The Stranding

by Karen Viggers

  The crowd stood brooding and silent as the minister stepped tentatively onto the crate. He looked a little anxious as he surveyed his audience, and so he ought to, Lex thought. Didn’t he realise how patronising he seemed to this bunch of agitated people who had been out in the cold all day? Silly pompous man. What did he think he was going to do anyway? Offer a prayer and deliver a miracle?

  The minister cleared his throat and tucked his hands behind his back in typical pulpit pose. ‘This is not quite what I’m used to for delivering speeches,’ he said, surveying the crowd with a flickering smile. ‘At the church we have a luxury podium and a microphone these days, to make my job easier.’

  He shifted awkwardly on the box, and Lex was glad he was uncomfortable. Why should it be easy for this man? It hadn’t been easy for anyone else today.

  ‘This is quite a different experience for me,’ the minister continued. ‘I’m generally used to speaking to people who agree with me even before I begin. And I’m well aware that many of you may not have been to church for a long while, if ever. But that doesn’t have to matter. I’m not here to tell anyone what to believe in. In fact, now that I’m here, I find myself wondering what I thought I could do. Back at the parish it seemed that a prayer might help. But now I see the size of the task you people have undertaken, I feel embarrassed at my presumption.’

  He sought the eyes and faces of everyone around him. He had a knack of making people feel involved.

  ‘Setting my embarrassment aside, I do think it would be useful for us to pray together. Even those of us who are not religious have our own ways of praying. And I strongly believe it could help if we all stand here beneath this great grey sky and offer a prayer in whatever form it comes to us. Prayers from all of us might have the power to change things.’

  He paused.

  ‘You see, now that I’m here, I have doubts. Like any of you. Doubts exist even in my job. Who can be sure of the power of God and the kingdom of heaven?’

  ‘Isn’t that sacrilege?’ Shane muttered. ‘Speaking like that. Who is this guy?’

  ‘I’ve only ever heard him at a funeral,’ Lex whispered.

  Shane sniggered. ‘He ought to be reading the last rites.’

  ‘I believe in the power of enthusiasm,’ the minister was saying. ‘And the power of collective will. The power of gathered determination. Only our combined energy has the potential to change things. If anything can save this whale, it will be this, our combined energy and our combined prayers. Not my private plea to God. But the power of all of you, pulling as a team, praying as a team, bonding as a team. That is what delivers miracles.’

  The minister was definitely warming up. He had softened the crowd and everyone was listening.

  ‘Many of you would not describe yourselves as religious,’ he continued. ‘But I propose that all of you are spiritual in some way. We just have different names for our spirituality. Whether it is God or Jesus or Nature. Whatever we call it, it is all one. We’re all part of God and Nature, and that is the source of power that might deliver the miracle we’re hoping for today.’

  Lex saw the minister smile at someone in the crowd. He followed the smile to Helen Beck, who was standing trembling and uncertain, with Darren gripping her hand. The minister’s keen on her, Lex thought, surprised. The poor kid will never escape the grip of the church.

  ‘I want to finish with a word of caution,’ the minister said. ‘We’re all hoping this whale will return to the sea where it belongs. But despite our collective prayers and hopes, there’s a possibility the whale might die. And, if that dreadful moment arrives, we may find ourselves thinking that God has forsaken us, or that He has let us down. But no . . . if such a terrible ending becomes our reality, we need to meet it positively, and take its lessons. There are lessons for all of us, both in life and in death. Thank you.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that,’ Shane said as the minister stepped down. ‘We can only hope he goes home now.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Lex said. ‘He’ll be here to the bitter end.’

  Thirty-one

  Callista sat alone on the sand and watched the excavator at work. She could see Trevor Baker hunched behind the controls, shifting the long yellow arm of the machine like it was an extension of his own body. Down close to the sea, the wall rose about a metre above the sand—a barrier to the incoming tide. From there, two walls ran along a channel that Trevor had gouged out as he stacked up wet sand, backing the excavator up the beach as he went. The walls flared out like arms beginning to encircle the whale in an embrace.

  Around the whale, the groups of volunteers continued tirelessly. There were so many of them waiting on the beach for a chance to assist. Despite the enthusiasm of the helpers, both the whale and the vet looked tired. Both had a similar dejected slump. Tim’s face was tight with exhaustion, black rings sliding their way beneath his eyes. The day had been too long.

  Trevor had been working for hours without a break. Close to the whale, he worked more slowly, carefully scooping up buckets of sand and shaping the walls, trying not to alarm the animal with sudden clanks as the machine swung and moved. Eventually, he trundled the excavator up the beach with its arm folded like a claw and its caterpillar tracks clacking on the sand. He stopped it by the dunes, then mounted the bulldozer and began working around the whale from outside the walls, banking up sand to complete the barrier.

  By now the tide was lapping at the wall. Taylor and Jimmy were watching it carefully. They emerged often from their tent to walk down to the water’s edge and observe its effect on the seawall, eating away at the sand. Further up the beach, several staff members had laid out the harness ready to strap around the whale’s pectoral flippers shortly before the wall was breached. But the time had not yet come.

  Callista was relieved that preparations were nearly complete. This morning, the end of the day had been forever away. Yet while Trevor had been out there scooping and gouging with the excavator, it had seemed there was too little time to construct the planned sea-barrier. Now, with everything almost ready, they need only wait until the tide crept in far enough, as it would, relentlessly and silently. Then they could breach the wall, watch the water flush in around the whale and watch it float out to sea.

  Despite her hopes, she knew it wouldn’t be that easy. What she wanted, along with everyone else, was to see the whale out in deeper water and to end this torture of watching it beached on the sand. She wanted never to be involved in a stranding rescue ever again. And she wanted to go home to bed. Cold and fatigue had seeped into her bones and she was weary with everything. She couldn’t bear the waiting any more.

  She stood up, brushed off the sand and walked away up the beach alone. Striding hard and fast, she walked beyond the tents, away from the grind of the generators, away from the crowds, away from that accumulated fervour and tension, until all she could hear was the soothing rhythm of the waves thumping onto the sand and skimming in towards her feet. Then she stopped and faced the headland, staring up into the grey sky.

  As she stood there, Jen came running up.

  ‘I can’t take any more.’ The girl’s eyes were wild and her dreads flicked out in the wind.

  ‘Neither can I. But we just have to wait.’

  Jen choked out a sob, angrily swiping a tear from her cheek. ‘It’s the suffering,’ she said. ‘And just watching is killing me. Maybe I haven’t got what it takes for this stuff. Maybe I should stick to trees.’

  Callista looked at the girl, all twisted with frustration, torn by despair. ‘It’s great that you’ve been here,’ she said. ‘You’ve helped and you haven’t caused trouble. That’s an achievement, given the strength of your passion.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  Jen flashed a sad smile and jogged on the spot for a moment, all pent-up energy. ‘I’ve gotta run,’ she said. ‘Then maybe I can go back. I have to see this through.’

  Callista watched her race off along the beach, dreads flying. S
he admired her immediacy, her lack of finesse. There was something infinitely wild and attractive about her. She wouldn’t have blamed Lex if he had slept with her—all that raw energy and blazing youth.

  She turned back, wondering where it was going to end.

  As the tide crept in, sloshing along the seawall and gradually eroding its sides, Taylor organised a team of men in wetsuits to assist the whale once the wall was breached. The whale would be weak after such a long period on the beach and they may need to provide physical support to prevent it from rolling and to stop water running over the blowhole. The men could shoulder-up against the whale and help as best they could while the boats pulled it out into deeper water.

  Lex was among the chosen. Jarrah too. On the open beach, as the tide inched in, the men stripped naked and tugged on wetsuits, throwing modesty to the winds. Goose pimples pricked their exposed flesh. They shuffled down to the seawall where it expanded to surround the whale. Taylor was down there talking to them, but they were too far away for Callista to hear. She couldn’t recognise Lex amongst the group. All those restless bodies crammed into wetsuits, with coats pulled on over the top. They were black and indistinguishable. They must be cold waiting in the wind.

  The tide was licking up along the wall and the occasional wave foamed over it, smoothing the clods of sand. Just beyond the breakers Callista could see the two boats bobbing and rocking on the waves. Jordi was standing astride at the wheel, holding his boat stern to shore at a safe distance from the National Parks’ shark-cat.

  Something should be happening soon. Her father was down by the water, talking to Tim Lawton, who had donned a wetsuit too and was standing in the shallows with a coat wrapped around his shoulders. They must be assessing the whale’s condition. Tim set aside his coat then he and Jimmy climbed the wall, lugging the harness. They slid the harness across the whale’s back and secured it beneath the pectoral flippers. Everything was ready.

  The boats drew closer. Callista saw a man in a wetsuit lean out over the stern of the shark-cat and climb down the ladder-steps into the water. It seemed to take forever for him to swim the short distance from the boat to shore, his black-hooded head barely visible over the waves. Then he was thrust through the breakers, staggering into the shallows dragging a cable and hook. He passed the hook to Trevor Baker, who was waiting at the water’s edge, and Trevor hauled the cable ashore. He climbed over the wall and locked the hook into the tail-sling, while the swimmer towed in a cable from Jordi’s boat. Trevor hitched this to the sling as well. Another line from Jordi’s boat was hitched to the harness.

  Finally, at a waved signal from Jimmy, Trevor chugged the excavator into gear and rattled it down into the water alongside the wall. The boats began to move slowly out to sea, churning up over the waves and gradually taking up the slack in the lines.

  When the cables began to tighten, Trevor waited for a nod from Taylor then he swung the arm of the excavator high, its claw hovering a moment before it reached out, splashing into the water, and tore through the wall. The water gushed through, ripping into the barrier. Trevor scooped again to deepen the rift and the wall was sucked away, the water surging through and sloshing around the whale.

  Quickly now, the wetsuit men scaled the wall and surrounded the whale, their hands flat against its sides. Their presence, and the water slapping around, agitated the whale and it raised its tail, thumping it down hard against the resistance of the lines. Jimmy signalled out to sea and the boats slowly throttled their engines and started to pull. The wetsuit men pushed.

  Callista felt the moments ticking by slowly. Why wasn’t anything happening? If the whale didn’t move now, the game was over. It would have to be shot. Jimmy maintained his thumbs up and the boats continued to pull. The men in the water beside the whale had their heads bowed with effort as they pushed against all that reluctant bogged flesh. Callista could hear the increasing throb of the boat engines over the thump and swish of the waves. She wondered what it must be like for Jordi, feeling the boat shaking beneath him and the whale still anchored to the shore. Thank God she wasn’t out there with him.

  Without warning, a pectoral flipper waved in the air and two wetsuit men staggered back. The white underside of the flipper flashed briefly before it slapped into the water. The boat engines growled and water frothed up behind them. And the wetsuit men moved in again and continued to push.

  Suddenly the whale arched its body against the pull of the boats. A wave broke across its back and there was a loud blast of exhaled air. A dreadful moan flowed through the sands and up through Callista’s bones. She could see her father’s face creased in horror, but he was still indicating to the boats to go ahead. He was doing the only thing that could be done. It had to be finished.

  Then, slowly, amidst the reverberating tremor of another awful moan, the whale’s bulk shifted in the sand. Tim Lawton dashed in and tossed a towel over the blowhole, and the boats maintained tension on the lines. Then the whale was moving ever so slowly, with the wetsuit men still leaning into its sides, pushing. Gradually the whale began to slide backwards into the breakers.

  Ecstatic shouting erupted on the beach. People cried and thumped each other’s backs, hugged, cheered, jumped up and down, cried some more. The minister threaded amongst the crowd, shaking hands and smiling. Helen Beck wafted along behind him, eyes like black saucers.

  Callista watched, but felt separate from all of it, tired and unmoved. It was such an ugly scene—the pitiful helplessness of this great animal being dragged into the water, waves sluicing over its flat knobbled head and running along the downward curving groove of its mouth. Everybody was celebrating as if this was the end, but she knew it wasn’t over.

  The boats dragged the whale until it was just beyond the breakers where the waves rose up and over its glistening black back. Tim pulled the towel off and shortly after Callista thought she saw a small vapour spout rise.

  The wetsuit men remained shoulder-in to the whale. They looked like a mass of black seals, their heads and shoulders bobbing up and down in the water. The whale seemed to be listing to one side. Tim was yelling instructions, getting the men to push it straight using the buoyancy provided by the water. He watched several waves roll in over its back. Then he hollered to the men again. Callista saw the majority of the team cluster along one side of the whale. They ducked their heads low and gouged their shoulders in hard. From the shore, it was difficult to work out what they were doing. Tim was in there too, pushing and shoving against the whale’s reluctant bulk, stopping periodically to yell encouragement to the team. Slowly, the men pushed the whale around, fighting against the waves, until it was facing out to sea, looking the way it had to go.

  Callista gazed out there too, squinting into a new band of drizzle that had begun to seep from the belly of a low cloud. The grey sea hardly looked encouraging, but to a whale it must look like home—that wide stretch of heaving, rolling water. She’d imagined they’d tow the whale far out to sea, as far out as possible, where it was truly buoyant and couldn’t see the shore. She had imagined the sling slipping off as the whale slid into the depths with a flick of its flukes. But Taylor had said they couldn’t tow it further, because water could run via the blowhole into the lungs and cause pneumonia. Instead, the plan was to hold the whale facing out to sea until it recuperated enough to swim away. Quick tears flushed onto Callista’s cheeks. Was this the best they could do after finally getting this animal into the water? So much trauma and stress to come to this moment—where it was all up to the whale. It seemed hopelessly optimistic. And there could still be hours to go.

  Time slipped into a new holding pattern, marked by periodic vapour puffs as the whale huffed air with each breath. On the beach, the crowd fidgeted edgily. Everyone was still charged with tension. Callista too. She begged Jimmy to allow her onto the next wetsuit team he was mustering. But he rolled his eyes.

  ‘We need muscles, kiddo,’ he explained. ‘Not pumped-up wenches with fire in their bellies. You’ll be
needed soon enough to warm up these fellers when they come back ashore. That Lex of yours is going to need a bit of mothering. He won’t know what day it is. It’s freezing out there.’

  He was right. Callista was shocked when the first man stumbled ashore, shivering and blue. In the shallows, he staggered to his knees and had to be helped into the shelter tent by several people.

  ‘We need to sort out something for Tim,’ Callista heard her father say. ‘He’ll be hypothermic if we don’t do something soon.’

  A Zodiac was launched from the shark-cat. It plucked Tim from the water and whisked him away to the boat. Within minutes, he was back, clad in a yellow drysuit. He continued to supervise from the Zodiac while the wetsuit team rotated in and out of the water. As freezing men came ashore, shambling out of the waves into the icy lick of the wind, volunteers teamed up to hurry them into the shelter tent. They peeled wetsuits off and wrapped men in towels and blankets. Steaming hot chocolate was pressed to frozen lips. There was careful monitoring for hypothermia. Mrs Jensen’s tea and coffee team and Sue’s food team were back in their tents keeping the hot drinks and food coming.

  Eventually Callista saw Lex come out of the waves. His lips were dark and he was shivering. Hovering on the edge of the group of assistants who reached for him, Callista observed the tight whiteness of his face and the dark hollows beneath his eyes. His hands were shaking and stiff, awkward with the cold. It frightened her. He seemed distant, vague, unaware that she was there. The other volunteers crowded her out in their enthusiasm to help. They walked him into the shelter tent and their hands tugged at him, unzipping his wetsuit, tugging it off and slinging a towel around him, rubbing him dry. They piled blankets around him.

  Callista stayed outside the tent, watching the cluster of black bodies surrounding the whale in the steely grey of the late afternoon. Seeing Lex so debilitated by the cold, she wondered how long they could keep this up. Multiplied by the wind chill, the cold was intense. It would be at least half an hour before Lex could even think about going in again.