Chapter Twenty-Three
A strong wind blew Meg’s cape backward, nearly tearing away her beribboned bonnet. Not so far off now, the western sky thickened into a dark, boiling mass.
“They need to hurry,” she told Norrie beside her. “They have to come up now!”
“They do. That storm is blowing fast this way,” Norrie said.
“Oh, thank God, the crew is bringing them up now!” Seeing the commotion at the rock’s cliffside, where the diving platforms were raised and lowered, she exhaled in relief, ran toward the iron railing embedded in the edge, and looked down.
A diver burst out of the water, clinging to the platform ropes as crewmen hauled him upward. The man gestured insistently as Alan and others unscrewed the bolts that secured his helmet to the wide brass collar that covered his shoulders. Evan Mackenzie emerged.
“Dougal,” he gasped. “He’s caught! The block broke loose, hit his platform. I saw it just as I came up”
Meg rushed forward. “Is he hurt?”
“I cannot say,” Evan replied, shaking his head as one of the crew worked on his suit. “Leave it in case I have to go down again.”
“You cannot go down there so quickly,” Alan Clarke replied. He grabbed the speaking tube and set the funnel to his mouth. “Dougal! Are you there!”
Silence. Meg pressed a hand to her mouth. Nearby, Norrie and others tensed, waiting.
“Dougal!” Alan listened through the earpiece, then nodded. “Wait!” he called into the hose. “Wait, we will tell you what to do.”
“Is he hurt?” Meg asked.
“His boot is caught,” Alan said. “He says he is trapped.”
“What of his air hose?” Evan snapped.
Alan repeated the question. “Open and fine so far,” he reported to the others.
Evan Mackenzie grabbed his helmet. “I’m going back down there.”
“Do that, man, and risk your own life,” Alan said. “Your lungs cannot take the up and down of the pressures. Someone else must go down.”
“Who else is here to do that?” Evan growled. “No one else is trained to use this equipment but Dougal and me.”
“I can do it,” Alan said. “I have not, but I know the equipment.”
“But that takes time, and I am already suited up.” Evan set the helmet over his head, gesturing for the nearest crewman to screw it in place. Moments later he stood and stepped onto the platform.
“God be with,” Alan muttered, gesturing for the platform to be lowered again. He turned to call out order to the men on the air pumps and hose cranks. “Give Dougal as much slack as you can, and keep the airflow steady for both of them,” he reminded them. “Aye, that’s it.”
“Evan is coming down,” he told Dougal through the funnel, and listened for the reply. “He is swearing. You do not want to hear it, lady,” he told Meg.
“I do, I want to know everything!”
Meg paced, watching, listening, hoping as Evan’s platform sank into the heaving waves. She whirled, skirts billowing, to come face-to-face with Roderick Matheson. He grabbed her elbow.
“Margaret!” he said. “Come away from the edge!”
“Let me go!” she snapped.
“It isn’t safe! Let me help,” he said. “What can I do?”
She could hardly believe the offer, but shrugged. “Just stay back and let the men do this.”
“I am not as heartless as you think,” he said. “I was wrong. I was desperate, loving you. I acted poorly—”
“Poorly?” She laughed, bitter, distracted as she watched the waves.
“I do not like Stewart, but he’s in difficulty and I would help if I could.”
She stared at him, frowning, wondering if he had some other motivation. Then Norrie joined them, standing beside her to stare at Roderick.
“If you have had a change of heart, sir,” Norrie said, “go help with the cranks and pulleys.”
Roderick turned away at that, taking off his coat and offering to take hold of the crank arm on one of the giant spools that held the hoses. Norrie turned away, too, running to help guide the ropes that spilled over the edge of the rock into the water.
Alan was speaking to Dougal again through the funnel and hose. Meg ran to him. “Please, let me talk to him,” she said. Alan handed her the funnel.
She held the metal cone to her mouth. “Dougal!” She moved the cup to her ear for the reply.
“Meg?” His voice through the funnel was small, tinny, yet achingly familiar.
“Dougal! Are you hurt?”
“I am fine. My boot is caught. Evan is just here. We will work it free.”
“My love,” she said. “Come up quickly. Hang on!”
Alan took the speaking tube again, and Meg stood by as he explained to Dougal that they would send down a steel crane to haul the stone away and free him. She saw the men wheeling the great thing into place.
“Hanging on,” Dougal said, his voice faint.
The wind tore over the rock, whipping at her skirts and cape. Meg set a hand on her bonnet and braced her arm over her chest, watching the sky roil, gray and foreboding. Far out, breakers rose frothy white, rushing toward the reef. Rain spattered over her in cold droplets.
Suddenly, vividly, she remembered standing on this very rock in another lashing storm. Dougal had appeared in its midst, his presence, his courage, his body shielding her.
Alan directed the crew working furiously on the machinery, ropes, and hoses. “We need more hands on the ropes to help Evan haul that stone away!”
She saw Roderick and Norrie roll up their sleeves to pitch in while the bankers and visitors in black stood observing. Her cousin Fergus held Sean, picking him up to comfort him. Meg ran toward him, but her cousin waved her back, shaking his head to tell her he would keep Sean safe.
She turned to Alan. “Can they move that stone down there? Is it possible?”
“It is not easy,” he said grimly. “It has to be trussed with ropes to lift it. But if it can be shifted just enough to free Dougal’s boot, that is all we need right now.”
“But it weighs tons,” she said.
“Aye, on land. Down there, the weight seems lighter. It can be moved by two men.” He stripped off his coat as he spoke, unbuttoning his vest. “I beg your pardon, Miss MacNeill—Lady Strathlin. I need to go down there to help.” He pulled off his boots and tossed them aside.
His ash-blond hair ruffled in the wind, and his linen shirt blew flat against his broad chest and arms.
“But Alan,” she said, “you are needed up here.”
“My friends are in danger. I need to help,” he said. “Dougal is forty feet down, we think.”
“But you have no gear,” Meg said.
“A man can go down that far without gear, just holding his breath. But he canna stay down for long. I’ll do what I can.” He handed the funnel to Meg. “Talk to him. Let him hear your voice. And pray for us, lass. It is a grim thing, this, I will not lie.”
Standing on the cliff edge, beaten by wind and dappled by rain, Alan dove cleanly over the side, cutting through the water.
“Dougal,” she said into the funnel, “Alan is coming down.”
“What the devil!” Dougal replied.
“He can help you push the stone,” she told him. But there was silence. “Dougal?”
“Meg—air…”
“Dougal!”
More silence. Meg caught her breath, then looked down over the side. Bubbles rose where the various hoses and ropes entered the water, and she saw a few shadows moving below the agitated surface of the water.
“Dougal!” she called into the funnel. No answer.
She turned, saw Roderick and the other men busy on the cranks and pulleys and hoses, saw Fergus holding Sean tight, watching from a distance. Her grandfather hurried toward her.
“He’s not answering,” she said. Norrie took the funnel.
“Dougal Stewart!” he called, and repeated the name.
Meg looked down and down into the greenish, slopping surface of the water, roiling with peaks and waves. He had to live—he had to. She could not bear to stand on the rock and wait, listening, watching, hoping, while he was so far below, in danger. She could not endure life without him now.
She wanted to tear off her clothes and dive in, as Alan had done. Dougal had saved Sean and so many others. He had saved her on this rock from the first moment she had met him. He had saved her since, body and soul. Alan said a man could endure forty feet down. So could a woman.
Tearing off her bonnet, she set it aside. The wind took it and skittered it into the ocean. She unbuttoned her cape and bent to unfasten the loops and buttons on her ankle boots.
“What are you doing?” Norrie asked. He lifted the funnel again. “Dougal Stewart! Answer!”
Below, Alan burst out of the water, gasping, treading and rocking in the waves. “The hoses!” he called. “Dougal’s hoses are caught! Toss me a lever!” Someone dropped a long iron rod; it fell into the sea, for Alan missed it in the wind and waves.
Reaching beneath her skirts, Meg undid her petticoat tapes. She wore no crinoline that day, but with four petticoats for fullness, she wished desperately that she had changed into the simple garments common to Isles women before coming out here. She dropped petticoat and skirts.
“What in blazes are you doing?” Roderick called. “Here, stop that, madam!”
She ignored him, standing in linen blouse, chemise, and knickers. “Get this thing off me,” she said to Norrie, yanking at the laces of her stays under her blouse.
“Madam!” Roderick called again.
She turned as her grandfather—who wisely did not protest, seeing her determination—gave the corset cords a few yanks. “I am going down there,” she told Norrie.
“So I see,” he only said, helping draw the corset away, tossing it aside.
“The men are needed on the equipment. Alan needs help and there is no one else to spare. Make sure Sean stays with Fergus,” she said.
She had to do this. She could not bear to watch this any longer, knowing that she could help as well as any of the men, and better than some, with her smaller frame and nimble hands and her ability to swim and dive.
Not all the men could help, she knew. Fergus, for all his fishing skills, did not swim well.
“Lady Strathlin!” one of the commissioners in black called.
“I’m going in,” she insisted, while the men stared at her in dumbfounded shock. She walked to the edge of the cliff. “Give me a lever! Now!”