Cara Colter - First Love, Second Chance

The whale was thrashing violently in the water, the nasty arrow-head gash on its tail sawing back and forth, its whole body twisting.

‘Is she having a seizure?’ she cried as she neared.

‘She can feel the tide,’ Marc called. ‘She’s trying to move herself. We have to do it now.’

‘You can’t be serious?’ He wanted to get into the water with a crazed half-ton animal? Immobile with exhaustion was one thing …

‘She’s too far on-beach. She won’t be able to pull herself out. We have to help her.’

He had a loop of rope laid over his forearm and he was making darting efforts in between the wild thrashes of the whale, trying to snag the eyelet of the strap they’d managed to drag beneath her hours ago. But every time he got close, the insensible sea-mammoth twisted in his direction and he had to leap away, stumbling into the water.

With one mighty lurch, Marc plunged his arm into the water on the whale’s offside and jumped back, bringing the strap with him. It took only a moment to push the rope through the eyelet like a sewing needle. Then he pulled half of it through and tossed it high over the whale to splash into the water next to Beth.

She knew what he needed her to do.

The whale had slowed its frantic efforts now, perhaps realising that it wasn’t going to be able to do this alone. Beth made three attempts, feeling blindly along the sand in the dark shallows for her end of the strap, squinting against the salt water that splashed up into her eyes. Her careless groping meant Marc’s entire sweatshirt was soaked in cold water, but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t be needing it for long now that they were going to free the whale, and her own temporary discomfort wasn’t a patch on what this animal was going through.

On her fourth attempt, she emerged victorious. She clutched the strap tightly in one hand and felt around for Marc’s rope. When she found it, not yet soaked, still floating on the surface, she shoved it with trembling hands through the eyelet and then walked backwards away from the whale, pulling the rope taut. Marc did the same.

The strap slowly emerged and rose, flexing and dripping, above the water line as it tightened around the whale’s rounded belly.

‘We need to walk behind her, Beth. It’ll pull the ends together and tighten around her flank.’

Behind her? But that meant. She lifted wide eyes to him.

He was silent for long seconds. ‘I know. But, sharks are survivors, too. We’ll have to hope they’re more interested in the dead calf than in its dangerously thrashing mother.’

Was that likely? Beth’s skin burst into terrified gooseflesh all over.

His loud voice carried over the sound of the whale’s writhing. ‘I don’t see that we have much choice, Beth.’

‘There’s always a choice, Marc!’ she yelled back. AA had taught her that. They could both walk away from this animal and leave her to nature. Maybe it was meant to be.

He knew which way her mind was going. ‘Is that a choice you could make, Beth? Because I couldn’t.’

No. When it came down to it, neither could she.

He called out again. ‘We’ll try and twist her your way so you’re pulling in the shallows. I’ll take the deep end.’

‘Oh, great, so I’ll get to watch you be eaten by sharks instead. That’ll be nice!’

She gritted her teeth and plunged into the deeper water. The adrenalin did its job and fed her a steady stream of power. They didn’t waste any time, pulling their ropes hard and closing in until they stood side by side—mountain by waif—up to Beth’s waist in water. It was a lot by her standards but not much for a whale. Hopefully, it would be enough. The manoeuvre pulled the snatch strap tight around the whale’s bulging mid-section. Marc moved them slightly to one side so that their rope wouldn’t impede the thrust of her powerful tail.

‘Ready, Beth?’

She wasn’t. She never would be. But it seemed life was determined to plunge her back into the real world with a vengeance. She found his eyes, drew strength from them and nodded.

‘Pull!’

She put her entire, insignificant weight behind her and leaned back hard on her rope. Marc immediately made more progress, his side of the rope vibrating above the waterline enough to give off a dripping, high-pitched whine. The whale groaned in harmony.

Beth’s already damaged hands screamed as her end of the rope bit into them and she stumbled forward at the pain, losing purchase and crying out.

‘Wait!’

Marc let his rope loosen and the whale heaved a sigh. Beth quickly stripped off Marc’s drenched sweatshirt and wrapped it around her hands to protect them and then pulled her rope tight again. The salt water sluiced into open blisters, stinging badly.

‘Okay … go!’

They heaved again and the whale slid slightly sideways, adding her remaining strength to their far less significant pulling power. But it was movement. And, after thirteen hours in the sand, that was not a small achievement.

‘She’s moving!’ Beth squeezed out unnecessarily. No way would Marc not have noticed. ‘Keep going!’

Adrenalin roared now through her body, warming her and giving her a capacity she never would have believed she had. She leaned hard on the rope and pulled with all her remaining strength, twisting her body and virtually walking—inch by inch—out into deeper water, up around her armpits, towing the enormous beast.

Marc was right there beside her, his neoprene muscles bulging with the force of every pull. Neither of them was suffering quietly and their roars of effort merged with the whale’s to disturb sleeping creatures for a kilometre. The whale suddenly twisted so that she was side-on to the beach, her tail now fully submerged, her body more torpedo-shaped in the water than it had been on the sand. Still rounded where the strap held her firmly. Beth and Marc changed their positions, widened out so that they could contribute to the whale’s slow sideways thrash into deeper water. If the sharks wanted either of them they’d be easy pickings right now. The water lapped at Beth’s breasts.

The whale battered her tail violently, slamming on the water for added purchase. But the miracle of buoyancy meant it was easier to tow half a ton of whale flesh. They did—slowly, painfully. And then—

‘Beth, run!’

Marc dropped his rope and surged away from the manic animal. Beth stumbled and went under as her rope suddenly went slack and Marc hauled her up after him, her throbbing legs pushing against the pressure of the deep water.

The whale twisted and surged and turned the quiet shallows into a spa of froth and bubbles. The rope zinged out of its eyelets with an audible crack and the snatch strap dropped harmlessly away. In the time it took Beth to suck in a painful breath, the whale was free, half submerged, then fully submerged. And then—finally—it sank like an exuberant submarine, surfaced once to grab a euphoric lungful of air and then disappeared silently under the deep, dark surface.

Beth screamed her joy as she ploughed through the water, and then she lurched sideways as something harder and warmer than the whale slammed into her. Marc swung her in a full three-sixty, hoisting her up in his arms and hauling her backwards out of the waist-deep water, whooping his elation. But their momentum and fatigued legs couldn’t hold them and they stumbled down together into the shallows, Marc sinking to his knees and bringing Beth with him.

Tears of pain and exhaustion streamed freely down her face and she pushed uselessly against his body to right herself. But the natural chemicals fuelling her body drained as fast as they had come and left her shattered and shaking. The strength she’d miraculously found just moments ago fled. She sagged back against Marc’s strength, useless.