Читать книгу Locked Down With The Army Doc: Locked Down with the Army Doc / The Brooding Surgeon's Baby Bombshell - Scarlet Wilson, Scarlet Wilson - Страница 13

CHAPTER FOUR

HE WASN’T ENTIRELY sure what was going on. Maybe he’d been too forward with the woman who’d shared his bed last night. He’d wanted to envelop Amber in a hug, but her demeanor had told him not to, and he’d ended up just pulling her toward him and gently touching heads.

He still couldn’t work out what had possessed him. He hadn’t held a woman that close in...how long?

Two years. Two long, hard years.

One minute she was there. Next minute she was gone.

Jill Foster had been a bright-eyed medic he’d met in Afghanistan. She was one of the best he’d worked with. As a teenager she wanted to be a doctor but couldn’t afford to go to university, so she joined the army instead. Her skills and natural talent were picked up and she excelled in her role.

They worked side by side for six months. And as soon as he got home he missed her. By the time they redeployed again they were dating. Right up until the day he was felled by abdominal pain. The bothersome ache that had been distracting him had turned into an acute pain and he’d collapsed after finishing a long emergency surgery. Twelve hours later he’d woken up and life had changed.

Life had changed completely.

He’d had an appendectomy. It seemed that the army doc hadn’t recognized his own appendicitis. But in that twelve hours there had been an emergency—a group of soldiers had been caught in some cross fire and had needed to be retrieved. He was usually part of the emergency call-out team. But, when he’d been under anesthetic, Jill had taken his place. And it had cost her her life. While going to pick up their injured comrades the vehicle had driven over an IED, the effect instant.

Gone. Just like that.

He’d never forget the face of the base commander who’d been there to tell him as soon as he came around from anesthetic. The guy looked ill, his face pale underneath his tanned skin. The other soldiers had been retrieved, but Jill and three other members of the team Jack normally worked with had been wiped out.

The numbness spread through his body immediately. He pushed up from the gurney, ignoring any wound pain, and staggered across the compound toward the mortuary. Two squaddies saw him and ran over to help, throwing their arms around his waist to keep him steady.

But no one would let him see Jill.

And he knew why. He did. Surgeons knew better than anyone what the effects of an IED could be.

So, he sat on the floor of the mortuary for the next six hours and vowed to make his time in Afghanistan meaningful.

Everything after that became about the wound dressing.

Wartimes were tough. Surgeons dealt with explosive injuries that no normal surgeon would ever see. And because of his postings he’d grown familiar with the faces around the camp. The cheeky squaddie in the armory. The quiet Yorkshire lad who liked to read books. The gung-ho female sergeant who could give any guy a run for his money. All of them had ended up on his table.

Not all of them had lived. But Jack had done his best. He agonized over any person that he lost. Replayed everything in his mind, wondering what he could have done differently—could have done better.

Once he was in the desert setting, work was everything. He became almost obsessed. The research too was entirely in his focus. He quickly realized how good their dressing worked and what the life-saving implications were. It was everything to him.

It gave him something to focus on. It allowed him to build a shell around himself and close out the rest of the world. He still went above and beyond for his colleagues—he always would. But he’d lost the connection, he’d lost the emotion and empathy that he’d always had within the job.

He’d lost a little part of his heart.

And now? He had no idea what he was doing—in more ways than one. He wasn’t worried about helping after the hurricane. The infectious disease stuff was beyond his professional expertise. But if he had to hunt down people to deliver emergency antibiotics, he could live with that.

What he wasn’t so sure about was the fact that the first woman he’d held in two years had just blanked him and walked away. Was his heart so numb that he couldn’t pick up on female cues anymore?

Amber looked as if she was sucking in some deep breaths as she scrubbed her hands at one of the sinks. The noise seemed to echo around them in the basement. He couldn’t stand it. Should he apologize for holding her?

He shook his head and stalked across the corridor to the other room. The IV antibiotics were feeding slowly through to both Zane and Aaron. Both of them were still sedated and ventilated. He glanced at the monitors and then at their charts. The nurse came over and stood with him at the end of Zane’s bed. She gave her head a slight shake. “I still don’t know if he’s reacting to the medicines. He still seems so flat.” She gestured toward the rise and fall of his chest.

Jack nodded. He understood what she meant. All of Zane’s accessory muscles were working around his chest area. With ventilation and sedation he should be in a much more stable position. It was almost as if his body was fighting against everything.

Aaron seemed much more settled. His heart rate, temperature and blood pressure were good. It seemed that he was reacting better to the treatments and medications.

The lights flickered again and the television monitor in the room across the hall shorted out. The nurse’s face paled. “This is it,” she said warily. “The TV signal is gone. The hurricane is about to hit.”

Amber appeared back in the doorway. She looked awful. “What do you do next?”

The nurse gave the briefest shake of her head. “Hunker down.”

* * *

For the next four hours they held their breaths as they waited to see if they would come out the other side of the hurricane. It didn’t matter they were in the basement with no windows or possibility of flying glass. At times the whole foundation of the building seemed to shudder and Jack wondered if the whole hospital could end up on top of them. Doors and windows throughout the hospital must have been affected as the doorway to the stairwell at the end of the corridor continued to rattle incessantly. It was impossible to stay still for four hours. They had patients to look after, and Jack couldn’t help but worry about the patients above them and the people outside. They tiptoed around each other in a kind of unspoken frustration. The phone lines had died. Between them they’d managed to reach fourteen of the local people who had stayed overnight in the same accommodation as Zane and Aaron.

“I thought the eye of the hurricane was supposed to be silent. Quiet even,” he said to one of the older nurses.

She shook her head. “Maybe in a movie. Or in a fairy tale. I’ve only seen two hurricanes. And there was no silence. Except when they were over. We’re being hit by the fiercest part of the storm right now. Anything or anybody out there right now probably doesn’t stand a chance. Anything not anchored or cemented to the ground will likely never be seen again. Or end up on one of the other islands.” She sighed, and he realized she must be thinking about her family on Oahu. He put his hand on her arm.

“I’m sure they’re safe. Just like we are.”

She gave the briefest of nods and then marched over to the monitors and started pressing buttons again. Jack was exasperated. He needed to be doing something. Anything. But he’d done everything he could down here.

Ty had been started on the antibiotics too. And he, in turn, had been concerned about his employees with young families.

Amber took the time to explain how meningitis passed from person to person and how, at the moment, unless an employee showed signs themselves, their families weren’t at risk.

She seemed to circumvent Jack wherever he went. And that was fine. If he’d overstepped he was glad of the message.

They monitored Zane carefully, watching his limbs closely for any visible signs of septicemia. Eventually, Jack finally made his way up the stairwell to see if he could be of assistance in any other part of the hospital. He’d only made it to the first floor before he could hear the rattle throughout the building. The door at the stairwell had been juddering loudly, obviously being buffeted by wind that had found a way inside the hospital.

Jack stuck his head through tentatively. No patients should be on the first floor or the top floor. Flash flooding and roof damage were two of the major probable issues. The evacuation plan dictated that most patients were moved to central areas on the second and third floors.

“Hello?” he shouted. He concentrated and listened hard. All he could hear was the wind whistling through the building and the sound of thudding rain.

He pulled his head back in and started up to the second floor. There definitely would be patients and staff up there. There was a crowd of people in green scrubs standing at the entrance to the stairwell on the second floor. A few glanced in his direction as he pushed through. He held out his hand to the nearest member of staff with a stethoscope around his neck. “Jack Campbell, Senior Medical Officer, British Army. Can I do anything?”

He could see a myriad people in the corridors with swabs held to arms and heads. The man gave a brief nod. “Oh, yeah, the army guy. I heard about you. I’m Ron Kekoe. Head of the ER. We’ve had to move upstairs in case of flash flooding.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re going to give it a few hours then move back down, and send out teams as required.” He pointed toward a makeshift desk just along the corridor. “Phones are down but we’ve got radios to contact other emergency services and the evacuation shelters.” His face was serious. “We’ve already had a few reports of winds up to one hundred and eighty miles an hour and roofs being torn off buildings. There will be casualties.” He frowned for a second and Jack realized someone had appeared beside him.

Amber, breathing heavily. She must have run up the stairs after him. His first thought was for the teenagers. “Zane? Aaron?”

She shook her head. “No. They’re just the same. But I realized I probably wasn’t much use down there. One of the residents is staying with them. I thought I should probably come and help.”

He could hear it. That little edge of nerves in her voice. It was clear, however, that Ron didn’t hear it. He just gave a nod. “The infectious disease doctor?”

Amber didn’t seem to mind the label and held out her hand. “Amber Berkeley, DPA.”

Ron gave her a half-suspicious look. “Someone mentioned you wanted to take antibiotics out.” He shook his head fiercely. “No way. Not anytime soon. First vehicles that go out will be heading up portable trauma bays. If it’s near to where you need to be, you’re welcome to tag along—provided you do some doctoring.”

He didn’t even wait for Amber’s reply. Jack got that. Everything about this was familiar territory to him. This was all about triage, all about prioritizing. Ron gave them both a nod. “Can you deal with some minor injuries? There’s nothing too threatening. Just flying glass and debris. A few staff were caught. If you could clean and stitch that would be great.”

Amber gave a quick nod of her head and walked around Jack, heading toward the first person with a bloody wound pad pressed to their forearm.

He watched for a few seconds as he could see her swallow nervously. This was different for her. And he got that.

He moved on over and started treating the next member of staff who had a cut on their forehead.

He was methodical. And he was quick. All the injuries were relatively minor.

But as he worked steadily he noticed the continued chaos around him. Although the external phone lines weren’t working, the internal phones rang constantly. Staff seemed to be disorganized, and Ron, as Head of the ER, seemed out of his depth.

Jack couldn’t help himself. He walked over. “How about you let me do some of this?”

Ron looked up from a prescription he was writing. Three other members of staff were waiting to talk to him and the radio was crackling constantly on the table.

“What can you do?”

Jack pointed to the desk. “I have experience of crisis triage. How about I field all the radio calls? I can take the details and liaise with the other agencies. We need to know what’s needed and where. As soon as the winds die down we could have teams packed up and ready to go. What do you say?”

He was trying so hard not to overstep. He could see Ron was struggling with the volume. He might not know Jack, but surely he would let him help?

Ron only paused for a few seconds as the radio continued to crackle.

“Perfect. Let me know if there’s anything major.”

“You got it.” Jack settled at the desk and picked up the radio. There were a few notes already about building damage—but no reports about casualties. There was a footnote querying whether a home with disabled residents had been evacuated, with a note to check with the nearest evacuation center. There were a few other notes from a care agency who had several housebound residents that they hadn’t been able to get to. Chances were they were safe. Most Hawaiians knew about the potential threats and what to do. But the infirm or frail would probably not have been able to put all preparations in place without assistance.

There seemed to be no standard way of keeping track of all the information, so Jack added all the names and addresses to a list for checks and pulled out a citywide map to start charting where everyone was.

Some staff were reporting that the sky was almost black now. No one with any thought to safety could possibly go outside.

The chatter on the radios was constant, along with the background noise of the hammering winds. Even though they’d been told not to, some of the staff squinted past mattresses at the windows and let out squeals and gasps. “Did you see that?”

“That car just flipped!”

“Oh, my, look over there. The roof’s coming off that building like a tin can!”

“Those trees are bending like drinking straws.”

“That one’s going to snap for sure!”

The rain thudded off the windows, battering down in among the wind’s fury. Debris flew through the air, randomly hitting windows and shattering glass.

Jack tried to tune it all out, focusing on the task he’d been given and trying to keep a clear head. But even though he tried, his eyes were distracted by the woman who’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail and seemed to be cleaning and stitching wounds precisely. She had a quieter nature when working with staff who were patients, and, even though he’d seen a smattering of nerves earlier today, he would never question her clinical skills.

Reports continued to come in and his list grew longer and longer. By the time Amber came over and sat down next to him, he’d started to separate out all the calls by seriousness and area.

She looked down at the lists and charts he had spread across the table. “Wow. You’re really keeping on top of this. How many teams do we have?”

“Probably less than we actually need.” He didn’t mean his answer to seem quite so brusque.

Amber shot him a strange sideways glance. “Do you know how many staff we have, and how many transportation vehicles?”

He glanced over at Ron, trying to hide his frustration. “Ron hasn’t told me yet. Search and Rescue say no one leaves unless they deem it necessary. There can be risks of flash flooding.”

Ron appeared next to Jack and blanched when he saw the list and map covered in colored dots. Jack stood up. “The eye of the hurricane has passed. How about we send staff back down to the first floor to reopen the ER? It’s important that people have a central point to come to.”

Ron nodded in agreement.

“Makes sense.” Amber pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and smoothed it out in front of her. “So, do any of the areas where teams will be sent have patients we’ll be looking for?”

He could tell she was trying to sound reasonable. He knew perfectly well that as soon as the winds died down she wanted to find a car and get around all the contacts immediately.

He pulled out his own list. He hadn’t forgotten that he’d offered to help her. “Trouble is, it’s so dark out there now. With all the debris, the roads will be hard enough to maneuver along. What with no street lighting, things will be much worse.” He pointed to colored dots he’d stuck on the map. “The blue dots are addresses where we need to give people antibiotics. What complicates things is that some of these people might not have stayed in their own homes. The statewide evacuation shelters are all based in high schools or elementary schools. Chances are, some of them might have gone there.”

“We have no way of telling?”

Jack shook his head. “Not right now. There could be thousands of people in each of the evacuation shelters. With limited communications, there’s no way for us to find out.”

“Any news about Aaron’s parents?”

Jack shook his head again. “I’ve not heard a thing about them. If I do, I’ll let you know.”

He could see her swallowing nervously as she pointed to another part of her notes. “These people, there’s fourteen of them. That includes the three close contacts who had traveled internationally. We’ve contacted Florida, Texas and New Zealand. It’s up to their own public health departments to make contact and issue the antibiotics. We also had four kids go back to Oahu. Honolulu staff are coordinating for them. Another two kids are on Maui and one more on Kauai. Local doctors will deal with them.”