the boat beaching. They leapt over the side into the shallows and hauled the boat up higher on to the sand.
Standing on the beach, they listened once again for the sound of the child. For some reason, they found themselves talking in whispers. All they could hear was the sea lapping softly behind them and the piping of a pair of oystercatchers that were flying off low and fast, their wingtips skimming the sea.
“Can’t hear nothing, can you?” Jim said. “Can’t see nothing neither.” He was beginning to wonder now if he had imagined the whole thing, if his hearing had deceived him. But the real truth, and Jim knew it, was that he did not want to venture any further. At that moment he was all for getting the boat back into the water, and rowing home. But Alfie was already running up the beach towards the dunes. Jim thought of calling him back, but he didn’t want to shout. He couldn’t let his son go on alone. He took off his jacket and laid it over his catch in the bottom of the boat, to hide their fish from any sharp-eyed, marauding gulls, and then, reluctantly, followed where Alfie had gone, up over the dunes, towards the Pest House.
A chill came over Alfie as he stood on top of the dunes, looking up at the Pest House, and he knew it wasn’t only the cold. Gulls, hundreds of them, the island’s silent sentinels, were watching him from rocks everywhere, from the walls of the Pest House, from the chimney, from the sky above. After a while, Jim was at his side, and breathless.
Alfie called out. “Anyone here?” There came no answer.
“Who’s there?”
Nothing.
A pair of gulls dived on them then, screeching and wheeling away, first one then another. The rest glared at them darkly. The message was unmistakable. You are not welcome here. Get off our island.
“There’s no one here, Alfie,” Jim whispered. “Let’s go home.”
“But we heard someone, Father,” Alfie said. “I know we did.”
Becoming more fearful now with every passing moment, it was Jim who called out this time. His whole instinct was to turn away, get to the boat fast and go from this place at once. But at the same time he needed to persuade himself that there was no child on the island, 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
