When I stepped out on the far side of the Pencil the entire disconcerting experience became instantly worthwhile. The ledge on that side of the rock was much larger than the one on which I had landed, and from its towering vantage point — twenty feet or so up the side of the Pencil — the view was spectacular. Several dozen cow seals and their young were basking on the rocks below, just as Jason had said they would be. I could see the coast of the mainland, pin-sharp in the distance. Something danced in the sea, gleaming in the glare of the afternoon sun. It was a dolphin, one of a vast leaping and diving pod, as the apparently infallible Jason had predicted. The whole thing seemed to have been stage-managed. Thank you Mr de Mille. I sat down on the ledge and drank it all in. Magic. Sheer magic. This was the sheltered side of the rock and the sun seemed even hotter here, not like November at all. I basked in it, just like the seals beneath me. The minutes flashed by, the cabaret was fabulous, the sea roared below — and yet I felt so at peace. I may have dozed off. I glanced at my watch. Almost an hour had passed. Time to return, pretty sharply. I felt guilty about Jason waiting on the other side, and also I was suddenly aware of a distinctly autumnal chill in the air. It was just after 3.30 p.m. Darkness comes swiftly halfway through the afternoon in November and the day was already not quite so bright. The brief journey back through the tunnel seemed easier, though, perhaps because there was a certain familiarity now. It felt damper and colder than before. I shivered. Not a place to be stuck, I thought, and teased myself about what I would do if Jason and his boat were not there.
It did not really occur to me that this could be a serious consideration, and I was smiling as I stepped out onto the small ledge on the landing side and looked out to sea ready to wave and holler. But there was nothing to wave at. No boat. No Jason. I scanned the horizon. Not a dot.
The water was lapping at my feet. The tide had already risen three feet or more. Soon it would flood the bottom end of the tunnel and there was nowhere else to go on this face of the rock. I contemplated going back to the far side of the Pencil to the higher ledge which I realised the incoming tide would not reach for some time. I quickly decided against it, though. It would be practically impossible for a boat to reach me there, and logic told me Jason would soon be back. Something rational must lie behind this. Even though the light was fading fast, I was sure that I should wait where I was and not panic.
By the time I began to think better of my decision, it was too late. The bottom of the tunnel had now flooded. I crouched on the far end of the ledge, slightly above the tunnel entrance, but the tide was already lapping at my feet, and quite vigorously too. The sea had got up with the sunset. Occasionally more robust waves cracked ominously against the sheer sides of the Pencil and I was getting drenched. I was cold and wet and very frightened. I felt the panic rising in spite of my efforts to suppress it. The position of the Pencil was such that no vessel was likely to pass close to it by chance and in any case it would soon be too dark for anyone to spot me. I had my torch, of course, but it was not a very powerful one and the batteries would not last for ever.
Maybe Jason had had an accident. Maybe he wasn’t going to come back at all. Maybe nobody was coming. I tried not to think about that. Logic — again — told me the staff on Abri would miss me at dinner and launch a search party. But nobody knew I had gone on this foolhardy expedition to the Pencil with Jason. Why should they come here? And in any case, could I last that long?
The cold and the damp cut me to the marrow. I began to realise that both my movements and my ability to think had slowed. The panic mounted with the increasing darkness. Within an hour of my returning to the ledge the sky had turned completely black. I was not sure if the luminous hands of my watch were a comfort or a reminder of the inevitability of tide and time. The sea rose higher and higher.
By five o’clock on that bleak November evening I had been forced to somehow scramble up the sheer side of the rock as high as I could manage to escape the approaching threat of the sea. I clung to rocky outcrops with fingers I could no longer feel, and I had no idea how long I could hang on. More by luck than judgement my feet found a kind of misshapen crevice into which I managed to half crouch. But I still had to hold on somehow to the rock face with both my numbed hands. Six o’clock came and went. I tried to think only in minutes. One more minute, and then another, of life.
Curiously, my panic had subsided a little. I was quite certain now that I would die. The only question was when.
Two
The shout came just when I had totally accepted that it was all over. A faint call above the roar of the sea.
I peered into the darkness. I could just make out a gleam which could surely only be the lights of a boat. Yet for a moment or two I still wasn’t quite sure if I was indulging in wishful thinking, if my imagination was playing tricks on me. Then I heard an engine. I remembered the torch dangling loosely from its strap around my wrist, which I had switched off in order to conserve its batteries for as long as possible. Somehow I found the strength to grasp it, switch it on, and wave it frantically. I tried to shout but my voice came only in gasps, and in any case, whoever was aboard that noisy sounding boat would never be able to hear.
They spotted me. At the time it seemed like a miracle, but later I realised that they were half expecting me to be on the Pencil. They had come looking for me.
The beam of my torch, still quite powerful thanks to my energy-conservation efforts, picked up the approaching bow of an inflatable — quite possibly the one which had dumped me there in the first place — nosing its way through the hazardous array of rocks. The boat came alongside the Pencil, unable to tie up anywhere now even temporarily as the ledge was four or five feet under water, and seconds later strong arms reached up for me and pulled me downwards.
I collapsed into a kind of human cradle, a tangle of limbs. The faces were just a hazy shadow. I had no idea even how many people were aboard the small boat, let alone who they were, and neither did I care. I had, however, a vague impression that young Jason did not seem to be among them, although, in reality, I was only half-conscious.
‘It’s all right, you are safe now,’ said a soothing male voice.
They knew about survival, it seemed. They wrapped me in tin foil and then blankets and something hot, sweet and liquid was pressed to my lips. I remember gulping it gratefully, feeling warming reviving fluid cursing through my system. Yet I was only barely aware of what was going on. I did know that I was safe. I knew that the ordeal was over. And that was enough. The next few hours were indistinct. At some stage I realised vaguely that I was back on dry land, the motion of the sea no longer rocking me, and that there were other new voices speaking and a certain bustle going on around me.
Strong arms carried me again. There was the sound of another engine, the island Land Rover perhaps. I was almost oblivious. I had no recollection of where I was taken or of being stripped of my sodden clothes and put to bed, although later it became apparent that is what had happened. Ultimately I became aware only of deep warmth and comfort and of the overpowering need for sleep.
Eventually I woke. I was lying on the softest mattress I had ever experienced, wrapped in white sheets so crisp they crackled when I moved, upon a bed which seemed to be about the same size as most people’s houses. Gradually I took in a room of extremely grand proportions with huge towering windows. My first impression was of a glorious abundance of light again. And my second of a handsome Charles Dance lookalike sitting by my bedside peering at me anxiously.