Page 21 of Stranded with the Surgeon

‘In a minute.’ Guy pushed back the sleeve of his jacket to unbuckle his wristwatch. ‘I’m going to try and figure out what direction we need to head in.’

The billy was half full by the time Guy stopped squinting at the sun, adjusting his hold on the wristwatch and staring off towards the horizon.

‘I think I might have a rough idea of where we are,’ he said.

‘Great,’ Jennifer responded. ‘Where are we?’

‘Somewhere in the Balfour Range, I think. On the western side towards Cook Valley. The Copland Range should be somewhere south of where we are.’ Guy’s hand swung to a point at right angles to where he had indicated south. ‘That’s Mount Cook you can see way over there.’

‘It’s a very long way away.’ Jennifer stared at the section of the Southern Alps visible over the endless spurs and ridges that filled the immediate horizon.

‘We’re not heading that way. If we head south, we might come across a track. Even a hut, if we’re lucky. Some of the trampers’ huts have radios. They all have logbooks and maps anyway, so at least we’d know exactly where we were.’

He rubbed a hand over his chin, staring off into the distance again. ‘Not that we’ll be able to take a direct route, and I won’t be able to navigate by the stars as well as I can with the sun and my watch, so we’ll have to stop once it gets dark.’ He reached for the billy. ‘Have you had something to drink?’

‘Yes, thanks.’ Jennifer’s gaze was fixed on Guy. Had he really intended to keep walking, day and night, without stopping to rest properly? She couldn’t have done that, no matter how determined she might be.

‘We should both get at least a litre on board before we head off again. We won’t find so much snow soon and we’ll have to hope we come across a lake or stream to get more water.’

Guy drank and Jennifer found herself watching the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. His chin and neck were already roughened by dark stubble, and he had lost none of the grime and streaks of blood since yesterday. He looked as though he could spend time tramping day and night over mountains just for fun, and his expression, as he lowered the billy, was as grim as the surrounding terrain.

If he was a stranger that Jennifer was seeing for the first time, she decided, he’d be terrifying. Then, unexpectedly, Guy’s lips curved to one side, and even half a smile softened his features so dramatically Jennifer found herself smiling back.

‘I hope you haven’t scoffed all those Tim Tams,’ he said. ‘I’m starving.’

The renewed energy provided by the shared but totally inadequate meal was short-lived. Jennifer had to keep pushing herself not to fall too far behind. Guy led the way towards the next spur. And the next. Her arm hurt. Her feet started to hurt as well. Shirley’s shoes may have been far better than her high heels for this trek, but the other woman’s feet were at least two sizes bigger than her own and her feet slipped inside the suede lace-ups as she walked.

Blisters were forming and Jennifer had to simply ignore the pain and carry on. If Guy could keep up this kind of pace with only a minimal limp from favouring what had to be at the very least a badly sprained ankle, she could just imagine what his reaction would be if she complained of a blister. It would probably rank alongside a broken fingernail as an injury someone of her ‘type’ would find ridiculously significant.

Every so often she had the chance to close the gap between them a little because Guy would pause and tie a knot in a tussock.

‘Why are you doing that?’ Jennifer asked on the second occasion.

‘I’m marking our route.’ Guy twisted the tough mountain grass and then tugged it into a thick bundle. ‘The prints we left in the snow will be clearly visible if it doesn’t snow again. If a search-and-rescue team gets winched in to follow us, I want to make sure they come the right way.’

Jennifer wouldn’t have thought of that. The only lore for those lost in the wild she had retained was that you stayed put, and they had broken that rule some time ago. She wondered what other survival gems Guy had available, but the exchange about the knotted grass was the only conversation that took place for a very long stretch of time.

The silence as they walked was almost as distressing as any physical discomfort. Jennifer worked very long hours in one of the busiest emergency departments in the country. She lived in a central city apartment above a trendy shopping precinct that never completely closed. Her world was never silent and never lonely, and that was exactly the way she liked it.

The oppressive quiet of their surroundings and any lack of companionship didn’t seem to bother Guy at all. Even when they stopped for a short rest, he simply dropped the bundle he was carrying beside Jennifer and then walked off to do his thing with his watch and the sun again.

Jennifer’s voice sounded loud in the silence. ‘So how do you navigate by using your watch?’

‘You point the figure twelve towards the sun. True north is approximately halfway between twelve and the hour hand.’

‘Too bad if you’ve got a digital watch then.’

The raised eyebrows were enough to make Jennifer realise she’d missed the point. She sighed. ‘Okay… I guess as long as you have the correct time, you know where the hands should be.’

Guy’s expression and brief nod were the kind of acknowledgement a parent might make to a child who had said something unexpectedly clever. Jennifer found herself increasingly annoyed by his condescension as she once again trailed in Guy’s footsteps. He had some nerve!

They both knew how dependent she currently was on his skills. Wasn’t that enough to allow him to feel superior without taking other opportunities to put her down? He’d already made it clear he didn’t like her, and she wasn’t that thrilled with his personality either, but it shouldn’t matter what they thought of each other on a personal or professional level.

They were in this together, and it would be nice to be recognised as an active participant and not simply a passenger. Surely she deserved some credit for keeping up? It had to be time for another rest. Hours had passed since they’d eaten the biscuits, and shadows in the valley were lengthening. The temperature dropped gradually as the sun lowered but still Guy went steadily on.

When he did stop, it was abruptly enough for Jennifer not to notice until she bumped into him.

‘Sorry!’

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