Ben was just who they needed right now.

He’d always been just who she needed.

‘Blood pressure,’ he snapped, and she responded fast, the medical side of her working once more on automatic.

‘Seventy on forty-five.’

‘We’re clamping this and waiting,’ he snapped. ‘There’s muck further down but to clear it involves further blood loss. We have to get that pressure up first.’

Muck further down…

She’d never intended to clear it. The bullet that had smashed into Henri had obviously blasted though wood first, as there were shards of splintered timber in the wound. She’d decided her only option was to get the bleeding vessels clamped and the wound closed, then hope like hell they could get him off the island to a competent surgeon before the wound festered.

Now here was Ben, saying let’s take our time, let’s use the plasma, get his blood pressure up and get this wound properly cleaned.

The tiny frisson of hope built, both for Henri and for them all.

He wouldn’t operate this way unless he knew that things weren’t hopeless outside, she thought. He wasn’t closing fast and moving on to the next disaster.

Right. She firmed and made her tired mind find its third or fourth or maybe its twentieth wind. She could do this.

‘Thank you, Ben,’ she whispered, and he flashed her a look of concern.

She looked away. She didn’t need sympathy now. If he said just one word… Her world could collapse, she thought.

Dear God, where was Benjy?

Now that Henri’s blood pressure was rising Ben worked swiftly, knowing the anaesthetic itself was a strain on this desperately injured child. But now they had plasma he thought he’d make it. The child was strong and otherwise healthy, and Lily had done the hard part.