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They were over the fire by now, seeing the red line of flame still advancing inexorably towards the ocean, while behind it lay the black, smouldering bushland.
Two rocky headlands parted to give a glimpse of a small beach and as they dropped lower she saw the group, huddled among the rocks on the southern end, their hands held protectively over their bent heads as the down-thrust from the rotors whipped up the sand.
‘Good kids, did what they were told,’ Marty muttered, more to himself than to Emma.
They touched down, the engine noise ceased, and before she could unstrap herself, Marty was already over the back, opening the doors and leaping down onto the sand.
He turned to grab Emma’s bag then held up a hand to help her down. An impersonal hand, professional, so why didn’t she take it? Jumping lightly to the sand as if she hadn’t noticed it…
‘I’m a trained paramedic so if you need me just yell,’ he was saying as she landed beside him. ‘I’m going to juggle weights in the hope we can get everyone off in two lifts.’
He paused and looked her up and down.
‘You’d be, what—sixty kilos?’
‘Thereabouts,’ she told him over her shoulder, hurrying towards the approaching children. One of the adults—probably a teacher—was helping a young, and very pale, girl across the beach.
‘Let’s sit you down and make you comfortable,’ Emma said to the child, noting at the same time a slight cyanosis of the lips and the movement of the girl’s stomach as she used those muscles to drag air into her congested lungs.
‘I’m Emma, and you’re…?’
‘Gracie,’ the girl managed.
‘She’s had asthma since she was small but this is the first time we’ve seen her like this,’ the woman Emma had taken for a teacher put in.
‘Do you have your puffer with you?’ Emma asked, and was pleased when Gracie produced a puffer from a pocket of her skirt.
‘Good girl. You’ve had some?’
Gracie nodded, while the teacher expanded on the nod.
‘She’s had several puffs but they don’t seem to be helping.’
‘That’s okay,’ Emma said calmly to Gracie. ‘I’ve brought a spacer with me, and you’ll get more of the medicine inside you with the spacer. Have you used one before?’
Another nod as Emma fitted the puffer to the spacer and inserted a dose, then found a mask she could attach to the spacer so the girl could breathe more easily.
‘Just slow down, take a deep breath and hold it, then we’ll do a few more.’ Probably best not to mention twelve at this stage. ‘See how you go.’
The girl obeyed but while it was obvious that the attack had lessened in severity, she was still distressed.
Marty had appeared with the oxygen cylinder and a clip and tiny monitor that would show the oxygen saturation in the blood. He joked as he clipped it on the girl’s finger, and nodded to Emma when the reading was an acceptable ninety-four percent.
The oxygen cylinder wouldn’t be needed yet.
Emma drew the teacher aside and explained what had to be done to fill the spacer and deliver the drug.
‘Are you happy to do that on the way to the hospital?’ she asked, and the teacher nodded.
‘I do it all the time,’ she said. ‘My second youngest is asthmatic. We just didn’t think to carry a spacer with us.’
Which left Emma to fill in the chart with what she’d done, dosage given, and the time. The flight from the hospital had only taken fifteen minutes so the child would be back in the emergency department before there was any need to consider further treatment, and she knew from her briefing that another doctor would have been called in to cover for her.
Marty had done a rough estimate of the weight of his possible passengers and had begun loading them into the helicopter. To the west the smoke grew thicker and the fire burning on the headland to the south told them they were completely cut off.
He looked at the tide, encroaching on the dry sand where he’d landed. He had to move now if he wanted to get back here before the tide was too high.
‘I’m taking the sick child and the teacher with her,’ he said to the new doctor, wondering how she’d cope being left on the beach surrounded by fire on her first day at work.
‘And the teacher’s aide who’s upset,’ he added, concentrating on the job at hand. ‘She’s not likely to be of any use to you, plus another six children. Will you be all right here until I get back? You have a phone? We’re quite close to Wetherby so there’s good coverage.’
‘I have a phone, we’ll be fine, you get going,’ she said, waving him away, and as he left he glanced back, seeing her hustling the children towards the sheltering rocks to avoid the sand spray at take-off.
