Beck’s memory came together in broken fragments. The ground blurring in cartwheels outside the plane. A force like a giant’s fist hammering into his body. Pain and noise. And darkness.
Later, Beck wasn’t sure if he’d ever been properly knocked out, but when he could think straight again, his first thought was that he was alive! There was a stabbing pain in his head. His body was battered and bruised. But the plane had stopped moving and he was breathing.
A groan next to him told him that Tikaani was alive too. The other boy was, like him, gradually piecing his world back together again.
‘How are you?’ Beck asked. Tikaani just groaned again and clutched his head. The way he moved, without any cries or intakes of breath, told Beck that at least no bones were broken.
Beck realized that both of them were covered in . . . bits. Bits of plane, bits of Perspex, bits of . . . He plucked at a piece and frowned. Wood?
Slowly, Beck looked up and forwards.
The plane had ploughed into a mass of undergrowth. Dead wood and branches, piled together by nature. The front of the plane had shattered and the pieces had been thrown back over the passengers inside.
‘Uncle Al?’ Beck asked. In the front seats, both Al and the pilot sat with their heads slumped. They weren’t moving at all. Beck felt ice seize his heart as he realized that if the front of the plane had taken most of the impact, so had they. He scrambled out of his seat, ignoring the twinges that stabbed into him all over, and worked his way forward. He mentally ran through the four priority ‘B’s: Breathing, Bleeding, Breaks and Burns, then put his index and middle finger against Al’s neck, just to one side of the Adam’s apple. Then he breathed out in relief. There was a pulse, faint but regular.
Then Beck tried it with the pilot, pushing back her hair to get at her neck. There was nothing. He tried again, with a sinking feeling, but he could already feel her going cold. Reluctantly he craned his head a bit further forward to see. The crash had forced the control column right back. It had struck her in the chest, probably killing her instantly.
The entire instrument panel was wrecked. The radio dangled in a tangled mass of wires. They wouldn’t be using that to call for help.
Now he was leaning forward he could also see that Al’s legs were stained red. There was a nasty gash just above his uncle’s knee and it was bleeding freely. That needed dealing with right away.
Tikaani was looking around with a glassy stare. He still wasn’t quite taking it all in. Beck wondered with a stab of worry if he had concussion. Even if there were no broken bones, no internal damage, an untreated brain injury could kill him.
He remembered the first aid course from his cadet training.
‘There are four tests for concussion, gentlemen.’ The medical instructor had paced up and down in front of them, delivering his words like precisely targeted shots. ‘Confusion! Memory! Concentration! Neurological! Repeat them please, Mr Granger.’
‘Uh . . .’ Beck had said, taken by surprise.
The man had smiled without humour. ‘A memory lapse! Or possibly confused, or maybe just not concentrating. Mr Granger is concussed, gentlemen. A bad start . . .’
If Tikaani was OK, Beck could have really used his help. If he was concussed, all Beck could do was help him to rest. Beck had to know, now, which it was. He climbed back to face Tikaani and grabbed his head, making him turn so that he could look into his eyes. Both pupils were the same size, which was a good sign. That was the first Neurological test.
‘What’s your name?’ Beck demanded. That came under Confusion.
‘Uh . . . Tikaani . . .’
Beck moved on to Concentration: ‘Give me the months of the year, backwards, starting from December.’
‘Uh . . .’ Tikaani’s face creased with concentration. ‘December . . . November . . . Sept—no, October—’
‘OK, OK.’ Beck let go of his head. ‘Close your eyes and touch your nose.’ That was also Neurological.
Tikaani did exactly as he was told without any difficulty. Then he opened his eyes and prodded Beck’s nose as well.
‘I can do that too,’ he said. Beck grinned. It didn’t come into any of the tests he could remember but it looked like Tikaani’s thought processes were all present and intact.
‘Yeah, you’re OK,’ Beck agreed with relief. ‘We’ve got to get Uncle Al out of here. Let’s see what’s outside.’
He had to force his way past Al to get to the door. He tried it but it was jammed solid. He pushed harder but he could see that it was held fast by the undergrowth outside. The pilot’s door was the same. He was never going to get it open. The only way out was through the smashed front window.
Beck slowly worked himself out of the front of the plane, until he was standing on top of the fuselage. Immediately he was out of the cabin’s confined space, he felt the cold wind and shivered. They all had coats in the plane and would need to wear them. He looked around to take in where they were.
The plane was half buried by dead undergrowth. Looking around, he could see they were at one end of a clear patch of ground, in an area of tundra and pine forest. The plane had carved out a groove in the ground behind it and fragments were flung about. The undercarriage had snapped off as the plane hit. The wings were shattered stubs. The engine ticked as it cooled down.
There was a whistle down by Beck’s feet. Tikaani had poked his head out of the shattered window and was gazing around at the destruction. Then he looked up at Beck and swung a small green box out onto the top of the plane.
‘I found the first aid kit.’
‘Great, thanks.’ Beck ducked back down into the plane. ‘Give me a hand with Uncle Al.’
Back in the cabin, the pilot was still strapped into her seat and Beck gave her a silent apology. It seemed indecent just to ignore her, so he covered her up with the plane’s fire blanket. Then they turned their attention to Al.
The easiest part was releasing his straps. Then, as gently as they could, the two teenage boys had to manoeuvre a fully grown man out of the narrow hole left where the windshield had been.
The nose of the plane was much too small to lay Al out on and there was too much dead wood around to put him down on the ground. They had to take him out across the top of the plane. First they turned him round inside the cabin. Then, with Beck outside pulling and Tikaani inside pushing, they got him halfway through the broken windshield on his back. Finally they could fold him forwards at the waist over the top of the cabin. With more pushing and pulling, Al finally was out of the plane altogether and lying on top of the fuselage. Beck slid down to the ground near the rear of the plane while Tikaani held Al steady, then took his uncle in a fireman’s lift over his shoulders. He was still knee-high in undergrowth so he kicked his way to clear ground and laid his uncle down.
At last he could inspect Al’s wound properly.