by Chris Vick
“Why not? I thought that’s why you got in after us?”
“Nah, I was putting a new leash on.”
“You were supposed to film it!” said Jade.
“We never agreed that!” said Skip. “Anyway… there’s always tomorrow…”
Everyone looked at everyone else in shock. We’d been so jacked on adrenaline, so smacked to the eyeballs on stoke, we’d forgotten to fix the cameras to the boards. We had no proof. No evidence of our legend status to stick on YouTube.
Then Rag sniggered, and Skip started laughing too. Even Big G. We all did. Apart from Jade. We couldn’t stop. We didn’t care. Even though we knew they’d never believe us, even though they’d laugh at our stories. We thought it was funny. Because none of that shit mattered any more. We’d know. We’d always know what that day had been like.
Only Jade didn’t join in.
“Idiots!” she shouted. “Well, at least there’s tomorrow, isn’t there?”
*
Back at the lighthouse, we fed on beans and sausages from tins, washed down with cider and vodka round the fire.
“Libations,” they said, like they always did. I didn’t say it. I raised my cup, but kept quiet. And Jade, seeing me, did the same. I didn’t want to be superstitious. It seemed lame.
We didn’t know what we’d face the next day. Whatever happened, I told myself I was putting my trust in myself, and in the others, not in offerings to the sea gods.
We talked of the waves, and what might happen.
“I reckon the swell will switch,” said Skip, mopping up beans with a lump of bread. “It’s a fickle reef, needs the swell right up the channel. The storm’ll get worse though; we might have to sit it out for a day. But so what, we’ve done it, right?” He raised a mug of cider. We banged our cups together and drank. Apart from Big G.
“Have we?” he said. “Maybe it’s just getting started.” He looked at me, checking how I’d react. I’d handled it today, but what if it got bigger? I just smiled, and raised my cup to him. He carried on. “We surfed the inner reef. Jade said there’s another one, further out. It didn’t work today. Maybe it’s just waiting for bigger waves.”
“Bring it on,” said Jade, like she was speaking for me. She leant into me, using my knee to rest on.
We all got drunk, but not so we lost it. We were too sharpened up by the waves for that. But we necked the drink fast, and eventually it loosened us up and piled up in our heads and worn out bodies. We had to sleep. Jade got down to her pants but kept her jumper on, climbed into her bag then snuggled up next to me in front of the fire.
“Keep me warm, Kook,” she said with her back to me, her voice a little slurry from the booze. After a few minutes she reached out and took my hand and put it round her.
“Let’s go outside,” I whispered. “In the storm,” I said. But she didn’t answer. And even above the wind I could hear her gentle, steady breath as she slept.
I went to sleep holding her hand, feeling the warmth off her and wanting her badly.
I listened to the storm, muscles shredded, skin tingling, my mind turned to liquid with the memory of the waves. I drifted off, feeling happier than I ever had.
*
It must have been five or six in the morning when I woke up.
I didn’t know why. The wind was there, but it was like a wolf howling on a far-off mountain. Distant. The mad crash of shore break was gone too.
Then it came.
A crack of power, so strong the rock beneath us shook, followed by long, rumbling thunder. Then, after maybe fifteen seconds, the same again, a bomb that shook the air. The dying fire jumped and sparked. Dust fell from the roof.
Jade was curled up in her bag next to me. She turned to face me. In the thin light, her eyes shone like jewels.
“Did you hear that?” she whispered.
“Lightning?” I whispered back.
She shook her head. “Waves.”
Before long we were all awake.
We should have sunk deep into our bags; we should have ignored it. After all, we’d done it, hadn’t we? We’d surfed the Devil’s Horns.
But there was a loud silence between the sets. Like a big, silent question mark. Had we done it? Really? We didn’t have the footage. We still needed that.
What we’d had the day before, it was good, sure. Even special. But I was thinking maybe days like that happened at Porthleven or Lynmouth every year. Maybe a dozen times a year. Those waves weren’t what had got this island a mag cover. Waves like the one on that cover were happening right now. Out there.
“What if they’re rideable?” said Big G, his voice echoing round the room. He was right. How could we say we’d done it if they were and we didn’t go? Shit, we’d never look each other in the eyes again. There were only two ways to go: back home with our tails between our legs, or out there. But no one said anything one way or the other.
“Better get some shut-eye,” said Rag eventually. The one and only time he wore the sensible hat.
“Right. Right,” we all agreed.
I lay down and turned over to face the wall. But I didn’t sleep.
*
When the blackness turned into a sick grey light, it was Skip who was first up and out. We dressed, and walked out to where Skip stood watching the sea.
As the thin blue light of dawn crept under the clouds, the ocean lit up.
Long-period four-footers were breaking on the inside, peeling nice but way too close to the cliff. No one wanted to eat rock for breakfast. But outside, further out than where we’d surfed the previous day – a lot further out, on the outer reef Jade had spotted when we’d first come – were monsters.
We watched the things emerge from a long way off, just lines at first, creeping out of the dawn sea, slow and deliberate, like waking giants, lumbering towards us, till they reached the reef – and there they changed into nightmares. Grey-green mountains, taller than houses, jacking up fast, mutating into these giant beasts, before exploding on to the sheet glass water over the reef.
The crack hurt my ears. And when the thunder shook the ground beneath us, it felt like my bones were turning to water and leaking out of my legs. I felt so weak I could barely stand, never mind surf.
No one said anything at first. But Rag could only wait for so long before he spoke up.
“Well fuck me… sideways,” he said, as another wave faced up, so big I thought it was going to ride over the shore and nail us. But it exploded on the reef in a giant mess of crashing white water. “Who’s going?” he teased. “Who’s ready?”
“No way,” said Skip, shaking his head. “I ain’t, and none of you should. We did it yesterday. That’s what we came for. Not this.”
I was breathing a huge sigh of relief that Skip had said exactly what I was thinking, that I wouldn’t have to face those waves, when Big G said:
“Wait, look…”
TURNED OUT WE’D SEEN a big set. When they started coming through, one every few minutes, there were a few real thumpers to each one, but long gaps between them, and a deep channel to the left of the reef that would make it easy to get out. The waves were big, sure – really big – but they peeled down the reef steady and even, with plenty of space on the shoulder to get up and riding before the wave got too critical.
We watched it for a good five minutes before Big G made the call.
“It’s do-able,” he said, pointing at a wave booming over the outer reef. “They ain’t breaking anywhere but over that reef. Must be cuz the swell direction’s different to yesterday. We can paddle out and get in from the side, then sit right on the edge. If a massive set comes, we’ll see it a mile off. We can get out of the impact zone quick.”
He was right. It was do-able. But what if you don’t catch it right? I thought. There were two ways to go then. Drowning, or getting smeared over the reef. The last anyone would see of me would be a red cloud in the water, getting washed away by the next wave.
The thought of that kept me root
ed to the spot. And the thought of my dad having been out there, somewhere. That kept me quiet. The others were afraid too. I could see it in their eyes.
“Come on,” said Jade after a bit. “You heard G. It’s do-able. It is. We can’t bottle it now. We gonna find an epic secret spot, and not ride the thing? Nuh-uh, that ain’t happening. We’ll be famous. Can’t you see it?”
“See what?” said Rag.
Jade stared into the next grinding, heaving wave. I knew what she could see. Herself in a video clip on YouTube, plus Magic Seaweed and a dozen surf websites, rushing along the wave, hood off, hair blowing behind her like she was a pigging superhero. Maybe she’d even be in a barrel. One big enough to drive a car through. And she’d be stood in the middle of the thing, wide-eyed and grinning stupid. Doing what she was born to do and making it look easy. That whole film was already playing in her head. She could see it and she wasn’t going to waste this chance to make it real.
“G, Kook, you’re all in. You too, Rag, right?” she said.
“No way, guys. Sorry. Too fat, too slow,” said Rag, laughing, and patting his gut like it was the best excuse in the world.
“What?!” said Big G, right in Rag’s ear. He scuffed Rag round the head.
“Good!” said Jade. She was standing on tiptoe, flexing her fingers, twisting her hips. She was wired. “Rag, you can film us.” She didn’t care who went or who didn’t, as long as we got on with it. As long as someone filmed her.
“And you, Skip?” she said. “You fancy it?”
We all looked at him. We knew he’d say no; we already had him pegged as the official trip photographer and video-filmer, we just needed to hear it. But now Rag was doing that.
Skip was grinding his jaw, breathing hard. His voice wobbled when he spoke. “You know what… fuck it. FUCK IT. I’m in.”
“You won’t regret it, mate,” said G, slapping him on the back. “We’ll look after you.”
Jade winked at me, turned tail and headed back to the lighthouse. Part of me was telling myself to stay where I was. To help Rag. Not to follow them out there. Not to follow my dad out there. But my legs were moving. We followed.
Inside, Rag got busy with the cameras and mini tripod, fiddling with buttons and dials, reading the instructions.
“I thought someone was supposed to work all that out before we came!” said Big G as he squeezed a leg into his wetsuit.
“The take-off is in the same, small section,” said Rag, ignoring Big G. “If I set the GoPro vid-cam up on a rock and turn it on, it’ll capture everything. Then I can take pics with the stills camera.”
We put on rashies, suits, hoods, gloves and boots. They were mostly dry. Then we got the boards.
We needed the guns – larger, thick, pointed boards specially designed to handle the speed and pressure of big waves. We had two of Ned’s guns. I had my new board. Jade had her biggest, longest board. We’d head out on them and swap in the channel as we needed to, so anyone in the line-up was taking the wave on one of the guns. Riding a wave that size on any other board wasn’t an option.
As we walked out of the lighthouse and headed for the water, Big G told us the plan.
“Me first, to test it out. I’m the most experienced and capable.” He wasn’t being a big head; it was just a fact. “Then Sam and Skip, then I’ll go in with Jade. Everyone not in the line-up sits in the channel and watches till it’s their turn. If anyone goes over the falls and it goes to shit, we get in and get them out.”
Before they drown, I thought, and that’s if they haven’t got a broken neck. Or had their face grated on the reef.
As we waded out and got on our boards, I looked at the sea around me. The wind was chasing thundering clouds across the horizon, but where we were was weirdly calm. The sky and water were steel grey and still, with the odd gap where shafts of light made sky-blue patches on the water. Spooky, but full-on beautiful too.
And every few minutes, on the outer reef… bombs.
Boom…
Boom…
Like God had sucked the chaos out of the storm and dropped it all in one place. The reef. And us? We were like kids running to the biggest ride at the fair.
Paddling out was easy. The waves weren’t breaking on the inner reef where we’d surfed the day before. Maybe because of the tide, maybe because the angle of the swell had changed. Shit, it didn’t matter why. It meant we could paddle out from the island without having to deal with anything threatening.
It was almost too easy. Like the storm, the Horns, were letting us in. Inviting us in.
We came at the reef wide and far out, showing it respect. As we got near, I saw waves coming out of the horizon. Just the sight of them punched a fist of sickness into my stomach.
The waves were rising up in a series of walls towards the reef. Almost moving slo-mo they were so big, but in truth moving really, really fast. I thought, are they bigger than the ones we saw from the cliff, or are we just waking up to how big they really are, the closer we get?
We were in deep water, in the channel to the side of the reefs. We were safe. Weren’t we?
The first one was jacking up, hiding what was behind it. As the unbroken part of the wave rolled towards us, my guts lurched up to my throat like they were trying to escape.
It wasn’t going to break on us, we were too far out for that, but it would be close.
It piled up towards the reef, twenty yards in front and twenty yards to the right.
It wasn’t like any wave I’d ever seen. A moving mountain, a solid thing, not water at all. The water was just a skin on its raw power. A freak ray of sunlight torched it up. It was beautiful and mind-numbingly terrifying. Then it cranked up and cracked over the reef. The sound of it ripped the air. Liquid thunder.
I got a good look at it as it broke on the reef then rolled past us. An avalanche of white froth on the top, and along the face, as light shone through the crystal water, every blue and green there ever was.
The outer part of the wave was ahead of us, not breaking, but still way big. We paddled up the turquoise face, towards the feathering top, just as it was getting steep. Then…
…over it.
Relief washed through me.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Holy shit.”
“Keep paddling,” Big G shouted, “quick!”
The wave had hidden the one behind. The wave coming towards us was massive, triple overhead. It had already broken at the peak and was screaming down the reef, with the wall pitching up, threatening to crash over us. We weren’t far enough in the channel. We were right in the path of a total monster. If it landed on me, it was game over.
I wanted to throw the board and dive deep before it broke. I had to fight that urge. If I dived I might get underneath it, out of harm’s way. But it might easily smash the board. I had to make myself believe I was going to make it over.
We started paddling. Fast.
It reared up, with white water whistling off the top of it, threatening to break. It was too big; I was too slow. I was behind the others. I saw them head up and over. I paddled, climbing up. I was vertical, almost upright. I felt the pull as it took me backwards. I closed my eyes, and kept on paddling. Frenzied. Somehow, I got over and dropped down the other side. I felt it yanking me backwards, trying to suck me into it. But I kept on. I looked up. The remaining waves in the set were there all right, but they weren’t that big, they weren’t going to break on us.
We headed left, further away from the reef and safely over the last waves of the set.
“You okay?” said Big G as I caught up. I nodded.
“That was close,” he said.
“No shit.”
We’d almost got caught out, thinking we were safe.
Normally getting battered was inevitable in any bigger session. Screwing up waves was part of the fun. Normally. But not here.
Here you’d get your arse handed to you on a plate. Maybe your teeth too.
It was better to take extra minutes paddl
ing out and round to get to the break point, than risk getting smashed before we even got to the line-up.
We’d got too close.
It was good in a way. I’d had a warning. I could see what was waiting for me if I didn’t get this right.
*
When we got parallel to the far edge of the reef. We sat on our boards way deep in the channel, getting our breath back, settling ourselves and watching the waves.
Skip leant to one side and puked.
“Okay?” said Big G.
Skip sat up, nodded. “Everyone else all right?”
“Yeah,” said Jade.
“Sure,” I said, lying. I was shaking, sitting, gripping the front of the board. I looked back at the island. At safety. It was a long, long way off, much further than I’d reckoned when I’d looked at the reef from the shore. A good fifteen-minute paddle.
Rag was a tiny stick figure standing on the cliff. He waved. I waved back.
Big G went first. He was the most ready, the most experienced. No protest from Jade.
Me, Skip and Jade watched him paddle over toward the reef. Ten, twenty, thirty yards.
He backed out of a few waves, let them go under him, testing them.
Bigger waves came, waves that looked like they would close out, with nowhere for a surfer to go apart from down. But G avoided them easy, just by paddling out and over then back into the break point once the set had gone through.
They were big beasts, but predictable, breaking in pretty much the same spot every time.
Then it happened. The dream became real. A set came through and G paddled in, towards the reef. He paddled right into the danger zone, the point where the wave would pitch up and break.
He rose up like he was yanked by an invisible hand. It looked like he’d be pulled over the back. But he paddled, and paddled, and the board cut through the water and was moving, and then the board was going down the wave. He sprang to his feet and rode it smooth and fast, down and along the face, crouching, arms out, keeping his balance. Sat in the channel, we watched his take off, then him riding as the wave rolled by. As it shot past us and towards the island, we could only see the back of it. He disappeared from view.