It was dark and she was soaked through by the time she reached Dr Hall’s stone house, sheltered by a wall of beech trees in the middle of the village. She hammered frantically on the front door for what seemed like an age, but there was no reply. Rushing round the side of the house, Sara saw a chink of light spilling through the curtains of a downstairs room. She battered on the window, trying to stem the panic rising in her throat.
‘Please let him be in! Please!’ she cried to the wind. The back door opened.
‘Who’s there?’ a woman’s voice called nervously.
‘Mrs Hall,’ Sara sobbed with relief, ‘we need the doctor. It’s me dad.’
‘Sara Pallister, isn’t it?’ The young woman regarded the agitated girl, her long hair plastered to her face and rain dripping off her nose and cheeks. ‘Come in, you look exhausted.’
‘Please, Mrs Hall, I just want the doctor,’ she persisted, her mud-spattered legs rooted to the spot. ‘Me dad’s gone in the beck. They think he’s badly hurt.’
‘I’m afraid Dr Hall isn’t here,’ the young doctor’s wife answered in concern. ‘He’s away to assist at a birth in Lilychapel.’
Sara’s head Sopped forward and she let out an agonised wail of desperation. Her knees felt as weak as a newborn lamb’s after her cycle ride and it had all been to no avail. Her father was lying unconscious on the desolate fell and she could do nothing to help him.
‘You can come in and wait for my husband,’ Mrs Hall suggested, quite at a loss. Sara’s head went up at the sound of the woman’s helplessness. She must control herself and not give way to the waves of hysteria that threatened to engulf her. She swallowed hard.
‘Please ring for the ambulance in Lilychapel,’ she ordered. Tell them to come up to Stout House - that there’s a man badly injured. I must get back and help me mam when they bring him in.’
‘Yes, yes, I’ll ring at once,’ the young woman agreed with relief, thankful that this bedraggled girl was not going to have hysterics in front of her. ‘But you’ll come in and have a hot drink before you go?’
‘No ta, Mrs Hall.’ Sara resisted the warmth beckoning from the open door and tinned on her heels and ran back into the night, clambering once more on to Tom’s bicycle.
By the time she got to the steep climb up the hillside to Highbeck and Stout House, it was quite dark. Sara, abandoning the heavy framed bicycle in the ditch, trudged the final mile. Cold and soaked and utterly exhausted, she fell in at the back door. She could hear voices in the kitchen and as she entered she saw the room was full of people.
‘Sara!’ It was Mrs Gibson who gasped at her half-drowned appearance. ‘Eeh, take off those wet clothes at once, you poor lamb.’
Dazed by the sudden heat of the kitchen and the crowd of people around the long table, Sara stood nonplussed. As her neighbour pulled at her sodden coat, it dawned on her that there was somebody lying motionless on the bare table. She could not make sense of anything she saw.
‘Dad?’ she croaked. Then her heart lurched as she caught sight of her mother’s stricken face, Bill’s arm about her shoulders. Chrissie was blubbering into Mary’s lap in the chair by the fire. Sara felt her knees buckle. Suddenly Tom was there beside her, his handsome face ashen with shock.
‘He was dead when we got to him,’ he choked in explanation. Sara held on to him, quite numb to his words. For the first time she realised the body on the table was covered in a white sheet. ‘Sid’s gone for the minister,’ Tom added, ‘and to look for you.’
‘Mrs Hall’s ringin’ for the ambulance,’ Sara said, ‘it’ll be here shortly.’ She could not take her eyes off the humped shape on the kitchen table. If she pulled back the sheet, perhaps it would not be her father after all. She looked around for him. Mary was in the corner crying and rocking Chrissie in her arms. Her mother was holding the dead man’s hand and Mrs Gibson was asking her if she wanted a cup of tea.
Suddenly someone started to scream, a strangled high-pitched cry like an animal in a trap. It rang in Sara’s ears until everyone’s eyes were on her. Tom’s arms came about her, holding her tight and Sara realised it was she who cried out.
‘I tried to get the doctor!’ she sobbed. ‘He wasn’t in, Tom, he wasn’t there!’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ Tom tried to calm his sister. ‘The fall broke his neck. He’d gone before Sid came to fetch us.’
The airless room began to waver before her. Tom’s voice buzzed in her ears. Sara leaned into her brother’s shoulder and fainted.
Book two of The Durham Mining Trilogy, The Darkening Skies is available from all major eBook retailers.
Table of Contents
About the Author
The Hungry Hills
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Durham Mining Trilogy
Bonus Chapter: THE DARKENING SKIES
Durham Trilogy 01. The Hungry Hills Page 50
