‘I don’t need supper,’ Luke Marriott’s deep voice cut across her decisively. He abandoned his battered suitcase and strode back to the door. ‘Is the ambulance there?’

‘It’s on its way. But, look, I can handle-’

‘I don’t think you can.’ The big man was suddenly in control, more assured than Nikki. ‘To be honest, you look done in already, and if there are two kids… Is there a medic with the ambulance?’

‘Our ambulance drivers are volunteers with first-aid certificates,’ Nikki admitted. ‘But-’

‘Then no buts,’ the man ordered. ‘Let’s go, Dr Russell.’

It took five minutes to get to the wrecked car.

Nikki didn’t speak but concentrated on the roads, and the man at her side seemed content to let her do so. The local roads were treacherous. The population of Eurong was too small to support major road maintenance and the roads were twisting and narrow.

Above Eurong’s swimming beach, the road curved in a sharp U around the headland. The teenagers in the car had tried to take it too fast and a massive eucalyptus had halted their plunge to the sea below.

By the time Nikki’s little sedan pulled to a halt at the scene there was a tow-truck and ambulance in attendance, and floodlights lit the wreck from the road above. Nikki left the car and swiftly made her way to the edge of the cliff, abandoning Luke Marriott in her haste. What she saw made her wince with dismay.

The tow-truck driver was securing cables to the rear of the crumpled car. Ernie, the ambulance driver, was half into the wreck and the policeman was behind him. Sergeant Milne looked up and gave a wave that showed real relief as he saw Nikki. He struggled up the cliff to meet her.

‘It’s bad,’ he said briefly, casting a curious glance across at Nikki’s companion. ‘It’s Martin Fleming and Lisa Hay. Lisa’s conscious but her legs are crushed between the car and the tree. Martin’s unconscious and bleeding like a stuck pig. Ernie’s trying to put pressure on now.’

‘I’ll go down.’ Nikki turned to slide down the slope but was stopped by a strong grip on her arm.

‘Your bag’s in the boot?’

‘Yes.’ Nikki had forgotten that she wasn’t alone. She looked up to Luke Marriott, relief in her eyes. ‘If you’ll get it…’

‘There’s morphine…?’

‘There’s everything. I…We’ll need saline…’

Luke was already moving. ‘That car’s stable?’ he snapped over his shoulder.

‘Now we’ve secured it, it is.’ The policeman grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t let Ernie in till then. For a while I thought they’d slide right down.’

‘We’ll need more men to get them out.’

‘They’re on their way.’

Nikki didn’t wait to hear more. She was already sliding.

The car was a mess. The ambulance driver pulled back as Nikki arrived, his face grim and distressed.

‘I can’t stop the bleeding,’ he whispered, his eyes on the conscious girl in the passenger side of the car. Lisa was moaning softly to herself, her body rocking against the savage constriction of her legs. ‘And I can’t do anything for-’

‘Get around to Lisa’s side,’ Nikki ordered. ‘See if you can check those legs for bleeding. And stop her twisting!’ She raised her voice, trying to penetrate the girl’s pain. ‘Lisa, help’s here. We’ll give you something for the pain while we cut you free. You’ll be OK now. Just keep still and let us help you.’

The girl’s moans grew louder. She turned wild eyes to Nikki. ‘Martin’s going to die,’ she sobbed. ‘And my legs…You’ll have to cut off my legs…’

‘No.’ Nikki’s voice was sharp but she didn’t make an impression. She was trying to work as she talked, conscious of the blood pumping through a wound on Martin’s scalp. Her fingers searched frantically for the pressure points but her eyes also saw what Lisa was doing to her legs. She was pulling, doing what Nikki could only guess to be more damage.

‘I’m going to die. You’ll have to cut off my legs. Martin’s dead…’ The girl’s voice rose in terrified hysteria and she writhed helplessly against her cruel confinement.

‘You’re talking nonsense.’ A man’s clipped, firm voice cut across Lisa’s screams. The ambulance driver was edged firmly out of the way and Luke Marriott’s face appeared on the other side of the car. His hands came in and caught the hysterical girl’s flailing fingers from hauling at her legs. ‘Keep still,’ he ordered. ‘Don’t move.’ Then, in the fraction of a moment while she reacted to his voice, he produced a syringe, swabbed with lightning speed and plunged the morphine home. ‘That’s good, Lisa,’ he said more gently. ‘The pain will ease now and we can cut the metal from your legs.’

‘But they’re smashed…’

‘You’re cutting them by pulling,’ Luke said firmly. ‘So don’t pull.’

‘And Martin’s dead…’

‘Is Martin dead?’ Luke looked over to where Nikki had found the point she wanted. Nikki was pushing firmly on a wad of dressing over the wound. At Luke’s terse request she looked up.

‘No one bleeds this much if they’re dead,’ she said grimly. ‘Ernie, I need a saline drip. If I can replace fluids…’

‘There you are,’ Luke told the frightened girl. He looked down at what he could see of the bottom half of her body. ‘Now, if you’ll stay absolutely still, I’ll see if I can relieve some pressure on your legs.’

It was grim work getting the two from the car, and by the end of it Nikki was despairing for the boy she was treating. Martin was deeply unconscious and the longer he remained unconscious, the worse it looked. The steering-wheel had slammed into his face. He had smashed his cheekbones, but something else was causing the coma. What? She hated to think. All she could do was keep him alive while around them men worked to free them.

Over and over she was grateful for Luke Marriott’s presence. What good fairy had brought him to Eurong tonight? Lisa needed attention as much as Martin, and Nikki knew that alone she would have struggled to keep both alive.

Finally the metal panels were ripped from the frame of the car. Martin was freed first. As Nikki, the ambulance driver and the assisting men carefully lifted his unconscious frame on to a stretcher, Nikki turned helplessly to Luke.

‘It’ll be another ten minutes before we have Lisa free,’ Luke told her. ‘How far’s the hospital?’

‘Five minutes.’

‘Take him and send the ambulance back for us,’ he ordered, and there was nothing Nikki could do but obey.

She didn’t have time to think of Luke Marriott for the next half-hour. Nikki didn’t have time to do anything but hold desperately to her patient’s fragile grip on life. Both she and Martin were fighting, she thought grimly, but only one of them was aware of it.

The nursing staff of Eurong’s tiny hospital were out in force-the full complement of five nurses and a ward’s maid were all at the hospital before Nikki and her patient reached it. In a tiny community like Eurong, word travelled fast. Everyone knew these two kids, and the nurses were grateful for anything they could do to help.

But there was so little…Nikki set up an intravenous infusion, took X-rays and then monitored her patient with an increasing sense of helplessness.

‘He’s slipping.’ Andrea, the hospital charge sister, took Martin’s blood-pressure for the twentieth time and looked grimly to where Nikki was adjusting the flow of plasma. ‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’

‘The plane’s on its way from Cairns,’ Nikki told her. ‘It’ll be here in an hour. They’ll transport him back there.’

‘But he’s slipping fast.’

‘I know.’ Nikki looked helplessly down at the boy’s pallid face. She suspected what was happening from the X-rays. There was pressure building up in the intracranial cavity. She was faced with an invidious choice-to operate here with her limited skill, or put the boy on the plane, knowing that by the time the plane landed in Cairns he’d probably be dead. ‘I can’t operate,’ she whispered. ‘I haven’t the skills…’

There was so much to this job. She would never be skilful enough to cope with the demands on her. Nikki had done obstetrics, basic surgery and anaesthetics but now-now she wanted a competent neurosurgeon right here and now. And because she hadn’t done the training this boy would die.

‘I can.’ The voice sounded behind her and Nikki spun around. Luke Marriott had quietly entered the theatre and was standing watching her.

He looked more disreputable than he had when she’d first seen him. The travel stains and the marks from catching prawns for two nights had been augmented by an hour trying to free the injured girl. His shirt was ripped and blood-stained. Even his fair hair was filthy, matted with dirt and blood. ‘Intracranial bleed?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve stabilised Lisa,’ he said briefly. ‘She’ll make it. She has two broken legs but they’ll wait for surgery in Cairns. She’s out to it now. If you prep, Dr Russell, I’ll throw myself through the shower, scrub and operate here.’ He turned to the junior nurse. ‘Show me where to go. Fast.’

‘But you can’t,’ Nikki said blankly.

‘Why not?’ The fair-haired man turned back to her and his eyes seemed suddenly older than Nikki had thought. Despite the dirt, he looked hard, professional and totally in control. ‘You’re wasting time, Dr Russell. Prep, please, and fast.’

‘But you’re not-’

‘I’m a surgeon,’ he snapped. ‘And I’ve done enough neurology to get me through. Now move!’

Nikki moved.

The burr hole was the work of an expert. Nikki could only watch and marvel, in the few fleeting moments she could spare from her concentration on the anaesthetic. Luke Marriott’s fingers were skilled and sure. It was Martin’s good fairy that had sent him here tonight.

What on earth was such a man doing as a relieving locum in a place like Eurong? Luke Marriott’s skills belonged in a large city teaching hospital. For him to be volunteering to work for the meagre wage of a locum for three weeks…