Saving Maddie's Baby Read online

  As if.

  I don’t need help?

  She was stuck in a collapsing mine shaft with a guy who was perilously ill. She was in labour. Caroline hadn’t been able to put her through to Hettie.

  Slowly but surely the contractions were building.

  I don’t need help?

  Some things weren’t even worth aiming for.

  * * *

  It was a good thing that Bugsy wasn’t a fox terrier. Josh was very, very pleased that the dog was large.

  Josh’s current plan, albeit a weak one, was to let Bugsy see if he could find a way through the rocks. Bugsy wasn’t much smaller than he was across the shoulders. If Bugsy could find a way, then he might be able to follow.

  There were, however, a whole lot of unknowns in that equation. And risks.

  The best-case scenario was that Bugsy would find a safe passage through, tugging the cord behind him. He’d find Maddie. There’d be a happy reunion. Josh could then follow the rope and get through himself.

  The more likely scenario would be that the whole thing was completely blocked and Bugsy would have to back out.

  A possible scenario was that Bugsy would become impossibly tangled and stuck.

  Or there’d be a further collapse.

  Both the final scenarios were unthinkable but beyond the mass of rock was Maddie, and Bugsy seemed as desperate as he was to get through. So there was nothing he could do now but sit and wait and watch the rope feeding out.

  There was an initial rush of feed as Bugsy nosed his way past the first few boulders. Then the feed slowed.

  And stopped.

  Josh’s heart almost did the same.

  ‘Bugsy?’ he called, but there was no response. And the line started feeding out again.

  Was he going straight through? Dear God, had he turned? Could he trap himself?

  He could cut the line at this end, as long as the dog didn’t get impossibly tangled first.

  Whose crazy idea had this been?

  The line fed out a little further. And further.

  Please...

  He’d never pleaded so desperately in his life.

  * * *

  She could hear scrabbling.

  It was almost like there were mice in the cave with her, but...scrabbling?

  She moved away from Malu’s side, almost afraid to breathe in case she was wrong. Then she flicked the torch and searched the rock pile.

  She could definitely hear scrabbling and it was getting louder.

  It was high up where the rocks almost merged with the ceiling. Or what was left of the ceiling.

  If it fell...

  She couldn’t breathe. She had no room for anything but fear.

  Where...where...?

  And then there it was, slithering down the face of the cave-in, a great, grey ball of canine dust, a wriggly, ecstatic ball of filthy golden retriever.

  And Maddie had the presence of mind—just—to put the torch down before she had an armful of delirious dog, and she was hugging and hugging and pressing her face into Bugsy’s filthy coat and bursting into tears.

  * * *

  He was going crazy. Or maybe he already was crazy. There’d been one last, long feed of line, like Bugsy had made a dash—and then nothing. Nothing!

  According to the line, the dog didn’t appear to be moving.

  If he’d killed Bugsy...

  Of all the stupid, risky, senseless plans. He’d worked for search and rescue for years. There was no way a plan like this could even be considered.

  He knew the rules. You played it by the book. You got in the experts, you did careful risk assessment, you weighed up your options. You never, ever put people’s lives on the line.

  Or dogs’.

  Maybe his bosses would okay dogs, he thought bleakly, but surely not Bugsy.

  What was happening? Dear God, what was happening?

  And then his phone rang.

  * * *

  ‘Josh.’

  She was crying. He could hear her tears. His heart seemed to simply stop.

  ‘Maddie.’

  ‘I have a dog,’ she managed. ‘I have a whole armload of dog. He’s here. Bugsy’s here.’

  His heart gave a great lurch and seemed to restart. ‘Does he still have a cord attached?’

  ‘I...’ There was a moment’s pause. ‘I’ll see. It is dark in here.’ She said it almost indignantly and he found himself grinning. His lovely, brave Maddie, who always rebounded. ‘Yes. Yes, he does. But Josh, what the—’

  ‘I’m coming through, then,’ he said. ‘Are you hugging Bugsy?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Sandwich hug,’ he promised. ‘Stat.’

  ‘Josh, don’t you dare.’ He heard her fear surge. ‘We have a line through now. Wait for the experts.’

  ‘How far apart are the contractions?’

  ‘I don’t... Josh, no!’

  ‘How far, Maddie?’

  ‘I’m not saying.’

  ‘Then you don’t need to say. I’m coming in.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JOSH WASN’T A DOG. Dogs were smaller than Josh and they bent more. He was carrying a backpack, necessary if he was to be useful in there, but it made things harder. After a while he tugged it off his back, looped the straps round his ankles and towed it. It was better but still hard.

  The fallen rocks were large and angular. Where were smooth river rocks when you needed them? These seemed to have broken with almost slate-like edges, flat and sharp, fine if you walked over a nicely laid path of them but murder to crawl up and around.

  But Bugsy had made it through and he would, too. He just had to be careful. Ultra careful. He was following Bugsy’s cord, using the head lamp to see, but he was feeling his way, as well. He was testing every rock before he touched it, feeling the rocks above him, trying to take the fewest risks possible. Hauling his pack behind him with his feet. Halting whenever it snagged.

  It was so dark. And sharp. And hard.

  It was also really, really claustrophobic. He didn’t get claustrophobia, he told himself, but another part of him was saying that in this situation claustrophobia was just plain sensible.

  At the other end of the cord lay Maddie. Maddie, who was in labour.

  He had to be so careful not to pull on the cord so it didn’t become dislodged. He was feeding out another line behind him with the idea of ultimate rescue. These cords were lifelines. Meanwhile he was keeping his hard hat on, getting his body through the next crevice, figuring how Bugsy could possibly have got through. Every fibre of his body was tuned to survival.

  Bugsy had done it in fifteen minutes. After half an hour Josh was still struggling...

  * * *

  How long could she bear it?

  She wanted to ring him but how could she? How could Josh do what he was doing and calmly take time out to answer the phone? He couldn’t. She wanted every ounce of his concentration focussed on keeping him safe.

  She wanted him out of there.

  And she could hear him. That was the worst part. For the last twenty minutes she’d been hearing him hauling his way through the rock. She could hear the occasional shift of earth, the silence as he waited for things to settle. Once she heard the echo of a muffled oath.

  She sat and hugged Bugsy. Bugsy whined a little, tugging forward as if he’d go to him—after five years did Bugsy still feel loyalty?—but Maddie was holding tight.

  Josh was trying—against all odds—against all sense—to haul himself through impossibly tight, impossibly dangerous conditions. Bugsy had been truly heroic but the last thing Josh needed now was a golden retriever in there with him, licking his face, blocking his way.

  She was sayi
ng silent prayers, over and over. Please, let him be safe. Please...

  She’d be saying them for anyone, but for Josh...

  She couldn’t even begin to understand what she was feeling.

  He was her husband.

  He wasn’t her husband. He was...an old friend?

  Liar.

  She was no longer curled up by Malu. There was no way she could disguise the contractions now; they were so strong if she lay beside him he’d feel them.

  Some doctor she was!

  Malu was restless and she knew the pain would break through again soon, leaving him wide awake.

  How could she ask a man with such injuries to help deliver a baby?

  How could she deliver herself? To put her baby at such risk? This little one who she’d longed for with all her heart and yet hadn’t had the courage to acknowledge might be real. This baby who had every right to live.

  Could she depend on Josh manoeuvring through these last few yards? Could she dare hope?

  Another contraction gripped and she stopped asking stupid questions. Only the one word remained.

  Please...

  * * *

  This...had been...a really, really, really...dumb idea. He’d be trapped in here forever, a skeleton, hanging by his fingernails to a stupid rock that, if he could only find purchase, he could use to drag himself up and over.

  Bugsy had done it but Bugsy had more toenails than he did. Bugsy’s back half wasn’t nearly as heavy. She hadn’t been hauling a backpack. This thing was imp—

  No. He had it. He hauled and felt himself lift.

  The cord now seemed like it was running downwards.

  Please... It was a silent prayer said over and over. Let this be the last part. Let it open up.

  Let me see Maddie.

  He gave one last heave, up and over—and suddenly he was slithering, head first, downwards. He hadn’t realised it was so steep. He almost fell, sliding fast on loose shale, the backpack slithering after him.

  And then suddenly his head and then his torso were free from the tunnel. He saw light that didn’t come from his head lamp.

  Torchlight swung towards him, almost blinding him.

  ‘J-Josh?’

  And suddenly he was clear. He was on the floor of a cramped cavern that was still a tunnel but after what he’d been in seemed as wide as a house.

  But he wasn’t noticing. Nothing mattered except that he’d made it and he was holding Maddie in his arms. Holding and holding and holding.

  Maddie. His woman.

  She’d always felt like that. She’d always been that, from the moment they’d first met, but how much more so in this moment?

  He could feel her heart beating against his. She was breathing almost as heavily as he was. He was hugging her and she was hugging right back, maybe even crying.

  He wasn’t crying. Crying wasn’t his style, but holding was.

  Why had he let this woman go?

  It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered except that she was in his arms, she was safe and they were together.

  ‘Maddie...’

  He would have tilted her face. He would have kissed her.

  But then there was the slight hiccup of the dog.

  Bugsy wasn’t letting interpersonal relations get in the way of his needs. He’d orchestrated this rescue and being left out now wasn’t going to happen. The dog was wedging his way firmly in between both of them, turning a hug into a sandwich squeeze.

  And then, from behind them, a voice.

  ‘Have we got company? I wouldn’t mind a hug myself.’

  Malu. He put Maddie away from him, just a little, still holding her but loosely so he could see the man lying on the floor.

  ‘Hey, how’s the patient?’

  ‘So who’s the patient?’ Malu managed. ‘My Pearl’s had two babies, with me beside her every step of the way, so I pretty much know my current treating doctor is well into labour. And her newly arrived backup seems to be one filthy doctor who looks—to my untrained eye, I’ll admit—to be bleeding. You’d best fix him up, Maddie,’ he told her. ‘And then he can fix both of us up next.’

  * * *

  Malu was right. The first priority was actually him. The rocks had been hard and sharp. He’d sliced his arm on that last uncontrolled descent. It wasn’t serious but it was bleeding hard and the last thing any of them needed was to lose fluids.

  So he tolerated—barely—sitting back while Maddie put pressure on it until the bleeding subsided. She cleaned the cut, pulled it together with Steri-Strips and slapped on a dressing. He made a fast call to Keanu while she did it.

  ‘I’m in.’

  Keanu wasted no words. ‘Is there a safe way to get them out?’

  ‘No.’ He thought about the way he’d had to clamber though. There was a good chance he couldn’t get out himself.

  If Maddie hadn’t been here, maybe he wouldn’t have made it. That tunnel was practically suicidal.

  But he was here, with Maddie, who was calmly dressing his arm. Between contractions.

  ‘We’ll depend on the engineering boys to get us out,’ he told Keanu. ‘Short of another collapse, we’re safe enough for now. But, sorry, mate, I have work to do. I’ll ring as soon as I have things under control.’

  Under control? That was a joke.

  ‘It’s not my neatest work,’ Maddie said, a bit breathlessly, as she finished. ‘But you’ll do.’

  She was breathless and her breathlessness didn’t come purely from the dust. ‘When was your last contraction?’

  ‘Over ten minutes ago. I’m slowing down. Stress, do you think?’

  ‘So you really are in labour?’ Malu’s speech was easier now, his body language showing how much it meant to him that someone had been able to get through. ‘You didn’t admit—’

  ‘There wasn’t a lot to admit,’ Maddie said with asperity. ‘You’re not moving and there’s no way we can boil water and switch on humidicribs.’

  ‘So you’re thirty-six weeks?’ They were sitting on the ground. Josh had his arm cradled in front of him. The more he rested it now the less likely it would be to bleed again if...when he got busy. ‘Tell me why you’re still on Wildfire?’

  ‘I’m due to leave on Friday.’

  ‘You know the rules for fly in, fly outs. Thirty-four weeks and then only under strict conditions.’

  ‘I wanted every day of my family leave to be spent with my baby. Leaving six weeks before was a waste of time.’

  ‘Says the woman stuck underground in labour.’

  ‘I didn’t intend to get stuck underground,’ Maddie said—and sniffed.

  The sniff echoed.

  ‘You make our Maddie cry, injured or not, I’ll get up and shove you back in that tunnel,’ Malu warned. ‘And I’ll shove a rock back in after you.’ He hesitated and his voice faltered a little. ‘I don’t suppose... Maddie, you can’t get out that tunnel hero-boy just came in through.’

  ‘No.’ Josh and Maddie spoke together. Maddie, because the thought of crawling through rocks with the massive bulge she had underneath her was unthinkable. Josh...well, pretty much the same for Josh. He’d been incredibly lucky to get here, he conceded. He could well have got himself stuck at any number of places on the way.

  ‘They’ll dig down from the top,’ he said with more confidence than he felt. He crawled across and lifted Malu’s wrist. ‘Pain... Scale of one to ten.’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘Seven,’ Malu said, reluctantly. ‘But I can cope.’

  ‘Forget coping. I have drugs.’

  ‘Maddie has drugs.’

  ‘I have more drugs. Nice drugs.’

  ‘I’d give more for a mouthful of
water.’

  ‘I can do that, too. I have a backpack, fully loaded.’ He helped the man drink, holding him up a little and then easing him back on his makeshift pillow. Noting the fierce effort it took him not to cry out.

  He was in pain, Josh thought, but not from his leg. Ribs?

  His breathing was a bit scratchy.

  Fractured ribs? Pierced lung?

  There weren’t a lot of X-ray facilities down there.

  ‘How long since you gave the last morphine?’ he asked Maddie.

  ‘I... Half an hour ago. Five milligrams.’

  He cast a quick look back at her. She sounded strained.

  She was strained. She was leaning against the rock wall, her arms were holding her belly, she was arched back and she was trying not to scream.

  He flicked the torch away from her fast, so Malu couldn’t see.

  Triage. He’d like to do a very fast pelvic examination but Malu was breathing too fast. The pain would be making his breathing rapid and his heart rate rise.

  The priority was Malu, but Malu got the world’s fastest injection. He set up another bag of saline. Then he hesitated.

  ‘Go to her,’ Malu whispered. ‘I’m imagining a nice cubicle partition in my mind. I’ll close my eyes. Those drugs you gave me...they’ll make me sleep, right?’

  ‘They will, but not for ten or fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ Malu said. ‘Those empty saline bags... Prop ’em up against the side of my face. Then tell Doc she has all the privacy she could ever want to get that baby out.’

  ‘She’s not... It can’t be soon.’

  ‘You’re the doc and I’m the miner,’ Malu whispered. ‘But, hell, Doc, I’d go take a look if I were you.’

  * * *

  ‘I can’t have my baby down here.’

  That was pretty much what Josh was thinking. He had nothing. Nothing!

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He had basic sterile equipment.

  Forceps, not so much. Equipment for an emergency Caesar? Not in his wildest dreams.

  ‘Sweetheart—’

  ‘I’m not your sweetheart.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, chastened. ‘Maddie, I need to examine you.’

  ‘I know you need to examine,’ she moaned. ‘And I heard what Malu said. Malu, thank you for the privacy but if a vacuum cleaner salesman could stop this pain right now I’d say go ahead, look all you like.’