But…
The operator was inept. ‘I’m not sure…’ She sounded flustered. ‘It’s after five… I’ll have to try and find their emergency number.’
‘Do it.’
But the need was now, not after the operator had located some vaguely contactable repairman. The cables were strewn right into the crash site.
She couldn’t trust them. One step wrong and they’d be fried. So…
‘Turn the damned power off,’ she told herself as she slammed shut her phone. ‘How?
‘Learn by experience,’ she told herself grimly. ‘The hard way.’ She looked around and found a tree branch-a piece of cypress about eight feet long-and walked toward the power lines like someone would have walked toward a cobra.
At least the wood was dry. If it had been raining the thing would have been impossible, but her branch seemed shrivelled and well dead. She knew enough to figure there shouldn’t be any moisture to conduct electricity.
‘Gemma…’ Nate yelled across at her and she waved as she heard the alarm in his voice. He’d seen what she was doing.
‘I’m just checking the lines.’
‘Don’t-’
But he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t leave what he was doing. There were flames flickering at the edges of the crashed aircraft and if the fire hit fuel…
Would two extinguishers be enough?
The responsibility for the power lines was all Gemma’s.
And somehow she did it. Walking carefully, approaching from behind and pushing the tangle of cables out of the way with her branch, she finally reached the pole. There were switches. About ten of the things…
She didn’t trust that the pole itself wasn’t live. Thinking fast, she tugged off her shoe. It had a rubber sole- surely she should be safe if she kept that between herself and any electricity source. Slipping her hand into its depths she leaned forward and flicked switches. One after another she switched, until all were in the ‘up’ position.
Gloriously, they had notations emblazoned on the plastic surface.
ON. And OFF. And now every single one of them was pointing to OFF.
She’d done it.
They’d still be unwise to trust them if they didn’t have to-to stand on the cables-but she could hope now that they could approach the wreckage with safety. It was a calculated risk but worth it if there were lives to save.
Were there?
Gemma turned back to assess the damage.
The plane had smashed squarely into the dairy. There were forty or so cows lined up ready to be let in the gate. Milking hadn’t started yet so there were no cows in the bales-or what had been cow-bales. The bales were crushed under the collapsed roof and the cows were huddled by the gates to the yard, an uneasy, restless herd.
So what was there?
She couldn’t see. There were smouldering ruins-the dairy had collapsed in on itself and, apart from that one garish painted panel, the plane was just about unrecognisable.
No one could have survived that crash.
Or could they? Was anyone underneath?
She grabbed Nate’s bag and took it over to where the two men were still spraying foam.
‘Don’t we have a fire service?’
‘The brigade should be here any minute,’ the policeman told her. ‘Damned fire brigade… They have their practice every Friday night and I always say if you have to have a fire then don’t have it on a Friday night.’
He glanced at the smouldering ruin and swore. ‘Hell.’
‘Who’s in there?’ Nate asked, his face as grim as the policeman’s.
‘It’ll be Hector Blainey,’ the policeman said, his face as grim as death. ‘It’s his plane. He’s not walking out of this.’
‘No.’ Nate edged nearer, keeping an eye on the cable.
‘I think the electricity’s off,’ Gemma said. ‘I switched off everything I could see.’
If it wasn’t dead the whole site would be live. They had to take the chance. ‘I’ll go in,’ Nate said, edging over the mound of rubble toward the plane.
‘Damn it, Doc… Wait for the brigade.’
‘What will they do that I can’t? It seems solid enough.’
It seemed no such thing. The pile of rubble looked as if it could come down any minute.
But Nate didn’t stop. Carefully he picked his way across the mass of shattered bricks and mortar to the edge of the plane. He hauled away a section of what had once been the dairy roof and then ripped off the garish panel. What he saw there made him recoil.
‘Hell.’
There was no need to ask what had caused his revulsion. For the pilot death must have been instantaneous.
‘One?’ Gemma asked, feeling as sick as Nate looked, and he nodded.
‘I can only see the one-and it’s Hec. He wouldn’t have had any passengers if he was crop-dusting.’
‘He shouldn’t have been crop-dusting so low,’ the policeman muttered, staring around him. ‘What the hell was he doing, coming in so low over a dairy? He must have known the yard would be full. He’ll have known he stood every chance of spooking the cows.’
‘Which is probably just why he’ll have done it,’ Nate said, still staring around at the mess of what had once been the dairy. ‘Hector and Ian Millhouse-the farmer who owns this dairy,’ he explained for Gemma’s benefit, ‘have a long-standing feud. A boundary dispute.’
‘Seems a damned high price to pay for a fight over a bit of fence,’ the policeman muttered, and Gemma could only agree.
‘So where’s Ian?’ Nate’s voice was still grim. He stood looking around him. ‘If the cows are lined up for milking, he’ll be here. Where…?’
And then he heard it. A faint moan coming from beneath the rubble where he was standing. Nate shifted sideways and stared down.
‘Damn. He’s beneath the plane. Give us a hand.’
The fire brigade arrived then-finally-with five volunteers on board. After confirming that Gemma had indeed turned the electricity off, one man took over playing water over the site-cooling everything down. Then they started hauling away bricks, the timber that had been the walls, sheets of galvanised iron still hot to touch…
Until the path to the iron under the plane was clear.
One of the men had a flashlight. He directed the beam underneath the iron in the direction the sound had come from, shining it in under the mess of roofing iron.
And then he whistled. ‘Got him.’
They could see him. But they couldn’t reach him.
The roofing iron formed a plate over the rubble that had been the dairy, and almost the full weight of the plane was holding it down.
They could see Ian’s arm and part of his head-one side of his face. He was eight or ten feet under the iron, the iron seemed to be almost resting on top of him and he looked firmly trapped.
Hell!
It was hell. He was so far in-and he was almost directly underneath the plane. It was a wonder he was alive at all. ‘Ian, can you hear me?’ Nate called, and there was another groan in response. And then…
‘Doc…’
‘Yeah, it’s me.’ Nate’s voice was grim. ‘What’s going on, Ian? Are you stuck?’
‘Yeah. There’s a ruddy big sheet of iron holding me. And I can’t…I can’t feel my legs. Can’t move them.’
‘You wouldn’t want to. With this mess around the wisest course is to keep still.’
But Nate was looking at Gemma and their eyes reflected their fear. Why couldn’t he feel his legs?
