Seconds later, she was back on the veranda, her heart thumping like a trip hammer. Carefully, remembering that even the slightest movement could cause the venom to spread further into the blood stream, she bandaged the blue-edged fang marks with their little ooze of blood firmly, remembering the instructions she had been given when she had attended a first-aid class at the Cloncurry hospital. Never use a tourniquet, they had been told. Such a thing might trap the venom but it could result in the loss of the limb below it.
She finished the bandage off neatly and looked anxiously into her husband’s face. He was still pale, but gave her a reassuring smile as she stood up. ‘I’m going to contact the Flying Doc, darling,’ she said gently. ‘D’you know what sort of snake it was? Only they’re bound to ask and I can never tell one from t’other.’
‘Not sure,’ Andy mumbled. ‘There are so many of them. This one may be harmless – well, not harmless, but not as venomous as some. The doc’ll know when he sees the body; he’s got a book . . .’ His voice trailed into silence and as she hurried out of the room, turning to give Andy one more glance, Nancy saw that he had closed his eyes.
The radio was kept in the living room, and glancing at the clock on the mantel she realised that it was the galah hour, when most of the women in the outback enjoyed a chat and some idle gossip amongst themselves. Someone, almost certainly a man, had nicknamed it the galah hour after the pink and grey galah parrots that chattered incessantly all over the country. Nancy sat down in front of the radio, flicked on the switch and immediately heard a babble of voices. A woman was repeating a recipe but Nancy cut across her words. ‘Urgent! This is the Walleroo. Andy’s been bit by a snake and I need the Flying Doc. Calling Cloncurry; calling Dr Mitchell. Over.’ She flicked the switch on to receiver mode.
At her words, the radio went eerily silent for a moment, then a voice came from the receiver. ‘That you, Nancy? Doc Mitchell here. I’ve been at the Partiger place so I can be with you in thirty minutes. You’ve immobilised the bite area? Don’t let him move and keep your head. What was the snake? Remember, no guessing, you either know or you don’t. Over.’
At the very sound of the doctor’s voice, relief had flooded over Nancy in waves, and some of the sheer terror which had caused her hands to shake and her voice to tremble left her. She took a deep breath. ‘We’re not sure, doc, but Andy killed it and we’ve got the body,’ she said. ‘Yes, I bandaged the wound and Andy’s lying down and keeping still. Over.’
‘Good, good. Stay calm and tell Andy to do the same. What sort of state is your airstrip in? Over.’
Nancy thought hard. ‘It’s muddy, but apart from that, not too bad,’ she said, and was grateful for Andy’s insistence that the strip should be checked every two or three days. She had often thought he was too fussy; now she blessed his thoroughness. But best to make sure. ‘I’ll get Aggie to go to the nearest humpy and fetch a few of the fellers over. One of them can drive the truck up and down the strip and the rest can help clear away as much water as they can. Did you say thirty minutes, doc? Over.’
‘I did, but I’ll mebbe make it in less,’ the doctor said cheerfully. ‘Andy will be good, you’ll see. I’m in the air an’ headin’ for the Walleroo but you might take time out to fetch the snake over to the radio. Then you can describe the markings to me, which will give me some idea. Over.’
Nancy flew outside and snatched up the snake’s limp body, glancing at Andy as she did so. His eyes were still closed and she fancied she saw a bluish tinge round his mouth. Oh, God, she prayed, running back across the living room and sliding on to the chair in front of the radio set. Oh, God, let the doc arrive in time. Don’t let my Andy die!
Dr Mitchell was as good as his word, better in fact. Twenty minutes after Nancy had described the snake, she heard the buzz of the plane’s engine approaching and looked up into the cloud-filled sky to see the small machine beginning to descend. The pilot, skilled at landing in the bush, brought the plane to a halt with scarcely a wobble and almost before it had stopped the doctor had jumped down and was running towards the house. He arrived on the veranda closely followed by half the Walleroo staff, and even in her terrified state Nancy could read the anxiety in the men’s eyes and was grateful for it. They were truly fond of ‘the boss’ and would do anything they could to help him.
However, their presence alone was not much use at present, so Nancy shooed them away, promising to send Aggie or Violet over to the camp with news as soon as she had something to report.
Nancy had expected the doctor to perform some sort of operation, but in the event he consulted his book and then came to her, clearly worried but trying not to let his anxiety show. ‘I’ve given him a shot of something which should help,’ he said, ‘but I want him in hospital.’ He indicated the snake. ‘The head’s too badly mangled to identify it for certain, but I guess it could carry diseases other than its venom, so I want Andy under my eye for a few days.’ He looked keenly at Nancy. He was a tall, rangy man, with thinning fair hair, steady blue-grey eyes and a large, drooping moustache. He put a hand on her arm. ‘Can you leave the station? It’s not as if you’ll be wanting to muster the cattle in this weather, and anyway’ – he grinned suddenly, boyishly – ‘I doubt if you’d be much use on a muster. Andy would say it was men’s work.’
‘I’ll go with Andy,’ Nancy said at once. ‘I’ll radio the McGuires; their Phil is home again so I reckon they’ll spare him to us for a few days, just until . . .’ her voice wobbled and she hesitated until she could control it once more, ‘until Andy’s well again,’ she finished firmly.
‘Right. I’ll give you five minutes to get a few things together while the boys and myself carry Andy out to the plane and make him comfortable,’ the doctor said. ‘Five minutes, mind; that do you?’
Nancy did not need to reply. She hurried through to the bedroom, flung her washing things and Andy’s into an old knapsack, added some underwear and a change of clothes, and ran out to where Violet and Aggie were watching as the men carried Andy, on a stretcher which had been brought from the plane, to the airstrip.
‘Violet, Aggie, I’m going to the hospital with the boss,’ Nancy said rapidly. ‘I’ll radio the McGuires as soon as we reach Cloncurry, and ask them to send young Phil over to keep an eye on the cattle. He’s a good lad and his mum was saying he’s bored with kicking his heels about the station ’cos Bob and Alf had to manage without him during the war and they can manage without him now. If he can’t come, I dare say the stockmen will cope for a few days, but I don’t think it’ll come to that. If you need me, use the radio to get a message to Cloncurry. Oh, and check the batteries, though I think they’re all right for a while. D’you know how to use the set, Aggie?’
Aggie nodded seriously. ‘Course I does, missus. I uses it when the boss takes you to town. But I guess you won’t be gone long, eh?’
Nancy saw that Andy’s stretcher had been loaded on to the plane, Dr Mitchell was swinging himself aboard and the pilot had started the engine. Hastily, she grabbed her bag and set off towards the airstrip at a smart trot. ‘I dunno, but I’ll stay for as long as it takes,’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘If I’m going to be gone long, I’ll send someone to hold the fort.’
Behind her she heard the women murmuring that they would manage, and then she reached the plane and was hauled unceremoniously aboard by the doctor’s strong hands. She looked anxiously at Andy, lying very still on the stretcher; his tanned face looking yellowish, his eyes still closed. For a moment, he reminded her of someone, but she could not think who, and then the doctor was settling her in a small bucket seat, telling her that they would soon have Andy in the hospital and regaining some colour. ‘Sleep’s the best thing for him right now,’ he shouted above the roar of the engines. ‘And it wouldn’t hurt you to have a bit of a rest. Just try to relax or you won’t be much good to Andy when we reach Cloncurry. The nursing staff there won’t want an extra patient.’
Nancy nodded and presently fell into an uneasy doze, for though she had thought sleep was out of the question exhaustion claimed her the moment she relaxed, and she did not fully awaken until the plane landed on the Cloncurry airstrip.
The next week was one of the worst of Nancy’s life, but at the end of it even her anxious eyes could see that Andy had turned the corner and was going to get better. For the first three or four days, she had stayed constantly by his bed, even though he had been in a sort of coma, unable to speak to her, not even aware of her presence, she thought. She knew that the doctor who was treating him here, a Dr Leandro, had been as worried as she, but on the fifth day he began to look a little more hopeful, on the sixth he became almost cheery, and on the seventh, when Andy had sat up and demanded bacon and egg for breakfast, he assured Nancy that her husband would make a full recovery. He was a small man of Italian origin, with thick black hair swept back from a broad lined forehead, bright eyes dark as sloes and a full-lipped mouth which revealed very even white teeth when he smiled. His English was far from perfect, though he had lived in Australia for twenty years, but Nancy soon realised that the nurses thought him a first-rate doctor and, as Andy began to improve, found she agreed with them. He was a quiet man but he was always willing to explain to Nancy what he was doing and why, particularly when she told him that she had nursed in France during the First World War. She also appreciated the fact that, when Andy tried to say he must be allowed to leave the hospital and go back to the Walleroo since he felt so much better, the doctor was able to dissuade him without shaking his confidence in his recovery. ‘I admeet you are very much better, Mr Sullivan,’ Dr Leandro had said seriously, ‘but the Walleroo is a cattle station, is it not? And such places are not of the healthiest. I trust you have been pleased with the attention we have given you at the Cloncurry? Well, we in our turn are pleased with your progress. If you stay here, under our eyes, for another week or so, we can send you home as fit as you were before the snake bite. But if you go home now, and have a relapse . . .’ he had shrugged and rolled his eyes, a peculiarly Italian gesture, ‘then you would be making work for us and misery for yourself. No?’
Nancy had waited for Andy to rip up but instead he had grinned at the doctor. ‘I guess you’re right, doc,’ he had admitted. ‘Getting myself out to the dunny took just about all my strength this morning so mebbe I’ll hang around in here for a while longer.’
Later in the day, Nancy sat beside his bed and passed on all the news from the Walleroo she had gleaned when she radioed them to say they would be staying in Cloncurry for a while yet. ‘Violet and Aggie are managing just fine and young Phil McGuire is downright enjoying himself,’ she reported. ‘Why, he’s even got some of the fellers together and they’ve cleaned out under the veranda, killed a dozen snakes and a great heap of creepy crawlies. But I’m telling you, Andy Sullivan, that if you ever try to go under that veranda again . . .’ She gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. ‘Oh, Andy, the letter! How absolutely awful, but it went completely out of my head!’ She looked frantically round the ward. ‘Can you remember what you did with the page you rescued after the wind blew it away?’
Andy thought for a moment, brow furrowed. Then his face cleared. ‘I’m pretty sure I crumpled it up and pushed it into my trouser pocket,’ he said slowly. ‘I was still wearing them when I came in here so I guess if you find the trousers, you’ll find the letter. What about the second page – the one you had?’
‘I did just what you did; shoved it into my skirt pocket,’ Nancy said. She was still wearing the skirt and now she plunged a hand into the pocket. She withdrew the page triumphantly, smoothed it out and began to read, then turned a worried face towards her husband. ‘Darn it, we’ll have to find that first sheet. This one doesn’t make sense by itself, and it doesn’t even have her address on, so I can’t reply.’ She got to her feet and crossed to Andy’s bedside locker. Pulling it open, she extracted the drill trousers he had been wearing when he arrived at the hospital. ‘Oh, Andy, what a fool I am! Sister said I might make use of their laundry to get the mud cleaned off your shirt and trousers, so I did. I never thought to check the pockets . . .’ She plunged a hand into both pockets of the trousers, pulling the lining out to prove that they were empty. ‘Oh, whatever shall we do?’
‘There isn’t much we can do . . .’ Andy was beginning, when Sister’s round and rosy face appeared round the door at the end of the ward and she trotted towards them. She was starting to say that it was time Nancy took herself off for her daily walk when Nancy interrupted her. ‘Sister, the most awful thing . . .’
She was only halfway through her explanation, however, when the sister cut across her words. ‘Well, what a fuss about nothing, Mrs Sullivan,’ she said reprovingly. ‘I guess all hospitals have the same rules about patients’ property, or have you forgotten? As soon as we got Mr Sullivan into hospital pyjamas, the contents of his pockets were emptied by the almoner and placed in a stout envelope, which was then sealed and put in the hospital safe. On your way out, just ask for Miss Brown – that’s the almoner – and she will hand it over.’
Nancy could have hugged her. She had been as worried as Pete over the disappearance of Jess’s daughter and knew her son would be delighted if she could write and give him Debbie Ryan’s address. So she gave Andy a quick kiss and hurried off the ward, and very soon she was pacing the pavement, walking a little less swiftly than usual, since she was reading as she went. At first she was disappointed that there was no address on top of the letter, but she soon realised why. Debbie Ryan was coming to Australia to visit them! It was wonderful, more than she had ever dared hope. And she knew that Andy – and Pete of course – would be equally delighted. Pete had told her how guilty he had felt over losing touch with Jess’s child, though Nancy had always maintained that it was as much Debbie’s fault as Pete’s. Or perhaps it was no one’s fault; in wartime, no one could be sure of anything. But at any rate, it looked as though Pete and Debbie would meet up again after all, and in Pete’s very own home, what was more.