‘That’s a country I’ve always wanted to visit. Is it as beautiful as they say it is?’
Mac found himself nodding. He felt exactly the same way. He’d love to get down to the bottom of the world for a visit. Always had, but the urge had got a lot stronger in the last few months. Funny, that.
‘It is,’ Julia was saying. ‘Parts of it are very similar to Scotland but I think we get a bit more sunshine.’
‘You going back?’
‘Yes. I work with an ambulance service that has a rescue unit back home. I’m here for six months for advanced training.’
‘What part of New Zealand do you live in?’
‘Christchurch. Middle of the south island. We’ve got the Alps to the west and the sea to the east. I grew up there.’
‘You’ve got family to go home to, then.’ Ken’s voice wobbled. He was obviously thinking of his own family and feeling alone right now.
‘Only my big sister,’ Julia told him.
Mac was busy pulling the extrication device they needed from its case but he was listening carefully. This was personal information. The kind that Jules had kept from her colleagues. He might have been left with questions that would never be answered but Ken wanted distraction from his situation. And Julia was so involved, she probably hadn’t registered that others might be able to hear.
‘She’s like a mum, really,’ she told Ken. ‘My mother died shortly after I was born. Anne’s nearly seven years older than me and she just took over from the various nannies. When Dad died I was only eleven but Anne was old enough to take care of me. She’s amazing. Managed to raise me and get through med school at the same time. I love her to bits.’
There was a short silence then. Julia appeared to be checking Ken’s pulse. Or was she holding his hand?
‘When you get to New Zealand,’ she said then, ‘make sure you visit Christchurch. It’s a very English city but don’t hold that against it, will you?’
Something suspiciously like a sniffle could be heard from Ken. ‘Nay, lassie,’ he said. ‘I won’t.’
He hadn’t missed the conviction in Julia’s tone that he would, someday, be well enough to travel to the other side of the world. She had deepened the connection between them by sharing personal information and now her confidence was a boost. She was his anchor right now. Nothing more personal was said because she shifted to professional responsibilities, making sure Ken was fully informed and understood everything going on around him to keep his fear at bay.
‘We’re getting something called a KED around you now, Ken. You’ll feel us tipping you a bit so we can slide it underneath.’
‘But I’m not supposed to move!’
‘I’ve got you. Relax. I won’t let anything happen to your alignment.’
‘What did you say it was?’
‘It’s like a body splint. It goes right round your chest and waist and up behind your neck and then we do up a whole bunch of straps. Then it’ll be safe to get you on the stretcher and out of here.’
‘It’s dark now, isn’t it?’
‘Pretty much. Don’t worry. We’ll have lights all over the place out there now. We can see what we’re doing.’
Sure enough, massive lights had been put in place both on the ground and the bridge and, despite drizzle that was determined to become rain, the visibility was excellent. It was still a slow job extricating Ken. He had pain relief on board and was completely immobilised but even the tiniest movement hurt. Angus joined them inside the carriage but it still took an age to inch the stretcher carefully upwards. Julia stayed as close as she could to Ken’s head. Talking to him. Reassuring him. Sympathising with the amount of pain he was in. It needed extra help to get the stretcher out of the door and attached to the winch and while that was happening Mac checked the harness he still wore in preparation to accompany the stretcher.
But Julia had other ideas.
‘I’ll go up with him.’
What he could see of her face looked very pale. Pinched, almost, as though she had been doing more than reassuring Ken and had actually taken some of his pain on board. Mac shook the thought off but whatever the cause she was reaching the limits of her endurance and steadying a stretcher being winched to make sure it didn’t catch on obstacles, not to mention helping to lift it over the lip of the destination, was no mean feat.
‘I think I should,’ was all he said.
But then he looked down from Julia’s face to where her hand was holding Ken’s. To the way Ken was looking up at Julia, his fear only just contained. And, for a weird moment, Mac felt envious. Of that connection. Of that touch.
‘OK,’ he amended a little hurriedly. ‘If you’re sure.’
Julia gave a single nod. ‘I’m sure.’
There were hand-held television cameras on the bridge now. Journalists eager to interview Julia as Ken was transferred to waiting paramedic crews who had a helicopter ready to evacuate him.
‘You’re going to the best spinal unit in Glasgow for assessment,’ Julia was able to tell Ken as she said goodbye. ‘I’ll come and visit you very soon.’
She avoided the media, pushing back to watch anxiously as her SERT colleagues brought out the man with the serious head injury, who was, amazingly, still clinging to life, and were then winched up themselves, one by one. By the time Mac joined her on the bridge, they had been on scene for nearly five hours and their official shift had finished some time ago.
Not that any of them were about to leave just yet. The weather was closing in and the transport that had taken Ken to Glasgow had been the last that would be leaving by air. Joe was grounded so they would have to organise road transport to get back to station and the people who could do that for them were otherwise occupied because the crane had finally arrived and the last stages of this rescue were under way.
Things hadn’t quite ended. It made no difference that they had started this shift well over twelve hours ago and that they were both exhausted. This had become ‘their’ job and they would see it through to the bitter end.
Had she known how bitter that end would be, Julia thought later, she would never have been so willing to accompany Mac back to the carriage for a final check. She would have found some way to ensure that someone other than them were the last people present.
The dead body was sprawled flat on the floor now, debris strewn under, around and over him. Julia edged in beside a seat to give the men in orange overalls room to load the man onto a stretcher and carry him to the temporary morgue set up in one of the huge tents. A space she knew already had fourteen occupants from this disaster.
She watched in silence as the stretcher was eased through the door and outside into the bleak night. Then she turned her head to see Mac also watching. Unguarded for an instant as the beam of her headlamp caught his face, she could see his exhaustion and the kind of defeat that went with every life lost on their watch.
Then he stooped and picked something up from the debris that had been pushed into piles to make way for the stretcher. Julia focused on what he held. It was a soft toy animal of some kind. Probably well loved and shabby to start with but it now had stuffing coming from a ripped-off leg and it was covered with bloodstains.
‘Carla’s, do you think?’
‘Probably. We didn’t have any other children in the carriage, thank goodness.’
For a long moment, she held Mac’s gaze. Watching the wheels turning in a brain shrugging off how tired it was. For a moment she wondered if he was thinking her statement was another indication of her aversion to working with paediatric cases but then she saw the grim lines in his