Caught by the headlights, stock-still in the middle of the lane, stood a horse. A dark horse buckled into a dark rug, its head raised in alarm. There was the glimmer of sheen on its skin and luminescence in its wide eyes. The moment froze like the landscape.
"h.e.l.l!" Mackie exclaimed, and slammed her foot on the brake.
The vehicle slid inexorably on the ice and although Mackie released the brakes a moment later it did as much harm as good.
The horse, terrified, tried to plunge out of the lane into the field alongside. Intent on missing him, and at the same time fighting the skid, Mackie miscalculated the curve, the camber and the speed, though to be fair to her it would have taken a stunt driver to come out of there safely.
The jeep slid to the side of the lane, spun its wheels on the snow-covered gra.s.s verge, mounted it, ran along and across as if making for the open fields under its own volition and tipped over sideways into an unseen drainage ditch, cracking with noises like pistol shots through a covering sheet of ice.
We"d been going slowly enough for it not to be an instantly lethal crunch, though it was a bang hard enough to rattle one"s teeth. The nearside wheels, both front and back, finished four feet lower than road level, the far side of the ditch supporting the length of the roof of the vehicle so that it lay not absolutely flat on its side. I was opening my door, which was half sloping skywards, and hauling myself out more or less before the engine had time to stall.
The downland wind, always on the move, stung my face sharply with a freezing warning. Wind-chill was an unforgiving enemy, deadly to the unwary.
Bob Watson had fallen on top of his wife. I reached down into the car and grasped him, and began to pull him out.
He tried to free himself from my hands, crying "Ingrid" urgently, and then in horror, "It"s wet- she"s in water."
"Come out," I said peremptorily. "Then we can both pull her. Come out, you"re heavy on her. You"ll never get her out like that."
Some vestige of sense got through to him and he let me yank him out far enough so that he could stretch back in for his wife. I held him and he held her, and between the two of us we brought her out onto the roadway.
The ditch was almost full of muddy freezing water under its coating of ice. Even as we lifted Ingrid out the water deepened fast in the vehicle, and in the front seat Fiona was yelling to Harry to get her out. Harry, I saw in horror, was underneath her and in danger of drowning.
The one headlight which had still been shining suddenly went out.
Mackie hadn"t moved to save herself. I pulled open her door and found her dazed and semi-conscious, held in her place by her seat belt.
"Get us out," Fiona yelled.
Harry, below her, was struggling in water and heaving, whether to save her or himself was impossible to tell. I felt round Mackie until I found the seat-belt clasp, released it, hauled her out bodily and shoved her into Bob Watson"s arms.
"Sit her on the verge," I said. "Clear the snow off the gra.s.s. 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. b.l.o.o.d.y 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 unb.u.t.toned 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 circ.u.mstances.
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 Sh.e.l.lerton. All you lot had better start walking. I"ll stay with Mackie and we"ll follow when we can."