by Alex Archer
Annja had seen sky like that once before on a trip to Alabama. It had been just before a pair of twisters came rolling through town, destroying everything in their paths. She could still remember the silence that had seemed to grip the town in the seconds before the twisters struck.
She realized that the same silence enveloped the boat now.
Annja looked up and saw that the sails were hanging limp, the wind having mysteriously dissipated just moments before. The only thing pushing the boat forward at this point was their earlier momentum and that was bleeding away quickly against the resistance of the water. Even the water seemed to have turned against them, going from brilliant blue to a flat, angry-looking gray, the color of a battleship.
She knew in that instant that they’d made a mistake.
They should have looked for shelter.
Garin’s urgent shout cut through her mental fog.
“We’ve got to get those sheets in!” he shouted. “Annja, take the helm! Paul, with me!”
Annja did as she was told, rushing to his side and taking the ship’s wheel in her hands. She barely had a grip on it before Garin rushed forward, snatching the crank handle from its storage place and dragging Paul with him as he went. Annja could feel the water pulling at the boat, fighting the rudder and trying to turn it. She tightened her grip on the wheel, keeping it steady, trying to give them time to do what they needed to do.
Garin slammed the crank into position on the mast winch and began winding it as rapidly as he could. For a moment nothing happened and Annja worried that the winch was broken—did we check that before leaving?—but then the jib began to come down, lowering itself a bit more with every revolution of the crank. Once it was low enough, Paul began gathering it around the bottom of the mast, lashing it into place. It wasn’t the best way of storing it, but time was of the essence and it would do for now.
They had just finished with the jib and were turning their attention to the mainsail when the sky was split with lightning and rain began to pour down on them. The temperature dropped fifteen degrees in the space of a heartbeat as a cold wind blew in along the forefront of the storm, making everyone’s job that much harder. Annja gripped the wheel tightly in her hands, doing what she could to keep the boat on course, as Garin and Paul fought to get the mainsail down and stowed away before the storm could rip it to shreds.
A crash of thunder and a flash of lightning told Annja that they had lost the race.
Chapter 21
The storm fell upon them like a vengeful ghost, determined to wrap them in its arms and drag them down into the depths.
The swells were ten feet high and growing by the moment. Annja tried to keep the boat at a forty-five-degree angle to the oncoming waves, knowing that if she let the boat turn too far to one side or the other and come broadside to the waves, the force of the water would capsize them. If that happened, it would all be over but the dying.
The Reliant rode up one side of a swell, hung in the air before crashing back down, only to repeat the process when the next swell arrived. Waves crashed over the bow, the water rushed across the deck and swept aside anything in its path that wasn’t tied down while dousing them in its icy spray. Afraid that they might be the next to go, Garin broke out the safety lines and made sure that they were all clipped into one. If they were swept overboard, the rope could be used to haul them back onto the deck.
At last they got the sail stored. Garin returned to the wheel, ordering both Annja and Paul belowdecks for safety. Annja tried to protest, but Garin would have none of it.
“There’s nothing you can do out here,” he shouted over the noise of the storm as he tried to get the engines started to keep them gaining headway against the storm. “Get below. Use the radio to report our present position to the charter company, just in case.”
Just in case of what? she wanted to know, but didn’t ask. Truth be told, she was afraid to hear it spoken aloud. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss.
In the main cabin she flipped on the radio, picked up the microphone and tried to raise the charter company in Papeete. Ten minutes later she was still trying. When she grew frustrated, Paul took over, first trying to reach the charter company, then reaching out to any vessel that might be in range.
No one answered.
It was as if the storm had swallowed them whole.
They had just given up when the companionway hatch opened and Garin stumbled through it, forcing it shut against the wind behind him.
Annja stared at him and then said, “Who’s driving the boat?”
Garin came down the steps and dropped exhausted into a chair. “No one. We can’t get enough power out of the engine to make headway against this storm, so I’ve shut them down so we don’t burn them out and I deployed the sea anchor. That will give us enough drag to keep our bow to the waves and prevent us from capsizing. Beyond that, there’s nothing we can do. We’re simply going to have to ride this one out and wait for the storm to pass.”
Waiting proved to be harder than it sounded, however, with the wind howling, the thunder booming and the boat bobbing and rocking every which way on the rough seas. Every creak and groan had them glancing around, wondering if the boat was going to hold.
As the storm raged around them, the minutes ticked past slowly.
When they hadn’t sunk or sprung a leak after the first half hour, Garin excused himself to go get some rest, leaving Annja and Paul alone in the galley. They talked quietly for a time and then they, too, decided it was best if they got some rest. They retired to Annja’s cabin together and lay awake for a time in each other’s arms, listening to the storm.
Eventually, Annja slept.
* * *
ANNJA JERKED AWAKE. She lay in bed in her cabin for a moment, trying to figure out what had awoken her. The boat seemed quiet, the sound of the rain striking the deck above almost soothing after the roaring thunder earlier.
She put out her hand, felt the space next to her and was surprised to find it empty.
“Paul?” she said into the darkness.
There was no answer.
The bed was still warm, which indicated he hadn’t been up for long.
Probably just using the bathroom, she thought.
But when he didn’t come back after a few minutes, an uneasy feeling began to unfurl in her gut.
Relax, she told herself. You were probably just keeping him awake with all your tossing and turning. He’s most likely in his own cabin right now, trying to get some sleep.
But something still didn’t feel right.
She got out of bed, grabbed a set of dry clothes from her bag and quickly dressed. When she was finished she pulled on her shoes, opened the door to her cabin and quietly stepped out into the companionway. Her cabin was adjacent to Paul’s in the elevated area at the rear of the boat while Garin had chosen the large cabin in the forepeak. Annja stepped over and knocked on Paul’s door.
“Paul? Are you in there?” she asked quietly.
There was no answer.
She opened the door and flicked on the light.
The bed was empty and didn’t appear to have been slept in.
Where the heck was he?
A cool draft tickled the back of her neck and she turned, peering up the companionway to the hatch above. A clatter reached her ears, and she realized that the hatch door was banging open and shut in the wind above her.
Was that what had awoken her? Could Paul be out on deck?
The boat was still rocking strongly, a sign that the seas around them hadn’t calmed all the way yet, and she could hear the rain still coming down steadily.
What reason could he have for being out on deck in weather like this?
It didn’t make any sense.
Annja went back to her room, grabbed the rain slicker she’d left hanging on the back of the door and returned to the companionway. Holding on to the railing, she climbed up to the hatch and pushed it open, peering out into the night.
The bo
at’s running lights were on, giving her just enough illumination to see that the cockpit was empty. Paul was not there.
Growing more concerned, she stepped out onto the deck, fishing for the flashlight stored in the compartment just outside the hatch. The boat was bobbing up and down in the swells, but she could see well enough with the help of the light to know that there was no one on deck.
Where on earth was Paul?
She turned away, intending to go below, but stopped when she heard something on the edge of the wind. She paused, listening, and after a moment heard it again.
It sounded like a yell, a very faint one, but a yell nonetheless.
She carefully stepped out onto the deck and rushed toward the bow of the boat, shining her flashlight into the dark water around her. The wind whipped and whistled in her ears, making it hard to sort out individual sounds, and when she didn’t see anything in the beam of her light she began to think that she had imagined the cry after all.
But that uneasy feeling persisted, it grew, in fact, into full-fledged concern, and she gave the water around her another slow and steady search with the flashlight.
As the Reliant dipped into the trough of another big swell, she spotted something rising toward the peak of a wave a few dozen yards away.
Annja rushed to the rail and shone the light in that direction. She cursed the waves as she waited for them to align themselves, but as the boat topped the next swell and started down the other side she caught a flash of yellow where she’d seen the object seconds before.
It was a rain slicker just like the one she was wearing and had come from the ship’s stores.
“Paul!” she shouted.
Nothing but the wind came back to her.
Fear seized her heart in its iron grip. She didn’t know how it had happened, but he had to have come out on deck and been knocked overboard. If she hadn’t come out looking for him when she had…
“Hang on! I’m coming!”
She turned, searching frantically for the life preserver that she’d seen lashed to the hull earlier.
It was nowhere to be found.
“Hang on!” she shouted again over her shoulder. She had no idea if Paul could hear her, but on the off chance that he could, she wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone.
Garin suddenly emerged from the companionway, blinking sleep out of his eyes, a life jacket in his hands.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Paul! He’s fallen overboard!”
That woke him up quickly. He handed her the life jacket and told her to put it on. Then he scanned the water around them, cursing all the while. When he had himself under control he said, “It’s going to take me a few moments to raise the anchor and get the engine started.”
“We don’t have a few minutes,” Annja said. “If he’s out there in that storm, he could be dead by then. I’m going after him!”
“Annja, that’s suicide. The waves will drag you under. Just let me…”
She didn’t hear the rest, for she had already headed for the bow of the boat. She stripped off her rain slicker, not wanting it to drag her down, then climbed up on the rail and dived overboard.
While the ocean wasn’t the raging tyrant it had been earlier, the seas were still quite rough. She fought her way to the surface, pulled the cord to inflate her life jacket, then struck out swimming in the direction that she’d last seen Paul.
It was slow going. The waves fought her at every turn, as if they understood her objective and were doing everything in their power to keep her from accomplishing it. She’d swim forward ten yards, then get pushed back five by the next swell, so she was constantly trying to regain ground that she’d just lost. Even with the life jacket, she was constantly being swept under by waves crashing over her head. If she hadn’t been in excellent physical condition, it would have been nearly impossible to make it through.
Complicating things was the fact that it was pitch-black out on the water, with no moon to light the way. If it hadn’t been for the waterproof flashlight in her hand, she wouldn’t have been able to see anything. As it was, she would reach the top of a swell and quickly flash the light about, looking for Paul, before she would be swept downward into the next trough between waves.
At one point she came up to the top of a wave and thought she spotted a large shape against the darkness of the storm a few dozen yards away. A chill ran up her spine at the sight as she worried that she’d somehow gotten turned around and what she’d seen was the Reliant trying to make its way toward her. If so, she was drifting farther and farther away from it with every push of the sea and she began to panic, thinking that she’d swum away from Paul instead of toward him.
Frantic, she looked back over her shoulder and was relieved to see the running lights of the Reliant right where she expected them to be. Confused, she turned back around and swung her light in the direction she thought she’d seen it in, only to come up empty.
The object was either gone or it hadn’t really been there in the first place.
With no time to worry about it or investigate it further, she put it out of her mind and kept swimming forward, searching for Paul.
After what felt like hours, she spotted something floating off to her right. It was at the very limit of her flashlight’s beam, but she decided to take a chance on it and swam hard in that direction, not wanting the waves to pull it out of reach before she could get there. Drawing closer, she could see that it had a flashing red light attached to it. Annja’s life jacket had a similar light. It was automatically activated when the light got wet and served as a beacon for rescuers.
Annja swam harder.
At last she could make out Paul’s form floating in the water ahead of her. He was on his back and he didn’t appear to be moving at all. Now seriously worried, she used the last of her strength to make her way through the surging water to his side.
One look and her worst fears were realized. Paul lay unmoving.
Chapter 22
“No, no, no!” Annja cried as she pulled him in close. She got her arms around him from behind and used the front of her life jacket to keep his head up and out of the water.
She looked around, trying to find Garin and the Reliant, but she could barely see her hand in front of her face. She shouted for help several times, but soon gave up, wanting to preserve her strength as she figured she was going to need it.
Now that she had found Paul, the adrenaline that had driven her began to wear off, and Annja realized just how tired she was. Fighting the waves had taken almost all of her strength, and it was all she could do to simply hold on to Paul’s body and keep the two of them afloat as they were tossed about by the waves.
The usually warm water was cold from the storm and that worked against her as well, sapping what little strength she had left. She locked her hands together, determined to hold on to Paul for as long as she could and praying that Garin got there soon. If he didn’t, there wouldn’t be one but two bodies that he was going to have to fish out of the water.
Leaning her head back against the inflated back of the life jacket, she shouted into the night again.
“Here, Garin! We’re over here!”
The weather seemed to mock her, the rain deadening her cries before they were whisked away on the wind, never to be heard again.
Aware of every passing second and the additional danger they posed for Paul, Annja tried to use the flashlight to signal her location, but when she lifted her arm over her head the flashlight slipped from her numb fingers and slowly sank out of sight.
So this is it, she thought. This is how it ends. Adrift in the middle of the ocean with no around to see me go.
If she’d been a different sort of person, she might have given up right then and there. Might have released her hold on Paul and let them both slip beneath the surface, following the light down into the depths. But it was precisely because she was such a fighter that she held on against what seemed to be worsening odds, determined
to keep struggling right to the very end.
And well that she did, for seconds after the light sank out of sight a massive shape slid into view just a few yards away and the beam of a floodlight suddenly blinded her.
“Hold on!” Garin called.
It was a sure sign that she was at the limits of her strength when she couldn’t even shout back at him, just nod wearily.
Garin brought the boat in as close as he dared and then waited for the next swell to carry Annja and Paul a few feet closer to him. When it did, he reached out with a grappling hook and slipped it over Annja’s arm, keeping them from drifting away as the sea swelled beneath them.
Foot by foot he dragged them over until they bumped against the hull of the boat. Reaching down, Garin grabbed Paul and hauled him up on deck, then did the same to Annja.
He tried to put her down on her feet but her legs collapsed out from under her, too weak and cold to support her weight. That was fine with her; she was happy to just lie there on the deck while Garin tended to Paul.
“He’s not breathing,” Garin said, kneeling over the unconscious man. He turned Paul’s head to one side, made sure his throat was clear and started CPR. Garin began with two breaths strong enough to move the chest up and down and then started an alternating series of chest compressions and breathing.
Breathe, Paul, breathe, Annja begged silently as Garin continued his ministrations.
Compressions and breaths. Compressions and breaths.
Come on!
Paul lay there unresponsive.
Please don’t let this all have been for nothing.
Garin finished the latest set of compressions and was getting ready to give Paul another round of breaths when the journalist suddenly coughed up a lungful of water and began choking on whatever was left in his system. Garin held on to him and rolled him over on his side, letting the water drain out as Paul hacked and spit.
When he was convinced the other man was breathing again on his own, Garin eased Paul back down and turned to Annja.
“We need to get you both downstairs and into dry clothes. Can you walk?”