The landing was painful, but only for a moment or two. He set off at a run, back toward the place where he’d left the Sunfish moored.
But as he approached, he could see the berth was empty. The Sunfish was gone.
Shipwreck Alley
Will came to a halt, not sure what to do next.
He’d hoped that the others would manage to get away. But he couldn’t help feeling bereft.
“Hey!” someone hissed.
Will looked around, and to his immense relief, Pod stuck his head up from a hiding place behind the water-pumping equipment and beckoned to him. Will scampered over and dived in next to him.
“What happened?” he gasped. “Where are the others? Where’s the boat?”
“Admiralty’s everywhere,” Pod said. “When Graham said you were captured, Annalie took the boat and got it out of the harbor. I waited with the dinghy in case you came back.”
“So where’s the dinghy?”
“That way,” Pod nodded toward the boardwalk. “Let’s go.”
They looked out cautiously. The coast seemed to be clear. Will followed Pod down the boardwalk to the far end where a number of dinghies and rowboats were pulled up on the beach. Will saw, with a sort of pride, that Annalie had rigged their dinghy with a motor (usually they just rowed it about). The boys dragged it down the beach, pushed it out, and were away.
The motor roared as they bounced out of the port. Pod was at the tiller; he seemed to know where he was going. The wind made conversation impossible. Will watched all around him for the Admiralty ship he knew must be nearby, but there was no sign of it.
They skimmed round a headland, and there was the Sunfish waiting for them, Essie and Annalie keeping an anxious lookout. While the boys secured the dinghy and climbed aboard, Annalie hauled up the anchor.
Will hurried to the wheel. “Let’s get out of here!”
The winds were too light to be of much help. Will powered up the engine and the boat began to move. Annalie was beside him, checking the charts.
“There’s a clear passage ahead,” she said, pointing. “Don’t go west—there are rocks.”
They motored as fast as they could toward the open channel ahead of them—but then, from the other side of the bay, an Admiralty destroyer came gliding into view.
“So that’s where they were hiding,” Will said.
“They’ve been lying in wait for us,” Annalie said.
“Can we outrun them?” asked Essie.
“Are you kidding?” Will said.
He corrected his course, veering away from them, although he knew there was no way he could avoid them. They were on a course to intercept and they were faster and more powerful than the Sunfish.
“What can we do?” Annalie asked.
An idea came to Will. “This,” he said. He spun the wheel and turned west.
“Where are you going?” Annalie shrieked.
“Where they won’t follow us.”
“But they call this Shipwreck Alley!” Annalie said.
“Lucky we’re not a ship then. We’re just a little boat.”
Annalie looked at him aghast, then took a deep breath and turned to the others. “Okay. Essie, I need you to go up the front and keep a look out for rocks. Pod, you do the same. Will, I’ll try and talk you through it.”
Annalie looked at the chart while Essie and Pod scrambled to the front and hung over the boat’s edge, looking out for obstacles.
Their path lay between two islands—the passage seemed deceptively wide, but there were fringes of rock not far below the surface.
“Stay on this line,” Annalie said, checking their position.
“Roger that,” said Will. “What are they doing?”
Annalie looked behind her. “They’re changing course.”
The Sunfish motored forwards.
“I see something up ahead!” Essie called. “Right!”
“Do you mean it’s on the right or I should turn right?” Will shouted.
“On the right!” Essie shouted.
Will corrected. The boat motored on.
“Another big one coming up on the portside,” Annalie warned.
Will corrected again. “What’s that Admiralty ship doing now?” he asked.
Annalie looked around again. “I’ve lost them.”
“What?”
The Admiralty ship had disappeared from view. Annalie realized where they must have gone. “I think they’re circling around behind the island,” she said. “They must be going to try and cut us off.”
“We’ll see about that,” Will said grimly. He increased speed.
Essie, at the front, yelped. “Rock! Left! Big one!”
They veered.
“There’s a very tight passage coming up,” Annalie warned. “Slow down.”
“Just tell me where to steer,” said Will determinedly.
“You need to come round to port.”
“Coming round.”
“You’re overshooting.”
“Correcting!”
“We’re going in too fast!”
“Too late now!”
“Rocks!” shouted Essie.
They sailed into a narrow channel. Rocks loomed on both sides. The boat powered on, rising and falling over the fast-running current.
Will gripped the wheel, Annalie tracked their position, Essie gripped the railing in front, hardly daring to look.
“Turn left!” Essie shouted.
A rock loomed above the water, directly ahead. Will turned the wheel. The boat began to turn, but not fast enough. They struck. The boat gave a shudder, and then turned, tearing, across the rock with a noise that made Will’s heart freeze. But they hadn’t stuck. They were still moving. “Someone go below and have a look!” Will shouted.
Pod went below. There was a rip in the wall of the starboard cabin, and water was pouring in. The sight of all that water surging in, completely uncontrolled, paralyzed him. He had no idea what to do next.
Suddenly Annalie was there at his side. She grabbed one of the pillows off the bed and stuffed it in the hole, squishing it in with her foot. It was surprisingly effective at slowing the flow of water. “There’s nothing more we can do about the hole now, we’ll have to try and fix it later. Get the pump going, quick. Then shut the cabin door. It might help contain the water.”
While Pod got the pump working, Annalie went back on deck.
The channel had widened again and Will was steering more calmly. “We’re out of the worst of it,” he said.
“Rocks on the right!” Essie called.
“There’s a big hole in the hull,” Annalie said.
“Below the waterline or above?”
“Right about on it. There’s a lot of water coming in. Pod’s getting the pump going.”
“We can’t fix it now,” Will said.
“I know. But we’re going to have to fix it soon, or it could sink us.”
As they motored on, they saw a dreadful sight: the Admiralty boat slid into view. They were traveling at full speed and were once more on an intercept course.
“Should have known they wouldn’t give up so easily,” Will said. “Is there anywhere else we can get to quickly? Our motor’s not going to last too much longer.”
Annalie studied the charts. “They’ve cut us off. We have to go that way, along that route there, there’s no other way out. We’re cut off from the rest of the Islands by the Emperor Reef.”
“The Emperor Reef?” Will repeated. “Is that where we are?”
The island group they were passing through was protected by a huge coral reef, hundreds of kilometres long. Once it had been one of the wonders of the world, but then the Flood had killed it. Now it was just a barrier to shipping.
The two islands they’d passed betwe
en stood almost as a gateway to the reef—it lay to starboard, not far from their present position.
Will leaned over the chart, studying it. “A destroyer can’t get across the reef until they get all the way up to here,” he said, tracing the route that led to the break in the reef, a long way to the north, where most ships crossed. “That’s why all the shipping routes go that way.”
Annalie was studying the charts too. “But maybe there’s a place where a little boat could get through,” she said.
They put their heads together, searching—and there it was.
“A channel,” Will said.
“Can we make it there?” Annalie asked.
It was still a long way to their north. They would have to race the destroyer to reach the channel first.
“We have to try,” Will said.
He changed course and pushed the engine to full.
They surged forwards on their new heading, the destroyer following implacably. They crossed the open water, heading for the distant reef.
“I don’t think we’re going fast enough,” Annalie said, looking back.
“We can’t go any faster,” Will said.
“They’re gaining on us!”
“You know, that really isn’t helping.”
They pushed on and pushed on, the huge boat in pursuit of the tiny one. The destroyer was soon level with them, easily matching their pace, but then the reef came into view.
“Water’s getting shallower,” Annalie said.
“Shallow enough to lose them?” Will asked.
“Not yet.”
They powered up the outer edge of the reef, Annalie watching closely for the gap, the destroyer stalking them from the deeper water.
“There!” Annalie shouted.
Will turned the wheel, and they slid into the channel through the reef.
Annalie turned to watch what the destroyer was doing. “I think we caught them by surprise!” she called. “They’re still going forwards.”
“It’ll take them a little while to turn around,” Will said. “Are they launching small boats?”
“Not yet,” Annalie said.
Will kept motoring on, determined to put as much distance as he could between them and the destroyer.
“Wait! I see them! They’re coming!” Annalie cried.
And they came: two inflatable boats with big powerful motors, very like the ones the submarine pirates had used, each with a complement of marines. The inflatables came bounding across the water, eating up the distance between the destroyer and the Sunfish.
“Are they armed?” Will asked.
“What do you think?” Annalie said.
“We got any weapons?” asked Pod. He had returned to the deck.
“Spinner doesn’t believe in that sort of thing,” Annalie said.
Pod made a rude noise.
“We’ll just have to try and outrun them,” Will said.
“Have the batteries got enough juice in them?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Will said.
The inflatables were in the channel now, gaining on them all the time. When they drew closer, they heard a voice distorted by a loudhailer. “Attention Sunfish! Turn off your engine and prepare to be boarded.”
“Like hell,” Will muttered, and kept right on going.
The voice on the loudhailer repeated the command.
“Do you think we should do as they say?” Essie said.
“Give up now?” Will said, laughing.
The voice on the loudhailer said, “Attention Sunfish! This is your final warning! If you do not turn off your engines, we will board you by force!”
“You give it a red-hot go,” Will shouted.
One of the inflatables came surging up alongside them. The marines on board were standing ready with ropes and grappling hooks. “Grab an oar!” Will yelled. “Fend ’em off!”
Annalie and Essie both grabbed oars as the inflatable pulled in alongside them. Ladders and grappling hooks swung up, and the girls took wild swipes at the marines, trying to stop them hooking onto the boat. Annalie smashed at one who’d managed to hook a ladder over their railing; the marine fell back into the water and Annalie grabbed the ladder and tossed it over the side as one of the inflatables pulled back to recover their injured comrade.
The second inflatable swung round the other side of the Sunfish. Annalie could see the man with the loudhailer now. His face was turned toward them, his eyes invisible behind mirrored sunglasses. “Attention Sunfish, if you continue to resist, we will designate you a hostile vessel and we will use force.”
Annalie shouted at him across the small gap. “We’re just kids! Look at us! Do we look like a hostile vessel to you?”
“Prepare to be boarded,” said Mr. Loudhailer. The second inflatable came in, ladders and hooks at the ready. Then suddenly the inflatable’s engine seized and fell silent.
The marines looked around in confusion. The engine’s operator stood and pointed. “Him!”
Annalie turned to see Pod holding Will’s speargun. To her utter astonishment, she realized that Pod must have fired a spear into the engine and scored a direct hit. He was already loading a second spear into the gun and ducking over to the other side of the boat to take aim at the other inflatable.
“Hostile!” someone shouted.
Shots rang out.
Annalie dropped to the deck, not believing the marines would actually fire on them, and saw Essie and Will do the same.
Only Pod stayed on his feet. He shot again, and missed.
“Pod, get down!” Will called.
But Pod took no notice. As the second inflatable came after them, Pod put one more bolt in the speargun. More shots rang out. Pod fired. Incredibly, he hit his target. The second engine sputtered into silence.
The Sunfish, still at full speed, kept motoring on. The inflatables, both engines damaged, quickly dropped behind. Will jumped to his feet and took the wheel again. The channel through the reef was narrow and twisty. It would be a poor sort of victory if they outran an Admiralty destroyer, only to run aground on the reef.
Pod let the speargun fall to the deck. “We’re safe now,” he said. He seemed dazed.
Annalie got to her feet, a strange light-headed feeling coming over her, as if the world was moving too fast. “Is everyone okay?”
“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” Essie said, scrambling to her feet.
Will looked at Pod, giggling giddily. “I can’t believe you took on the Admiralty with a speargun,” he said.
“Will,” Annalie said, “why are you bleeding?”
Will looked down questioningly. There was blood streaming down his leg and running into rivulets on the deck. He found a tear at the bottom of his shorts; below it, his thigh had been laid open and was gushing blood. “I think I’ve been shot,” he said.
Holed
Seeing the blood made the bullet wound a reality. Will’s legs gave way beneath him and he slumped to the deck, groaning.
The others ran to him.
“How deep is it?” Annalie asked. “Is it serious?”
There was so much blood it was hard to tell.
“We should take him below and clean up the wound a bit so we can see what we’re dealing with,” Essie said.
Will seemed to be going into delayed shock, but his mind was still on the job. “Is someone steering the boat?” he asked.
“I’ll steer,” Pod said.
Pod took the wheel. Essie and Annalie helped Will down into the saloon. For a moment Annalie was shocked to see there was almost a foot of water sloshing around down there. Then she remembered they’d been holed. She felt her brain begin to freeze with panic as she struggled to decide what to deal with first. The gunshot wound? The hull? The need to get away from their pursuers?
> “Are we sinking?” Essie asked in a frightened voice.
“I don’t feel so good,” Will groaned.
Annalie wanted to burst into tears. But then she reminded herself that there was no one else who could get them out of this now. It was all on her shoulders. And the first thing she had to do was convince the others that she knew what she was doing, otherwise everyone would start to panic.
“Essie,” she said, in the calmest voice she could manage, “can you take a look at Will’s wound while I work out what to do about the hole?”
Together, the girls hoisted Will on the table, then Essie went to fetch the first-aid kit while Annalie went back to the starboard cabin for another look.
The water was still pouring in through the rip in the cabin wall, surging with the swell. It was scary seeing the water rushing into the boat. She knew that a hole this size could take on enough water to sink it very quickly, and if they were forced to abandon ship here it would be disastrous. She stood there for a little while, trying to gauge how much water was coming in. The pump was puttering away, pumping the water back out again. If it was coming in faster than the pump could pump it out, then they had a problem. She decided that the water didn’t seem to be getting a lot deeper; the pump would hold it for now.
She came out of the cabin and went to see how Will and Essie were doing. Essie had washed the excess blood off Will’s leg, although more kept pouring out.
“I think the bullet’s hit him in the thigh, gone through the muscle, and come out the other side,” Essie said. “See, there’s a smallish hole here and then—”
“A big mess out the back,” Annalie finished grimly.
“That’s good though, isn’t it?” Essie said. “You don’t want the bullet to be stuck in there. I don’t think it hit the bone either.”
“Do you know first aid?” Annalie asked hopefully.
“No,” Essie said. “But I love doctor shows. Did you ever watch Frontier Hospital? People are always getting shot in that.”
“Do you think you can stop the bleeding?” Annalie asked.
The Flooded Earth Page 20