by Peter Tonkin
Asha breathed a sigh of relief, stretched luxuriously and began to look around her. It was late evening but not yet full night. The sky was clear and still had a little colour to it. The cab came under the bright yellow lighting of the M23 motorway and began to pick up speed. The traffic flow around them thinned at once. ‘This is better,’ said John cheerily. ‘We should make good time in this.’
‘It’ll thicken up again,’ the driver warned. ‘There’s still the interchange to come.’ And even as he spoke, the tail-lights ahead began to glow more vividly red.
Now that the atmosphere was easier in the back, the cabby began to chat to his passengers. ‘Just married, I see. What a way to start, eh? All uphill from here, I expect. Just bad luck about your car. Mind, my marriage got off to a bad start too. Wedding joke! You know the sort of thing that can happen. They found out where me and the missus was going and took the screws out of our bed. Whole thing collapsed. Hell of a noise in the middle of the night. Manager thought it was burglars and nearly threw us out of the hotel. Very amusing! And it’s not as if it’s easy to find a bed in the middle of the night in Southend…’
John’s mind began to drift again. It had been a hard few months and, although he mentioned it to nobody, when he got tired his side began to hurt where a terrorist bullet had ploughed through it, back to front, following the curve of his ribs, only thirteen weeks ago. Asha snuggled up against him, clearly tired too. It had been a long day for both of them.
Suddenly the driver stood on the brake, hurling both John and Asha to the floor; they were lucky not to be hurt. John pulled himself up at once, only to be thrown down again as the car behind careered into the back of the cab, shunting it left on to the hard shoulder. The noise was appalling, compounded of shrieking metal and blaring horns. As the taxi juddered to a halt, John pulled himself up again and clutched Asha to him until he was certain she was all right. Then he turned to the driver.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, guy.’
‘What happened?’
‘Damned if I know.’
‘Are we safe here?’
‘Should be. We can sit on the hard shoulder here while I check the damage and…JESUS!’
John jerked forward, scarcely able to believe his eyes. As they had been talking, the three lanes of traffic on their right had come to a complete halt. But now, as though driven by a blind person, a Porsche came down the road, far too fast to have any hope of stopping. Seeing the jammed traffic, the driver swung fiercely on to the hard shoulder immediately in front of the cab then tried to swing straight again. The manoeuvre was a total failure and as the three of them watched, horror-struck, the sleek sports car tore through the protective rail at the outer edge of the hard shoulder and vanished. The last thing they saw was its wheels leave the ground and its body begin to roll. Then the sound it was making was lost in the other sounds around them.
John tore open the door and ran to the broken rail at once. The road was at the crest of a low bank here, with the curving viaduct sloping down from the M25 to join it just behind where they had stopped. Ahead and to the left, where the Porsche had gone, the slope fell away on to scrub and a little coppice of trees. In the blaze of light from the motorway, John could see the track the crashing car had made before it vanished into shadows. In a sudden silence when the brakes and the horns were all suspended for a moment, he listened carefully for a sound from below, but there was nothing. He ran back to the cab. ‘I’m going down there,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll need a torch, if you have one, and your jack. I doubt whether the Porsche will be upright or able to supply any light itself. Darling, is your medical bag handy? I think we may need some stuff out of it.’
‘I’ll come down too,’ she decided at once.
‘Hadn’t we better wait for the emergency services?’ asked the driver.
‘Normally, I’d say yes,’ John answered. ‘But the traffic is closing in fast behind us and it’ll take them a hell of a time to get through. I’m a ship’s captain, trained in practical engineering and in emergency work. My wife is a fully qualified doctor. We should be able to help. And the people in that Porsche need help now!’
‘Right, Captain,’ said the driver at once. ‘I’ll get you what you need. I’d better stay with the cab, though. I’d like a word with the pillock who ran into the back of us, then I’ll just have to wait till this starts getting sorted out.’
‘Good idea,’ said Asha. ‘If we need more help, one of us will come up again. Do you have a pair of boots, by any chance? High-heeled going-away shoes will be no good at all down there.’
‘I do, as it happens. Me and my boy like to do a bit of fishing of a weekend and our boots is in the back. I’ll lend you the lad’s if that’d be all right, Doctor. Your feet are nearer his size than mine.’
John felt a fleeting urge to laugh at the figure she presented in her Aquascutum travelling coat and dirty black Wellington boots.
Together they followed the bright beam of the cabby’s torch over the edge of the embankment. The grass was winter dead and the ground frost hard. The scrub of fume-stunted bushes was black and leafless, designed like something in a circle of the Inferno to catch and trip and hurt without offering any compensatory beauty. Even the mist which drifted low among it was dirty and smelly. The light and noise of the motorway soared overhead and almost immediately became irrelevant down here, as though of another world. There was enough quietness to throw up scurryings and snufflings—the all but silent swoop of a hawk, hunting, the regular wheezing breath of a cow in a nearby field, the tinkling of a running brook.
But no. It was too cold for little brooks to tinkle. It was some other liquid, running. And that quiet sighing was just too regular to be an animal. It was the sound a tyre might make, spinning on a broken axle.
And there it was, at the end of a short crash path, like a little aeroplane which had landed incorrectly. Its doors open, like broken wings. Its bonnet crumpled pathetically against a mess of shattered tree stumps. Its torn body resting upside down. It had been painted bright blood-red, and the fluids running across its flanks from cooling, brake and fuel systems made it appear to be bleeding as they approached.
The stench of petrol was powerful and five feet back along the car’s track, the ground felt muddy underfoot. ‘Wait here,’ said John. ‘I’ll go in first for a look. You may well be wasting your time.’
‘If I’m wasting my time, you’re wasting yours,’ she countered. But she did as he asked.
He went right up beside the Porsche, moving stiffly, favouring his wounded side. He lay down on his stomach and shone his torch into the passenger compartment. At first it was difficult to see what was in there. The roof was almost level with the bonnet and the door linings had folded in as the doors themselves folded out. The windscreen had burst inwards and some of the contents of the luggage compartment—in front of the passengers, under the bonnet—had been shoved back to get tangled up in the mess of the dashboard. But gradually he worked out the inverted puzzle until he could see that the moulded seatbacks had taken some of the weight and the headrests seemed actually to be supporting the car so that the young man in the passenger seat and the girl behind the wheel seemed almost to be sitting normally, secured by their seat belts, upside down. There was no movement. He had no way of telling whether they were alive or not; both bodies seemed intact from what he could see, and there was not an excessive amount of blood.
The car would have to be moved. But first he had better do a little clearing out and shoring up so that Asha could get in here. He pulled the door lining free and gently eased out a mess of clothing from around the passenger. Then he wedged the jack under the top of the inverted door sill and wound it up gently until it was taking weight but had not yet started to lift this side of the car. He could not lift the side until he was sure that the action would not flip the whole thing over and crush the girl on the other side. When the Porsche was as firm as he could make it and the path to the passenger rea
sonably clear, he backed away slowly, like a retreating tortoise, and motioned Asha over.
Asha was as thoughtless of her finery as he had been. Without hesitation, she went belly down in the muddy mess of petrol and oil beside the car, slithering in much deeper than he had gone, following the beam of his torch to her first patient. He kept close behind her, lighting her way until she was in place, then he rested the torch on a pile of ragged clothing and pulled himself out again. Now he had to get round to the other side of the car and start clearing a path to the driver.
Perhaps it was the darkness on this side of the car, or perhaps things actually were worse here; whatever the reason, John had real trouble getting to the girl. Slowly and carefully, calling a desultory conversation to Asha who seemed to be a great distance away in spite of the fact that she was closer than the width of the Porsche, he worked his way inwards. This door had not opened out so widely. He had to twist himself into agonising contortions to get his arms in through it. Then, when he started to ease it wider, the whole car shook and he stopped, worried that it might crash down on Asha’s head. Very carefully he managed to get his head and shoulders into the chassis and started feeling around in the utter dark.
The first time he touched the girl he did not realise he had made contact with flesh, but then the contour of her leg registered and he slid his hand along an inch or two until he felt her knee. Immediately beyond that it met a twisted tangle of metal—the steering column, he guessed, and some cables from the dashboard. No sooner did he feel the obstruction than he felt something else as well: a shock of electricity which numbed him from wrist to shoulder and sent him jerking back to smash his head on something hard and start the whole car shaking. Damn! You fool, Higgins! It was the first thing he ought to have checked. The ignition was still on and the slightest spark could set the whole car alight like a Roman candle.
‘Asha, darling,’ he called, trying to make his voice sound casual. ‘Do something for me, would you? Come out of there a moment and stand back a little way.’
‘Hang on. I have a very faint pulse here. I want to give him something to knock him out. If he comes to like this the shock would probably kill him,’ she said, too preoccupied to read the underlying message of concern in his voice. ‘Almost no other vital signs at all, though, so we can’t take any liberties. We’ll have to move the car more than this before we move him at all. How’s the driver?’ He could hear her moving as she spoke.
‘Cold,’ he said. ‘But that could be shock. And I haven’t felt anything more than her knee. It’s pretty tangled up in here. I haven’t tried for a pulse. Are you clear?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, her voice more distant. ‘I’m just setting up the injection. Why?’
He plunged his hand back among the wires, searching blindly for the girl’s leg again, knowing that it was the surest and quickest guide to the relevant section of the dashboard. Time and again electricity jolted him but he worked quickly and carefully, forcing his arm to the shoulder into the car. And there, below the relative warmth of her lap, he felt the keyring hanging. ‘Still clear?’ he called.
This time Asha did pick up something from his voice. ‘John, what are you…’
The torch beam shone faintly on his side of the wreck. She was coming round. He closed his eyes and turned the key. It was fifty fifty. He would never have been able to work out for certain whether the key, in its present position, was going to turn the engine off or on. He took a chance and was lucky. The tiny shaft of metal turned two clicks and came away in his hand. And just in time.
The torch light smote hard against his face, dazzling him. ‘John,’ Asha repeated urgently. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ He began to wriggle out again. ‘I don’t think we can even get an injection to her until we’ve moved the car a bit.’ He stood up and slipped the key into his pocket. Then he checked all around the car again, looking for a way to move it safely. Asha shrugged, moved back to the passenger and injected him.
*
A motorcycle policeman was talking to the taxi driver as they scrambled up the bank. The two men turned towards them at once. ‘How does it look, Captain? Any sign of life, Doctor?’ asked the cabby.
‘I think they’re both alive,’ said Asha, ‘but I can’t really tell what sort of condition they’re in.’
‘We’ll have to move the car,’ said John. ‘Got a tow rope?’
The cabby had and went to get it. John looked at the policeman. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t be doing this,’ he said.
‘From what the cabby tells me, you’re both pretty competent to do the job, sir. I wish I could advise you to wait for the emergency services, but we have a ten-mile tailback in both directions now and nothing will be through for hours. If you think you can help the people in that Porsche, you’re probably their best bet. Sorry I can’t wait around to give you much of a hand. We have a report of a larger pile-up further down. I’m the only one who can get there at the moment.’
‘That’s all right. But you’ll want to take a look, I expect. There’ll be reports to fill in and such.’
The policeman nodded. ‘You’ll be here yourselves most of the night one way and another, I’m afraid, sir.’
John’s eyes met Asha’s; so much for their honeymoon.
The policeman started to move away, then he turned back. ‘Of course you made sure at once that the ignition was turned off?’ he asked. ‘To cut down the risk of fire?’
‘First thing I did,’ lied John grimly. Then the policeman went down the embankment and they were alone.
‘So that’s why you wanted me to stand back,’ said Asha at once. ‘You darling fool, John. Don’t you know I wouldn’t want to live if anything happened to you?’ John caught his breath—it had never occurred to him that she loved him this much. And suddenly the missed honeymoon seemed utterly unimportant. He swept her into his arms and kissed her as hard as he could, until the cabby’s tactful cough interrupted them.
‘What I’d thought was this,’ explained John a moment or two later. ‘We loop the tow rope round the front axle there and run it up through the fork in this big tree immediately above. Then we should be able to raise the front of the car. It shouldn’t be too heavy. The engine’s in the back so all we have to contend with is the frame, the spare tyre, and the front wheel steering. I think the chassis is resting on a sort of roll bar above the headrests. If we’re lucky, that will act like the fulcrum on a seesaw so the weight at the back should counterbalance the front and make it easier to lift.’
‘It’ll still be difficult to hold it up for any length of time, though,’ mused the cabby. ‘Not what you’d call insubstantial, your average Porsche.’ He crouched down beside the policeman to look at the still figures inside the crushed car, his face twisting with concern. He glanced up at Asha, his eyebrows raised in the mute question, ‘Any hope?’
She shrugged.
‘I’ve thought of that,’ John continued. ‘Two things. First, as we raise the front, it will be possible to move your jack in to hold it firm. I’ve looked for the Porche’s kit but I can’t see it anywhere, so it’s probably in that mess under the bonnet. Beyond that, what I thought we’d try is this. You see how that tree fork is shaped? On this side it’s smooth but on the other its sharp like two fingers up in a V sign?’
The cabby and the policeman stood beside him and looked, seeing at once what he meant and nodding.
‘Well, if we knot the tow rope at intervals and feed it in from this side, the knots will slide through the fork, but they won’t slide back.’
There was a short silence, then the policeman said, ‘That’s very ingenious, sir.’
‘Bloody clever, Captain,’ agreed the cabby.
When the policeman had helped them set it up, he left. The cabby eased the front of the car upwards towards the fork in the tree with John helping until the first knot snugged safely home. Then they rested for a moment, easing the rope back to find John’s makeshift ratchet worked perfect
ly.
‘Right, driver…’
‘Alf. Alf Patterson. I’d shake your hand, Captain, but I’m not sure I trust this tree to carry the load.’
‘How d’you do, Alf. We’re going under now. When I call, I want you to raise it up until the next knot goes through. Easy enough.’
‘Right, Captain.’
‘It’s John,’ said John, crossing swiftly towards Asha, who was on the driver’s side this time. ‘John and Asha Higgins.’
John went in beside the icy passenger. The jack had fallen over and he could find nowhere to set it up again, so he decided to put his faith in his makeshift block and tackle and in Alf Patterson. He pushed himself right into the tiny, gloomy car and slid his hand beneath the young man’s shoulders. Immediately he felt something hot and vivid moving against the back of it and he almost called out with surprise before he realised it was Asha, similarly supporting the girl.
‘How did you get in through the door and all that tangle?’ he asked.
‘Came free as the car went up. I’ve got most of it out of the way. Not all of it, though. Can we go up a little more? Then I’ll have room to inject her, too.’
‘Up to the next knot, Alf,’ he called, and the car slowly began to ease up. When it stopped, the young man’s head was hanging free of the ground altogether. John’s right arm was across the broad shoulders, his elbow supporting the neck.
‘Any sign of life?’ he asked Asha.
‘I have a pulse here.’ Her voice was surprisingly close at hand, intimate in the dark. ‘I’m injecting her now, then you can try to get her free.’
‘Right. I think I can get this chap out if we go up one more knot. But don’t you try to move the driver yet. Look, I tell you what. You leave her a moment and check on this chap when I get him out. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
He half heard, half felt, her move. Then he held his breath and pulled the release on the young man’s seatbelt. The body slumped down on top of him, far heavier than he had imagined it would be. Surprised, he almost lost his grip on it but he managed to stop the head hitting the ground. Slowly and carefully he rested the shoulders in the mud, then checked again to make sure no part of the body was caught. Satisfied that it was free, he began to squeeze himself backwards out of the narrow opening between the door sill and the freezing ground. It took him five more careful minutes to pull the inert passenger out entirely and by the end of it he was shaking with a lethal combination of cold and tension and fatigue. But at last it was done and Asha came across to check again for life signs.