Chapter Eleven

I caught sight of something halfway between us and the cliffs. “There!” I shouted. Harold turned the boat in the direction I was pointing.

I fell flat onto the top of the cabin and clung to the aerial, praying it was solidly anchored. When I crawled up on my knees again, though, I couldn’t see anything. Maybe it had just been some driftwood.

“Hang on, Greg,” Harold said. “I saw something too.”

It was an up and down fight to make any headway against the waves. I hung onto the antenna pole and stood again. I waited until we were at the peak of a swell and then put the binoculars up to my eyes.

We were closer now. It was a dory, a dory filled to the gunwales with water.

“Hurry!” I screamed.

Harold made the engine roar just as we took the first real smashing impact of a wave breaking over us. I hung on with all my strength. I saw Harold fight the wheel as the wave threatened to spin us about.

“We’re getting in too close,” he screamed at me. “Too shallow. We can’t take too many like that.” Harold was scared.

I heard the engine sputter like it was going to stall, but then it came back to life. Harold gunned it again. I could see the dory clearly now. It was upright but swamped. Still hanging on inside it, though, were three people. I saw Tamara put one arm up in the air and wave.

Their boat was drifting dangerously near the cliffs. At the foot of the cliffs, monster waves smashed on jagged rocks. The wind and waves were pushing the dory closer to the cliffs, closer to disaster. It would only be a matter of minutes. There was no place for them to scramble ashore. There was no way they would get out of there alive.

Suddenly Harold’s boat connected with something hard. We lurched to a near stop and I slid across the cabin roof on my stomach. I grabbed onto the steel pole just before I would have ended up in the water.

“That’s it,” Harold shouted to me as I scrambled off the roof of the cabin. “We have to get out of here. This place is nothing but hungry rocks.”

“No!” I shouted. I made him look, made him see Tamara’s family.

“Get below and see if we’re taking on water,” Harold said.

I opened the cabin door and went in. Water was coming in a steady stream through planks that were cracked pretty badly. Already there was a foot of water on the floor. As the boat shuddered and lurched, I made it through the indoor swimming pool and flicked on the bilge pump. If I was lucky, Harold would never notice the noise of the thing.

I clambered back up on deck. “Dry as a desert down there. No problems,” I said. I kicked the door shut.

We were off the rock, in one piece, and still floating. Our luck was holding. Harold gunned the engine again between swells and managed to avoid more hidden rocks. In fits and starts we neared the dory.

As we came alongside, I leaned over and grabbed the dory. I tried to hold the two boats together. Ravi grabbed onto the boat as well. We held on grimly as Tamara and Indra climbed across.

Just then a wave crested and cold water smashed down on us like frozen cement. Tamara and her mom had made it in to Harold’s boat. The force of the water made Ravi lose his grip. I couldn’t hold onto the waterlogged dory. It started to slip away.

The dory tipped and Ravi was thrown out. I looked around for something to throw but everything had been washed overboard.

I watched as Ravi floundered. I tried to use my senses, but nothing made any sense. He was only feet away. There were only seconds before the crest of another wave might push us away from him. I threw myself in the water. It was so cold it felt like hot knives against my arms and legs. I floundered but forced myself to move my arms. Flailing wildly, I grabbed his outstretched hand. I pulled and tugged. Ravi was trying to stay up, trying to swim.

It was like pulling deadweight. I caught a look of terror in his eyes and didn’t let myself look again. I swam, I pulled, I cursed the cold. I could see we were sliding up the face of another wave now. I saw the white water near the top. I sucked in a big gulp of air as I saw it coming.

Harold was screaming something at me. Tamara was at the side of the boat. Her arm was reaching out. I locked my hand hard around Ravi’s wrist as I felt him start to go under. My other hand shot up like I was trying to dive up into the sky. Tamara grabbed my hand just as the wave smashed down. In the next few seconds of pure fear, panic and hope, I knew that she could not let go. I could not let go. Our whole world depended on us hanging on to each other.

We were on the backside of the wave now. Harold and Indra were pulling Ravi up into the boat. He was coughing and gagging. Tamara pulled me inside and we sat exhausted in the seawater sloshing around on deck. She was still hanging onto me.