Fifty feet away, a tall man in hiking boots strode along the footpath, approaching us at a brisk pace. He carried a bulky haversack on his shoulders and his bare knees brushed aside the long grass. Between his heavy beard and the hair that crowded his forehead was a narrow face with red-rimmed eyes, as if he had spent too much of his hiking holiday reading in an unlit tent. A paperback guidebook to Eton and Windsor protruded from the pocket of his tartan shirt, and he seemed more interested in finding the historic site of Runnymede than in this tragedy on the riverbank.

As he neared us, he caught sight of the little girl. Before anyone could speak he slipped the haversack onto the ground, asked a middle-aged couple to keep an eye on it, and stepped through the circle of onlookers. He ignored the sobbing mother and knelt on the grass, taking the arms of the inert child from the exhausted attendant.

His bony fingers moved like a conjuror’s over the child. He lifted her shoulders, so that her head fell back, forced apart her jaws with his thumb, and with a deft hooking movement of his forefinger released some obstruction in the back of her throat. One hand held her ribs and the other compressed her diaphragm. Instantly there was a gush of water from the child’s mouth. Carefully smoothing his beard, he bent down and placed his lips over her mouth and nose. He began to breathe slowly but strongly, stopping to pump the child’s breastbone. As he worked, the crowd of some thirty people was silent around him.

“She’s breathing … oh my God.” Cleo’s fingernails had torn the fabric of my shirt. The girl was coughing. She choked and spat out the water in her lungs and windpipe. The bearded man watched her calmly with his bloodshot eyes, then sat her up with his strong hands and steadied her breathing. The girl gasped at the air, and her eyes focused on the circle of people. She leaned against her distraught mother, coughed, and rubbed her nose, sucking great gasps of air over her swollen tongue.

Two cars had backed to the edge of the stone ramp, the drivers discussing the fastest route to the hospital at Windsor. As the water streamed from her cotton dress, the mother carried the child to the nearer of the cars. Cleo smiled at me through the tears that blurred her mascara. Everyone followed the child, but I was watching the bearded man who had saved her. He made sure that the child was breathing comfortably in the car, then slipped through the crowd and reclaimed his haversack, thanking the couple who had placed it on their card table. Before the convoy left the car park he had already resumed his walk along the bank.

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