Moonflower Madness by Margaret Pemberton

Charles’cheeks, and his jaw clenched.
    â€˜Very well,’ he said shortly, and Gianetta knew that though he was taking great care not to sound it, inwardly he was furiously angry. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said, not looking at either of them, but slamming his empty tin mug down on the table and turning abruptly on his heels.
    â€˜I have two specimens here that we collected yesterday, Miss Hollis,’ Zachary Cartwright said, as if the angry exit had never taken place. ‘Could you perhaps draw them for me in my field book while I make preparations for our journey?’
    â€˜Yes,’ she said, wondering how on earth she could persuade him that the journey was unnecessary; that no great harm would come to either his or Lord Rendlesham’s reputation if she was to continue with them; that she would be a helpful, useful member of their expedition, if only he would give her the chance.
    He strode away toward the ponies and mules and she picked up his pencil, beginning to draw the two flowers that stood in tiny jars of water on the desk. She wouldn’t go back. She wouldn’t . But how on earth was she going to be able to stay?
    Ten minutes later there came an agonized shout, and then a roaring sound as rocks and boulders crashed down into the river. She dropped her pencil, leaping to her feet, looking down-river to where, some fifty or seventy yards away, a great cloud of dust was billowing skywards.
    â€˜It’s Charles!’ Zachary shouted. ‘The bank has given way!’ He sprinted away from the ponies and down along the river bank to where the cloud of dust was beginning to disperse and settle.
    There came another desperate shout, this time for help, and Gianetta began to run in Zachary Cartwright’s wake.
    The river-bank where they had camped had been shallow, and access to the water had been easy. Seventy yards away, at the point Charles had reached on his angry march, the ground rose steeply into a sandstone bank littered with rocks and boulders. He had been scrambling among these, trying to work off his rage at Zachary’s humiliating high-handedness, when he had dislodged one. The falling rock had hit and bounced off another and then the whole bank had given way, rocks and boulders and Charles, all tumbling down in a furious cascade into the water.
    â€˜Keep your head up!’ she heard Zachary shout, and then Charles’ tight, frightened voice shouted back, ‘I can’t! I’ve hurt my arm!’
    She ran furiously in Zachary’s wake. When he reached the point where the bank had given way, he leapt and slithered down it, hurling himself into the river where Charles was painfully struggling.
    By the time she had reached the rock-fall, Zachary was swimming for the bank, hauling a white-faced Charles behind him.
    She took the bank as Zachary had done, slithering down it and wading out to help him bring Charles ashore.
    â€˜My arm! It’s broken!’ Charles gasped. ‘Of all the stupid, nonsensical things to have done!’
    There was no disputing his diagnosis. His arm hung, ugly and deformed, the bone of the elbow protruding through the skin.
    â€˜I can put a splint on it, but it isn’t a straightforward break,’ Zac panted, taking Charles’weight as they scaled the still-crumbling sandstone.
    â€˜It hurts like the very devil!’ Charles looked as if he were about to faint. ‘Will it mend straight, do you think? It won’t heal short … or odd … or anything?’
    â€˜I’ll tell you when I’ve had a closer look at it,’ Zachary said tersely and then, to Gianetta, ‘The first-aid box is with the stores. It’s clearly marked. Run ahead and get it out and opened.’
    She nodded, taking a last fleeting look at Charles’s dripping wet figure. He had begun to shake with shock and, as she sprinted back to the camp, she hoped fervently that there would be some brandy as well