Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,15

have been, until the fireman turned me so far that my head just had to follow. He held me firmly and pushed me towards the door, where a second fireman put a bright red blanket over my shoulders and led me out. I wondered if they used red blankets so the blood didn’t show.

The fireman guided me down the corridor towards the stairwell. I looked into the kitchen as we passed by. Carl was leaning over the sink throwing up. I knew how he felt.

A man in a green jacket with DOCTOR written large across the back pushed past me. ‘Is he all right?’ he asked my escort.

‘Seems so,’ was the reply.

I wanted to say that no, I wasn’t all right. I wanted to tell him that I had glimpsed an image of hell and that it would surely live with me for ever. I wanted to shout out that I was far from all right, and that I might never be all right again.

Instead, I allowed myself to be led to the stairwell where I obeyed the instruction to go down. I was assured that others would be waiting at the bottom to help me. But can they erase the memory? Can they give me back my innocence? Can they prevent the nightmares?

Having been instructed by the fireman, I obediently descended to ground level and, as promised, was met by helping hands and soothing voices. A brief assessment of my physical injuries left me, still wrapped in my red blanket, sitting on one of a row of white plastic chairs for what seemed like a very, very long time. Several times a young man in a bright green outfit with PARAMEDIC emblazoned in white letters across his shoulders came over to ask if I was OK. He said that they were sorry about the delay but there were others in greater need. I nodded. I knew. I could still see them in my mind’s eye.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, but I didn’t really mean it.

Ambulances came and went, their sirens wailing, and a line of black body bags, laid out close to the back of the grandstand, grew longer as the afternoon sunlight slowly faded towards evening.

I was finally taken to hospital about seven o’clock. After so long sitting in the plastic chair, I was unable to stand properly on my left leg as my knee had swollen up, and stiffened badly. My young paramedic friend helped me to an ambulance that then sedately drove off with no siren or flashing lights. It was as if the urgency of the crisis was past. Those seriously injured and dying had been whisked away at speed. Those already dead were beyond help. We, the almost walking wounded, could now be cared for with composure and calm.

The ambulance took me all the way to Bedford as the hospitals closer to Newmarket had been overwhelmed by the seriously injured. At Bedford, an X-ray revealed no fractures in my swollen left knee. A doctor speculated that the collision with the door might have caused a temporary dislocation of my patella, my knee cap, which had resulted in some internal bleeding. A haematoma had formed in the joint causing both the swelling and the pain. The blood loss that had stained my trousers was found to be due to a tear of the soft tissue of my lower thigh, also probably a consequence of the collision with the door. Although the flow had all but stopped, the doctor insisted on applying some adhesive strips to close the edges of the wound, which he then covered with a large white rectangular bandage. No such care was afforded to my trousers, which were unceremoniously cut off short on the left side. The hospital provided me with a tight blue rubberized sleeve for my knee both to provide support for the joint and to apply pressure to the haematoma to reduce the bruising. They also thoughtfully equipped me with a long white closely woven cotton sock to wear on my left foot to reduce swelling in the lower leg, and a supply of large round white painkillers. I would be fine, they said, after a few days’ rest. Fine in body, I thought, although it would take longer to heal the emotional injury.

A taxi was ordered to take me home. So I sat waiting in the hospital reception, somewhat embarrassed at having caused such a fuss, and feeling guilty that I had escaped so lightly while others had not.