Chapter 49
iris
‘The water’s rising faster,’ Amy said.
Iris glanced at the panelling around the stairwell. Twenty minutes ago, the water had been eight inches below the brass grab rail.
Now it almost covered it.
Iris shivered. The lake water was only ten degrees above freezing, even though it was June, and down here in the dark, it felt a lot colder than that.
But it wasn’t the cold that chilled her bones.
They’d already been trapped down here at the bottom of the lake for over an hour. If rescue was coming, why had no one made contact? They should hear boats above them by now. Divers should be knocking on the hull.
So far, Amy had used her natural authority to keep the students calm, but they were in a race against time, and they all knew it.
Some of the kids had already fallen into a kind of catatonic shock, huddled together in the waist-deep water, staring blankly ahead of them.
It wouldn’t be long before hypothermia set in.
The emergency lighting was flickering on and off more frequently; soon it would go out altogether and leave them in the dark.
And now the water was rising again.
‘We can’t wait any longer,’ Iris said. ‘We have to do something. We’re running out of time.’
She and Amy glanced around at the shattered, shell-shocked faces. The only other adult with them was Jenna Lincoln, and it was clear they couldn’t expect any help from that quarter: she was on the verge of hysterics, clinging to her daughter like Ashley was the grown-up and she the child.
Kate had been out on deck looking for Maggie when the boat had capsized. There were no other teachers or parents down here with them; no crew. By the time rescue arrived, it could be too late.
Iris sloshed through the water to the upside-down stairwell, steadying herself against the cabin wall as the boat shifted and groaned. ‘This is the only way out,’ she told Amy. ‘The door’s already under water, so it’s safe to open it. As long as nothing’s blocking it on the other side—’
‘Do you know how far down we are?’ Amy said.
‘It can’t be that far. Malletts Bay is, what, forty feet deep?’
‘Lake Champlain is more than four hundred feet deep in some places,’ Amy said. ‘And we have no idea where we are.’
Water dripped from the rivets in the boat’s hull above them.
Iris glanced up, pushing her hair out of her face with the inside of her wrist. The water pressure around the seams of the doors and windows must be immense.
Even if the glass didn’t crack, water was seeping into the boat from all directions.
The air pocket sustaining them was shrinking every moment.
‘What does it matter?’ she asked. ‘If we can get out, we then just need to swim up. We can all hold our breath long enough to do that.’
‘Remember when Mac taught me to dive the summer the boys were at wilderness camp?’ Amy said, lowering her voice so they wouldn’t be overheard.
‘Even at just a hundred feet down, after twenty minutes underwater, you can’t rise straight to the surface without stopping for several minutes at fifty feet, and then again at twenty feet, so you don’t get the bends.
You have to be able to control your ascent. We can’t just swim out of here.’
‘If we stay,’ Iris said, equally quietly but very firmly, ‘we’re all going to die.’
The air was getting thicker: thirty-three people were inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide in a confined space that was growing ever smaller. At some point, soon, the air would become toxic.
She thought of the Bayesian yacht that’d sunk off the coast of Sicily a year or two ago. Some of the people inside it had survived the initial sinking. They hadn’t drowned; they’d suffocated.
The emergency lighting suddenly flickered violently and went dark.
All around them, students cried out in fear.
‘Don’t panic,’ Amy called reassuringly. ‘It’s just the lights. We’ve still got plenty of air. If you’re scared, hold hands with the person next to you. You’re not alone. I’m right here. I’m going to get you out.’
Iris reached for her phone. The flashlight was still working, but she was down to less than ten per cent battery life.
She pointed it towards the stairwell.
‘If we don’t make a decision now, we’re not going to be able to see where to go,’ she said. ‘Amy, we have to try. You know how to dive. Think. There must be a way we can control our ascent.’
‘Maybe we can make a weight belt,’ Amy said. ‘But working out what depth we need to stop at will be pure guesswork.’
The emergency lights came back on again, dimmer than before, but enough to illuminate the cabin. The water level was now six inches above the brass rail.
‘I’ll do it,’ Finn said.
Iris jumped. She hadn’t realised her son was listening behind them.
‘Absolutely not,’ Amy said.
‘Someone has to swim out,’ Finn said. ‘We can’t stay here and wait to be rescued. You said it yourself. The water’s rising, and the lights could go out again any minute. People are going into shock. We have to do something.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Iris said.
‘Mom. I’m on the swim team. I’m the best swimmer in the school. It makes sense for it to be me.’
‘It’s too dangerous,’ Iris said. ‘You can swim, Finn, but you’re not a diver. You heard your aunt: we’ve no idea how deep we are. You could get the bends. We need to wait for proper rescue—’
‘You just said someone needs to swim out,’ Finn said.
‘You can’t ask someone else to do it, but not me.
’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I know it’s dangerous, Mom, but if I stay here, it’s not exactly wrapping me in cotton wool, is it?
We’re all going to die of hypothermia or drown if someone doesn’t get us out soon. ’
‘I’ll go,’ Amy said.
‘You can’t,’ Finn said. ‘You’ll need two arms to swim out. And look at you. You can hardly move your left one.’
He was right. Amy would need both hands just to pull herself down through the flooded stairwell and open the door.
There was most likely debris in the way, and the door might be blocked.
And Iris had no idea how a diver controlled their ascent without a dive belt, but she’d bet you needed two arms for that, too.
‘I’m not letting you put your life at risk, Finn,’ Amy said. ‘It’s up to me to take care of you, not the other way round.’
‘You’re not letting me,’ Finn said. ‘I’m eighteen. It’s my choice. My decision.’
‘You’re under my care,’ Amy said. ‘I can’t—’
‘You’re needed here,’ Finn said.
‘You should tie a rope to the stairwell and take it with you,’ Iris said, speaking quickly before she could change her mind. ‘That way you can find your way back if you have to.’
‘Iris,’ Amy said.
‘He’s putting his life at risk if he stays,’ Iris said.
They couldn’t find a rope, so Finn broke open the fire hose cabinet, and together he and Iris tied one end of it to the metal stair rail, looping the other around Finn’s waist.
All three of them stood for a long moment, staring at the black water.
There was no emergency lighting in the stairwell.
Finn would have to feel his way down through the darkness to the door.
Who knew if he’d be able to force it open; and if he did, what obstacles might lie on the other side.
And even if by some miracle he managed to safely reach the surface of the lake, he still had to get to shore.
‘Finn,’ Amy said, ‘I need you to listen to me. I don’t know how far down we are, but it’s at least forty feet, probably more.
Which means the air in here, and the air in our lungs, is compressed.
Imagine you have a balloon at the surface, and then you bring it down here.
The deeper you go, the greater the pressure, the more the balloon shrinks.
At thirty feet deep, it’s half the size it was at the lake’s surface.
At sixty feet, it’s just one-third as big. ’
‘Amy, he knows—’
‘He needs to understand,’ Amy said, her tone urgent.
‘When you take that balloon back up to the surface, it expands again. If you blew up a balloon down here, it’d explode when you took it up unless you let out some air.
You have to exhale all the way, Finn, do you understand?
All the way, as you rise, to get rid of some air.
Exhale, like you’re blowing out a birthday cake.
Or your lungs will explode, like that balloon. ’
‘Exhale. Got it. I promise.’
‘Show me.’
Finn exhaled gustily.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Amy said.
‘I’ll be back,’ Finn said, turning to Iris. ‘I promise, Mom. I’ll be back, and I’ll get us all out.’
‘I know,’ Iris said. ‘I know you will.’
And then she watched her beloved son dive into the watery blackness and disappear.