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.
