Chapter 41
You couldn't see the little tarn from the fort. As Rowan descended from the fort, the tarn came gradually into view, first the lower end and the little path down from the edge of the road where they had left the Norton.
It was for a second – less than a second perhaps – a cold, sick fear clenched her as Roger, lying in the tarn, came into view. Then he moved, rolling over on to his back and then sitting up with a jerk. By now she was running.
When she reached him, he was sitting on a rock at the edge of the tarn. He stopped swearing the moment he saw her.
"Sorry, Rowan. I slipped on a rock, like an idiot."
"Collar- bone?" she asked sympathetically, beginning to check him over. "Did you hit your head?"
"Wrist I think. The left one. Lucky I'm right handed. Only a slight bump. No blank moments of anything."
"I'm sure it shouldn't be that shape. Let's see the other one." Rowan said, "No, I'm sure it's broken. Or dislocated. I should probably put it in an elevation sling."
"You're very impressive at this sort of thing. Guide badges? Susan goes and tests Peggy's lot on their first aid."
"Sort of. Ann was very, very keen and used to practice on me in the dormitory. I never bothered with the guides."
"It's probably best not to put a sling on yet though."
"I do remember how to do it!"
"It's quite a long walk even just down to the nearest village."
"I'm fairly sure you shouldn't try to ride a motorcycle like that. I could ride down and fetch help, but you may as well be sitting here with a sling as without one."
Roger grinned. "I can't ride – or shouldn't, but there really isn't any reason why you shouldn't. I'm not going to sit here and worry about whether you've come to grief on the way down though. It's not the easiest road. You'll ride, and I'll ride behind you. It's only my wrist, after all."
"I know where the hospital is in Keswick, but it hasn't got an X-ray machine, I don't think." Rowan said. She had retrieved the fishing rod and was unscrewing the sections and putting them back carefully in their tube. "I'm trying to think – there's bound to be one in Carlisle, but that's miles away."
"Pointless going somewhere without one." He agreed. "There might be one at Whitehaven. We'd carry on across the pass and then along the coast for that – be we don't know for sure there is one or what the road is like."
"Barrow? Kendal?" Rowan suggested.
"At least they'd be nearer to where we want to get back to." Roger said. "Look, the best thing will be to ride back to Beckfoot. It's on the way to either of those two places, from here and they'll probably know where there are hospitals and X ray machines. If they've got enough petrol for the car they'll take us. I think I'd rather be driven by Nancy than Mrs Blackett though."
"Or I can drive."
Roger grinned. "Once you've driven Rattletrap, you'll wish you hadn't said that."
From Nancy Walker to John Walker
…and Roger broke his wrist. He just slipped on wet rock fishing and landed awkwardly. I think he's a little embarrassed that it was something so simple. Anyway, it's now all plastered up. The children are most impressed and have been playing plastering arms all evening, naturally. There was a certain amount of form filling at the hospital before they would let Roger go. When the woman asked who would be looking after him, Rowan said she would. The woman looked at Rowan as if she was about 14. (And I have to admit that in what was basically a school PT kit she didn't look much older. )
"And you are?" she asked, most condescending.
"His fiancée."
I happened to be looking at Roger's face as she said it. He looked chuffed to bits – and also a little surprised.
So, I squashed Mother pretty hastily when she tried to insist on Roger staying at Beckfoot tonight, although they stayed for early supper before I drove them both back to the cottage and Roger is coming to spend the day here tomorrow, to the great delight of the girls, tomorrow being Saturday. Roger borrowed a couple of aerogrammes from me, so I imagine you might hear about it from him by the same post as this.