Page 31 of Prognosis So Done

CHAPTER TWELVE - 1800 HOURS

The incoming-woundedsiren wailed across the complex as they were tucking into their reheated frozen dinners. Harriet knew it was coming, the noises of war hadn’t stopped for over half an hour, but the siren was at just the right pitch.

It made her jump every time.

‘Twelve more hours,’ muttered Katya to no one in particular. ‘Couldn’t they have waited twelve more hours to kill each other?’

‘Apparently not,’ said Helmut, pushing away his half-eaten dinner.

Gill’s chair scraped back and he walked over to the ringing

wall phone near the door. ‘Kelly? What’s the story?’

He nodded a lot and said ‘Mmm’ a lot and then replaced the

receiver. ‘The first wave will be arriving in the next fifteen

minutes. We should expect the first patient in half an hour.’

The two teams took in Gill’s statement in silence. No one

got up or rushed and hurried around. The theatres were still set to go from the helicopter crash earlier so all they needed were the patients. Instead, they took a moment to have some silent reflection, mental preparation for the next few gruelling hours.

Harriet wondered if they would still be operating in the

morning when their flight was supposed to be leaving.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

What usually happened on change-over morning was one chopper flew in with the two replacement teams, a handover was given which normally took about an hour, then the same chopper flew out with the two departing teams.

But Harriet knew that neither Gill or Ben’s team would leave in the middle of chaos and that they’d stay until all the victims of this latest skirmish had been dealt with.

The departing helicopter would just have to wait.

A hot wave of nausea crawled up Harriet’s throat. There was nothing new in that. The moment the siren wailed, a surge of adrenaline hit her bloodstream and her body responded in kind. Her heart beat loudly in her chest and her stomach prepared for fright or flight by immediately wanting to evacuate its contents.

She swallowed against the rising urge as she reminded herself it was a basic human reaction to stressful situations. And also, that it was good. For the next how many ever hours it would be adrenaline that kept her on her toes, anticipating Gill’s needs, keeping her one step ahead.

That was a good thing.

It would be awful afterwards. Coming down from the high, the

buzz, was the terrible part. She hated the shaky, strung-out

feeling. How everything around her seemed far away and a fog blanketed her brain, making her thoughts slower and her tongue all thick and dry in her mouth.

The only consolation was that at least she’d be en route to London when it hit. She found London was generally a good antidote to the withdrawal.

To most things, actually.

The dull ache in her side was still there and she contemplated taking some pain killers. It wasn’t exactly painful but as it twinged again she knew she couldn’t afford to have it interfere with the hours of surgery ahead and a couple of tablets usually did the trick.

She rose as the teams were quietly talking about the possible injuries and walked into the kitchen area. A first-aid kit beneath the sink carried basic medication. It was a hard plastic contraption that consisted of a series of little drawers. Each drawer had its contents written on it.

Locating the tablets, Harriet pushed two out of the blister pack and popped them in her mouth, swallowing them down with some bottled water.

‘Are you OK?’

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