rested his head in his hands. “You go back and get some sleep. I’ll stay here.” He seemed oblivious to the two guards by the door and young Danny, who had been mesmerized by the actions carried out before him and who remained standing at the side of the room. Mel stooped to the floor, tidying up the bags and replacing the tray in the toolbox. She closed the lid. Standing up she nodded to Clive and gratefully headed for the door. The second guard, with torch in hand, led the way back to the cellar.

  As she entered the room, Silas, who was sitting cross-legged on his mattress with his blankets wrapped around his shoulders, turned to look at her. Sitting upright, hands resting on his knees, he looked rather like a red Indian, Mel thought, as she sat down heavily beside him on her own bed.

  “What’s happened? What’s going on?” he demanded as the door was again slammed shut. “Where’s Clive?” The uncertainty and feeling of helplessness whilst again left behind in the cellar had gnawed away at his patience, firing his imagination and anger with no-one upon whom he could vent his frustrations.

  “Charlie’s taken a turn for the worse. I think we’ve stabilised him for the moment but I don’t know how much longer he can go on. Clive has stayed with him. If Charlie dies, I don’t see them letting us walk away from here, do you? We’ve just got to plan an escape soon.”

  “They’ve got to move us all out of here so we can operate,” he said. “It’ll be our best chance to escape then. You’d better get some sleep while you can.”

  “I’m not tired now,” Mel replied. “By the way, I managed to get hold of this.” From the pocket of her jeans she withdrew a medium length flat screwdriver which she had secreted away as she tidied the assortment of drugs into the lower compartment of the toolbox. Handing it to Silas, his eyes lit with pleasure.

  “Well done, girl. Well done.” Clasping the five-inch tool in his hand he rose from the mattress, allowing the blanket to fall from his shoulders. She wished he wouldn’t refer to her as ‘girl’. “We’d better hide it for now.” He positioned it carefully behind a pile of debris beneath the broken workbench. “If you don’t want to sleep, then, let’s discuss how we’re going to carry out this operation; bearing in
mind there are only three of us!”

  Waiting for him to regain his seat on the mattress, she watched once again wrap the blanket around his narrow shoulders like a shroud. Suddenly she saw how vulnerable he looked. The enormity of his personality had seemed to mask the slender physical frame of the man. She felt almost sorry for him. Both she and Clive had ridden an emotional roller-coaster since their abduction the previous morning, and yet Silas remained steadfast in his resistance to their abhorrent situation, almost carried along by his anger. Obviously a very private man, he was fiercely independent and master of his own destiny. But snatched from his professional surroundings, he had been stripped of his dignity and denied even basic creature comforts and yet there remained a certain pride that would not allow him to express his true feelings or fears. Mel’s earlier anxieties that his temper might be the cause of their demise, was now gradually being replaced by a tentative trust.

  “Assuming that Charlie survives the night, and we have to believe that, we must insist that he gets the operation as soon as possible. They must be made to believe that it is of the utmost urgency. By making the gang move quickly, it might encourage them to make mistakes and give us the opportunity we need to escape. I’m not actually happy to go through with an operation, but we may not have a choice, so best we are prepared. Once we are away from here we might be able to employ all sorts of delaying tactics while we plan our escape. If that doesn’t work then we will attempt to carry out the surgery and trust that we can get away immediately afterwards, while they are distracted by the recovery of their leader.” Animated now, his dark eyes shone as positive ideas flooded forth.

  “Also, once we have access to the surgical instruments, we will at least have some useful implements that will help us. Now then, if it should come to it, have you ever assisted with intubation and induction of anaesthesia?”

  “Yes, no problem. I have also scrubbed for some minor surgery some years ago and acted as circulating nurse lots of times.” Mel hoped her positive response would offer some reassurance to the surgeon.

  “Alright then; as there are only three of us instead of the usual six or seven, we are all going to have to be very multi-tasked. You will have to assist Clive with the induction of the anaesthetic. We will all help position the patient on the operating table. You and I will scrub and gown up. Clive will have to do all the non-sterile jobs, like tying our gowns, opening packs etc. as well as being in charge of the anaesthetic. I don’t know if we can manage it, but we can try. As you know, it’s not as though the patient is really well enough to undergo such an operation. Too much time has gone by already. Still, that’s not of our choosing. I have to say, I don’t hold out much hope for his chances, but we’ll just have to do our best. Anything we can do to affect our release from here will help. I certainly don’t think we can afford to just wait here and hope to be rescued!”

  Mel agreed. She was cold now. The warmth of the fire in Charlie’s room had been comforting and now she regretted leaving Clive alone in the room with his patient. She tried to reorganise her blankets into a shape similar to a parcel to ensure that her feet were well covered, but they repeatedly fell away, leaving her back exposed so that she became frustrated and cross.

  Eventually Silas reached over and tucked the offending material beneath her so that she was nicely cocooned within its folds. “Thanks,” she murmured gratefully.

  She lay still, staring at the shadows on the ceiling as they moved silently to and fro with the subtle swaying of the light. They seemed to have been incarcerated in their cold, dark prison forever. Home, with family and friends, seemed a million miles away. This, she thought calmly, could surely not last forever, so long as she kept her nerve. With renewed determination and confidence, this awful experience might soon be over. She had to believe it.

  14

  Mel lay quite still in her make-shift bed listening for other sounds of life in the great house. Silence. Below ground, its stillness seemed to have such intensity that it filled the room like an all enveloping shroud. The faint whooshing sound in her ears was her own circulation! She could not hear Silas’s breathing, but her own seemed to resemble bellows in the stillness of the night.

  “Are you still awake?” the deep voice startled her.

  “Yes. I can’t sleep.” Mel replied promptly.

  “Well, tell me what you know about Clive Roberts?” the question surprised and slightly concerned Mel.

  “No more than he’s told you. Why?”

  “It’s just that I’m not sure I completely trust the man. I think we should be very careful, that’s all.”

  The statement catapulted Mel into a sitting position. “That’s outrageous! He’s as scared as we are. How can you say such a thing, especially after all he’s been through?” Mel felt numb. Where did this come from all of a sudden? This man’s losing it, big time! She was appalled at his implication.

  “What was he like when he first arrived? You were dragged out of your hospital by a chain round your neck; I was accosted at knifepoint, but what about Clive? He doesn’t seem to have even resisted.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Mel spat back. “Just because he didn’t put up a struggle, doesn’t mean he came here willingly. He’s worried sick about his family.” Mel flew to the anaesthetist’s defence.

  “What was he like when he arrived then?” Silas persisted.

  Mel sat with her knees raised, still cuddling the blankets around her. “Actually, he was here first,” she replied lamely.

  “Exactly. I’m not saying that this is a put-up job or that they haven’t got some sort of hold over him, his family perhaps, but why is it that he is always being taken out of here? I just get the feeling that they know more about him than either of us. They even knew his name, didn’t they? I didn’t tell them and I doubt very much that you did either.”

  “That’s crazy,” Mel protested indignantly. “Twice he’s been punched by them, trying to support us. He would hardly put himself in danger deliberately and I don’t believe the beatings he’s had were just for show! Anyway, they knew you were a surgeon when they took you.”

  “Alright, alright. I may be wrong, but I just think we should be careful, that’s all. Things just may not be as cut and dried as they seem.”

  Mel lay back down, shocked and disappointed. At last after a difficult start, they had been beginning to plan and work as a team. Teamwork would be essential if they were to get out alive. Mel had realised, during the time she had spent alone in the cellar earlier, how much she depended upon the intelligence and strength of her two cellmates. Now, the fragile cohesion of the group suddenly felt as though it were falling apart yet again, with uncertainty and suspicion likely to destroy their trust in each other. Mel despaired, the suspicions of both men again likely to endanger their safety.

  “You just can’t believe that he’s one of them. No-one would put themselves through this ordeal when they didn’t need to. I really don’t know how you can even think such a thing,” she concluded sourly.

  Silas fell silent. His concerns had clearly fallen upon deaf ears, but he decided against pursuing the subject further. He felt sure, however, that enough had been said to plant the seed of doubt in Mel’s mind. His disquiet would gnaw away at the nurse’s conscience, sufficiently to ensure close observation of Clive’s future behaviour.

  Mel closed her eyes tightly. What could possibly have prompted such an inference? The arrogance and audacity of the man! How she could have felt sorry for the man she couldn’t imagine now. How she despised him. She ran her mind back over the events of the last two days. At no time had she perceived Clive to be anything but a gentle and kind man, struggling, like them, to cope with the abominable conditions of their prison. He had bravely endured the dangers and unprincipled actions of coercion to steal from a hospital. Her own experience had taught her that such immoral exploits were not for those of the so-called
‘caring profession.’

  The remainder of the night passed slowly. Time that Mel felt disinclined to spend in further conversation with Silas. To avoid further interaction with him she lay on her side, her back towards him.

  When Clive was eventually returned to the cellar at 3am he looked calm and relaxed again. He brought with him a large full flask of coffee. In the warmth of the room upstairs, he claimed to have cat-napped in the chair beside their patient, whose condition had now improved sufficiently for him to be left in the care of the young son, Danny. Despite his claim to having slept, however, Clive still looked tired. Telltale bloodshot eyes betrayed weariness in his demeanour that reinforced to Mel that the doctor was as much a victim as his colleagues. They both gratefully accepted the coffee, despite the hour. Hands cupped round the plastic cups, the hot sweet liquid once again relieved the parched throats dried by the thick gritty air.

  Kicking off his shoes, Clive sank heavily onto his mattress between Mel and Silas, oblivious to an atmosphere of tension between his companions and blissfully unaware that he had been the focus. The lack of vocal interaction he surmised was due purely to the broken night’s sleep. Clumsily he rearranged his blankets and, determined to gain another couple of hour’s respite, curled on his side, shivering despite his thick jumper.

  It seemed only a short while later when the man in green corduroy trousers delivered breakfast, intimating a sense of urgency by the way he prompted the inmates to leave their crude beds with a swift kick at the base of each mattress in turn. Obediently, Mel and Clive co-operated, retrieving their shoes before crossing to the table. Reluctant to discard his blankets, the surgeon defied his prompts to “get moving” and sluggishly stretched and yawned before painstakingly rising from his bed. The only one to need to regain his trousers, he shook them and carefully brushed them with long strokes of his hand before finally stepping into the garment and pushing his feet into his black leather brogues. He strolled slowly and deliberately towards the table, his chin pushed forwards defiantly. Mel inwardly cringed as the surgeon went as near as he dare, taunting the captor with his act of recalcitrance. Such a performance was only ever likely to trigger another ugly scene.