Island Hospital (18 page)

Jim put down his load. “How about a quick lunch before we set off, Doc? It’ll lighten the load a mite.”

CHAPTER
NINE

It
didn’t take them long to douse the fire and leave the place as neat as they found it.

Sheila shouldered her light pack and picked up the slender bundle containing the folding stretcher.

Alan looked at her. “Sure you can manage it?”

Sheila nodded. “It’s not heavy.” She eyed the packs that Alan and Jim had on their backs.

Jim chuckled. “Leave her be, Doc. The lassie’s determined to learn the hard way.”

He swung into the lead with Alan on his heels, and Sheila bringing up the rear. The trail began to climb rapidly as it swung away from the river. The path was soft underfoot and their feet made little sound.

Sheila began to feel that she was horribly out of training. Her light pack seemed to be cutting into her shoulders, and the backs of her legs ached with her efforts. She was glad that she had a good head for heights. No wonder Clare had cried off if this made her giddy. Jim reached out a hand and took the folded stretcher from her while she scrambled up a nasty piece. Alan was sitting on a boulder when they emerged in the open. They were on a spur of rock, which marked the top of that particular ridge, and the ground sloped away gently across an expanse of scrub trees and low bushes. They slipped off their packs and sank gratefully on to the moss. Far below them the inlet stretched in graceful curves until it merged with the distant ocean. Across the horizon Vancouver Island stood a misty blue barrier between the Straits of Georgia and the endless sweep of the Pacific. Northward the mountains marched in broken ranks, climbing sharply from sea level to their snowfields fast retreating under a summer sun. To the south, islands nudged the coast so closely that it was difficult to tell which was mainland.

Reluctantly, they began to scramble through the bushes toward the next ridge. The branches tugged at their clothing or scratched their arms, and it was very warm now that they were in the full blaze of the afternoon sun. They were hot and sticky and frankly panting, when they reached the blissful shade of the cliffs. A dripping spring gave them a chance to quench their thirst and bathe their scratches. They would have liked to linger, but Jim had taken the lead and was pushing the pace.

Alan ventured a question. “How much farther, Jim?”

Jim didn’t bother to turn his head. “Far enough if we have to carry a badly hurt man back to tree level. You mayn’t think it, but it can get cold enough to freeze the blood in your veins after sundown. Lower down you can always make a fire. Moss and scrawny bushes don’t give much heat.”

Alan looked at Sheila thoughtfully. “I’ll take the stretcher for you, if you like.”

Sheila threw him a doubtful glance, but she wasn’t ready to give in yet. “Thanks, but I’m all right for now.”

Alan shrugged his shoulders and dropped back a little giving Sheila a chance to catch up with Jim, who had halted just ahead. “What’s the matter, Jim?”

He shook his head. “Don’t rightly know. Question is which arm of the valley are these chaps in?” He turned back to Alan. “Any idea, Doc? Did they mention a marker?”

Alan reached into his pocket and stared at the scrap of paper. “Just something about a queer cliff that looks like some kind of head. I expect part of the message got missed out in transit.”

Jim stared up at the slope ahead of them. “We won’t be able to spot much until we get to the top of this. Anybody see an easier way?”

Sheila hesitated. She was a little shy about advancing an opinion. “What about making for that chimney on the left? It might save a lot of time if the ledge at the top is wide enough. I’ll go up and look if you like.”

Alan looked at her sharply. “Are you sure, Sheila? We haven’t time to spend on wild goose chases.”

Jim broke in. “Let the lass have a go, Doc. It might save an hour if she’s right. Up you go, and mind the loose rocks.”

Alan stifled the protest that leapt to his lips. He and Jim moved out from the cliff face where they could watch her progress.

Sheila’s confidence grew as she slipped into the well-remembered routine of her Welsh rock-climbing days. It wasn’t a difficult chimney to tackle and there were plenty of handholds. She went up swiftly to where she had spotted the ledge. To her great relief it was a broad one that curved gradually to meet a wide gully leading to the skyline. She turned to wave the others on and her knapsack strap caught on a projection of rock, throwing her off balance. It was a long breathtaking moment while she teetered on the ledge before she slipped out of sight into a cranny in the rock. She slumped thankfully into safety and waited in the shadow for the others to appear.

She was startled to see Alan’s face peering anxiously at her. “Sheila, are you hurt?”

The fear in his voice sharpened her wits.

“Just resting while you two catch up,” she said sweetly. She watched Alan’s angry expression with a perverse satisfaction. What his comment would have been she never was to know, as Jim arrived on the scene, his wiry frame relaxing some of its tension when he saw that she was safe.

“You gave us a mighty fright, lassie, when you stumbled. We kept waiting for the crash, and then Doc here shot up the chimney like old Nick himself was on his heels.”

Sheila stood up a little guiltily. She had been so thankful to have stumbled safely that she hadn’t realized that it might look like a fatal slip from below. She was not only amused but warmed by the careful way in which Jim and Alan maneuv
e
red her up the gully, one below and one above.

They were all more than relieved when they reached the top and saw the white tents of the party nestling in the southern arm of the valley just ahead. Sheila’s brainwave had saved them a weary journey which might have led to their missing the party altogether. They were spotted by one of the men, who hurried forward to meet them.

“Thank heaven you’ve made it, Doc. He’s pretty bad. Struck his head as he fell. He’s been sleeping like a dead thing until about an hour ago, and now he’s throwing himself about and breathing queerly.”

Alan’s and Sheila’s eyes met. This was going to be almost more than they had bargained for. A broken leg or even a broken neck might have proved easier. Jim and the other man drew a little ahead.

“Sounds like a depressed fracture of the skull with pressure building up,” Alan said gloomily. “Good thing there’s a trephine set in the emergency kit. If a decompression does the trick, we can fix up a plaster collar and shell to make transport down the mountain safer. By rights he shouldn’t be moved, but it would cut his chances too fine.”

Sheila stifled a gasp of horror. She had done some neurosurgery in her training, but her memory of that was hundreds of delicate instruments, and all the hush-hush of dramatic surgery. She stole a look at Alan’s face, but it showed no signs of dismay at the prospect of backwoods surgery.

They reached the circle of tents and followed their guide. Two of the party were kneeling beside the injured man, whose restlessness appeared to be subsiding. They looked up thankfully at Alan’s approach and made way for him.

Alan slipped off his pack and took a quick look at the patient. The labored breathing and the bluish pallor told the tale only too well. His eyes met Sheila’s.

“We’ve got no option,” he said grimly. He started to unpack his kit.

Sheila subdued the tremble in her hands and was fumbling in her knapsack when there was a sudden cry from Alan.

“His breathing has packed up! Give me that trephine and a scalpel, Sheila! Two of you chaps do a bit of gentle artificial respiration
...
that’s it. Give us as much room as you can. Ready, Sheila?”

There was no time for thought or even for misgivings. A man’s life was slipping away under their fingers and only a seeming miracle could snatch it back from the brink of the grave.

Sheila knelt beside Alan and dabbed at the small incision with her folded gauze. Alan’s hands moved with swift precision as he slipped the trephine into the opening he had made. There was a brief crunch before he eased out the circle of bone and slipped a slender elevator under the edge.

The circle of watchers tensed as they followed his movements and into the hush crept a new
sound
...
one that had been absent during those drawn-out minutes. Their patient was breathing again as the dangerous pressure was relieved ... they watched anxiously until they could be sure that those slow, long-drawn
-
out breaths were going to carry on.

Alan withdrew his instrument and took the syringe, and its blunt needle with its clearly marked graduations. He drew off some cerebrospinal fluid so that the dangerous pressure wouldn’t build up during their return to the hospital. A final injection of diluted penicillin to take care of any infection that their rough surgery might have inadvertently introduced, and then Alan and Sheila were skilfully bandaging the dressings in place.

Willing hands assisted them in fashioning a tough plaster shell that would guard the patient’s head against further hurt. His color was definitely improving and he was sleeping more normally.

Alan brushed some of the drying plaster off his clothes and looked around at the little group. “With a bit of luck, he’ll do until we get him down to the hospital where we can have a proper look at the damage.” He glanced at Jim. “With relays of stretcher-bearers, how long will it take us to get as far as the boat?”

Jim cast a calculating eye around the circle and then glanced at the sun. “With four of you chaps to supplement our efforts like ... and dark n
o
t setting in till near ten, we should just about make it, baring accidents.”

Sheila found that even the comparatively brief halt at the camp had given her muscles time to stiffen, and clambering over the rocky slope was bad enough with just her own light pack. It was almost dusk as they reached the stream above the disappearing waterfall.

Then, they were on the
Sea Witch
and before long the boat glided into the hospital landing and bumped gently to a standstill.

Morning seemed to come in a flash, but Sheila was surprised to find how much better she felt for the night’s rest. A hot bath removed the last lingering traces of stiffness, and she hurried in to breakfast.

Alan looked up as she came in. “I’ve left a little for you,” he said with a grin.

Sheila surveyed the platter of eggs and bacon. “I’m as hungry as a hunter,” she admitted.

Alan passed her a cup of coffee. “Nothing like a little exercise to stir up your appetite.”

Sheila tucked into her breakfast, a little pink about the cheeks, but happy in some strange way because she had measured up just this once to the high standards of the wilds. It was a brief
h
appiness that she was to treasure in the days that followed.

Alan and George were hot on the trail of something new in George’s particular field, and the older man became as badly bitten by the research bug as George. They emerged for meals bleary-eyed from staring through the microscope, ate with their heads in the clouds or else bandied about terms too technical for both Clare and Sheila to understand. Clare grew very short-tempered and made digs at everyone that stirred even Sheila to protest.

“Don’t you get any fun out of your work, Clare?”

Clare snorted. “Depends on what you’re working at and with whom. We might as well be working in a harem as long as those two backroom boys are aiming for the stars! I’m fed up to the teeth! Why can’t something exciting happen?”

Matron came to the door. “Clare, get the private room ready as fast as you can, please. One of the visitors over at the Island Hotel is being admitted with a dislocated shoulder. You’d think he was a Hollywood director, no less, by the fuss they’re making.”

Clare’s eyes began to shine. “What’s his name, Matron?”

Joyce Painter stared at the pleased little face and shrugged her shoulders. “His name is Max Wheeldon and he’s 40.”

Sheila saw that she was hiding a smile as she turned away. Clare’s face had fallen, but only for a moment. She did a little dance around the dressing ward. “Bet you he’s tall and good-looking and rolling in money!”

“But he’s probably married,” Sheila objected.

Clare snorted. “Trust you to think of that, honey!” She started toward the door. “I intend to have fun with him just the same.” She paused on the doorstep. “He’ll do until Doctor Alan Greenwood consents to put his feet on the ground again.”

Clare’s cool calculating assertion brought an angry flush to Sheila’s cheeks. How dare she speak about Alan in that casual way as if he were some inanimate object to be brought out of storage when required! Sheila hadn’t time to examine her feelings or the reason for them before Alan shoved his head around the door.

His eyebrows went up in a question. “Who’s been stirring you up?” He grinned a little as he saw she didn’t have a reply to offer. “Never mind. Can you give me a hand with a reduction of shoulder?”

As they went along the corridor, a babel of voices hit them. Alan grimaced. “He’s brought the whole flipping hotel with him. They all have different ideas, and the patient’s the worst of the lot. Matron’s having a go at them.”

They arrived just as Matron shooed the last of the visitors out the door ... a quiet girl with soft brown eyes who gave Sheila a searching look when her name was mentioned.

Max Wheeldon stared at them from his perch on the operating table. “Hope you know what you’re about, Doctor. Couldn’t we have a second opinion?”

Sheila watched as Alan made an effort to bite back the first words that came to his lips.

“I regret to say, Mr. Wheeldon, that that will be impossible unless you’re prepared to wait until I can get someone up from Vancouver.” His words dropped like redhot pebbles into the sudden silence.

“Keep your wool on, Doctor. I didn’t realize we were quite so cut off from civilization. Carry on, I’m in your hands.”

He made no further protest while he watched Alan draw up the pentathol.

Sheila busied herself with her plaster trolley. Clare’s prediction had been right. Their new patient was tall and handsome with the air of a man of wide experience. Bold dark eyes beneath a cap of crisp graying hair surveyed the scene and gave Sheila a searching stare that made her feel uncomfortable.

“Nice place you have here, Nurse. Bet your patients enjoy themselves, too.”

Sheila was spared an answer as Alan approached their patient. Once the intravenous anesthetic took its usual quick effect, he put his stockinged foot in the man’s armpit and leaned his weight backwards as he pulled the arm slowly toward him until they heard the satisfying click as the shoulder slipped back into place.

Alan grunted as he released his grip. “That’s done it. Can you slap on a couple of slabs while I hold him upright? That’s the stuff. Now just a few circulars around his middle and then we’re ready for the bracing bar. Dare say he won’t like having his arm cocked up like a misshapen wing, but at least it gives the quickest results. That’s it ... just in time ... he’s coming around.”

Max Wheeldon opened puzzled eyes. “Where am I? I was just having the most wonderful ... the most wonderful dream ... about a pretty
girl
...
”
His eyes focused as Clare came through the door. “See! There she is! It wasn’t a dream after all. Come here, sweetie, so Max can have a proper look at you.”

Clare came over to the table with no hint of embarrassment on her face. “How are you feeling, Mr. Wheeldon?” Her voice was unusually soft for Clare.

“Feeling on top of the world since I’ve laid eyes on you, honey. Wonderful stuff in that old syringe of yours, Doctor. Dish it out to the customers and they feel as if they’ve had the best champagne.” He quietened suddenly and his eyes closed.

Max Wheeldon never stirred as they swung him across and his eyes were still closed when he was tucked into bed in the solitary private room that the Harbor Hospital possessed. Already the visitors had found some flowers to deck out the room. Clare’s eyes were quietly appreciative as she surveyed the scene.

“Nice to see some trimmings for a change,” she commented, and sat down in the chair beside the bed.

Sheila noticed a wondering look in Alan’s eyes as they rested on Clare.

He shrugged his shoulders. “He’s all yours, Clare. Give me a shout if he gets too much to handle.”

Clare’s face looked surprisingly smug. “You needn’t bother, thanks. A little bit of sugar and he’ll be eating out of my hand.”

Alan turned on his heel and left the room with abrupt haste and a commanding gesture to Sheila. She had the impression that if she hadn’t been there, there might have been a lot he wanted to say to Clare.

He beckoned Sheila into the dressing ward. “If you’ll lay out a tray, we’ll have a look at our mountain climber’s head. I may have to draw off some more fluid.”

He disappeared, to return in a few minutes with their patient looking vaguely Elizabethan with his white plaster collar. Sheila smiled at him. “How’s the head, Philip?”