‘Don’t do anything stupid, boy.’
Jack stroked the Zippo with his thumb. A slow, affectionate smile spread over his face.
‘Be a good lad and put it down, now.’
Jack’s thumb flipped open the lid.
‘No, you stupid boy!’
Jack’s head lurched out of sight as another great wave tumbled them over. Harry fell on his back on the grating, watching the hard, wooden horizon of the cockpit coaming rotate against a soft, chaotic horizon of water. He had the bizarre impression that the whole world had tilted, so the boat was flat but the sea stretched upwards, almost vertically. The mighty cliffs of Anfel Head hung at the top of the ocean, and any moment now they would fall across the water to smash into them.
But Anfel Head slid out of sight until all Harry could see was sky that had no form, no shape except swirling stains of greys and wet charcoal. From down in the chart-room came the tinny sound of the VHF radio, and then, even over the noise of the storm, the thump of igniting fuel.
III: GEORGE
It was the mast that caught George’s eye, over a mile away at the edge of The Race: an eyelash-thin line seen only on the crest of a wave and pushed out of shape by the wet on the workboat’s windows. A tricky, one-handed look through the binoculars on the next crest showed Draca running with the wind on her quarter and just her storm jib set, an ochre-brown slash more constant than the breaking waves. There was no sign of her mainsail but there was another brown blur along her deck, and in that brief moment Draca pitched so that her mast whipped forward like the cast of a fishing rod.
‘Yacht Draca, Yacht Draca, this is Furzey Marina workboat, Furzey Marina workboat. I have you in sight. Do you require assistance, over?’
Again, there was only the crackle of static. Come on, Jack, pick up the frigging radio. This ain’t fun.
Another line of brown climbed Draca’s mast, a narrow triangle that broadened at its point until it bellied out and filled, making a rectangle the colour of dried blood in the lowering light of the storm. If Jack-bloody-Ahlquist was setting his square sail then there couldn’t have been much wrong. Already George could see them making headway against the tide. She, on the other hand, was taking a stupid risk. She chose her moment between the waves, and spun the workboat for home. Sod them. Draca was built for this madness, the workboat wasn’t.
Draca even began to overhaul her with that antique bloody sail set, while George chugged along at her play-it-safe speed, slewing off the tops of waves and hoping she’d make it back into the shelter of Anfel Head’s lee before she was swamped. They’d probably beat her back to the harbour entrance, and she felt a complete frigging idiot for being out there at all.
George kept snatching looks at Draca, in between waves. It was weird: a ship with a red square sail set and no main, like a boat from another era. The ugly figurehead at the bow made her look so Viking that George shivered with more than the wet. She remembered that strange conversation with Mad Eddie around Christmas, when he had wanted to rig her out as a longship for one last sail. She was seeing things she didn’t understand and it scared the shit out of her.
George didn’t understand the smudge that spread along Draca’s deck either. For a moment she thought that the evil in the figurehead had taken substance, and spread its darkness around the boat, but this black fog was growing, whipping along the length of the boat and streaming past the figurehead, not flowing from it. A touch of light the colour of sunset appeared around the cockpit, and grew until it was flare-bright. George picked up the microphone.
‘Yacht Draca, Yacht Draca, do you require assistance?’
They were still almost a mile away, too far to see details, but the light spread to Draca’s midships, probably coming up through her skylight. George had a strange sense of unreality as she spun back towards them, breasting into angry waves that looked more and more lethal towards Draca, where all shelter of the headland was lost. As George keyed the microphone she felt like a bad actor, knowing the lines she had to speak but not knowing how the plot was supposed to unfold.
‘MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY. This is Furzey Marina workboat calling for yacht Draca. Yacht Draca is on fire, position one mile south of Anfel Head. Over.’
She didn’t even have to repeat the message.
‘Furzey Marina workboat, this is Channel Coastguard. What is your position, over?’
‘Channel Coastguard, this is Furzey workboat, my position one mile east of Anfel Head. I have yacht Draca in sight. Fire is spreading.’ George paused, staring at the chaos between her and Draca and feeling so bad about what she was going to say that it came out quietly, as if she was guilty. ‘Sea state makes it unlikely that I can assist. Over.’ Why does VHF language always sound so frigging pompous?
‘Furzey workboat, this is Channel Coastguard. Say again, over.’
‘I CAN’T FUCKING HELP THEM. Over.’
George hadn’t realised she was crying. Was that common sense or cowardice?
‘Furzey workboat, this is Channel Coastguard. Do you know how many people on board Draca, over?’
‘Two. Over.’ She didn’t scream that time.
‘Stand by.’
George watched Draca while the coastguard put out an ‘All Ships’ broadcast. When she crested a wave and could see Draca, there were two centres of fire on the deck, one just forward of the cockpit, the other aft of the mast, probably the hatch and the skylight. The saloon must have been well alight. Why the feck had Eddie insisted on keeping that ancient frigging petrol engine?
Sod the ‘All Ships’. If there was anyone close enough to help, George would be able to see them. Keeping one hand on the wheel, she reached behind her and latched the door of the deckhouse open. The air in the workboat’s plastic hull would probably keep her afloat even if she turned turtle, but George didn’t want to be trapped underneath.
Very gently, one wave at a time, she edged out to sea. The control seat became useless beyond the lee of the point. Only by planting her legs wide on the deck and riding the boat could she keep any balance.
‘Furzey workboat, this is Channel Coastguard, over?’
‘YES?’ George didn’t want to take a hand off the wheel for any longer than she needed, even to hold the mike, and her focus was on Draca, where there was a hint of movement in the smoke over her deck that might have been a man.
‘This is Channel Coastguard. An air–sea rescue helicopter has launched. ETA ten minutes. Over.’
Thank God for that. ‘Tell them to… oh, fuck.’
George was going to ask them to make sure she was still afloat when the helo got there, but a fireball blossomed over Draca, sending debris spinning into the air over her deck. It took her a moment to realise that the black, wedge-shaped lump cartwheeling upwards must be her doghouse cabin hatch.
‘Furzey workboat, come in. Over.’
George didn’t answer. She was still over half a mile from Draca, and too busy searching for glimpses of people. Flames now raged the whole length of the boat aft of the mast. Jack, where are you?
‘Furzey workboat, come in. Over.’
‘Draca just exploded. Probably fuel tank or gas bottles. Still afloat.’
Fire licked at the bottom of the square sail, raced upwards and the swell of canvas burst into two flaming banners. Of course, fresh from its locker, the old fabric would still have been dry.
The flames silhouetted a figure on the foredeck. It was too far to see if it was Jack or his father, but he was standing with his legs astride the bowsprit, just aft of the dragon, and was taking no notice at all of the fire burning around him. As George watched, his arm lifted as a great wave rose under Draca’s stern and pushed her forwards, but her bow swung away so that she rolled down the wave sideways, broaching, and the figure on the bow was lost behind the burning, tattered remnants of square sail.
Draca went swiftly, long before George could have reached her. George saw her wallowing in the trough, only half righting, still broadside to the waves and w
ith the flames almost extinguished, but she lost sight of her as the workboat dropped between waves. At the next crest, there was nothing there. No wreckage that she could see, no boat, no Jack. There was a strangely calm spot among the waves, a circle fringed with its own ring of foam, that lasted for perhaps half a minute and then that too was gone.
IV: HARRY
When Harry heard the fuel ignite, he’d lain on the floor of the cockpit, his mind rejecting the whole bloody scene. This ain’t real. It’s all a bad bastard dream. But water slopped over him as they rolled, the way he might once have thrown a bucket over a drunken squaddie to rouse him, and he hauled himself onto his knees. Behind him, the tiller tugged at its lashings. In front of him, the hatchway gaped, the hard edges wavering a little in heat rising from below. Harry didn’t want to go near the hatch. Didn’t want to see what was down there.
‘Jack?’
No reply.
‘Come on, Jack, stop messing about.’
Harry began to shake, perhaps with cold, perhaps at the sight of that empty sodding ocean that felt as if it was taking his presence there very personally. The only thing he could see, apart from the cliffs and the surf, was some silly sod of a fisherman bouncing around in a little boat with a square cabin like a brick shithouse, and he was much too far away to be any use. Harry could almost hear Mad Eddie laughing.
‘You loved this sort of thing, didn’t you, you old sod?’
Harry felt closer to his father there, in that boat, than he ever had when Eddie was alive. Harry began to grope his way towards the hatch.
‘This was your idea of fun, Pa, wasn’t it?’ Talking to himself didn’t seem to matter. Harry wouldn’t have been surprised if Mad Eddie had replied out loud. Harry knew what Eddie would say.
Get him out, son.
It was surreal, having this made-up conversation in his own head. Harry swore as a trickle of smoke flowed out of the hatch and away on the wind. It made Harry think of the way Mad Eddie used to exhale those stinking cigarettes of his. Harry couldn’t see the top of Jack’s body from the steps, but his legs stretched into view, lying at an angle across the floor. He wasn’t moving.
You always wanted to be a hero, didn’t you?
Was that Harry thinking that, or Mad Eddie saying it?
Harry heaved his legs over the coaming and backed down the steps into the chart-room. The heat layer by the hatch rushed him onwards, just to get through it.
It wasn’t your fault that you never had the chance, was it?
Jack lay with his body crumpled beneath the chart-table and his head lying in the doorway to the main cabin. He had blood on his forehead and in his hair. Blue-tinged flames were spreading across the carpet beyond. As Harry watched, the flames found Jack’s hair, which crisped and frizzled and stank. Harry grabbed the strap of Jack’s life jacket and hauled him back, beating at the flames, as something caught light in the cabin and a yellower fireball spread over the ceiling.
Never wanted him to outshine you, did you?
‘Shut up, Eddie.’
Harry grabbed the fire extinguisher clipped to the wall above the engine, and doused Jack with powder. He paused in the doorway to the main cabin, crouching against the heat, but the fire in there was already more than a match for any single extinguisher. It looked as if an oil lamp had caught, spilling burning oil onto the sofa beneath. The flames covered the ceiling, funnelling upwards through the skylight.
Get out, son.
Harry managed to get Jack to the base of the steps, but there was no way he could lift him up them, even by hauling on the shoulder straps of his life jacket. Above the chart-table, the VHF speaker was screaming at them, but Harry ignored it. No time to talk.
You need a rope.
He scrambled back into the cockpit and hauled in one of Jack’s trailing ropes. In that short time the flames were coming through the hatch and Harry had to push it wide open and cover his face with a wet handkerchief to get back down there.
Thank God he’d kept himself fit. Harry managed to haul Jack out with that rope through his straps. They got a bit more scorched coming through the hatch, but at least Jack didn’t burn in the chart-room. The floor down there was starting to smoke, and Harry guessed that burning fuel was spreading under the deck.
They fell backwards together into the cockpit and Harry stayed there for a moment, too exhausted to move. Jack lay spreadeagled across him, face up and unconscious, with his singed head flopping from side to side on Harry’s chest as the boat rolled. He stank of soot and burned hair and a chalky, chemical smell that would be the extinguisher powder. Harry reached up to his neck and found a pulse, thank God, and for a moment it was so tempting to stay there, holding him, feeling Jack’s warmth with his fingertips, but above them, near Harry’s head, the splintered deck reminded him of the fuel tank beside them.
Time to go, son.
After the haul up the steps to the cockpit, getting him from the cockpit to the deck was easy. Harry was standing with his arms locked across Jack’s chest, swaying with the movement of the boat but somehow held there by Jack’s weight, when the tank blew and he didn’t have to worry about how to get him into the water any more. Harry had a moment when he was flying backwards with a scorching heat on his face and after that he wasn’t thinking about anything for a while.
Heat then cold, the sort of cold that makes you gasp, but at least some instinct made Harry keep his mouth and eyes shut. For a while he couldn’t tell if his head was under the water or above it. The life jacket had inflated on its own, so he was floating, but there didn’t seem to be much boundary between water and air. It was solid, wet sea or stinging, wet spray and Harry couldn’t breathe in either of them. And he was being thrown about, violently, the way a dog shakes a rabbit in its teeth. When his back was to the spray, he managed a few gasps of air that came in salty and wet, and at the top of a wave he glimpsed Draca sailing away, blazing furiously, but most of the time, if he saw her at all, he could only see the masthead, glowing in the light beneath it.
Harry only saw Jack once, for a moment, just his head and his life jacket, and then an arm which moved in a way that might have been an attempt to swim, so he was probably conscious. In that instant, Jack was jerked backwards, bursting through the top of a wave, and even in Harry’s fuddled state he realised that Jack still had the rope through his straps and was being dragged behind the boat. Next time Harry saw anything but water, the big square sail had burst into flame, but there was no sign of Jack. Harry even tried to swim towards the boat, but it was hopeless in all that movement and with the life jacket turning him onto his back. He couldn’t get enough breath to shout, let alone swim. At the top of another wave, Draca was on her side and the flames were almost out, but after that there was just the wind and an empty ocean. Empty except for one of Jack’s legs kicking at air as he was pulled under, head first.
Harry was still staring at the spot when he heard the clatter of a helicopter. By then, he’d nearly drowned in the spray. When he could snatch some air, he’d bellowed, so he was hoarse with salt and shouting, and he still couldn’t quite believe that he’d lost him. Harry was swearing as much in his head as in his mouth, angry with Jack for being such a bloody fool, and angry with himself for leaving that rope on him and letting him be dragged down with the boat. God forgive him, Harry thought he even cried. How was he going to tell Mary?
V: JACK
Grandpa rode Draca’s final dive with Jack, all the way down.
Jack had come to in the water, concussed, disoriented, not knowing what the hell was going on. One second he was in the cabin, worried about the fuel leak, worried too about how the hell he was going to pay for the damage, but knowing they were running before the wind and not in immediate danger. The next thing he knew, he was in the water and Draca was close but sailing away from him, burning like a bonfire.
Jack inhaled enough spray to set him coughing and retching, and the motion in the sea was so brutal that he couldn’t think straight. He th
ought he’d fallen overboard, so Harry must still be there and Jack needed to get back and save him, but somehow one of the lines Jack had streamed over the stern became entangled with his life jacket and he nearly drowned right then as he was dragged after the ship with the water flowing over his head. It stopped when the square sail caught fire and ripped, spilling the wind and the speed as if someone had stepped on a brake.
The flaming sail parted like the curtains on a stage, framing a view of the foredeck as a wave lifted Jack. The figure that stood there astride the bowsprit could not have been Harry, for this figure had long hair streaming past his face in the wind, and perhaps a beard. He seemed quite calm, even though the ship was clearly finished. Amidst the shock and the impossibility of the man’s presence, part of Jack’s mind wondered where the hell he’d seen him before.
Jack lost sight of the boat as a great wave rose between them and, when it had passed, Draca was wallowing on her side with her deck awash and one beam buried so that the sea was already above the deadeyes on the shrouds. The man was still there, beside the dragon, and as the stern lifted and Draca started to slide under, he pushed one arm at the sky in a gesture that might have been a balancing movement or a punch of triumph.
Jack didn’t have time to grieve. He knew what was coming, and was too busy trying to free the line from his life jacket harness. He was still desperately tugging it through his straps and hyperventilating as he was pulled under.
He’d read that free divers can go down hundreds of feet. Jack had no idea how deep he went, only that the cold rush of water over his face continued until the pressure on his ears was like spikes being driven into his head. He had one hand clamped, vice-like, around the rope, heaving against it to give himself enough slack to drag the loose end clear with the other. He hadn’t a chance. The ship was pulling him one way, going down fast, and the buoyancy of the life jacket was pushing him upwards. The pain in his ears became a screaming agony that filled his whole head and above it all was the urge to breathe, even though that would end it all in a paroxysm of choking.
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