The city’s medical centre had been deemed unsafe, so numerous large tents had been erected to create a field hospital behind it. The atmosphere there matched the rest of the city: wary, watchful, and unsettled. Mattie scanned the faces of medics as she searched for Zabu. Tall, slender, with bleached spiky hair and a loud authoritative voice, she stood out in a crowd. She was superb at her job, steadfast in a crisis, and could drink most women under the table. They’d first hooked up while working in their respective roles at a refugee camp in Greece, and they’d continued their casual, no-strings thing when they’d been reunited in Syria. No expectations, no commitments. It’d suited them both. Mattie frowned.Keep your mind on the job.
“Zabu!” she called, spotting her standing alongside a teenage boy lying on a gurney and hooked up to an oxygen mask.
Zabu waved. “Give me five minutes and then I’m on my break.”
Mattie gave her a thumbs-up and waited with Moeen, doing their best to stay out of the way of purposeful yet calm medics. The sheer scale of the logistics of supporting those needing medical support, along with the geographical size of the area affected, was mind-boggling, a point she’d focus on in herreport. She’d add the World Health Organization’s warning that a second humanitarian disaster could harm more people than the initial quake because of the lack of shelter, water, and electricity.
Patient consultation finished, Zabu bounded over. “You’re here!”
Her sing-song voice, tinged with a French accent, was the first music Mattie had heard in days, and hearing it lifted her spirits after so much horror and despair. She hugged Zabu briefly and introduced Moeen.
“Come, I’ll show you around,” Zabu said.
Moeen filmed as Zabu pointed out various sections of the field hospital, each tent designated for specific purposes, such as major injuries and resuscitation, triage, and maternity. There were smaller adjoining tents where medics slept. “We’re entirely self-sufficient so we come with equipment and medicines,” said Zabu.
Mattie knew a lot of what Zabu was saying, but it was important to get the basics across to viewers. Organisations like Zabu’s depended upon donations to keep going, and media exposure to help their cause was invaluable.
Zabu took them to the teenager she’d been treating when Mattie had arrived. The oxygen mask covered his pained, drawn face. “Bilal suffers with asthma. Since the earthquake, the air has become heavy with dust and toxic fumes. He says his family were burning plastic to stay warm.” She squeezed his hand. “People here are incredibly vulnerable now, even those who weren’t physically injured in the earthquake. They still need everyday outpatient health care. Having babies and needing antenatal care doesn’t just stop. That’s where we step in.”
Mattie ensured she had Bilal’s permission to film him, and then took the opportunity to chat with Zabu and the charity’s ground co-ordinator over coffee. It was bitter, and she wishedshe’d added sugar. Just as she got up to fetch some, the ground rumbled. “Another aftershock! That’s three just this morning.” She gasped as the table trembled and coffee sloshed out of their mugs. It was like being in a small boat in very choppy seas.
“This is a much stronger tremor.” Zabu shot out of her chair at the cacophony of shouts and medical alarms suddenly beeping from the adjacent treatment tents.
Mattie followed, along with Moeen, who filmed as they ran. She watched from a discreet distance as Zabu and other doctors and nurses zoned in on the alarms, checking their patients. It was hardly surprising that patients’ heart rates were off the scales. Hers was. And then her chest tightened painfully.Oh no. No. Not again. She flared her nostrils. “I can smell burning.”
Moeen’s head snapped left and right. “There.” He tore off between the tents before declaring where “there” was. She followed him half-heartedly. The journalist in her needed to know what was happening, but the air she was sucking in wasn’t reaching her lungs. She staggered to open ground beyond the tents and saw flames leaping from a middle-floor window of the abandoned hospital building. Mattie stood rooted to the uneven ground. Nowhere felt safe. She became aware of someone next to her, clasping her wrist. Zabu.
“It’s an electrical fire triggered by the aftershock. Everything’s under control.” Zabu tilted her head. “Fire spooks you, yes? Because of Kenya?”
“A little,” Mattie whispered, her voice hoarse.
“A lot, I would say.” Zabu tapped Mattie’s arm. “You’re tachycardic.”
Mattie sucked in deep breaths, her gaze fixed on a flapping canvas door to one of the tents.
“Mattie?” Moeen’s concerned voice broke through her distress. “What’s up?”
Mattie pulled her hand out of Zabu’s clasp. “All good. The aftershock freaked me a bit, that’s all.”
Someone shouted at Zabu in French. Mattie understood the gist of it; a pregnant woman had gone into premature labour. “I have to go. We need to catch up later, oui?”
Mattie nodded.
Later meant much later that night, when she’d finished a piece on the pregnant woman giving birth, had filmed her round-up bulletin, and when Zabu was finally off-shift. Mattie stood next to her in the darkness, the field hospital behind them and solar-powered lanterns picking out the cracked road. She surveyed the night sky. The stars providing pinpricks of light ought to be reassuring. They had been on other deployments, a link to home when she was away pursuing her dream career. Why not now? She shivered, hands deep in her coat pockets. “I don’t think I’ve been truly warm since I arrived here.”
“There was ice on theinsideof our tent this morning.” Zabu cricked her neck to the side and winced as she attempted to stretch the muscle. She yawned. “A shot or three of vodka would go down well right about now.”
Mattie nodded. “I’d join you.” They checked a waist-high stone wall was stable before resting their elbows against it. “When you look at the stars, you can forget the hell of this place for a moment or two, but there’s no hiding the stench of death, is there?” asked Mattie.
“The ripple effect of the quake will hurt generations and generations. Trauma does that,” Zabu’s expression was grim as she looked pointedly at Mattie, “however hard we try to ignore it.”
Mattie shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Zabu rolled her eyes and laughed. “Typical Mattie. Nothing is wrong here. I’m fine, I’m fine,” she mimicked.
Mattie rubbed her fingertip over the chipped stone. “I have hypertrophic scars on my upper back.” Stating bold facts to Zabu was easy because there was no need for a medical explanation.
“What about the scars that are invisible on the outside?”
