‘OK, he’s still breathing. He’s got a nasty cut on the side of his head, which needs seeing to, but first we need to get him into the recovery position. Sofia, you’re the lightest. Get right into the boat and gently push him over onto his side.’
Sofia leapt on board and turned Thanassis’s inert body a few degrees to the side. Maddie leant in again and doubled checked that there was nothing blocking his airway. Fishing about inside his mouth with her fingers was a weird sensation, but she had to make sure. She’d been present when a care home resident had swallowed his own tongue during a fit, and she’d watched someone else perform the same check. They didn’t need a stray cigarette butt making things worse.
‘He seems stable. But we need to get him to a hospital as soon as we can.’
Maddie turned to Charlotte, who was still as a statue.
‘Can you try and ring emergency services, please? It’s…’ Maddie racked her brains, but her mind had gone blank.
Charlotte came to with a start.
‘One-one-two. I know. I programmed in into my phone.’
‘Thank God for your efficiency, Char. They’ll be able to send out the coastguard.’
Charlotte pressed the buttons over and over again and held her phone every which way in the air, but the precious seconds dragged by. After a brief run along the beach, she returned, panting, to the boat and shook her head.
‘There’s no service here at all.’ A white-faced Charlotte pointed up at the cliffs. ‘It’s because of those. I didn’t notice it earlier as none of us were on our phones.’
Any hope of immediate rescue, or indeed any sort of rescue, was gone. Maddie took a deep breath. Think, Maddie, think.
It was going to be up to them, or rather up to her, to get everyone out safely. They couldn’t let Thanassis spend a night out in the open. There was no guarantee he’d be alive in the morning without treatment for the head injury.
She had no idea if anyone was waiting for him at home and would alert the emergency services. He’d not mentioned a wife or girlfriend, but as a fisherman she presumed he’d keep weird hours anyway, so being out all night wouldn’t arouse suspicion.
And they’d not bothered to let anyone at the hotel know where they were because they were supposed to be back by sunset at the latest.
‘No one knows we’re here, do they?’ Charlotte’s plaintive voice proved she’d caught on quick.
Maddie exchanged a glance with Sofia.
‘Probably not, but we’re going to have to figure it out for ourselves. The good thing is that this was the last stop on our tour, and the sunset won’t be long, so we can’t be far away from our little harbour.’
She was using the same voice she used with the care home residents, slow and low, but they had to keep Charlotte calm. They had more than enough to deal with without setting off one of the panic attacks their friend had suffered from in the past. To her knowledge, Charlotte hadn’t had one in recent years, but the situation wasn’t exactly stable.
‘I do have an idea though.’
Charlotte’s hopeful nod made her look away.
‘I watched Thanassis start up the engine when we left the port, so I’ve got a reasonable idea how it works. Tony’—Maddie stopped to regulate her breathing—‘had an old lawnmower with a similar engine… and the key is not to flood it.’
Maddie hadn’t meant to say the last bit out loud.
Charlotte’s look of terror had returned, but Sofia took over for a welcome moment.
‘Sounds good, Mads. If men can master it, there’s no reason why we can’t. We are the superior gender after all. Let’s give it a go, shall we?’
It had given Maddie precious time to think and check the depth of the water in relation to how low the engine would hang.
‘I need to be inside the boat by the motor, but I’m concerned we’ve drifted in towards shore a little since we anchored, and it’s too shallow here. So, first you two will need to push the boat a little further out to sea with me in it. Once we’ve taken up the anchor, I’ll try the motor and then you two jump back in. OK?’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
Sofia’s cheerful voice buoyed her, even if it was fake, although Charlotte remained worryingly mute.
‘Can you help me get into the boat now, please, Char? You’re the tallest.’
Giving someone in shock a specific task had also been mentioned as a good idea on one of her courses.
