‘Good.’ They were working together, their hands in tandem. Hugo was breathing fast, using all his strength to push tighter, and Rachel realised that she was hardly breathing at all. Live. Please. It was a prayer she’d learned early on in her medical training, and had used over and over. Skills were good but sometimes more was needed.

Luck?

Still the blood oozed. ‘Push down harder,’ Hugo told her. ‘Don’t move off the wound.’

‘I’m not moving,’ she said through gritted teeth. The bite resembled a shark bite-a huge, gaping wound that, left untended, would release all the body’s blood in minutes.

Even if tended…

She was pushing down so hard it hurt.

‘I need forceps.’ Hugo’s voice was growing more urgent as the situation became more desperate. ‘Damn, where’s my bag?’

‘Here.’ A youngster, a boy of about sixteen, was bursting through the crowd, carting a bag that was three times the size of any doctor’s bag that Rachel had ever seen. A country doctor’s bag.

‘Haul it open.’

The boy flicked the bag open and Rachel’s eyes widened. Forceps. There were several and they were sitting on the top as if prepared for just this emergency. She lifted a hand from the wound and grabbed the first pair.

‘We’re not going to stop this without clamping,’ she muttered. ‘The femoral artery has to have been torn to explain this.’

He accepted her medical knowledge without a blink. ‘I agree. Clive, take a shirt and clear as much blood as you can while we work. Let’s go.’ He grabbed forceps himself and then looked across at her. ‘Ready?’

She took a deep breath. This was a huge risk. They needed the pad to stop the spurting, but the only way to stop the bleeding altogether was to remove the pad and locate the source. They had only seconds to do it or the girl would die beneath their hands.

‘OK.’ She took two deep breaths. ‘Now.’