Fracture

Fracture

A novel

By Barry Friedman

Also by Barry Friedman

Novels

Dead End

Assignment: Bosnia

Prescription For Death

The Shroud

Sleeper

Hyde

Max

The Old Folks at Home: Warehouse Them or Leave Them on the Ice Floe

Non-Fiction

The Short Life of a Valiant Ship: USS Meredith

That’s Life: It’s Sexually Transmitted and Terminal

Fracture

Copyright © 2011 By Barry Friedman

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic electronic, or mechanical including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Acknowledgements

Although this is a work of fiction, the idea for the book originated with fact. In the late 1960s, my associate, Dr. Al Miller volunteered to serve with Project Hope. A team of doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians, based on Hope a decommissioned Naval hospital ship, went to Ecuador to treat people in remote areas. From Quito, the medical team flew to the Amazon Basin where yaws had infected some natives of an indiginous Indian tribe. They set up a temporary clinic and treated the yaws patients for several days. On the flight back to Quito in an old C-47, the plane crashed in the jungle. The team members sustained numerous injuries and two fatalities. Some natives who saw the accident, cut their way through the heavy brush and rescued the survivors. When Al Miller returned home, I asked him when he was aware that the plane was about to crash. Al had a marvelous droll sense of humor. His answer: When I saw palm trees coming through the deck of the plane. I didn’t think they belonged there.

I am also indebted to Professor Elio Schaechter, a microbiologist, who spent much of his childhood in Quito. He provided answers to questions I had regarding Ecuador’s capital.

One

In the befogged brain of Ron Harris he imagined he was in a shower. He was, in fact, in a shower. Rain. It pelted down on his body while he lay on the Ecuador jungle floor.

Surrounding him was darkness. Night? Lying on his back, he gazed up. His blurred vision gradually cleared. Dense foliage blocked most of the light.

Harris tried to get up but the movement caused excruciating pain in his right leg. He screamed, then cautiously raised his head and saw the source of his pain. His right leg bent at midcalf. Fracture, mid-shaft tibia and fibula. His khaki trousers were shredded, but he couldn’t see whether the bone end had perforated the skin. Any blood would have been washed away by the rain.

He lay back down. Jesus. Dear Jesus, where the hell was he and how did he get here? The plane. Yes, he remembered the plane. Rapid loss of altitude. Suddenly tree branches crashing through the deck. The porthole—hell, the entire side of the fuselage next to his seat—disappeared. His world turned upside down. Then. Then…

But where were the others? He heard his weak shout. Help! Help me, please. Hello. Can anyone hear me?

He listened. Heard only the patter of rain. The splash of drops from the leaves. Was he alone?

He opened his mouth to catch the drops and quench his thirst. His chest was bare, his shirt had disappeared at some point, but the humid air was warm.

Although even the slightest movement caused electric-like jolts in his right leg, he took inventory of his body parts: an egg-sized, tender lump over his forehead, swollen nose and lips. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Thankfully, they were all there. Breathing caused pain in the right side of his chest, intensified when he felt around his rib cage. Fractured ribs, no doubt. The least of his troubles. He flexed his wrist and fingers. Except for cuts on his knuckles, they worked. His watch was still strapped on but the face was smashed in. He found he could bend his left knee and hip.

Like a TV rewind, Harris played back in his head how he got where he was: lying supine on a bed of leaves and twigs somewhere in the jungle of northern Ecuador. The C-47 Ecuador Air Force plane in which he’d been sitting had lost altitude minutes after taking off. The runway, no more than a dirt path in a field. He recalled the sputtering of one engine, then the other. God damn plane had to be at least twenty years older than he was. The plane’s nose dropped until it seemed to be in a vertical dive. Harris had strained in his seat trying to will the nose up. Bags and other objects flew past his head crashing into the cockpit door. Waiting for the crash that was sure to come, he knew he was about to die. With the tree tops tearing through the deck beneath his feet, and the plane seeming to disintegrate, he suddenly found himself flying through the air, free of the plane. He remembered curling into a ball, his falling body cushioned by tree branches. He didn’t remember landing, but here he was. And he was alive.

From his position, he tried to look around for the plane—or what was left of it. Turning his head as far as he could, he spotted the smoking wreckage about thirty yards behind him. Had he been thrown that far? His seat belt had been buckled, but like everything else in that relic of a plane, the webbing, he recalled, had been frayed, and must have torn allowing him to be ejected. Maybe that was the only thing that saved him.

Was he the only survivor? He shouted, Jeff! There was no response. Jeff Atwood was the other orthopaedic surgeon. Both had been volunteers in the Doctors For The Third World program. They along with four nurses, a lab tech and a load of equipment, had flown from Quito to Wentaro, a native village in the headwaters of the Amazon. An Indian tribe of about 1500 known as the Huaorani comprised the village’s population.

Harris and the others had come to treat a group of natives infected with yaws, a tropical disease. Yaws had largely been eradicated in the 1960s when a medical team from the Hope, a decommissioned Naval hospital ship, converted for use by another civilian volunteer organization, had flown in and treated those infected, principally children. But now yaws had re-emerged. Although yaws was not an orthopaedic condition, the specialty of the two doctors on the team, they were physicians and capable of treating the disease.

The Doctors For The Third World team had flown from Los Angeles to Quito a week ago. Each of the past three days they had left their hotel in early morning, flown to the village and spent the day injecting infected natives with large doses of penicillin. Each evening they had flown back to Quito. Today was their last trip. They had completed their job and tomorrow were to head for home.

Harris had no idea how long he’d been lying here. They had taken off about five-thirty and from what he could see of the sky through the heavy foliage, it was still light. But soon darkness would set in. The thought of lying all night in the jungle, unable to stand, hardly able to move, was frightening.

No doubt the Ecuador Air Force base in Quito would realize their plane had gone missing, and at some point would send out a search and rescue team. He hoped it would be a helicopter. His only chance for rescue. Search and rescue. But spotting the wrecked plane would not be easy. Could be days. Would he be able to survive? He lay here a wounded animal, prey to whatever wild life lived and hunted behind these trees and bushes. Harris tried to recall what he’d learned of the fauna in this jungle. He knew there were monkeys and an infinite variety of birds. But the greatest danger was from snakes and wild boars.

Again his mind returned to the others in his party. From the appearance of the wreckage, they couldn’t have survived. He felt his lips tremble, a lump the size of an egg in his throat. They were his friends, his fellow workers. Maybe he’d have been better off if he’d met an instant death in the crash. Instead, without protection and without food he’d die slowly. He did have water—as long as the rain lasted, and this was a rain forest.

Now that Harris was alert, he was aware of the sharp twigs on which he lay. They poked into the bare skin of his back. He had to move, had to sit up.

About five yards behind him was a large tree. Somehow he had to get to it and rest his back against it.

Using his arms and his good left leg, he slowly began pushing himself backward, sliding on his back and buttocks. The pain in his right leg and chest was almost more than he could bear. But he clenched his teeth and kept going.

Propelling himself backwards, his hand came into contact with a fallen piece of tree branch. It appeared to be about four inches thick and four feet long. Stripped of its leaves, it would make a good club, probably his only means of protection. He held on to it.

Painfully, he kept sliding back until he reached the trunk of the tree, pushed himself to a sitting position, his back resting against the tree. Gazing down at his right leg, he noticed that it was now straight. Dragging it along the jungle floor had taken out the bend at the fracture site. First good news he’d had. He closed his eyes and sighed. He’d stay here until someone came to rescue him, or someday they’d find his bones—if the animals didn’t get to him first.

From his sitting position he now had a clear look at the wrecked plane, only about 20 yards away. It was standing on its nose almost vertically, the tail up in the tree tops. The plane’s wing on the side facing him was folded up like the wing of a butterfly on a leaf. The fuselage on that side was gone. Through the gap he could make out several rows of seats, their occupants lifeless, bent forward over their intact restraints. He recognized Nancy the team’s head nurse and Josh, the lab tech. He was unable to see inside, but undoubtedly there lay the bodies of the other members of the team along with the pilot, a Major Something of the Ecuador Air Force, a young guy who had ferried them back and forth each day. Poor devils. At least they were spared the pain he felt, would feel, until… Harris felt bile rise up in his throat and he looked away, unable to bear the sight of his dead comrades.

For the first time since he’d sat up, he noticed that the rain had stopped. A few drops still splashed down from the leaves overhead. The steamy air was filled with the hum and buzz of insects. From deep in the forest some creature shrieked. Bird? Monkey? Perhaps something more ominous. He shuddered.

He was now in total darkness. He had started to doze when there was rustling in the bushes behind him. He panicked, raised his club ready to strike, when the whir of wings and a shadow flying past his head dispelled his fear. Probably a bat, birds usually didn’t fly at night.

Harris leaned back and closed his eyes. In spite of the throbbing in his broken leg, and the fear that something might creep up and attack him during the night, the strain of all that had happened exhausted him. He fell into a deep sleep.

Two

Twice during the night, Harris awoke. Once when a heavy rain poured down on him even though he was partly sheltered by the leafy tree branches. He actually welcomed it, cupping his hands to catch the water and pouring it into his parched mouth and throat

He was awakened again when he felt something nuzzling his thigh. He reached down and felt a furry object that scurried away at his touch. Either a large rodent or some other small animal.

Overhead, what he could see of the sky appeared to be brightening. He guessed that it was close to dawn.

He hadn’t eaten anything since noon the day before, and now he felt the gnawing of hunger. Nothing that might be edible was in range of his reach

He thought about crawling to the downed plane where he’d be sheltered and probably could find something to eat. He might be able to get in through the cockpit’s smashed Plexiglas But it was just too far away and, no, he’d never be able to climb in. Even if he did, the thought of