Sunday's Child by Clare Revell Page A

up she was gone.”
    Trevor turned the searchlight on the water around them.
    “Sam, check Markus over.” Cal yelled, fear twisting his gut.
    “I’m fine. Harriet was hurt before she went into the water. She hit her arm on something, and couldn’t use it.”
    “You’re being checked over regardless. Trevor, rope up in case you need to go in. If she’s hurt she won’t be able to hold onto the rope.”
    “Aye, aye.”
    Did he imagine a faint call for help carried on the wind? “Aim that light over to the right.” The search light caught sight of something yellow floating on the waves in the distance. Cal turned the boat around on a dime. Please let it be her.
    “There!” Sam yelled.
    Cal nodded and accelerated the boat towards the small yellow shape the light picked out. He came in close to the figure and Trevor dived over the side into the maelstrom. Waves crashed over and around them, spray threatening the stability of the boat.
    Trevor reached the figure in a few short strokes and grabbed her.
    “Haul them in,” Cal yelled.
    Phil and Sam hauled on the line as Cal held the lifeboat as steady as the storm would let him. A huge wave broke over them. Four attempts later and they still weren’t on board.
    Another wave picked up the lifeboat, tossing them on top of the figures in the water.
    Cal immediately cut the engines. He wasn’t going to risk the people in the water being cut to shreds. “You still got them?”
    “Yes,” Sam said, the lifeline tight in his grasp.
    Cal leaned over the side. “Anyone see them?”
    Trevor came up the other side of the boat, still holding Hattie tightly. “Take her.”
    Cal reached out and grabbed her, pulling her into the boat.
    Phil pulled Trevor onboard. “Got them. Go, go, go.”
    Cal restarted the engines, praying the lifeline wasn’t caught up in them. “Are they all right?”
    “Sam’s checking them now.”
    “Markus, is there anyone else?”
    He shook his head. “No. It was just the two of us.”
    Cal turned the boat and headed back towards the shore. “Penry lifeboat station this is Ray of Hope. Two survivors located and retrieved. Request ambulance standing by for our return. Conditions prohibit the harbor. Making for your location.”
    “Roger, Cal. Bert is on his way to your position now in the RHIB to tow the cabin cruiser back.”
    “Tell Laurie one of the injured is Hattie.”
    The boat dropped off the top of a huge wave, water cascading down on top of them. Hattie screamed from somewhere behind him. Torn between doing his job and needing to make sure she was all right, Cal prayed hard as he headed the boat back to the protection of the lifeboat station.
    Docking backwards on the tractor wasn’t easy under normal flat calm training circumstances. But tonight was nigh on impossible. It took five minutes he didn’t have to line up and reverse the lifeboat onto the trailer, but finally the tractor began to back out of the water and onto the relative safety of the beach.
    Blue lights flashed in the pouring rain and the paramedics stood by the boat house ready to retrieve Hattie and Markus as soon as the tractor reached them.
    He turned in his seat. “Hattie, are you all right?”
    “Just cold,” she said quietly, her face white against the bright yellow of her lifejacket. She clutched her arm in its makeshift sling tightly.
    He didn’t believe her for a second. He reached down to her, pushing her soaked hair from her face. “No you’re not.”
    “I am now,” she said. “Because you saved me. Your doctor doesn’t think it’s broken, just bruised. But he wants it x-rayed to make sure.”
    He held her gaze. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
    “Nothing,” she looked confused. “Why?”
    “Have dinner with me.” He ignored the scowl on Markus’s face.
    She smiled. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
    “I’ll pick you up at seven.” He glanced up, seeing Laurie by the base with Tom and Dick, the DLA, standing alongside her.