‘I have passengers on board in deep shock,’ I heard him say.
The return journey from Abri to virtually the closest part of the mainland from the island took only a few minutes. It felt like a lifetime. The helicopter landing pad at the North Devon hospital is just to the rear of the main building. I remember thinking obliquely that it was going to get a lot of use that day.
When we touched down Eddie switched off the engines, unlocked the doors, and turned his attention to his stricken passengers. Clem, still slumped on the floor, seemed superficially at least to be in the worst state. Eddie tried to help her to her feet, but she appeared to have no desire to stand up, nor indeed to move at all. Eventually he gave it up as a lost cause, and instead bent over, picked her up off the floor and carried her down the steps onto the hard Tarmac. Her vomit stained his pristine white jacket. The gold epaulettes gleamed in the sunshine. It was all so unreal. I grasped Ruth’s hand tightly and together we followed Eddie and Clem, with Roger and Maude just behind us.
There was quite a reception waiting for us. At least two photographers and a TV news team, from Westcountry TV, I later learned, did their best to overwhelm us. The press had apparently picked up the Mayday signal, and rushed to the hospital where Eddie had said over the air that he was heading. Looking back we must have been quite a sight, and manna from heaven for press photographers, not to mention TV — Eddie in his gold-braided Ruritania suit carrying the near comatose Clem in her blue satin dress, me in all my designer wedding dress glory holding the dazed Ruth by the hand, and Roger and Maude, in her six-inch heels, with her head held up high and her chin set, quite determined not to break down in public.
A reporter started firing questions at us and a uniformed police sergeant stepped forward to guide us into the ambulance which was waiting to take us to the hospital emergency reception area. I was still weeping and I could hardly see through my tears. All of us allowed ourselves, almost gratefully, to be clasped in the grasp of officialdom.
To my eternal shame all I could think about was Robin. My lover. My idol. The man I was to marry. Was he alive?
Sixteen
Shocked and bewildered as I was, I quickly became aware of the buzz of activity in Accident and Emergency. The area was being cleared to cope with a sudden influx of casualties. All of us on the helicopter were given a medical check-up — except Eddie Brown. He had taken off again straight away back to Abri to join in the rescue operation. If I had realised what he had been planning to do I would have attempted to go with him. As it was I found myself ushered into the hospital’s relatives’ room.
There was plenty of hot sweet tea and sympathy but there could be no comfort. News seemed a long time coming through and I even wondered if it was being deliberately withheld.
I knew from my police training that both a Survivor Reception Area and a Relatives’ Centre would already have been set up, probably in hotels somewhere, and a police-run Casualties Bureau to assimilate information. There were 338 people on Abri that day — the 67 long-time island residents, all invited to the wedding, 228 other guests, the outside caterers brought in from Ilfracombe for the big occasion, the vicar from Bideford, and the members of a well known Devon jazz band, The Dave Morgan Five, over from Plymouth.
The bureau’s job would be to log, as it became available, the details of everyone involved in the disaster — those who had escaped unhurt, the injured and the degree of their injuries, and, of course, the dead.
I shuddered. It was my natural instinct to be doing something, but I knew that my best chance of learning exactly what had happened and, more importantly, who had survived and who hadn’t, would be to stay-put for as long as the hospital let me. In addition I was still wearing my wedding dress which gave a kind of eerie unreality to all that was happening.
Somebody handed me yet another cup of tea. My hand was shaking and I spilt some of it on my dress. It was strange to think that earlier in the day that would have seemed like a disaster.
Eventually a young woman constable came to tell us that two Navy rescue helicopters from RAF Chivenor were already ferrying the most seriously injured to hospitals in the area, not just the North Devon District, which could not possibly have coped alone with the magnitude of the disaster, but also the Royal Devon and Exeter at Wonford, Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, Torbay General, and the Musgrove at Taunton. The Clovelly and Appledore lifeboats were on their way to Abri, several fishing boats had offered their help, and about forty survivors, including many of the less seriously injured, had been picked up aboard a dredger which had fortuitously been at work in the Bristol Channel not far from Abri and had immediately headed for the island. The tides were right for the dredger to come into Ilfracombe and she was due to arrive there within the hour. Paramedics had been winched from a helicopter onto the dredger and were already at work. More were waiting on the quayside at Ilfracombe.
‘The survivors will be triaged on the spot there,’ said the constable.
I understood the term, which dates back to the Napoleonic Wars. I knew it meant that as well as giving what on-site emergency medical care they could the paramedics would process all the dredger’s passengers including the apparently unhurt — this involved a quick medical examination and an even quicker decision on where the survivor should be taken depending on the level of his or her injuries or shock.
The entire island was being evacuated as quickly as possible, I was not surprised to learn. Those who were fit enough were being loaded onto the Puffin which was being used as an emergency base off Abri and would not sail for the mainland until much later.
I had to find out about Robin. Good news or bad, the waiting was the worst of all.
‘Do you have any names yet?’ I asked hesitantly. Robin dominated my thinking, over-shadowed all the many deaths and injuries I knew there must have been.
Maude was sitting quietly nursing Ruth on her lap. Ruth still seemed incapable of reacting to anything. Roger was there too, a comforting arm around Maude’s shoulders, and I sensed her stiffen as I asked the question. She stood to lose two sons that day.
‘There’s this list, ma’am, but only the helicopter cases are on it so far,’ said the constable. I snatched the piece of paper from her hand and quickly scanned the names — just twenty or so of them, and all very seriously injured. Neither Robin, James, nor my mother, my nephew or his father were on the list. I did not know whether to be relieved or not.
I could feel Maude and Roger’s eyes fixed on me. I met Maude’s gaze first and shook my head. She was still holding her incongruous oversized wedding hat in her free hand. She clutched it tightly and her knuckles were white.
I turned my attention back to the constable. I knew from her form of address that she must have been told I was a DCI. I didn’t feel much like a DCI, but I was in control again, just about. My wedding dress was suddenly a liability. I didn’t reckon I could think straight until I got rid of it.
‘What’s your name, constable?’ I asked.
Mary Riley, I was told.
‘OK, Mary,’ I said. ‘What do you think are the chances of getting me some sensible clothes?’
‘I’ll do my best, ma’am,’ she said.
Her best was pretty damn good. Less than half an hour later she returned with a pair of jeans, a sweater, and even some elderly trainers which were almost the right size.