Her Emergency Knight. Alison Roberts
‘And maybe Jennifer likes her posh name.’
She wasn’t going to stay silent while they reinforced their branding of her as some sort of outsider.
‘It’s not posh,’ she informed them loftily. ‘Neither am I.’
Guy’s snort of amusement was outrageous.
‘What—’ Jennifer demanded, ‘is that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, come on! You’re the epitome of “posh,”’ Guy shot back. ‘Nice hair, nice clothes, great education. Top job in one of the country’s leading hospitals. Good grief, you even chose to wear high heels and a suit to go out sightseeing.’
‘This isn’t a suit! Just a skirt and top…and jacket.’
‘Looks like a matching set to me. They’d be getting the lace doilies out in the Glenfalloch pub if you showed up looking like that.’
‘I have no intention of setting foot in the Glenfalloch pub—wherever that may be.’
‘It’s my local,’ Guy said casually. ‘The best pub in Central and about the only building of any note between where I live and Wanaka.’
‘It’s my local…too.’ Digger sounded drowsy. ‘I’d give my left arm for a…pint or two…right now.’ He opened his eyes enough to give Jennifer an appraising glance. ‘You’re right, though, son…she’s a looker…Reminds me…of Diana.’
‘I was referring to the image of a city slicker,’ Guy said. ‘Not dishing out compliments.’
‘Cheers,’ Jennifer murmured.
‘Not that you don’t deserve a compliment, of course.’ Guy finished injecting the second dose of morphine. ‘I just wouldn’t want you to think I was hitting on you.’
‘Perish the thought,’ Jennifer agreed drily.
She shook her head. What a bizarre conversation to be having, given the circumstances. Or perhaps it wasn’t. The three of them had been hurled into dealing with an appalling situation together. The more of a bond they could form, the more they could help each other survive. Already Jennifer felt very differently towards Digger than she would have if he’d been lying on a bed in her emergency department. And for a few seconds there she had actually forgotten they were crouched on a mountaintop with a tangle of crushed metal and two dead bodies nearby.
‘I don’t mind being called Jenna,’ she told Digger somewhat hesitantly. ‘It’s just that the only person who ever did was my dad and…’ Her voice was annoyingly wobbly. ‘And it just startled me a bit, I guess. My dad died not so long ago.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s time we hung a new bag of fluid, Guy. No.’ She scrambled to her feet. ‘I’ll get it. You need to go and find that jacket. You’re turning blue.’
‘OK. I’ll see what else I can salvage at the same time.’
‘Try the…side hatch.’ Digger had his eyes closed again but was looking a lot more comfortable. ‘There’s a few…camping supplies.’
Moving seemed to have the effect of lowering the temperature sharply. Body warmth was quickly lost as the surrounding chill seeped under the folds of Jennifer’s skirt and sneaked down the back of her neck. Her toes felt numb and her fingers fumbled as they tried to remove the tab protecting the port of the saline pouch and insert the spike of the giving set. She stopped for a moment to blow on her hands and rub them together.
Looking past the edge of the wingtip as she taped the new bag into place, Jennifer could see Guy picking his way around the tail of the plane wreckage some distance away. The bent wing that had snapped off the Cessna and was now sheltering Digger had left a gap that the small plane seemed to have folded itself into. Was that why those sitting in the middle had fared so much worse than the others?
The hollow tail section that Jennifer had been wedged into was angled down to where the rudder was lodged between two huge rocks. Guy was using a much smaller rock to hammer at a flap that must be some kind of luggage compartment. Jennifer was pleased to see he was now wearing a dark blue padded jacket, similar in style to her paler version.
The light was changing by the time Guy returned. The sun was lower and faint wisps of cloud and snow pockets on distant peaks were tinged faintly pink.
‘I found a tarp,’ Guy said with satisfaction. ‘And a billy. I even found some food. The dried soup won’t be much use without hot water, but there’s a packet of chocolate biscuits.’
‘Never know when you…might need a Tim Tam,’ Digger murmured.
‘I’m going to collect some rocks,’ Guy told Jennifer. ‘We’ll use the wingtip as a support and anchor the tarp. If we can keep the three of us sheltered as close together as possible, we should get through the night OK.’
‘The night?’ Jennifer didn’t care that the word came out as a frightened squeak. ‘They’ll come before then, won’t they?’
Guy moved a hand towards the orange glow beginning to silhouette the mountains. ‘We’ve got about thirty minutes of useful daylight left. If they had any idea where we are, they would have flown at least close enough for us to see them by now.’
‘There is an emergency locator beacon on board, isn’t there?’ The way both men avoided her gaze was unnerving. ‘Isn’t there?’
Digger mumbled something about it all being his fault and then closed his eyes as though his pain level was again intolerable. Guy jerked his head.
‘Come and help me with these rocks.’
Jennifer followed him until they were out of Digger’s earshot. ‘Are you going to tell me what that was all about?’ she demanded.
‘They’ve been waiting for some new beacons to come in. About a month ago there was an incident that showed a certain batch of beacons to be faulty. A batch that included the one on this plane. They ordered the new ones straight away, of course, but so did everyone else. There was a waiting list.’
‘So…’ Jennifer’s tongue found a tiny laceration on the inside of her cheek as she absorbed the information. ‘What you’re saying is that the beacon on our plane may not have been activated at all. They might not even be looking for us.’
‘Oh, they’ll be looking.’
‘But?’
Guy sighed heavily as he reached down to pick up a rock. ‘But probably not around here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Sightseeing flights normally take in the lakes and the fiords. A round trip down to Milford Sound and back.’
‘So?’
‘So we went the other way. To find the glaciers.’
Jennifer picked up a rock and tucked it into the crook of her left elbow, making her arm ache with renewed strength. She ignored the pain. ‘Digger must have filed a flight plan.’
‘He did.’
‘Good.’
‘No. His plan was for the Milford run.’
‘So why the hell did he change direction?’
Guy had three rocks in his arms now. ‘Because someone important wanted to see the bloody glaciers, that’s why.’
‘This isn’t my fault!’ Jennifer glared at Guy but he was busy searching for rather scarce stones of a manageable weight. ‘He asked me what I wanted to see. How was I supposed to know? Nobody disagreed. Including you.’ Jennifer swooped on another rock but her arm protested viciously at the extra weight and both rocks fell to the ground. ‘Oh, dammit!’
Guy caught at her upper arm, his own rocks abandoned, as Jennifer reached down again. ‘Let me see that arm.’
‘It’s