Betty Neels: Making Sure of Sarah

BETTY NEELS spent her childhood and youth in Devonshire, England, before training as a nurse and midwife. She was an army nursing sister during the war, married a Dutchman and subsequently lived in Holland for fourteen years. She now lives with her husband in Dorset, and has a daughter and grandson. Her hobbies are reading, animals, old buildings and writing. Betty started to write on retirement from nursing, incited by a lady in a library bemoaning the lack of romantic novels.

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

SARAH looked out of the car’s windows at the flat, peaceful countryside of Holland, no longer listening to her stepfather’s angry voice blaming everyone and everything but himself for getting lost. Her mother, sitting beside him with the map, had been ignored when she had pointed out the road they should have taken, but the main butt of his ill humour was Sarah.

He turned his red, angry face and said over his shoulder, ‘You must have known that we had taken a wrong turning—why didn’t you say so?’

Sarah said in her quiet voice, ‘I don’t know Holland. I came with you and Mother because you wanted someone who could speak French while you were in France.’ She added before he could reply, ‘If you had told us that you intended going back home through Belgium and Holland I would have bought a Dutch dictionary—so that I could have asked the way,’ she pointed out in a matter-of-fact voice.

‘Don’t annoy your father, dear,’ said her mother.

‘He isn’t my father; he’s my stepfather,’ said Sarah, and she wondered why her mother, after ten years or more, could bear to be married to him, and why she expected Sarah to think of him as her father. It had been mutual dislike at first sight, but her mother, who had managed to go through life turning a blind eye to anything which upset her, had steadfastly pretended that her ill-tempered husband and the daughter she had never quite understood were the best of friends.

Then, because she loved her mother, Sarah added, ‘There was a road sign a mile or so back. It said “Arnhem, seventeen kilometres”.’

‘Why didn’t you say so?’ asked her stepfather furiously. ‘Letting me drive miles out of my way.’

‘I did. You told me not to bother you.’

He drove on then, muttering under his breath. Sarah turned a deaf ear, vaguely aware of her mother’s conciliatory murmurs, uneasy now since he was driving much too fast. The road was narrow, with a ditch on either side and fields beyond; it stretched ahead of them with nothing in sight and the March day was drawing to a close. She thanked heaven silently that there were no curves or corners, and no traffic at all.

She had overlooked the ditches. Her stepfather, never a good driver, and an even worse one when he was in a bad temper, took a hand off the wheel to snatch the map from his wife’s lap, and the car shot over the narrow grass verge and tumbled into the ditch.

The ditch was half filled with water draining from the fields, and the car hit the muddy bottom with tremendous force, its bonnet completely buried.

Sarah, flung hither and thither and ending up rather the worse for wear, still in her seat belt, was too shocked to speak, but it was, in a way, reassuring to hear her stepfather swearing, and then shouting, ‘Get me out, get me out!’

Typical! thought Sarah, light-headed. What about Mother…? She came to then, scrambling round until she could undo the belt and lean over the seat where her mother was. Her mother was slumped over, her head against the dashboard, and she didn’t answer when Sarah spoke to her. Sarah leaned over and found her arm and felt for her pulse—beating, she was relieved to find, reasonably strong. Her stepfather gave another shout, and she said loudly, ‘Be quiet, do. Get out and help Mother, she’s hurt…’

‘You stupid girl. I’m hurt—my leg, my chest. Never mind your mother for the moment, go and get help. Be quick. Heaven knows how badly injured I am.’

‘This is your fault,’ said Sarah, ‘and all you can think of is that you’re hurt. Well, so is Mother…’

She wriggled out of her seat, and after a struggle managed to open the door of the car. The water, icy cold and thick with mud, came up to her knees, but she hardly noticed that. It was late afternoon and the sky was grey, but there was still plenty of light. She tugged at the handle of the door by her mother and found it jammed, so got back into the car again and leaned over to open it from inside. It didn’t budge.

Frantically she managed to undo her mother’s seat belt and haul her gently into a more comfortable position, relieved to feel her pulse was stronger now. There were rugs in the boot, but first she must turn off the engine, still running, and take a look at her stepfather. She hung over the back of his seat and managed to undo his seat belt and sit him up a little, not listening to his roars of rage.

And all this had taken only a few minutes, she realised, edging her way round to the boot and finding it thankfully burst open and the rugs easy to reach. She tucked them round her mother and stepfather and then scrambled up the bank and took a look. The flat countryside stretched round her, wide fields divided by ditches, a few trees, and not a house in sight. There was a clump of larger trees some way off. Perhaps there would be a farm there, but surely even on this quiet road there would be traffic or something, someone…

There was; still far off, but coming towards her, was a horse and cart. Sarah shouted then, and waved and shouted again until she was hoarse, but the cart didn’t increase its speed. She didn’t dare to leave her mother and stepfather, and watched it in an agony of impatience as the beast plodded steadily towards her. When the cart was near enough she ran towards it.

The man holding the reins halted the horse and stared down at her.

‘An accident,’ said Sarah. ‘Police, ambulance, hospital.’ And, since he didn’t seem to understand her, she said it all again and added, ‘Please, hurry…’

The man had a broad, dull face but he looked kind. He looked across at the upended car and then back at Sarah. ‘Politie?’

‘Yes, yes. Please, hurry…’

He nodded then, thought for a moment, and broke into speech. It was a pity that she couldn’t understand a word of it, but he ended with the word politie and urged his horse forward. Sarah watched the cart disappear slowly into the distance until the clump of trees hid it from view, and then she climbed back into the ditch.

Her mother was moaning a little, and Sarah tucked the rug more tightly around her and contrived to shift her legs so that they were free of the cold water which filled the front of the car. She tried to do the same for her stepfather, but one leg was at an awkward angle and she didn’t dare to touch it. She made him as comfortable as possible and climbed out of the ditch once more, to meet a heartening sight: the blue flashing lights of a police car coming at speed.