White Dolphin (21 page)

A flicker of a smile crosses Daisy’s face. She nods and wipes the tears from her face. ‘I’ll go.’

I watch her run along the pontoon. I shouldn’t let her out of my sight, I know. What if she falls in the water or gets knocked down crossing a road? I try to push the thoughts from my mind and help Felix into his boat.

Felix starts pulling up the mainsail. ‘Put a life jacket on,’ he yells. ‘I’ve got two here.’

‘Hang on,’ I yell. I run down the pontoon, clamber into one of the sightseeing boats and lift up one of the bench seats. I pull out two more life jackets, one for Jake and one for Ethan, and run back to Felix. We have to stop them before they get beyond the protection of the headland. Maybe we can make them turn round. I pull my life jacket on, climb in and help Felix with his.

‘Let’s go,’ yells Felix.

I cast off and push the dinghy away. Felix guides us through the narrow gap between the harbour walls, out into the open sea, and out into the grey-green ocean swell.

T
he swell rolls in and slumps against the harbour walls. I can feel the power of the waves in the recoil that jars against the dinghy’s hull. Jake and Ethan have put a lot of distance between us.
Moana
’s sails are full and she is leaning heavily across the water.

Felix has put a reef in our sails, but she heels over and I sit out to balance her. I’m glad of the long centre-board in his boat and know at least we have less chance of capsizing. I glance at Felix, but his face is tightened in a knot of concentration. The headland is veiled in a sweeping curtain of rain. Gull Rock lies out at sea, pale grey against a darker sky. Beyond the headland the water is flecked with white horses. There are ocean currents and strong winds out there. It’s no place for any small boat and I wonder how long the lifeboat will take to get out here too.

‘We must put another reef in,’ yells Felix, ‘before we hit those waves.’

He turns up into the wind and I press myself against the mast and reef the mainsail, spreading my feet to balance against the rolling swell. I know Felix is right. We’ll go slower but we can’t risk the bigger sail.

I sit back down in the centre line seat behind Felix as he reefs the jib sail. The wind is stronger, the swell bigger all the time.

We plough into the breaking waves beyond the headland. The first wave runs across the boat and I take a sharp intake of breath as the water floods across my legs and around my waist. We don’t have wetsuits or warm gear. It suddenly seems so stupid to have followed Jake out here. I turn to look back, but the land is screened from view behind the rain. Ahead,
Moana
lurches through the waves. I see her buck and jar and slew sideways as the waves knock her off course. We’re catching up, despite smaller sails.

Jake and Ethan are struggling. The jib sail is flying loose and I can see Ethan putting all his weight on the tiller.
Moana
dips and pushes on beyond Gull Rock. They will have to turn her to pass round the other side. I hope they know to sail far beyond Gull Rock before they make the turn. If they try to make the turn too soon, the wind and waves will push them too close to the rocks.

Maybe it’s because they’re scared to go too far out into the sea, or maybe they misjudge the turn, but Ethan swings
Moana
across the wind and we see her turn sharply around the rock. Jake is leaning far out on
Moana
’s side, the rope to the mainsail in his hands. I don’t have time to yell to Jake. The wind fills the other side of the sail and pushes it across. The boom swings over, a blur through the air, and I know Jake doesn’t stand a chance. His head flies back as he is knocked in a high arc across the sea, his arms flailing above the foaming surf before he disappears beneath the waves.

‘Jake,’ I scream.

Felix has seen it happen too. He sails towards
Moana
, sailing close behind the cliffs. The sea is in white chaos. The spray from exploding waves showers us like heavy rain. The recoil from the cliff base swamps us with foaming green water and pearl-white surf. The dinghy lurches side to side, her sails almost slap the water.

I push wet hair from my eyes to look for Jake. I hold the mast and rise up on my knees to get a better view. ‘He’s gone,’ I yell. ‘He’s gone.’

‘We’ve got to move,’ shouts Felix.

We’re too close to Gull Rock. If the long centre-board breaks beneath us we won’t stand a chance. I lean out to balance the dinghy as Felix steers towards Ethan and
Moana
. I look back one more time towards Gull Rock. I want to wake up from this nightmare. I can’t believe that Jake has gone.

Then I see his head and arms splash above the water. Another waves sweeps over and he disappears again.

‘He’s there,’ I yell. The waves heave and crest into peaks, curling over near the rocks. Jake’s head rises above the water. He claws at the air but sinks under again.

‘I see him,’ Felix yells.

He swings the dinghy towards Jake. The air is filled with flying sea foam. We ride down one wave into the deep trough and rise up the other side. I look down into the water and see Jake again suspended below us, his shirt billowing around him and his arms outspread as if he’s underwater flying.

He’s rising towards us through the water. I reach out and grab Jake’s shirt as a wave rolls him up and we fall in a mass of tangled arms and legs inside the boat. For one brief moment I thought I saw a flash of white beneath the waves, something beneath Jake pushing him up towards the air. I look again, but all I see is the white swirl of sea foam in the water.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Felix yells.

Ethan is clinging to
Moana
’s mast as another wave rolls over her. The sky is black with cloud. There is no horizon. Sea and sky are one. Felix brings the dinghy up on
Moana
’s seaward side. I help Jake pull a life jacket on. He’s a dead weight. Blood is pouring through his hair and down his forehead. I grab the other life jacket and scramble across, to join Ethan in
Moana
.

‘Get back to shore,’ I scream to Felix. ‘Get Jake back. I’ll bring Ethan in
Moana
.’

Another wave lifts us and crunches the two boats together. I give the dinghy a shove.

‘Just go,’ I yell.

Felix pushes the central joystick of his dinghy across and sails away, running with the wind towards the harbour. A gust of wind hits my back and scuds across the ocean. I watch Felix and Jake dissolve into the grainy curtain of rain.

I feel sick and heavy inside. I don’t know if I will ever see them again.

‘
K
ara!’

Ethan stumbles over to me and clings on to my arm. His face is white. His whole body shakes. He pulls his life jacket on and fumbles with the straps.

Moana
heaves and falls over the waves. She’s taking on water fast, heeling far over in the water. Another wave spills in the boat and Ethan and I slip and flounder together while sea foam swirls all around us.

My mind is white with fear. I have to think. I try to think.

A tangle of rope and loose sail spreads across the foredeck into the water. I see now why
Moana
’s heeling in the water. Jake and Ethan have opened the spinnaker sail. It twists under the boat, an underwater parachute, pulling us towards the rocks.

‘Help me with this,’ I yell. But Ethan doesn’t move. He just stands holding the mast, as if he’s holding the boat into the sea. I pull and pull on the rope, but the sail is heavy, weighed down into the water. The yawning cliff caves thunder with the breaking waves.

‘Ethan,’ I scream. ‘The knife. In the locker.’

Ethan stumbles forward, and pulls stuff from the locker. He finds the short-bladed knife from the tool box and leans out towards me. I take it in my hands and saw across the spinnaker rope. It cuts loose and the sail billows away, a monster jellyfish escaping back to sea.

The waves are white-capped mountains now, vast moving ranges, rising higher and higher. The wind is screaming past and the air is filled with flying foam. We’re being pushed towards the breaking surf. Our only hope now is to sail away. I pull on the mainsail and slide back to the tiller, pulling Ethan with me.

‘Stay back here with me,’ I yell.

The sail fills with wind, pulls taut and I feel
Moana
surge forward.

‘KARA!’ Ethan yells.

I look past him to a wall of dark green water, rising up and up. A freak wave, higher than all the rest.

Everything slows down.

Moana
ploughs up into the wave. She rises up the wave’s steep side. But the wave is changing. A crest of foam brims at its peak.
Moana
struggles forward, but the wave is curving inwards and begins to break. She can’t make it now.
Moana
’s prow twists in the air and the wave curls over us, folding us in a blanket of green surf. And this moment stays freeze-framed in my mind.
Moana
, on her side, and a thousand tonnes of water stretched out across us, about to push us down.

I grab Ethan and pull him under one of the seats.
Moana
rolls and everything goes dark. Seawater rushes in and fills the space we’re lying in. The water thunders all around, and through the roar of wind and waves there is a tearing crack, like a gunshot. I can feel it split the water.

Moana
spins back up, and Ethan and I burst up for air.
Moana
’s mast is down, ripped apart by rocks beneath the boat. Its jagged end is broken like a stick. But the sail ropes are still attached and anchor
Moana
to the rocks. The sea is boiling all around us.
Moana
’s hull protects us from the full force of the waves. But each wave thumps against her and pushes her towards the cliff. I feel her keel grinding on the rocks below.

‘Flares,’ I yell. ‘There’s a flare in the front locker.’

I scramble forward and reach into the locker. I pull the flare from the clips and try to read the instructions but
Moana
is heaving in the churning sea. The flare is soaked. I only hope it works. I’ve never had to use one before. A wave crashes over
Moana
, and I fall back against the hard seat. I pull the tag and hold it skywards. At first nothing happens, but then a blast of light explodes from the flare. I watch its trail spiral upwards, and hold there above us, a bright red beacon burning in the darkened skies.

Another wave crushes us against the rocks. One of the metal stays that held the mast rips from the wood and flies close past Ethan’s head.

‘Get down,’ I yell.

Ethan lurches towards me and we crouch low under the seats. The sound of splintering wood and tearing metal rips through screaming wind. I feel the hull grind against the rocks below us and know
Moana
’s keel is being wrenched away. It’s all that’s holding us from being thrown against the cliffs.

Ethan and I push further under the seat as wave after wave after wave thumps against us. There is nothing we can do now, nowhere for us to go. Ethan takes my hand and I hold his tightly in mine. The waves thud and thud and thud against
Moana
, and I can’t tell if it’s the waves, or the hammering of my heart.

But there’s another hammering too, a thudding high above the waves. A beam of light shines down and hits the boat.

‘HELICOPTER!’ Ethan yells.

We scramble out and wave our hands. The beam holds us fast, and above us a helicopter sways in the gale.

‘We’re too close to the cliff,’ yells Ethan.

A man drops down towards us, silhouetted by the light. He drops down on a wire, his feet whizzing past above our heads. I duck, but Ethan lunges at his boots. He swings back again and drops into the boat. He loops a harness over Ethan and grabs me as a wave swamps over us. We plunge off the side into the foaming sea. Water rushes into my mouth and nose. The wire pulls tight and I feel the lightness of air as the wave passes over and we rise up above the water. The wind catches us and spins us round and round and round as we lift up into the sky. I look down and see
Moana
far below.