Marion Lennox - The Doctors’ Baby

‘You’re putting two lives in danger instead of one.’

‘Then dig fast,’ she told him calmly, much more calmly than, in fact, she was feeling. ‘And rescue both of us.’

‘Oh, Em.’ Anna was clutching Matt for mutual comfort, but she put her little boy down and came forward to give her doctor a hug. ‘If you’d really do this for us…’

Em hugged her back. And then she stepped away, and looked to Jim. She needed to move fast here before she lost her courage.

She really wasn’t that brave!

‘I need equipment,’ she told the men. ‘Can you organise a line so we can hoist things up and down to me? Medical equipment. Food and water if I want it. Whatever I need.’

‘We can do that.’ It was Jonas, and she had the overriding impression that he was close to tears. ‘Em, you realise it could be tomorrow before we get Sam out. You’ll be down there until then. We daren’t risk pulling you up and down again.’

‘Once I’m down, I’m down to stay,’ she agreed, ‘so let’s get this right first off.’

‘Em…’

‘What?’

Nothing. He stared at her for a long, long minute, while all the impossibilities crowded in on him.

But there was no choice and he knew it. Without Em, they’d surely lose Sam.

But maybe they’d lose both of them.

He couldn’t bear it, and his face showed that to her, too. If he could have cut off his shoulders to do this himself, he would have, she realised, and the thought inexplicably warmed her.

But she was the only one who would fit, and he was forced to let her go.

‘Em,’ he said again, and there was a whole depth of meaning-of longing, of fear and of love-behind his words. ‘Love…’

And he took the two steps toward her. There was no choice about what he did then either.

He took her into his arms and he kissed her.

And then, after a contact so precious neither of them could realise just what it meant, he put her away from him, like a man preparing himself for a nightmare worse than anyone could imagine.

‘Stay safe,’ he whispered, and Em knew right then and there that his words were a plea for himself-not for her.

What followed was a nightmare.

Em’s descent was prepared with as much care as the men could possibly muster. They planked the entire top of the shaft, fitting a net to catch any rubble before it fell. Then they widened the entrance so it was large enough to fit Em, and also so it was dead centre of the narrow gap fifteen feet down.

‘Because you have to drop straight down,’ she was told. ‘You mustn’t sway. We can rig the harness so you drop vertically and then we can pull the harness up so you’re in a sitting position once you’re there, but you have to slip through that gap without touching the sides. If you can’t do that, you risk dislodging…’

There was no need to tell her more. She knew what she risked.

So finally, hard-hatted and overalled, placed in a harness that spread her weight through her entire body and wearing a carefully packed medical pouch around her midriff, she was gently lowered through the hole.

The last thing she remembered seeing as she looked up at the people surrounding her was Jonas.

And his face was desperate.

‘Sam…’

The little boy was barely conscious. Em had been whispering to him as she descended, focusing on not touching the walls but also intent on not frightening the child into jerking when he realised she was there. He hadn’t responded. Now, though, she was within inches of him.

There was a ledge-about ten inches wide or so-on either side of his head. Em shone her torch down to see how Sam was held, and her heart sank.

How had he not slipped through? He was so far through now. One more slip…

There was his head, his hair still bright red and curly, but that was about all that was recognisably Sam. He’d scratched himself falling. His face was bloody and tear-stained, and as white as death.

‘Sam.’

His sightless eyes suddenly focused. He couldn’t look up but, seated in her harness above him, Em’s hand was on his head, gently running her fingers through his curls. Her voice was urgent.

‘Sam, even though I’m here now, you’re not to move an inch. In case you fall further. You understand, Sam?’

‘I…’ He gulped. ‘Yes.’ He was brave to the core. ‘I understand.’

‘But at least I’m here. I won’t leave you.’

‘Mum. Uncle Jonas,’ he whispered. ‘I want them.’

‘I want them, too.’ She forced herself to chuckle, and it echoed strangely in the darkness. ‘But they’re both too fat to come down.’

It was a terrifying experience, trying to hold herself still in the harness and talking into the dark. She had a floodlight on her cap, and the beam of light swung wildly as she looked about her. There was another small torch in her hand which she used to carefully examine Sam. ‘You have got yourself into a pickle, haven’t you.’

‘I’m…I’m scared.’

‘You and me both,’ Em said solidly. There was no use pretending. Sam was too intelligent a kid not to pick up on a lie when he heard it. ‘But we’re in this together, so let’s make the best of it.’

The best case scenario-the one they’d hoped against hope for when they’d lowered Em-was that somehow she could rig a harness around Sam so that he could be winched up.

It wasn’t remotely possible.

One arm was out of sight. The other hand had been forced up and was wedged at an odd angle between his shoulder and the wall. Em could see his wrist and hand but that was all. The extra width of his arm was what was wedging him. If he moved that hand…

He couldn’t. She was almost scared to touch him, much less try and gain a hold. She knew disaster would result.

They just had to play a waiting game.

If he started to slip, she told herself, she’d just grab him around the neck and that one hand and pull. She risked breaking his neck by doing so, but if he was going to fall it was the only chance he had.

Please, let him not slip.

‘Is this the arm that hurts?’ she asked, and touched his fingers with a feather touch.

‘Yes. It hurts so much. It just jabs and jabs.’ She didn’t need to examine him to know it was true. She could hear the agony in his voice.

‘I can help that.’ She forced her voice to be as matter-of-fact as possible. ‘Sam, I’m going to pop an injection into your neck. A pinprick-that’s all. It’ll make you feel really sleepy, but that’s OK. You can go to sleep if you want. The men are going to dig down to reach us and it’ll take ages so it’s better if you sleep. And the injection will stop the pain really fast. Do you think you can hold very, very still and not even wiggle when you feel the needle?’

‘I…I’ll try.’

‘Good kid.’

Great kid.

Please, let him not fall…

Em wished she could sleep herself.

Hour upon hour she waited. Sam slept and stirred and she comforted him. Over and over.

Once she knew she could reach his wrist, she called up to Jonas and he sent down what she needed to set up a saline drip. Somehow, and afterwards she could never figure out how, she inserted a needle into one of the little boy’s crushed arms, then hung the saline bag on the pouch at her midriff.

Please, let him not have any internal injuries, she prayed over and over again. His pulse was thready but that might be shock.

She hung on in the dark and there was no answer to her pleas.

If Jonas hadn’t been right there above her, she would have gone quietly crazy.

He talked to her. Over and over. He lay on the planking above her head and he talked her through every stage of what was happening. How they’d decided against drills because of the fear of vibrations in the unstable soil. How they were digging by hand-teams of men-every able-bodied man in the district seemed to be here now, taking turns to dig, to heave soil to the surface, to shore the new shaft, to chop timber for shoring…