Fault Line by Chris Ryan Page A

wasn’t ideal.
    On and on it went. There seemed no end to it. They rotated duties after an hour. Amber surrendered the chainsaw and Li took over. Then Amber had to fetch water for everyone, filling their water bottles, taking empty containers down a steep slope to a stream, bringing them back full and dropping sterilizing tablets in. If they didn’t drink continuously they would get disorientated, make dangerous mistakes – not a good idea with a chainsaw. Fetching water was heavy work but it was blissful after the chainsaw. Then it was Li’s turn for water duty and Amber moved on to shifting debris.
    They broke for cold rations at midday. By then they had been shifting wood for nearly six hours.
    Paulo gave out more rations packs. They were running low. Sweat had washed away most of his muddy attempt at sunscreen. ‘We’ve got three,’ he said. ‘One between two.’
    Paulo ate half his share and gave the rest to the robber. Alex shared with Li. Hex went to share with Amber. He saw her mouth had an unhealthy grey tinge – she was getting low on blood sugar. He made her eat first, then insisted she finished the entire thing. She hated accepting help but knew he was right, and they couldn’t afford to have her go into a coma. She gave him a pack of glucose tablets from her insulin kit.
    By early afternoon they had reached the main sections of the trunk. They were super fit, but the relentless heat, the constant heavy lifting, were taking their toll. Now Hex had the chainsaw again. It was harder to keep it steady; Amber, Li, Paulo and Alex were finding it more difficult to drag the logs away too. Sawdust clung to the sweat on their faces, coated their clothes, inched down their throats with every breath. But they had to be finished by the time the heli flew over.
    Hex cut another piece of wood. It was the first of the slices through the thickest part of the trunk. Alex rolled it away like a giant wheel. It wobbled and fell over. Alex looked at it, fed up. For a moment he couldn’t face picking it up. Li came to help. She got her fingers under it and heaved it upright again. Alex caught the other side. Together they wheeled it away like a giant hoop.
    It caught on a hummock and capsized again. Alex tried to catch it. His fingers scrabbled on the splintery sides. It crashed to the ground, pulling him down.
    Alex stayed still for a moment on his hands and knees. His right hand was exquisitely painful. A few metres away, the chainsaw droned on.
    ‘Are you OK?’ said Li.
    ‘Yes,’ gasped Alex. His face was white.
    ‘No you’re not,’ said Li. She went round to his side and heaved the great disc of wood off his hand.
    As soon as the pressure was released, Alex pulled away, grasping his hand. It throbbed so hard it felt as if it was exploding.
    ‘Medic,’ yelled Li above the wail of the chainsaw. ‘We’ve got a man down.’
    Paulo came over. Alex stood up and offered him the hand. He expected it to be huge and red, like in a cartoon. But it looked squashed and boneless, like a pack of sausages.
    ‘Can you move the fingers?’
    Alex tried to move them. The pain flashed as though he’d burned them.
    Paulo looked at the hand. The index and second fingers were pointing gruesomely upwards as though they had been put on back to front. Possibly broken, possibly just dislocated. Normally he’d talk a bit to a patient, but the chainsaw was wailing in the background and he felt too knackered to shout over it. He took hold of Alex’s right arm at the elbow, grabbed his fingers and pulled hard. The crack drowned out even the chainsaw. Alex’s yell matched it in volume. Paulo let go.
    Alex snatched the hand towards his chest and bent over it, protecting it from further assault.
    ‘Sorry,’ said Paulo. ‘But now they’re straight I can splint them.’
    He used Alex’s knife to cut a splint from the debris of wood and bound it with strips of Alex’s dry T-shirt. Then he cut a sling.
    ‘I can’t wear that,’ said