Chapter 86 #3
Let it be over, let it be over, let it be over.
‘Where are we?’ one of the girls asked, breaking the silence that had held since they’d left the harbour.
Shelley opened her eyes. Nothing. Black sea, black cliffs, black sky.
Not a single light anywhere. And the relentless thumping of the boat on the waves.
She closed her eyes again. Let it be over, let it be over.
‘River Yealm.’ The boy who owned the boat had to shout above the roar of the outboard. ‘It’s about a mile from the harbour to open water. Then another five to Plymouth.’
Six miles. Nothing in a car.
A vice-like pain clutched at Shelley’s abdomen and she couldn’t help the moan slipping out. ‘Can we go any faster?’ she heard her boyfriend complain.
‘There’s a speed limit in the river,’ the boat owner yelled back. ‘It’s there for a reason. I might risk it in daylight. Not now.’
‘Breathe, sweetheart,’ the dark-skinned girl said. ‘Just breathe and stay calm.’
Sabri was trying to remember everything she’d learned about eclampsia, one of the most dangerous conditions facing pregnant women. She was close to certain the pregnant girl was suffering from it.
The boat took a wave head on, bouncing high into the air, and Sabri felt herself sliding along the rigid hull. It would be the easiest thing in the world to go overboard. Already her stomach muscles were aching from holding herself upright.
If she was right about the eclampsia, the pregnant girl could experience seizures any time now.
She could lose consciousness, suffer a stroke, fall into a coma, even die.
Too late, Sabri admitted to herself that they should have stayed in Newton Ferrers and called out the air ambulance.
She should have thought of it before they’d left the harbour.
If anything happened to the girl, it would be on her.
‘Does anyone have a working phone?’ she yelled. ‘This girl needs an ambulance waiting when we get in.’
‘You won’t get a signal here,’ Steve shouted back. ‘Wait till we’re round the corner.’
Sabri looked forward. No sign of a break in the dark cliffs. ‘How long?’
‘Wembury Bay ahead. When we clear that, we’re in sight of Plymouth. You’ll get a signal then.’
The pregnant girl raised her head to speak to Sabri. ‘Am I going to lose the baby?’
Quite possibly. Also, no one would put bets on your own life right now.
‘Not if we get you help quickly,’ she said. ‘How many weeks are you?’
They all clung on as the RIB hit another big wave, then her boyfriend answered. ‘She’s thirty-eight. We shouldn’t have come this weekend, should we?’
No, you bloody well shouldn’t. ‘Well, you’re probably going to become a dad tonight. I expect the team at Plymouth will induce labour as soon as they can. Then she’ll be fine.’
Sabri turned to the rest of them. ‘A phone? Does anyone have a phone?’
‘I’ve got one,’ the curly-haired boy called back. ‘I kept charging it in the pub when the landlord wasn’t looking. Do you want it now?’
‘OK, it’s worth a try.’
As the boy reached into his jacket, the naval man put a hand on his arm.
‘Keep it in your pocket!’ he called. ‘The rest of you, hold on and keep as low as you can. We’re about to hit the bay.’
‘What does that mean?’ Sabri asked, a second before the cliffs fell away, the boat passed into open water and she knew beyond doubt that her life was about to end.
Shit, shit, shit!
Water was streaming over the sides of the RIB but it was still afloat. God only knew how; that wave should have wiped them out. A miracle. They wouldn’t get another. Steve had had no idea it would be this bad out in the bay.
For fuck’s sake, you lot, stop screaming.
They had to go back. Turn round and go back. It was their only chance.
Another wave, a monstrous wall of water, hard like concrete, picking them up and spinning them around.
Which fucking way was back?
He had no control. Literally no fucking control. Something – wind, tide, hand of bloody Satan – was pushing the RIB onto the cliffs.
It wasn’t even his boat. He’d nicked the keys and kill cord from a drunk in the pub. He was going to die for stealing a fucking boat.
‘Hold on!’ Tug yelled, for what felt like the dozenth time. ‘Everyone, get down and hold on.’ This was fucking insane. The kid had no idea how to deal with big seas. He had to get to the helm.
He made a quick headcount. Still nine on board, thank Christ. The lad across the bow holding on for dear life; the fat girl and the pregnant one on the rear seats; the blonde and the lad who fancied his chances with her on his side; opposite, the brown-skinned girl and the dad-to-be; and the idiot on the helm.
All nine. Soaking wet, screaming with terror, but still on board.
This was a thousand times worse than he’d imagined.
Bad enough in the river, even with the cliffs holding back the wind.
The bay, though, the bay wasn’t navigable.
The southwesterly was driving straight at the shore, hitting the outgoing tide, making waves of two metres or more.
An expert helmsman, who knew how to steer through big seas, would have a chance.
With this kid, they were all fucking goners.
The cliffs were gut-wrenchingly close. They were being driven onto them. There’d be outlying rocks too, under the surface. Rocks that could tear the hull apart. They might be seconds from disaster. Tug took a deep breath and yelled.
‘Head for open water! Steer round the waves! If you can’t avoid them, take them head on.’
He wasn’t sure the kid heard him; or, if he’d heard, that he understood. He looked rigid with shock, on the point of giving up; or throwing himself overboard.
Get to the helm. Stay on board and get to the helm. But if he moved, if he let go for an instant, he risked being thrown overboard.
If he didn’t move, it would happen anyway.
Tug waited for a lull that would last less than a second and dived for the steering column. The cliffs were metres away.
A rogue wave caught the RIB side-on and they soared up.
They were close to a hundred and eighty degrees and at that angle they’d tip.
Tug hurled himself over the hull to increase the weight on the port side.
The wave passed beneath them and they were level again.
With seconds before the next one caught them.
He grabbed Steve by the shoulder. ‘Give me the fucking helm,’ he ordered.
Steve didn’t move. Tug pulled him off the seat and flung him into the lap of the fat girl, before claiming the driver’s seat himself.
Less than a second to make the decision.
Go back or go on? The Great Mew Stone, a bloody great hunk of rock at the mouth of the bay, was practically on them.
Halfway point. If they got round the headland and past the Plymouth breakwater, the sea would calm down.
They’d have phone signal. Going on made more sense.
Closing his mind to the screaming, Tug looked for the gap in the waves, for his route through. But they were coming thick and fast. He steered to starboard, but that was taking him too close to shore.
No way around the outside of the Great Mew Stone, the waves were lined up like the Great Wall of fucking China.
He’d have to go inside, risk being thrown onto the rock itself or the cliffs; take his chances with the turbulence he knew would be waiting once he strayed into the lee of the rock. Washing machine on fucking spin cycle.
A fresh scream. Different. The sound of pain, not terror. The pregnant girl.
‘Christ, watch it. Get the fuck off me.’
‘Shelley, look at me. It’s OK, Shelley.’
Something going on with the pregnant woman. Tug couldn’t take his eyes off the sea. Run with the waves, look for the gaps, take them head-on if necessary, don’t be caught sideways, stay in the middle of the channel.
A scream of horror, quickly muffled, movement to his right. A slithering sound. A splash.
‘Shelley!’
Horrified faces. Hands clutching his arms, trying to grab the wheel.
‘Stop! Stop! We have to go back. Shelley!’
‘She’s gone. She’s gone overboard.’
‘They both have. He pulled her over.’
The cliffs. A soaring great rock wall. Their certain death. Wave after wave coming at them. Hands clawing at Tug’s own, tearing into his skin, blows landing around his head.
‘Turn round. We have to go back.’
‘Can anyone see them?’
‘Shelley!’
The chaos was not his concern. He couldn’t even spare the seconds to count how many were still on board.
Tug fixed on the faintest pinprick of light, miles away.
He fired up the engine and aimed for it.
The boat slammed. Again. They were beneath the waves.
Up again. Keep going. Ignore the panic. Ignore the screaming.
Aim for the light. Look for the gaps, take the waves head-on. Hold on. Keep going. Aim for the light.
Tug didn’t notice the pregnant woman’s boyfriend throw himself over the side. He was conscious of nothing but the light he was following until he realised they were passing the breakwater. Calm descended.
For the rest of his life, until he died at the hands of the man who was briefly to steal his identity, Craig Lewis would never know how he managed to keep hold of the grab rope running around the RIB’s hull.
For the rest of his life, he couldn’t honestly have said exactly what had happened seconds before that.
The whole terrifying journey seemed to melt into a turbulent memory of black water, of being thrown around like a tornado had scooped them up.
One second, he was clinging to something, he had no idea what, the next he felt a stab of excruciating pain as the pregnant girl tried to stand up, putting all her weight on his foot.
He’d acted without thinking. He hadn’t hit her deliberately; everything he’d done had been instinctive.
He’d gone into survival mode, it was as simple as that.
Then he was falling and of course he’d grabbed hold of anything he could.
He hadn’t meant to pull her overboard with him.
Another tussle, this time in the water, and she was gone.
Somehow, he managed to hold on to the side of the RIB.
He clung on. He was a fireman; he’d spent years building his upper-body strength.
Even so, by the time they passed the breakwater and everything calmed down, he was ready to give up.
He’d managed to shout. They’d heard him.
It had taken four of them to get him back on board.
Cheryl watched as, one by one, the remaining passengers climbed onto the pontoon at Queen Anne’s Battery in Plymouth Harbour.
The nice, curly-haired boy went first, then the two girls and Steve.
The boy who’d been pulled from the water went next.
Cheryl wasn’t sure she’d make it up the thin metal ladder; the rungs were slippery, and her wet clothes hung around her like a dead weight.
Somehow, she managed to grasp the ladder. No further.
And then the nice boy bent down and reached for her; she gave him her hand and he half pulled her up. The man who was in the navy, the one who’d started all this in the first place, was last to leave the boat.
‘You shouldn’t take it back tonight,’ he told Steve. It was the first time any of them had spoken since the pregnant girl and her boyfriend had gone overboard. ‘Wait till the morning.’
‘Not my boat.’ Steve set off towards the town. ‘Nicked it,’ he called back over his shoulder.
‘We should stop him,’ the brown-skinned girl said.
‘We need everyone. We have to report this.’ She looked around the group.
‘We should have called it in already, shouldn’t we?
We should have called the coastguard. We could have saved them.
Shit, I should have thought of that.’ She looked on the verge of tears and Cheryl felt her own eyes stinging.
‘Not a chance,’ the naval man replied. ‘They were dead two minutes after they left the boat.’
‘We should have looked for them.’
‘If we had, we’d all be dead now,’ the blonde girl said. ‘It’s a miracle we got back.’ She half reached out towards the naval man, her hand hovering a few inches from his arm. ‘And thanks to you,’ she said.
‘What now?’ asked the curly-haired boy.
For a second, no one had an answer. Then the naval man bent down and untied the RIB. For a horrified moment, Cheryl thought he was going to suggest they all get back in it.
‘What’re you doing?’ the boy who’d fallen in the water asked.
‘The tide will take it. It’ll be at the bottom before the hour’s out.’
Sure enough, the boat began to slide away from the pontoon.
‘I’m out of here,’ the naval man replied. ‘I’d say it’s been nice, but …’
He began walking away. The others looked at each other for a moment, then the brown-skinned girl set off after him, catching him on the shoulder.
‘You can’t go,’ she argued. ‘We have to report this.’
He threw off her arm. ‘You want to spend the night at the police station, be my guest. I’m due back at my barracks and that’s where I’m going.’
‘People died. We … we were a part of that. We have to report it.’
Cheryl said, ‘They might still be alive.’
The big bloke shook his head. ‘Impossible. Report it if you want to, guys, but you won’t get where you need to be tomorrow morning. Which kind of makes the whole trip for nothing.’
He set off again. This time, no one tried to stop him.
‘What’s done is done,’ the blonde nurse said, and she too turned towards the town, followed a few seconds later by the two boys.
Cheryl was the last to walk away. As she reached solid land, on legs that felt very unsteady, she wondered if she’d ever see any of them again.