Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

‘Jump,’ he ordered. ‘You’ve all got to jump. If the stands collapse all those behind you will come down on top of you, burying you and suffocating you.’

He grabbed the two Williams children, one under each arm, and hurtled to the edge of the stage, passing them down into the arms of a couple of helpers who’d appeared from the crowd below.

‘Take them as far away as you can and keep people back,’ he said, while behind him he could hear Cam telling people to keep calm, they’d all get off in time.

Which might have happened if the temporary seating hadn’t suddenly swayed sideways, igniting fresh terror in the crowd. They surged forward, leaping over seats, knocking others down, adrenalin kicking in, urging flight from danger.

Tom kept hustling those on the platform to the edge, telling them to jump then run, but fear could sometimes freeze the body so some people just stood, as if unable to hear the urgent message he was giving, so he had to lift and carry them to the edge where others helped them down.

A sudden howl of protest from the scaffolding and the stand collapsed, metal tubing smashing through the wooden seats and steps, the stands twisting, spilling people everywhere, trapping some while pitching others into the air.

Tom grabbed Nat Williams’s wife and leapt, hoping Nat was helping other people, though he suspected the surfing hero had been one of the first to jump, his wife forgotten.

‘Thank you. I must find my children.’

She had a soft American accent and dark shadows beneath her eyes.

Maybe being with Nat wasn’t all that much fun…

CHAPTER TWO

MIKE SINCLAIR, the head of the local police station, materialised in front of Lauren, as she and Jo were urging people away from the collapsed stands.

‘We need to move uninjured people away,’ he said, ‘and set up an area for those injured.’ He indicated an area of the esplanade, already closed to traffic. ‘Jo, if we make this space a triage area, can you stay here and treat minor injuries? The ambulances will come through to here, while Lauren, if you can stay with those who were on the stands but aren’t injured and those who have friends somewhere in that mess. Keep them calm. The Emergency Services people will be here soon—they’ll have bottled water and basic first-aid equipment.’

Lauren understood her role and moved through the crowd, urging the panicking locals back from the stands, helping injured people across to Jo, telling the others to stay clear, comforting tearful women and shocked men, telling children they’d be safe, just to wait over by the tree and their parents would find them soon.

She was doing okay until she found Bobby Sims, rubbing furiously at tears he obviously felt embarrassed about shedding.

Bobby Sims, easily the most disruptive of all the children who were given temporary shelter at the women’s refuge, crying?

‘I’ve lost Mum,’ he told Lauren, at first shaking off her comforting arm but eventually accepting it, and accepting a hug when she knelt in front of him and folded him in her arms.

He pressed close against her for a moment, then he lifted his head to say, ‘She was right there.’

He pointed to where the jumble of metal scaffolding lay heaped with wood and people.

‘Right near it. Greg was under there and he called out to her and she went and then it all fell down.’

Would Joan Sims have responded to a call from the man she was in the refuge to escape?

Lauren didn’t know. She’d been running the women’s refuge for the three years since it opened, and still couldn’t tell which women would go back to the partners who abused them, and which wouldn’t.

In the meantime, there was Bobby …

‘We’ll find your mum,’ Lauren assured him, ‘but while we’re looking, will you help me?’

Bobby’s startled ‘Me?’ suggested no one had ever asked him for help before.

‘Yes, you. You know most of the kids around here from school. A lot of them will be like you—they’ll have become separated from their parents. Go through the crowd and bring any kids who are lost or crying over near the tree. Once you get them there, they can look at the lights and decorations until their parents turn up to find them.’

Bobby seemed to consider objecting to this plan, then he straightened his shoulders and took off, hopefully to do something useful, not set fire to the Christmas tree or try some other devilment.

Lauren continued to herd people away from the stands, but the cries of pain and distress had her turning back towards the scene, checking, seeing Tom there in the thick of it, clambering over twisted metal to tend the injured.

Could the stand collapse further? Tom wondered about it as he lifted people trapped by the metal struts or wooden planks of seating. And had anyone been caught underneath?

Kids often played under scaffolding …

He sent a plea to the fates that this hadn’t been the case and knelt to reach a man caught between two metal seats, apparently trapped.

‘Can you hear me, mate?’ he asked, leaning further in to press his fingers to the man’s carotid.

The man didn’t respond, but his pulse was strong, and movement of his chest told Tom the trapped man was breathing.

Tom used his hands to search for blood. If it wasn’t pulsing out from any part of the man’s body, then the best thing to do was to leave him so the paramedics could stabilise his spine before they shifted him.

‘Can you give me a hand here?’

Tom glanced around to see Cam higher up in the wreckage, bent over another victim—male again.

‘His legs are trapped,’ Cam explained as Tom clambered cautiously across the tumbled seating.

Tom took one look and was about to tell Cam to leave it for the rescue crew when he saw the blood on the man’s thigh. There was no doubt the man’s femur was broken and his femoral artery damaged. They needed to get him out now.

While Cam supported the man, Tom began, cautiously, to shift debris from around him, trying to get at whatever was pinning the man’s legs and trapping his feet.

A twisted prop lay one way, a wooden seat caught beneath it, and below both some scaffolding that hadn’t moved, holding steadfast to its job, just when they needed it to bend a little.

Tom eased himself into a gap he’d found close by until his feet were on the solid scaffold, then he peered down to see if any unfortunate person had been caught below him and found the area was clear.

‘I’m going to jump on this bit and see if I can shake the twisted part free,’ he told Cam. ‘Hold the bloke in case it all gives way.’

Cam didn’t bother with a caution—they both knew if they didn’t get the fellow out he could die before the jaws-of-life equipment arrived and the safety crew made the scaffolding secure enough for them to do their work. They were governed by all kinds of workplace safety regulations but Tom wasn’t.

He grabbed the twisted bar and held it in his hands, then jumped, both feet rising then thumping back on the solid bar. Nothing happened, although he thought he might have felt a faint give in the bar in his hands.

He jumped again and felt the whole tottering edifice sway to one side then the other—sickeningly!

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but looking down he’d seen a lot of the scaffolding still holding in the section directly beneath him so he didn’t think bending the piece beneath his feet would do much more damage than had already been done.

‘One more go,’ he said to Cam, moving so he could stand above the bar he needed to move and jump down onto it. Praying he wouldn’t miss as coming down on it could do him a very painful injury.

Putting that wince-causing image out of his head, he jumped and felt the scaffold give, felt the bar in his hand tear away, so the seat was released and they could get at the man.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing up there? Don’t you know there are experts for that kind of thing? Have you got a hero complex, or perhaps a death wish?’

He turned to see Lauren standing far too close to the devastated stands, hands on hips, the fury in her words visible on her face.