Mum raced out of the house towards the back path and our home paddock. I tore after her, as fast as my six-year-old legs could carry me. As I pushed through the gate into the paddock, she was already halfway over the stile onto the road. Dad and Tipene were ahead of her, sprinting towards the bridge.

I struggled over the stile and started along the road. I heard myself making little whimpering noises. Something terrible had happened; I just knew it.

I could see the bridge just ahead. Something was different. What … then I stopped and stared.

A long chunk of the wooden deck had vanished. I was gazing down through empty air at the stones of the riverbed way below. Up against its steep bank, the Waimoana swept by, deep and powerful. I glimpsed something under the surface. Something red and crumpled-looking. A truck.

Voices shouted. Hands grabbed me. ‘Ailsa! Stay here!’ My mother pulled me against her. We stood, staring at the twisted shape in the surging river. Where was the driver?

Dad and Tipene had scrambled halfway down the bank. Another truck skidded to a stop at the far end, figures jumping out. My father and his friend were pulling off boots, stripping off shirts. No movement inside the truck.

My father crouched, facing the river. ‘Alan!’ Mum called. ‘Be careful!’ But Dad was already plunging into the water. Tipene leaped, too, straight after him. They disappeared under the surface. I could just make out their shapes, heaving at the door of the crumpled cab. Mum squeezed me against her so hard I thought she was going to squash me.

Tipene and Dad burst up from the water together. They sucked in huge breaths and dived once more. Mum and I stood staring into the river, where the two figures struggled at the truck’s door. Brakes squealed behind us, and Mr Ross from up the valley jumped out of his car. He wore his going-to-town clothes: good trousers, shirt and tie.

He hurried up to my mother and me. ‘What’s happened, Beth? Who is it?’

Mum opened her mouth to speak, then stopped. At the same moment, I saw a different movement under the water. The cab door sagged open; my father half-disappeared inside. Another second, then he and Tipene were dragging someone out into the current.

They shot up to the surface again, clutching the driver between them. Once more I heard them gasping for breath, then they began kicking towards the bank, pulling a limp body with them, trying to keep its head above water.

Mr Ross went sliding down the steep slope. Mrs Ross will be annoyed if he gets his good clothes dirty, I thought — like an idiot.

He seized my father’s hand and the driver’s shirt; yanked them upwards. Tipene shoved from behind. They struggled up out of the river, and flopped on a level part of the bank.