Quicksand

Her husband was on a life or death mission — but Jess needed him too

-  Angela Norris

Morecambe Bay, North-west England, 1972

From her window, Jess watched the lights flickering across the distant sands. She turned and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. In less than two hours the tide would come roaring in, whipped up by a westerly breeze.

Her stomach lurched as she thought of Pete and his crew out there in the bay battling to free the girl trapped in the deadly quicksand. The longer it took them, the greater the risk of them being cut off by the incoming tide.

Jess felt the baby kicking as if sharing her agitation. Instinctively, she patted her belly. She turned her gaze back to the window. Soon the bay would be shrouded in darkness.

Pete’s pager had bleeped just as they settled down to their evening meal less than an hour earlier.

‘I've got to go!’ he’d said. As he grabbed his jacket, a torch and his waders, he told Jess that a 10-year-old girl was trapped in quicksand. She was with her father looking for their dog, which had run off towards the sea. Her dad managed to pull himself out of the quicksand and shout the dog back. But the girl got stuck. ‘She'll be up to her waist in it by now,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘There’s a high tide due at 8pm. And it'll be a whopper tonight.’

Jess knew what this meant. The tide came in faster than a galloping horse in this part of the bay. There was no time to waste.

She went into the kitchen, her hands trembling as she turned the tap to fill the kettle.

Clutching a mug of tea, she moved back to the living room, where the shrunken embers of the fire burned feebly in the grate. Shivering, she wrapped her cardigan around her shoulders and returned to her vigil by the window, willing that her husband would return safely.