The Doctor’s Rescue Mission

CHAPTER TWELVE

IT WAS not a good night to be out of the harbour mouth.

The sea, as flat as a millpond during the chaos of the tidal wave, had started to stir. A building sou’westerly was driving a strong, erratic swell in against the cliffs. As soon as the Minnow-Eater emerged from the harbour, the fishing boat started an erratic bucketing.

‘You do that life jacket up tight, lass,’ Marcus called, and she nodded and hauled the straps tighter as she huddled into her oversized waterproofs.

Marcus’s boat was one of the best equipped available. They were very lucky it hadn’t been in the harbour when the wave had come, but, then, most of the boats had been out. Thankfully. Otherwise they’d have been destroyed.

Marcus headed a crew of four, usually rostered down to three. The town had been lucky it had been Marcus who had been rostered off the day before, but Morag was grateful he hadn’t rostered himself off now. The big fisherman was calmly competent, and in this sea they needed every trace of competence they could get. It was a sea that would have an inexperienced fisherman running for cover.

Marcus and Grady were alike, she thought inconsequentially. The two men were separated in age by twenty years but they were really similar. Grady could be just like this in twenty years. But then…

Grady would never look as Marcus did, she thought bleakly. Marcus loved his wife and his kids and his island. He looked at life through calm eyes, with a placid acceptance and muted pleasure with his chosen lot in life.

Whereas Grady… Grady had been here for less than two days and already he was thinking about moving on.

The boat swung south. The moon was lifting over the horizon-thankfully the sky was clear so they’d have moonlight to search. As they rounded the headland Morag could see the brilliant beam from the lighthouse.

Her lighthouse.

If she moved away from the island, if she wasn’t here and something happened-another sea-eagle crashed into the lantern room, anything…

Stop it, she thought fiercely. Stop it.

Robbie…

Robbie. Grady. Her island. Her people.

So much to care about. So much to think about. So much, she felt ill.

They were moving fast. The boat was crashing over the cresting swells. Marcus took the boat wide of the rocks that jutted from the southern tip of the island, and then curved in again. Suddenly the sea seemed calmer, but that was an illusion. It was only because they were moving with the same motion as the swell.

‘You feeling OK?’ Marcus yelled over the noise of the big diesel engine, and she nodded.

‘Fine,’ she yelled back. Not seasick at least. Just sick with fear.

‘There’s the boyfriend.’ Marcus jabbed a finger skyward and she saw a faint light lifting off from the ridge. Grady had moved fast. It had been twenty minutes since they’d left and already he had his crew mobilised for take-off.

What had Marcus called him? Her boyfriend?

That was a joke.

‘We’re going in close now,’ Marcus told her, and one of the men came toward her with a clip and harness.

‘Lifelines,’ he told her. ‘We lay craypots in here, but not normally in weather as rough as this. It’s safe enough if you know what you’re doing-and we know what we’re doing-but we put the lifelines on anyway.’

‘Fine.’

They were nearing the cliffs. Morag had been out here during the day many times as she and her father and sister had fished the waters. She knew these cliffs. In the daytime they were steep and jagged and alive with a mass of seabirds. Now they were dark and forbidding. The sound of the waves crashing on the jagged rocks all but drowned the sound of the boat’s big engine.

Robbie. Hamish. The man who’d clipped her lifeline switched on the floodlights.

Where were they?

Their light swept up and down the cliff face in long searching runs. Over and over. Over and over.

Was this stupid? Morag was straining to see along the rockface. Had Hamish been washed out to sea long before this? Was Robbie even now searching somewhere on the island for a friend he’d never find? Alone-as he’d been alone for too long.

She wouldn’t cry. She hadn’t cried when she’d left Grady or when Beth had died. She mustn’t cry now.

But the thought of Robbie alone… Searching for Hamish as they were now doing, but with no one to hold onto him…

Her eyes were still desperately following the line of the floodlights, but she was becoming more afraid by the minute.

The helicopter had reached the cliff face now. Grady. His machine was hovering above them at the far end of the breeding grounds. The helicopter’s floodlights scanned to the cliff face and joined the raking, searching lines of light.

At least if the boys were somewhere here they’d know people were looking, Morag thought desperately. Everyone was looking.

Grady was looking. The thought gave her an indefinable comfort, though how one man could make a difference…

He couldn’t. Block out Grady.

Search.

Her eyes were straining upward until they hurt. They were only about fifty yards from the base of the cliffs now, as close as Marcus dared to go. Between the boat and the cliffs were rocks, freshly tumbled into the sea as the tsunami had smashed the cliff face and the ledge at the base of the cliffs had crumbled. Above the tumbled rocks in the sea there were jagged crevices filled with sleepy birds staring outward, indignant as the floodlight interrupted their sleep.

The floodlights raked on. The rockface curved in, out, in…Morag was holding the rail, leaning forward, her body swaying with the movement of the sea. Her father had spent so much of his time on the sea and she with him. And Beth. Her family.

Robbie…

The boat jerked, bows downward, as a breaker foamed over the stern and water rushed over the deck. Morag’s hold on the rail tightened but her eyes didn’t leave the cliff.

Please…

‘We’ll have to go further out,’ Marcus called, and Morag half turned toward him.

But as she did so, the man who’d adjusted her lifeline gave a hoarse shout, filled with disbelieving hope.

‘There. Two thirds of the way up. Shift the flood to the right. No. Hell, I thought I saw-I thought…’

The beam shifted. Shifted some more.

And then Marcus was hauling the wheel round and someone was lunging for the radio. For there on the ledge…

‘It’s Hamish.’ Morag was staring, as if at any minute the sight would disappear. But it wasn’t imagination. A little boy waving wildly, screaming, as if they could hear over the sound of the wind and the waves and the engine.

‘It’s Hamish.’ There were tears suddenly cascading down her cheeks. Here at last there was one happy ending. Hamish. She could tell Robbie… He couldn’t have found his friend yet, she thought wildly. Here was Hamish, and the land party would find Robbie as they searched the clifftops. They’d be able to tell him…

‘The chopper will be able to get him off,’ Marcus was calling. ‘They’ll lower someone by harness.’

Of course. Morag didn’t dare to take her eyes from the child-as if in losing sight of him she might lose him for ever-but she was aware that the helicopter had already changed course. Now it was zooming downward with its own lights. Grady was up there, she thought wildly, almost dizzy with relief. She’d be able to ring Christine and Peter with such good news. Grady would come down and swoop the child up and he’d be safe…

‘Is that a dog?’ Marcus asked, narrowing his eyes against the spray.

Hamish was standing on a ledge, half-hidden by a boulder that must be protecting him from the worst of the elements. He was still yelling and waving, as though he hadn’t realised they’d seen him, though it must have been obvious.

‘I reckon I can see two dogs,’ the man beside her said. He had a pair of field glasses in his hand and he wiped them clean and handed them to Morag. ‘Two bloody dogs. Where did they come from? Isn’t one that the dopey mutt of William Cray’s?’

William’s border collie. Of course. The big dog often got bored with William’s solitary writing, and he’d been known to take off with the boys on their adventures.

So here was another blessing. Morag lifted the glasses and saw the big black dog slink behind Hamish’s legs as if terrified of the noise and light. As well he might be.

‘I can only see one dog,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it’s William’s. He’ll be so pleased.’

But…

Something caught her suddenly. A jarring note amidst the joy.

Morag stared on through the salt-sprayed glasses. Hamish was still yelling. Screaming. He still looked terrified, Morag thought.

But why? Why terrified? Hamish wasn’t a kid who’d be afraid of a helicopter. The ledge he was standing on looked wide enough. Solid enough. He’d be hungry and thirsty and cold, but…terrified?

They were coming in to rescue him. Surely he should be starting to be reassured?

She took the glasses from her eyes and wiped the salt mist again. Refocused.

And then she froze. The man beside her had been right. From out behind the boulder came a second dog. A golden retriever.

Dear God.

‘It’s Elspeth,’ she whispered, almost to herself. ‘It’s Hubert’s dog.’

Her mind shifted to overdrive and then moved up another notch. Elspeth was with Robbie. Elspeth had left Hubert’s place with Robbie, and Elspeth would only have left Robbie to go back to Hubert.

Hubert was in hospital.

If Elspeth was down on that ledge, she’d have come down with Robbie.

Robbie must have tried to climb down from the top.

Her glasses swung back to the child’s face. To the unmistakable terror on Hamish’s face. To his frantically waving arms. The little boy was staring out at them, but every other second he was glancing down at the water.

Down…

‘Robbie’s in the water,’ she screamed. She lunged for the floodlight but the men were there before her, hauling the light away from the child on the ledge and down to the blackness and foam around the rocks.

‘Where…?’

They saw him together in a wash of water. A flash of carrot hair among the foam. An arm waved in a feeble call for help. Marcus yelled a warning, and so did the man beside her.

Morag didn’t yell.

He must have tumbled from above, she thought. The sea right at the base of the cliff was relatively free from rocks, or he’d already be dead. He’d fallen and been washed out to where the remnants of the original ledge formed a vicious circle of jagged rocks, holding him enclosed.

Not that there was anywhere for him to go. If he tried to reach the cliffs, he’d be smashed against the cliff. The surf was surging in through gaps in the rocks between him and the boat. There was no way he could swim out to where the water was clearer.

The floodlight was washing the water now in brilliant white and Morag caught a glimpse of a face…

Of terror.

The next wave slammed into him. Dear God, how long had he been there? He was going under.

‘Get me a lifeline,’ she screamed. She was unhooking herself from the lines set up round the boat and dragging off her waterproofs, kicking off her shoes as she ran along the deck to the bow of the boat. The closest point.

‘Grady will come down,’ Marcus yelled. He reached out and grabbed her arm. ‘We’re in radio contact. He’s in a harness.’

‘It’ll take time. Robbie’s going under now. I’m going in.’

‘You can’t. You’ll be smashed on the rocks.’

‘Then we’ll be smashed together. But I can do this. Clip a line on me now or I’m going in without.’

He was staring at her in horror. ‘I’ll go.’

‘I can swim better than you can, and you know it.’ It was a skill she’d gloried in as a kid-trained in a city squad, she’d been able to beat any kid on the island.

Marcus knew it. And he’d seen that tiny face washed by the wave. He knew it’d take minutes to get the lines down from the helicopter-minutes Robbie didn’t have.

He wasted no more time. He barked a command for someone to take the wheel, then hauled a line free to clip it to her harness.

‘Go,’ he muttered.

She’d rid herself of the last of her waterproofs. Now she straightened. She focused one more time on exactly where Robbie was-there was a tiny flash of colour and that was all.

She dived deep into the mess of rocks and surf and the darkness.

Grady had moved fast. As soon as Jaqui was free to take over Hubert’s care, he had May and the crew into the helicopter, and the chopper was rising almost before they’d hauled their gear out.

Kids…

Rescue missions were always fraught, always emotional, but when it was kids it seemed a thousand times worse. ‘There might be a kid on the cliffs,’ he told the crew, and it took just one look at May’s drawn face as he helped her into Jaqui’s usual seat for the crew to know how serious the situation was.

And Grady wasn’t expecting a happy ending here. After all, what were the odds? That a kid had been caught high enough to escape the wave but still be safe almost a day and a half later?

It didn’t stop them moving fast. The boat below had beaten them to the cliff face, but only just. They started the long raking of the cliffs with their searchlight with an intensity that said if the child wasn’t found, it wouldn’t be for want of trying.

And then the boat’s light found Hamish… It was a magic moment. A miracle moment.

May cried out with shock and joy-but it was too much for her to take in. She was so shocked that her stomach reacted.

Doug handed her a sick-bag but she was left to fend for herself as they started to fasten Grady into his harness.

‘You reckon you can get in close enough to be safe?’ Grady demanded of his pilot, and Max nodded.

‘I think so. What I’ll do is go above the level of the cliff. We’ll lower you from there so if the wind gusts up, we won’t get slammed into the rockface.’

‘Thanks very much,’ Grady told him, knowing it was he who’d hit rock. But that was OK. He knew enough to ward off rock with his boots-hell, he’d practised this manoeuvre a hundred times.

‘I guess we could land and lower someone from dry land,’ Doug said, and Grady looked out, considering.

‘We’ll get the dogs off that way in the morning. But the land up there’s too rocky to get close and I want the kid up now.’

They all did. The boy looked fine-wonderful, even-standing yelling at the helicopter for all he was worth-but he’d been alone for too long already.

The way he was yelling spoke of hysteria.

‘You’ll get him,’ May whispered from the reaches of her sick-bag, and Grady put a hand on her shoulder and gripped, hard.

‘I’ll have him with you in minutes. The dogs will have to wait…’

‘Dogs?’

But she didn’t get further. The radio crackled into life. ‘Robbie’s in the water,’ a man snapped.

What?

The boat’s floodlights had suddenly veered downward. Max hauled the chopper outward. ‘Get me beams below,’ he yelled.

‘Who…?’ May was almost incoherent.

But Grady wasn’t listening. He was lying on his stomach on the chopper floor, staring straight down. A tiny copper-coloured head.

And then…

‘She’s going in,’ Doug yelled.

Grady turned toward the boat.

And Morag was in the water.

Morag surfaced, spluttering for air in the foam. She was being washed against the rocks, and she had to get clear, through the gap to where she’d last seen Robbie.

At least the floodlights let her see, in the tiny fractions of time when the surf receded.

To her left…a gap in the rocks.

She turned and a breaker bore down on her. She duck-dived, then surfaced again.

Now.

With every ounce of strength she possessed, she swam for the gap. Let her get to mid-gap before the next breaker struck…

It struck and she was washed forward, tumbled into the cauldron of foam.

Somehow she surfaced, hoping desperately she was where she’d aimed to be.

There was no reason in the surge of the water. There was no gap between breakers. The surf was like a giant washing machine-worse, a washing machine with jagged rocks and no bottom to hope to find a footing.

And somewhere here…Robbie?

‘Robbie?’ She was screaming into the dark and the terror of the unknown. ‘Robbie!’

The lights were focusing-from both boat and helicopter. She was suddenly in a flood of brilliant light, but she couldn’t see.

‘Robbie?’

A wall of water smashed against her, driving her back against the rocks she’d just surged past. She felt her leg buckle and a shard of pain shot through her leg.

She’d thought she’d had room for no more sensation. Wrong.

‘Robbie!’

She struck out, forward, into the centre of the cauldron. Away from the rocks.

‘Robbie…’

A hand clutched her hair.

She was jerked sideways, but she didn’t hesitate. All the times of her childhood, with her father on the beach where they’d practised surf lifesaving drill, came to the fore. When grabbed, grab back. Hard. Under the arm, lift, break, turn. Face the victim away from you, and move with force. You’re no help to anyone if you drown.

Over and over her father had practised the manoeuvre with both Beth and Morag. Even aged seven or eight, she could break away from a grown man.

So now the hand gripping her head was struck upward but seized at the same time. Robbie? It had to be Robbie.

She hauled him round so he was facing away from her. And, gloriously, she felt him respond to her hold. She felt him curve into her.

Then, for the first time, she could accept that she’d found him.

‘It’s Morag,’ she screamed. ‘Don’t fight me. Robbie, don’t fight.’

He didn’t. The hand that had reached for her must have contained the last ounce of strength he possessed.

He slumped.

She clung on.

Another wave smashed her forward. Her right leg wouldn’t work-wouldn’t move. The pain… She was treading water with one leg-that was all she could do. Her lifejacket was holding her up, sort of, but the tumult of water was making it almost impossible to breathe.

She still had a line holding her, and the line was attached to the boat, but a lot of use that was. If they tried to drag her back through the gap…

They couldn’t. They’d know it.

She had to stay out of the range of the rocks.

Another wave jarred her forward. A submerged rock struck her leg, and she heard herself crying out again.

In her arms Robbie stirred and whimpered.

He was still OK, she thought. He was still alive. All she had to do was hold on.

Grady would come.

Please…

‘Two lines.’ Grady was out on the skids already. ‘Just hand me two lines.’

‘I’ll come in with you.’ Doug was clipping a harness in place at Grady’s front so all he had to do was find someone, pull them into the harness and be dragged back up. Simple…

‘Yeah, and who’ll operate the line?’ Grady was feeling sick. Of all the times for them to be flying without their full complement… All Max’s attention had to be on the helicopter, maintaining its hover, and he needed Ron on the spotlight. Elsey had gone with Hazel to make sure she was settled in William’s cottage-and also to surreptitiously check on William-and there’d been no time to wait.

Usually, if there were two in the water they’d both go in. But that was in open seas. Two people in that maelstrom below them would be no use at all. It’d only add to the confusion and double the risk.

Doug knew it. He held Grady by the shoulder for a fraction of a moment and gripped, hard.

‘Go.’

Her leg was dragging her down.

How could a leg drag her down? She was wearing a life jacket. She had Robbie securely under his arms, clutched against her breast. If only the water would stop smashing her…

If only her leg would stop dragging…

‘Morag!’

The yell seemed to come from a long way away, but in this white water even a foot was vast distance.

But she’d heard him through her fog of pain and fear. Grady was coming. She knew he was coming.

There was a knife in her thigh.

‘Morag…’ She felt a sharp jerk sideways. And then another.

He was coming. He must.

Once Grady had touched the water there was no chance of finding them by sight. He’d been lucky when he’d been lowered to find a line right under him. He guessed what it was straight away-the line linking Morag to the boat-and he sent a silent blessing to whatever fates might be helping him.

Help him some more.

She had to be at the end of the line. Just pray the line didn’t catch on a rock and snap.

Just pray.

Hand over hand…

Morag.

She was here! His hand reached out and touched her, and she was his! He reeled her in and held her tight as the next surge of water threatened to carry her away from him. He was clipping himself to her, clipping himself to the harness she thankfully already wore, but his hands still held her. The power of these waves could rip them apart at any minute.

‘I’m here,’ he told her, pulling her strongly into him. As he did he felt what she held.

She had the boy.

The three of them were linked.

‘Morag…’

‘Take him,’ she managed. She twisted around so that Robbie was between them, so he could slip his spare blue and orange harness around the little boy’s midriff and click the metal links into place. Then, with the attachment complete, she gave him a shove that should have sent him away from her.

It didn’t.

‘Take him. Please… Lift him out of here.’ She was screaming but he could barely hear her.

The child seemed unconscious. Normally he’d be turning him, seeing if he was breathing, trying to give a few short breaths. But to try and assess him here was impossible.

To stay longer was risking all their lives.

‘I’ll be all right,’ Morag was screaming. ‘Go.’

He’d attached the spare line to her. It wasn’t a lift harness-he couldn’t take her up without breaking her arms. He’d have to be lowered again to retrieve her.

But to let her go…

There was no choice. Move, Reece, he told himself. The sooner you get him up, the sooner you can come back for her.

Morag.

He caught her with the arm that wasn’t holding Robbie and somehow, crazily, he managed to kiss her. Kiss? Sort of a kiss. Certainly not the best kiss he’d ever given a woman. But maybe it was the most important. His lips just managed to brush her face, and then with a wrench that cut like a knife he let her push him away.

He gathered the child tighter against him. Then he raised his arm in the air. Above their heads Doug saw the signal for Max to lift.

They wouldn’t waste time trying to winch Grady and Robbie into the helicopter. They’d land him on the clifftop, Grady thought as he swung upward, over the mass of surging water. May could help then. May must help. If the clifftop searchers weren’t there yet, then they’d put May out to care for the child while he returned for Morag.

Unless Robbie needed resuscitating, he thought desperately. Why wasn’t the child stirring? If there was a medical imperative for him to stay…

Jaqui wasn’t with them.

Dear God, no.

Please…

Morag waited.

The pain in her leg had taken her so far to the edge that she had no strength left to fight the water. Somehow she managed to breathe. Somehow she managed to struggle enough to gasp for breath as the life jacket stopped her sinking.

Robbie was gone.

Grady was gone.

They were safe?

A wave slapped her face. Another. She choked and choked again, and struggled to turn away from the wash of water. The pain jabbed through her leg with an intensity she hadn’t believed possible.

Grady…

Help me.

She didn’t know whether she said it. She had no way of telling. What was reality and what was nightmare? Who could say?

Grady…

The water smashed her against the rock again. Her leg…Robbie…

Grady.

It was too much. She’d done all she could do and more.

She let herself slip away into the dark.