‘We’re going to get you all out,’ Julia said confidently, ‘but we have to do this carefully. One at a time. I’m going to help anyone who can move to get to the top of the carriage where someone will be waiting to carry them up to the bridge.’
Would Mac be there yet? Dangling on a winch line with a harness in his hands that he would pass through the door to Julia to buckle onto each survivor?
‘I’m here, Jules.’ It wasn’t the first time that Mac had seemed to be able to read her thoughts. ‘Ready when you are.’
‘When we’ve got as many as we can out, we’ll be able to take care of all of you that are injured and we’ll get you out as well,’ Julia told the passengers. ‘Do you all understand? Can you help me?’
She heard a whimper of fear and another groan but amongst the sounds of suffering came assent.
‘Just get on with it!’ the loud man was pleading now. ‘Stop talking and do something.’
Julia climbed past another seat. She made sure her feet were secure and then anchored herself with one hand. ‘Pass Carla to me,’ she ordered.
‘No-o-o-o!’ the child shrieked.
‘You have to, baby.’ With tears streaming down her face but her voice remarkably calm, Carla’s mother peeled small arms from around her neck and pushed her child towards Julia. ‘I’ll be there soon, I promise.’ Her voice broke on the last word but Julia now had a small girl clinging her like a terrified monkey and she didn’t take the time to reassure the mother. She was climbing upwards again and part of her brain was planning ahead. The teenage boy next. She had a triangular bandage in the neat pack belted to her hips. She could secure his injured arm and he should be able to climb with her. Maybe Carla’s mother after that, so that her panic wouldn’t make it harder for everyone else to wait their turn.
There would be others after that and then the real work could begin. Assessing and stabilising the injured and getting them out of here and on the way to definitive medical care.
By then the weight in the carriage and the potential for unexpected movement would be well down. The cables would have had a reasonably thorough test. Mac or one of the other SERT guys could join her. Someone would have to because there was no way she could carry the injured up herself.
Carrying a slight, seven-year-old girl was proving hard enough. The extra weight made it an effort to balance and then push up to the next padded rung of this odd ladder of seats. Julia’s breathing was becoming labored and the muscles in her legs and arms were burning. She had to concentrate more with every step so that fatigue wouldn’t cause a slip that might send them both falling down the central aisle.
She couldn’t even afford the extra effort of looking up past her burden to see how close she was to the top or whether Mac was peering down to watch her progress.
‘You’re almost there. Two more.’
How did he do that? Know precisely when she needed encouragement? This time, he could probably see the way she hesitated before each upward push. How each hesitation was becoming a little longer so he wasn’t really mind-reading. It just felt like that.
She could do two more. No. Julia could feel the determined line of her lips twist into a kind of smile. She could do ten more knowing that Mac was waiting at the top.
‘Good job.’
The quiet words were praise enough for her efforts. Julia was too breathless to respond immediately, though. She simply nodded once and then held out her hand for the nappy harness. Then she edged—carefully—into the first space of upturned seats so that she could sit and use both arms and hands for her next task.
‘It’s OK, sweetheart,’ she told the rigid bundle on her lap. ‘I’m going to put these special straps around you and then Mac’s going to get you out of here and carry you right up to the top.’
‘No-o-o!’ Arms tightened their vice-like grip around Julia’s neck.
‘I need to go back and look after the other people. Like your mummy. You’ll be fine, Carla, I promise.’
But the child was shaking now. Whimpering with fear.
‘Mac is a very nice man,’ Julia told her.
‘Cheers, mate,’ came with the chuckle in her earphones.
‘And he really, really likes children,’ Julia added. ‘Looking after little girls like you is absolutely his favourite thing to do.’
The earphones stayed silent this time. What was Mac thinking? Remembering occasions when he’d poured his heart and soul into trying to save a child? The heartbreak when he hadn’t been successful?
Carla had relaxed fractionally. Enough for Julia to be able to slip the straps into position and then close and tighten buckles. She hoped the silence wasn’t because Mac was putting two and two together somehow. That he had noticed at some point over the last weeks the way she avoided prolonged contact with paediatric patients if possible. The way she was so good at distancing herself by taking on any case that was preferably complicated and adult.
No. She was pretty confident she kept personal issues well away from her work. Out of her life, in fact, because she wasn’t letting anyone close enough to discover the truth.
‘I’m going to tell Mummy how brave you are,’ Julia told Carla. ‘As soon as I get back down to her. Do you think she’ll be proud of you?’
Carla didn’t nod but her head moved so that she could look up at Julia.
‘I’m proud of you.’ Julia smiled. ‘Mac will be, too, you’ll see.’
She eased herself to her feet. Carla was still tense and she cried out in terror when Julia lifted her into Mac’s waiting hands but then she was in his strong, secure grasp and the child looked up and saw the face of the man above her.
Mac’s smile was as reassuring as a hug.
‘Hi, there, peanut,’ he said. ‘Going to come for a wee ride with me?’
And this time Carla nodded and, as Mac clipped the buckle of her harness to his own and instructed the child to put her arms around his neck and hold on tight, she turned her head and Julia could see that she was—incredibly—smiling herself.
Mac was simply the best when it came to dealing with children. It had made it easier to step back herself and not get people asking awkward questions.
‘Your job,’ she could say to Mac with total sincerity. ‘You’re the best.’
He was. He adored kids and she knew him, while he probably wouldn’t admit it on station, he was aching for some of his own. And why not? He was in his mid-thirties and by now the absolute obsession with his career had to be ebbing enough for him to realise he might be running out of time to find someone to make a family with. He needed to get on with it.
He’d have gorgeous children and he’d make the best father ever.
And some incredibly lucky woman was going to be his wife and the mother of those children.
Julia turned and began climbing back down as soon as she saw Mac and Carla beginning their upward journey. She had to be just as slow and careful as she had been the first time she had done this despite it seeming easier having done it before. She couldn’t afford to fall.
The descent was too slow. It allowed too much time for errant thoughts and emotions to seep into her mind and body.
Inappropriate things but she was learning to expect the backwash that came from seeing Mac with a child in his arms.
A mix of grief. And jealousy. And…yes…desire.
And,