Remote Rescue (6 page)

The ambulance pulled up outside the building, the red on white a beacon of hope for Dawson. He thought it looked more rugged than an ordinary ambulance – a white Land Cruiser with just one line of stripes along its centre. It had lights and a siren, but they weren't on.

A woman dressed in blue shorts and
shirt jumped out of the driver's seat and went straight to the back of the ambulance, opening the double doors. Dawson thought the large spare tyre hanging off the vehicle's left door looked out of place. But he realised it was a necessity out here on unsealed roads in the middle of nowhere.

A man carrying a black bag came out of the passenger side and approached Dawson and Burt. His hair was cut so short, it almost wasn't there. He wore pale blue shorts, a shirt with orange dust stains and a pair of chunky, battered brown boots. A shark-tooth necklace hung around his neck. An image of a toothless shark in the desert flashed briefly into Dawson's mind.

‘I'm the nurse,' said the man. ‘Can ya take me to the patient, please?'

‘You're the nurse?' Putting his hands on his hips, Burt looked at the guy with some scepticism.

‘Too right, I am,' he said. ‘The name's Bruce. Now can I see the patient?'

‘My dad's this way,' said Dawson, heading for the Transcontinental Hotel.

He led him into the building, leaving Burt and Gwen behind, and indicated the doorway. Bruce jumped carefully into the cellar. Dawson remained up top, looking down. Without a word, Sam took Em's hand and stood back out of the way. Bruce nodded to them, then knelt down beside Dad and did a quick examination as he introduced himself.

Bruce took Dad's blood pressure the old-fashioned way – pumping up the armband
and listening to his pulse through a stethoscope as he checked the gauge. He waved a little light in front of Dad's eyes, then asked lots of questions about vision, nausea and how his head felt.

‘Are ya allergic to any medications?' asked Bruce as he put his equipment away into his bag.

‘Nope,' answered Dad, his voice weak, and his face pale and sweaty.

‘Well then, I'm gonna give ya a little something for the pain.' Bruce produced a syringe from his bag and swabbed a spot on Dad's leg. ‘Just a bit of morphine,' said Bruce, jabbing the needle into his leg. Once the injection was done he added, ‘Don't ya worry about a thing, mate. We'll have ya outta here in a jiffy.'

Then he was on his feet, scrutinising the surroundings. He took a quick look at the blocked stairs and the second doorway, then kicked some of the debris away from the floor near the main door. Glancing up, he saw there was no ceiling or roof, the blue sky clearly visible.

‘Picked yaself a nice spot,' he quipped, before springing up into the doorway and heading out. With his shark tooth and heavy Aussie accent, Dawson thought Bruce looked like that guy from those old
Crocodile Dundee
films. A few minutes later he was back with the driver and a complicated-looking stretcher – one with straps and wheels and things. But it was all folded up.

Bruce jumped into the cellar again. The driver pushed the stretcher along the ground
so that one end hung out over the cellar, then she edged past it and jumped down as well.

She grabbed the overlapping end and pulled the stretcher into the room, Bruce gripping the other side before it could fall. They carried it over to Dad and laid it down beside him. Dawson marvelled at the fact that they did all this in a matter of seconds.

‘This here is Jen,' said Bruce with a grin. ‘Fastest ambo driver this side of the big rock.'

Dad actually yelled out when Bruce and Jen shifted him onto the stretcher.

‘Sorry, mate,' said Bruce.

Em clutched onto Sam, scared by Dad's obvious pain, and whimpered. Sam put her arms around her younger sister and stroked her hair.

‘Don't worry, luv.' Bruce winked at her. ‘He'll be right.'

Em nodded uncertainly and clung tighter to Sam.

Bruce and Jen lifted the stretcher to the doorway. Then Bruce hoisted himself up through the opposite doorway and jogged around to the stretcher, pulling it through. Jen followed.

With the experts now taking care of Dad, Dawson suddenly felt a bit useless.

Sam passed Em out of the cellar to Dawson, then jumped up. The three of them followed the stretcher out to the ambulance and watched as Bruce and Jen loaded the stretcher into the back, Bruce hopping in after it. Dawson wondered how many times
the pair had done this before. Countless times, probably.

‘Who's coming with us?' asked Jen, heading for the driver's seat.

‘I will!' said Dawson and Sam at the same time.

‘Sorry, only got room for one,' said Jen.

‘You'll be better at keeping Em calm,' Dawson said to Sam. ‘So I should go with Dad.'

Sam nodded.

Dawson could see the disappointment and frustration on his sister's face. It was obvious that she really wanted to go with Dad. But this arrangement made more sense.

He was trying to think of what else he could say to her, when he heard a vehicle. Turning, he saw their car making its way up
the main road from the camping site. Burt stuck his head out of the window. ‘I'll follow the ambulance in your car,' he said. ‘And Gwen will follow in ours. Now, what about you kids? Which car are you going in?'

‘Do you want to come with me?' Gwen asked Em.

Em shook her head and clung on to her older sister. It was all getting a bit too much for her.

‘I think we'll both go in our car,' answered Sam.

Dawson saw the change of expression on Sam's face. She knew that she needed to stay with Em.

‘Sure thing,' said Gwen.

Everyone got into their vehicles, and the convoy moved out.

It was a long drive. The car sped along the seemingly endless road, the stream of dust in the ambulance's wake making it difficult to see anything. Burt eventually slowed a little, allowing the ambulance and its dust cloud to pull ahead.

Sam looked at Em, huddled down into her seat, knees up, arms wrapped around
them. She looked miserable.
I've got to do something
, thought Sam.

She undid her seatbelt and got up on her knees, leaning over the back seat into the boot of the hatchback.

‘Oi!' called Burt, glancing in the rear vision mirror. ‘Seatbelt.'

‘Hang on,' mumbled Sam, digging through her dad's bag, pulling out smelly socks, extra jeans and endless t-shirts.
Was this bag bigger on the inside?
she wondered.

Finally, she found what she was after. She sat back in her seat holding an iPad.

Dad had brought it along and filled it with guide books and maps before the trip. According to him, the iPad wasn't supposed to be used for game-playing while on this ‘old-fashioned' holiday, saying things like,
‘We never had devices like that when I was young,' and ‘If I could go on holiday as a kid with just some books and the view out of the car window, so can you'.

But Sam knew the iPad was a sure-fire way of keeping Em calm and occupied. Em's eyes lit up as the screen flickered into life. She grabbed it eagerly and was soon lost in a virtual world, her mind finally on something other than the situation they were in.

Meanwhile, Sam stewed. She was angry with herself for so many things – for not breaking into the farmhouse to use the phone, for forgetting the first-aid kit until Dad had reminded her, but, most of all, for playing chasey through the buildings of Farina. If only she had listened to Dad … and Dawson.

Sam felt a small pang of jealousy. Dawson had been the sensible one through all of this.
He
was the one who found help.
He
was the one who tended to Dad and talked to the RFDS on the phone. And now, on top of all this, she felt ashamed about being jealous.

Burt attempted to make conversation, asking about their holiday and what they had seen. But Sam, lost in her own dark thoughts, responded only with single-word answers and non-committal grunts.

She could tell Burt was just about ready to give up trying, when there was a loud bang and the car suddenly veered into the centre of the road.

Dawson sat in the front of the ambulance with Jen, while Bruce rode in the back with Dad.

Dawson would look over his shoulder every now and then, trying to get a glimpse of Dad through the smallish window that divided the front from the patient care area at the back.

Images of Dad falling punctuated his glimpses. He wondered why these sorts of visions always happened in slow motion. It was like something out of a movie … a bad movie.

He glanced over his shoulder again.

‘Bruce'll take good care of him,' reassured Jen. ‘He's the best there is. Been out here nursing for years. And as for your dad's injuries … well, I've seen a lot worse in
people who are now just fine. Bit of a cut and a broken leg. Nothing life-threatening.'

Dawson nodded. He realised Jen was trying to reassure him, but his insides were still churning.

‘Want some music?' asked Jen.

‘Sure,' said Dawson without enthusiasm.

Jen stabbed at the stereo controls, and heavily synthesised techno music blared through the speakers. It was the sort of thing Dad called ‘doof-doof music' because of the constant backbeat – doof-doof-doof-doof …

Dawson looked out of the window at the barren landscape. Flat, dry ground with the occasional scrubby bush; kangaroos hopping along off in the distance; and a raptor of some sort circling in the cloudless sky above.

The music seemed jarring and out of place.

A haze of heat shimmered over everything as the sun beat down onto the desert. But Dawson shivered.

Jen glanced at him. ‘You want me to turn down the air-con?'

‘I'm okay,' Dawson answered, hugging himself.

Dawson's gaze wandered to the side mirror. He couldn't see any cars behind him. He sat up straighter and peered more intently into the reflection, trying to see through the heat shimmer and the dust the ambulance was stirring up on the road behind them.

‘What's the matter?' asked Jen

‘I can't see the other cars,' said Dawson, his voice up a notch from normal.

‘We've been slowly getting further ahead,' said Jen. ‘They won't be too far back.'

‘But I can't see anything,' insisted Dawson.

‘We went over a rise a while ago,' explained Jen. ‘So that's probably restricting our view.'

‘Rise?' asked Dawson. ‘But it's completely flat out here.'

‘Not quite,' said Jen with a little laugh. ‘I know it looks that way. And it mostly is. But there are gradual rises and falls, which are so subtle that you tend not to notice them. On a long stretch of road like this, a slight rise and fall can make it hard to see the cars behind you. That, and the dust as well. We're kicking up one heck of a cloud and it's hard to see much through it all.'

‘Oh.' Dawson stared at the mirror, hoping to see something.

‘Just try to relax,' said Jen.

Easier said than done
, thought Dawson. It was something Dad said often. Dawson finally understood.

Dad was in good hands. There was nothing more for Dawson to do. He knew he should rest and stop worrying. But he couldn't. Possibilities kept popping up in his mind:

What if they lose the other cars?

What if they break down here in the outback?

What if Dad gets worse?

What if Dad dies?

Em screamed.

Burt fought with the wheel and eased
his foot into the brake, bringing the car to a stop.

‘It's okay,' Sam comforted Em. ‘Everything's okay.' Then she leaned forward to Burt. ‘What happened?'

‘At a guess, I'd say we just blew a tyre,' he said, following it up with a groan. ‘That's gonna be fun to change in this heat.'

Burt undid his seatbelt and pushed the car door open, just as the Land Rover pulled up.

‘You can keep playing,' Sam said to Em as she slid open the window a crack – enough so she could hear what was going on without letting in too much of the heat.

‘That's all we damn-well need,' Burt complained.

‘Now don't get all worked up, dear,' said Gwen, hopping out of the Land Rover.

‘We're out in the middle of nowhere,' moaned Burt, ‘with two kids. It's damn hot and the spare tyre's in the car boot that's chokkas full of camping gear, which we're going to have to unload before we can change the wheel.'

‘Getting annoyed isn't going to help,' said Gwen practically. ‘We just do what needs to be done, change the tyre and keep going. We've done it before and I'm sure we'll get to do it again before our travelling days are out.' She patted her husband on the arm. ‘Remember that time we drove across the Pilbara in WA? Two flat tyres. And it was hotter than this. But we made it.'

‘Yeah,' agreed Burt, sheepishly, ‘I guess you're right.' He gave his wife's hand a little
squeeze. ‘I'm glad I've got you to keep me focused.'

And that's when they noticed Sam peering out at them through the partly open window. Sam saw their expressions change. She could tell they were concerned about upsetting her.
Well, they needn't worry
, she thought.
I can look after myself.

‘Sorry,' said Burt with a little shrug.

Sam got out of the car, determined to do something, to not be a burden. ‘I'll help with the gear.' She looked back in. ‘Em, you stay in there.' Then she slammed the door shut.

‘Oh, you don't have –' began Burt, but Sam cut him off.

‘It's okay. It's our gear and the sooner we get the tyre changed the sooner we can go after Dad.' Sam went round to the back of
the car and lifted up the hatchback. ‘I've helped Dad change a tyre before. I know what I'm doing.'

‘Actually,' said Gwen, ‘I could take you and your sister ahead in the Land Rover. I'm sure Burt can change the tyre on his own. And that way you can still get to the airport not long after your dad.'

Sam started to unpack the boot. ‘It's okay,' she said. ‘They can't take us all in the RFDS plane anyway. Daws will go in the plane. We're going to have to wait at the airport … until someone figures out what to do with us kids.'

‘Oh.' Gwen looked sideways at her husband and pointedly raised her eyebrows. He jumped forward and started helping Sam unload.

‘At least this way I'm doing something useful,' muttered Sam.

She knew that unpacking the car and helping with the tyre would keep her mind busy – and stop her from thinking about all the things she'd done wrong.

‘How about I ring ahead to the airport,' said Gwen. ‘I'll let them know what's happened. Otherwise your brother might worry. Then I'll get some cold drinks from the esky.'

‘Thanks,' said Sam without looking up.

‘I think we should stop,' Dawson blurted out.

‘What?' Jen glanced sideways at him.

‘I've been watching,' continued Dawson. ‘They're definitely not behind us anymore. It's been ages since that rise. The road's been flat ever since. I can see pretty far back. And they're not there. We need to stop.'

‘I don't think we should,' said Jen. ‘It's more important to get your dad to hospital.'

‘But just before you said his injuries weren't serious.'

‘I didn't say that.' Jen was looking worried now. ‘I said it wasn't
life-threatening
. There is a difference. What your dad has is a serious injury and he still needs to get to a hospital as soon as possible.'

‘But what if something's happened?' insisted Dawson.

‘Well, how about we give them a ring,'
suggested Jen. ‘We've got a satellite phone here.'

‘Oh,' said Dawson. ‘Do you know Burt's number?'

‘No,' said Jen. ‘I thought you'd have it. Or your sister's.'

‘My sister doesn't have a phone. And I never thought to get his number. We've got to stop. It's bad enough that Dad's hurt. What if something's happened to them?' Dawson's voice had risen again and he was speaking so fast his words were running together.

‘Calm down, Dawson,' said Jen, her voice even and gentle. ‘We need to think this through logically. We're not far from the airport now. It would make more sense to keep going and get your dad onto the plane,
which will be ready and waiting. Your sisters aren't alone. They've got Burt and Gwen, who seem like pretty seasoned travellers. If anything has gone wrong –' seeing the panic in this eyes, she added quickly ‘– and I'm not saying that it has, I'm sure they can handle it. Even if they've had car trouble – remember, they're in two vehicles, so they can still follow on.'