Chapter Three

James yawned and peeled off his white surgery jacket. Just like Helen had predicted, surgery ended up being a solitary affair with only Helen or Mrs. Hall occasionally dropping in to break the monotony. He had managed to squeeze in a nap before deciding to make use of his time and do some cleaning and sorting. He even had time to give most of the instruments a thorough scrubbing before surgery hours ended.

Once he had finished hanging up his coat and putting his own jacket back on, he looked over the room with a rueful smile. It hadn't done anything for the practice's coffers, but this quiet afternoon gave him a chance to get some needed chores done and had been a good antidote to the frustrating day he had just had.

As he opened the door, Helen appeared on the other side to meet him.

"James, Mrs. Hall said that dinner would be ready soon. You haven't seen Siegfried or Tris yet, have you?"

"Not a sign of them," James said with a shake of his head. "But then Mrs. Hall did say that they might be late getting back."

"I suppose so," Helen sighed. "Which means you'll probably have to take the night call outs too. And I was so hoping that we could spend the rest of the evening together."

"It's the luck of the draw, I'm afraid," James said, shrugging. "Maybe I can get Tris to trade his night off with me later in the week."

"He better," Helen said. "I think it's dreadful that they left you with surgery hours and nighttime call outs. It better not be because they stopped off at a pub or something like that."

"Don't worry, darling," James said. "I know that's something Tris might do on his own, but I doubt he would with Siegfried with him. Besides, one day of extra work will be worth it if it means the two of them are finally patching things up. It certainly will make things a lot more peaceful around here."

Helen let out a long sigh and smiled at him. "Oh, I know you're right. But at least take time to have your dinner before doing anything else."

James was just about to agree with her when the phone rang. Both of them let out another sigh and let their heads flop forward. Mrs. Hall answered it, but they knew that this call would ultimately be for James.

A moment later, Mrs. Hall appeared in the doorway, a grim look on her face. "That was Mr. Calvert. Seems he's got a cow that's starting to calve, but summat's wrong."

James' face crinkled in frustration. "Oh no, not another calving. Just what I needed today." He gave his wife a lopsided smile. "Sorry about dinner, darling. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Helen nodded and gave him a kiss before he walked out. Then she watched as he grabbed a few things from surgery and rushed outside.

"There's times when I don't know why I bother with the cooking," Mrs. Hall said. "It's a waste to let good cooking go bad from waiting. Still, there's nawt that can be done about it. And they're the ones who suffer for it anyway."

Helen turned on her heel and smiled at Mrs. Hall. "That's true enough. How about we go ahead and have dinner and clean up. That way, we can finish up early."

"Well…all right then," Mrs. Hall said. "Mind, we should still have summat ready in case your husband or Mr. Farnon and Mr. Tristan come back unexpected. You know that men are never happy to come home to no food on the table. Even if it's what they rightly deserve."

Helen laughed. "I agree. But what can you do?"

Mrs. Hall nodded and headed back to the kitchen with Helen close behind her.

Even though the noise had stopped, Tristan was reluctant to move.

Overall, he considered himself lucky. When the barn began to fall apart around him, he'd dropped to the ground and prayed that he wouldn't be crushed by the debris. A few pieces had struck his arms, legs and back as they fell to the ground, but none of it had hit him very hard. Still, as fortunate as he knew he was, Tristan already felt sore and was certain that he'd have masses of bruises all over by nightfall.

Deep creaking moans coming from the corners of the barn were all that was left from the clamor from earlier and even these had begun to trail off. Only after they had stopped completely did Tristan consider moving with his first action being opening his eyes as he lowered his arms from around his head.

Tristan blinked several times, coughing as swirls of dust flew into his face. He was currently buried under some roofing shingles, but they were light enough to be easily brushed aside. Tristan groaned as he sat up, continuing to push tiles off of him. Once the last of them were gone, he took a long look at his surroundings, his expression quickly becoming grim.

There was no sign of the entrance to the barn anymore. The doors had snapped from their hinges and had crumbled into rough planks. There were still holes in what was left of the walls and roof, but they were not large enough to get much more than an arm through them. The ceiling had dropped down several feet, and Tristan was certain that there wasn't enough space for him to stand upright now. There was also only a squashed circle of space where the piles of debris weren't too deep, making a somewhat even surface to get around on. The rest of the space around him was a jumble of broken chunks of wood and twisted farm equipment that had been left behind to rust.

Tristan shoved the rest of the tiles away and hitched up his legs, frowning. He couldn't see any way of getting out of here that didn't involve crawling through one of the narrow passages of debris in the wreckage, a risky proposition as there was no way to know for sure how secure they were or if there would even be a space where he could squeeze himself outside at the end of them.

Suddenly, a faint whiny caught his attention. Tristan squinted and peered out one of the gaps in the wall across from him. He could see the horse he'd tried to capture prancing about outside.

"Wretched creature," he mumbled. "The least you could do is be trapped in here with us. Seeing as it's your fault and all."

It was while he listened to the horse whiny again that he realized what had been bothering him ever since he woke up. Other than the periodic creaks from what was left of the barn and clomping of hooves outside, it had been quiet.

And there had not been a single sound from his brother.

"Siegfried?" Tristan called out. "Siegfried, are you all right?"

There was no response, and Tristan felt his inside tighten. He brushed himself off some more and then got up onto his knees so he could get a better look at his surroundings. He spied his bag next to a small pile of wood and crawled over to grab it, grateful that it wasn't buried in the wreckage. Then he found an old pump about a foot away and made a note of it as he was feeling rather parched.

A second later, he spotted Siegfried's bag next a larger pile of wood. He scrambled toward it and was about to pick it up when he saw something else only inches away: a hand. A hand that was attached to an arm that was wasn't moving.

"Siegfried!" Tristan said as he crawled over to it. His brother was mostly buried under shingles and broken boards. Tristan carefully lifted the pieces up and tossed them to the side as quickly as he could. It wasn't long before he found Siegfried, unconscious and still.

Horrified, Tristan shook Siegfried's shoulder vigorously, but got no response. Then he pressed trembling fingers up against his brother's neck. It took him almost a full minute, but eventually he found a pulse, causing Tristan to let out a soft cry of relief.

Then he went back to work, digging Siegfried out of the wreckage. Siegfried did not stir once while he moved the wood and tiles away, but Tristan tried to ignore that fact so he could focus on the task at hand. Right now, all that mattered was getting Siegfried free and finding a way out of this barn so he could get help. The car was quite a ways away from here, but Tristan figured he could worry about that once they were outside and were no longer in danger of being crushed if the barn should collapse even more.

Tristan had managed to get Siegfried's head, shoulders, and torso uncovered, but as he pushed the last few pieces of wood away, he made another terrible discovery. There was a dark stain blooming on Siegfried's shirt and jacket. Blood. Blood that was still spreading across the fabric and dripping into a tiny pool on the dirt floor.

Tristan's breath caught in his throat. "My god, Siegfried."

He tugged his brother's coat and shirt away to find a long gash that had been carved into Siegfried's abdomen. Probably inflicted by a nail or a large, sharp splinter of wood. It wasn't a very deep wound. The damage appeared to be limited to the skin and muscle underneath and had not punctured any internal organs or major blood vessels. But it was still bleeding badly.

For a moment, all Tristan could do was stare, wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open. He felt sick as he watched the trickle of blood, Siegfried's blood, drip into the hay and dirt, staining them dark red.

Suddenly, years of training snapped him to attention. Stop the bleeding. That's what you needed to do. Stop the bleeding and then worry about treatment.

Tristan gulped and grabbed the bags next to him, fingers fumbling with the catches. They still had leftover materials from their treatment of those two horses: cotton, gauze, and fasteners. Then he remembered the pump and crawled back over to it. It looked like it could still work, so he placed both hands onto the handle and pumped. Ancient joints squeaked and scraped, but eventually, he was able to get a thin stream of water out of the spout.

He scrubbed his hands under the water and then took a section of the gauze and wet it down. Then he went back over to Siegfried and began to wipe the excess blood and dirt away as best he could. Once he was done, he swabbed on a bit of iodine and used the cotton and more of the gauze to create a makeshift bandage.

It wasn't anywhere near as clean or neat as he would have liked, especially since he had to work around the debris still surrounding Siegfried. Still, it did cover the wound and hopefully would put a stop to the bleeding. Or at least most of it. Blood would probably still continue to seep into the bandage until the wound was properly closed, but, for now, Siegfried wasn't in danger of bleeding to death before Tristan could get him to a doctor.

That left the problem of finding a way out of this barn. Tristan wasn't sure how he was going to get Siegfried out if his brother didn't come around. Then again, he supposed that he could drag Siegfried out if he could find a big enough passage to get through. It wasn't a solution he liked with Siegfried having suffered such a serious injury, but it was better than none at all.

Tristan went back to the pump to splash some water onto his hands and wipe them off as best he could. Then he went back to work on removing the rest of the rubble off of his elder brother. There didn't appear to be any other injuries, but Tristan knew that he couldn't rule out the possibility that his brother was badly bruised, had fractured some bones, or maybe even be bleeding internally.

As he worked, Tristan kept thinking about how he would give just about anything to have Siegfried wake up and talk to him. Even if it was just to yell at him for going into this barn in the first place. Anything was preferable to this terrible silence.

It was when he was down to moving the rest of the debris from Siegfried's legs that Tristan realized that there was something else wrong. Two large support beams had fallen onto the twisted remains of a plow, pinning Siegfried in place. Tristan heaved for several minutes, but wasn't able to even budge either of the beams even an inch. From what he could tell, both the beams and the plow were suspended a couple of inches over Siegfried's legs which was a relief as it probably meant that his elder brother's legs hadn't been crushed or broken.

However, it also meant that he wouldn't be able to move Siegfried from that spot.

Tristan grabbed hold of Siegfried's shoulder, shaking it. "Siegfried? Come on, Siegfried, wake up. Please."

His brother remained unresponsive, and Tristan felt his insides twist. There was no way he could get Siegfried out of the wreckage without help. But getting help would mean leaving Siegfried behind, an option Tristan was loathe to go with.

That is, if he could find a way to escape which he hadn't done so far.

Tristan looked back down at Siegfried's still form, his throat tightening as he squeezed his elder brother's shoulder. No, he couldn't leave Siegfried like this. Injured and unconscious and possibly…possibly….

A shaft of sunlight touched Tristan's face through one of the holes in the wall. Tristan crawled as close as he could toward it.

"Help!" he yelled. "Anyone? We're trapped in here! Please help!"

Tristan yelled for several moments before finally giving up. Deep down, he had known it would be futile. Hardly anyone went out to these fells anymore other than to graze their sheep in the springtime. There was the chance that someone would find their car alongside the road and investigate. But there was no way to know when it would be discovered or if whoever did find it would think to check this ruin of a barn.

Would anyone find them before Siegfried….?

Tristan took a shaky breath and crawled back over to his brother's side. He checked Siegfried's pulse again and got a little relief when he realized that it wasn't any weaker. The bandages had stopped almost all of the bleeding, and Siegfried's condition appeared stable.

Problem was, Tristan wasn't sure how long that would last.