Page 12 of Stranded with the Surgeon

‘Should be.’ Guy wasn’t making any promises.

‘Shepherd’s delight,’ Digger said. ‘It’ll be clear.’

Clear skies with the wreck of a light plane glinting in sunshine on an exposed, rocky plateau. If they’d checked south of the great lakes already, they might well send someone looking to the north tomorrow. Maybe the locator beacon wasn’t one of the faulty ones. Rescue would come.

They just had to get through the night. Right now, that seemed an achievable goal. It was cold, certainly, but it didn’t feel dangerously so with the three of them huddled under the tarpaulin.

‘The tussocks were a good idea.’ Guy had used a pocketknife to slice off clumps of the strong mountain grass. It now provided a carpet for the floor of their shelter and insulation from the bone-chilling cold of the rocks beneath. ‘Are you warm enough, Digger?’

‘Feel like a chicken… ready for roasting.’ Digger’s breathing had a wheeze that was becoming steadily more audible, and he was still in enough respiratory distress to necessitate taking a breath after only a few words. ‘Never been wrapped… in foil before.’

‘You thirsty?’ Guy’s voice floated through the intense darkness.

‘Yes. Very.’ The sweetness of the chocolate biscuit had been wonderful, but trying to swallow had made Jennifer realise just how thirsty she was.

‘Actually, I was asking Digger. The snow I collected in this billy has finally melted.’

Jennifer bit back the automatic response that a patient awaiting surgery should be nil-by-mouth. It would be hours before they got Digger anywhere near an operating theatre. If they even managed to get him that far.

‘Let Jenna have it…’ Digger dragged in another breath. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Here it is, then.’ Guy sounded resigned. ‘I’ll pass it round Digger’s feet. I don’t want to spill cold water on him.’

The foil sheet encasing Digger’s legs crackled as Jennifer felt for direction. She could feel the warmth of Guy’s hand well before she touched it, and she would rather have taken hold of his fingers than the cold metal container they held. There would be more comfort to be found in the touch of another person right now than in assuaging her thirst. She passed the billy back after just a few swallows.

‘Can you pass me the torch?’

‘Why?’

‘I want to check the IV line and that bag of fluid.’

‘I can do that.’ The torch flashed briefly, running from the line in Digger’s arm up to a bag that looked ominously flat. It wasn’t quite empty, or blood would be visible, travelling back up the line, but it was going to run out pretty soon.

‘Have you got the stethoscope on your side?’

‘No.’

‘Okay.’ Jennifer’s hands left the protection of the inside of her anorak again and she felt around near Digger’s head.

‘Don’t uncover him for any longer than you have to.’

‘I’m not stupid, Guy.’

‘I’m not doubting your intelligence,’ he responded calmly. ‘But I doubt that you’ve ever spent a night on a mountaintop before. It’s going to get a lot colder than this, and we want to conserve all the heat we can.’

‘Actually, I have spent a night on a mountaintop.’

‘Where? In front of some après-ski open fire? A nicely exclusive resort in the Swiss Alps perhaps?’

‘And you’re an expert?’ He wasn’t so far from the truth, but why did he have to make it sound like she’d committed some kind of crime? Jennifer’s hand curled around the stethoscope, but she was now hesitant to expose Digger’s chest to listen to his breath sounds.

‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘He does at that,’ Digger said. ‘We’ve had a few… dodgy nights… here and there.’

‘Thanks to your desire to start a new gold rush.’ Guy sounded as though he was smiling. ‘We must have checked every obscure stream within tramping distance of every equally obscure airfield there is in these parts.’

‘Are you a goldminer, Digger?’

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