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 he had left. Dozens of islanders were hurrying along the beach, Mary among them, along with a gaggle of excited children, back from school by now, running along behind. Only Peg, the island’s workhorse, seemed unconcerned at their arrival, intent as she was on browsing the dunes.
As 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,”
