Marion Lennox: The Surgeon’s Family Miracle

‘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.’

BEN woke at dawn, and five minutes later he was striding into the original hospital, looking for Lily.

For she was gone. The first thing he’d done had been to check her stretcher-bed and the sight of its neatly folded blanket had made him feel ill.

Hell, he’d slept six hours and he’d needed that sleep. She’d had little more than that and she’d had a lot more to catch up on.

‘Where’s Dr Lily?’ he snapped at the first person he saw. It was Pieter. The big nurse assessed Ben’s face and nodded, as if he now understood something that had been worrying him.

‘You’ll be Dr Ben Blayden?’

‘Yes.’

‘I should have realised yesterday,’ the nurse told him. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking.’

‘You should have realised what?’

‘That you’re our Lily’s Ben. That you’re our Benjy’s father.’

It took the wind out of Ben’s lungs, so much so that he felt as if he’d been punched. After seven years…

‘Where is she?’ he managed, and Pieter shook his head, troubled.

‘She came in here about four a.m. I wasn’t here. One of your men said she should go back to sleep but I doubt she followed instructions. Her son is missing.’ Pieter’s voice softened. ‘If I’m not mistaken, your son is missing.’

Ben flinched. He stood, stunned, letting the words sink in.

Last night there’d been room for doubt. Lily’s words had been almost incoherent, the desperate words of a woman who’d gone past the point of sense. But now… ‘She’s told you about me?’

‘She told me that Benjy was the son of a man she met at medical school. That you’d elected to be an emergency doctor with the SAS. That she’d chosen to come home, to raise your son alone because your worlds could never meet. And then yesterday…while Lily was scouring the island she went to my wife. She sobbed to her that you were here and how could she tell you about a son when she didn’t know if he was alive?’

‘She never told me,’ Ben whispered, trying to rid himself of this sense of unreality, not sure whether he was angry or confused or just…bereft. He should be angry, he thought. The appropriate emotion should definitely be anger, but bereft was winning.