the emergency services, Joyce. It looks like someone needs rescuing from the sea,’ she shouted as she followed him.
Outside she stood transfixed. A few yards out, a man and a dog were being tossed like corks on the surface of the heaving sea. Waves were crashing against the breakwater, throwing white spume into the air. Clinging to the railings overlooking the sea a small child was screaming, and Jack was pulling off his clothes frantically, preparing to dive into the water. Sally ran up to the child and put her arms round her.
‘It’s all right, sweetheart, don’t worry. Help’s on its way very soon. You come inside with me for a minute…’
The child clung obstinately to the railings. ‘I want my grandpa and Fudge,’ she screamed. ‘Get them out.’
Sally had to get the little girl away from watching this scenario. A traumatic scene like this could stay with the child for the rest of her life and she didn’t want her to witness a tragedy if they couldn’t get the man out of the water soon. She bent down, picked up the struggling child and took her into the surgery.
‘Joyce!’ she shouted above the child’s crying, ‘Can you get this little one a drink and a biscuit and distract her while I go back and see if there are any lifebelts?’
Joyce might normally have an abrupt manner, but in an emergency she was a stalwart. She took the little girl behind the desk, talking soothingly to her all the time, then sat her on her knee with some milk and began showing her a comic from the waiting room. Sally dashed out again and ran to the lifebelt fixture on the wall a short distance away.
‘My God,’ she muttered. ‘The damn thing’s been vandalised!’
She stared at the rusting remnants of the hooks that had held the lifebelt in place—obviously it had been stolen. She looked back at Jack, now stripped down to his underpants, his suit and shirt flung in a heap on the ground behind him, preparing to leap into the water. It was still early in the day and the road as yet was deserted. There was no one to help.
‘Wait, Jack!’ she screamed. ‘Let me get a rope from somewhere…please!’
‘No time!’ he shouted back. ‘Don’t worry!’
Sally caught her breath as he dropped into the water and began to swim laboriously towards the bobbing heads of the man and dog, making slow headway in the heaving water. She looked around desperately—what the hell could she use to help him? His head kept disappearing in the swell of the waves. Each time she thought he’d gone, and then he’d reappear again slightly nearer the stricken man. Where was everybody? To her immense relief, a van came down the road, and Sally ran up to it, waving for it to stop. It drew into the kerb and a burly man dressed in overalls got out.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
She pointed breathlessly to the sea and the man and dog in the water. ‘Have you got a rope…anything to throw to them?’ she yelled.
Without a word the man opened the doors and miraculously produced a coil of thick nylon rope.
‘I’ll get it to them—don’t you worry,’ he shouted.
Sally watched on tenterhooks as he quickly tied one end of the rope to the railings, then he took off his overalls and within a few moments had also jumped into the water, holding the rope as he did so. People were beginning to gather round now and all of them watched tensely, murmuring to each other as the two men tried to reach the man struggling tantalisingly close to them but behind a great wall of waves.
Jack was a strong swimmer, that was easy to tell, but even so it took him a nerve-racking few minutes to get within touching distance of the distressed man. The man was panicking, shouting and throwing his arms up, and when Jack took hold of him he struggled, clutching at Jack’s neck so that it was impossible to get a firm hold of the man to tow him back.
Sally gripped the railing, her eyes glued to the drama being played out before her, willing Jack to calm the man so that he could be helped. Gradually the van driver, although not as good a swimmer as Jack, made headway towards them and somehow they both managed, despite the heavy swell, to pass the rope round the man’s chest.
At least now there was a lifeline to be used, and people rushed to hold the rope and started pulling it towards the wall. The man was shouting something—difficult over the roar of the waves to hear what it was but suddenly Jack veered away from escorting him back and made for the bobbing head of the dog. There was a groan of dismay from the crowd.
‘Don’t do that!’ shouted Sally desperately. ‘You’ll drown! Oh, you stupid, stupid man!’
He didn’t hear her, of course, and continued doggedly making his way towards the animal. By a miraculous sudden stroke of luck the swell pushed the dog towards him. He grabbed its collar and slowly, very slowly, managed to gain ground towards the shore. Sally started to make her way carefully down the slippery steps, ignoring people’s cries to keep back. She bent down to grab the animal as Jack, the van driver and the rescued man were hauled up by one or two of the onlookers. She kept hold of the dog with grim determination, soaked by the spray from breaking waves against the wall, and then she too was helped back up the steps.
An overwhelming sense of relief flooded through her—they were all safe! Jack was standing feet away from her, bent over double, his hands on his knees, chest heaving as he caught his breath. Then he was handed a towel and started briskly towelling himself dry. There was no disguising his impressive physique: he was still as tautly muscled as he’d been when he and Sally had been together. He stood up and looked across at her, feeling her gaze at him, and Sally turned away abruptly. What a stupid observation to make, she told herself crossly. There was an emergency to be dealt with!
She squatted down by the rescued man, now laid out on the ground on someone’s coat, and recognised him immediately as a patient at the Harbour Practice—a man of over seventy. She put her fingers on his wrist, checking his pulse, noting his shallow breathing and that his lips were tinged blue. His eyes tried to focus on her, but he seemed confused and rather drowsy.
‘Callum,’ she said loudly, trying to rouse him. ‘We’re going to try and warm you up a bit before the ambulance gets here.’ She turned round and saw Sharon hovering anxiously nearby.
‘Get plenty of blankets from the surgery, Sharon, and bring a few mugs of warm coffee—not too hot.’
Sharon tottered off in the high heels she always wore to work, then in the distance Sally heard the whine of an ambulance siren. She took hold of the man’s hand and squeezed it. ‘You’ll be all right—the paramedics are here.’
The man mumbled something and she bent down to hear him. ‘The dog. What happened to the dog…and my little granddaughter?’
‘The dog’s going to be fine. Don’t worry, he’s wrapped in a blanket and I can see him wagging his tail now! And as for your granddaughter, she’s in the surgery across the road, being well looked after.’
This was no time to tell Callum how foolish he’d been in trying to rescue the dog by himself—and she reflected grimly that two other people could have drowned trying to rescue the man in trouble.
A few minutes later the ambulance drew up in front of them and a paramedic leapt out, quickly assessing the scene before him. He recognised Sally and came up to her, squatting down next to Callum and feeling the man’s pulse.
‘Hello, Dr Lawson.’ His eyes swept round the group of people. ‘Looks like a few of you are rather damp. I take it this gentleman’s been in that cold water for a while—do you know his name?’
‘Yes, it’s Callum Brody, he’s a patient of ours and he’s about seventy-three years old. His pulse is slow, about sixty-five per minute, and as you can see he’s cyanosed and drowsy.’
‘Definitely hypothermic,’ agreed the paramedic. He slipped his hand into the man’s armpit. ‘This is an area of his body that should be warm, but it feels quite cold.’
He turned to