Her Emergency Knight. Alison Roberts

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      ‘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 fine.’

      ‘Like hell it is.’ Guy’s fingers were on the now swollen flesh, having pushed up the sleeves of her anorak, jacket and soft jumper. His touch was gentle but firm and there was no way Jennifer could suppress her flinch as the ends of her broken bone moved against each other.

      Guy caught her gaze. ‘You realise this is fractured?’ His eyes held hers. ‘Of course you do.’ There was a flash of something like respect in his steady gaze. ‘Were you going to do something about it or just carry on collecting rocks?’

      ‘We need the rocks.’ It was surprisingly difficult to break the eye contact, but the rocks in question provided a new focus until Jennifer found a way to change the subject. ‘What about you? That’s not Bill’s blood, is it?’

      Fresh drops glistened on the dark grey rock at their feet. ‘We don’t have enough fluid for two people in shock,’ Jennifer reminded him. ‘And if you keep bleeding like that, I’ll be the one who has to deal with it.’

      Her tone sharpened as she spoke. Silly, pointless tears were threatening to clog her throat. They were lost on a mountaintop and nobody had any idea where they were. They were all injured to varying degrees and a sub-zero night was about to enfold them.

      ‘Tell you what. We’ll get the tarp in place and then I’ll splint your arm and you can bandage up my leg.’ Guy’s forefinger touched Jennifer under her chin and she was startled into raising her face to meet his gaze again. ‘We’ll look after each other,’ he continued softly, ‘and that way, we’ll all get through this. OK?’

      ‘OK.’ For an instant, Jennifer really believed that everything would be all СКАЧАТЬ