(eng) Michael Scott Rohan & Allan J. Scott by The Ice King

Author:The Ice King [King, The Ice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE LONG blades quivered and cut at the dull air, their wind whipping up little rills in the powder snow. Hal shivered. They reminded him of the blades in the Odd Dance – which, come to think of it, must just be getting under way for its morning performance about now. If those prancing idiots had the least idea what they were really acting out! But then he had to duck away from the sudden blast of the helicopter’s rotors, sending all the half-thawed top snow scattering and streaming out in a wide circle, obliterating the stretcher team’s narrow trail of footprints. The engine bellow rose to an almost unbearable pitch and the machine leapt unsteadily into the air. It rose vertically, hung an instant wobbling and wavering in the sudden buffet of wind, then spun on its axis and chattered off over the whitened roofs of the town, heading straight for the rimed cliffs. At the last moment it hopped up over them and vanished into the grey. The little knot of doctors and porters straggled back towards the warm indoors.

‘Well,’ sighed Ridley, ‘at least that’s that.’

‘But I wonder, will she be all right?’

Ridley looked askance. ‘As well as she can be, with a broken back and a fractured skull.’

‘I mean in that helicopter!’ snapped Hal. ‘When they say even microscopic injuries could make all the difference! Surely it would have been smoother by road?’

‘Ah. Mmh. There’s no alternative, really, not after the snow last night. The roads are open, yes, but another fall could really gum them up. She’d be a lot worse off stuck in a snowbound ambulance, I can tell you. Better she gets to Pinderfields – Spinal Injuries unit there’s as good as any in the country, even Stoke Mandeville. She’ll get the best of everything. They fixed up a lad of ours a treat after his motorcycle prang –’

‘Did he ever walk again?’

‘Well, no. But I gather her chances sound a bit better. She’s lucky to be alive, anyway. If you hadn’t showed up at the house like that –’

‘But for me she wouldn’t have been at the house! It was her first night back for a fortnight.’

‘Still just as well. Means they were probably keeping an eye on the place, doesn’t it? Sooner or later she’d’ve gone back anyway – only you mightn’t have been there. So don’t worry too much – at least,’ he added hastily, ‘not about that. God knows, we’ve enough else. Such as just who we had our little run-in with last night. A pretty pressing problem, in the circumstances. Any suggestions?’

With an impatient gesture Hal swept the snow off one of the benches ringing the hospital’s little lawn, and sat down. Ridley joined him, carefully arranging his coat flaps to protect his trousers, but Hal sat silent, staring at the dents the helicopter’s undercarriage had left in the lawn.

‘Well,’ repeated Ridley quietly. ‘A woman – all too obvious. But that’s about all that bloody well is obvious. That tall, that strong – left dents all over my poor old car –’ He gave a short sharp laugh.

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