“Yes, you’re right. But it doesn’t make it any easier.”
“I’ve got a pressy for you, sir,” Bell said, holding aloft a makeshift crutch. “If we can get you on your feet, using this, we should be able to make some headway.”
He sawed at Parry’s NBC suit and trouser leg with a clasp knife, cutting two slits as far up as the man’s knee. The more he could see of the task that lay ahead of him, the better. He pulled the two bits of trouser leg back up and tucked them out of the way, then peeled the black sock off and over the piece of white bone, Parry’s leg trembling beneath his hands. His captain’s face said it alclass="underline" the pale face, glassy eyes and furrowed brow communicated the pain the man was experiencing. They both knew what needed to be done.
“Still OK with this, sir?”
“Have no choice. I can’t move as it is, and we can’t stay here. So, catch-22 really.”
“OK, I’ll bind your legs at the ankle and again just below the knee.”
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Bell played his torch over the wound, the thick piece of jagged bone white against Parry’s grime-covered skin. The muscle didn’t appear to have been torn, damaged probably, but no major trauma. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, the flow congealed and black around the wound.
“Going to give you a jab of morphine. It’ll dull some of the pain, but not all of it.”
“Hope I don’t get addicted to the stuff.” Parry forced a laugh but, inside, he was terrified. He, like many people, had come across pain, but he knew this would be like nothing he had ever experienced before.
“I’ll keep it under lock and key,” responded Bell as he made his final preparations. He watched the captain’s face, a sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead, even in the bitter cold, but seeing it visibly relax as the drug started to take effect.
“I could get used to this. Can’t even feel the lumps I’m lying on.”
“How about your leg?”
“It’s stopped hurting. Feels like I’m floating. Can’t even feel the cold now.”
“Let’s get it done.”
Bell knelt on Parry’s lower body in an attempt to keep the man still. But to no avail. Once he’d grabbed the lower part of Parry’s leg and pulled it away from the upper piece of broken bone, twisting it back and up so the two pieces met, the captain practically lifted the petty officer up off the ground. Then he screamed, a scream that caused the hairs on the back of Bell’s neck to stand on end, before the officer passed out. Bell took the opportunity to push the two jagged pieces of bone together and quickly bind them with a first-aid field dressing. Tight, but not too tight. Secure enough that it would keep the two pieces connected. Bell wrapped one of the trouser belts he had acquired from the crew, they no longer had a use for them, around the top of Parry’s leg, just below the knee, along with two lengths of wood, and pulled it tight, adding a second belt just above the ankle. Next, one went around just above the fracture, the captain’s body wincing as Bell jarred his broken leg. Parry’s lower leg was now completely immobilised. The left leg, should the splints hold, would hopefully mend, and eventually the captain would recover, although he might be left with a limp.
Bell rummaged inside the medical kit, extracting a plastic bottle of antibiotics. He would start the captain on a course of these as soon as the officer came round. What we do next is anybody’s guess, he thought.
CHAPTER 13
The occupants of the building were gathered in what used to be a conference room, that was when the office block was a going business concern. Some of the community were not present at the meeting, either on guard duty or considered too young to attend the meeting. The glow from two camping gas lights providing a reasonable amount of light. Now, the carpeted surface was free of desks and conference tables, moved to other floors or rooms to be used as barriers, temporary beds, and even as emergency stocks of firewood. The group of sixty-four people were huddled together for warmth, blankets wrapped round their shoulders and pulled tight to trap in as much heat as possible. There was a wood burner in the room, a network of pipes taking the smoke and fumes through a hole cut in one of the boarded up windows. The burner was merely ticking over, taking the real chill off the room. It had only been lit thirty minutes prior to the start of the meeting, a concession to use a valuable resource, a desire to foster a feeling of fellowship and mutual support. Bill knew that, if the community was to survive, they needed to work hard and stick together. If it fell apart, they would be exposed to the few marauding gangs that occupied the city, bent on rape and pillage. He reflected as the thought passed through his mind, such an old-fashioned term yet, in these modern days, when they had practically been blown back into the Middle Ages, it seemed a apt description.
Bill was stocky, his muscled body giving shape to the dark blue sweatshirt over a pair of grey hiking trousers covering equally muscled legs. He wasn’t a particularly attractive man, but his angular features; broad shoulders and full head of dark brown hair often drew attention from women of a similar age. Stone grey eyes from either side of a straight nose scanned their faces as they sat in front of him in a U-shape, facing him and the other four key leaders of the group who were sitting on four of the old conference room chairs. No children were present, just the adults over eighteen. There was a wide range of ages in the group. From the newly weds, Curtis and Elizabeth, both twenty-one, married two weeks before the attack, to Martha and Bill, in their late seventies, but still a bundle of energy. They would need to be. All members of the community had to contribute if they were to maintain their place and be fed and protected from the elements, and scavengers and marauders roaming through the battered city.
Bill stood up and started the meeting, his booming voice grabbing their attention. “Thank you for all attending, and I apologise for dragging you away from anything important. However, due to the disparate way we are spread throughout our new home,” his right hand swept upwards indicating the office building they were in, “it’s important that we all understand what is happening in our new world and that we are in no doubt of what is expected of us if we are to survive this new hell that has been dumped on us.”
He walked the full width of the room, from one side of the threepenny-bit shaped room to the other, before turning towards the group and walking to the centre of the on looking assembly. He looked around at the questioning faces peering up at him, turned round and walked back to his original position. Then he faced them again.
“Before I run through some changes, I first need to reiterate that we all have duties to perform. No matter how hard, important or trivial they are, all are necessary for the survival of the community as a whole. You don’t need to be reminded that I won’t tolerate any individuals, or families for that matter, who don’t subscribe to and provide the support that is required of them. There is so much we still need to do so I will also be assigning duties to the younger members of our group, at least from the age of eleven. The rest of the kids can contribute wherever we find an opportunity for them to do so.” He walked over to his left until he was opposite a section of the group leaning up against the outside wall, a line of boarded up windows behind them. Bill searched the faces until he found the one he was looking for.
“Howard,” he said, looking at a man in his fifties sitting next to his wife, Ellie, his knees drawn up and encircled by his blanketed arms, “I know you’re an ex-policeman, and I’d like you to take on a very significant role for the group. I need you to ensure that we live and work together in peace. There are no hard and fast rules, just common sense. You’ll very quickly come up with some simple rules that can be followed, I’m sure. Do you accept?”