‘You have a point, Nic. It seems pretty bad.’ She looked her old friend straight in the eye, willing him to calm down. ‘But things could be worse. She’s crippled, maybe, but she doesn’t seem to be sinking. And there’s a silver lining.’
‘A silver lining! A silver lining! I have to tell you, Robin, I’m damned if I can see one. Where in hell’s name is the silver lining in all this mess?’
‘Well,’ answered Robin. ‘For a start, I think we’ve found Liberty …’
But as she spoke her bracing words, they were lost under the jangling of the fire alarm as all the lights went out.
TWENTY-FIVE
The sudden wrenching of the float line when Maxima became entangled was enough at one end to jerk five metres of the net and the shark off Pilar’s deck and to swing her right round. At the other end it was enough to flip Katapult8’s sail right over. The four women attached to each other and to the toggle beside the hand-holds were tossed from relative safety to deadly danger in an instant. Had it been any of the others secured to the toggle they might well have drowned there and then, but Florence Weary was quick-thinking and given a blessed extra dose of the grit with which Antipodeans count themselves blessed. She disregarded the desperate floundering of the three bodies tied to her harness, therefore, and felt for the simple carabineer clip that had them all fastened to the underside of the sail. Her face was hard up against the slick, black surface, her body was bent agonisingly at the waist and her back and legs were getting the crap kicked out of them, but all her focus was on that little metal hook. Blindly but unerringly, she felt for the tiny column of the catch. Disregarding the growing pain in her oxygen-starved lungs, she unscrewed the safety and pulled the spring clip wide. But there she stopped. The combination of her relentlessly buoyant life vest and increasingly vigorous movements of the others simply made it impossible for her to angle herself so as to slip that last couple of inches out of the toggle. For the first time since Katapult8 pitchpoled, it occurred to Flo that they might actually die here. Killed, for the most part, by their survival gear. She wondered whether to laugh or cry. But she did not panic. She simply focused on working out how to retrieve the situation. Then she felt something unexpected. Someone was feeling down her leg. At first, she thought that it was one of the others, tangled and panicking, and she kicked, trying to heave her body upwards that final inch or two. But the grasp on her thigh tightened; she felt a steady hand exploring the outside of her calf, and she understood. Someone was reaching for the knife strapped to her leg. It had to be Liberty, who had lost her own knife as she cut herself free after the wreck. Florence stayed still — in spite of the overpowering need to breathe — willing her friend and skipper to work more quickly. Because getting the knife would only be the first step. Liberty would have to use it accurately, carefully and quickly to cut them all free.
Flo did not feel the knife come out, for her consciousness was beginning to come and go. Only her Australian grit kept her mouth shut and what little was left of good air firmly in her lungs. But abruptly the grip on her leg loosened. The next thing she knew, her PFD exploded into a fury of bubbles and her harness sprang free. She felt herself falling out of it, weighed down by what she was wearing now that her lifebelt was punctured. But a firm hand caught her deflated lifejacket’s grab handle and dragged her back to the surface. ‘Shit,’ she heard as her head burst into the blessed air. ‘Now I’ve dropped that one too! What is it with these bloody knives?’
‘Look on the bright side,’ gulped Florence, still fighting for breath. ‘You only tend to lose them when you’re saving someone’s life.’
‘Enough of the byplay already,’ called Maya. ‘Let’s climb back aboard the sail before we get tangled in that fucking net or bitten by whatever’s eating the poor bastard fish that are caught in it.’
This time the four women found themselves at the narrower side of the sail, so it was possible for them to help each other flounder aboard and scrabble their way up the slick surface to the thick part. Emma clipped on and the others hung on to her because their lines, cut by Liberty, were too short to tie again. And in any case, Florence’s whole harness was gone, while her lifejacket looked as though Jack the Ripper had been playing with it.
The only one who did not spread-eagle herself and hold on for dear life was Liberty. The near-death experience had galvanized her. No longer listless and comatose, she knelt up, holding Florence’s right hand with her left, and used her own right to shade her eyes as she looked along the float-line towards a vague, distant brightness. She couldn’t see it clearly, but it had substance. It was there. She was certain. Seventy-five per cent certain. ‘It’s some kind of boat!’ she yelled down to Florence, hoping her voice would carry over the rumble of the rain.
‘Do you think its Maxima?’ asked Florence.
‘I don’t know. I hope it is because she has to be here looking for us. And I hope it’s not because I think she must be tangled in the net like Katapult8.’
‘Not quite like Katapult8,’ countered Flo bracingly. ‘At least she’s still afloat, whoever she is. Have we got any way of signalling to her?’
‘Shouting and waving and that’s about it. All the flares and stuff went down with Katapult8.’
‘Then if they haven’t seen us already we’re screwed,’ said Florence roundly. ‘No one’s going to see us waving or hear us shouting in this.’
Liberty agreed. She knelt there, staring hopefully along the line of floats, cudgelling her brain for any sort of an idea to help them attract the attention of whoever was out there when suddenly the brightness vanished. Through the overpowering roar of the rain there was a strange, keening wail. Her heart gave a horrified lurch and she gasped in shock and actual pain. She felt as though she had been stabbed in the chest — and suddenly registered how much hope that vague, distant brightness had given her. And now it was gone. Her mind whirled. Had it moved off? Had it sunk as suddenly as Katapult8?
She abruptly realized that she was shouting. Screaming. ‘Hey! Hey! We’re here! Over here!’ There were tears streaming down her face, distinguished from the rain on her chilled cheeks only by the fact that they seemed scaldingly hot. Her right arm seemed to take on a life of its own, waving so wildly that her left hand tore out of Florence’s grip. Then she was waving with both hands and Florence was up on her knees beside her, screaming and waving madly as well. Then Maya joined in. Leaning against each other for support and stability, the three of them pushed themselves erect, still shouting, screaming and waving wildly. They stood there unsteadily, making so much noise and movement that even the huge sail began to rock. Only Emma was left, spread-eagled, attached to the toggle and too sensible to risk uncoupling herself, just in case her apparently hysterical crewmates still needed a secure anchor.
So it was Emma, flat on her face and ready to grab any of the others who might lose her footing, but looking in the opposite direction to them, who saw it first. It was so silent and so unexpected that she doubted her eyes; doubted her sanity for a moment. Initially Emma saw a darker shadow in the restless grey veils of the downpour. A shadow that coalesced into a vague shape as it approached through curtain after curtain of rain. It gradually became a fat, black, inverted capital T. The crosspiece on the water looked to be a couple of metres wide and the upright rising above it a couple of metres tall. And it approached silently — whatever noise it was making lost behind the sound of the rain as its precise shape disappeared behind its relentless thickness.