Strike of the Shark

by Bear Grylls

  Abby’s face was harder to read. Maybe she was too much of a businesswoman to let her emotions show . . . Then Beck realized that it wasn’t fear or worry on her face. It was anger. She was furious.

  She saw him looking at her. ‘Well, Beck.’ He could hear the strain in her voice as she tried to be cheerful. ‘What does the survival expert say we do now?’

  It seemed odd that she wasn’t trying to comfort her son, but that wasn’t his business. His business was taking care of all these people.

  ‘Cut, stream, close, maintain,’ he muttered. She raised a querying eyebrow.

  Beck had once spent a happy weekend getting soaked and frozen in a shipwreck simulator in Plymouth. Cut, stream, close, maintain – the four words that the instructors had drummed into their pupils over and over again.

  Cut meant cut the rope that tied your lifeboat to the ship. They had done that . . . just.

  ‘We, uh, we need to stream a sea anchor, to keep our position.’ Beck rubbed his temples, trying to massage the memory into life. He had to admit he was rusty in this area. He was usually on land. ‘That’s, uh, maybe something like a small parachute. We drag it on a line behind the boat, and it stops us drifting . . .’

  Farrell finally stirred. ‘Son, with respect, I know what a sea anchor is. It’s supposed to keep you in a position where people will expect to find you, so that they can come and get you. But since we were well off course, no one will be looking for us here. We need to get moving.’

  ‘OK.’ It had been a while since anyone had contradicted Beck – and been right. You couldn’t just go by the book, he reminded himself. In every situation you had to adapt.

  Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. That mantra was one of his survival tenets.

  OK, he thought. What next?

  Close meant to cover the boat – get the canopy up to protect the crew from the elements. That assumed you were adrift on a wild sea full of freezing spray and strong winds. There was no need for that here. Not yet, anyway.

  And maintain meant to keep the boat and its equipment in good order.

  ‘We need to see what we have on board,’ he said. After a slightly rocky start he could feel the lessons from the course coming to life in his head. ‘Everyone look to see what they can find.’

  The others stirred into sluggish action. It didn’t take long.

  Any self-respecting lifeboat would have lifejackets and seasickness tablets at the very least. Beck thought the ship’s saboteurs might have taken care of those little details too – but no. The lifejackets were stowed in the bow of the boat. James found the seasickness tablets in a small box that also contained biscuits, and a bulging silver foil bag containing two litres of water. It had a built-in spout to drink from.

  Apart from that there was the canvas cover that had kept the boat weatherproof while it was hanging from its davits on the Sea Cloud. And there was a tin box containing two flares. Abby found these, and displayed them as proudly as if she had been personally responsible for their presence. Plus, there was a first-aid kit. It was made of plastic, like a lunch box, but marked with a red cross; it was full of rolls of bandages and packets of plasters and sterile wipes. It meant that at last Beck could do something about Steven.

  He still lay on the floor of the boat between the middle bench and the bow. His breath came in croaks and shudders that did not sound healthy. Beck knelt by his head and lifted an eyelid with his thumb. The eyes of an even vaguely conscious person will try and stay closed if you lift an eyelid. He felt no resistance, which meant that Steven was deeply unconscious. Under the eyelid, his eye was rolled right back in his head.

  Beck gently probed his skull. He felt the matted hair again beneath his fingertips, and a massive swelling just below the right ear. What he didn’t feel was anything moving. There was no indication of a cracked skull. That was something, at least. Even so, he was starting to feel worried. Steven had clearly suffered a severe bang on the head, but shouldn’t he be showing some kind of movement by now? How hard had he been hit?

  ‘Pass me a lifejacket?’ he asked, and James handed one over.

  It was like a thick, fluorescent yellow plastic bag that fitted over the head and tied around the waist. It had pockets with plastic zips, and sides made of heavy plastic mesh so that water could drain out. Each one had a mouth tube so that its owner could inflate it.

  Beck blew into the tube until it was like a soft cushion and tucked it under Steven’s head as a pillow. Then he unravelled a metre of gauze bandage from the first-aid kit and tied it, gently but firmly, around Steven’s head.

  And that, he thought grimly, was probably all he could do for him, until he woke up or they could get him to a hospital, whichever was sooner. Beck didn’t like the look of that swelling. Even if nothing was broken, there could be bleeding in Steven’s brain.

  ‘Now,’ he ordered, ‘everyone else gets to take a seasick pill. And one sip of water.’

  ‘Seasick?’ Farrell exclaimed. ‘Son, I have been at sea for thirty years and I do not get seasick!’

  Beck looked him in the eye. ‘If your navigator tells you to steer a certain course to avoid a rock, even if you can’t see it, do you obey him?’

  ‘Well, sure—’

  ‘Because he’s the expert at navigating. If your engineer tells you that you have to shut down an engine because it’s about to overheat, even though it seems fine to you, do you obey him?’

  ‘Of course, but—’

  ‘And he’s the expert with engines. So your survival expert is telling you to take a seasickness pill.’

  They stared hard at each other in the moonlight, and then the captain shrugged. ‘Sure, right, whatever, I’ll take a pill . . .’

  Beck handed the tablets round so that everyone could have one.

  ‘I felt fine on the ship,’ Abby said. ‘Why shouldn’t I now?’

  Beck started to explain why she still needed a pill, but her scientist son got there first.

  ‘It’s motion sickness, Mum.’ James sounded withdrawn and tired. It was the first thing he had said since the ship went down. ‘Our brain gets its signals confused. Our eyes tell us we’re not moving and our sense of balance tells us that we are. And so the brain puts the body on red alert, tells it to shut down all the secondary, unimportant processes. Like digestion. It’s not like a stomach bug, where you’re sick but get better once it’s out.’

  Beck remembered his instructor’s words, and grinned as he repeated them. ‘Right. You just keep feeling sick until you think you’re going to die. Then you are so sick you hope you will die. Plus you dehydrate. So prevent it – take the pill.’

  ‘I do believe you’ve persuaded me.’ Abby took her pill. She pulled a face as it went down her throat. ‘Ugh. But why should we be here for long anyway? We have these!’ She hoisted the box of flares onto her lap. ‘There’s no point in waiting around here. We can fire these off and rescue will come.’

  ‘From where?’ James was sarcastic. ‘Ooh, look! A ship! Another ship! Ships everywhere!’

  The horizon was completely dark in all directions. Any cruise ship would be ablaze with light. Even a fishing vessel would have its navigation lights on. But there was nothing nearby or even far away. Beck knew that firing those two flares off into the dark would be useless. There was no one to see them.

  ‘Yes, dear, thank you for that very helpful observation,’ Abby said, just as sarcastically. It wasn’t a tone she usually took with James – but then, Beck reckoned, these were not usual circumstances. Everyone was stressed, to put it mildly.

  ‘We should save them until there’s a chance they’ll be seen,’ he said.

  Abby snorted. ‘Well, you can stay in the boat for the rest of your life, but I’m going to—’

  ‘You’ll do as Beck says!’

  It was a moment before Beck recognized the voice as belonging to Captain Farrell. Harsh and commanding; for the first time he was using his authority as captain. ‘Firing them off now would be a waste,’ he said. ‘
We keep them safe until they’re needed. Period.’

  CHAPTER 19

  ‘Well, are we just going to sit here?’ Abby asked. ‘At least start the engine and steer for land.’ No one moved. ‘Well? Come on!’

  ‘There’s no engine, Mum,’ James said quietly.

  Beck cocked an eyebrow up at the sky. Once again it only took a moment to locate the Plough and the North Star. If they steered due west from that, they were bound to hit America.

  ‘Will the current carry us towards land?’ he asked the captain.

  Farrell shook his head. ‘Out here, we’re in the Gulf Stream.’

  Beck knew exactly what that meant. From the way James groaned, it sounded like he did too. The Gulf Stream carried warm water from Florida all the way across the Atlantic to Europe. Beck had always been grateful for it – it was the reason the United Kingdom wasn’t as cold as Canada in the winter. But right now he wished it would turn and flow back towards the USA. Just for a bit.

  The powerful Sea Cloud had come out here at full speed. A rowing boat could go for days in the opposite direction and not get very far at all.

  ‘Can this boat sail?’ Beck asked.

  ‘No. Oars only.’

  ‘Then we’ll row for now – while it’s cool and dark. In the morning . . . we’ll see.’

  It was what Beck would have done if he’d been stranded in the desert: travel by night, sleep during the day. And this was very like being in the desert, except that the desert was made of sand, not salt water. It was an inhospitable environment, drinking water was very scarce, and when the sun came up it could boil the brains of anyone caught in its glare.

  He held the canvas cover up and looked thoughtfully at it. They could make an awning with this – something to shelter them from the sun, which would allow them to keep going during the day too.

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Farrell agreed wryly. He didn’t bother asking if there was any disagreement from the others. ‘Here’s how we’ll do it. Two of us will row, one of us will be on the tiller to steer, one of us sleeps in the bow. Every hour, we move along and swap places. Beck and I will start on the oars since we’re here already. James, you’re the helmsman. Miss Blake, try and get some sleep.’

  Beck saw the sense of the captain’s plan. The rowing would always be the hardest work. This way, after an hour each rower got a rest, either sitting at the tiller or dozing in the bow. After that rest they went back to the oars.

  ‘And . . .’ he began, then looked at Farrell for permission to speak. The captain nodded. ‘Every hour we get a sip of water. Starting now.’

  They solemnly passed the water bag around, and James and Abby took up their positions. Beck took hold of his oar once more and glanced resignedly at Farrell. And then, because there was nothing else to say or do, they started rowing.

  Beck and Farrell quickly fell into a rhythm, pulling together, though Beck suspected that Farrell was deliberately holding back. The captain was a grown man and much the stronger of the two. If they had both put their full strength into it, Farrell’s side of the boat would move faster than Beck’s and they would end up going round in circles.

  Beck pointed out the North Star to their helmsman, and explained where it should be in relation to the boat if they wanted to head due west. James soon got the hang of it, though it took him a while to get used to the fact that to go left you pushed the tiller to the right, and vice versa.

  The boat, wobbling slightly in its course, moved on into the night.

  Beck knew it was pure imagination, but it almost seemed like he could feel the weight of Steven behind him, lying on the floor of the boat. Of course, Steven weighed just as much whether he was awake or asleep. Beck wished he would moan, twitch . . . do something to show that he was still alive. If he listened closely, he could hear Steven’s ragged breathing, but the splash of the oars and the sound of the waves usually drowned it out.

  Steven was the one who had wanted him on this cruise, Beck thought wryly as he pulled on his oar. He had wanted him to talk about survival. It looked like he was going to get a practical demonstration. It actually made him smile, a little.

  But that was all he could find to smile about.

  CHAPTER 20

  A hand on Beck’s shoulder shook him awake.

  ‘Sun’s coming up and you’re on rowing duty,’ James said. Beck sat up and looked around.

  The waves had grown choppier during the night, but the boat rode them smoothly. When they reached the top of each swell, Beck reckoned he could see maybe a kilometre towards the east, where the sun was rising. Less towards the west, where it was still dark. When the boat slid down into the troughs, he was staring at a slope of water only a metre away.

  There was still no sign of any other vessels.

  ‘Also, I checked on your friend,’ the older boy added. His eyes were wide and worried. ‘Still no change.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Beck felt for the pulse in Steven’s neck, where the artery beat against the tendon. It was weak and fluttering, not strong and healthy. It didn’t look like he had moved at all during the night. Beck put his ear to the man’s mouth. Last night Steven’s hoarse breathing had been audible from the other end of the boat. Now he could barely hear it, a few centimetres away.

  Beck squatted on his haunches and gazed down at the man. There was no question that he had got worse. Last night Beck had thought there might be internal bleeding in his skull. Now he was sure of it. Steven badly needed to get to a hospital.

  A gull flew overhead. He tracked it idly with his eyes, and then his attention was caught five kilometres above him by the white trails of airliners flying to or from America. Any one of them could radio for help, he thought – if somehow they could be made to notice the small boat thousands of metres below them . . . It wasn’t going to happen.

  Beck climbed slowly to his feet. He braced himself against the rocking of the boat and felt his joints ache. His muscles were aching from two hours of rowing the previous night, with an hour at the tiller in between. The sun was still low. Another hour or so and it would be properly up. Another hour after that and the day would start to get seriously warm. He needed to start thinking about the canvas covering. There had to be something to support it above them. They could hold it up with the oars, but then, what would they row with?

  ‘Breakfast, Day One,’ Farrell announced, breaking into Beck’s thoughts. ‘And to celebrate, we each get a biscuit along with our water ration.’

  ‘And another seasick pill,’ Beck ordered. He looked around the boat. Farrell, the seasoned sailor, looked OK. His face was its usual colour beneath a day’s growth of stubble. But James and Abby looked distinctly pale. And even his own stomach, which he knew was pretty strong, was feeling light – as if it might suddenly decide to detach from under his ribs and float away. ‘Also,’ he advised, ‘try and keep your eyes on the horizon. It’s a steady point and it helps to settle your insides down.’

  They each drank from the water bag. The small sip made Beck’s body crave more, and it took all his self-control to stop and hand it on. The water was going down – and all that remained was a little over a litre. Beck worried about how long that would last. In the heat of the day, even under cover, they would need a lot more water than that.

  He knelt down beside Steven and positioned the spout over the man’s mouth. Steven’s head moved a little and he spluttered when the few drops of water hit his lips, but Beck was reasonably certain it went in.

  ‘Do you need to give him quite so much?’ Abby asked. Beck, the captain and James all stared at her.

  ‘How can you ask that?’ Farrell demanded – exactly what Beck was thinking. How could she? Steven was unconscious, but he needed water just as much as any of them.

  Abby shrugged. ‘I just mean, we’ve not got much to go round as it is. None of us wants to be here, but . . .’

  ‘I’ll try and catch us some fish later,’ Beck promised, to change the subject. None of them had fully manage
d to adapt to their new circumstances. They were all stressed and liable to say things they wouldn’t normally. There was no point in getting worked up.

  The group had to hang together, not fall apart.

  A gull landed on the point of the bow with a great flapping of wings, and promptly poo’ed on the deck.

  ‘How lovely,’ Abby said, in a way that showed how unlovely she thought it was. The gull stared at them with yellow eyes. ‘Such a nice bird,’ she added.

  The gull let out a harsh, wailing cry and flew off again.

  Beck shook his head. ‘You can eat gulls – but only if you really have to. They’re tough and salty, and when you think about what they eat—’ And then he groaned out loud, wondering how he could have been so stupid. Why hadn’t he realized when he saw the first gull?

  ‘They stay close to land!’ he exclaimed. ‘Everyone, look out for all the gulls. Which way are they flying?’

  Immediately everyone was on their feet. They held onto the sides of the boat for balance and craned their necks, looking up and around.

  ‘There’s one . . .’

  ‘And there . . .’

  Eventually they spotted maybe six . . . seven . . . eight? It was hard to say – the gulls circled and moved quickly.

  ‘It’s first light,’ Beck said, ‘so they’re hunting for fish. That means they’ve flown away from land. Try to work out the average direction they’ve come from.’

  ‘It’s that way,’ Abby said eventually, pointing. Beck, James and Farrell agreed.

  ‘We need a bearing,’ said Farrell. They couldn’t just aim at a point on the horizon. There was nothing to tell one bit from the next, and the waves were knocking the boat about. They had to have a fixed direction to steer in.

  Beck held up his left wrist and peered across the face of his watch towards the sun.

  ‘I’m sorry, Beck, do you have an urgent appointment?’ Abby asked, seeming confused by Beck looking at his watch.