The trap was still in place, cruelly cutting the foot between wrist and toe. The wound on the dog’s leg had turned into a festering mess. The tissue was necrotic, Jess thought grimly, her nose wrinkling at the unmistakable smell. She could see bone-the metacarpals-through the torn flesh. They must be broken.
Heaven knew how the dog had managed to get this far with the trap still cutting into him-and heaven knew how he’d survived this long with a wound like this.
‘Oh, Harry…’
She stroked the dog’s head with a hand that trembled and then took a deep breath. Emotion would help nothing. What had to be done should be done quickly.
‘Hand me my bag,’ she told Niall Mountmarche as she came to her hard decision-but the tremor in her voice was unmistakable.
‘What will you do?’ Niall Mountmarche was looking down at the dog’s leg and the expression on his face was pretty much how Jess was feeling. Sick.
‘Put him down.’
Niall’s face swung from dog to girl.
‘I thought you said the dog wasn’t yours?’ he demanded.
‘He’s not. Could I have my bag, please?’
Niall didn’t move. He looked back to the dog’s leg. ‘Doesn’t the owner have the cash or inclination to pay for your services then, Dr Harvey?’
The emphasis on the word ‘Doctor’ was almost a sneer.
Jessie flushed.
‘I can’t operate,’ she said stiffly.
‘But you said you were a vet.’
‘Yes. I’m a vet. And I need to stop Harry suffering even more. Could you pass the bag, please?’
‘But you could operate.’ Gently Niall Mountmarche moved forward and lifted the dog’s leg from where it lay across Jessie’s bare knee. The dog hardly stirred. Niall examined the leg with caution, touching the pad with infinite care.
‘There’s warmth in his pad,’ he told Jessie. ‘There’s still some circulation. I don’t think he’d even have to lose his leg. Once we get the trap off…’
‘I don’t think you understand,’ Jessie said flatly. ‘I haven’t the facilities to operate.’
‘But you are a qualified vet?’
‘Yes.’
Niall’s face stilled. ‘Then you’ll be the vet who put my uncle’s dog down. The easy way out-is that it, Dr Harvey? You didn’t wait for my permission before killing my uncle’s dog.’
Jess closed her eyes. Her hands still stroked the dog’s matted fur and she fought to keep her voice calm so as not to frighten Harry even more.
‘Your uncle’s dog was an old, old Dobermann,’ she said softly, trying not to look up at those accusing eyes. ‘He’d been trained to attack to kill anything and anybody who wasn’t his owner. He was starving and near death when we found him; he had some sort of arthritic debility in his back legs and even if I’d saved him he was too old to form a bond with a new owner.
‘Maybe…maybe if you’d been in closer contact with your uncle-if I could have found you quickly-but as it was we didn’t know Louis Mountmarche had a living relative…’
‘Are you saying it’s my fault the dog had to die?’
‘I’m saying, given that there was no owner, I had no choice,’ Jessie snapped. ‘As I have no choice now.’
‘But this dog has an owner and he’s younger.’ Niall’s attention had changed focus again-from anger back to concentration. He bent over the wounded pad and examined it with care, seemingly not repulsed by the stinking flesh. ‘How old, Dr Harvey?’
‘He’s only three,’ Jessie said sadly. She shook her head. ‘I know…Given different circumstances…’
‘What different circumstances?’
‘An assistant who can given an anaesthetic.’ Jessie sighed. ‘You’re right. Maybe-maybe if I could put him under an anaesthetic and clean up the mess then he’d have a chance. But he’s in dreadful condition. It’s going to take me ages to set the bones and clean up the mess.
‘He won’t tolerate the intravenous anaesthetic I can give myself-and there’s no way I can operate on a dog as sick as this and intubate at the same time. Intubating and operating by yourself is like drunk driving-OK if conditions are perfect and nothing goes wrong. But there are already major things going wrong here. So…I think it’s kinder to acknowledge defeat now.’
Niall Mountmarche’s dark brow snapped down. ‘Don’t you have a trained vet nurse?’
‘This is a tiny island,’ Jessie told him. ‘What I really need is another vet-but, no, I don’t even have a trained nurse.’
‘But…’ Niall’s fingers had moved to fondle the dog’s soft ears. The big collie seemed almost unconscious. He’d gone past fear. He lay, passive and trusting, and Jessie’s heart went out to the magnificent animal. ‘What about the island human medical services? Surely there’s a doctor and nurses on the island who could help out?’
‘There are.’ Jessie’s face set. ‘But the nurses haven’t the training to give anaesthetic. And the doctor won’t.’
‘“Won’t”?’
Niall echoed the word blankly and it hung between them in the soft morning sunshine. A question…
‘“Won’t”,’ Jessie repeated. She held out her hand in silent demand. ‘Please…Could you pass me my bag?’
Niall Mountmarche ignored her. ‘What do you mean, “won’t”?’
Jess sighed. ‘The island’s two trained doctors-a husband-and-wife team-are away for twelve months doing further training on the mainland. The locum replacing them had to leave because of family problems and the present locum-well, Lionel Hurd won’t touch animals. He says it’s not in his contract and he’s right.’ She sighed again. ‘I can’t force him.’
‘So Harry dies.’
‘So Harry dies,’ Jess said sadly. She looked up at Niall then and met those dark, angry, eyes full-on. ‘Unless you have any other suggestions, Mr Mountmarche?’
There was a long, long silence.
‘Hand me my bag,’ Jess said finally again into the stillness-but Niall Mountmarche shook his head.
He touched the injured dog’s leg once more and gentle fingers carefully probed the rotten flesh. His touch was so gentle that the dog didn’t so much as flinch.
Finally Niall nodded, as if coming to a hard decision.
‘I do have an alternative suggestion,’ he told Jess, his voice firming as he spoke.
‘Which is?’ Jessie sounded sceptical, she knew. Her voice was flat and hopeless-but she loved this dog.
‘I’ll give the anaesthetic.’
‘You!’
He shrugged. ‘I can do it.’
‘But how…?’ Jess looked down at those long, sensitive fingers, skilfully and gently examining the wound. ‘You’re not…’
‘A vet? No.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not. So you’re going to have to talk me through it, Dr Harvey. But I do have medical skills. I’m a doctor.’
CHAPTER TWO
A DOCTOR…
Jessie’s jaw sagged. It took a real effort to haul her mouth closed again.
‘I don’t believe…’ she started and then, at the look on Niall Mountmarche’s face, she stopped.
He hadn’t believed that she was a vet-and now she was showing the same distrust.
A doctor…
From Ogre of Barega to medical doctor-like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde…
