‘Portable kit,’ Riley said, sounding smug. ‘Eat your heart out, Sydney. Okay, Gerry, let’s get you inside. Boys, slide that stretcher in beside him. Pippa, shoulders, Joyce hips, I’ve got the legs. And picket. Count of three. One, two, three…’
They moved him almost seamlessly and in less than a minute Gerry was in what looked to Pippa to be a perfect miniature theatre.
‘I thought this place wasn’t a real hospital?’ she said, astounded.
‘It’s not.’ Riley was manoeuvring the X-ray equipment into place. ‘Dry Gum’s too small for much government funding. Joyce is funded for a remote medical clinic, nothing more, but we have lots more. This place is run on the smell of an oily rag. Joyce and I do a lot of begging.’
‘And blackmail,’ Joyce said. ‘Any company who wants to mine out here, who makes money off these people’s land, can expect a call from me.’
‘Joyce even buys shares,’ Riley said in admiration. ‘She’s been known to get up in shareholder meetings and yell.’
‘She’s a ripper,’ Gerry said faintly. ‘Hell, if she had some money… imagine what our Joyce could do.’
‘She’s doing a fantastic job anyway,’ Riley said. ‘Okay, Gerry, that leg’s positioned, everyone else behind the screen. Let’s take some pictures.’
The leg wasn’t broken. There was a communal sigh of relief.
The wood had splintered. Surgery would be messy.
The ultrasound came next and Pippa watched in awe. Reading an X-ray was one thing, but operating an ultrasound…
She could pick out a baby. Babies were big. Even then, when the radiographer said look at a close-up she was never sure she was looking at the right appendage.
But that Riley was competent was unquestionable. He was checking for damage that’d mean Gerry had to go to Sydney regardless. He was looking at flow in the main blood vessels-evidence that the artery was obstructed; blockage to blood supply that might turn to disaster when splinters were dislodged.
Despite the trauma Gerry seemed relaxed. As long as he didn’t need to go to Sydney, whatever Doc Riley did was fine by him.
‘I reckon we can do this,’ Riley said at last. He cast a thoughtful look at Pippa. ‘How tired are you?’
She was tired but she wasn’t missing this for the world. ‘Not tired at all,’ she lied, and he grinned.
‘Right. We have one doctor, two nurses and an orderly. That’s Harry. Green or not, he gets to keep the rest of the place running while we work. Pippa, you’ll assist me. Joyce, are you happy to anaesthetise?’
‘Sure,’ Joyce said.
‘You can anaesthetise?’ Here was something else to astound. A nurse acting as anaesthetist…
‘Joyce is a RAN, a remote area nurse,’ Riley said. ‘RANs are like gold. Sometimes she’s forced to do things a doctor would blanch at, because there’s no choice. We both do. Like now. I’m not a surgeon and Joyce isn’t an anaesthetist but we save lives. If you end up working with us…’
‘You’ll get to do everything as well,’ Joyce said briskly. ‘Out here we do what comes next. Okay, Riley, let’s not mess around. I have work to do after this, even if you don’t.’
She had to ask. This was tricky surgery and to attempt it here… ‘I know he’s scared,’ she ventured. ‘But surely it’d be safer to take him to the city.’
‘I can do it.’ She and Riley were scrubbing fast, while Joyce was booming orders outside.
‘Without a trained anaesthetist? To risk…?’
Riley paused then turned to her.
‘Think about it,’ he said harshly. ‘Gerry’s seventy years old and he’s lived here all his life. No, that’s not true. He’s lived near here. For him Dry Gum is a big settlement. Even here is a bit scary. If I send him to Sydney I’ll be throwing him into an environment that terrifies him. I’ll do it if I have to, but it’s a risk all by itself. I’ve had one of my old guys go into cardiac arrest in the plane and I’d swear it was from terror. With three of us… I’ve weighed the risks and they’re far less if he stays here. Accept it or not,’ he said grimly. ‘We’re doing it.’
By the time it was over Pippa had an even greater breadth of understanding of this man’s skill. Quite simply, it took her breath away.
He took her breath away.
Joyce was competent but she wasn’t trained in anaesthesia. That meant that Riley needed to keep an eye on what she was doing, checking monitors, assessing dosages, at the same time as he was performing a complex piece of surgery that frankly she thought should have been done in Sydney. By surgeons who’d had experience in such trauma, who had skilled back-up…
She was the back-up. She worked with an intensity she’d seldom felt. She was Riley’s spare pair of hands and he needed her, clamping, clearing blood, holding flesh back while he eased, eased, eased wood out of the wound. The splinters first of all and then the main shaft…
He had all the patience in the world.
It was a skill that awed her-this ability to block out the world and see only what was important right now.
Few people had it. A psychologist once told her it usually came from backgrounds where the skill was necessary to survive.
What was Riley’s background? She didn’t have a clue. All she knew was that there was no one she’d rather have in this room, right now, doing what he had to do in order to save Gerry’s leg.
They worked on, mostly in silence except for Riley’s clipped instructions. That fierce intensity left no room for theatre gossip, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
And finally, finally, Riley was stitching both entry and exit wounds closed. The stockman had been incredibly lucky. To have not severed an artery and bled to death in minutes… To have not even have fractured his leg…
‘He’ll stay with you for a week, though, Joyce,’ Riley said in a seeming follow-on from Pippa’s thoughts. ‘There’s a huge chance of infection. I’ll put a brace on and tell him if it comes off in less than a week he’ll have permanent nerve damage. It’s a lie but it’s justified. If he heads off back to camp, we’ll have him dead of infection in days.’
‘Won’t antibiotics…?’ Pippa started.
‘He won’t take them,’ Riley said wearily. ‘None of the older men will, unless we force-feed them. They see medicine as a sign of weakness. The women accept them now; they see how the kids respond and they believe. We’re educating the kids, but Gerry missed out. So he’ll wear an immobilising cast for a week. And I’m sorry, Pippa, but we need to stay here tonight until Gerry’s fully recovered from the anaesthetic.’
She’d already figured that out. She’d been horrified that he’d attempt such surgery here, but having done it… he couldn’t walk away with Gerry recovering from anaesthesia and no doctor on call.
‘I can manage,’ Joyce said, but Riley shook his head.
‘I’ll be the one who tells Gerry the rules in the morning. Can you put Pippa up here?’
‘It’s a full house,’ Joyce said.
‘Your sitting room?’
‘Glenda Anorrjirri’s in it,’ Joyce said, apologetically. ‘Her Luke’s asthma’s bad and she’s frightened. They’re staying with me until it’s settled.’
‘I told you-’
‘To keep myself professional? I do,’ Joyce said, flaring. ‘I keep my bedroom to myself.’
‘Which is a miracle all by itself,’ Riley growled. ‘Joyce has a one-bedroom apartment attached to the hospital,’ he explained. ‘She has a sitting room and a bedroom, which she’s supposed to keep private.’
‘I don’t mind sharing with Pippa.’
‘You’re having your bedroom to yourself.’ He was dressing Gerry’s leg, and Pippa watched as he added a few artistic touches. Scaffolding from toe to thigh. A dressing around the lot.
‘He’ll think his leg’s about to fall off,’ Joyce said.
‘That’s what he’s meant to think. You said you have a full house. Do you have room for him?’
‘I was counting Gerry. He can have the last bed in Men’s Room Two. But you and Pippa and Harry…’
‘You know Harry sleeps on the plane. He doesn’t trust the kids,’ Riley explained to Pippa. ‘Neither do I. Would you trust kids with a shiny aeroplane parked in their back yard?’
‘You two could use Amy’s place,’ Joyce said, looking thoughtfully at Pippa. ‘I have a little house ready for when she leaves here. There’s a bed and a sofa in the living room. I know you have sleeping bags but I don’t like the idea
