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‘Bring your patient this way.’
‘He’s out cold.’
‘Damn it.’ The sergeant knelt beside the private then hefted him onto his shoulders. ‘They’re loading trucks and evacuating the wounded.’
‘But I am essential. I’m a nurse and—’
‘Move, Sister. They’ll need you. Around the next corner.’
Her ears ringing, Meg moved in response to the commanding tone. ‘I should get him to the hospital . . .’
‘Hospital’s on fire. Do what you can for him once you’re out of here.’ The sergeant’s words bounced raggedly as he jogged towards the corner.
A battered truck with wooden slats along the sides and no roof, was parked near the rear gates of the hospital. Benches filled with wounded servicemen lined both sides.
Examining the crammed vehicle, Meg shook her head. ‘There’s no room on this one.’
‘You’ll fit. We can squeeze you both in.’
Meg looked up at the sound of a familiar voice. Sister Patricia Carey, who had been on the shift that relieved Meg’s three hours earlier, gestured for her to climb aboard. ‘Hurry up, Meg.’ Pat squeezed past the legs of a couple of patients and held out a hand.
Meg grabbed Pat’s hand and scrambled up onto the flat bed, dangling her legs over the tailgate. It was precarious, but there wasn’t another inch of space to shuffle into.
The sergeant put the injured private beside her then shouted to the driver. ‘That’s it. Go.’
Meg eased Private Jackson’s good shoulder and head onto her lap as the truck bounced into a pothole—or was it a bomb hole? He groaned as the truck bumped and ground along the road south. Covering his wound as well as she could, Meg looked back at the city.
Dust spewed up behind the truck, almost obliterating the dirt road. Smoke filled the sky and several thick black columns rose from the harbour. How many ships had been hit? How many sunk? Her heart ached at the thought of the men on those ships. Had any sailors escaped?
Pat slid down against Meg’s back. ‘Okay there? What happened to you?’
‘I’m fine, aside from being tipped out of my bed. The hotel was hit, but I made it downstairs to the street. Someone called me to help this chap. What’s happened, do you know?’
‘Tom said the Japs might try to invade us at the Top End. Looks like he was right.’
‘Tom, your brother?’ The truck lurched around a bend past the road to the racecourse. Dirt spooled out as they headed south, leaving the town behind. The heavy choking smoke thinned.
‘Yes. He’s on the HMAS Kookaburra. I heard there was a wave of planes hit the harbour and the big guns first. ... Once those were out of action, they started bombing the town. My guess is the airport was probably hit, or will be.’
‘The Post Office has gone, and it looked like the telegraph wires are down. No one will know what’s happening up here.’ Meg went quiet. Her head ached, her eyes were gritty, and hunger pangs hit hard. Exhausted after twenty hours on the ward, she’d fallen asleep without eating. But likely she wouldn’t be able to keep any food down. Not after the shock of waking to a world on fire. Her stomach disagreed.
A wooden signpost pointed the way to Mt Isa and Alice Springs, and Brisbane, impossibly far away. The truck slowed with a squeal of brakes and a soldier jumped out from the cab. He knocked the sign names from the post with the butt of his rifle, collected them in his arms and returned to the cab. With a wheezing groan, the truck rolled slowly onwards.
‘Any idea where we’re going?’ They bounced in and out of a depression in the road.
Pat knocked Meg’s shoulder and grimaced. ‘Right now? Frankly, I don’t care so long as it’s as far away from here as we can get.’
‘Thank goodness most of the civilian population were sent away when the government decided to station our armed forces up here.’
Pat said nothing for several moments, but she leaned across Meg’s shoulder and gently checked Private Jackson’s wound. ‘That’s one of the things I like about you, Meg. Even in the direst circumstances, you find something to be grateful for.’ A soldier out of Meg’s sight called, ‘Sister, can you check my mate?’ She squeezed Meg’s shoulder before rising and clambering between soldiers seated on the floor between the narrow benches.
Rocking and bouncing on the back of the truck, Meg felt oddly detached from events. Praying this was just a nightmare brought on by too little sleep, her eyelids lowered, and her head bent. The angle made her neck ache, but she was too tired to lift her head . . .
A hand gripped her shoulder and shook her. ‘Whoa there, Sister, don’t nod off or you’ll fall out and wake up in the middle of the track.’
Blinking and wishing the cheery voice with a hint of an Irish accent hadn’t dragged her from the arms of Morpheus, Meg turned to see who had saved her from tumbling into the road.
A cheeky grin slashed white across a corporal’s dirt-streaked face.
