on her hand gradually lessened. She thought he was drifting into sleep, but maybe the rocks were too hard. The morphine didn’t cut it.
‘So your Josh abandoned you and joined Cairns Air Sea Rescue?’ he whispered at last.
Oh, her back hurt. She wouldn’t mind some of that morphine herself …
Talk, she told herself. Don’t think of anything but distracting Malu.
‘I think that other people’s trauma, other people’s pain, are things he can deal with,’ she managed, struggling to find the right words. Struggling to find the right answer. ‘But losing our baby … It hurt him to look at me hurting, and when Holly died, he didn’t know where to put himself. He couldn’t comfort me and he thought showing me his pain would make mine worse. He couldn’t help me, so he left.’
‘Oh, girl …’
‘I’m fine,’ she whispered, and Malu coughed again and then gripped tighter.
‘I dunno much,’ he wheezed. ‘But I do know I’m very sure you’re not.’
‘Not what?’
‘Fine. You’re hurting and it’s not just the memory of some low-life husband walking out on you.’
‘I’m okay.’
‘I can tell pain when I hear it.’
‘I got hit by a few rocks. We both have bruises all over.’
‘There’s room on my pillow to share.’
‘It’s not exactly professional—to share my patient’s bed.’
‘I’m just sharing the pillow,’ Malu told her with an attempt at laughter. ‘You have to provide your own rock base.’
She tried to smile. Her phone pinged and she’d never read a text message faster.
Hey, you. Quick update? Tell us you’re okay. Josh.
‘Is that telling us the bulldozers are coming?’ Malu demanded, and the threadiness of his voice had her switching on the torch again. ‘Hey, it’s okay,’ he managed. ‘You tell them … tell them to tell Pearl I’m okay. But I wouldn’t mind a bulldozer.’
‘I wouldn’t mind a piece of foam,’ she told him, and tried to think of what to say to Josh. Apart from the fact that she was scared. No, make that terrified. She hated the dark and she was starting to panic and the dust in her lungs made it hard to breathe and the cramps …
Get a grip. Hysterics were no use to anyone.
She shouldn’t have come in in the first place, she told herself.
Yeah, and then Malu would be dead.
Josh wanted facts. He couldn’t cope with emotion.
Yeah, Josh, we’re fine.
JOSH WASN’T ON Wildfire to dig into a mine and pull people out. Not even Maddie. Josh was there to assess medical need, perform triage, arrange evacuation where possible and then get his hands dirty dealing with injuries needing on-the-ground treatment.
And there was a need. The locals were doing all they could, but the medical team here consisted of one doctor and two nurses. It had apparently taken the doctor—an islander called Keanu—time to get there, and the guy who had been injured first was taking up his attention. A fractured leg followed by a cardiac arrest left room for little else.
But there was more medical need. Apparently, before Keanu had arrived, the miners had fought their way back into mine, frantically trying to reach their injured mates. It hadn’t worked. There’d been a further cave-in. Further casualties. Keanu barely had time to acknowledge Josh and Beth’s arrival.
There was still a sense of chaos. Keanu had ordered everyone back from the mine mouth but no one seemed to be in charge of rescue efforts.
‘Where’s the mine manager?’ Josh snapped as he surveyed the scene before him. A group of filthy miners were huddled at the mouth of the mine, with pretty much matching expressions of shock and loss. Keanu had organised the casualties a little way away, under the shade of palm trees. He and the nurses were working frantically over the guy with the injured leg, but he shook his head as Josh approached.
‘We have everything we need here. It’s touch and go for this guy and there’s others needing help. The guy with the arm first.’ He motioned across to where a miner was on the ground, his mate beside him.
‘No breathing problems?’
‘They’ve all had a lungful of rock—we could use a tank of oxygen—but …’
‘I’ll get Beth to do a respiratory assessment. Beth?’
‘Onto it.’ She was already heading for the truck, for oxygen canisters. ‘Okay, guys,’ she called. ‘Anyone want a face wipe and a whiff of something that’ll do you good? Line up here.’
‘What’s happening down the mine?’ Josh asked.
‘Hettie’s called the mining authorities in Cairns. We need expertise. They’re sending engineers and equipment now.’
From Cairns. It’d take hours.
Maddie was down there.
Keanu was adjusting a drip, watching the guy’s breathing like an eagle watched a mouse. A tiny thing, the rise and fall of a chest, but so important. ‘So you’re the ex-husband,’ he managed.
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah, well, we all love Maddie, but she’s in there now and it’s up to the experts to get her out. Meanwhile, sorry, mate, but there’s more work here than we can handle. We’re still trying to stabilise. We have a suspected ruptured spleen, a guy with an arm so crushed he might lose it, a fractured leg with shock and breathing problems and more. Could you look at the spleen for me?’
And somehow Josh had to stop thinking of Maddie underground, Maddie trapped, Maddie deep in a mine where there’d already been two major rockfalls. He needed to focus on the here and now.
Triage …
He headed across to the guy with the suspected ruptured spleen. As long as he wasn’t going into shock—which he could be if the rupture was significant—then the arm was the first priority. If he could save it.
Four underground. Including Maddie.
‘Who’s the mine manager?’ he snapped, asking it not of Keanu, who was committed to the patient under his hands, but of the miners in general.
‘Ian Lockhart,’ one of the men ventured. ‘At least, he’s supposed to be in charge but he lit out when the debt collectors started sniffing around.’
‘Was he in charge of day-to-day running of the mine?’
‘That used to be Pete Blake. Max Lockhart owns the island but he’s never here. He put Pete in charge but Ian reckoned he knew it all. He sacked Pete last year and took over the day-to-day stuff himself. Reuben Alaki’s acting supervisor now but …’ He hesitated and his voice cracked. ‘Reuben’s one of the guys stuck down there.’
‘Is Pete still on the island?’
‘He’ll probably be out fishing.’
‘Get him,’ Josh snapped. ‘Use one of the island choppers to bring him here—do an air drop.’
‘What, pluck him off his boat and drop him here?’
‘Exactly,’ Josh snapped. ‘We need expertise now.’ He bent over the guy with the fractured arm. Compound. Messy. ‘Okay, mate, let’s get you assessed and see if we can do something for the pain. Meanwhile let’s get things moving to get your mates out from