‘We promise,’ Beattie told her. ‘And you, Nikki Russell…’ She sighed. ‘Well, take care of yourself. Don’t go taking any damned fool risks.’
‘Who, me?’ Nikki smiled, with a bravado she was far from feeling. ‘I’m not one for damned fool risks. I was born a coward.’
The hospital was at peak, bustling efficiency when Nikki arrived. There were three internal rooms that had no windows-the hospital had been built with storms in mind-and when Nikki arrived the nurses were moving their patients into safety.
‘One room will have to be left free as Theatre,’ Nikki said grimly.
We’ve had enough warning for people to be prepared,’ Andrea, the charge sister, said. ‘Surely there won’t be…’
‘People do darned stupid things.’ Nikki grimaced. ‘Especially when they’re frightened. And if we really are in the eye of the storm then many of these houses won’t make it.’
‘But most are built under regulations for cyclones.’
‘Yeah.’ Nikki piled boxes of dressing to carry to the makeshift theatre. ‘But there’s still no guarantee they’ll survive the eye of a cyclone. Remember Darwin…’
They both did. The city had been struck on Christmas Eve several years previously and hardly a house had been left standing. The force had been as great as a major earthquake.
‘It can’t be as bad as that,’ the nurse said nervously. ‘Can it?’
‘Heaven knows. I don’t. Is the fishing fleet in?’
There weren’t any boats too far out to get back into harbour,’ the nurse told her. ‘They’re all back.’
‘Well, that’s something.’
Nikki worked steadily, setting up her makeshift theatre as best she could. With luck the work she was doing could be totally unnecessary. To operate on seriously injured casualties…
She might not have a choice. Even after the cyclone passed it would be hours before the wind died enough to evacuate casualties. Nikki thought fleetingly, longingly, of Luke. She felt desperately alone, knowing the next few hours would bring more casualties than she could cope with.
‘Everyone’s being warned?’ she asked anxiously. Her mind raced over her scores of elderly patients who lived alone. Many wouldn’t have heard the radio warning.
‘The State Emergency Service are doing a doorknock now,’ the charge nurse told her. Andrea was linked to the emergency services by two-way radio. ‘Anyone they’re worried about they’ll bring in here or to the school.’ Like the hospital, the school also had reinforced rooms.
Fine. Everything that could be done was being done. So now there was only time to sit and wait. And hope…
‘I don’t suppose Dr Maybury could come?’ Nikki said uncertainly. If she didn’t have an anaesthetist there was little she could do if there were serious casualties. The elderly doctor was Nikki’s nearest colleague and he was within driving distance if he came at once.
‘I doubt it,’ the charge sister told her. ‘Penrith is thirty miles south, but by the sound of the radio warnings they’re expecting damage there as well. He’ll have to stay.’
Nikki nodded. She knew it already. She was on her own.
The wind rose with relentless fury.
How would Amy and Beattie be coping? Nikki tried to block out thoughts of home as the. storm gathered strength. Her attention was needed here. Half an hour before the eye of the storm was due, every one of the occupants of the hospital deserted the outside rooms and the inner doors of the little hospital were wedged closed.
The telephone lines were already down. There was no way Nikki could contact home, even if she wanted to. Eurong was isolated until the storm was past, and every home was also completely isolated.
As they closed the big inner doors and Nikki saw the outside world for the last time, she wondered how on earth the storm could get fiercer. The huge coconut palms around the hospital were bending almost double in the shrieking wind and, beyond the headland, the sea was a seething white fury.
But grow worse it did. Locked behind their doors, the hospital occupants couldn’t see but they could hear. The wind screamed around the little building and every now and then a crack rang out like gunfire-the sound of a palm giving up its fight for life.
There was little time to listen. Within the room Nikki’s patients were terrified-not so much for the immediate danger but at the thought of what lay ahead when those doors were opened again. Nikki moved from bed to bed, comforting as best she could and listening to nameless fears. She sedated one elderly lady as her fears brought on angina. A full-scale heart attack was the last thing Nikki wanted now. She would have enough to deal with when the doors opened.
The wait was interminable. The sound of the screaming wind went on and on, and when it finally eased Nikki knew that the doors had to stay closed.
Now they were in the eye of the cyclone-and there was a rim to the eye. They had passed through one side of the rim, and the other was yet to come.
If only she knew what was going on at home… The thought of the cellar was infinitely comforting. And Beattie knew about the eye of the storm. She knew not to come out yet. The little radio owned by one of the patients and listened to by all was blazing out warnings of the danger to come. ‘Stay where you are,’ it warned over and over again. ‘Don’t think the danger is over. Stay behind closed doors. Use rooms with the least windows. Think of the pantry-or the broom closet. The bathroom is often the safest room. Stay where you are…’
As long as people were listening. Nikki sent endless silent prayers up to whoever would listen. Please let people stay put. Please let no one be hit by falling trees or flying pieces of corrugated iron…It was a useless prayer but she sent it anyway.
‘I won’t have a house any more,’ an elderly man said flatly as she paused by his bed. ‘My place is old and run-down, and it won’t stand up to this racket.’ His gnarled old face creased into tears. ‘You’ll have to put me in a home after this. My house’ll be matchsticks.’
There was little comfort Nikki could give. Outside the storm struck again as the eye passed and each fresh blast made her wince. To stay here while Eurong was blown to bits…it was the hardest thing she had done in her life.
And then, finally, the worst of the storm was past. The screaming wind settled to howls, and then to a dull whine. The nurses looked at each other fearfully and then at Nikki. Nikki nodded in silent acquiescence. It was time to open the doors.
Maybe it would have been better to stay inside. The nurses and the ambulatory patients walked outside to a deathless hush. It was a frightening new world.
The hospital had survived. The building was intact, but every window had been blasted out. The rooms were full of debris and rain water. Torn curtains lay shredded on the floor in sodden heaps. The wind still whistled in through the broken windows, bringing rain in with it. Steam rose from everything.
Soundlessly they moved outside. The veranda posts had crumpled under the strain and the roof sagged under the weight of a huge coconut palm. Luckily the two posts over the door had held so it was safe to move outside.
If one wanted to. Nikki took one look and decided she might not want to see the rest of the devastation. The hospital gardens were in ruins. Nikki’s car lay where she had parked in the hospital car park, turned up on to its side. It was covered with a mass of torn and twisted debris.
‘Dear God.’ Andrea was beside Nikki and her hand came up to grasp Nikki’s arm. ‘Dear God…’
There was nothing else to say.
Around them the rest of the staff were slowly coming to terms with what they were seeing. They had little time for reflection. As the patients saw and guessed at the damage elsewhere it was as much as the small nursing staff could do to control the rising hysteria.
Nikki conquered it by ordering everyone to work, patients included.