MIRACLE ON KAIMOTU ISLAND/ALWAYS THE HERO (14 page)

Until the world settled in its next new place.

* * *

The fire crew had to stop while the world shook but no more cracks appeared in the earth and as soon as things settled Don ordered his crew forward.

They topped the rise and saw the ruins of Henry’s home. A great sheet of roofing iron was ripped almost all the way along and on top of it a woman was tearing at it with her bare hands.

Ginny.

‘They’re in there,’ she screamed at them as Don and his crew reached her. ‘Henry and Ben. Ben... The iron’s come down. Get it off them. Please, get it off them. I can’t bear it. Oh, Ben... Oh, Ben, my love, no...’

* * *

If it hadn’t been for the dust they would have been fine. Or sort of fine. The world gave a giant heave, the mass of iron and debris above them rolled and shook and shuddered, there was momentary pressure on Ben’s chest that took his breath away but then the iron shifted again and the pressure eased—and the heaving stopped.

He was fine except the torch had rolled somewhere out of reach, beaming a useless stream of light into unreachable darkness. The air was clogged with a dust so thick he couldn’t breathe and Henry was rasping with ever-decreasing strength.

What was it they said in planes? Fit your own mask first and then help others around you?

First make a mask.

He was trying to haul his shirt off but there wasn’t enough room to manoeuvre. He needed to rip the thing and who would have guessed how strong shirts were? Note: remember to buy cheaper ones. He couldn’t get his hands apart wide enough to wrench it.

He had a sudden flash of memory of Ginny’s shirt ripping...how many hours ago?

Ginny.

Above him he could hear her sobbing, ripping away at the tin, her voice filled with terror. He wanted to reassure her, to tell her he’d be fine, but he wasn’t yet. It was so hard to breathe.

Finally the shirt gave way, and he wrenched again, hauling the arms off so he had two long strips and large panels front and back.

What followed was more ripping and then wriggling in the darkness, trying to get cloth on his face and the sleeves around to tie his makeshift mask on. But when he did, the relief was almost instant. The appalling, clogging muck was kept out by the barrier.

Now for Henry.

‘Ben? Henry?’ Ginny was screaming from above but there was no way he could use precious air to call back. He had to get closer to Henry. He had to.

He heaved himself forward, risked bringing the entire sheet of rubble down on them, but he had no choice. Before it had simply been enough to reach Henry, to get the drugs to his arm, but now he had to get to his face; he had to fit a mask. The drugs he’d given him would depress his breathing still more.

He was hauling at the rubble, pushing forward—and miraculously something moved, gave and he could pull himself the last foot forward and feel Henry’s head.

‘Mate...Henry?’

He got no answer—Henry’s entire focus was on his weak, rasping breaths.

‘Help me, Henry,’ Ben managed, and swept a handful of dust from the old man’s face and somehow managed to get the back of his shirt across it. He was clearing Henry’s mouth, shifting muck the old man was clearly unable to shift himself. ‘Breathe through the cloth. Breathe...’

‘They’re coming, Ben, they’re coming,’ Ginny called from above, and he gave up trying to tie Henry’s mask in place. It was too hard. He didn’t have enough breath left himself. He simply lay full length in the filth and held Henry’s makeshift mask in position and willed Henry to keep on living.

Ginny’d tell them where he was. Ginny’d bring in the troops.

Ginny...

The thought of her up there in the sunlight was his one true thing. He thought of her again as she’d been at eight years old, standing in tadpole territory, and he thought how he’d decided he had been stupid asking her to marry him when he’d been seventeen.

He should have asked when he was eight.

‘Just keep breathing, mate,’ he told Henry. ‘Just keep on breathing, one breath after another. Over and over. Breathe, breathe, breathe, because Ginny’s up there waiting for us, and I, for one, have unfinished business with the lady. I suspect she loves us both and, dammit, I suspect if we die she’ll blame herself. She’s dumb like that, but there it is. For Ginny’s sake, we keep on breathing.’

* * *

Don’s crew consisted of eight emergency workers, tough, work-ready men and women who were trained to cope with stuff just like this, a few who’d been in earthquakes before, who understood about risk and urgency. This was no massive collapse of stone. It simply needed strength, skill and the right equipment, all of which they had.

Ginny had been trying to haul sheets of iron back from where she’d last heard voices. Don put her aside, snapped a few incisive questions and then set his crew to work.

In less than five minutes the vast sheets of tin were rolling back, exposing what was beneath.

What was there was a massive pile of rubble, dust, grit—and two prone bodies, one almost completely covering the other.

For one appalling moment Ginny thought they were both dead. She’d backed to the edge of the ruin to give the guys space to move but she hadn’t been able to take her eyes from what was being exposed.

Two bodies...

And then one raised his head, revealing a makeshift mask and a face so caked in dust it was unrecognisable. But, of course, she recognised it.

Ben.

‘I’m fine,’ he said in a voice that wasn’t the least bit fine; it was the merest croak through the mask. ‘And I reckon Henry’ll be okay, too, once we get this piano off his leg.’

And miraculously there was a grunt of agreement from Henry.

Ben was hauled to safety first. They tugged him to his feet, he staggered but then stood, unhurt, whole.

Ginny started breathing again. She hadn’t been aware she’d stopped but her body sucked in air like she’d been drowning.

Ben. Safe.

He didn’t come to her. Instead, he watched as four strong men, one at each corner of the piano, acting in unison, lifting the thing clear. And Henry was out, free.

There was stuff to do. Somehow she shifted into doctor mode, adding to Ben’s in-the-dark care, setting up IV lines while Ben snapped orders to keep Henry’s spine steady, watch for his hips and beware of a possible broken pelvis as they transferred him to a rigid stretcher to carry him back across the ruins.

But Henry was giving sleepy directions himself. ‘When are you going to get a tarp here to cover this? There’s stuff here worth saving. Be careful of that piano.’

And Ginny knew, she just knew, that he’d be fine.

Finally, finally there was time for Ben to turn to her, for Ben to take her in his arms, to hug her close.

‘About time,’ Henry said weakly from his stretcher. ‘We’ve only been waiting twelve years for this to happen.’

There was laughter, filled with relief, but Ginny hardly heard it. Ben had her in his arms, against his heart. Her world folded into his; into him. Heart against heart.

He kissed her hair and then he tilted her chin and he kissed her on the mouth, a full, public proclamation that this was his woman, his love.

She melted into him. This proclamation was okay by her. What were her qualms anyway? Last night had been the beginning of the rest of her life. Why had she ever thought she wasn’t brave enough to start again?

How could she not when that start was Ben?

There was slow clapping. Somehow they broke apart and found everyone was looking at them, cheering, and Henry was even leading the clapping from his stretcher.

Ben smiled and smiled at her. Her love. Her Ben.

And then he looked around, still smiling, and said, ‘Where’s Button?’

* * *

She’d forgotten Button. In the midst of her terror her thoughts hadn’t swerved from the two men fighting for their lives in the ruins. When the second tremor had hit she’d almost thrown Button into the Jeep. She’d said stay, and she’d run.

But now...

She was standing in the arms of Ben, who was safe, safe, safe, and a little girl who depended solely on her was no longer where she’d left her.

Ginny was no longer in Ben’s arms. She was staring wildly around her.

‘Button!’ Her yell sounded out over the valley, echoing back and back and back.

The Jeep was empty. She stared back at the ruins. Surely she would have seen... If Button had come anywhere near the ruins, she would have noticed.

She should have noticed. What sort of a mother...?

The cliff...

But Ben was before her.

‘Button’s missing,’ he snapped to the team around him. ‘Four years old. Priority one.’

Triage... When faced with an emergency, take time to assess then look at worst-case scenarios first. That meant no matter who was yelling, who was bleeding, you took the time to assess, see the guy with the grey face clutching his chest, know that even though it might simply be shock and bruising you checked that out first.

So head for worst-case scenarios first. The worst scenario was that Button was buried under the debris...but maybe it wasn’t. Because Ben was turning away from the ruin and striding—no, running—towards the cliff.

The cliff. Dear God.

Below was the sea, fascinating, awesome for a little girl who had no sense of danger.

Ginny gave a sob of terror and followed, but Ben was before her.

He reached the edge.

‘Here,’ he snapped back at them. ‘She’s slipped down a bit but there’s a ledge. Button, don’t move. Sweetheart, I want you to play statues, don’t move at all. I’m coming down.’

And just as he said it a tiny tremor, the vaguest hint of an aftershock, rocked the world. It may have been tiny but it was too much for what must have already been a weakened stretch of headland.

A crack opened between Ginny and Ben. A tiny crack, but it was widening.

Ben gave a yell of warning. ‘Ginny, stay where you are.’

And then he slid over the edge of the cliff, helpless, as the crack widened still further and the land seemed to slide toward the sea.

* * *

What did you do when your life crumpled before your eyes?

Nothing?

There was nothing she could do. She stood numb with shock and terror while around her men and women leapt into action.

They’d been in earthquakes before? Disasters? They must have been for instead of standing like useless idiots they had ropes out of the truck, they were gearing up with harnesses and shackles, and Don was edging out to where the edge of the cliff was a crumpling mess of loose dirt.

Someone was holding onto her, a woman who seemed just as competent as the men but whose job, obviously, was to keep her out of harm’s way.

‘We’re belaying down,’ she told Ginny. ‘Hold on, love, Don’s good. If anyone can reach them, he can.’

The world held its breath. There was no way anyone else could go near the edge—the headland was still crumbling, and another tremor could hit at any moment.

Don edged out, slowly, slowly. Dirt was breaking away as he moved, but he was testing the footing each time before putting his weight on it. He was safe; they’d fastened the rope onto the Jeep and the crew was guiding it to keep it steady but the last thing they wanted was to cause further collapse.

And then Don was over the edge and lower, lower.

‘They’re here.’ His voice crackled through the radio. ‘Send down two harnesses, a big ’un and a little ’un. The kid looks okay and Ben’s holding her. Ben’s shoved Button against the cliff face. He looks in pain—he’s hit something but he’s conscious. He’s kept her safe from the landfall. Harnesses fast would be good. It’d be a bit of a waste to lose them now.’

* * *

A bit of bruising and confusion—that was Button.

One fractured pelvis—that was Henry.

Pain, dropping blood pressure, possible internal injuries, that was Ben. Ginny set up IV lines, gave him pain relief, tried desperately to be a doctor rather than a woman whose man was in mortal danger.

They called in the chopper, and Dave, the doctor Ginny had met the night before, came with it. Dave took over from Ginny, examining Ben fast, concurring with what she thought—or hoped. Was it foolish to hope for the best? ‘Query ruptured spleen,’ Dave barked into the radio—there were directives to take them straight to Auckland—and then there was nothing Ginny could do but hold Button and try to stop shaking.

‘Take Ginny down to the med centre,’ Dave told the team as the chopper prepared to take off. ‘She’ll need something for shock.’

‘I don’t,’ Ginny said as she watched the chopper lift. She’d said goodbye to Henry—and to Ben—but it had all been done in such a rush there’d been no time to talk. Ben had taken her hand and gripped hard, but she wasn’t sure if it had been need or pain making him hold on so tight.

She wanted, so much, to go with him, but her priority had to be Button.

She’d forgotten Button once. Not again.

She felt sick to the depths of her soul.

‘You idiot.’ She heard James’s voice echo back to her, words that had been said over and over in their marriage. ‘You don’t have the brains you were born with.’

She stood in the morning sun and let the words play and replay.

It was her fault that Ben could be so hurt.

Even Henry... She should have insisted he stay with her at the vineyard. She should have...

‘Come on, Ginny, let’s get you down to the hospital,’ Don said, and she shook her head.

‘I’m fine,’ she said dully. ‘No thanks to me, but Button and I are okay. I can still drive. Thank you all for your care, but I need to manage by myself.’

* * *

‘On a scale of one to ten, how bad’s the pain?’ Dave asked Ben as the chopper headed out over the sea.

‘Eleven,’ Ben said morosely, and then at Dave’s look of alarm he shook his head. ‘Sorry. Seven, I guess, so, yes, I would like a top-up. There’s just a few more things going on.’

‘Like leaving his lady,’ Henry said from beside him. They’d set both patients up with headphones so they could speak to each other. ‘He’ll be feeling bad because of Ginny.’

‘Ginny seems okay,’ Dave said, startled. ‘She’s a competent woman.’