Page 46 of Christmas for the Village Midwife (The Village Midwife #2)

‘Zoe?’

Alex’s voice came from the gloom above her as she finally came to a halt. Every rock and stone had knocked the breath from her on the way down, but at least the fall had been cushioned by the snow. Now she was simply wet and bruised, rather than something much worse.

‘I’m all right…’ she said. ‘I can’t…bugger…I let go of my bag and I can’t see it.’ She squinted in the beam of Alex’s torch as he shone it down on her. ‘Shine it around to see if you can find it, please.’

She watched the light cover the ground, but although it had been bright enough trained directly onto her, it was next to useless trying to cover the terrain that was further away.

Her bag might have been there, but there was no sign of it.

Though she couldn’t see him either now, she looked up at where she thought Alex was with a vague sense of panic welling inside her.

Without her bag, how was she going to give Georgia the care she needed?

It was about more than the sanitiser and protective sheets and gloves.

To do her job safely, she needed other things that were in there, like items for pain relief, a resuscitation kit for emergencies, as well as the usual things like clamps and forceps and postpartum supplies.

At an extreme pinch, she could head over without them and make do until somebody could get replacements to her, but she really didn’t want to have to do that.

Even then, perhaps a more pressing issue was how she was going to get back up this slope. She took a deep breath to steady herself and then decided that the first thing she had to do was to try to find her equipment. Then she’d worry about getting back to the path.

But when she tried to stand up, there was a pain in her ankle that the shock of the fall had masked, and she realised she’d injured herself after all.

It wasn’t at the sort of intensity that might have suggested a broken bone, but it was enough to hamper her efforts.

And she was cold, so there was no telling if that was helping to numb the pain so that she couldn’t correctly identify the severity of her injury. It might be worse than it seemed.

No matter, she told herself, whether it was serious or superficial, she had to get up. She had to find her bag, and she had to find a way to get back to the path.

‘Zoe…’ Alex’s voice was full of concern. ‘You’ve gone quiet… Talk to me.’

‘Yeah, sorry. I was trying to work things out. I’ve…don’t freak out, but I’ve hurt my ankle.’

‘I’m coming down?—’

‘No point. You’ll come down and we’ll both be stuck.’

‘I won’t get stuck; I’ll take it slowly.’

‘Alex…don’t. I’ll find a way to get back up. Have another look with your torch to see if you can find my bag first. If I know where it is, I can go straight to it and then bring it with me.’

‘Can’t you leave it and come back for it when the snow’s stopped?’

‘It’s really important. I need it for Georgia, but I don’t want all the equipment in it getting soaked – that won’t do any of it any good.’

‘Right,’ Alex said, sweeping the terrain once more with the beam of his torch.

Frustratingly, there was still no sign of the bag.

Zoe had to assume it had rolled or slid much further on, or that she simply couldn’t see it in the gloom.

She wondered whether to take a few minutes to feel around for it.

Her ankle protested as she got on her feet, but no sooner had she started to hobble than her feet began to slide away from her again, threatening to take her even further down the slope.

‘Alex…’ she said slowly.

The beam came back to settle on her. ‘Why does your tone worry me?’

‘Yeah…I don’t think I’m going to be able to get up here, actually. I think it’s too slippery.’

‘Shit.’

‘I couldn’t have put it better myself. You might have to come down after all.’

‘But…’ He was silent for a moment, the torch beam moving away to plunge her into gloom again. ‘Stay there,’ he said finally.

‘It’s not like I have a choice.’

‘Yes, sorry…I mean, hang on. I’ll go and get help.’

‘Don’t fall down any slopes!’ Zoe called after him as she watched the beam of his torch turn back the way they’d come.

She let out a sigh and sat down again. It wasn’t like her bum could get any wetter, and her ankle was hurting, so why not?

She felt around the ground in her immediate vicinity for her bag again, in case she’d somehow missed it, but in vain.

That was the most annoying aspect of this whole thing.

Unable to do much about that now, she dug out her phone to check for messages.

There were none. Either everyone was too busy looking after Georgia to update, or they were too busy because something bad had happened.

Zoe decided to text Emilia, but when she pressed send, she was met with a notification that told her there was no signal again.

The night was getting better and better, she reflected ruefully.

With nothing else to do, she resigned herself to waiting for the promised help, and hoping that Alex wouldn’t run into trouble on his way to get it like she had.

Twenty minutes had passed. Zoe was cold, and she was getting stiff and plagued by a vague, irrational worry that if she sat there for much longer, she’d get buried by the snow and nobody would find her until it was too late – for her and for Georgia.

But then she heard an engine, deeper and throatier than Alex’s car, and was filled with new energy. Surely this had to be her rescue party?

The engine came to a halt somewhere on the track above her, and then Alex called down.

‘Zoe? You OK?’

‘Better now you’re back,’ Zoe called up.

‘I’m coming down.’

‘But—’

‘Don’t worry!’ another voice called, and Zoe took a moment to place it until she realised it was Leon, Victor’s son-in-law. ‘We’ve got mountaineering gear fit for Everest, so it should do us here just fine.’

Zoe might have stopped to wonder where they’d come by such equipment, but she was just too happy to hear she was finally going to be rescued.

Not only was she now freezing, soaking wet, impatient to get to Georgia and in some discomfort from her ankle, but she felt incredibly stupid too.

Stupid for getting into this predicament in the first place, and for the inconvenience she was now causing for everyone having to pitch in to pull her free.

It was Christmas Eve, and poor Leon had been dragged away from his family celebrations to fetch the silly moo who’d gone and slipped down a hill.

There was some clicking and clanking up above, and then the beam from a much stronger torch than Alex’s swept over her.

‘Ah, there you are,’ Leon said. ‘We’ll be with you shortly.’

A few minutes passed. Zoe could hear puffing and panting and the sound of a clip against a rope, and then Alex was there, a headtorch – presumably borrowed from Leon – on. He pulled it up so that the beam wouldn’t blind her and smiled. ‘Hello there.’

‘Hello.’ Zoe returned his smile, relief flooding through her.

‘I’m going to put this harness on you and clip it to me, and then Leon’s going to help us…It’s mad this, isn’t it? Like a disaster film.’

‘I feel like a disaster film right now.’

‘Don’t. It’s not your fault. Right…let’s just make you safe and secure, and then see if you can grab hold of me…’ He took a minute to kit her out. ‘Put your arms around my neck…that’s it. Leon! OK, we’re ready!’

The rope that had them tethered to the top of the slope tightened, and Alex used it to support and steady them both as he climbed, Zoe piggybacking, doing her best to hold on while keeping her strain on him to a minimum.

A minute later, they were up, with such surprising ease that Zoe wondered how it had been such a problem in the first place.

But when she saw the equipment Leon had brought with him, she had to admit that it was pretty heavy duty.

‘Thank you so much!’ Zoe said, throwing her arms around Leon with such force he looked faintly shocked.

‘How’s your ankle?’ Alex asked.

‘It hurts, but I can manage.’

‘We’ll have a look when we get back to the house—’ he began, but Zoe stopped him.

‘When we get to the church and I’ve seen to Georgia, you mean. We’re not going back to the house. I haven’t come this far and gone through all that just to go back to Hilltop.’ She turned to Leon. ‘I’m sorry to ask, but is there any possibility you could get us to the church?’

‘Not a problem,’ Leon said, throwing Alex a silent look of apology.

Clearly they’d had some sort of discussion about Zoe’s insistence on getting to Georgia as they’d come to rescue her, and Leon didn’t seem a bit surprised by her request. It also seemed, however, that he was aware of Alex’s opposition to the plan.

‘Thanks.’

‘What about your bag?’ Alex asked.

Zoe shook her head as she hobbled to Leon’s four-by-four.

‘I’ve tried to find it and I can’t and now, quite honestly, I’m more worried about how long it’s taking me to get to Georgia than what’s in there.

Midwives managed without bags full of medical gadgets for thousands of years before, so I suppose I’ll find a way to manage now. ’