Gone to Ground

By Bronwyn Hall

HUNTED. ALONE. AFRAID...

A heart-in-the-mouth and utterly addictive adventure thriller from a phenomenal debut Australian talent.

UN surgeon Rachel Forester is posted at a remote medical clinic deep in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With violence escalating in the region, Dr Forester risks her life by remaining to tend an injured child while the rest of her team evacuates. On the cusp of her final desperate chance to leave, a soldier is carried into the camp by three other members of his unit, his condition so critical, his airlift must take priority over hers.

With no help coming, and in the path of warring militias, this small unit must flee through the heart of the jungle to reach the safety of the province capital. But in the dark wilderness lies a strangling web of crime and corruption. As they get deeper, they discover a sinister mining operation and stolen children with evidence indicating shadowy ties to the UN. But aren't those the people Dr Forester works for? The only people who know she's still lost out there? And now, the people who want her dead?

The further they delve, the more the web closes around them. Will they make it out alive?

PRAISE:

'An explosive debut! Gone to Ground is a heart-stopping, action-packed story from start to finish ... Full of tension, suspense, and a touch of romance, this edge-of-your-seat read is just begging for a big screen adaptation.' - Better Reading

'Unexpected and totally thrilling - this debut novel by Aussie author Bronwyn Hall was brilliant! Fast paced action, packed full of a thrilling adventure with a steaming romance that is not to be missed. I loved it!' - Great Reads and Tea Leaves

'A stunning debut from author Bronwyn Hall. This fast-paced, tension-fuelled ride into the darkest recesses of the Congo will keep you firmly on the edge of your seat even as you laugh and cry and fall in love with the characters. Take a breath and strap in, because you won't put this down until the final page.' - SARAH BARRIE, Australian author of UNFORGIVEN

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781867236351

Bronwyn Hall

Bronwyn Hall never intended on being a writer. Her career has been spent working in health and community services, spanning aged care, disability and mental health. She has a bachelor's degree in English Literature (and Psychology-for the day job) and she comes from a family of passionate readers. Born and bred in Australia, Bronwyn has a love for new cultures and environments, having lived for several years in both Papua New Guinea and Brazil. She is deeply intrigued by the extraordinary breadth of qualities that make up the complex creatures called humans - not least, their quiet conquering of adversity. Bronwyn lives and writes on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, Australia.

Book preview

1

It took us a few moments longer than it should have to notice the woman had died.

‘Rachel,’ Michael said, his hands going still.

I looked at the woman’s face, her closed eyes—remarkably peaceful, all things considered. Her chest was motionless.

‘Damn it.’ I checked her pulse just in case. Nothing.

We’d been working on her through the night: trying to stop her bleeding; trying to get her stable. But there were only the two of us left and precious few supplies, mitigating factors that did nothing to alleviate the regret flooding through me.

Over a decade older than me, and at least two decades more exposed to these kinds of impossible circumstances, Michael had his own approach to coping with disappointment. He bowed his head and made the Sign of the Cross. I waited until he’d finished before I lifted the paper sheet over the woman’s head.

‘Do we know what her name was?’ I asked.

‘No. The men who brought her ran away as soon as they got her to the door. We do not know anything about her.’

What he meant was, we didn’t know anything nice about her. Anything about her as a living, breathing member of a family and community. About the violence inflicted upon her, we knew plenty.

I stretched my back and looked around the room. The two windows and the doorway were just gaps left in the concrete, and the roof was corrugated iron that leaked when it rained. It was bare except for the repurposed ambulance stretcher acting as a bed between us, the stack of plastic crates holding our meagre stash of dressings, and the tap on the wall with a hose attached. The light came from a hissing hurricane lamp hung on a hook from the ceiling—one of the few things we’d be taking with us when we left.

‘Well, I guess that’s that then,’ I said. ‘When are they coming back to pick us up?’

‘A helicopter is coming this afternoon. The road’s too dangerous now.’

We stripped off our soiled gowns and worked in silence to clean up the bloody aftermath of the surgery. Then we carried the woman’s body outside into the predawn greyness to a ready-dug grave. It was a deep hole, but she wouldn’t be the only one in there—she had the company of another woman from a few days before, shrouded in white and lying under a layer of dirt. It was bitter comfort to know our latest patient would be the final occupant.

A deep, exhaustion-induced ache spread over my shoulders and I put up a hand to rub away the worst knots in my neck. Even my fingers hurt. Filling in the hole would require energy neither of us had.

‘We can finish it later,’ I said, and Michael nodded. He limped away to hose down the operating room and I stayed a moment longer by the grave. As the morning light leached into the clearing around the tiny deserted village, birds warmed up their voices and rustlings from the dense foliage of the jungle crouched at the village’s edges told me other creatures were stirring. For the first few days, those constant noises—day ones replaced by night ones—had unnerved me; there seemed to be so much going on, yet so little I could see. I was used to the complete opposite: wide open spaces with nothing in them.

I turned to the door of the operating room. Ripples of blood-tinted water were flowing down the concrete steps. It didn’t last long. Cleanup out here was horribly simple. Then I realised I wasn’t the only one watching. In the window of the adjacent concrete hut was the face of the girl who’d been delivered a few hours before our last patient, her condition just as critical. She was the reason Michael and I hadn’t evacuated with the rest of the team the previous afternoon. Like the woman in the grave, we knew virtually nothing about her, only that she was aged around eight, was desperately poor, and had caught bullets to her abdomen and left thigh in an armed skirmish no one seemed to have any information about. That wasn’t unusual. Witnesses knew to pretend they weren’t there or to disappear before anyone came looking. I mentally reviewed the hours since I’d been in to check on her. Four. The fact she was awake meant it was probably time to top up her pain meds.

The girl’s eyes shifted from the blood on the steps to me, and I barely had time to be reminded of her pain and despair at being injured and alone before her gaze moved to something over my left shoulder. Fear bloomed on her face before she dropped away from the window.

I spun around. For a second I saw nothing. Then, against the solid backdrop of the trees, a grey-green shape moved and my chest constricted in fright. It was a man. He was dressed in jungle camouflage and carried a machine gun pointed at the ground. His head moved slowly as he took in the cluster of mostly abandoned buildings and, while his expression was lost in the shadow of his helmet, his posture broadcast wariness. I knew he would have seen me.

I stood, waiting, then jumped when he spoke.

‘You’re with the United Nations?’ he asked. Luckily it was in English.

I nodded. ‘Who are you?’

He didn’t answer my question, instead asking another of his own. ‘How many people are here?’ His voice was deep and carried military authority.

‘Three.’

‘Only three? You sure about that?’ His head still moved as he searched for anything lurking. Like a guard detail, perhaps? That was a luxury we didn’t have.

‘Well, it’s more like two and a half.’

His head turned to check the window where the child’s face had been.

‘She’s the half,’ I said.

‘I heard this was a clinic outpost,’ he said, and this time I caught an accent. Canadian?

‘Yes.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Michael emerge from the hut. ‘Rachel, you want some tea?’ he called.

The soldier raised his gun, but stopped before it was in a position to fire.

‘Er, Michael, we seem to have company,’ I said, and Michael froze at the bottom of the steps. He recovered himself and walked over to hand me a steaming mug.

‘Are you the doctor?’ the man asked him.

Michael shook his head and pointed at me.

‘It’s you?’

I saw his head twist just enough to give away the fact he was looking at the open grave. I bristled. ‘Afraid so,’ I said. ‘But I’m on a break. Are you dying?’

Although he was yet to take a step, I could see he was listing ever so slightly to the left. Injured perhaps, but not dying.

He held up an arm and gestured, and two more soldiers emerged from the trees carrying a third. Yes, someone was dying. I let out a silent sigh, lifted the mug and drained the tea. It was scalding hot and devoid of either milk or sugar. Not the way I liked it, but at least it was something.

‘This way,’ I told the soldiers.

Michael was ahead of me, already rummaging to locate fresh paper surgical gowns and gloves by the time I entered the concrete room. I put mine on while the two soldiers laid their comrade on the bed. He was unconscious, his dark-skinned face a nasty shade of grey. His pallor grew worse when I switched the hurricane lamp on. I checked the rest of him over, noting the bloodstained bandages swathing his left hand, the superficial scratches on his face, and most worryingly, the tattered fragments of uniform no longer covering his abdomen. Bandages were wrapped around his midriff, the blood dried to a dark brown. I picked up some scissors and began cutting them away.

‘What happened?’

The other soldiers stood back against a wall. I sensed they were trying to keep out of the way, but the room was small and they were large. It felt crowded.

None of them replied.

I stopped what I was doing and turned around. The two that had been carrying the wounded one stood silent, waiting for the other to speak. Clearly he was the one in charge. Under the hurricane lamp, his tanned features were strong.

Blue eyes met mine, calm and unblinking. ‘It would be better for you not to know any details,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

He didn’t answer so, instead of holding that unsettling gaze, I turned back to the patient.

Michael clattered a scalpel into a pan before placing the pan on the tray next to me, his eyes darting between the soldiers, me and the man on the bed. A native of Uganda, his country’s history made him wary of military authority.

‘It’s okay,’ I told him, and tugged a fragment of blue from our patient’s pocket. Out came a beret—the trademark of the United Nations forces. ‘Looks like we’re on the same team.’

At that moment came the faraway rattle of gunfire and the soldiers tensed.

‘Is that new?’ said their leader.

‘No,’ I said, ‘we’ve been hearing it on and off since yesterday.’ Thinking about yesterday reminded me of the little girl in our recovery hut. ‘Michael, before we really get started here, are you able to go and give our other patient her medication? It’s in the notes.’

Michael nodded and left through the door.

I snipped away the bandage. The sight underneath made my heart sink. I stared for a few seconds, then faced the three soldiers, using my body to hide their friend.

‘This is going to take a while,’ I said, ‘and I’m going to need some space. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait elsewhere. We don’t have any hot water, but there’s a cold shower and some beds in the next building if you’d like to take a break. You all look like you could use one.’ That was true, but it was also true I didn’t want anyone throwing up or fainting in my operating room.

The leader nodded at the other two and they left.

‘You can go too,’ I said, meeting the blue gaze again.

‘I’ll stay.’ Lines of fatigue radiated from under his eyes and I noted he was pale under his tan. His expression, however, was resolute, and while I would have preferred to work alone, it was an argument I didn’t have the time or energy for.

‘It’s not pretty,’ I warned.

‘I’m aware of that.’

I doubted he was, given how long it had been since the bandage had been changed. But in his line of work, he’d likely seen worse, and I hoped it meant he had a tight rein on his gag reflex. I turned back to the patient and set up an IV line in preparation for administering medication. Michael returned and helped me get the man’s uniform cut away and his body washed. Neither of us said a word as I lifted the bandage and the padding and a wad of squirming maggots tumbled onto the bed and the floor. I used tweezers to flick out the remaining ones, and we got our first good look at what we were dealing with. The wound was large, ragged and swollen around the edges—inflicted by some sort of firearm. Working my fingers underneath the man’s back, I checked for an exit wound, but found the skin intact. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any X-ray or scanning options. The only way to find out where the bullet was would be to go digging.

‘The bullet’s still in there,’ I said. ‘Hopefully stuck in a rib and not a lung.’ I turned to the soldier. ‘How long ago did this happen?’

‘Two days.’

‘And how long has he been unconscious?’

He thought a moment. ‘Twelve hours maybe?’

‘Any antibiotics?’

‘No. We weren’t carrying any. Just the quick clot dressing and some morphine. But that ran out.’

Probably just before he lapsed into unconsciousness.

‘It’s lucky you had the QuikClot,’ I said. ‘He probably would have bled out without it.’

I checked the patient’s dog tags for his blood type.

‘O positive,’ I told Michael. We knew it was lucky. Our blood supplies had run out a while back, but O positive was common—either Michael or I could oblige if needed, and probably at least one of his soldier friends as well. ‘And his name is Otis,’ I said as an afterthought.

Michael placed his hand over the patient’s good one. ‘Otis,’ he repeated. ‘You are in good hands, my friend.’

Over the next three and a half hours, I worked to remove the bullet lodged behind Otis’s rib, repaired the kidney it had ripped through and patched up the edges of damaged intestine. Infection was almost inevitable and the biggest danger should he survive the surgery. I gave Otis the very last of our IV antibiotics, washed out as much of the open cavity as I could get to, and finished off with topical antibacterial applications. When a clean bandage was finally hiding the newly sutured wound, I turned my attention to Otis’s hand. A bullet had caught the edge of his palm, smashing the small bones and flesh in its path. It was a mess, and the best I could do was patch it up. A hand surgeon would need to spend many more hours for a complete repair.

It was around eleven o’clock by the time we’d finished. We transferred Otis to a bed in the recovery hut beside the little girl, who was sleeping again, and I stayed with them on watch while Michael cleaned up our operating room for the second time that morning. It was properly hot now, the humidity soaring with the temperature to make the room feel like a sticky oven. Tiny beads of perspiration clung to the little girl’s forehead as she lay covered by a sheet. I peeled it off her shoulders, then went out for some water. The tank for the village was at the far end of the row of buildings and I walked slowly in the heat. When I got there I found myself second in line to the leader of the soldiers, who was stooped under the tap, splashing water over his head and neck. He’d taken off his shirt and was clad only in pants, boots and a T-shirt stained with sweat. His bare arms were lean muscle.

‘Just a tip,’ he said, twisting his head to send me a look. ‘Best not to creep up behind me. Or any of us, for that matter.’ He straightened into a standing position and flicked his head, sending the excess water in an arc. He was tall. At five foot eight, I was above average height, but I barely made it to his chin.

‘I wasn’t creeping,’ I said. ‘But, you know, thanks for not attacking me or anything.’ I nodded towards the tap. ‘You finished with that?’

He stepped away and I heard his soft grunt.

‘Are you hurt as well?’ I asked.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Okay.’ I turned to fill my dish. If he didn’t feel he required medical attention, that was fine by me. I expected him to leave, but he didn’t, and I felt him watching me. My skin prickled under the scrutiny and the tap seemed to run slower than usual. When the dish was finally filled, I braced myself and turned to confront his gaze. There was a pause.

‘How’s Otis?’ he asked.

I thought of the colour of Otis’s face and the injuries he’d sustained. ‘He’s not very well.’

‘Will he make it?’ There was no flicker of emotion in his voice, no inflection of worry or distress. I could read nothing on his face and yet he and the other two had carried Otis through the jungle for two days. They would have known his chances were poor, but their efforts to save him had been extreme.

‘If he stays here, probably not. We don’t have enough supplies. But there’s a helicopter arriving to evacuate us this afternoon. If he can survive until then, we can get him to a real hospital and his chances will be a lot better.’

He nodded and checked the sky. My gaze followed, roving over the hot, metallic blue to a dark bank of clouds boiling up in the north. We watched them, considering the threat.

‘How did she die?’ he asked, catching me unawares.

‘Who?’

‘The woman in the grave.’ He gave a slight nod at the still open hole in the ground.

I frowned. ‘How did you know she was a woman?’ Even if he’d been watching from the jungle, he could only have seen Michael and me carrying a body covered in a sheet. Her gender wouldn’t have been obvious.

‘I looked,’ he replied without shame. ‘It didn’t appear to be natural causes.’

Being reminded of the wounds the woman had suffered and why she died triggered an anger that flared deep and hot in my belly. It was an anger born of impotence, a lack of ability to make any real and lasting difference. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s war wasn’t my war. And, like me, this soldier was with the UN and therefore it wasn’t his war either. We were barely more than bystanders; maybe he was a preventer. Definitely neither of us were participants.

‘Machete attack,’ I said.

He acknowledged it with a nod, but his face was unemotional, which for some reason made my anger flare even hotter.

‘Why did you really check?’ I asked. ‘Were you interested in her particularly, or were you just checking her wounds were bad enough to warrant her dying and I hadn’t botched it?’

My anger had no effect whatsoever. The soldier looked at me, calmly considering, then surprised me with his directness.

‘Turning up and meeting a doctor in the process of burying their last patient isn’t exactly reassuring. Not that we had any choice.’ He reached for his shirt. ‘But you seemed to know what you were doing with Otis’s surgery, and you’ve kept him alive. It made me wonder a bit more about the person in that grave and how seriously they’d been hurt. That’s why I looked.’ His gaze met mine. ‘I’ve seen my fair share of injuries, and she was bad. I’m sure there was nothing else you could have done.’

I was very tired. I was also still very angry at knowing the woman had been attacked by someone with a machete—possibly more than one person—and her perpetrator would face no consequences. More than anything, I was upset I hadn’t been able to save her. The man standing in front of me might have been trying to offer reassurance, but I wasn’t in the mood to accept it.

‘You’re wrong,’ I said. ‘There was plenty I could have done.’

His brow creased in confusion and I held his gaze for an extra moment before I turned on my heel.

‘Just not here.’

2

I calmed down as I sponged the sweat from the two sleeping patients in the recovery hut. There was little else to do, as I was already packed to leave—had been since yesterday, before the plans had changed. With no more work to do, exhaustion overcame me and I succumbed to the lure of the spare thin mattress on the floor usually reserved for a night nurse.

Expecting to be woken by the heavy whopping of a helicopter, I was disappointed when it was the sound of heavy rain on the tin roof instead. Shit. I peered through the door. Rain thundered down on the clearing, already turning the paths between the huts to pools of red mud. I checked my watch. I’d slept through lunch and it was after three o’clock. Our window for the chopper was shrinking.

A movement from one of the beds caught my attention. The little girl was awake, her brown eyes alert when they met mine. I smiled at her.

‘Hello, how are you feeling?’ I asked. Unfortunately it came out in a yell in an effort to be heard over the noise of the rain. She didn’t answer, just stared at me from the pillow. I thrust my arm out through the doorway, pulled it in and made a face for her as water ran off and dripped onto the floor.

She pointed at the other bed and I turned to see. The roof had sprung a leak and a steady drip was hitting the mattress beside Otis’s feet. I picked up the basin I’d used earlier to sponge down the patients, and hurriedly thrust it underneath to catch the flow. As soon as I had, another drip started near his head and a squeak from the girl alerted me to a drip above her as well. Unfortunately there was only the one basin.

‘Bloody hell,’ I muttered.

I did a quick reconnaissance of the roof and the floor to see where the puddles were growing. Then, starting with the little girl’s bed, I pushed the base sideways before coming around to the top of the bed and shoving it forward so it was sitting in a dry patch. Otis’s bed was a little more difficult given his size and weight and the fact the bed wasn’t on wheels. I managed to turn it towards the dry patch, but pushing it into place proved difficult. I was forced to resort to leaning my back against the foot of the frame and using the full power of my legs to push backwards. It worked, but was less than dignified, and I straightened up to see the little girl giggling behind her hands. I grinned. It had been worth it just for that. I went and sat on the edge of her mattress.

‘Do you speak French?’ I asked in the same language. While it was the official language of this part of the Congo, many people only spoke their local dialects. My own French was still questionable—it relied heavily on high-school lessons from a teacher who’d never left Australia. However, I’d improved since being in country, and I’d learned to compensate by miming whatever I was trying to say at the same time.

She nodded. Well, that was lucky.

‘Do you know where you are?’

Head shake.

‘Well, this is sort of a hospital. People from your village brought you here when you got hurt.’

Her hand felt the bandages on her thigh, curiously testing the edges. ‘The bullets came through the wall,’ she said. I assumed whatever wall she was referring to must have been made from wood. ‘We were hiding, but we didn’t know the bullets could come through the wall.’ She looked at me. ‘Did my brothers get hurt too?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. You were the only one who was brought here.’

Her face calmed.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘It’s Ketia.’

‘Well, hi, Ketia. I’m Dr Forester, but I like being called Rachel.’

She looked around the room, her gaze catching on Otis as he lay unconscious, before coming back to mine.

‘Are you a real doctor?’

I nodded.

‘Are there lots of doctors and nurses here?’

‘No, just me and one nurse. His name’s Michael and he’s the person who’s been giving you medicine. You and Otis—’ I pointed to the other bed, ‘—are our only patients.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He got shot, too. But not at the same time as you. It took him a few days to get here.’

‘Will he die?’

‘I hope not.’

I left her bed to check Otis’s pulse. In contrast to the absolute stillness of his face, his heart rate was erratic. Crap. I looked out at the rain and felt the lifeline of the helicopter slipping away.

I turned back to Ketia. ‘I have to go and get some things. I’ll also get some food. Are you hungry?’

She nodded. I was glad—hunger was a good sign.

‘Okay then, I’ll be back soon.’

Dashing between buildings, I