Marion Lennox - Bride by Accident

‘Yes,’ she told her.

‘I’ll call Chrissy Martin to look after Mr Jeffries while I look after the others,’ Katy said. ‘She reckons she’s going to be a doctor and she doesn’t get sick when anyone bleeds.’

‘Are all the kids out of the bus?’ Please…

‘There’s two still left,’ Katy told her, and Emma forgot about medals. ‘Kyle Connor and Suzy Larkin. I was just coming to look for them.’ She looked dubiously at the bus. ‘You reckon it’s safe to go back inside?’

‘I’ll look for you,’ Emma told her, staring with her at the bus with a sinking heart. ‘You have work to do.’

So did she.

Someone had to climb into the bus.

Kyle and Suzy. Two children. Two children on the bus.

There was sea under the bus. Thirty feet down. What was stopping the bus from sliding into the sea?

Nothing.

She looked back at the rest of the adults to see if there was anyone who could possibly help her.

Not the doctor. If he left what he was doing…well, he couldn’t.

The other adults? One sick, one too stunned to be any use at all, one injured.

Not a snowball’s chance in a wildfire of any help from this lot.

She couldn’t ask the kids.

Which left her.

She gulped.

‘Don’t slide,’ she told the bus. Stupidly. Inconsequentially. ‘Don’t you dare slide. I haven’t come all this way to get squashed.’

Squashed wasn’t a good thought and she couldn’t afford to think it. If she hesitated any more she wouldn’t do it. There was no choice.

Two kids.

She reached up, grabbed the top of the window-frame and hauled herself up and inside the bus.

She was met by chaos.

A bus, lying on its side at a thirty or forty degree angle on the side edge of a cliff wasn’t the most organised place to be at the best of times. And this one had been crushed by rolling logs.

There was shattered glass, twisted metal and seats, satchels spilling schoolbooks…

How had so many kids got out of here alive? Emma asked herself as she tried to get her bearings.

The frame was still almost intact. That’d be why. There’d be cuts from the broken glass but not much impact damage.

What else might have caused major trauma?

There were a couple of logs that had smashed right inside.

Maybe they’d missed everyone.

Yeah, right.

But maybe they had. She couldn’t hear anything.

‘Is anyone in here?’ she called, trying not to sound as terrified as she felt.

Nothing.

Maybe Katy had been mistaken. Please.

She bit her lip—then slid her way slowly down, gingerly, horribly conscious of the fact that the bus was precariously balanced thirty feet above the sea. But there was nothing she could do about that little nightmare. She couldn’t think about it.

She did think about it.

No matter. She couldn’t let it matter. She worked slowly down the rows of seats, searching, searching…

Thank God she was wearing sensible clothes. Her oversized jeans and windcheater and her sneakers protected her from the worst of the broken glass. If she’d been in summer dress and sandals she’d be have been cut to ribbons.

Where were they?

Katy had said there were two kids. Katy looked the sort of kid who’d miss nothing.

And as she thought it, she found the first.

She almost missed him. A vast log had smashed through a window, crushing the child against the far bus wall. Crushing him so that she could scarcely see him. The log had rolled back as the bus had settled, but Kyle had been left where he’d been crushed.

No.

He must have died instantly, Emma thought, sickened beyond belief. A little boy, seven or eight…

Bright copper hair.

Dead.

She swallowed and swallowed again. Katy had said his name was Kyle.

Kyle.

She was crying now. Tears were sliding uselessly down her cheeks and she couldn’t stop them. She didn’t try.

‘Kyle.’ She whispered his name, then put her hand across to touch the little boy’s face. His face was almost untouched but the rest of him…No. She checked for a pulse, but it was no use. She was searching for something she knew had irretrievably gone.

Useless.

Her touch turned into a tiny gesture of blessing. It was all she could do for him.

Doctors should grow accustomed to death.

Doctors never did.

Two kids. She had to move on. Katy had said there were two kids. She swiped away the useless tears and went on searching.

Where…? Had someone been thrown out?

Where?

‘Suzy?’ she called.

Nothing.

She was reaching the front of the bus now, the lowest point—checking, checking.

And then she heard…

It was a rasping, choking sound, so slight it had been almost lost in the sounds she herself was making as the broken glass crunched under her.

Where had the sound come from?

Further forward.

Here.

She paused, staring down in horror.

Suzy.

The little girl had been hit. Not like Kyle—she hadn’t been completely crushed. But the log had slammed against her face.

Her eyes were OK. She was staring upward, frantic. Caught between two seats, she hadn’t been able to call for help.

Of course she hadn’t. It was all she could do to breathe, Emma realised, sliding down so she was right against her. Every breath was a gurgling, gasping attempt to gain enough air to survive.

She was failing. There was a dreadful hue to her skin, which was mute evidence that her efforts weren’t enough.

The log had smashed her cheek, her mouth, her throat. The damaged flesh would be swelling, making breathing more difficult every second.

‘It’s OK,’ Emma told her, catching her hands and trying to sound assured, not panicked. ‘You’re OK, now, Suzy. I’m a doctor. I’m here to help you breathe. It’s OK.’

The child stared wildly up at her, her eyes reflecting the terror that Emma felt.

And then, as if she’d held on for long enough—for too long—she fought for one last dreadful breath and she slipped into unconsciousness.

No.

Unconsciousness meant death, Emma thought desperately. Without fighting, how could Suzy get air past the damage? How could she get the oxygen she so desperately needed?

Emma slipped her fingers into the little girl’s throat, frantically hoping that she might find loose teeth or bloody tissue that could be cleared. What she felt there made her lift her fingers back in despair. It wasn’t just loose teeth or blood blocking the trachea. This was major damage. Air wasn’t going to get into these lungs via the child’s mouth or nose.

What next?

The guy outside had a doctor’s bag. He’d have a scalpel, maybe a tracheostomy tube…

No. It’d take too long to call—explain—get the bag in here. The child was dying under her hands.

She had seconds.

The breathing was a rasping, thin whistle, each one shorter than the last. The little girl’s body was convulsing as she fought for breath.

The fight was lost.

She had to do something now! She stared wildly round. What? Anything. Anything.

A child’s pencil-case…

She hauled it open, ripping at the zip so hard it broke. What? What?

A pencil sharpener. A ballpoint pen.

She hauled them out, sobbing in desperation. Maybe.

She had her fingernail in the tiny screw of the sharpener, twisting, praying, and the tiny screw moved in her hands. In seconds she had the screw out, and the tiny blade of the sharpener slid free into her palm.

She had a blade. A crazy, tiny blade but a blade. Dear God. Now she needed a tracheostomy tube.

She hauled the ink tube from the ballpoint.

OK, so now she had basic equipment. Sort of.

How sharp was her blade?

There was no time to ask any more questions. It was this or nothing. Suzy was jerking towards death.