Fergus sighed. Doctors were trained to save lives, no matter how obnoxious those lives were, but it didn’t always feel good. Now he thought longingly about his beautifully equipped city hospital and his wonderfully trained nursing staff who’d cope with the messy bits that he was forced to cope with himself now. Back in Sydney, if a patient retched he’d step back and hand over to the nurses.

‘I’m good at woodwork,’ he told Ginny without much hope, and she smiled.

‘Not in a million years, mate,’ she told him. ‘I’m on door duty. You’re on patient duty.’

Finally the last screw holding the door to the hinge was released. The door fell forward and Ginny grunted in satisfaction as she took its weight.

‘Great. I was afraid it’d be solid. This is light enough to give us a bit more leverage.’

‘So now what?’

‘Let’s get it under him,’ she told him. ‘Is his airway clear?’

‘As good as I can get.’ Oscar was drifting into alcoholic sleep, which at least meant that they could work without abuse.

‘We’ll leave the oxygen on till the last moment,’ Ginny told him. ‘He’ll have to be unhooked for a bit while we load him into the truck. But we’ll work fast.’

‘Are you medical?’ he asked, bemused, but she wasn’t listening. She was sliding the door toward him, signalling him to shove the other end as close as he could to Oscar.

Then she hauled the mattress on top.

‘Put this pillow between his hips in case he really has got a broken bone,’ she ordered, and he stopped wondering whether she had a medical background. He was sure.

‘Now.’ Fergus was on one side of Oscar. Ginny was on the other with the door-cum-stretcher between Ginny and Oscar. ‘Roll him sideways as far as you can toward you,’ she said. ‘One hand on his shoulder, the other just above his hip. Don’t try and lift-you’re just rolling. And I’ll shove.’

‘Where did you learn to do this?’