Lily.

This was no contented mama with six or seven babies. He glanced along the table to where she stood at Henri’s head. All he could see of her was her eyes. They were the same eyes he’d fallen hard for more than ten years before, when they had still been kids at university. But they’d changed. She seemed haunted. She looked exhausted beyond all limits, exhausted by something that went beyond this present drama.

If he’d had another doctor he’d have ordered her away from the table. Even if she wanted to work, having such an exhausted colleague had its own risks. But the rest of the medical team wasn’t flying in until they were sure it was safe to do so. Ben was the forerunner, sent to deal with frontline casualties, and there’d be no more medics here for the next few hours.

So he worked on, and Lily watched Henri’s obs like a hawk, and monitored the anaesthetic as if she’d been trained to the job.

She’d been practising here for seven years, Ben thought. She’d been a lone doctor here for seven years. She’d need so many skills…

She’d fall over if he didn’t hurry.

‘I’m closing now,’ he said at last, and saw Lily’s shoulders sag under her theatre gown. Was it just exhaustion?

‘Before I came here I did a rough check of the wards,’ he told her, trying to alleviate a terror he only sensed. ‘Unless more have come in, there’s nothing else urgent. The rest of my medical team will probably be here in the next few hours. Why don’t I take over and you guys get some sleep?’

‘We won’t sleep,’ Pieter said gruffly, speaking for them all. ‘We don’t know what’s gone on outside. Until we know what’s happened to the rest of the islanders, there’ll be no sleep for anyone.’

Lily was reversing the anaesthetic. Henri coughed and gagged his way into consciousness and as soon as he did so she stepped away from the table.