‘Sit her on the verge,’ I said. ‘Clear the snow off the grass. Hold her. Shield her from the wind.’
‘Bob,’ Ingrid said piteously, standing helplessly on the road and seeming to think her husband should attend to her alone, ‘Bob, I need you. I feel awful.’
Bob glanced at his wife but took Mackie’s weight and helped her to sit down. She began moving and moaning and asking what had happened, showing welcome signs of life.
No blood, I thought. Not a drop. Bloody lucky. My eyes became accustomed to the dark.
Fiona, halfway panic-stricken, put her arms up to mine and came out easily into the air, lithe and athletic. I let go of her and leaned in for Harry, who now had his seat belt unfastened and his head above water and had got past the stage of abject fright. He helped himself to climb out and went dripping over to Mackie, showing most concern for her, taking her support from Bob Watson.
Ingrid stood in the road, soaked, thin, frightened, helpless and crying. The wind was piercing, relentless... infinitely dangerous. It was easy to underestimate how fast cold could kill.
I said to Bob Watson Take all your wife’s clothes off.’
‘What?’
‘Take her wet clothes off or she’ll freeze into a block of ice.’
He opened his mouth.
‘Start at the top,’ I said. ‘Take everything off and put my ski jacket on her, quickly. It’s warm.’ I unzipped it and took it off, folding it together so as to keep the warmth of my body in it as much as possible. The cold bit through my sweater and undershirt as if they were invisible. I was infinitely grateful to be dry.
‘I’ll help Ingrid,’ Fiona said, as Bob still hesitated. ‘You don’t mean her bra as well?’
‘Yes, everything.’
While the two women unbuttoned and tugged I went to the rear of the overturned vehicle and found to my relief that the luggage door would still open. I pushed up my sleeves and literally fished out my two bags and Harry, close beside me, watched the water drip off them with gloom.
‘Everything will be wet,’ he said defeatedly.
‘No.’ Waterproof, sandproof, bugproof were the rules I travelled by, even in rural England. I found the aluminium camera case under the water and set it on the road beside the bags.
‘Which would you prefer,’ I asked Harry, ‘bathrobe or dinner jacket?’
He actually laughed.
‘Strip off,’ I said, ‘in case the ice-man cometh. Top half first.’
They had all been dressed for a day in court, not for trudging about in the open. Even Mackie and Bob Watson, who were dry, hadn’t enough on for the circumstances.
Bob Watson took over again with Mackie, and Harry began to struggle out of his sodden overcoat, business suit, shirt and tie, wincing with pain as the cold hit his wet flesh. His singlet was sticking to him. I gave him a hand.
‘What did you say your name was?’ he said, teeth clenched, shuddering.
‘John.’
I handed him a navy blue silk undershirt and long Johns, two sweaters, grey trousers and the bathrobe. No one ever dived into clothes faster. My shoes were a size too big, he ironically complained, hopping around and pulling them on over dry socks.
Fiona had changed Ingrid to the waist and was waiting to do the second half. I took off my boots and then my ski-pants, which Fiona put on Ingrid after trying to shield her brief lower nakedness from my eyes, which amazed me. It was hardly the time for fussing. The boots looked enormous, once they were on, and Ingrid was nine inches shorter than my ski-suit.
For myself I brought out a navy blazer and jodhpur boots, feeling the ice strike up through wool to my toes.
‘My feet are squelching,’ Fiona said, eyeing the boots with strong shivers, ‘and I’m wet to the neck. Is there anything left?’
‘You’d better have these.’
‘Well... I...’ She looked at my bare socks, hesitating.
I thrust the boots and blazer into her hands. My black evening shoes, which were all that remained in the way of footwear, would have fallen off her at every step.
I dug into the bag again for jodhpurs, black socks and a sweatshirt. ‘These any good to you?’ I asked.
She took all the clothes gratefully and hid behind Ingrid to change. I put on my black shoes and the dinner jacket: a lot better than nothing.
When Fiona reappeared, her shivers had grown to shakes. She still had too few layers, even if now dry. The only useful thing still unused in my belongings was the plastic bag which had contained my dinner jacket. I put it over Fiona’s head, widening the hole where the hanger usually went, and, if she didn’t care to be labelled ‘Ace Cleaners’ at intervals front and back, at least it stopped the wind a bit and kept some body heat in.
‘Well,’ Harry said with remarkable cheerfulness, eyeing the dimly seen final results of the motley redistribution, ‘thanks to John we should live to see Shellerton. All you lot had better start walking. I’ll stay with Mackie and we’ll follow when we can.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘How far is it to the village?’
‘A mile or so.’
‘Then we all start now. We’ll carry Mackie. It’s too cold, believe me, for hanging about. How about a chair lift?’
So Harry and I sat the semi-conscious Mackie on our linked wrists and draped her arms round our necks, and we set off towards the village with Bob Watson carrying all the wet clothes in one of my bags, Fiona carrying dry things in the other and Ingrid shuffling along in front in the moon-boots with my camera case, lighting the way with the dynamo torch from my basic travel kit.
‘Squeeze it.’ I showed her how. ‘It doesn’t have batteries. Shine it on the road, so we can all see.’
‘Thank God it isn’t snowing,’ Harry said: but there were ominous clouds hiding the stars. What little natural light there was was amplified by the whiteness of the snow, the only good thing about it. I was glad it wasn’t too far to the village. Mackie wasn’t draggingly heavy, but we were walking on ice.
‘Doesn’t any traffic ever come along this road?’ I asked in frustration when we’d gone half a mile and still seen no one.
‘There are two other ways into Shellerton,’ Harry said. ‘God, this wind’s the devil. My ears are dropping off.’
My own head also was achingly cold. Mackie and Fiona had woollen hats, Ingrid was warmest in the hood of my ski-suit, Bob Watson wore a cap. Ingrid had my gloves. Harry’s hands and mine were going numb under Mackie’s bottom. If I’d brought any more socks we could have used them as mitts.
‘It’s not far now,’ Bob said. ‘Once we’re round the bend you’ll see the village.’
He was right. Electricity twinkled not far below us, offering shelter and warmth. Let’s not have a power cut, I prayed.
Mackie suddenly awoke to full consciousness on the last stretch and began demanding to know what was happening.
‘We skidded into a ditch,’ Harry said succinctly.
‘The horse! Is the horse all right? Why are you carrying me? Put me down.’
We stopped and set her on her feet, where she swayed and put a hand to the side of her head.
‘Did we hit the horse?’ she said.
‘No,’ Harry answered. ‘Better let us carry you.’
‘What happened to the horse?’
‘It buggered off across the Downs. Come on, Mackie, we’re literally freezing to death standing here.’ Harry swung his arms in my bathrobe, then hugged his body and tried to warm his hands in his armpits. ‘Let’s get on, for God’s sake.’
Mackie refused to let us lift her up again so we began to struggle on towards the village, a shadowy band slipping and sliding downhill, holding on to each other and trying not to fall, cold to the bone. I should have brought the skis, I thought, and it seemed an extraordinarily long time since that morning.