As long as I can remember I've been terrified of snakes. Can't even look at them on TV or a picture in a book. You'll never catch me walking in a jungle. So, in my newest release I wanted to have not just one snake scene, but two. My way of being as brave as my heroines, I suppose.
My husband helped me with the research. He'd print off the articles from the internet, but before he gave the articles to me, he'd cut out the pictures of the snakes using scissors. That's how I got what I needed for the following scene.
Snake Bite Scene # 2 from Captured by Moonlight
Searing pain jabbed into Adam’s calf.
He cried out. Light from the headlamps reflected
two pinpoints of light. A snake scuttled into the bush, and Laine started to
rush in his direction.
“Wait, Laine. Don’t come closer.”
“What is it?” she shouted over the gale.
“A snake.” He clenched his fists and bit down on
his lip with the throbbing in his leg. “Ruddy thing bit me as I plodded along
in my size ten boots. Blast! I should have known better.” He looked back at
her. “Stay where you are. There might be more than one.”
He studied the ground in the dim light. Unable
to see any sign of movement, he shivered. The blasted reptile had gone. All
he’d been able to see in that quick flash was that it was green.
Laine, heedless of his warning, joined him.
“Where is the wound?”
“I told you to stay where you were.”
“Is it your leg?”
“My calf.”
She slipped her shoulder under his arm and swung
her arm around his back. “Stay calm. Do you hear me? No panic. Lean on me. Put
as little weight on that leg as possible. I want to get you onto the truck
box.”
He put his weight on her shoulders, and she
walked him back to the vehicle.
“Balance yourself against that,” she said. “I’m
going to hop up there, and if you push with your arms then I’ll pull. I’ve got
to get you lying down.”
“I can make it up.”
“Sorry, me luv, but I’m giving you a hand
anyway.” She spoke in a fake Cockney accent, no doubt the one she used to
cajole many a soldier into treatment or help them withstand the terror of
dying.
She hauled him up, and without a word had him soon
lying down, covered with a blanket that the rain quickly soaked.
Her hair dripped and hung down as a curtain to
frame her face as she pulled off his boot and ripped the bottom of his trouser
leg up to his thigh. She bent to examine the punctures at the side of his left
calf and then left him to go to the cab. A moment later she returned with her
medical bag. “You know the routine, no panic.”
“I know, and I assure you, Matron, I’m doing my
best.”
“No talking. Save your strength. That’s the ticket.”
He watched Laine screw open the wooden cylinder
of the snake-bite kit and remove the lancet. He did know the routine only far
too well. She had to clean the wound and hope the crystals did the trick. After
that, unless he could get to a dispensary they could only pray the snake hadn’t
injected a fatal amount of venom.
“What kind of snake was it?” she asked in her
no-nonsense nursing tone counterbalanced with the jovial Cockney.
“Not sure...there are two types of green snake
in this area. If it was the least venomous, the whip snake, I’ll be sick for a
few days but live.”
“And the other?”
“Bamboo pit viper. I think you should know...if
it was the viper...the outcome is...less optimistic, I’m afraid.”
She stopped momentarily. So momentarily only
someone who knew her as well as he did would notice. But she resumed her brisk
composure and took the lancet in her hand with the container of potassium
permanganate on the floor at her side. “Well, you’re my patient now, and I
don’t allow morbid talk on my ward. As I’m sure you’re aware, this will hurt.
So lie back, soldier. Grit your teeth. And think of England.”
After a daring rescue goes awry, Laine Harkness and her friend Eshana
flee to the tropical south of India…and headlong into their respective pasts.
Laine takes a nursing position at a plantation in the jungle, only to
discover that her former fiancé is the owner…but fun-loving Laine refuses to
let Adam crush her heart like he had years ago.
Eshana, captured by her traditional uncle and forced once more into the
harsh Hindu customs of mourning, doubts freedom will ever be hers again, much
less the forbidden love for Dr. Jai Kaur that had begun to flower.
Amid cyclones, epidemics, and clashing faiths, will the love of the True
Master give hope to these searching hearts?
About the author: Irish-born Christine Lindsay writes award-winning
historical novels, and delights in weaving the endless theme of God’s redemptive
love throughout stories of danger, suspense, adventure, and romance. The
Pacific coast of Canada, about 200 miles north of Seattle, is Christine’s home.
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Writing can be a safe way to confront our fears, or at least to explore them a bit. Love how Laine morphs into nursing-matron mode at the end of this excerpt.
ReplyDeleteI so agree Janet, I know I'll never conquer my fear of snakes here on this earth, but I can have my heroine be so much braver than me. I love fiction.
DeleteHad to smile at your title, Cchristine. I too hate snakes,won't even touch a photo of one in a book. Where I grew up on a farm in Queensland my Mum claimed she broke every long clothes line wooden stick on killing snakes there. strangely enough, I too used snake bites in one of my earlier books - a medical romance I am hoping to rewrite for e-book release.
ReplyDeleteLOL, Mary, so glad to meet another person who can't even touch a picture of a snake. There have been times that even my vaccum cleaner hose has given me the willeys.
DeleteI remember hearing some refugees from the former Yugoslavia complaining that they had been put in the bush outside Sydney and there were SNAKES there. They seemed surprised. In Blacktown we have had (over 25 years) half a dozen brown snakes come into the backyard. I thought, this is Australia, there are going to be snakes.
ReplyDeleteOf the snakes, I recall that most slithered out as soon as they were noticed, one I had to chase out, and one I hadn't noticed until I saw our terrier shaking something. It was only a baby, about a metre long. I tossed the body over the back fence and the kookaburras snapped it up.
Over the years I have kept a clear space along the back fence and sprayed the weeds over the fence. This takes away the cover for them. I also control mice, because brown snakes will come into the yard after them. I can't keep a pond because snakes also like to eat frogs.
I haven't seen any snakes for a couple of years since the new housing estates began to be developed. But I don't think they have gone away. Spread out cities like Sydney have an enormouse amount of hidden wildlife. But I probably do prefer meeting a rainbow lorikeet over a brown snake any day.
After all, snakes are only dangerous if they bite you. Live and let live, I say. But I've never seen a snake scuttle!
Oooh, you are far more brave than me Ken. I know I would never be able to live with that many snakes around. They are God's creatures though, and have a right to live. But...oh shudder, I don't like them. As for scuttle, put that word on the mind frame of the character who's only thinking of a creature running for cover whether it's leaping, running, or slithering---it only wants to get out of there as quick as can be. I'm still shuddering at your experiences.
DeleteI'm a lot like you, Christine, except I haven't confronted my fears in fiction yet. My husband knows if a snake slithers into a tv show while I'm in the room, he has less than two seconds to change the channel or I've left the room!
ReplyDeleteThankfully we have no poisonous snakes where I live, and even garter snakes are so rare I don't see more than one or two a decade. Or maybe they're just smart enough to stay away from the woman with the fast-launching panic attack!
So glad to hear that Valerie because we go through your part of the province frequently. And I can't even stand garter snakes. Same in my house, all the family know to rip out the pictures in magazines that contain pictues of snakes just to protect me from catching a glimpse of one. Strangely, I had no trouble writing about them.
DeleteChristine, I grew up in a house opposite a nature reserve and had a number of close encounters with snakes, usually brown snakes or red belly black snakes. The snakes that freak me out are the ones that swim in the ocean. At least on land you can see them and try to avoid them...
ReplyDelete