The Mudskipper Cup

by Christopher Cummings

  The shark!

  Max suddenly vanished underwater. Graham saw the great ripple, the swirl - and again a fin.

  “Oh my God! The shark!” Graham cried again, standing on the stern and looking back. A stab of pure terror chilled him. The water was all a pea-soup with mud and for a moment they could see nothing. Then, five-metres behind, there was a swirl, a flurry of bubbles and Max surfaced, one arm outflung, eyes wide in terror, mouth screaming.

  Then Graham saw the blood. He saw Max scream and flail. To his horror he saw the fin ten-metres off, slicing around in a circle to suddenly dip from view.

  The cat was still drifting and Max was now ten-metres astern. Graham sobbed with the horror of it all as he scooped up the lifebuoy and flung it with all his strength. The lifeline snaked out behind the buoy which splashed into the water a couple of metres to one side of Max.

  “Max! Grab the lifebuoy! Max!” Graham cried.

  Max seemed not to hear. He splashed and seemed to scrabble at the water. Blood-flecked bubbles foamed up.

  “Max! Oh God!” Graham groaned. They were still drifting away. He knew Max must be badly hurt for there to be so much blood. He looked around. Where was the shark? Where had it gone?

  ‘Max isn’t going to grab that lifebuoy. He can’t even see it in his panic,’ Graham thought. ‘And we are drifting away.’

  Without further thought he dived in. He landed with a flat splash even as Peter yelled not to. Graham swam as fast as he could, hampered by clothes and lifejacket. Only then did the fear really hit him.

  ‘You bloody fool,’ he told himself. ‘Remember your First Aid Training. D. R. A. B. C. ‘D’ for Danger. Don’t risk yourself. Too late. Now where is that bloody shark?’

  Graham slowed to a breast stroke. It was easier and didn’t splash as much. Anxiously he looked around. There was no sign of a fin, or of a ripple. Where was the shark? Was it racing in, jaws open, to rip him apart? He felt such a spasm of fear it was all he could do to keep his limbs moving.

  Max was still thrashing and screaming and the foam was tinged pink. “Save me! Save me! Help!” he screamed.

  Graham called out as he got closer but Max took no notice. Graham grabbed the lifebuoy and changed to sidestroke. Bloody Max! The idiot wasn’t wearing a lifejacket. Graham reached him and grabbed his shirt.

  Max turned, eyes wide in terror. Then he focused on Graham. Before Graham realised what he was doing Max had grabbed him and scrambled frantically onto him, pushing him down.

  The desperate physical contact shocked and frightened Graham. Caught by surprise he swallowed water as he was pushed under. He knew he had made a mistake. ‘We were warned about this in Lifesaving lessons,’ he thought. Grimly he hung on to the lifebuoy and kicked up.

  Somehow he got his head up for air. Max clung to him like a demented monkey, gibbering and moaning. He seemed to have a grip like iron and Graham found himself choking from an arm around his neck. He swore and his own fear and desperation gave his strength.

  “Stop it Max! Let... gluggle…cough... Let go!”

  Graham went under again. He released the lifebuoy and gripped Max’s arm and little finger, gave a savage yank on the little finger to break the grip, then screwed the arm around. Max yelped but let go and was spun around. Graham held him in a half-nelson as he trod water, coughing and gasping for air.

  Where was the lifebuoy? It was now ten-metres away. Peter had brought the cat around but she was twenty or thirty-metres off and only creeping along. She would never be able to beat directly back to them.

  Peter and Roger were both shouting. Why? Was it the shark? Graham looked frantically in all directions for any hint of the shark’s next attack. There was nothing to indicate where it was. Graham sobbed with fear. Now he regretted having jumped in. Then he remembered his knife. He released Max’s arm and grabbed his shirt - no good - it was only a T-shirt and stretched. He snatched at Max’s hair and held him. With his left hand he pulled out his knife.

  Again he looked for the shark. Graham knew it could strike without warning so he didn’t even know which way to point the knife. His stomach knotted up and his whole body seemed to cringe.

  Max began to moan and whimper and started struggling. Graham saw more blood well up. He was aghast. ‘Oh my God! How badly is he hurt?’ he thought. ‘If he is losing so much blood that it tinges this muddy water he must be in terrible trouble.’

  “Graham!”

  It was Peter. Graham looked. Peter had hauled in the lifebuoy and now heaved it. It still landed five-metres short. The cat was hove to but starting to make sternway. Graham tried to swim, couldn’t, stuck his knife between his teeth, gripped Max’s hair and began side stroking, his eyes still frantically searching for the first tell-tale ripple.

  He tried not to splash, but he did. And Max was no help. He screamed and struggled. But Graham reached the lifebuoy. He snatched at it and clung on.

  Peter didn’t hesitate. He and Roger began hauling them in. Graham swallowed water and started to cough. His knife slipped from his mouth and vanished. Unarmed! Oh my God! No! Please, no!

  Then he was alongside. Roger reached down and gripped him.

  “Get aboard Graham! Quick!” he yelled.

  “Get Max,” Graham croaked, coughing out more water.

  “Bugger Max!” Peter exploded. “I’ll hold him. You get aboard.”

  Roger hauled. Graham clawed his way up. He tumbled onto his back in the hull, oblivious of bumps and bruises. For a moment he lay gasping and trembling. Then more horror struck him.

  Peter had hauled Max aboard - and his right leg was missing below the knee - torn off, leaving a bloody, mangled stump which spurted bright red blood.

  The blood sprayed and splattered over them as they gaped in horror. Graham struggled to get up but Roger was blocking him. Peter knelt and gripped the stump with his hands.

  That stopped the pumping but the blood still squirted and bubbled out, to flow over his hands. So much blood! It seemed to be everywhere - on the deck, in the hull, even on the sail! Graham was stunned. He wanted to vomit.

  Peter yelled. “A tourniquet. Quick! Roger! Get some rope!”

  “They said in our St Johns Ambulance Course we shouldn’t use tourniquets,” Roger replied.

  Peter swore, then snapped. “Roger! We aren’t going to cause tissue damage. The bloody leg is gone. Now tie a tourniquet just near my hands, then we can put on the proper constrictive bandage and a pressure bandage, now move!”

  Graham came to his senses. ‘Feel sick later,’ he told himself. He was alive, but Max would die for sure if he lost more blood. Driven by desperate urgency he scrambled across to the other hull and reefed the stern locker open. With frantic fumbling he dragged out the First Aid Kit and tried to open it. He couldn’t. He was shaking too much.

  Roger knelt down. “Let me.” He took the First Aid Kit. Graham dimly noted that Roger had fastened a piece of rope around Max’s torn stump and Peter was holding Max down and pushing his thumbs into the pressure point in Max’s groin.

  “Shut up Max!” Peter snarled. “Just lie still.”

  Roger quickly set to work with pads and bandages. Graham knelt shaking, then did vomit. He leaned over and spewed between the hulls. With a trembling arm he wiped his mouth. He was aghast at what had happened to Max and it took a minute for the shaking to stop and for his mind to work.

  “We’ve got to get him to hospital,” he cried. He looked around, knowing that they should be somewhere near the hospital. To his relief his eyes picked both the buildings at once but then he noted that they were almost opposite it, but a kilometre off shore - and half of that was mud.

  ‘What will be quicker? Go back to the Marina - or try to cross the mud?’ he thought. His mind raced a she calculated. The Marina was two kilometres and upwind - or would have been if there had been a wind. There seemed to be none. The sails hung limp.

  “Straight ashore,” Graham cried as he seized a paddle and set to work. After a gut-busting e
ffort he got the cat turned and heading inshore.

  Peter looked up and nodded. “Best plan,” he agreed.

  “How is he?” Graham called.

  Peter shook his head. “He’s passed out. He’s lost a lot a blood. Silly bastard! Oh shit!” Then he began to shake and turned his head away.

  Roger finished knotting a bandage that was already soaked crimson. “You mad bugger Graham! That shark could have got you too. You should have let the silly bastard get eaten!”

  Graham shook his head. “Save it Roger. Grab a paddle.”

  They all began paddling as hard as they could. The Mudskipper moved, but at an agonisingly slow pace. Peter and Roger kept glancing down at Max. Graham couldn’t see Max’s face and didn’t want to. The sick anxiety on his friends’ faces was eloquent enough.

  The three boys paddled with desperate energy, driven by the dread of possible death. After ten-minutes they were close in to shallow water but exhaustion brought them to a sweating, panting stop. Graham tried to keep going, cursed himself for being out of breath and for having tired muscles. He could see the hospital clearly – it was now only a few hundred metres away across the mudflat. So close! He struggled to keep paddling then stopped, gasping for breath to wipe sweat from his eyes.

  Roger bent over and put his finger to Max’s neck.

  Graham felt ill. “How is he?” he asked.

  Roger looked up, his face grim. “I can just feel a pulse. He is still breathing though.”

  “He’s gone an awful colour,” Peter added, his voice catching as he said it.

  Graham gritted his teeth and resumed paddling. The cat was sliding in shallow water by this, touching bottom from time to time. Then it stopped.

  “Come on! Out! Push!” Graham gasped. He swung his legs over between the two hulls, resting his body on the forward cross-beam and began pushing. Roger and Peter went over each side and joined in. They ran until they could push no more.

  “Still at least two hundred metres to go,” Graham cried. He leaned on the beam gasping. “God give me strength!” he cried. As he strained he studied the wasteland of ooze. Would it be quicker if he carried Max in a Fireman’s carry? Could he do that? Or could he haul him on his back across the mud? He reluctantly decided that would never do. The wound needed to be kept clean, not dragged through filth.

  Graham tried pushing again. They gained fifty-metres before coming to a gasping halt. Roger kept looking at Max and biting his lip. Worry radiated from his usually cheerful face.

  “This is no good,” Graham said. “We need help. I’ll go on ahead. You two keep pushing.”

  He didn’t wait for discussion but set out as fast as he could go. His feet sank at every laboured step, sometimes ankle deep, sometimes knee deep, sometimes right up to his thigh. He fell often, but dragged, floundered and wallowed in his urgent efforts. Although his breath came in rasping gasps and his heart hammered fit to burst he kept pushing himself on.

  Perspiration stung his eyes and interfered with his already blurred vision. He tried wiping it clear with his sleeves and ended up smearing himself with mud. Gasping for breath he staggered and lurched on. As he got close to the beach a sharp pain told him he had sliced his right foot open on broken glass. He gritted his teeth and kept walking.

  His left foot got a cut too. Graham didn’t care. Ten-metres. Five-metres. He was on the beach. Driven by frantic dread he scrambled up the seawall but then had to pause for breath. After a few seconds of dizzy swaying he made himself move. Sucking in great rasping gulps of air he stumbled on across the grass, past the hospital helipad and on through parked cars and across the road. As he did he was dimly aware of traffic a she dodged cars. There were staring faces but he ignored them till his eyes found what they sought - the white uniform of a nurse.

  Graham staggered and hobbled up to her. She tried not to let her dismay show.

  “Casualty,” he croaked. She glanced at the dried blood on him, and the bloody footprints he was leaving and pointed.

  “This way,” she said.

  Graham stopped, chest heaving. “No. Not me. My friend. Out there.” Graham cried, pointing. “Quickly, he’s had his leg ripped off by a shark and he’s lost a lot of blood. Hurry please.” Then he turned and began hobbling back towards the beach.

  The Sister tried to restrain him, then turned and ran into the building. Graham somehow re-crossed the busy road without getting run over and limped back through the car-park.

  On top of the seawall he saw a group of people with bicycles. It was the girls, plus Andrew and his crew. Graham noted the concerned looks on the girls’ faces as he hobbled over to them. Several jesting comments died in the air.

  Margaret came forward, followed by Kylie.

  “Graham, are you alright?” Margaret asked. She looked down at his bleeding feet.

  “Yes. Just winded. Oh never mind me! It’s Max. A shark has torn his leg off and he is bleeding to death. There, in the cat.” He pointed to the Mudskipper, still a hundred metres out on the mud.

  The others were appalled. There was a unanimous gasp of horror. Graham went to keep walking. Margaret barred his way and took hold of him. “No. You’ve done enough. Sit down. We will go.”

  Graham stopped. He found he was swaying and trembling and his vision seemed to blur. He knew he was crying and was ashamed of himself.

  “Come on!” Andrew cried. All except Margaret raced down onto the beach and began floundering out into the mud.

  Margaret took Graham’s hand and he swayed.

  “Sit down Graham,” she ordered. He flopped onto the grass as half a dozen white-clad orderlies came running past wheeling a stretcher.

  CHAPTER 34

  PARENTAL PERMISSION

  Graham did not enjoy the next few hours. Not only was he very sore but he was sick with apprehension over Max. Filled with dread he had watched the cat hauled ashore and seen Max whisked away on a stretcher. Then he had lain back and allowed them to doctor him. Margaret had removed his lifejacket and tossed it into the cat. An attempt was made to wash off the worst of the mud before he also was placed, in spite of protests, on another stretcher and carried over to the hospital, Margaret walking with him and holding his hand.

  Two hours later Graham lay on a couch, washed, cleaned, cuts stitched, feet bandaged. He wore a change of clothes brought by his worried mother who now sat beside him with his father. Margaret and Kylie sat on his other side.

  The door opened and a nurse came in, followed by two policemen.

  ‘Oh no!’ Graham groaned. Not just policemen but those two: the sergeant and ‘Pimples’: Constable Foster. He ignored them and looked at the nurse.

  “How’s Max?”

  “He will live,” the nurse replied.

  Graham gave a loud sigh of relief and relaxed. The nurse went on. “He lost a lot a blood. We got to him just in time.”

  The nurse left and the two policemen sat down and took out notebooks. The sergeant began. “OK son, can you tell us what happened?” he asked.

  Graham nodded. He described how the race had gone, then how, on the homeward voyage, Max had pushed Roger over the side, then dived in to get the paddle. For a moment he had to pause as the horrifying images crowded his brain. Then he shuddered at the memory of that shocking moment when the shark had taken Max. Margaret put her hand on his and squeezed and he let her hold it.

  “It was awful,” he said. “For a moment we didn’t know what to do. Then we fished Max out. Peter stopped the worst of the bleeding and Roger bandaged the...the,” he stopped, the word ‘stump’ in his mind. The image of that mangled raw meat pulsing blood made him shudder again. “The leg. Then we paddled ashore to get him to hospital.”

  The sergeant wrote this down then tapped his pen thoughtfully on the page. He looked up at Graham. “Is that all?”

  “Yes sir,” Graham replied, colouring slightly.

  “Hmm.” The sergeant looked at the others then said to Graham’s worried parents. “I believe there is a bit mo
re to the story than that.”

  Graham suddenly felt gnawing doubt. ‘What more?’ He began to worry. ‘Has Max said something? Has he accused me of pushing him overboard or something?’

  The sergeant went on, now looking at Graham. “I have interviewed the other two boys, Bronsky and Dunning, and they gave a bit more detail.”

  Again he paused. Graham squirmed mentally and braced himself for bad news. The sergeant then smiled and said, “They tell me, quite independently because I interviewed them separately, that you first threw a lifebuoy, then you dived over the side and swam to the victim’s aid, even though the shark was visible circling and there was blood in the water.”

  Graham went bright red. He shrugged. “I couldn’t just leave him,” he mumbled.

  The sergeant went on, “You then swam to the lifebuoy while supporting the patient, and prepared to defend him against another attack.”

  Graham was highly embarrassed. He could only mumble. “I lost my knife.”

  The sergeant laughed. Margaret squeezed Graham’s hand. The policeman went on: “I’m sure Max will buy you another one. You saved his life, at great risk to your own. That was a very brave thing to do.”

  Graham could only shrug and mumble. He burned with embarrassment. Margaret hugged his head to her bosom which only increased his discomfiture. The two policemen said farewell and left. Graham extricated himself from Margaret’s embrace, although she still proudly gripped his hand. Kylie also hugged him, as did his mother.

  Then his dad held out his hand.

  “I’m proud of you son. Well done!”

  Graham glowed with pleasure at the praise but tried to change the subject to save further embarrassment. “The cat, we have to clean her and get her back to Peter’s.”

  “Already done,” Kylie said. “Andrew and Carmen took charge and we all helped.”

  Graham nodded his thanks, then shook his head. “What a pity. One more race to go and this has to spoil it all.”

  His mother pursed her lips. “I think that is the end of this sailing business.”

  “Oh Mum! Fair go! The score is two all. We have to do one more race to settle the argument,” Graham cried.