Page 116 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
‘Hannah, thank you.’
She looked at him, quickly, dragging her eyes away before they could linger. ‘Just doing my job, Tom.’
She spent the next forty minutes ignoring him while she eased Buttercup through the third stage of labour, cleaned herself up as much as was possible given the muck covering her overalls, then left.
CHAPTER
45
Tom waited until the sweep of Hannah’s headlights had headed down the mountain, then relaxed his death grip on the stable wall and slid to the floor. His phone, thank god, was still in his pocket.
The first call was to the naval base at Wollongong, to call in the favour he’d been promised as part of his separation package.
The second was to Lynette, who needed to mind Buttercup and the foal in his absence, then find the hurricane lanterns, then come up with whatever cover story she could think of to satisfy Bruno and Mrs L who, in about fifty minutes’ time, were going to hear a helicopter land beside the stables.
The next was to Dr Novak.
‘It’s Tom Krauss. Sorry to call so late, but I might have a problem.’
The doctor’s exhalation hummed through the phone line. ‘Define problem.’
‘I can’t move my left leg.’
‘Oh, Tom. Call an ambulance. You need to get here straight away.’
‘I’ve got a different plan. How free are you tonight and tomorrow?’
‘Consultations booked tomorrow, but no surgical list. I can reschedule. What do you need?’
‘I’ve called in a favour. A defence helicopter will be collecting you in about forty minutes from the helipad at Cooma Airport. Bring anything you think we might need for the run down to Wollongong. Once you’re in, the chopper will come here and collect me.’
‘Forty minutes! I’ll be ready. Tom—stay still until I get there, will you? Very, very still.’
Tom dropped the phone and considered his position, sprawled on the hay-strewn floor of Buttercup’s stable, the huge mare and her tender young foal breathing gently into the cold evening air beside him. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he muttered.
He closed his eyes to wait.
The chopper ride was a blur of noise and movement. Two medicos built like tanks had lifted him onto a gurney and strapped him into place while Lynette manned the hurricane lanterns.
Once he was secured straight as a board on the stretcher and they were in the air, Dr Novak sat by his side, her cool hand holding his, which he felt absurdly grateful for. She’d ditched her mask, he noticed. She had a kind face and worry was written all over it.
Fifty minutes, give or take, of airtime, then a flurry of wheels and white coats and gloved fingers as he was wheeled from room to room while scans probed and photographed their way through his flesh to uncover the drama within.
Dr Novak came to say her goodbyes and he felt a tug of regret as she left the room. She’d been a link, if a tenuous one, to home. Now here he was, again, in the place he’d spent so many weeks when the injury was fresh and the ceiling hadn’t grown any more interesting since he last stared up at it.
A cough sounded in the doorway. One of the flag officers from the naval base had come to see him, her service cap tucked under her arm.
‘Lieutenant Commander Krauss.’
‘Retired,’ he said. ‘At least, I’m trying to retire and stay that way. This blasted shrapnel keeps bringing me back. I’d salute, but they’ve trussed me up like a pot roast. Nil movement, nil food. I’m surprised they let you in here.’
She moved closer to the bed. ‘I used my nice words. I’m sorry to see you back here, Tom.’
‘Yeah,’ he said on a sigh. ‘Me too, commodore.’
‘They going to operate?’
‘Three surgeons are arguing about it as we speak. Two of them say it’s too risky—I should wait here in traction and hope the shrapnel shifts.’
