Surviving The Evacuation (Book 7): Home Read Free

there were now twice as many mouths to be fed. That trip had changed everyone and everything, yet it had changed nothing. Starvation was still only a few weeks away.
    “We’re here, Mum,” Jay said. “Where do we take him?”
    Nilda looked blankly at her son. She had no idea. They’d had no need for a sick room in the few weeks they’d been in the Tower.
    “What happened?” It was Fogerty, the old warder.
    “Graham shot him,” Jay said. “And he killed Hana.”
    “Well, bring him inside. The office next to the old cafe will do. It’s close to the boilers, and we’ll need hot water. Come on, Stewart, Finnegan, bring him.”
    Nilda tried to stay near Chester’s head, but found the others moving faster than her leaden feet could manage.
    “What do we do?” Nilda asked as Chester was laid down on a table.
    “We need to clean the wound and stop the bleeding,” Fogerty said, and then turned to the room at large. “We need bandages and sutures. Someone find the medical kit.” Then he turned back to Chester and peeled back the dressing. “And a razor. We’ll have to cut away his hair before we try and sew him back up. Scrub your hands,” he added, speaking to Nilda. “You’ll have to clean the wound and stitch it. I can’t do it, not with my arthritis.”
    “I’ll do it,” Jay said.
    “No,” Nilda said, shaking her head. “No. Go, Jay, please.”
    Nilda scrubbed methodically at her hands.
    “That’s good enough,” Fogerty said. Nilda looked up. She realised they were alone in the room. She hadn’t noticed everyone else leave.
    “Start by cleaning the wound. Careful. That’s it. Just like that.”
    The old soldier’s voice was soothing, and it was comforting hearing someone speak with such calm authority. The warder had been the only occupant of the Tower when Hana had arrived with most of the refugees from Kirkman House. Fogerty had retired from the post years before but returned to the castle after the outbreak. Exactly why, Nilda wasn’t sure, though he’d said it was out a sense of duty. Not to Queen and country, he’d told her, and certainly not to the government, but to the idea that some called democracy and which he thought of as the one that gave everyone a fair and equal chance.
    “He’s lost most of an ear,” Fogerty said. “I’d say he’s probably lost his hearing as well. But we won’t know that until he wakes. It’s the same with the eye.”
    “What about brain damage?” she asked. “If the skull’s fractured isn’t there a chance that a fragment of bone went into his brain?”
    “There is, and if he wakes we’ll find out, but I’d say that since you carried him here by boat with the waves jostling him all the way back, if it was anything more serious than blood loss and a concussion, he’d already be dead.”
    Nilda found that oddly comforting.
    “I’ve got the medical kit,” Jay said, opening the door. “And a razor. Well, it’s a knife, but it’s sterile and razor sharp.”
    “Thank you,” Fogerty said.
    “Jay, I told you to wait outside,” Nilda said.
    “It’s okay, Mum. I know what to do. When we rescued Stewart, I had to cauterise his wounds while Tuck held him down. I can help.”
    “Please,” Nilda snapped. “Just go.” She didn’t turn around as she heard the door open and close again. She knew her son was right. The boy he’d been had disappeared while she was stranded on a Scottish Island. In their months apart he’d become a man in every sense except years, but she didn’t want him to see Chester die.
    “We need to stitch it,” Fogerty said. “Can you sew?”
    “Buttons and hems,” Nilda said.
    “It’s the same principle and it’s best to think of it as cloth.”
    She nodded, threaded the needle, and bent to the task.
    Chester whimpered.
    “This isn’t how it was meant to be,” Nilda whispered.
    A year ago, she’d have been getting ready to spend three hours cleaning other people’s houses prior to an eight-hour shift