LITMIR.BIZ

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that Alfie was wrong, that they must have been imagining the whole thing. They both called out now, echoing one another.

      Closer, and quite unmistakable, came the same whimpering as before, but more muffled, stifled. There could be no doubt about it. It was the voice of a child, a child who was terrified, and it was coming from inside the Pest House.

      Jim’s first thought was that it had to be some local child who had gone out fishing maybe and had some sort of accident, lost an oar perhaps, or fallen overboard. It wasn’t so long ago, after all, that he had rescued a young lad from the water after the boy had got into trouble out in a boat in Tresco Channel. He’d tripped and gone overboard, and was being swept out to sea by the current. This one had been washed up on St Helen’s – there was no other explanation he could think of. But if any child had been missing then surely he’d have heard about it. The alarm would have been raised all over the islands. Everyone would have been out looking. He couldn’t understand it.

      Alfie had already gone on ahead of him up the track towards the Pest House, calling out to whoever was in there, softly, as reassuringly as he could. “Hello. S’only me. Alfie, Alfie Wheatcroft. I got my father with me. You all right, are you?” There was no reply. Both of them stopped outside the doorway, uncertain now as to what to say or do.

      “We’re from Bryher,” Jim went on. “You know us, don’t you? I’m Alfie’s father. What you doing over here? Tipped yourself out of a boat, did you? Easily done. Easily done. You must be half frozed. We’ll have you out of here in a jiffy, get you back home, cup of nice warm tea, tatty cake, and a hot bath. That’ll shiver the cold out of you, won’t it?”

      As Alfie stepped tentatively through the doorway into the ruins of the Pest House, the whimpering stopped. There was no sign of anyone inside, nothing but bracken and brambles. At the far end of the building, in under the chimney, there was a fireplace, covered in dried bracken, a thick carpet of it, almost as if someone had been making a bed.

      A sudden bird flew up out of a niche in the wall, an explosion of fluttering that set Alfie’s heart pounding. He pushed his way through the thick undergrowth that had long since made the ruins their own, brambles tearing at his shirt and trousers as he passed. Jim held back at the doorway. “No one here, Alfie,” he whispered. “You can see there isn’t.”

      But Alfie was pointing into the corner of the fireplace, and waving his hand at his father to be quiet.

      “Don’t you worry none,” Alfie said, treading softly as he went, and slowly. “We’ll have you out of here and home before you know it. We got our boat. Won’t hurt you none, promise. S’all right, honest. You can come out now.”

      He had seen a face, a bone-white face, peering through the bracken, a child, a girl, hollow-cheeked, and with dark lank hair down to her shoulders. She was cowering there in the corner of the building, her fist in her mouth, her eyes staring up at him, wide with terror. She had a grey blanket round her shoulders. Her face was tear-stained, and she was shaking uncontrollably.

      Alfie crouched down where he was, keeping his distance – he did not want to alarm her. He did not recognise her. If she had been from the islands, he would have known her for certain – he knew all the children on Scilly, everyone did, whichever island they came from. “Hello?” he said. “You got a name then, have you?” She shrank from him, breathing hard, coughing again now, and shivering under her blanket. “I’m Alfie. You needn’t be afeared of me, girl.” She was staring at Jim now, breathing hard. “That’s Father. He won’t hurt you any more’n I will. You hungry, are you? You been here long? You got a terrible cough on you. Where d’you come from then? How d’you get here, girl?” She said nothing, simply crouched there, frozen in her fear, her eyes darting wildly from Jim to Alfie, from Alfie to Jim. Alfie reached out slowly, and touched her blanket. “It’s wet through,” he said.

      Her bare feet were covered in sand and mud, and what little he could see of her dress was nothing but tatters and rags. There were empty limpet shells scattered all about her feet, and a few broken eggshells, gulls’ eggs they were. “We got mackerel for tea back home,” he went on. “Mother does it beautiful, rolled in egg and oats, and we got bread-and-butter pudding for afters too. You’ll like it. We got our boat down on the beach. You want to come with us?” He inched his way towards her, holding out his hand. “Can you walk, girl?”

      She sprang up then like a frightened fawn, leapt past him and was stumbling through the bracken towards the doorway. She must have tripped because she suddenly disappeared into the undergrowth. Jim found her moments later, lying face down, unconscious. He turned her over. She was bleeding profusely from her forehead. He leaned over her. There were scratches and cuts all over her legs. One ankle was swollen and bruised. She wasn’t breathing. Alfie was there on his knees beside her.

      “Is she dead, Father?” he breathed. “Is she dead?” Jim felt her neck. He could feel no pulse. With panic rising in his chest, he remembered then how Alfie had fallen once down on to rocks when he was little, how he’d run all the way home with Alfie in his arms, quite sure he must be dead. He remembered how calm Mary had been, how she had taken charge at once, laid Alfie out on the kitchen table, put her ear to his mouth and felt his breath on her skin. He did the same now, put his ear to the girl’s mouth, felt the warm breath, and knew there was life in her yet. He had to get her home fast. Mary would know what to do with her.

      “You get to the boat, Alfie,” he said. “Quick. I’ll bring her.”

      He picked her up, and ran out of the Pest House, along the path to the dunes. She was light and limp and damp in his arms. He could feel she was little more than skin and bones. By the time he got there, Alfie had the boat in the water. He was standing in the shallows, holding it. “You get in, son,” Jim said. “You look after her. I’ll row.” They wrapped her in Jim’s coat, and laid her down with her head on Alfie’s lap. “Hold her close,” Jim told him. “We got to keep her warm as best we can.” He pushed off then, leaping into the boat, and gathering the oars almost in one movement.

      Jim rowed like a man possessed out into the swell of the open ocean past the lighthouse on Round Island, and at long last into the calm of Tresco Channel. Every few moments as he rowed, he’d glance down at the girl as she lay there in Alfie’s arms, her head bleeding, her eyes closed. Jim could see no life in her. She was sleeping as if she would never wake.

      Alfie talked to her all the time; he hardly stopped. Holding her tight to him as the boat reared and rolled through the waves, he kept calling to her, willing her to wake up and open her eyes, telling her it wouldn’t be long now, that she’d be all right. And sometimes Jim would join in too, whenever he could find the breath to do so, begging her to live, pleading with her, yelling at her even. “Wake up, girl! For Chrissake, wake up! Don’t you dare go and die on us, you hear. Don’t you dare!”

      

      ALL THE WHILE, AS JIM pulled for dear life, straining his every sinew with each stroke, the girl lay there, lifeless, in the boat, her head cradled on Alfie’s lap, as pale as death. He didn’t want to keep asking Alfie how she was, if she was still alive, because he could tell how anxious and upset his son already was. Jim longed to stop rowing, just for a moment, to see for himself if she was still breathing, but he knew he had to keep going, to get the girl back to Bryher, and to Mary, as fast as he could. Mary would know what to do, he told himself. Mary would save her.

      Never had it taken so long to row up Tresco Channel, Alfie thought. He was quite sure by now that the girl must be dead, so much so that he could hardly bring himself to look at her. Close to tears all the time, he did not trust himself to speak. He kept catching his father’s eye, then looking away fast. He could not tell him how cold she was in his arms, how still, that she was gone.

      Wind and current and exhaustion were slowing Jim all the way. As he rowed into Green Bay, he was yelling for help with what little breath

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