Semi-Detached Marriage (21 page)

There were very few passengers today, only
another woman a few years older than herself who had a tiny baby in her arms
and was being pushed towards the helicopter in a wheelchair, obviously fresh
out of a, maternity hospital, and a man in a business suit carrying a bulging
briefcase. They were led to a much smaller helicopter than the one Cassie had
travelled
in before; this one held only four passengers
besides the pilot. They climbed aboard, the new mother being carefully helped
out of the wheelchair and into her seat, the safety-belt being put round her
and the baby. Then Cassie got in, followed by the male passenger.

The other woman smiled at her as Cassie
fastened her own belt and looked as if she wanted to talk, but Cassie gave only
a perfunctory smile in return; she was too tense and strung up to be able to
make small talk now. But luckily the noise of the engine and the rotor blades
was so loud that talk was impossible anyway and she was able to sit back
thankfully in her seat and lose herself in her own thoughts as the helicopter
rose into the air and began the long flight up the coast to Kinray.

It must have been at least half an hour later
when Cassie realised there was something wrong. She had been so wrapped up in
her own problems that she had been taking no notice at all of what was going on
around her, and it was only when the man next to her knocked her arm as he sat
forward, his body tense, that she came back to reality. She looked round,
wondering at first what was the matter, then saw that they were flying in a
thick, swirling mist that enclosed them like a cloud. Cassie peered out of the
window, but there was no sign of the ground, the mist was all around them. The
pilot had the windscreen wipers going and was talking on the radio, his voice,
although she couldn't distinguish the words, sounding urgent. On her other side
the woman's eyes were wide and scared and she was holding her baby tightly.

'What is it?' Cassie raised her voice above
the noise of the engine.

The man next to her shouted back, 'The mist
came down suddenly and he can't see. And there's high ground ahead.'

`But-but surely he's got instruments and
things…' Her voice died in her throat as she realised just how little she knew
about helicopters; they were just another of the machines-like car and planes that
you always took for granted until something went wrong with them. And this time
it looked as if there was something seriously wrong.

By straining her ears she could make out the
pilot calling over the radio, but he didn't seem to be getting any reply
because he kept repeating the same things. They seemed to be going more slowly
now, but it was impossible to guess at what height they were flying when she
couldn't see the ground.

The pilot turned round and gestured downwards
with his thumb, shouting, 'Hold on I'm going down. It might be clear there.'

The helicopter swayed to the right and then
began to swoop downwards. Cassie felt fear grip her heart and she clutched the
arms of her seat, gripping them till the knuckles showed white. Beside her the
woman gave a sob of fright, then clutched wildly at Cassie's sleeve. 'My baby!
Help me hold him.'

Cassie stared at her, and it took all the
courage she had to let go of the seat arm, turn towards the woman and put her
arm across to help her hold the baby, which was crying now, either from being
held too tightly or because it had sensed its mother's fear.

Things began to happen so quickly then that
they merged into a jumbled kaleidoscope of terror when there was no time to
think, only to react to the primitive urge for self-preservation. Cassie
remembered the mist clearing for a brief second and seeing the sea below them,
but close, only a few yards away.

Someone shouted and the helicopter rose
again, but then it banked sharply, throwing her violently back in her seat. The
woman began to scream shrilly, but Cassie could only stare in appalled horror
as she saw a wall of rock appear in front of them, rising out of sight above
them.

The pilot did something to the controls that
made the aircraft turn violently to the right, throwing them about so that the
man beside her was jerked almost out of his seat and was half lying on her.
Cassie's stomach came up into her throat and for a few seconds she could hardly
breathe, felt as if she was going to suffocate. She put up feeble hands to try
and push the man off, but suddenly they were the right way up again and the
helicopter was going down. It met the ground with a terrific bump, then tilted
over to one side. Cassie was sure that they'd come down in the sea and expected
every second to see water come pouring in to drown them where they sat.

But the pilot was taking off his safety strap
and pushing the door open, yelling at them to get out.

Somehow Cassie managed to make her fingers
work, to pull at the strap until it came free, but the woman next to her was
screaming hysterically, making no move to undo her strap, just holding the baby
and screaming, her eyes starting from her head. The pilot got out of his seat,
pushed past Cassie and hit the other woman sharply across the face; the
screaming stopped as if someone had turned off a radio. The other passenger had
got his door open and was jumping out. Cassie scrambled out of her seat and
moved to follow him.

'Keep your heads down!' the pilot yelled
across at her. 'The rotors are still going round.'

It looked an awfully long way down, but the
man had turned and was holding out a hand to her. Cassie took it and jumped,
landing in water and soft sand. She saw that they had landed on the tiny beach
of a small sea-locked bay with tall rugged cliffs all around it. The sound of
the sea breaking on the rocky shore was very loud, that and the gradually
slowing rotor blades.

'You'll have to help me,' the pilot shouted
to them. 'I can't get her out.'

They waded round the front of the helicopter
and Cassie saw with horror that it was balanced precariously with one rail on
the edge of a large rock, in danger of slipping sideways at any moment. The
woman had frozen with fear, clutching the baby to her breast and refusing to
move.

`Come on, you've got to get out. It could go
over at any moment!' The pilot had undone her strap and was trying to pull the
woman out, but she wouldn't come. In desperation he snatched the baby out of
her arms and gave it to Cassie. 'Get going. Run!' he yelled at her.

As Cassie turned to obey him she saw the
woman scream like a wounded animal and almost fall out of the helicopter into
the pilot's arms, her fear for her baby greater than her own. The two men
picked the woman up between them and began to run through the shallows towards
the beach as fast as they could. Cassie's high-heeled shoes sank into the sand
at every stop and she impatiently kicked them off. The shingle cut into her
feet, but at least she could run.

Behind her she heard a noise and turned to
sec the helicopter start to slip off the rock, the rotor blades, which were
still spinning round, only much slower
now, gradually getting
nearer the ground.

'Get down!'

Even as the pilot yelled a warning Cassie saw
the danger and dropped to the ground, somehow managing to hold the baby out of
the water. There was an almighty snapping sound as the first rotor hit the
ground. Churned-up shingle flew with the velocity of bullets, all mixed up with
sea spray and chunks of broken metal that whistled overhead and smashed against
the stone cliffs, some of them ricocheting off to make a double danger. The
second rotor blade hit and then the third, turning the beach into a nightmare
of flying missiles and debris. Cassie heard a cry of pain behind her and was
almost soaked by the spray of water, but then there was only the sound of the
waves, breaking everlastingly over the shore.

Slowly she picked herself up and looked
around. The baby was crying lustily, so that was all right. The two men had
covered the woman with their own bodies, but the male passenger had blood
coming from a wound in his back. Somehow they managed to wade on to the beach,
the pilot more or less carrying the baby's mother. He set the woman down on the
sand, leaning against the cliff face, and Cassie gave her her baby, then they
helped the injured man off with his jacket so that the pilot could look at the
wound.             

 'Do you know anything about nursing?' the
pilot asked her.

Cassie shook her head. 'I'm afraid not.'

'There's a first aid box in the chopper; I'll
go back and see if I can get it.'

He waded out to the now half-submerged
helicopter and Cassie looked at the other man worriedly. 'Does it hurt very
much?'

He shook his head. 'I'm so bloody wet I can't
feel it. My name's Bill, by the way-Bill Harris.'     'Mine's
Cassie Ventris.' He seemed to be all right, so Cassie turned towards the young
mother and repeated her name, adding, 'How are you feeling?    
'Not too bad. And the baby's all right, that's the main thing,' the woman
answered with a pleasant Scots accent.

'Yes, of course. Is he your first baby?'

'Yes.' The woman looked up at Cassie. 'We've
waited so long for him-nearly nine years. I lost three others I kept having
miscarriages. I had to stay in bed for over five months to make sure I kept
him. And now this—-now this has to happen!' The woman burst into tears and
began to cry noisily.

'Oh, don't. Please hush. We're safe now. Look,
what's your name?'

'Jeannie-Jeannie Cooper. I'm sorry, I'm a bit
low at the moment.'

'Of course you are.' Cassie stayed and talked
to her while the pilot put a dressing on Bill Harris's back. They were all wet
through, but there was no wind to chill them, and Cassie could only be glad
that it was summertime; if it had happened in the winter they wouldn't have
stood a chance.

When the pilot had finished he looked about
him and then up at the cliffs. 'I'd better try and climb those and see if I can
get help.'

'Didn't you manage to send off a radio
message?'

Bill Harris asked.

'I tried, but the cliffs must have been
bouncing the signal back; there was a lot of interference and I was having
trouble with the radio before we ditched.'

'Could a helicopter pick us up from here?'

'No.' The pilot shook his
head. 'The cliffs are to close. The only thing I can do is go up. I've brought some
flares from the chopper; I'll take a couple of them with me and if I hear or
see anything I'll send one up-'
           

He walked round the little bay until he found
a broken patch of cliff and then began to climb. They L watched him until the
mist hid him from sight, then Bill Harris turned and looked at the water. 'I
hope be hurries up,' he remarked.

Cassie was about to say, so do I, when she
saw the grim expression on his face. 'What do you mean?'
           

'Look at the sea. The tide's coming in. And
if you look at the seaweed on the cliffs you'll see that at high tide this bay
is completely covered.'

'We can climb out, surely?'

'We can, perhaps, if there's a way up,' Bill
agreed.

'But can she?' And he jerked his head towards
Jeannie Cooper, who was leaning against the rocks, her eyes closed and her face
very pale.

After that there didn't seem much to say
until the pilot came back.

'I got to the top,' he told them. 'It's
pretty tricky in one place, but we should be able to make it.'
           

'Any help up there?' Bill asked him, but
hardly seemed surprised when he shook his head.

'No, none. Just open moorland, no roads or
any sign of houses. Plenty of space for another chopper to land and pick us up,
though, so I think we'd better try and get up there.' He looked across at
Jeannie and then at Bill. 'You in much pain?'

'Can't feel a thing,' Bill replied in an
obvious lie. 'Think you can help me with her?'

'Sure, but what about the baby?'

The pilot turned to Cassie, but she spoke
before he could even ask the question. 'Don't worry, I’ll look after it, but I
don't think I could climb up and carry it at the same time.'

'I don't want you to, I want you to just wait
here until I come back for you. Okay?'

Cassie smiled at him. `Okay.'

He grinned in response. 'Thanks, love. Right,
let's try and rig something up so that I can carry her on my back.'

It was about twenty minutes before they set
off, the pilot carrying Jeannie almost as a dead weight on his back with Bill Harris
following behind to steady him. Even in that time the sea seemed to have come
in a long way and had almost covered the helicopter. Cassie watched them slowly
begin the climb and felt more alone than she'd ever felt in her life. Her
thoughts flew to Simon, wondering if he was waiting for her and whether he yet
knew that they'd crashed. Would he think that she'd been drowned? Would he
perhaps be glad? The very thought chilled her more than her wet clothes, and
she shivered violently.

The baby began to cry and she looked down at
it, taking notice of it for the first time. She didn't know much about babies,
but this one was, she supposed, quite a nice one; it wasn't all red and
wrinkled like a monkey as most of them appeared to be. But it was so tiny;
impossible to believe that anything that small could live. She'd forgotten to
ask the mother how old it was, but it could only be a few days old at the most.
It opened its mouth to cry again and she jiggled it up and down, not knowing
what to do to keep it quiet. The poor little thing struggled in its blanket and
its hands came out, bunched into minute fists as it beat at the air.