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 w
ith 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.”