Anne Fraser - The Wife He Never Forgot

The surgeon in charge of receiving the casualties turned to his team. ‘It sounds as if we’ll need both theatres. Everyone to your stations.’

Tiggy eased herself up from the gurney and grabbed a leftover biscuit from the coffee table where everyone had been sitting. Although she still wasn’t hungry, she knew she had to eat something. She was damned if she was going to stand by while everyone else around her worked, and fainting wouldn’t endear her to anyone. Slipping into the changing room, she found a clean pair of scrubs and changed quickly. Her throat was still dry but she knew it wasn’t from dust this time.

Before she could find Sue, the doors burst open and Nick entered, along with a couple of soldiers pushing a trolley. Nick was kneeling on top of his patient, doing chest compressions.

‘He stopped breathing in the ’copter, but CPR has been given continuously. We’ve given him two units of red cells and two litres of colloid en route. We need to get him to Theatre stat.’

Willing hands stepped forward and rushed the patient through to Resus. Moments later, Scotty and more soldiers burst through the swing doors with the other stretcher.

‘This man has shrapnel wounds to his arm,’ Scotty called out. ‘I’ve applied a temporary dressing and started a drip. Vital signs all okay.’

The injury to the second soldier’s hand was such that for a moment Tiggy couldn’t move.

As he too was wheeled into Resus, her training kicked in. She grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting away the soldier’s uniform, only vaguely aware of the staff crowded around the other patient, shouting orders.

Sue wheeled the portable X-ray over to Tiggy’s patient. There was another flurry of activity as the soldier with the abdominal wound was taken into Theatre.

Nick crossed over to them, peeling off his gloves. Tiggy handed him a fresh pair. The soldier’s vitals were getting worse. His blood pressure was dropping and his pulse becoming increasingly rapid and weak.

‘We need to get his arm off. It’s the only way to stop the bleeding,’ the orthopaedic surgeon said, examining the wound.

‘Let’s try and stop the bleeding first, shall we?’ Nick said quietly. ‘The hand might not be salvageable, but we might be able to save his lower arm.’

‘You have five minutes,’ the orthopod said. ‘After that, he’s going to Theatre.’

They did everything they could to stop the bleeding, pumping the soldier with blood, but when Nick, along with the other surgeon, looked at the X-ray of the soldier’s injury, he sighed, his eyes bleak. ‘The damage is too bad,’ he said. ‘You’re right, Simon. Amputation is the only way to go.’

Before she could help herself, a small cry escaped from Tiggy’s lips. ‘Are you sure? Isn’t there anything we can do?’

Nick and Sue were already preparing the casualty for Theatre. ‘If there was, we would do it,’ Nick said tightly.

Tiggy swallowed hard. The boy was so young. But she knew Nick was right. The X-ray was there for them all to see, and Nick had already taken a chance by not sending the lad to Theatre straight away.

Nick looked at Tiggy and if she had any doubts as to how much he’d hoped to save the soldier’s arm they vanished when she saw the anguish in his eyes. ‘I promised these boys we would get them home and that’s what we’re going to do. I’ll assist, Simon.’

Moments later, the resus room was empty.

* * *

Much later, when Dave, the soldier whose arm had been amputated, was settled on the ward, Tiggy escaped outside. She tried to control the tremors that kept running through her body.

‘You okay?’ Nick’s voice came from behind her.

‘No. Yes. I will be.’ She took another deep breath. ‘He’s so young to lose an arm.’

‘He’ll learn to live without it.’

She whirled around. ‘How can you say that? You don’t have the remotest idea what it will be like for him.’

Nick’s expression didn’t change. ‘No, you’re right. I don’t. If I lost my arm or the use of any of my limbs, I don’t know what I’d do. But at least he’s alive. At least he won’t be going home in a body bag. Not like his colleague.’

They had been unable to save the other casualty. They all felt his loss as if he’d been their brother, their husband. When Nick had told them, his expression hadn’t changed, and Tiggy wondered if she’d imagined his anguish earlier.

‘How can you be so...’ she sought for the right word ‘...unaffected?’

‘Because they need me to be professional. They need us all to be professional.’ Nick’s voice was flat.

Tiggy slumped against the wall and wiped a hand across her perspiring brow. He was right, of course he was. If he could have saved the soldier’s arm, he would have. Wishing otherwise wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Dave.

She thought about her brothers. God help them all if either didn’t make it. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how her own mother would react. She loved her children with a tiger-like ferocity. Without warning, tears sprang to her eyes and she blinked furiously. She just couldn’t help herself. It was too awful.

‘Hey, Tiggy. Don’t do that. Dave will be okay.’ It was the first time outside work she’d seen him look serious. ‘We make it our job to get these boys back home alive, and mostly we do.’ His eyes darkened. ‘God, don’t you think I hate not being able to send that boy home in one piece?’

‘It’s not just him—or the man who died. It’s all of them. They’re so young. And my brothers—they’re out there, too.’

‘There will be another team doing the same for them if they ever need help.’

Tiggy dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. ‘I can’t bear to think of them hurt.’

Nick reached out a hand and touched her shoulder. ‘Most soldiers make it home, Tiggy,’ he said. ‘You have to hold on to that.’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

He took her by the arm and steered her across the dusty strip of land in front of the hospital. ‘Let’s walk.’

‘I’m not sure I can after this morning,’ she said. Nevertheless, she allowed him to lead her across to the far side of the camp. A gentle breeze stirred the dust of the camp, cooling the intense night air. Above them a thousand stars studded the crystal clear sky. How could a place so beautiful hold so much heartache? When they reached a flat rock, Nick indicated with a nod of his head that they should sit. For a while they remained silent. Eventually Nick turned to her and grinned.

‘So, Tiggy, the last I recall we were up to when you were thirteen. Why don’t you tell me the rest?’

* * *

Later that week Tiggy was sitting outside her tent, drinking coffee with Sue. Across the camp men, most stripped to their combat trousers, were playing football or working out. Thankfully there had been no more life-threatening injuries to deal with. Dave had been transferred to the military hospital in Birmingham.

As a bare-chested soldier jogged past them, Sue grinned.

‘You see? It’s not all bad out here. Where else would you get the chance to ogle so many fit guys?’

‘I can almost see the testosterone,’ Tiggy admitted. Her eyes drifted over to Nick, who was pulling himself up on a bar suspended between two walls. He too was stripped to his combat trousers and the muscles in his naked back bunched every time he raised himself. Some soldiers sat in a circle, counting off every time he pulled himself up.

Sue followed the line of her gaze. ‘As I said, forget him. He might be a hero but he’s a woman’s worst nightmare. As soon as he gets the girl he’s been chasing, he loses interest. There’s hardly a female on the camp—or off it for that matter—who hasn’t had her heart broken by him.’