Rescue At Cradle Lake. Marion Lennox

‘I need ICU facilities,’ he told her. ‘We can’t delay.’

      ‘I know it’s not optimal care.’ She was intent on the track. ‘But Oscar’s played ducks and drakes with his health for years. If I hadn’t been there today, you wouldn’t have him this close to the hospital now. I’ve sped you up a heap. It’ll take me two minutes to check on Richard, and I am going to check.’

      ‘Phone him.’

      ‘Go to hell.’

      He sat back on his heels and stared through to the cab. He could see her face in the rear-view mirror. All humour had disappeared and her face was tight with strain.

      ‘Is Richard your child?’ he asked, confused, and she shook her head.

      ‘Just concentrate on Oscar,’ she said tightly. ‘Leave Richard to me.’

      But somewhere in the haze of alcohol and lack of oxygen Oscar was still hearing. He’d figured what was happening, and he was starting to be scared.

      ‘You get me to hospital,’ he breathed, shoving the oxygen mask away so he could make himself heard.

      ‘I’m checking Richard first,’ Ginny flung over her shoulder. ‘He’s just as important as you are.’

      ‘He should be dead. He damn near all but is.’

      There was no response. Ginny’s hands gripped the steering-wheel so hard her knuckles showed white. She kept on driving but Fergus could see what looked like tears…

      ‘Ginny…’

      ‘Shut up,’ she snarled. ‘Just shut up and look after Oscar because I’m sure as hell not going to.’

      She checked on Richard. Whoever Richard was. Fergus wasn’t allowed to know. They pulled to a halt outside a farmhouse that was even more ramshackle than Oscar’s. Ginny ran inside, yelling at him not to follow, and, as promised, two minutes later she was back in the cab and the truck was heading back out to the main road.

      ‘Not dead, then?’ Oscar wheezed, and the look Fergus caught in the rear-view mirror was one of pure murder.

      But now wasn’t the time to ask questions, not with Oscar ready to put in his oar and with Ginny’s anger threatening to explode. All he could do was keep a lid on it, keep Oscar alive and leave questions for later.

      Would he ask the questions?

      He wasn’t here to get involved, he reminded himself.

      What was he here for?

      To turn off. To find a place where he could immerse himself so totally in his medicine that everything else would be blocked out.

      But the pain on Ginny’s face…

      It found a reflection in what he’d been through. There was something…

      Who was Richard? A husband? An invalid husband?

      He wasn’t here to get involved.

      ‘I hurt,’ the man on the stretcher moaned, and Fergus sighed.

      ‘Where do you hurt?’

      ‘I told you—I smashed my hip.’

      Yeah, right. ‘I can’t give you morphine until the alcohol wears off. And I need to do X-rays.’

      ‘Old doc would’a given me a shot by now.’

      ‘Yeah, he would have shut you up whatever the cost,’ Ginny flung at him over her shoulder. ‘I can see where he’s coming from. Dr Reynard, keep me away from that morphine.’

      Cradle Lake Hospital was not exactly the nub of state-of-the-art technology that Fergus was used to.

      It had been built fifty or sixty years ago, a pretty little cottage hospital that looked more like a country homestead than a medical facility. Most of the rooms were single, looking out onto the wide verandas that had views down to the lake on one side or up to the vast mountain ranges of the New South Wales snowfields on the other.

      It was a great spot for a hospital. Unfortunately, it had been five years since Cradle Lake had been able to attract a doctor, and in those years the place had become little more than a nursing home. Old people came here to die. Patients needing doctors on call were transferred to somewhere with more facilities.

      Nevertheless, Fergus had been stunned by the level of care displayed by what seemed an extraordinarily talented pool of local nurses. Being the only hospital for a hundred miles, the local nurses were called on for everything from snakebite to road trauma. They dealt with medicine at the coalface, and from what he’d learned in his two days here, by the time emergency cases were passed over to specialist care, the emergency would often be over.

      Miriam, the nurse whose job it was to do home visits and who’d welcomed him with open arms, was waiting as they drove into the entrance to Emergency. A middle-aged farmer’s widow, she was as competent as she was matter of fact. Now she came out from the hospital entrance looking worried, and as he emerged from the back of the truck she looked even more worried.

      ‘Where have you been? I should have come with you. Oscar should be in a nursing home. He’s not fit to be alone, but I was sure he was putting it on. I would have left him until morning, but you insisted…’

      He had insisted. Fergus had been in the call room when Oscar had phoned. Miriam had been inclined to be indignant and let him wait, but Fergus had decided to go anyway.

      ‘He didn’t really break a hip, did he?’ she demanded, and as Fergus pulled the door of the van wider and she saw their improvised stretcher, she gasped. ‘You’ve brought him in. How—?’

      ‘On a door,’ Fergus said, grinning. ‘And you’re right, he’s not fit to be alone. We need to look at a long-term nursing-home option—especially if by going home he gets to be in charge of animals again. Meanwhile, Miriam, we need a proper trolley to get him out of the truck. We need one strong enough to slide Oscar and a door onto. We’ll not move him again without a hydraulic lift.’

      ‘Who…?’ Miriam asked, and, as if in response to the unfinished question, Ginny jumped out of the cab. Miriam’s jaw dropped.

      ‘Ginny,’ she gasped. ‘Ginny Viental.’

      ‘Hi,’ Ginny said, smiling. ‘It’s Mrs Paterson, isn’t it? I remember you. Can you look after Dr Reynard now? I’m going home.’

      ‘Wait and I’ll drive you,’ Fergus said, still trying to sound as if he was in control, but Ginny shook her head and he knew that control was an illusion.

      ‘I still haven’t finished my walk, and Richard’s OK for a bit longer. I’ll enjoy the hike.’

      And then she hesitated.

      Until now the valley had been blanketed with the hush of a lazy country Saturday afternoon. Everyone was at the football, watching the football on the telly or starting the hike to bring the cows in for evening milking.

      But the hush was broken now by a siren. It started low, a soft rise and fall from the far side of the lake, but it was unmistakable.

      ‘The boys are bringing someone in.’ Miriam stared out over the valley as if she was trying to see what was happening. ‘There was no callout through here and they haven’t radioed in. That means they’re both busy. It must be an emergency from the football.’

      They regrouped, all of them. A medical team facing a medical crisis. Fergus glanced at Ginny and saw her reacting the same way he was.

      ‘Let’s get Oscar stabilised,’ Fergus snapped. ‘Miriam, fetch a trolley. Ginny, go to Oscar’s feet. Move.’

      Ginny moved. Miriam moved too and no city hospital could have done it faster. They shoved the door onto a stainless-steel trolley and almost in the same motion they were wheeling it inside. They set Oscar beside a bed in a single ward but there was no time to move him into the bed. Not