Bottom Field was awash with seawater and sheep.
It was only their first, terrified, headlong rush that had brought them within reach of the waves, but now they were there it was impossible to escape. The boggy grass was as treacherous as quicksand. As the sheep struggled to retreat, towering breakers battered them off their hooves and swept them bleating into the flood.
Gruff’s world teetered. The shape of the coast he had known all his life was lost in a new tideline that ate half of Bottom Field up in one gulp and clawed hungrily for more. His mind was blank and he could not begin to work out how to help the terrified flock. Then Hywel nuzzled his hand and the old dog’s touch seemed to ground him. Gruff remembered Dad’s lessons and imagined the field and the sheep as a puzzle to be solved. He saw the paths that Hywel needed to take, and he brought his rainwater-wet fingers to his mouth and whistled. Hywel sped into the fray, mud flinging in clods from his paws.
Gruff got Hywel to work slowly down the field, gradually collecting the sheep as though they were cream being skimmed off the top of fresh milk from Evan’s cows. Hywel came round again and again, corralling the frightened sheep, persuading them up the slope towards the farmhouse, then dashing back for the next pass until there were over twenty runaways huddled around Gruff.
Gruff whistled Hywel back down for the next group and, too late, saw a wave sweeping low and deadly along the ground towards the old dog. It carried Hywel and the sheep he had gone to collect right off their feet, washing them up the field and back down to the sea, faster than thought.
‘No!’ Gruff screamed.
Hywel and the sheep floundered in a mess of heads and legs and Gruff lost sight of them as the next wave thundered over.
Gruff ran down the field with no real idea of what to do. As he reached the place where Hywel had fallen, he saw the old dog labouring on the crest of a new wave, black-and-white fur clinging close to his bones and his eyes utterly trusting as they met Gruff’s. Gruff braced himself and the wave thumped into his knees; he caught Hywel as he swept up to him, and clung to him tightly as the water ebbed back. Then he was stumbling up the slope, carrying Hywel awkwardly in his arms, half sobbing with relief.
As Gruff reached the huddled flock, Hywel licked his face and struggled to get down. Gruff put him on the grass and the old dog shook himself so determinedly that he almost fell over. Gruff steadied him and looked back the way they had come. His stomach turned at the sight of the sheep still tossing in the edges of the storm-capped sea. ‘I’ll come back,’ he whispered.
Right now he had to do something about the shivering flock too confused to move further up the field, and the drenched dog who had nearly drowned for his loyalty. ‘Walk up,’ he whistled, and Hywel padded ahead of him on shaky legs, encouraging the sheep towards the farmyard. Gruff counted them as they walked. Twenty-seven ewes and wethers, four lambs. Baa-bara’s two lambs were missing. She was the most distressed of the group, bleating loudly and trying to turn back. Gruff felt sick with guilt. ‘I’ll look for them,’ he said. ‘I promise.’ Though he did not hold high hopes of finding them in that wide, wild sea.
They entered the farmyard and Gruff went ahead and untied the twine, opening his makeshift barrier into the barn. Hywel brought up the rear, seeing the rescued runaways safely inside.
Gruff secured the hurdle and ran to the farmhouse, Hywel loping behind him. He unlatched the door and ushered Hywel inside. ‘Good boy. Good boy. You’re the best of dogs.’ He rubbed him down with the already-damp towel, rewarded him with a handful of treats and left him on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket. Then he grabbed a coil of rope from the tool shed and ran back to Bottom Field.
The rain had stopped whilst he was inside the farmhouse but the spray on the wind was so thick that it hardly seemed to make a difference. His hands were freezing but his adrenaline burnt like fire inside him. Eleven sheep and three lambs, two of them separated from their mother. He had to try.
He had to.
Gruff headed straight for the single, windswept hawthorn tree growing in the middle of Bottom Field. He looped the rope under his armpits as he ran, squelching towards waves that were taller than him. He reached the hawthorn and grabbed its gnarled bark just as a wave broke over the top of him, filling his eyes and nose with brine. He coughed and clung there until the water had subsided, working itself up for its next attack. With fumbling fingers Gruff tied the end of the rope round a branch, using a boat knot Dai had taught him. He tugged once on it and ran on down the field, scraping his eyes free of water and squinting through the spray.
Ahead of him he saw Dave and Greta half staggering, half swimming through deep water, Greta nudging her limp lamb ahead of her with anxious bleats. Gruff waded forwards and grabbed the lamb in both arms. She had always been half the size of the other lambs and was so weak now she hardly tried to struggle, but Gruff could feel her heart beating hard against his hands as he turned and led the way out of the water. Spurred on by this apparent kidnap attempt, Greta splashed after him until they were both free of the sea and staggering up the boggy field, Dave right behind them. Gruff put the lamb down and she immediately fell over. Greta nuzzled her and Gruff dithered, wondering if he should take them all the way up to the farm – but the sheep and lambs still out there didn’t have the luxury of time.
Gruff turned, tripped over his own rope and slid back down into the waves. He pushed himself to his feet and called into the wind. ‘Defaid! Deeefaid!’ Sheep! He stopped and listened … and a bleat came from somewhere to his left. Gruff waded until he ran out of land and then swam, the rope under his arms both a burden and a reassurance.
The bleat had belonged to silver-backed Bess, and to Gruff’s joy he saw that she was with Baa-bara’s two lost lambs. They were all doggy-paddling valiantly towards him out of the mist of spray. Gruff scooped his arm round Bess’s back-end, pushing her onwards, and with his free hand did his best to help the lambs stay afloat as he kicked his legs and headed for shore.
The small, dripping group he had left at the top of the field had swelled to five adults by the time Gruff arrived with Bess and her entourage. ‘How did you get here?’ Gruff laughed, giving Seren, Lewis and Frank relieved rubs on their backs and checking on Greta’s lamb. ‘Well done, guys!’
He ran back down the field, hope shining in his heart. Five more to find. He might actually make it! He might actually get them all to safety…
A scream of pain split the air. The sea swelled and came crashing onto the land with the pure anger of agony. It carried Gruff with it out into open water, well beyond the edge of the field. He struggled for the surface and gasped for breath, the rope drawing tight around his chest. The water here was colder, deeper, the island invisible beyond a curtain of spray. The scream had become a roar and melded with the sound of the wind and the sea.
It had happened. Dylan was struck. A wound upon his wound.
Dad’s out in this, Gruff thought. And Mat. And her mum. And everyone else on the lifeboat, and whoever they’ve gone to help.
He shuddered in the deep, cold water and forced his mind back to the sheep.
Gruff was lucky the tide was only just on the turn, or he might not have bumped into Fiona and Cai as they were swept back towards the land with the next wave. He grabbed them and helped them swim to safety. His arms and legs shook with the cold and strain as he turned once again for the water.
The wind dipped, just for a moment, and the spray cleared. In that second Gruff saw three struggling bodies far out to sea, caught by the current. The last three sheep. Guinevere, he recognised even from this distance. Bile rose in his throat. The sea had taken them away from him. They would drown. They would drown and there was nothing he could do.
As he stood there, wretched in that absolute certainty, a wave took him from his feet. The rope pulled taut, the tree branch snapped and he was released to the mercy of the sea.