In an effort to distract herself, she picked up the copy of the Straits Times that Doug must have been reading earlier in the day. It was full of news of the British and Australian defeat of the Italians at Tobruk in North Africa. Evie pushed the paper away, unable to read it. Doug must have been sitting here at this table reading this paper, blissfully unaware that he was about to have an accident. For the umpteenth time, Evie prayed that he would prove to be unharmed. Perhaps a sprain, cuts and bruises, a broken limb even. But, please God, let it be nothing more serious, like a broken neck or a spinal injury.

As the dawn broke, she grew even more restless. Frustrated not to be waiting at the top of the shaft when they brought her husband up, she paced back and forth in a stew of anxiety.

It was almost noon when the rescue party returned, carrying Doug on a stretcher. Evie rushed down the steps of the bungalow and ran to meet them.

‘Is he all right? How badly hurt is he?’

Frank Hyde-Underwood took her by the arm and tried to steer her back towards the bungalow. Evie jerked away from him and leaned over the stretcher. Doug, unconscious, was covered by a cotton sheet, soaked with blood where his legs were. His face was bathed in sweat and streaked with blood. His sun-baked skin was as pale as the sheet that covered him and his hair was matted.

Frank put an arm around Evie to hold her back. ‘They need plenty of room, Mrs Barrington. The doc wants to move your husband straight to the hospital in Butterworth. His leg’s badly damaged.’

‘Why is he unconscious? Is he going to die?’ A wave of fear crashed into her.

Frank’s expression was stern. ‘He’s in a great deal of pain. Getting him out of that shaft wasn’t easy for him. Your husband’s an extremely brave man. Once we got him out the doc gave him a shot of morphine to knock him out for a while until he can be treated.’

‘So it’s his leg? Nothing else?’

‘The doc doesn’t think so. Just cuts and bruises.’

Evie watched as the stretcher bearers walked slowly with their burden towards Doug’s truck. They laid him, still on the stretcher, onto the open truck-bed and the doctor climbed up beside him, along with one of the Tamil workers. Reggie Hyde-Underwood jumped into the cab and started the engine.

‘I’ll drive us there, Mrs Barrington,’ said Frank, indicating Reggie’s car.

‘No! I’m going on the truck with him.’

She clambered onto the truck-bed opposite the doctor, and asked, ‘His leg’s broken?’

‘I’m afraid so. He was lucky not to have broken his neck as well. It looks like he smashed into an overhanging rock on the way down, took a hammering from that and carried on falling, landing badly, feet first. His left leg seems to have taken the full impact and his whole body weight so it’s a very serious break. But I’m just the local quack. Simple fractures, cuts and bruises and mild doses of malaria are about my limit. We’ll need to see what they say at the hospital.’