right before the front…’
She gazed at his grim face and saw the message he was trying not to tell her. ‘You’re telling me there’s little chance Hugo’s survived?’
‘The boys are trying to clear the road now,’ he told her. ‘We’ll let you know.’
‘No.’ She straightened her shoulders in an unconscious brace position. ‘I’m a doctor. He… They may be hurt.’
His eyes met hers. Giving her the truth. ‘To be honest, Doc, the chances are that they’re a lot more than hurt.’
‘I know. But if not… I’m bringing medical supplies and I’m coming.’
Sue-Ellen Lesley lived five minutes’ drive out of town but it took two fire crews half an hour to reach it. Once outside the town boundaries there was thick bush-or what was left of thick bush. Now there was simply smouldering fire.
Eucalypts burned fast. The trees were already starting to smoulder rather than flame and the smell of burning eucalyptus oil was overpowering. Branches had dropped across the road. Trees were down. Every obstacle they reached had to be dealt with slowly-flames put out and the wood cooled enough to shift. Two fire crews worked in tandem, with a water tanker ferrying water as needed.
By the time they reached the tiny farmhouse where Sue-Ellen lived, Rachel was almost ready to scream.
‘You sure you’re not needed back in town?’ The fire chief’s face was grim as they rounded the last corner. Rachel had been working as hard as any of his team, joining the hard manual labour that had been needed to clear the road. She was working as one of his crew but there were personal issues here. He could see it. The set look on her face had him worried.
He was worried anyway. One of his boys was emotionally involved with Sue-Ellen and Gary was making himself sick with worry. And as well as Sue-Ellen… Well, this was Doc McInnes. Hell.
‘If I’m needed, they’ll contact me,’ Rachel told him shortly. ‘Elly knows where I am, and the radio network is still operational. But there’s nothing back in town but heat exhaustion and dehydration, and Elly and Don and David can cope with that.’
‘But-’
‘Don’t fight me on this,’ she told him. ‘We’re wasting time. Just get there.’
And then the farmhouse was in view. Or what was left of the farmhouse.
Nothing.
The tiny farm cottage looked almost as if it had been vaporised-sucked into thin air with only a smouldering slab remaining where the house had once stood. Even the chimney had collapsed in on itself and was now a low mound of crumbling, smoking brick.
Nothing could have survived this.
Hugo…
Rachel caught her breath. There was a car parked beside the wreck. Or what was left of a car.
A big old family sedan.
Hugo’s car.
Rachel was out of the truck before it stopped. Staring.
Her heart was somewhere else. Gone. A lifeless thing with no meaning. There were tears streaming down her face and she didn’t check them. She couldn’t.
Hugo.
And then a shout. From Gary, the giant of a young firefighter who was so worried about Sue-Ellen.
‘Over here. He’s over here. In the dam.’
Gary, who obviously knew the lie of the land, had spared not even a glance for the burnt-out shell of the house where it was obvious nothing could have survived, but he’d moved swiftly toward a bank over to the left. Now he stood on the rise and yelled back to them.
‘They’re over here. They’re in the dam. Doc with about thirty bloody goats and a dog and Sue-Ellen. They’re alive.’
Hugo was alive, but Sue-Ellen barely qualified. He’d heard them come but he could do nothing. The girl in his arms needed all his attention. Her eyes were wide but what she was seeing was invisible to him. She was drifting in and out of consciousness. Her blood pressure was way down and her pulse was thready and weak.
He needed equipment. He needed help.
The grass at the verge of the dam was still smouldering. He couldn’t move.
So he lay, supporting Sue-Ellen, partly submerged in the water. Beside them, her half-grown collie lay and whined and whined, and around them Sue-Ellen’s beloved angora goats shifted in anxiety.
The girl in his arms stirred and seemed to focus. ‘I…can’t…’ she whispered.
‘You don’t need to do anything, Sue-Ellen,’ he told her, trying hard to keep his voice reassuring and steady. ‘You’ve done it all. Your goats are fine. You’ve saved your pup. You’re burned but not too badly. You’ll be OK. People are coming. We’ll both be looked after. Your goats. Your dogs. All of us.’
She was no longer listening. She’d dropped again into unconsciousness.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them Rachel was slithering down the bank toward him.
His Rachel.
‘I haven’t been able to help. I haven’t had anything to work with,’ Hugo told her. The fire crew had laid a thermal blanket over the mud at the side of the dam. Gary-appalled beyond belief-had lifted Sue-Ellen’s limp body from Hugo’s grasp and laid her tenderly on the bank. Someone else had run for Rachel’s equipment. Now they were working fiercely in tandem.
Severe burns. Shock. Smoke inhalation. Why hadn’t they been able to get here earlier? Rachel thought fiercely as she checked blood pressure. Eighty over fifty. Hell.
‘Gary, look after Hugo,’ she ordered. As one of the few professional firefighters, Gary would know basic first aid, but Hugo was having none of it. He brushed Gary aside and reached for the IV equipment.
‘I’m fine. I haven’t been able to help but I can now.’
‘Are your hands burned?’
‘No.’
‘Your voice is rasping.’
‘I’m not burned. It’s just from smoke inhalation.’
‘Well, then…’
‘Leave it.’
She cast a doubtful glance at him but his look was grim and determined. She had the sense to let it be, moving to Sue-Ellen’s mouth, tilting her chin so her jaw dropped open.
‘I checked,’ Hugo said briefly. ‘There’s no obvious burns to her mouth. The pharynx isn’t swollen.’
‘Lucky.’ Rachel placed a stethoscope on Sue-Ellen’s chest while Hugo accepted the bag of saline from Gary and swabbed the girl’s bare arm. IV access would have to be ante-cubital-through the elbow-because of deep burns on her hands. She was still deeply unconscious.
‘Oh, God, she’s dying,’ the young firefighter whispered, and Rachel found time to glance up at him.
‘You sound like you love her,’ she said gently, and the young giant nodded. They were working together to rip away clothing and place the bags of saline.
‘We used to go out with each other. When she was diagnosed with schizophrenia she called it off. Said it was unfair to me. I came around last night to see if she needed help and she told me to clear off. But she didn’t want me to. I could tell. And then today I was caught out with the fire truck and couldn’t check. Hell. I didn’t know… I didn’t know…’
He hadn’t known how much he loved her, Rachel thought, with the sudden insight of someone who’d been down just that road.
‘She’ll be right,’ she said gently. ‘Gary, can you find us more blankets from the truck? I know it’s crazy but the
