Patient Blue

As the terrifying wall of water rushed ever closer to the beach its true size and awesome power became apparent. The children, all screaming, had made it from the beach to the base of the hill and were frantically climbing, desperate to escape the crushing wave. Pete had run to meet them and had managed to reach the older stronger children and shouted at them above the roar to keep heading up towards the cave.

One of younger children, Poppy, was someway behind the others, struggling to make it up the hillside and had fallen on the loose shale several times already. She was terrified and exhausted and the pitiless ocean looked destined to engulf her in a vast white deluge of spray, foam and debris as it broke upon the beach and continued inland and up the slope towards her. Pete chased down the hillside trying desperately to reach the exhausted terrified Poppy. The wave which must have been at least twenty five metres high as it hit the beach, raced upwards and engulfed the child while Pete was still at least fifty feet from her.

Spent, the monster began receding back towards the beach its powerful undertow dragging rocks and branches with it. Pete caught a glimpse of a small blond head being dragged tumbling down the side of the hill back to the ocean, and knew there could be no hope of survival. As the hiss from the retreating wave diminished, Pete became aware of hysterical screaming from the cave above, it was Annie crying out her lost daughters name over and over, ‘Poppy,Poppy, my baby my baby.’

‘Look.’ It was Ruby, and she was pointing to the base of the hill, ’by that rock it’s Poppy but she’s not moving. Pete raced to where Poppy was lying in a shallow pool of water in the crevice of some rocks. As he ran to her, he dreaded what he might find, but to his shock and delight, as he approached she sat up and held up her arms as he reached her.

’Poppy, baby, darling are you alright?

‘Yes I tumbled a lot and my head hurts where I bumped it and I’m cold but I’m alright.’

Annie reached them and laughing and crying at the same time, swept Poppy into her arms cuddled her and planted kisses all over her face and head. ‘My baby girl I love you, thank God you’re safe, mummy thought that you might-’

’Be in heaven with daddy and Aaron?

‘Yes be in heaven with daddy and Aaron.’

‘Can’t be, Aaron isn’t in heaven he’s here on the island and when I was in that big wave he was speaking to me and said he would keep me safe and I am safe. I love Aaron.’

‘See my darling I told you that daddy and Aaron would be keeping an eye on us all, keeping us safe.’

The other children had all gathered around and they now all started crying and saying ‘I want to talk to Aaron and our mummy and daddy too.’

‘Please children please. Aaron and your mummy and daddy’s are here on this island and they always try to look after you, sometimes they try to help but can’t, like with Aaron, but he was able to help us. So although they try to keep you safe they aren’t always able to do it on their own so you have to help them and always be careful when things seem dangerous.’

Poppy spoke. ‘Aaron really was in that wave with me I felt his arms hold my head out of the water and he spoke to me.’

‘I believe you Poppy,’ said Pete, and he really did as he could see no other way that the child could have survived. ‘We had better get back to the cave, there are likely to be other large waves coming soon.’

As the bedraggled party moved back up hill towards the cave entrance, they passed groups of feral goats and rabbits heading back to lower ground. The sight though rather bizarre was also somewhat reassuring. Back in the cave, Trude hugged Poppy and told her to sit by the large fire that had been built and already lit.Everyone felt chilled and with the previous furnace like heat now replaced by a bone numbing chill and biting icy wind, they all put on any remaining clothes they could find, and huddled in bedding that had been salvaged from the yacht.

Pete and Trude, both wrapped in blankets, stared out from the entrance of the cave that was their home and sanctuary. Out across the turbulent grey sea to the ominous black clouds on the horizon, suffused with terrifying flashes of lightning that illuminated in harsh relief the swirling dark curtains of rain, hardening to sleet,whipping into the sea. Thunder boomed and rumbled in the distance and sea birds screamed, shrieked and circled the cave. They were joined in the entrance by Annie and all three held hands for comfort as they watched the approaching storm, each of them pondered their own fates and uncertain futures.

Adam and Eve who had been silently sleeping, woke and both began to cry.