Dark Waters(5)

What was this? A crisp, ten-pound note.

Col leaned forward, ready to slip it out. Wee fool deserved all he got anyway.

Right then there was a sudden ominous crack. A yell. A panicked scream. Col looked up.

The boy was dancing on the ice again.

No. This time he wasn’t dancing. He was trying to balance. The ice beneath him was cracking. The boy tried to jump clear, but he landed badly and broke more ice.

Col saw the panic on the boy’s face as his arms flailed wildly and his feet jumped and slid about in a grotesque dance.

Mesmerised, unable to move, Col watched. The boy still hadn’t seen him, couldn’t see anything beyond his own peril. He wasn’t even screaming or shouting. He was trying to jump clear but, with every movement, the ice moved, cracked, broke beneath him.

‘It’s your own fault!’ Col wanted to yell. Stupid boy had brought it on himself, hadn’t he?

The ice on which the boy had been standing suddenly toppled almost upright, and the panic-stricken boy began to slip into the icy waters of the loch.

Col stood up, paralysed, unable to move. Nothing to do with him anyway, he kept telling himself. Couldn’t the boy read? The notices everywhere. BEWARE. THIN ICE. His own fault.

The boy was yelling at the top of his voice.

‘Mum! Mum! Help me! Please! Mum!’

He was clawing at the ice, trying to pull himself up. His fingers clutched and scraped but couldn’t get a grip.

Inside, Col was screaming too. ‘Your own fault! You deserve it! Who cares? I don’t. I don’t!’

The boy was sobbing now, and Col tried to blot out his anguished cries.

‘Please! Please! Somebody help me!’

Not me. Not me, was all Col could think. Definitely not me! In the same instant he was running, pulling off his jacket, running towards the boy in the icy loch – and changing his life for ever.





Chapter Three


The boy saw Col coming, rushing towards him in a frenzy. His face was white with panic, with cold. He was breathing hard and fast, still clawing at the ice. Col skidded towards him, thinking as fast as he could. Trying to forget that now, he too was in the middle of the loch, with only breaking ice and swirling currents beneath him. Yet, his brain was clear, cool. He threw himself flat, and swung his jacket towards the boy.

‘Grab this!’ he snapped. Not angrily. He wasn’t angry. He was so calm now it almost scared him. But he had to calm the boy in the loch. ‘Grab this!’ he said again. An order.

The boy’s hands were shaking, so cold his fingers would hardly close, but still he reached out for Col’s jacket. Without the support of the ice he lost his hold for a second and panic gripped him as the water, the clinging reeds, began to pull him down. Col edged closer, grabbed the boy’s hands just as his face was covered by the freezing water. He hauled him up.

And felt the ice below him crack.

No!

Col swung the jacket again and this time, with Col’s support, the boy’s grip was firm. Col bellied his way back slowly. ‘I’m going to pull. You keep holding tight.’ He realised his teeth were chattering.

The boy’s only answer was his numbed fingers closing on the jacket. Col edged back cautiously. He could feel the ice move under him.

This time the crack was heard by the boy. His eyes, half shut, snapped open in terror. Terror at the thought of his saviour crashing through the ice, of both of them in the water, drowning, dying. It was too much for him. He began to scream, to thrash about. That was the last thing Col needed.

‘Stay calm.’ Col was surprised at how soft, how gentle his own voice sounded. If he could keep him calm, keep moving back along the ice, pull the boy at least halfway out of the loch, then maybe … just maybe, they might both be all right.

But all the boy could see was death and cold, and the terror of it overcame him. He started to flail about wildly. He let go of the jacket, grabbed for Col’s arms. Missed. Screamed.

He was about to go under again, and Col knew that this time he wouldn’t be able to haul him up.

He would have to let him drown. What else was there for him to do?

Yet still he found himself moving forward, grabbing for the boy’s arm, his hand, his hair. His almost numb fingers gripped at last the collar of his blazer. The boy was squirming, splashing, screaming. But at last he had him. Col pulled with a strength he never knew he had. With one yank he had him shoulder high out of the loch. He screeched, and grabbed for Col’s elbows. Now he was waist high. Col almost had him out of the icy water. One more pull. Just one more—

In that instant the ice cracked again. This time it didn’t hold. Col felt his legs being dragged down into the freezing water that burned into his bones. Still he didn’t let the boy go. Now he pushed, pushed him up and on to strong thick ice, and as one boy rose out of the water to safety, the other, Col, was sucked under by a swirl of currents that seemed almost alive.