Far Horizon by Tony Park Page A

bus and a lorry have had a head-on. The bus was full of passengers.’
    Isabella fumbled for the flashlight on her bedside table and awkwardly slid into her knee-length khaki skirt and matching long-sleeved shirt. She always dressed more demurely when travelling to these remote rural towns than she would have in Maputo which, by comparison, was cosmopolitan and relaxed.
    Father Patrick had been woken by the screams of a woman passenger who had run into the mission from the nearby main road. Her son, a toddler of three, was dead in her arms. He had been flung from her lap when the two vehicles collided, and his neck wasbroken when he slammed into the back of the seat in front of him. There was nothing Patrick could do for the child or the mother, but a stream of walking wounded were heading for the clinic building, its big red cross on the shiny tin roof clearly visible in the moonlight.
    After waking Isabella, Patrick roused the gardeners and the two nuns and set off for the scene of the accident. He left one nun to cope with the injured that had already arrived.
    â€˜Fetch stretchers from the clinic,’ he yelled to the gardeners, who stumbled from their housing compound, blankets wrapped around their shoulders. The young priest was a teacher, not a doctor, but had studied first aid to an advanced level. He prayed Isabella would not be far behind him.
    Isabella stepped into her sandals and ran out into the night. She paused briefly, hopping on one leg, to pull the strap of one up over her ankle. In her other hand she clutched the small zip-up canvas holdall that contained her medical supplies and operating instruments.
    The crash site was like a scene from a disaster movie. Blood dripped from the windows of the bus where people, alive and dead, were being dragged out without care for their injuries, pain or dignity. Isabella beckoned to the African nun, who was still wearing a dressing gown, to join her. Quickly but calmly, Isabella assessed each patient in turn and gave her instructions to the nun.
    â€˜Lacerations to the face and arms – broken glass most likely, he can wait for cleaning and dressing.Broken arm, he can walk. Shattered kneecap – get the gardeners to carry him. Give him a shot of morphine, Sister, then quickly dress yourself,’ she added kindly to the nun. ‘I’ll see you back at the clinic.’
    The dead, the two drivers and the passengers sitting closest to the front of the bus, were horribly mutilated and most were trapped in the wreckage of the vehicles. Of more concern to Isabella were the two people who lay at her feet, a man in his forties and a young girl, probably no more than seventeen. Isabella called Patrick over to her.
    â€˜These two, Father, they are the most serious. The others I can bandage or stitch up, but these both have serious internal bleeding from where they were thrown into the seats in front of them. If we do not get them to a hospital, they will die.’
    The priest nodded. ‘Right. Do you want me to take them, or do you want to get back to Maputo yourself?’
    Isabella knew there was nothing she could do for the seriously injured people between Mapai and Maputo. Her only hope would be to get them to theatre as quickly as possible, and Patrick could drive as fast as she, if not faster. If she left, the two nuns would be swamped with the forty or more other injured people from the bus and, besides, there were other patients who would have been waiting for weeks to see her at the clinic. ‘No, you go, Patrick,’ she said finally.
    â€˜You’re sure you’ll be OK?’ he asked. The question was a stupid one, she thought, but she was too tired to rebuke him.
    â€˜Go. The sisters and I will be fine. But please, find my assistant at the hospital – you know her, yes? Tell her that this accident has put my schedule back at least a day, so I probably won’t be back in Maputo until Monday or Tuesday. It is important, as