questions I failed to answer. But I wasn’t to know that. So I’m safe but the turtles aren’t. If whoever wrote this poster…Helena?’
‘Helena’s my mother,’ a voice volunteered, and Elsa turned with eagerness.
‘Your mother?’ She’d slipped easily and fluently into Greek. ‘Your mother is saving turtles?’
‘They started hatching this morning,’ a middle-aged man wearing a butcher’s apron told her. ‘My mother’s excited, too. These turtles used to come here in large numbers-the mass nesting is called an arribadas, my mother says-but forty years ago scientists and tourists were coming to see so the King bulldozed the beach. It broke my mother’s heart. But this year…This year they’ve come back. She wants me to help but I have my shop. I put her sign up in my window but it was all I could do.’
‘Does she have helpers?’
‘I sent my boy down to help her,’ the man told her. ‘But there are so many birds…My mother can only save a few.’
‘Stefanos,’ Elsa said and fixed him with a look he was starting to recognise.
‘Yes?’
‘As far as I know, there’s only one known nesting ground and that’s in Mexico. To have a Kemp’s Ridley hatching ground right here, where I can help…There’ll be a million predators feasting on them. Stefanos, we need a royal decree or something.’
‘A royal decree?’ he said blankly,
‘We have to save those turtles.’ She took a deep breath. Steadied. ‘Stefanos, if you help me save the turtles, then I’ll…I’ll…I’ll even let you buy me a Princess Grace dress.’
There was a ripple of stunned laughter through the crowd. More and more people were clustered around them now, with more arriving every minute. This was their Prince Regent. And the Princess’s nanny.
‘So what do we need?’ he said simply.
‘People. Lots of people.’
She was speaking with passion, and she was waiting for him to act.
People.
‘The school,’ he said.
‘What about the school?’
He turned to the crowd. ‘Is the school bus available?’
‘It’ll be taking the schoolchildren home,’ someone told him. ‘It should be back here in a few minutes.’
‘Who’s in charge of it?’
‘My son,’ someone else called.
‘Okay,’ Stefanos said. ‘I’m commandeering the school bus. Can you tell your son that I’ll pay him double the going rate to transport any islander and any child to Lagoon Tempio? There’s as much ice cream as they can eat for a week for anyone who comes there.’ He grinned at the ice cream vendor. ‘I’ll reimburse you, and I’ll also reimburse you for closing the shop now. That goes for anyone who wants to help.’ He glanced at the butcher. ‘Phillip, can we set up a barbecue on the beach? If we’re going to get people there we need to feed them. Can you contact the baker and Marios at the cafe? I’ll reimburse you for anything anyone eats or drinks tonight. Portia…’ he turned to another woman standing by a battered Jeep ‘…can you take Dr Murdoch there now? I’ll pay you for your trouble. By the way, everyone, this is Dr Murdoch-a marine biologist who also happens to be the best thing that’s happened to this island for a long time. Elsa, I’ll organise things here. I’ll phone the palace and ask that Zoe be brought down to join us.’
He smiled at Elsa. She was all fire and pleading and pure adrenalin, wide-eyed with excitement. He put his finger to his lips and then he placed his finger on hers. ‘Let’s do this together,’ he said and he smiled. ‘If only because I really want to see you in that dress. And I’m so sorry I upset you. Okay, everybody, let’s go save some turtles.’
CHAPTER TEN
IT TOOK half an hour of phone calls and arrangements before he got to the beach himself-and when he did the sight before him almost blew him away.
Lagoon Tempio was a sheltered cove about fifteen minutes from the village. He’d heard stories about turtles hatching here in the past, but he’d only ever known it as a clear felled, barren stretch of land.
But gradually the land had been recovering. The beach was surrounded by thick vegetation again, a horseshoe cove protected from winds and tides, a perfect place for turtles to come to breed.
Because of the clear felling, it had fallen off most of the islanders’ radar. Until now.
He looked down to the beach and there were people. There were so many people his heart sank. Uh-oh. Had he been guilty of overkill?
If Elsa was on a turtle saving mission, maybe bringing this many people here was hardly helpful. Maybe he’d done more harm than good.
He’d encouraged every islander to come, thinking some would take up his invitation. Obviously everyone who’d heard of it had come.
But, even as he thought he’d created chaos, he emerged from the narrow track that led onto the beach-a track that looked as if it had just been created this afternoon by people pushing through-and he saw that he hadn’t. Or Elsa and Helena hadn’t let it happen.
The adults were in lines, forming corridors from the top of the beach to the water. They were standing like sentinels. Or maybe windmills would be a better description.
For overhead were birds. Hundreds of birds, many of which he didn’t recognize-ocean feeders, migratory birds, birds who knew that here was a feast for all.
At the top of the beach were sandy mounds, and from each mound came a stream of hatchings. Tiny turtles, two or three inches across, struggling out of their sandy nests and starting gamely towards the water.
With the mass of seabirds above they’d stand no chance. But now…There were corridors of people from each mound.
He recognised Helena-she was in her eighties, one of the island’s stalwarts. She didn’t sound eighty. She was booming orders in a voice to put a sea captain to shame-but beaming and beaming.
Alone, she couldn’t have saved more than a tiny proportion of these hatchings. But now…
Where was Elsa? Where…?
Finally he saw her, up to her waist in water, in the midst of a group of children. Then, as Helena called out to her, she was out of the water, darting up the beach, pulling people from one corridor to start another.
Hatchlings were coming from beyond the trees at the end of the beach. More mounds? Within moments, Elsa had more adults formed into more corridors. There were islanders arriving all the time and she was using them all.
With her new corridors in place she was off again, back into the shallows, whooping and yelling at the birds above and encouraging the kids to do the same.
Amazingly, Zoe was in there with them, whooping as if she was just one of the kids. The little Crown Princess was yelling and laughing and gloriously happy.
And so was Elsa. She was soaking, dripping with water, laughing at something someone said and then flying up the beach to lift a tiny hatchling which had turned the wrong way, lifting it with a base of sand and then setting it safely near the water’s edge so it could meet the waves the way it should.
‘Are you here to help?’ she called out to him, and he realised he’d been spotted.
‘Where do you need me?’
‘In deep water,’ she called. ‘If you don’t mind getting wet. I can’t get protection deep enough. There are so many turtles. For all the mounds to hatch together…’
‘We need boats,’ he said and lifted his phone.
‘Yes, but meanwhile…’
‘Meanwhile I’ll do it.’ He snapped a command into the phone, tugged off his shirt and shoes and headed for the water.
