The Surgeon’s Family Miracle

CHAPTER TWO

HE WAS caught for the next few hours. At mid morning the roads were declared open. A no go area was declared around the complex of buildings called the Council Compound-a series of bungalows surrounding a palm filled conclave used for island gatherings. Here the insurgents had holed up. There was no clear idea how many were there, or who was insurgent and who was hostage, but a cursory sweep had now been made of the entire island. The insurgents were either laying down their arms and declaring this had been a mistake, or they were with their comrades in the compound.

It had surely been a mistake, Ben thought grimly as more injured made their way to the hospital.

Where was Lily? He couldn’t leave the hospital.

At midday a plane landed on the island’s small airstrip, bringing Ben’s colleagues-people like Sam, who relished trauma surgery. Ben’s role was hands on if necessary but it was mostly organisational, getting on the ground first, assessing what was needed, doing hands-on treatment in the first few hours but then handing over to those more qualified in various specialties. These guys were good and their arrival meant he could often stand aside.

Not today. There was too much to be done. There was a sports oval beside the island’s hospital. The hospital was tiny, totally inadequate to cope with the influx of wounded. Four hours after the arrival of his team and equipment Ben had a massive field hospital erected as an annexe. Operating theatres, a triage centre, ward beds… They’d erected this hospital before and his team knew their stuff.

As well as the hospital itself there was the need to organise supplies. Was there enough plasma? Were there enough body bags?

Would he ever get used to this? Ben wondered, as he worked on into the afternoon.

These were Lily’s people.

Where was she? Every time anyone approached he looked up, hoping it was her.

She’d be aware that she was no longer desperately needed. She’d be searching for her son and for her fiancé.

Her son and her fiancé.

Well, he’d expected her to be married with babies. Why did those two words have the capacity to make him feel as if he’d been kicked?

It was only because he didn’t know where she was, he told himself as the day progressed. It was only because he couldn’t help her.

He was helping her now, doing her work for her.

He wanted, quite desperately, to find her.

Finally, as dusk was falling, the bulk of the organisational work had been done and the urgent cases had been treated. It was time to hand over. Sam was available to take charge.

‘I’m taking some sleep,’ he told Sam, and Sam looked down to where Ben was changing his theatre slippers for military boots.

‘Sleeping quarters for med staff are right through the canvas,’ Sam said cautiously. ‘You’re expecting to die with your boots on?’

‘There’s no threat.’

‘So you’re putting your boots on, why?’

‘I’m taking a walk.’

‘To take in the sights,’ Sam said, smiling. They’d worked together for a long time now, and Sam knew him well. ‘You’ve been on your feet since last night. You’re dropping where you stand. But you’re going for a walk.’

‘No one knows where Lily is.’

Sam’s smile faded. ‘Our Lily?’

‘She was here when I first arrived,’ Ben said. ‘She was close to collapse when I arrived but her kid’s missing.’

‘Her kid.’ Sam’s brow creased. ‘What sort of kid?’

‘How the hell would I know? A kid kid. Pieter-the head nurse-told me she’s got a kid she can’t find but Pieter’s gone home and won’t be back on duty till tomorrow. I can’t find anyone who knows where she is so I’m taking a look.’

‘Grab some men,’ Sam told him. ‘There’s lurgies out in that dark forest.’

He wasn’t kidding. There was rainforest everywhere. Who knew what rebels were still out there, wanting to…?

Kill Lily?

It was a dumb thought, brought about by exhaustion, but even so the thought wouldn’t go away. He felt sick.

‘I’ll be careful,’ he told Sam.

‘You want me to come with you and hold your hand?’

‘You’re afraid of the dark.’

‘There is that,’ Sam said peaceably, with just the faintest rueful grin to show Ben wasn’t far off the mark. ‘But for the gorgeous Lily…I’ll risk it.’

‘Look, she’s an old friend and she’s in trouble,’ Ben said, exasperated. ‘Unless you have any more dumb comments, you’re holding me back.’

‘Off you go, then,’ Sam said, standing aside. He’d almost been laughing but as Ben rose from lacing his boots Sam put a hand on his shoulder. There was a long line of grim reminders out the back of the hospital, reminding them both just how serious this situation was.

‘Find her,’ he said.

Dusk had given way to darkness when Ben made it to the road leading to the compound. He’d been hailed three times on the way.

‘Ben, this lady’s got a kid who got badly mosquito bitten while they were hiding.’

‘Ben, I reckon I’m allergic to the water. You got something to settle my stomach?’

And finally the worst, which was: ‘Ben, we’ve found another body. You want to come and take a look before we shift it to the morgue?’

It didn’t make sense, Ben thought. The insurgents had appeared at dawn and had stormed toward the compound, shooting everything in their path. If they’d hoped to achieve pandemonium and terror then they’d succeeded, but in doing so they’d created a situation where the islander’s allies had been forced to act immediately. This reeked of fools’ work, Ben thought grimly, and a hostage situation, negotiating with fools was a nightmare.

Where the hell was Lily?

The question became a mantra, running through his head over and over. He asked everywhere. The islanders all knew her, but everywhere he asked he received headshakes.

‘Her boy is missing and also her man. We saw her earlier but she’s no longer here.’

He rounded the last corner to the roadblock before the compound. Here were the men and women he worked with, stopping anyone fool enough to risk their lives by trying to get nearer. There was someone in their midst, a woman, her voice raised.

‘I know some were hurt. Let me ask. I’m a doctor. They’ll let me in. Please, please, I beg you…’

Lily.

And he knew his colleagues’ answer before he heard it. First rule of hostage situations-damage limitation. However many were in there, don’t make it worse by sending more.

He saw Lily’s shoulders slump. There was little light out here-all lights had been ordered off-and she was just a dark shadow in the moonlight. But he knew it was Lily.

She was still in theatre garb.

She looked like Lily.

‘Lily,’ he said, and she looked up and saw who it was. He saw the flash of recognition, but he also saw the defeat, despair and exhaustion.

‘Lily,’ he said again, and reached her and held her, and it was just as well.

‘Ben,’ she whispered, and crumpled where she stood.

He carried her back to the hospital. She’d gone past protesting; she’d gone past anything but lying limply in his arms.

What had happened to his vision of Lily as a fat mama with a brood of happy children? he asked himself. She was thinner even than he remembered. She was only five feet four, a woman of half French parentage, and that parentage showed. She’d stood out from every other medical student in their course, looking elegant and somehow right whatever she wore.

He gazed down at her now as they approached the hospital. Here, well out of range of the hostage-takers, lights were permitted on the roads and he could clearly see her features.

Her jet-black curls were still cut into that elfin style he’d loved, tendrils clinging to her face, making her Audrey Hepburn type features seem even lovelier than he remembered. But this was a new Lily, a battered Lily. There was nothing elegant about the bloodstained jeans and T-shirt and theatre over-gown she was wearing. Dark smudges marred her lovely eyes. There was a scratch across her cheek and she’d bled a little. She looked like…like…

Lily.

Why had he let her go?

That was a dumb question. There had never been any thought of staying together, he remembered. They each had their own path in life and they hadn’t coincided.

‘Ben,’ she managed, rousing a little as he reached the entrance to the field hospital. He kicked aside a canvas barrier and found a stretcher-bed. He set her down and her eyes widened as if she’d suddenly remembered she had to do something. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered.

‘You can,’ he said. ‘You have to rest. It’s OK.’

‘It’s not OK.’ She tried to sit up, and as he gently guided her back on the pillows she shoved her hands against his chest and pushed. ‘I need to-’

‘You need to sleep, Lily,’ he said firmly. ‘You’ve worked for thirty-six hours or more without a rest. You’re exhausted past the point of collapse.’

‘I must.’

‘You can’t.’

‘Then will you do it for me?’ she said wildly. ‘Please…Find…Ben.’

He’d thought she’d been talking about her son. What was she talking about now? ‘I’m here,’ he said, but she was staring straight through him.

‘Please.’

‘I’ll look for your son,’ he told her, figuring she was verging on the delirious. ‘I’ll have the men start a search. Tell me about him. How old is he?’

She was focusing on the point where the canvas had been pulled aside to form a door, as if she was expecting any minute that someone would appear.

‘He’ll be with Jacques. He must be.’

‘Jacques?’

‘Benjy,’ she whispered, and the effort she’d made was too much and it was too much effort to hold her eyes open a moment longer. ‘My Ben. He’s six years old,’ she said, defeated. ‘He’s six years old and he looks like you. His name’s Benjy. I called him after his father.’

She slept. Just like that she faded, sinking into a sleep that was almost unconsciousness. Ben stared down at her, incredulous, questions crowding his mind.

The silence stretched out. He stared at Lily as if staring could elicit information, but of course it couldn’t, and the longer he stared the more questions formed.

A six-year-old boy called Benjy…

Could it be?

No. They’d always been careful. They had been medical students, not a pair of uninformed teenagers.

She hadn’t meant it. He said that to himself, thinking there were more Bens than him in the world. She could have been referring to anyone.

He thought suddenly of the last time he’d seen Lily, seven years back. He’d been excited about the life ahead of him, and he’d thought she’d been just as excited about returning here. But at the last moment she’d clung and wept and then closed her eyes and pushed him away. There’d been half an hour until her flight. But…

‘Go now,’ she’d whispered. ‘Go.’

‘Lily-’

‘I can’t bear it. If you stay I’ll break. Please. Go.’

And suddenly, finally, he knew in his heart that what he was thinking was right. Somewhere in the chaos outside, in the dark and frightening rainforest or worse, in the midst of the hostage situation, was a little boy who was his son.

I called him after his father.

He felt…ill.

There was nothing more for him to do here. Dazed, he made his way back through the triage station to the entrance to the island’s permanent hospital. Sam was sitting out on the steps, smoking.

‘That’ll kill you,’ Ben said, but he said it almost automatically, with no passion behind it, and Sam took a couple of drags on his cigarette and ground it out under his heel.

‘Don’t I know it. But seeing I only smoke when I lose a patient, I’m not likely to die any time soon. Damn, the kid had been left too long.’

‘Another kid?’ Ben said, and his heart missed a beat. ‘Who…?’ It was suddenly hard to ask the question but it had to be asked. ‘Not a six-year-old boy called Benjy?’

When Sam shook his head his heart started again but only just.

‘A ten-year-old girl called Sophia,’ Sam said. ‘Head injury. She was hit with shrapnel. We drilled a burrhole to try and alleviate pressure but she died under our hands.’ He shifted his foot and stared at his stubbed-out cigarette as if he regretted extinguishing it. ‘What were these bastards thinking?’ he exploded. ‘This isn’t like any sort of military coup I’ve ever seen. They shot anything that moved. Kids, women… I’ve even seen a couple of shot dogs.’

‘They’re mad,’ Ben agreed.

‘I don’t like our chances of negotiating,’ Sam said morosely. ‘God help the hostages.’

‘No.’ Ben hesitated and then sat down on the step beside Sam. Sam cast him a look that was suddenly concerned and moved aside to give him room.

‘Do we know how many are being held hostage?’ Sam asked, and Ben shook his head. He was trying to think straight and it wasn’t working.

I called him after his father.

‘I need to get a search party together,’ he said and rose.

Sam rose with him. ‘There are search parties from one end of the island to the other,’ Sam reminded him. ‘Looking for injured islanders and rounding up anyone remotely connected to a gun. Why do you need another? Are you still looking for Lily?’

‘I found her,’ he said. ‘Her son’s missing. She’s just passed out on me-she’s been operating for thirty-six hours straight and she’s closer to being unconscious than asleep. I promised I’d look for the kid.’

‘A littlie?’ Sam asked, concerned, and Ben took a deep breath, knowing it had to be said. Knowing it had to be acknowledged.

‘A six-year-old boy,’ he managed, and took a deep breath to give him strength to say the next few words. ‘A six-year-old boy called Benjy. Lily named him after his father.’

The next few hours passed in a blur. At headquarters the officers listened to Ben’s story-the local doctor’s son was missing, as was her fiancé-a man called Jacques-and they consulted lists.

‘We’re searching for them already,’ the captain told him. ‘Others have reported them missing. Jacques is the island’s financial administrator. His bungalow’s in the compound and he hasn’t been seen since the uprising. He’s either a hostage or dead. And Dr Lily told us about the little boy. He was sent to the beach at the first sign of trouble but he would have found his great-aunt dead and everyone gone. Maybe he was forcibly taken to the compound. Or more likely…’ He didn’t need to complete the sentence. ‘I’ve pulled the searchers back now. We’ll search again in the morning.’

‘Why not now?’

‘You know why,’ the captain said patiently. ‘There might still be armed men in hiding, and I’ll not risk our team being picked off. If I knew for sure the kid was there and alive then I’d risk it, but I know no such thing and neither do you.’ His voice softened. ‘Hell, Ben, you know the rules. Is this doctor putting pressure on you?’

‘She’s an old friend,’ Ben said heavily. ‘And she’s been a hero here. In the last two days she’s performed medicine that’d put us to shame.’

‘We’ll comb the forest again at first light,’ the captain promised. ‘I’ll double the contingent to that area. I can’t promise more than that.’

‘And the hostage situation?’

‘There’s no communication,’ the captain said grimly. ‘So we sit and wait for them to make the first move. The last thing we need is another bloodbath.’

‘There’s nothing anyone can do?’

‘For the moment I’m guessing the best thing for you to do is get some sleep,’ the captain said, studying his friend’s face and seeing a strain there he’d never seen before. ‘Hell, Ben, it’s not like you to get personally involved.’

‘It’s not, is it?’ Ben said.

‘Go to bed,’ the captain said, roughly concerned. ‘If there’s any news, I’ll let you know.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And, Ben?’

‘Yeah?’

‘This lady doctor…’

‘Mmm?’

‘How well did you know her?’ And there was suddenly a hint of an understanding smile behind the captain’s bland enquiry.

But Ben didn’t feel like smiling. ‘I knew her well enough. But I’m going to bed,’ he muttered. ‘Just keep the lid on the hostage situation. That’s all I ask.’