P Deutermann - Darkside

When he thought he was where the overturned boat should be, he looked back at Liz, who was pointing to his right while she wrestled the yacht. He spun around in the water and nearly impaled himself on the tip of the semisubmerged mast. He grunted with the pain, and then a wave took him under. He would have been in trouble if not for the fact that he was in great shape, had once been a competitive swimmer, and had the life jackets. Being underwater was no big deal; he only wished he had goggles.

He grabbed for that mast tip to keep himself off of it, but that proved to be a mistake, as it was being whipsawed by the punishing waves. He pushed away from it, surfaced again, bobbing high with the life ring and the extra jackets, and swam around the overturned hull until he spotted the woman. She was hanging on to a small length of line. She was not wearing a life jacket; her eyes were shut, but her fingers were grasping that line in a white-knuckled death grip. With her other arm, she held on to a small child, who was almost invisible, bundled in an adult life jacket. The child was looking right at him, as if he were some kind of sea monster.

He tried yelling at her, but she couldn’t hear him in the sea noise. He swam right up to her and grabbed the same line she was holding. She opened her eyes, and he yelled at her to hold on, to stay still, while he worked to fit a life jacket onto her. He was barely conscious that the Not Guilty was close by, but it took all his concentration to fasten a jacket onto her upper body and then pass her the life ring. She put her arm through it but then gripped the boat line again. Her eyes were partially unfocused, and Ev realized he was going to have to do everything for her. The child was obviously terrified, but in no danger of sinking. The line back to the boat was alternating between being slack and then taut as the yacht’s bow bounced around in the waves, but Liz was maintaining perfect position.

“You hang on,” he yelled. “I’ll take the child back to the boat, then come back for you.”

The woman just stared at him, and then there was a glimmer of understanding. A big wave washed over all three of them, and he said it again twice more, until he was sure she understood. He tied the bitter end of the small boat line to the life ring and made her put her head and one shoulder through it. That’ll make it easier for her to hold on, he thought. As long as their boat doesn’t sink. He let go of the remaining life jacket, reached his arm through one of the straps on the child’s jacket, and then pulled them both through the water back toward the Not Guilty. Liz, of course, couldn’t help, because she had to keep the yacht in position, as that light nylon line would never hold the two boats together. When he got alongside the boat, he realized there was no way to get up the high sides of the bow. He let go of the line and drifted back with the waves down the starboard side, the child held close alongside, until he banged up against the bottom of the folded-up sea ladder. He grabbed the ladder, extended it, and hoisted himself and the child up on deck. He took the child down below to the main salon and put her-a little girl, he realized-down on the deck and forcefully told her to stay there. Her lower lip popped out and she began to cry, but she obeyed.

Ev raced back on deck and got himself back up to the bow. The light line was still attached to the overturned boat, although he could no longer see the woman. Liz nodded and pointed, and he dived over the side this time and swam directly to the downwind side of the capsized boat. The woman was still there, her head thrown back in the life ring, both arms holding on to it, with only the small boat line holding her to the gunwale of the wrecked boat. Ev came alongside of her, touched her back, and got her to open one eye. Then they rode through a set of three big waves, which submerged them each time, and Ev felt something happen underwater. The boat was finally going down, and he didn’t have a knife. The woman was oblivious, but Ev felt the suction beginning under his legs and realized she was tied to the sinking boat. There was no way he was going to be able to get that line untied, or the ring untied in time. Without warning her, he went underwater and simply pulled her out of the life ring and away from the dark shape that was settling into the depths below. Holding on to her life jacket, he pulled her away and up to the surface in a gasping thrust.

The Not Guilty was no longer close, and the light nylon line from her bow cleat to the submerging life ring was now taut as a wire; then it parted with a vicious crack, its end lashing the Not Guilty ’s pilothouse window hard enough to crack it from top to bottom. The woman was limp in his arms, which was probably a good thing, he realized. He did the sidestroke again, aiming for the starboard quarter of the Not Guilty and that ladder, very grateful for the life jackets, which took a lot of the work out of it. Liz saw what he was doing and kicked the stern around to provide a momentary lee. A few seconds later, he was at the ladder and so was Liz, helping to pull the nearly unconscious woman up on deck, where they deposited her like a wet sack of potatoes.

“Is she breathing?” Liz asked.

As if in reply, the woman turned sideways, vomited a huge amount of water all over the deck, and then went into a paroxysm of coughing and heaving while they both held her. She was a small woman, fully dressed in slacks, a blouse, and flat tennis shoes. She was very pretty, Ev realized, even though she was barely on the plus side of a drowning equation. The Not Guilty, with no one at the helm, began to wallow as her head fell off into the seaway.

“I put the little girl down below,” he told Liz, who immediately went down into the main salon. She appeared back on deck a moment later with the little girl still swaddled in that huge life jacket. The girl tottered over to her mother, shouting, “Mommy, Mommy,” and Ev helped the woman to sit up and embrace her daughter. The boat began to roll heavily as she came fully sideways to the running seaway, and Liz hurried back up to the pilothouse to straighten her out and ease the ride. The woman was getting some color back in her face and had begun to breathe more normally as she realized she was finally safe.

“My husband,” she began, but then stopped, staring at her daughter’s wet head, and bit her lip as if she’d said something wrong.

“Let’s get you below where you can dry off,” he said. “We’ll stay in the area and look for him.” But even as he said it, he knew whose life jacket the child had been wearing. The woman gave him a long, bleak look that told him she knew, too, but she didn’t say anything. He took them below and into the master cabin. He made them both lie down, wet clothes and all, right on the rumpled bedclothes where he and Liz had made love only a few hours ago.

“Just rest for a few minutes,” he said. “We need to contact the Coast Guard, let them know we have you, and set up a search. What was the name of your boat?”

“Windsong,” she said, her voice low. She said it again, louder. “Just the three of us on board.”

She had anticipated his next question. He pulled a blanket over them both, told them to sit tight, and went back topside to the pilothouse. Liz had the boat pointed in toward Annapolis harbor.

“There was a man on board,” he announced. “I think the kid had his life jacket. We need to tell the Coast Guard.”

“I marked the position,” she said, pointing to an X in grease pencil on the chart. “But I didn’t see him.”

“I told her we’d do a search,” he said, feeling suddenly a little weak as his adrenaline began to crash. Liz glanced at his face.

“Okay, now you sit down. We’ll hang around the area until they show up. Although it’s pretty hopeless.”