Dennis Wheatley - The Rape Of Venice

Flailing his arms wildly, Roger came to the surface again. He was still tied by the rope's end to the stack of chairs, and it bobbed up beside him. Gasping in breath and dashing the water from his eyes, he looked round for Clarissa, but could not see her. The chairs were riding some three feet out of the water, so the level of the uppermost one was well above his head. The rope by which he was tied to them was too short to allow of his swimming round the chairs, so he grasped the top one and strove to haul himself up onto the top of the stack.

Under his weight the stack tipped sharply but did not turn over, as he feared it would. When he had struggled onto it he saw the reason. To his immense relief Clarissa was on its far side and it was her weight which had kept the stack steady enough for him to get up on it.

An instant later his relief at seeing her was submerged in a wave of fury. The tipping of the stack had brought her up, but as it rolled back her head went under water. At the first glance he had taken in only the fact that Winters was beside and just below her. Now he realised that her husband, not being roped to the stack, had evidently been swept from it as it went down, and had saved himself by clinging to her.

Winter’s upturned face showed that he was half mad from terror. With his right hand he was striving frantically but unsuccessfully to grab the nearest chair strut; his left was clasped firmly on the collar of Clarissa's cape. But for the rope round her waist they would both have gone under. As it was, the rope was taut, and his pull on her had dragged her backwards. Each time he heaved himself up in an attempt to get a hold on the chairs, his weight forced her head below the water. She writhed and struggled, but as he was behind her she could do nothing to free herself.

'Let go!' snarled Roger, his eyes blazing. 'Let go, God damn you!'

'Help!' gasped Winters. 'Help!'

At that moment, by a great effort, Clarissa managed to get her head right round. Baring her teeth she bit savagely into the hand that threatened to drown her. With a yelp of pain Winters let go his hold, but at once he made another grab at her. Kicking out she eluded his clutch, then struck him in the face with her clenched fist. His hands shot up, clawing at the air, then he sank from sight.

Roger, sprawled on the top of the stack of chairs, and encumbered by his heavy saturated clothing, had, in these few brief moments, been unable to aid Clarissa, but he had managed to wriggle his sword out of its sheath. As Winters came struggling back to the surface, he brandished it and cried:

'You miserable coward! Lay hand on her again and I'll kill you!'

'Mercy!' Winters croaked, spluttering out a mouthful of water. 'Give me a hand! I can't swim! I'll drown if you don't help me!'

At that despairing cry Roger's heart softened. There were reasons enough why he would have liked to see Winters drown. His death would free Clarissa from her entanglement; but, more important at the moment, on the surface of the chair-​stack there was barely room for two people to lie down. Three would mean acute discomfort and seriously reduce the chances of any of them surviving. Yet the fact that Winters had clutched at Clarissa was at least palliated by his being unable to swim and. before his mind had become temporarily deranged by fear of death, he had shown himself to be a generous and honourable man.

Seeing that Clarissa was now supporting herself without difficulty, Roger flattened himself again and stretched out a hand to Winters. He grasped it with a grateful sob of thanks and was drawn near enough to the stack to get a hold upon it. Turning back to Clarissa, Roger drew her up onto its narrow surface. With her feet still dangling in the water, she collapsed upon it. She had not fainted, but the ordeal she had just been through had left her near exhaustion. Roger began to chafe her hands and. while doing so, had his first chance to look about him.

Now that the raft of chairs was supporting three people it was very low in the water, and while crouching on it Roger's field of view was confined to an area of a few hundred yards The oily post-​storm swell now rose and fell rhythmically, the wave crests no longer breaking but just flecked with foam. Or: one of them a longboat stood out for a minute or two against the still sullen sky. It was packed with people but the distance was too great for him to identify any of them. Round it in the water there bobbed a cluster of heads, from which came faint cries as the swimmers pleaded to be taken into the already overloaded boat, and struggled for places at which to cling to the cords along its sides.

Within sight there was at least a score of rafts. Some were crowded and some, having been drawn under by the whirlpool and since returned to the surface, were empty. The great air bubble had thrown up from the depths fifty or sixty men. and each of them was now striving to reach the raft nearest to him. A group of four soldiers, two swimming strongly and a third supporting the fourth, were heading for the chairs and only a dozen yards away. Roger pointed to an empty raft some sixty feet distant and shouted:

'Over there! Over there! These chairs can carry no more weight. You'll only sink us.' But, ignoring him, the swimmers continued to come on.

A few more strokes and the two strongest reached Winters. Wrenching him from his hold, they thrust him back and attempted to clamber up on the chairs. Roger, now kneeling, and sword in hand again, cursed and threatened them. Panting, they cursed back at him. Under their combined weight the chairs dipped dangerously. Seeing no alternative but death for Clarissa and himself, Roger slashed swiftly with his blade at the soldiers' clutching hands. Wailing and groaning they snatched their bleeding fingers away, and struck out for the empty raft. Their two struggling companions turned and followed.

Brief as the encounter was, Roger had temporarily lost sight of Winters. Now he realised that the near exhausted merchant, robbed of his support, had again gone under. The patch of sea where he had been remained empty. Roger stared at it and round about for some while, but Winters did not reappear. There could be little doubt that he had gone down for good.

Within the next ten minutes, Fate swiftly dealt out death or a new chance of life for many people. A score of men who endeavoured to get onto already full rafts were thrust off to drown; the others hauled themselves up onto the empty rafts and squatted bemused upon them. After a babble of shouts, prayers, and curses, a brooding silence descended on the scene.

Roger, meanwhile, had lifted Clarissa's legs from the water and laid her down at full length. She smiled up at him, showing that she was still both conscious and in good heart; but it was only with difficulty that he returned her smile, for he felt that their chances of being picked up before they were driven mad by thirst and hunger were extremely slender.

During the long afternoon, governed by their wind-​resistance, or lack of it, some of the rafts dispersed over a wider area while others drew together and, a little before sundown, one with a single occupant drifted to within thirty feet of them. It consisted of a nine-​foot square hatchway, so its surface, strength and buoyancy were all greater than the precariously lashed together float of chairs on which Roger and Clarissa were so uncomfortably perched.

Roger hailed the man on it and he proved to be one of the Minerva's Quartermasters. He said that all his mates had been washed from the raft when it had been sucked under, and that he would welcome company; so Roger slipped into the water and, with the rope still round his waist, towed the chairs alongside the hatchway. As the latter was so much more stable, Roger and Clarissa were able, as soon as they were on it, to dispense with the rope's ends round their waists and, at the suggestion of the occupant of the raft, the rope was used, with his help, to secure one half of the chairs on each side of it to give it still greater buoyancy.