The Incident Concerning The Alsatian Dog.

Chapter 2

"Come on, Izzy!" I sighed, looking behind me. "It's not far now!"

"Once again, Allie Winter, I can not believe you've dragged me into this!" Isabel complained, stumbling along the beach down to the jetty.

"Come on, Isabel!" Lieutenant Newham agreed, climbing up behind my sister to help her along.

"The jetty's literally right there, Isabel!" Hettie added, as I pulled my friend over a particularly stubborn rock.

"The jetty could be a million miles away for all the good it's doing me!" Isabel grumbled, as Percy Broker came along to help her from the other side.

"Are you coping there, Doctor?" I laughed, scrambling back down the rock to help him, the wind blowing my hair around madly. It was cold, and we were attempting to traverse a very rocky beach, along to the boat that would take us to the Isle of Wight.

"Just about" Dr. Scott replied. "My old bones are holding up so far."

"I didn't realise it was going to be this breezy!" Hettie apologised, having to shout over the wind.

"Breezy? It's blowing a blinking gale!" Isabel groaned loudly.

"Come on!" I yelled. "And stop complaining!"

Hettie was the first to reach the jetty, as I had gone back to help Dr. Scott. The doctor, Newham, Isabel and I had met at Kings Cross Station that morning and travelled most of the way by train, meeting Hettie and her husband at the other end and beginning our walk to where we were now. Wisely, Isabel and I had decided to change into our walking boots on the train, as Isabel had decided she would be doing nothing but staring at the floor and praying. Considering the current weather, I worried that I might be doing exactly the same thing. As Hettie helped me haul Dr. Scott up onto the jetty, I looked around at Isabel again, with Newham and Broker, still a little way behind. Hettie held onto her hat as it was nearly blown off by a gust that nearly took me with it. Being small, and light, high winds were more troublesome for me than they were for everyone else.

"I'll go talk to the boatman!" Hettie yelled, and I nodded as she wobbled along the little jetty, holding onto the rickety railing in a hope it would stop her being blown over. I leant down and pulled Isabel up onto the jetty, as Newham and Broker jumped up next to me.

"Are we all here?" Broker shouted. We all nodded, and followed Hettie along the jetty. Isabel was looking decidedly green.

"It'll be alright" I told her, taking her hand to help. We staggered along as Hettie flagged us down next to the ferry, which, I was happy to say, seemed in better condition than the jetty was. As we climbed aboard, Isabel's face had turned from slightly green to decidedly ashy grey. She sat down next to the doctor, and I sat down on the other side, with Newham, Hettie and Broker opposite us. The driver, a bespectacled old man with a limp and a rather holey hat, called up from the cabin.

"All ready?"

"Yes, sir!" Broker shouted back. "Whevever you're ready!"

The driver seemed to take this far too literally, as in an instant the boat coughed into life and nearly tipped in the strong winds. Isabel groaned and buried her head in my shoulder as we set off, rocking and rolling over the waves. I held her other hand tightly as she fumbled in her purse for her seasickness pills. Personally, I didn't think they actually worked, but as I was starting to get a bit of the motion sickness as well, I didn't complain. I caught Newham's eye over the boat, and he looked quizzically at me, as if to ask if I was coping. I nodded confidently, and he smiled, although due to the rocking waves it was more of a grimace.

By the time we staggered ashore half an hour later, I had irreversibly decided that boat journey had been something I would not forget in a hurry, and for all of the wrong reasons. Isabel had been sick not once, but twice, and I'd therefore had to share the journey with two paper bags containing the contents of my sister's stomach. The wind had been dreadful, and Hettie had lost her hat overboard, it having been blown off her head with surprising force. Newham had also looked a bit pale around the edges on the voyage, but I reckoned that was just because he'd had front row seats for Isabel being sick. The doctor and I seemed to cope quite well, as my preoccupation with my poor sister took away from the whole drama of the trip, and the old doctor merely shut his eyes, held on, and waited patiently for the trip to be over. Broker, meanwhile, appeared to have been in his element, lecturing us (well, mainly Newham) on boats, and motors, and wind speed, and waves, and clouds, and anything else he found remotely interesting at the time. Sadly all he did was get on my nerves.