‘You can’t do this,’ he said savagely, and he put his hands on her shoulders to try and draw her out. Hell, she’d break every bone in her arm.
‘No. No! I can feel a hoof. Leave me!’
She shoved herself further forward. ‘More water,’ she gasped. He splashed a bit more water over her arm and then took the bar of soap and ran it around the vaginal entrance. If he had time… He had lubricants in the car…
‘I have it,’ she whispered. ‘One. Two. Three… Don’t muck me up now. I have four hooves. Please, Doris, hold the contractions… I have to push…’
‘What the…?’
‘There’re four hooves coming down at once and the head’s right back,’ she muttered into the pig, and he didn’t know if she was talking to him or to herself. ‘It’s stuck like a cork. I need to get it up. I need to push…’
Another contraction. It jerked Tessa’s arm, hauling her body with it.
She was so slight!
She had to be slight to succeed. No man could get his arm into that canal. Cows maybe, but not pigs.
‘Bring the light over,’ Mike ordered, his eyes not leaving the girl’s face. There was agony written there, but also sheer, bloody-minded determination. ‘Jacob, go and get my bag from the car.’
‘But what’s happening?’ It was taking Jacob a long time to work out he was in on a birth, rather than taking part in a criminal raid. He sounded totally bewildered.
‘We’re having piglets,’ Mike said into the stillness. ‘At least I hope we are.’
His hands came down and held the girl’s shoulders, gripping hard, letting her move as she willed but giving her support when she needed it so the pig’s contractions stopped jerking her sideways.
He was trying to let her feel she wasn’t alone. It was all he could do, and it wasn’t enough. He felt utterly helpless in the face of her pain.
Who on earth was she?
He could feel the effort she was making. Once each contraction had passed, she put everything she had into shoving the piglet forward, upward and higher. During the contraction she concentrated on holding it back and not letting her efforts be wasted. He could feel her whole body straining.