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‘Who’s in the next bay?’
‘Young boy named Zav. He’s only five. He suffers from a severe form of thalassaemia so he needs blood transfusions every five weeks. His family are from a village a little east of here, wealthy by local standards, but they say they can’t keep making the journey across the border and want to bring him to this hospital for his transfusions.’
‘Right.’ Elle nodded grimly. Thalassaemia wasn’t uncommon out here, not just as an inherited blood disorder, but also because there was no national plan
to tackle the disease. It meant that few health facilities could offer treatment for the more severe cases, and parents weren’t educated on its causes, which were mutations in the DNA of cells. They only understood the symptoms of chronic fatigue, anaemia and, ultimately, if she recalled rightly, a life expectancy of around fifteen years in this region. Twenty years across the country.
‘I take it infection, bone deformities and slowed growth rates, especially in children, are common.’
‘Right,’ the nurse agreed. ‘We see a lot of abnormal bone structure in the face and skull, broken bones, iron overloads and heart problems such as arrhythmias and congestive heart failure.’
Elle nodded. There was little she could say. Treatments were basically frequent blood transfusions or stem-cell transplants, usually from a non-affected sibling. Otherwise, affected or carrier parents would be looking at IVF with embryos pre-tested for genetic defects. Hardly a possibility in a country like this one.
‘And in the far bed?’ Elle forced herself to move on.
‘A two-month-old. Bronchiolitis.’
Again, not uncommon in this region, affecting hundreds of babies every season. Still, she would be glad when the rebuild was under way and she could start kitting out dedicated wards with incubators, paediatric kits and equipment for women in labour. Training the local health professionals to be part-doctors, part-nurses, part-surgeons, however, promised to be no mean feat.
As she flew around the wards—or what passed for wards in the damaged hospital—Elle considered the best place to start in terms of the rebuild. She knew that Major Carl Howes, the officer in command of the troop working at the hospital itself, was focussed on getting the main infrastructure up first. Without water and power, everything else would be doubly hard, but the discovery of an unexpected aquifer running below the area had thrown their programme into turmoil, and Carl had told her he’d called in his commanding officer to go through the finer details.
She could only hope Carl’s colonel was as much of an expert as Carl claimed the man was.
She glanced quickly at her watch. There was a joint regiment briefing in a couple of hours and her own commanding officer had flown in as well. She really didn’t want to keep him waiting so her ward rounds were going to be postponed. Grabbing a hat for the shade, Elle ducked outside, seeing the older man straight away and beaming at her mentor.
‘Colonel Duggan, thanks for flying in. I take it you’ve heard about the aquifer?’
* * *
Fitz surveyed the vast expanse of nothing beneath the helicopter as it flew the hour or so trip across the barren land, his eyes constantly scanning, more out of habit than anything since they were in a non-combat environment out here.
Part of him was actually relishing the challenge of the unexpected aquifer. Anything to occupy his mind, to distract it from the emerald-eyed, flame-haired beauty who had haunted his dreams—waking and sleeping—for almost a week now. He couldn’t shake her from his memory, but every time he tried to work out what made her so special, so unique from any other woman he’d dated, he just seemed to tie himself up in knots.
It was uncharacteristic and he loathed it. Yet he wouldn’t have changed it even if he could have.
He’d watched a group of squaddies playing with a deck of cards the previous night and had realised that right now his life, his career had been like a perfectly ordered deck of cards until Elle had given them a playful shuffle. It had taken him all of the last week to re-order them and fit them neatly back into their box.
Still, he had no intention of letting them get messed up again. Not while he was out here on tour, in any case.
Maybe afterwards, once he returned home, if visions of that flame-haired, emerald-eyed temptress still haunted his dreams, he might consider stepping out of his comfort zone and contacting the hotel to see if he couldn’t inveigle something—anything—out of them regarding Elle’s name.
Anything to sate the gnawing ache she’d left inside him.
Finally the heli landed, and Fitz stepped out to greet Major Howes, one of the five majors under his direct command.
‘Colonel.’
‘Major.’
‘How was your ride, sir?’
‘Fine, thanks. Good to see you again, Major. We missed each other at Razorwire.’
‘Yes, sir, I didn’t think I’d have to wait long for you to come out and see the hospital site first-hand. I’m glad, too, as I could use someone with your particular specialism right now. I was going to radio HQ to send me someone yesterday but then I heard you were on your way. I’ll show you around when you’re ready.’
‘I’m happy for you to show me around now,’ Fitz said as they moved out of the way while soldiers began unloading the several tonnes of materials and equipment from the heli.
Dutifully, Carl instructed a young lance corporal to take Fitz’s pack to his office.
