Buch lesen: «Her Emergency Knight»

CHAPTER ONE

‘MAYDAY…Mayday…’

‘Cessna Bravo Papa Tango…Three zero niner…Engine failure…’

‘Mayday…Mayday…’

The pilot sounded way too calm for the emergency to be real, Jennifer Allen decided. Mind you, she probably sounded equally dispassionate when calling for, say, a scalpel, buzz-saw and rib spreaders to crack someone’s chest in the ED in a desperate last-ditch effort to save a life.

Failure was virtually inevitable in such a scenario. Maybe a radio message requesting assistance for a light plane about to crash into the side of a mountain was a kind of formality as well. Part of a predetermined protocol. Something you did to demonstrate that you’d done absolutely everything possible when any real hope was lost.

‘Mayday…Mayday…’

The scenes were badly disjointed. The budget for this movie must have been incredibly low. A wingtip dipped sharply. A woman screamed. The rocks and scree slopes of the terrain were close enough for her to pick out a single alpine flower in a tussock. A mountain buttercup, the real name of which was a Mount Cook lily. That was a nice touch, Jennifer thought, showing the setting to be a New Zealand mountain. Despite only a split-second view, every white petal could be counted, framing the golden centre and looking rather like a floral poached egg. The image was frozen onto her retina by the shock of being suddenly plunged into…nothing.

How had they achieved that total blankness? And why was the theatre so damn cold? Jennifer reached out to pull her bedclothes more securely over her body but she was still too deeply asleep, trapped in the odd dream featuring a disaster movie. She tried to roll over, instead, but the rest of her body was as uncooperative as her arm had been. One foot had gone to sleep and Jennifer could feel the pins and needles of awakening nerves. But wasn’t her whole body asleep? The confusing notion made Jennifer want to give up and admire the buttercup again but the image had vanished.

The weight on her body was far more than bedclothes could account for and, strangely, it was steadily increasing. Jennifer didn’t have a dog and she had slept alone for years. The weight was now enough to be causing pain—even to make breathing difficult and she made a huge effort to surface from sleep and that lingering dream. To open her eyes and reach out to push the weight away.

Something was terribly wrong.

Jennifer couldn’t move. And what she could see only inches from her face had to be an illusion. Part of a dream that wouldn’t quit. The hand dangling in mid-air with the fingers an inch or two from the floor was that of a woman. The one that had screamed so piercingly perhaps? The skin texture was that of someone a generation older than herself and the rings that the hand displayed on its fourth finger included a beautiful eternity band of diamonds and sapphires.

The ring seemed oddly familiar and Jennifer could feel herself frowning. The whole hand was familiar, in fact. She had seen it—reaching out for another hand. An older man, with tufty grey hair and a cheeky grin was helping the woman climb into a small plane. Jennifer had already climbed in. She had the tiny back seat of the five-seater plane all to herself and she had been fastening her seat belt and watching the other passengers embark.

‘Mayday…Mayday…’

The realisation that the ‘dream’ had been a replay of reality, if not reality itself, hit Jennifer in a single blow. The cold was real. They had been travelling above the bush line over mountainous country. It had been a gloriously sunny spring day, but that was meaningless at an altitude that could collect snow all year round.

The hand was lifeless. Jennifer knew that as instantly as she understood the significance of the ambient temperature. The woman’s chest was the object weighing her down and there was not even a flutter of movement that might suggest the woman was still breathing.

Panic clawed at her throat. She had survived a plane crash and now she was trapped beneath a body that probably weighed twice as much as she did. How long ago had they hit the ground? Jennifer had no memory of the impact and she might have only been unconscious for a very short period of time. What had felt like a deep sleep and a drawn-out dream could have been only seconds.

Small planes carried a lot of fuel in their wings. Any moment now and something could ignite and explode.

Jennifer wasn’t about to survive a crash landing only to be burned alive, trapped in the tail section of a tiny aircraft, thank you very much. She twisted and pushed, trying to find purchase for her feet.

‘Aah-h!’ Her cry was one of frustration, pain and a not inconsiderable amount of fear.

‘Who’s that?’

Jennifer’s breath caught in a gasp as a mixture of relief and hope surged through her. She wasn’t the only survivor.

‘I’m Jennifer Allen,’ she called back. She couldn’t see anything past the body on top of her. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Guy Knight.’

‘Are you the pilot?’

‘No.’ The tone was slightly dry, suggesting either that being a pilot was not something he would have aspired to—or that Jennifer should have known who he was. Now that she had ruled out the person in charge of the plane, of course, she did know.

Guy Knight was the solid, younger man who had been seated beside the pilot in the front and, yes, she had seen this man before—had heard the name. He’d stood up to ask a quite intelligent question at the end of her presentation on managing cardiac tamponade yesterday. But he couldn’t really expect her to have remembered the name of one small town or rural GP out of the hundreds who had been attending the weekend conference on emergency medicine, could he? They had all seemed to want to talk to her. To ask questions. To pick the brain of one of the conference’s keynote speakers.

‘I need some help here.’ Fear sharpened Jennifer’s tone. ‘I’ve got a dead body on top of me and I can’t move.’

‘Are you injured?’’

‘I won’t be able to tell until I’ve got out of here. I feel like I’ve got an elephant sitting on my chest.’

‘Shirley always did have a bit of a struggle with her weight.’

A wild desire to point out who was doing the struggling now occurred to Jennifer, but the bubble of hysterical laughter remained trapped, and suffocated as quickly as it had arisen. The reminder that ‘the body’ was another person was unwelcome. Jennifer needed to focus on her own survival right now. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by empathy for any less fortunate people around her. She couldn’t help anyone else if she wasn’t OK herself, could she?

Dr Guy Knight didn’t seem to be in any hurry to live up to his name and offer assistance to a damsel in distress.

‘Bill, can you hear me? Bill?’

His voice was close and Jennifer remembered just how small the cabin of this tiny plane was. If a fire started, it would take no time at all for them all to suffocate. Or cook.

‘Who the hell is Bill?’

‘Shirley’s husband. He’s a GP in Te Anau. Always loved flying has Bill. He takes any opportunity to get his feet off the ground. I can’t get past this…Damn!’

Jennifer felt the crushing weight on her chest ease a fraction as she tipped sideways. She also felt the rocks on the other side of the thin metal skin of the fuselage scraping as the tail section of the small plane started sliding. For all Jennifer knew, she was about to go careening down a scree-covered slope and probably into some crevasse, thanks to the idiotic attempts of a wannabe hero to reach someone called Bill.

A tiny part of Jennifer’s brain was proud that even such extreme circumstances couldn’t push her past the point of self-control into a futile exercise such as screaming in sheer terror. Instead, she swore vehemently and proceeded to let Dr Guy Knight know precisely what she thought of him and his actions that were about to send her plunging to her doom.

‘For God’s sake,’ he snapped at last. ‘Will you shut up?’

A split second of astonished silence followed the interruption.

‘You’ve moved a whole six inches at the most,’ Dr Knight continued. ‘The tail is now wedged against a rock that’s not going anywhere for another million years or so.’

He was right, Jennifer realised. The terrifying movement had ceased completely. Her heart was still thumping erratically, however, and her breathing was a series of painful gasps. Shutting up was probably very sensible.

Guy Knight wasn’t shutting up. He also seemed to be attacking the plane wreckage in some fashion. Jerks and thumps reverberated through the surface Jennifer lay on.

‘I’ve only managed to get Digger out so far and he’s not looking too flash right now. You’ve got two people on top of you and if Bill was conscious he might be able to help me get him out.’

No wonder the weight was so restricting. Jennifer concentrated on her breathing. Slow and deep, she repeated over and over to herself. Hyperventilating wasn’t going to help and might already be responsible for the pins and needles now evident in her fingertips as well as her foot.

‘But he can’t help.’ Dr Knight sounded angry now and his tone was underscored by the harsh scrape of metal on rock. ‘Because he’s dead.’

Dragging sounds could be heard now and Jennifer felt her breathing ease a little more. The unfortunate Bill was clearly being moved out of the way. For her benefit. She should be feeling very grateful that someone was making what was probably an enormous effort to rescue her. Instead, an irrational anger generated by the fact that she was unable to help herself blossomed. It was heavily laced with embarrassment at her eloquent attack on the intelligence of the man she was now dependent on for assistance.

A few seconds’ silence fell when the dragging ceased. Jennifer heard a faint cough and then a groan from somewhere outside. Maybe Bill was still alive after all, unless the sound had come from the man with a name like some kind of construction machinery. Had it been Dozer? Guy’s voice cut through the thought, sounding low and reassuring—nothing like the tone in which he had been speaking to her. Then silence fell again, for long enough to alarm Jennifer.

Why hadn’t he come back? Was he coming back? Had venting her fear in such an aggressive manner made him decide to leave her where she was until a rescue team arrived? The comforting thought that an emergency locator beacon would have been activated by the crash, and help was probably already on the way, was enough to reassure Jennifer that she wasn’t totally dependent on the man moving around outside.

She didn’t give a damn what he thought of her or her vocabulary anyway. She could get herself out of here. With the weight of only one person on top of her now, it should be possible to inch her way clear, despite the sardine can of metal embracing her. She certainly wasn’t going to beg for help, that was for sure.

Twisting didn’t help. Neither did pushing. The limp arm Jennifer managed to shift flopped back, giving a muted thud as the hand hit the metal surface her cheek was pressed against. The gruesome reminder of just how serious this situation was punctured the renewed anger that had fuelled Jennifer’s efforts to extricate herself. The energising emotion dissipated, leaving a physical exhaustion that allowed fear a new foothold.

Her arm hurt. A lot. And it was still too hard to catch a deep enough breath. For one horrible moment Jennifer thought she was going to give up and burst into tears of despair.

‘You still OK in there?’

He had come back. Jennifer pressed her lips together and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, using sheer will-power to strangle the weakness tears would have betrayed.

‘Hey…Dr Allen? Talk to me.’

So he did care whether she was still alive. The concern in the voice was almost her undoing and Jennifer couldn’t trust herself to answer without giving in to a sob…or pleading for help.

‘Jennifer? Can you hear me? Are you all right?’

‘I will be.’ Jennifer pushed each word out carefully, still fighting for control. ‘When I get the hell out of here. Are you going to help me or not?’

‘Right away, ma’am.’ The tone was dry enough to stop just short of sarcasm. ‘I’ve just got to get Shirley’s legs out from under what’s left of this door.’

It seemed to take far too long. The wreckage rocked and Jennifer heard grunts of exertion and the occasional oath, followed by loud hammering as though a rock was being used on a piece of uncooperative metal. And then, finally, the weight was being removed, inch by inch. Jennifer found she could turn onto her back and use one arm, then her legs, to help push the burden clear.

She twisted back onto her stomach to wriggle clear of her prison but froze as she felt a large, firm hand on her leg. Her thigh, of all places, on bare skin—well above the level that her skirt should have covered.

‘Watch out! There’s a sharp edge of metal right here. I can’t bend it back any more. I’ve already tried.’

Jennifer moved her leg away from the hand but it wasn’t letting go.

‘Stop!’ There was a rough edge to Guy’s voice that made obedience unquestionable.

‘What now?’ If Shirley’s body had fitted through the gap, there must be more than enough room for Jennifer to follow safely.

‘There’s a first-aid kit that should be in there somewhere. It was kept underneath your seat.’

‘I didn’t see it.’

‘It’s red. Looks like a large flat sports bag.’

Jennifer could see something red, close to where her head had been resting in the pocket behind the original position of her seat. She would have to crawl downhill to reach it now, and interrupting her path to freedom was the last thing she wanted to do.

‘We’re going to need it.’ Guy’s tone was firm. ‘And I’m not sure I can fit in there.’

After a long moment’s hesitation Jennifer gritted her teeth and forced herself to inch back. She hooked her fingers into the piece of synthetic red fabric showing and pulled. A wave of pain sharp enough to make her head spin shot up her arm. The sensation inside her arm was unmistakable. A broken bone had just moved, scraping against another piece of bone in the process.

Jennifer flexed her fingers. At least she wasn’t showing any signs of neurological compromise. It might be her left hand but she still needed it to function perfectly in the job she did. Her right hand felt fine so she used just that one to pull at the bag again.

A query floated in from behind. ‘What’s taking so long?’

‘It’s stuck,’ Jennifer said shortly. ‘I can’t get it out.’

‘Try harder.’

‘I’m doing my best, dammit!’ Nobody had ever had to tell Jennifer to try harder. Anger resurfaced and Jennifer took hold of the bag with both hands again. She was angry enough not to care how much it hurt and maybe if she pulled in a straight line she could exert enough pressure without passing out from pain. The subsequent tug was enough to move the bag several inches from where it was wedged beneath torn leather upholstery and broken springs. ‘OK…I think I’ve got it!’

‘Good girl!’

Good girl? That kind of approval hadn’t been bestowed on her since she was a child. Jennifer Allen was thirty-four years old now and sought respect from others, not a pat on the head. So why did she feel so ridiculously proud of this achievement? And so determined to keep hold of the awkward red bag and complete its delivery? Pulling in a straight line seemed to be working. The pain was still sharp but there was no sickening crunch of bones that would provoke a vagal reaction.

The question of why she felt so proud of herself was still unanswerable by the time she reached the verge of freedom, but at least it provided a distraction from the feel of Guy Knight’s hands as they held her legs, then her hips, as she wriggled past a mangled door and shredded metal to find herself standing on solid ground.

Well, almost standing. Her legs felt like jelly and the light was bright enough to make her eyes water furiously so Jennifer kept them tightly closed. She clutched the red bag to her chest and didn’t protest as she felt herself being eased into a sitting position.

‘Were you knocked out?’ Strong fingers were palpating her head and neck.

‘I must have been, I guess. I remember waking up.’

‘Can you remember what day it is?’

‘Sunday. And it must be around 5:00 p.m.’ Jennifer was quite confident that her level of consciousness was not impaired despite her mild headache. ‘We got on the plane at four o’clock and that pilot reckoned it would take over an hour to get anywhere near Fox Glacier.’

‘It’s just after 5:00 p.m. now. Are you having any trouble breathing?’

‘Not anymore.’

‘Can you open your eyes?’

Jennifer complied, blinking and squinting as she tried to adjust to the glare of sunlight. The GP’s face was very close to her own. Dark eyes fringed with long, black lashes were assessing her from beneath a flop of equally dark hair. A minor laceration on his temple had stopped bleeding but had left a smear of blood now mixed with grime over rather angular features. A strong face, Jennifer thought distractedly. And not a particularly friendly one.

‘Does anything hurt?’

Jennifer felt as though she’d been run over by a train. Things ached and stung in all sorts of places but no single pain stood out as being unbearable. Even the arm she knew she had broken was just a dull throb now that she’d stopped putting stress on it. The man in front of her looked in worse shape. A nasty abrasion covered the side of one arm and bloodstains covered large areas of his white shirt and faded denim jeans.

‘I’m OK.’ Jennifer was still staring at Guy Knight’s legs. ‘Whose blood is that?’

‘Probably Bill’s.’ Guy didn’t bother to look down. He gave a brief nod instead. ‘You look OK.’ A hand reached out. ‘I’ll take that bag, then. Digger needs some help.’

Jennifer released the bag she’d forgotten she was clutching. ‘Who’s Digger?’

‘The pilot.’

‘Oh.’

‘This wasn’t his fault.’ The swift reaction to any implied criticism in Jennifer’s tone was sharp. ‘If Digger hadn’t coped with that engine failure as well as he did, we’d all be dead.’ Turning abruptly, Dr Knight walked away.

Jennifer pushed herself to her feet, pleased to find her legs working far more normally. She was standing in the space between a wing that had broken completely free and the bulk of the Cessna. The propeller blades of the single engine were crumpled almost beyond recognition and the front window and part of the plane’s roof had been torn away.

Lettering on the other end of the fuselage was distorted. B…P…L. No. An echo of Jennifer’s dream sounded in her head. That last letter was a T.

‘Bravo Papa Tango…Mayday…Mayday…’

Jennifer’s gaze slid involuntarily to her fellow passengers now lying beside the wreckage. She should check that they were, indeed, beyond any help a doctor could provide, but she didn’t move. Nobody could survive the kind of head injury Bill had clearly sustained and she had been in close enough contact with Shirley for long enough to know that she, also, was dead. Taking the time to confirm what she already knew was pointless. Turning her back on the fatalities, Jennifer picked her way over rocks and tussocks, following her new companion to where the sharply bent, sheared-off wing had created a kind of wall. The man with tufty grey hair lay behind the wing tip. Guy was standing beside him.

‘Digger? Can you hear me, mate?’

The response was incoherent and Jennifer’s view of the other survivor was blocked as Guy crouched in front of her. It was tempting to focus on the injured man herself but Jennifer needed a moment or two to orient herself first. This was no well-equipped emergency department with extra staff and facilities available automatically.

How ironic, to find herself in a situation like this, having travelled the length of the country to give GPs her expert advice on how to handle emergencies in precisely such situations. Now she was about to find out, at first-hand, what it was like to depend on limited resources and personal skills. Already she was listening for the sound of an engine. A buzz that would evolve into the chop of rotors as a rescue helicopter arrived to break the barrier of isolation.

No sound broke the overwhelming silence around them, however, and Jennifer’s gaze was drawn as involuntarily towards the horizon as it had been to the bodies beside the plane. She knew she would see a reality she would rather not confront. She also knew that it had to be confronted before she could move on. Scanning the clear blue of the sky in the hope of seeing a sign of movement offered no reassurance, but what she did see took her breath away.

Alongside and above for as far as she could see were the sharp peaks and valleys of the Southern Alps—a mountain range that provided a spine for the south island of New Zealand. Sunlight turned patches of snow into the blinding glare of mirrors and shadowed surrounding grey rock into inky darkness. Barren heights became the kind of tussock-covered terrain she was stranded on at present and bush-covered slopes fanned out below, a thick, green blanket softening variations in the terrain that were probably as sharp as those created by the towering peaks.

Jennifer had grown up in this country. New Zealand was home and it had always offered the security of being small and relatively isolated from the evils the rest of the world had to endure, but there was nothing remotely small about this landscape. The vast emptiness made her feel astonishingly insignificant.

No wonder people—and planes—got lost out here, never to be recovered. Even with a beacon sending out a distress call, Jennifer had no idea how long it might take for their exact location to be pinpointed. Maybe you had to fly within range to pick it up in the first place, and there were thousands of square miles to cover out there.

She was alone.

No. They were alone.

Jennifer swallowed past the constriction in her throat as she dragged her gaze back to the crouching man in front of her. She found herself the object of a speculative glance.

‘If you’ve finished admiring the view,’ Guy Knight said mildly, ‘I could use some help here.’