Jim brought the boat in to the shore, everyone came wading out through the shallows to meet them, to haul the boat in. Before Jim had time even to ship his oars, Mary had taken the girl from Alfie’s arms, and was carrying her up the beach. Alfie stayed to help his father out of the boat. He seemed unsteady on his feet, so Alfie held on to his arm for a few moments. Stumbling out of the water, he fell on his hands and knees on the wet sand, all his strength spent, his chest heaving to catch his breath. His head was spinning, his shoulders on fire. There was no part of him that was not aching.
Further up the beach Mary had laid the girl down on dry sand, and was kneeling over her. She was calling to them. “Who is she, Jimbo?” Mary was asking him. “Who is she? Where d’you find her?”
All Jim could do was shake his head. He couldn’t speak a word. A crowd was gathering by now, pushing and shoving to get a closer look, all of them full of questions. Mary waved everyone back. “Give her some air, for goodness’ sake. Child needs to breathe. She’s half dead, can’t you see? Get back! And someone send to St Mary’s for Dr Crow. Quick about it now! We’ll get her home, warm her up in front of the stove.” She touched the girl’s face with the back of her hand, felt her neck. “She’s shivering somethin’ terrible. She’s got a fever on her. We’ll use the cart. Someone fetch Peg, hitch her up and hurry up about it.”
Jim and Alfie found a way through the crowd. Just at that moment the girl’s eyes opened. She looked up in bewilderment at all the faces staring down at her. She was trying to sit up, trying to say something. Mary bent closer. “What is it, dear? What is it?”
It was only a whisper, and very few heard it. But Mary did, Alfie did. “Lucy,” said the girl. Then, as Mary laid her down again, her eyes closed and she lost consciousness once more.
They rushed her home to Veronica Farm in the cart, with Alfie leading Peg, and Mary riding in the back, holding the girl in her arms. Half the island was following along behind, it seemed, in spite of Mary telling them again and again that there was nothing they could do, and they should all go home. No one did. “Can you hurry that horse on, Alfie?” she said.
“She won’t go no faster, Mother,” Alfie told her. “You know Peg.”
“And I know you too, Alfie Wheatcroft,” she went on, with a certain tone in her voice. “Had a nice day at school, did you?” Alfie didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. For a while, neither of them spoke. “Father tells me it was you that found her,” Mary began.
“S’pose,” Alfie replied.
“Well then, when all’s said and done, I reckon it was a good thing you were there. Say no more about it, shall we? Now trot that horse on, whether she likes it or no.”
“Yes, Mother,” Alfie replied, both relieved and contrite.
An hour or so after everyone reached the farmhouse, Jim and Alfie with all the men and boys were still gathered in the garden outside, waiting for news; while as many of the women as could were crowded into the farmhouse kitchen – much to Mary’s irritation, which she did not trouble to hide. They were full of loud advice, which Mary was doing her best to ignore. She simply busied herself getting the child into some dry clothes, rubbing her down, and making her as warm and comfortable as she could in front of the stove. Out in the garden, with Alfie at his side, Jim had recovered enough by now and was busy answering everyone’s questions about how he and Alfie had discovered the girl on St Helen’s. They all wanted to know more, but there was little to tell, and, once he had told it, there was nothing more to say. He could only repeat it. But still the questions came.
Dr Crow finally arrived from St Mary’s, took one look at the crowd of people gathered outside the house, and at once took control. Standing at the farmhouse door, pipe in hand as usual, he declared: “This is not a circus, and I’m not a clown. I’m the doctor and I’ve come to see a patient. Now be off with the lot of you, else I’ll get ugly.”
Unkempt and bedraggled as he always was, a vestige of cabbage left lingering in his beard after his lunch – he wasn’t nicknamed Dr Scarecrow for nothing – Dr Crow was much loved and respected throughout the islands. There was hardly anyone who hadn’t had good cause to be grateful to Dr Crow at some time or another. For years, he had been wise counsellor and kindly comforter to the islanders. He only had to come into a house for everyone to feel at once reassured. But he was also a little feared. No one argued with Dr Crow. Most of the men walked off with hardly a murmur, and the women in the kitchen might have grumbled about it as they left, but they all went in the end. “Here, hold my pipe, lad,” the doctor said to Alfie, as he came into the house, “but don’t you go puffing on it, you hear me. Now where’s the patient?”
Lucy was sitting in Jim’s chair by the stove, swathed in blankets, wide-eyed with alarm and shivering violently.
“She’s called Lucy, Doctor,” Mary told him. “That’s all we know about her, all she said, just her name. I can’t seem to get her warm, Doctor. Tried everything. Can’t stop her shivering.”
The doctor bent down at once, lifted the girl’s feet and put them right up against the stove. “In my experience, Mrs Wheatcroft, we get warm from the feet up,” he said. “We’ll soon have her right. Nasty ankle she’s got. Sprained, by the look of it.”
“I tried to give her some hot milk and honey,” Mary went on, “but she wouldn’t take none.”
“You did well to try, but it’s water she needs most I think, lots of water,” the doctor said, taking his stethoscope out of his bag, and then folding the blankets down from round her neck a little to examine her. The girl at once pulled the blankets up to her chin again, and broke into a sudden fit of coughing that wracked her whole body.
“Easy, girl,” the doctor said. “Lucy, isn’t it? No one’s going to hurt you.” He reached out, more slowly this time, and felt her forehead. He took her wrist and felt her pulse. “Well, she’s got a burning fever on her, that’s for sure,” he said, “and that’s not good. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these cuts on her legs are infected. They’ve been there some time, by the look of them.” He turned to Jim then. “It was you that found her, Mr Wheatcroft, so they tell me. And on St Helen’s, wasn’t it? Horrible place.”
“Alfie and me, Doctor,” Jim replied.
“What was she doing over there?” the doctor went on. “All on her own, was she, when you found her? That right?”
“Think so,” Jim replied. “We didn’t see no one else. But, to be honest, we didn’t have much time to look. Never gave it a thought, not then. I thought about it after though, that she might not have been alone, I mean. So I sent Cousin Dave off in his boat and told him to have a good look around the island, just to be sure. He’ll be back soon. He shouldn’t be long now, I reckon.”
“Out fishing were you, Mr Wheatcroft?”
“Mackerel,” said Jim.
“She’s a good enough size for mackerel,” the doctor went on, smiling for just a moment, “that’s for sure. Catch of the year, I’d say. But it’s a very good thing you found her when you did. This is a very poorly girl, Mrs Wheatcroft, dehydrated, feverish. It doesn’t look to me as if she’s eaten properly in days, weeks maybe. Half starved, she is.”
He was feeling the girl’s neck with both hands, lifting her chin and then peering into her throat. He leaned her forward, tapped her on the back, then put the stethoscope to her chest and listened for a while to her breathing. “A lot of congestion in her lungs, which is not what I like to hear,” he declared. “Weak as a kitten. And that cough of hers is down on her chest, where it shouldn’t be. It’s pneumonia I’m worried about most. You keep her warm, just like you are, Mrs Wheatcroft. Keep those cuts and scratches clean. Warm vegetable broth, hot Bovril, maybe some bread. Not too much at first, mind. A little food and often, that’s the best way. Sweet tea is always good too, if she’ll take it. And, as I said, plenty of water. She’s got to drink. We have to get that fever down, and quickly. I don’t like this shivering, not one