Chapter 48
amy
Amy heard the water before she saw it.
For a brief moment, she thought they must be closer to the New York shore than she’d realised, because she could hear a freight train thundering into Plattsburgh Station in a great roar of wind and metal.
Except it was too close; it sounded like it was right outside. It couldn’t possibly be a train—
—and then, equally stupid, it’s an avalanche—
—except it was June, and they were miles from the mountains, and anyway, it sounded more like—
—she’d driven to Niagara Falls with Iris and the kids last summer—
—water.
The lake poured down the stairs towards her.
Except it was pouring up, because the boat was rocking so violently the ceiling was the floor and the floor was the ceiling and port and starboard no longer held much meaning.
Amy saw the terrified face of her sister as she clung to the stair rail; fragmented, distorted Picasso glimpses of her students smashed together – a nose, an ankle, a cheek squashed against a porthole – as they were washed around the cabin like socks in a washing machine.
And then the lights went out, and she couldn’t see anything.
All around her, people were screaming in panic.
Someone grabbed hold of her hair, and she fell backwards, swallowing a deep gulp of lake water.
Then, just as abruptly, the person holding her hair let go and Amy surfaced, coughing and spluttering, only to be plunged back under again as the boat tipped once more, water sloshing violently back and forth in the confined space.
It was impossible to know which way was up, or how to find a way out.
Chairs and bottles and bodies smashed across the cabin.
Amy tucked herself into a tight ball, protecting her head with her hands.
She was too terrified for panic; she had become an insensate bundle of instinct, her brain shutting down to all but the single, imperative impulse: survive.
There was a sudden, violent jolt, and as quickly as it’d started, all motion stopped.
Amy opened her eyes. In the dim gloom of the flickering emergency lighting, she realised she was on her back on what had been the cabin wall, which was now canted at a sharp angle.
The buffet table was above her head, bolted to the floor, which was now the ceiling.
She could just make out the petrified face of Darcey Fraser, who’d crawled onto the underside of the table and was clinging to its legs.
‘Nicky!’ Amy shouted. ‘Finn!’
The water was mid-way up Amy’s thighs. But it wasn’t climbing any higher.
The boat had capsized, but they still had air.
For now.
The Lady creaked and groaned as she settled. It was impossible to know how far down they were. For all they knew, it could be just a few feet.
Or a hundred.
Amy lay still, testing each of her limbs in turn. She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach, but nothing seemed to be broken, though her left shoulder was so painful she might have dislocated it.
She didn’t want to move, but she had to find Nicky and Finn. She had to take charge, to look after her students. They were depending on her.
She pulled herself upright, her skirt tangling wetly around her legs and making it hard to move. Her jaw hurt, and she spat out a mouthful of blood. She’d lost a tooth, she realised. She couldn’t believe she’d got off so lightly.
Suddenly a beam of light pierced the gloom. And then another, and another, as the teens turned on their mobile phone flashlights. It was a tribute to modern technology that so many of them were still working.
Water trickled through seams and rivets, dripping dankly down their necks.
No one moved or spoke. It was as if they were in an eerie parallel world, a place beyond all maps of human survival, with only a faltering sense of time.
Other than the unearthly sound of the boat settling, there was complete silence.
Amy knew it wouldn’t last.
They were all in shock. In a moment, the numbness would wear off, and the terror would return.
She could feel it now, building inside her chest, making it hard to breathe.
The urge to give in to her panic was almost irresistible, like the drive to push when she’d given birth to her son.
But fear would kill them quicker than the lake.
It would suck up all their oxygen and suffocate them before they had time to drown.
She saw the white faces all around her. They were looking to her to lead.
‘I want everyone to stay still,’ she said, injecting as much confidence and authority into her voice as she could muster. ‘We have plenty of air. There’s absolutely no need to panic. Rescue is coming. Stay right where you are.’
‘Ms Gray, I don’t think Raylan’s breathing,’ someone called.
‘He’s breathing,’ Finn said. ‘He’s unconscious, but he’s breathing.’
Oh, thank God! Finn was OK!
Amy moved carefully towards the boys at the centre of the cabin, wincing as the boat rolled beneath her feet and jolted her dislocated shoulder.
Her nephew was miraculously unhurt, and Amy felt a huge surge of relief.
‘Hold Raylan’s head above water, Finn,’ she said.
‘Make sure he doesn’t choke on his own tongue. ’
Raylan groaned.
‘I think he’s coming round,’ Finn said.
‘Talk to him,’ Amy said. ‘Keep him conscious.’
A face appeared out of the green gloom. ‘Mom?’
Amy pulled Nicky into a hard, tight hug, gratitude that both her boys were unhurt washing over her in a hot torrent.
‘You’re bleeding!’ she said, touching his temple. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Nicky said, with an attempt at bravado. ‘It’s just a cut. I was in the john. I pissed all over my damn pants.’
‘Not the first time,’ Finn said.
‘Fuck you.’
‘Fuck you more.’
Amy could see how terrified they were beneath their banter. Nicky’s face was ashen, and she could only imagine how petrified he must have been, trapped in a toilet cubicle on his own.
Darcey started to whimper from her perch on the underside of the table above their heads. ‘Ms Gray, I’m scared,’ she said. ‘I want to come down.’
Amy couldn’t let the girl infect them with her panic. Grimacing with pain, she reached up and squeezed her hand. ‘Just stay where you are,’ she said. ‘You’re safe there, Darcey. Just keep as still as you can.’
‘Wouldn’t want to rock the boat,’ Raylan said as he came to.
‘Good to know you haven’t lost your sense of humour,’ Amy said.
Iris was still gripping the stair rail, which was now almost above her head. ‘It’s OK,’ Amy said, going over to her. ‘You can let go now.’
Gently, she unpeeled Iris’s fingers from the rail. Her sister was so pale she almost glowed in the flickering gloom.
‘Are the boys OK?’ Iris said. ‘Jesus Christ, Rose—’
‘Rose was on deck,’ Amy said. ‘She was in the safest place. She’ll have been thrown clear and straight into the water, like Mac. And Maggie and Kate and CJ,’ she added stoutly. ‘They’re all good swimmers. Mac’ll find them. He’ll look after them.’
She had no idea if she was telling the truth: if Mac was alive, if Rose and Maggie and Kate and CJ were safe. But she could only deal with the here and now. She had to focus.
‘Oh, Christ,’ Iris said abruptly.
Amy sucked in a breath as she followed her sister’s gaze.
The white face of one of her students – Lena Grable, oh poor, poor Lena – stared blankly at the ceiling as she floated in the water around the stairwell.
Her neck was bent at an impossible angle.
Amy knew even before she checked for a pulse that the girl was dead.
‘Cover her up,’ Amy murmured. ‘Don’t let the kids see.’
Iris pulled a wet tablecloth from the floating debris, and laid it gently across the girl’s face.
‘What do we do now?’ Iris said, keeping her voice low.
They both looked at the stairwell, now leading down into the watery darkness.
‘We’ll never get everyone out that way,’ Amy said. ‘Not on our own. Some of the kids can’t even swim.’
‘We can’t just wait,’ Iris said.
‘The water isn’t rising,’ Amy said, hoping that was true.
‘We’ve got enough air to last till morning, if necessary.
Which it won’t be,’ she added quickly. ‘Mac or the captain will have raised the alarm as soon as the collision happened. I doubt we’re fully submerged.
They’ll have people here to get us out before we know it. ’
She moved slowly and carefully back down the centre of the cabin, counting heads under her breath.
There had been seventy-two people on board the Lady, plus seven crew.
At least a dozen people had been on deck when they’d capsized.
She counted thirty-four in the cabin with her now, including poor Lena.
‘Does anyone else need help?’ Amy called out.
‘I think I might have broken my collarbone,’ one of the boys said.
It was Conrad Heath. Through a rip in his shirt, Amy could see white bone protruding at least an inch from the skin just below his right shoulder.
‘Has anyone got something we can use as a sling?’ she said. ‘A belt, or a scarf?’
Darcey pulled at the waist of her prom dress, ripping away the chiffon train and leaning down from her perch. ‘What about this?’
She dropped it down, and Amy carefully secured Conrad’s right arm against his chest, hoping no one else had noticed that the water in the cabin was now slowly, but steadily, rising.
Other students began to moan as the initial shock of their injuries wore off.
Some had dislocated shoulders, like Amy herself, or broken wrists.
Many were bruised and bleeding, or suffering from concussion.
Amy triaged them as best she could, knowing time was running out.
The only question was whether drowning or suffocation killed them first.
‘Rescue is coming,’ she said firmly and clearly, as fear rippled audibly around the cabin. ‘We just have to be patient. They’re going to get us out of here.’
‘You keep saying that,’ Conrad said, his voice rising.
‘Because it’s true,’ Amy said. ‘Trust me, Conrad. I know you’re all scared, but there’s no need to panic. We have plenty of air. Help’s on the way.’
‘She got me off the roof, didn’t she?’ Raylan said, his voice still a little wobbly from his concussion. ‘You’ll get us out of here, too, right, Ms G?’
‘Absolutely, Raylan.’
She had to keep everyone focused on the practicalities. She didn’t want them thinking how far down into the dark lake they might really have sunk.
How long it might take for someone to raise the alarm.
How much longer still to find them and get them all out.