Aaron Elkins: Old Bones

He tried to force open his eyes but the lancing pain of the salt water pinched them shut. Bursting with the effort to hold his breath, unable to tell up from down, he flailed his arms and even his legs ferociously, desperately hoping to catch hold of John as he swept by. And miraculously, he tumbled squarely into him.

It was at this point that the second thing went wrong. When the breaker had borne down on him, John had instinctively twisted his face away from it and hadn’t seen Gideon dive in. So when some hideous creature dragged from the deep by the tide clutched at him from behind with its thrashing tentacles, he naturally swung his fist blindly into the mass of it as hard as he could.

The punch caught Gideon just under the diaphragm and drove the stopped-up air out of his mouth in an explosion of bubbles. Convulsively, he tightened his grip, only to be hit again, this time in the chest, and then, clumsily and with diminishing force, in the side of the neck. With his head exploding from the need for oxygen, he involuntarily sucked in a throatful of seawater, vomiting it up at once with the last residue of breath in his lungs. He had to come up for air, if he could figure out which way up was, but if he let go of John…

The lazily rotating pinpoints of light told him that he was losing consciousness, could no longer hold on against the overpowering pull of the tidal surge. He began to lose touch with where he was, what he was doing. The excruciating fire in his chest receded to some more distant dimension. His mind sagged and drifted, and he must have begun to suck in a breath because salt water suddenly burned in his nose. He stopped himself from taking it into his lungs but this time he couldn’t expel it; it pooled at the back of his throat like an icy jelly. He was dimly aware that his legs had been yanked behind him by the full force of the surge, so that he was stretched out horizontally below the surface of the water, like a flag in a windstorm, hanging on with rigid and unfeeling hands to the slick, spongy material of John’s collar.

It was time to let go, to give in to the tide and be swept away, time to leave John to die in peace, but still he held on, unable to order his stony fingers to unclench. Vaguely he realized that John was still struggling weakly, pulling at Gideon’s wrist. Angered, Gideon shook the collar feebly. Why couldn’t the stupid bastard let him die in peace? John struggled harder, and Gideon, foggily enraged, shook him harder in return as a new tidal surge pulled powerfully at them.

There was the sensation of a stopper popping from a bottle, and then he was tumbling again, his hands still knotted in John’s collar, and John was tumbling and bouncing along with him. Dreamily, not understanding what was happening, he understood nevertheless that he had done what he had tried to do. When he opened his mouth to exult, the waiting seawater rushed in, and the swirling, mushrooming blackness followed after it, pouring down his throat and expanding to fill his ballooning insides.

"I think he’s all right," Claire’s worried voice said above him.

"Of course I’m all right," Gideon said irritatedly. Or was he? He was on his back in two or three inches of water, with his head raised and his cheek lying against cold, wet cloth. Claire’s dress, he realized. His head was on her lap. What was going on? Were they still in the bay? Had he had an accident? Fallen? Abruptly he remembered and pushed himself to his elbows.

"John-"

"Right here," John said. "I’m okay." He was kneeling at Gideon’s side. "Thanks for coming in to get me, Doc," he said awkwardly. "Sorry about belting you."

"Think nothing of it," Gideon said woozily. "Anytime."

"How’re you feeling?"

"Fine." And he was, more or less. Aching throat, queasiness, mild nausea, muscles as weak as a baby’s and still quivering, but he didn’t seem to be hurt. "How long was Iout?"

"No more than a couple of minutes. I’m not sure if you were ever completely out."

It had felt like a week. "How did I get up here? Did you pull me out?"

John shook his head. "Couldn’t. We washed up on a rise in a couple of feet of water. I tried to drag you out, but I didn’t have the strength. I couldn’t even pull myself out. All I could do was get your head out of the water. We would have just laid there and bought it on the next surge if Ray hadn’t dragged us out. Just in time too."

" Ray pulled us out?"

"Now, really," Ray’s mild voice remarked from Gideon’s other side. "Is a tone of such marked incredulity necessary?"

Gideon and John were both tottery but able to walk unsupported, and the four of them reached the base of the Mont at last, hauled themselves off the tidal plain, and mounted the stone steps to the gardens in a weary, none-too-steady file. Looking straight ahead, they walked with dignity (which wasn’t easy; John had lost his shoes and socks, Gideon one of his shoes) past the sullen and staring group of people who craned their necks to see them from the North Tower.

"Why do you suppose they’re looking at us that way?" Ray asked, sounding giddy. "Are they annoyed with us for being lackbrained enough to walk merrily out into an incoming tide, or because we spoiled their afternoon by not getting drowned after all?"

In their shaky condition it seemed hilarious, and they made their way down the Grand Rue snorting and choking with laughter. But by the time they got to the car a predictable reaction had set in; they were depressed and their teeth had begun to chatter with cold. Their clothes, still dripping, clung freezingly to them. Gideon stopped at the first hotel they came to, a brown, grimy old place near the railroad station on the Rue Couesnon in Pontorson, a few blocks from the causeway.

The landlady, Madame Gluges, was not wildly hospitable. For exactly what purpose, she demanded in plain-speaking French, did they wish a room? Having put this question to them before committing herself as to whether or not space was available, she folded her stocky, sweatered arms and eyed them suspiciously, waiting for them to defend themselves.

Her guardedness was understandable; the foursome did not evoke confidence: three wet, bedraggled foreigners- two of them hulking, dangerous-looking devils-and a frowzy Frenchwoman, all of them waterlogged and luggageless. The brawny Oriental was actually barefoot, as if he’d come straight from the jungle, the other big one was wearing just one red and gray jogging shoe, and all of them had an overexcited, wild-eyed look. Drugs? Whiskey? Who knew what their story was? Fugitives from the police? Escapted convicts who had just swum ashore? Hardly a sight to warm the heart of a provincial hotel proprietress used to a quiet clientele of respectable (or at least solitary) traveling business representatives.

Ray didn’t help matters by promising they would be on their way by six, inasmuch as they only needed the room for an hour, but Claire quickly explained that they had been caught in the bay and wished merely to stay long enough to take hot showers and, if possible, to dry their clothes.

Very well, madame said, thawing a little at Claire’s soft manner, but it would not be possible for all of them to share a single room. The men in one, the woman in the other. On different floors. Only when this unequivocal condition was humbly accepted did she soften. She would charge them for only one room, not two, and if they would leave their clothes outside their doors, she would have them taken to the basement and put in the linen dryer.

With propriety thus guaranteed, Madame Gluges relented still further. While they were getting out of their wet clothes she knocked on their doors, bringing to each room an insulated pitcher of black coffee laced with cognac- and incidentally assuring herself that Claire was where she was supposed to be. Nevertheless, it was a kindness and gratefully received, so that by the time they had handed over their clothes and donned blankets or bedspreads, their hearts and bodies were beginning to rewarm.