The Valley of the Shadow Read Free Page A

but she put on a spurt. She caught him under the arms and raised his head above the surface. He neither struggled nor made any attempt to help. He hadn’t choked on emerging. A bad sign?
    She decided hopefully that his buoyancy meant his lungs must be full of air, not water. With one arm under his and across his chest, she swam backstroke, straining to hear Nick’s shouted directions as single-armed swimming made her veer from her course.
    “You’re getting close!”
    Megan changed tactics. One hand holding up the victim’s chin, she twisted sideways and started a scissors kick. At the top of each swell she glanced backwards. As she neared the sheer rock face, she slowed, unsure what to do next.
    Nick knelt down. “I’m throwing a loop of rope,” he called. “Try to hook it under his arms.”
    Teazle’s lead flew towards her. The weight of the leather and the metal clip carried the makeshift rope within reach, and the leather floated. Megan grabbed it with her free hand.
    Hooking it under the arms of the flaccid body, while staying afloat and keeping his face out of the water, was easier said than done. She was growing tired by the time she accomplished it, but now Nick took the strain. He drew them slowly nearer. Megan was able to put out a hand to fend them off from the rock.
    Unlike the smooth concrete edge of the swimming bath she’d trained in, this edge was sharp. The sea’s action flaked the slate rather than smoothing it. Getting out—and especially getting the helpless man out—without nasty grazes was not going to be easy.
    Nick was lying full length now, awkwardly, on the shelving rock, his shoulders and arms over the edge. “Can you lift him at all?”
    “Don’t think so. Can’t feel anything to stand on.”
    “Never mind.” He reached down. “I’ll hold him. Can you get yourself up?”
    “I’ll manage.” She moved over a couple of feet and waited for a swell to lift her, then grabbed the edge above her head. There were plenty of toe-holds. Somehow, with the loss of some skin, she hauled herself over. For a brief moment she let herself flop, all muscles relaxed.
    “Let’s get him out. Is he breathing? I don’t like the look of him.”
    “Hypothermic.” She pulled herself together and shuffled crabwise to Nick’s side.
    He had draped his shorts over the edge as some protection against scrapes. What a pair, she thought, her in sodden black bra and knickers, him in white Y-fronts and string vest!
    Turning his head, he caught her eye and gave her a crooked grin. “Needs must when the devil drives. Come on, we can do it. On three.”
    She leant down. He shifted his grip and she hooked her hands beneath the brown man’s armpit. As another swell raised him towards them, Nick counted, “One. Two—”
    “Hey, hang on!”
    Heavy footsteps hurried across the rock. Megan glanced back to see a young couple in hiking boots and shorts, shrugging off rucksacks as they came.
    “We saw from the cliff path,” the girl explained breathlessly. “Sorry it took us so long to get here. We were way up at the top.”
    “I’ll take over,” the shaggy-haired youth said to Megan, kneeling down. “Super job, but you must be done in.”
    She was happy to relinquish her place. Her arms were beginning to feel like jelly.
    As she sat up, Nick said, “Megan, be ready to support his head. All right, mate, at the top of the swell … One, two, heave!”
    Megan managed to field his head before it struck the rock. She laid it down gently and brushed the straggling black hair from his face.
    “A wog, eh?” said the stranger. “Indian, looks like. Stupid git, swimming in there. Starkers, too.”
    “Don’t talk like that, Chaz,” his companion remonstrated. “You don’t know what happened. Is he breathing?”
    Her hand on his chest, Megan put her ear to his mouth, which had fallen slightly open. “Can’t feel any movement, but there’s a faint wheeze. We’d better get him into rescue position so any