Hugh nodded absent-mindedly. ‘I’ve got Sarah and the other women cleaning up, and Terence is dealing with the surgery this morning. I need you to keep an eye on the men and help the Miss Harpers get more beds ready. We’ll have to use the back veranda, so I’ll pull down the big blinds and get it swept as soon as possible.’

Becky eyed the piles of dust that had sifted into the corners and stained the wooden floor. It would be a mighty task to undertake with eight men vomiting and needing bedpans every few minutes. The joys of nursing were often overrated – and this was a prime example.

*

Danny came out of the homestead, unseen by the women who were bustling about in preparation for the expected influx of more patients. He stood there for a long moment, his expression thoughtful as he gazed up and down the street. Then he hitched the haversack over his back, carefully wheeled his new bike down the steps and quickly cycled away towards the shack in the bush where Billy Blue lived with his mother.

The light in his eyes would have told Becky that he was on a mission. But Becky was otherwise occupied.

7

Gwyneth had seen to the joeys in their pillowslips and released a few of the lizards as well as the bird whose wing was now mended. Wally had taken himself off somewhere to hunt for food and Coco was shouting for attention from his cage on the veranda as the two young native women tried to sweep away the accumulation of dust that lay like a pall over everything.

Gwyneth kept a close eye on the pair of them, because they preferred to lean on their brooms and gossip, and their idea of actually using a bit of elbow grease was more of a lacklustre swipe with a damp cloth and a dab here and there with a duster which merely spread the mess about and made things worse.

She finally had the place as clean as it would ever be and, once the windows and doors were tightly closed and the shutters bolted against any further storms, she sent the girls over to the hospital to help there and went to see to the goats.

They were mostly feral, but had become used to being around Gwyneth and were quite happy to be milked occasionally. They’d come closer to the homestead during the storm and were huddled in a bleating mob under the trees at the bottom of the garden. Gwyneth could tell by their skittishness that they could feel the onset of another storm and she chose to milk only the most docile of the nannies.