Ingram, we’ve got two casualties from the other side of the perimeter,’ a soldier called above the noise of troops clearing the area and checking on one another. ‘They’ve been taken into the medical unit for assessment. That unit’s now clear of danger.’
Nothing, nobody was ever completely out of danger, but she’d keep that gem to herself. Glancing up, she acknowledged the young man who was on his first stint overseas with the NZ Army and sometimes dropped into the hospital to talk or read to patients.
‘Thank you, Corporal.’ His face was chalk white. ‘Did you sustain any injuries, George?’
‘No, Captain.’
‘Right. Captain Daniels is bringing a stretcher so we can shift Sergeant Nurse Brooks. I’d like you to help with moving her.’ Shifting Kelly without doing more damage to her broken body was going to be a nightmare. Even if the unconscious woman couldn’t feel a thing, Sophie knew she’d wince at every single movement. She hated inflicting any pain whatsoever on someone. Her fellow surgeons often gave her grief about that, pointing out that any surgery was followed by some degree of pain.
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
Cooper skidded to a halt by their patient and lowered the stretcher carefully, as close as possible to her body. ‘It’s chaos inside. Injuries all over the place.’
Sophie swore quietly. Why? Who? How could anyone do this to another human being?
Get real, her inner voice snarled. You’re in a war zone. This is what you’re here for.
She knew all that, but reality sucked, brought everything into focus in full colour. On a ragged indrawn breath, she began organising the removal of Kelly from the hot, dusty outdoors and into the relative safety of the medical unit.
‘I’ll be operating with you,’ Cooper informed her as they carried the laden stretcher towards the theatre section.
Sophie glanced at him. ‘Surely you’re needed elsewhere.’
‘Orders. Kelly’s the worst off by far.’ Then he added, sotto voce, ‘If you don’t count the two deceased.’
Sophie’s stomach dropped. She’d been refusing to consider some of the soldiers might’ve been killed. ‘Do we know who they are?’
‘Not yet.’ Cooper locked his eyes on her. ‘If you want to go find out I can take over here.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Getting Kelly stable so we can evacuate her is more important.’
‘I agree.’ He gave her a smile that blew her heart rate into disarray again.
Suddenly Sophie felt light-headed, swaying on her feet as she stared at the floor. Reaching out for balance, her hand found Cooper’s shirt sleeve and gripped tight.
‘You okay?’ he asked, concern flooding his voice.
Dropping her hand as though it had been scalded, she growled, ‘Guess it’s the shock catching up.’
‘It does that.’
She was showing her inexperience in conflict situations. The past two months had been relatively quiet on the war front—near this base anyway. She’d been kept busy with small surgeries but nothing like this. Reaching Kelly, she started appraising the injuries more thoroughly.
‘Multiple fractures of both legs and the pelvis. As well as that dislocated shoulder and fractured skull.’ Sophie straightened up from the bed Kelly lay on, and looked at Cooper. ‘She needs an orthopaedic surgeon,’ which they didn’t have. ‘How much experience have you got in that field?’
‘Enough to do the basics, but the sooner we can get her back to Darwin the better.’ Cooper looked glum. ‘It’s going to be touch and go for her.’
‘Right. Let’s scrub up and do what we can.’ Sophie looked around the ordered chaos, saw the commanding medical officer on the far side of the room and made a beeline for him to explain the situation.
‘We’ve got two others needing evacuation back to Australia too,’ she was told. ‘A flight’s being arranged for two hundred hours. Do what you can in the meantime.’
At the sink Sophie scrubbed and scrubbed her fingers, her palms, the backs of her hands. Sand and dirt and blood stained her skin and had got beneath her nails. Anger at what had happened had her compressing her mouth to hold back a torrent of expletives that’d do no good for anybody. But how could people attack others like that? Used to fixing people, making them better, it was impossible to comprehend the opposite. Her muscles quivered, whether in rage or shock she wasn’t sure, but she needed to get them under control if she was going to be any use to her friend.
‘Easy.’ Cooper’s word of the day, apparently. A firm hand gripped her shoulder briefly. ‘Save the anger for later.’
Turning, she locked her eyes on those grey ones she was coming to recognise as special, or was that the man behind them? ‘There’s plenty of it, believe me.’
He nodded and dropped his hand to his side. ‘I know. It gets me going every time.’
‘Yet you keep coming back.’ She’d heard that Captain Daniels was on his third tour of duty over here. Then she saw the gleam in his gaze and knew he’d picked up on the fact she’d taken note of details about him. Telling him she hadn’t gone out of her way to ask anyone would only stroke his ego further so she spun away to dry her hands before holding them out to the assistant to put gloves on for her.
This whole sexual distraction was ludicrous when they were in the middle of an emergency. ‘Do we even know if the attack is completely finished?’ she asked no one in particular.
‘Apparently so,’ Cooper replied as he began scrubbing up, a smug look on his face.
He could get over whatever was causing that. They had surgery to perform, which left no room for anything else. Sexual tension included.
* * *
Uncountable hours later Sophie smothered a yawn as she leaned back against the outside wall of their little hospital and watched Kelly being transferred to the medic truck that would take her to the airfield. ‘Thank goodness she’s survived her first round of surgery,’ she murmured to herself, suddenly wanting to hear her voice in the rare stillness of the night.
‘She’s got a long way to go yet.’ Cooper loomed up beside her.
So much for talking to herself. ‘I’m worried about her left leg. I suspect she’s in for an amputation despite everything we did.’
‘That patella wasn’t broken, it was pulverised,’ Cooper agreed.
‘Kelly’s a fitness freak, runs marathons for fun.’ Not any more. Or not for a long time and after a lot of hard rehab. Tears threatened. ‘It’s so darned unfair.’
‘That’s war.’ His tone brooked no argument and suggested she needed to get used to the idea.
‘I know. But I’m hurting for a friend. Okay?’ Sophie straightened her back, hauled her shoulder off the wall, took a step away. She’d had enough of Mr Confidence, didn’t need reminding why she was here.
‘Don’t go. Not yet.’ Cooper’s voice was low and, strangely, almost pleading.
She hesitated. Going inside where everyone was still talking and crying and laughing as they finally came down off the high caused by shock over the attack and continual hours of urgent surgery turned her cold. But staying here, talking to Cooper Daniels, held more danger, and she’d had her fill of that already. ‘Think I’ll go to my bunk.’
‘I’ll walk you across the compound.’ When she opened her mouth to say no he talked over her. ‘We don’t have to talk. I’d like your company for a few minutes, that’s all.’
There were no arguments to that. None that she could find without sounding like she was making