Wishing for a Miracle Read Online Free PDF Page A

can see what we’re doing.’
    Sure enough, massive lights had been put in place both on the ground and the bridge and, despite drizzle that was determined to become rain, the visibility was excellent. It was still a slow job extricating Ken. He had pain relief on board and was completely immobilised but even the tiniest movement hurt. Angus joined them inside the carriage but it still took an age to inch the stretcher carefully upwards. Julia stayed as close as she could to Ken’s head. Talking to him. Reassuring him. Sympathising with the amount of pain he was in. It needed extra help to get the stretcher out of the door and attached to the winch and while that was happening Mac checked the harness he still wore in preparation to accompany the stretcher.
    But Julia had other ideas.
    â€˜I’ll go up with him.’
    What he could see of her face looked very pale.Pinched, almost, as though she had been doing more than reassuring Ken and had actually taken some of his pain on board. Mac shook the thought off but whatever the cause she was reaching the limits of her endurance and steadying a stretcher being winched to make sure it didn’t catch on obstacles, not to mention helping to lift it over the lip of the destination, was no mean feat.
    â€˜I think I should,’ was all he said.
    But then he looked down from Julia’s face to where her hand was holding Ken’s. To the way Ken was looking up at Julia, his fear only just contained. And, for a weird moment, Mac felt envious. Of that connection. Of that touch.
    â€˜OK,’ he amended a little hurriedly. ‘If you’re sure.’
    Julia gave a single nod. ‘I’m sure.’
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    There were hand-held television cameras on the bridge now. Journalists eager to interview Julia as Ken was transferred to waiting paramedic crews who had a helicopter ready to evacuate him.
    â€˜You’re going to the best spinal unit in Glasgow for assessment,’ Julia was able to tell Ken as she said goodbye. ‘I’ll come and visit you very soon.’
    She avoided the media, pushing back to watch anxiously as her SERT colleagues brought out the man with the serious head injury, who was, amazingly, still clinging to life, and were then winched up themselves, one by one. By the time Mac joined her on the bridge, they had been on scene for nearly five hours and their official shift had finished some time ago.
    Not that any of them were about to leave just yet. Theweather was closing in and the transport that had taken Ken to Glasgow had been the last that would be leaving by air. Joe was grounded so they would have to organise road transport to get back to station and the people who could do that for them were otherwise occupied because the crane had finally arrived and the last stages of this rescue were under way.
    Things hadn’t quite ended. It made no difference that they had started this shift well over twelve hours ago and that they were both exhausted. This had become ‘their’ job and they would see it through to the bitter end.
    Had she known how bitter that end would be, Julia thought later, she would never have been so willing to accompany Mac back to the carriage for a final check. She would have found some way to ensure that someone other than them were the last people present.
    The dead body was sprawled flat on the floor now, debris strewn under, around and over him. Julia edged in beside a seat to give the men in orange overalls room to load the man onto a stretcher and carry him to the temporary morgue set up in one of the huge tents. A space she knew already had fourteen occupants from this disaster.
    She watched in silence as the stretcher was eased through the door and outside into the bleak night. Then she turned her head to see Mac also watching. Unguarded for an instant as the beam of her headlamp caught his face, she could see his exhaustion and the kind of defeat that went with every life lost on