A Million Tears (66 page)

How long it lasted I have no way of knowing. I do know I was hungrier, thirstier and more scared than I had ever been before. At one time, some hours later, the worst happened and we turned upside down. We hung painfully from the ropes across our chests and stomachs, our legs dangling in front of us. For a heart-stopping moment I waited to see the water pouring in as we slid to the bottom of the ocean but then we slowly began to turn upright, the pressure eased and we found ourselves on our backs again.

That never happened again, thank God, though we came close a number of times. Sometime in the night Jake and I got off our bunks and put on our oilskins. We were thrown around like straw men in a hurricane, bruising ourselves badly but we were finally ready to brave the storm. Out in the cockpit we manned the two hand pumps, feeling them bite, pumping water out of the bilges. I skinned the knuckles of my hands before Jake called a halt and we returned to the relative warmth of the cabin.

It seemed never-ending. I was aware of light filtering through the porthole at one stage but I had no idea of the time of day. Darkness followed and another day of greyness, drama and fear. I was so exhausted I floated in and out of oblivion a number of times.

Suddenly, I was wide awake, listening to an ominous scraping sound along the hull which lasted for a good ten seconds. We were heeled right over. Then the noise stopped. The boat righted itself and remained steady. I looked at Jake in a sudden spasm of deep fear and he must have had the same thought because he shook his head.

‘It’s impossible, we can’t have sunk. Come on, we had better go and see what’s happened.’

We undid the ropes and staggered on deck. Through the driving rain, a hundred yards away we saw a beach with palm trees bending before the fury of the storm. Astern of us was a coral reef we had somehow crossed, the waves in the lagoon were only two or three feet high, virtually calm after what we had endured.

‘Quickly, help me get the anchor out,’ said Jake.

As the anchor dug into the sea bed we came round with our bows facing the storm. We sat in the cockpit for some time, thankful to be alive and cursing the ugly stump of the mast. Estella appeared at the saloon hatch.

‘My mother, quickly please. There’s something wrong with her.’

At first glance I thought the old lady was unconscious but when I felt for her pulse and touched the cold skin I realised she was dead. There was no mark on her and I surmised she had died of a heart attack, the strain having proved too much for her. I remember comforting the girl while she sobbed bitterly with her head on my shoulder. The boy came out of the other cabin, saw what was wrong and threw himself alongside the bunk, sobbing and yelling ‘Mama’ in a manner that surprised me. I left the brother and sister to their grief and went back to the cockpit.

Ironically, there was now a lightening of the sky to the south and the wind felt as if it was beginning to abate. The rain slackened and we could now see more of the land.

‘Is this Bermuda?’ I asked Jake.

‘I don’t think so. Though where the hell we are, I’ve no idea. It’s possible I suppose that we’ve travelled further than I think. No, hell, this can’t be it. I thought I knew every bay in Bermuda and I don’t recognise this place.’

‘Shall we stay here or go ashore and find out?’ I asked.

‘I think we’d better go ashore. We’ll take the old lady. I don’t like having a corpse on board for long. It’s bad luck.’

We wrapped her body in a piece of canvas and Dominic and I took her ashore in the dinghy. I returned for Jake and the girl and we stood in a silent, irresolute group on the shore. Finally, Jake and I used the axe and our hands to dig a shallow grave while the two youngsters stood side by side, crying. When we were finished Jake and I left the two of them to pray over their mother’s grave.

‘It’ll stop raining soon’ said Jake, looking towards the patches of blue sky to the south. ‘If we are on Bermuda then we should find a village or something quite close. We could go and look or return to the boat and start in the morning.’

‘Now we’re ashore,’ I said, ‘there’s no point in returning and wasting the rest of the daylight. Anyway, it’s nice to have solid ground underfoot again, instead of her heaving deck,’ I pointed at the
Lucky Lady
.

We looked through the thinning curtain of rain, at the boat riding at anchor, a dark silhouette, bobbing on the water.

For most of the way the jungle and palm trees stopped about five yards from the water’s edge, but here and there it sneaked in clumps to the sea. We had not gone a hundred yards when we came to a shallow stream of fresh water, near where the beach curved out in a spit. Here the reef joined the land and we could see the white coral only a foot or two beneath the surface. On the other side there was no more reef, only a beach. Here the trees were further away from the sea and an expanse of white sand swept unbroken for a half mile or more before curving out of sight. Inland we could see a hill rising above tree top level, its domed top reminding me of pictures I had seen of volcanoes. I was looking for a sign of life, such as rising smoke or a house. I saw nothing.

Jake and I shrugged helplessly at each other and continued along the beach. The rain stopped and a shifting cloud allowed the sun to shine through from the west. A rainbow appeared to start from the end of the beach and curve towards the sky, beautiful beyond words. With the sun came a buoyancy of spirits, an unfounded hope that all would soon be well and we walked more briskly. We removed our oilskins and left them under a palm tree. The sand was soft underfoot and our boots would sink a few inches but it felt good to have ground to walk on again.

At the end, the beach curved north and before us stretched a similar beach to the one we had just walked along. That too curved out of sight about half a mile away.

‘Do you know what we’ll find when we get there?’ asked Jake.

‘Yeah. The same again, only this time heading west. Then when we get to the end it’ll turn south and we’ll be back where we started,’ I said bitterly.

Jake nodded. ‘There’s no doubt that this is not Bermuda.’

The other two had been listening and the girl asked, ‘Do I understand you don’t know where we are, captain?’

‘That about sums it up, Senorita. There may be natives living here but I don’t think so. We ain’t seen hide nor hair of them so far so why should they be around the other side? Especially with the lagoon back yonder. That’s where these people usually make their homes. I guess we night as well go back, get some sleep on the boat and plan what we’re going to do tomorrow.’

We didn’t hurry. A tiredness was creeping over us and I wanted to sleep more than anything. We picked up the oilskins and reached the sand spit. The sun was shining off the sea on our left when we turned north. Against the barrier of coral the sea broke endlessly in a white spume and here and there clumps of coral rose two or three feet above the sea level.

‘Jesus,’ Jake screamed, dropping his oilskins and running along the beach.

I was only yards behind, panic and fear bubbling up within me as the
Lucky Lady
sank fast. Water was slopping over the gunwales and only her remaining mast and superstructure were visible. By the time we reached the dinghy only the mast was showing. Jake stopped irresolute and stared, his fists clenching and unclenching as even that slid further down. I grabbed a paddle, lined myself up on the
Lucky Lady
and drew a long mark in the sand, pointing at where she was disappearing.

The Mendozas caught up with us and they too stood and stared. As the top of the mizzen slid from view the girl gave a little sob and sank to the sand. Her brother put his arm around her shoulders trying to comfort her as she began to cry bitterly.

For the next hour Jake cursed himself continuously for not staying with the boat, for not pulling her closer to the shore, for not checking if she was holed, for not noticing she was sinking earlier. We remembered the scraping noise as we reached the lagoon and that sent him into another paroxysm of rage and cursing.

We spent a hungry and miserable night under a cloudless, star-filled sky. In spite of our predicament I managed to sleep and the next morning woke with the sun in my eyes, an ache in my back and hope in my heart. That hope died around midmorning after we walked all the way round the island and saw no sign of human life. We breakfasted on coconuts while walking, and though the milk was refreshing the white flesh was far from filling.

I said, ‘It’s a deserted island. We need to find shelter or build some, and we need to find food. There’s plenty of fresh water and there’s always coconut milk. If we can learn to live here for awhile I’m sure a boat will come our way and rescue us.’ A sudden thought struck me. ‘How deep do you think the water was when we threw the anchor over?’

‘Damn, I hadn’t thought of that. Okay, say it is. It may still be possible to dive down and get something off, perhaps even empty the cockpit locker.’

‘I dunno. It’ll be pretty difficult,’ Jake said, thoughtfully.

‘I didn’t say it was going to be easy. But if we can get up some of the rope, the tackle and that spare piece of canvas we’ll be in far better shape.’

‘I suppose we can go and have a look. Hey, Dominic,’ Jake yelled to the youngster. ‘Come here. How good are you with a rifle?’

‘I am an excellent shot,’ he replied with his usual haughtiness.

I tossed the rifle to him. ‘Go and find us something to eat,’ said Jake. ‘We’re going to try and see if we can salvage anything off the boat.’

‘Estella,’ I called her over, ‘I want you on the shore looking along the line I drew in the sand. Point left or right to show us which way we need to go, all right? That should make finding the boat much easier.’

‘Is that why you drew the line in the first place?’ Jake asked.

‘Yeah. Our walk this morning only confirmed what we guessed last night. I thought it might be useful – and don’t forget something, those kids have a lot of money on board.’ Dominic glared at me. ‘Take it easy, we don’t want your money, but it’s all you’ve got now your parents are dead. Come on, Jake. Don’t get lost,’ I warned Dominic.

The stiffening of his back was all the sign he gave that he had heard.

I rowed the dinghy out, watching Estella as she pointed first left, then right. We were two thirds of the way to the reef when Jake told me to stop.

His arm was in the water, holding us steady. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said in a hushed tone,. ‘I just don’t believe it but the bitch is sitting upright. I’m holding the mizzen.’

I looked over his shoulder and saw the boat through the crystal clear water. She was resting against what I took to be a jumble of rocks.

‘Christ, we were lucky,’ I said.

‘Lucky? To have lost her in the first place I call the worst bloody luck imaginable.’

I yelled to Estella that we had found the boat and she waved back. I slipped off my shirt and trousers, took a number of deep breaths and dived over the side, the dinghy rocking wildly. The water was warm, the salt stung my eyes, and I swam as hard as I could for the bottom. The deck was about thirty feet down, the seabed closer to forty. Whatever the distance, it was a long way. Although I had learnt to dive and swim I was not used to this sort of stuff. I reached the deck, my lungs at bursting point and I headed straight back to the surface again.

I was gasping when Jake helped me into the boat. ‘Did you reach her? It looked like you did.’

I gulped air. ‘I just got there . . . I needed air . . . and came back . . . before I could reach anything . . . If I’m going to do any good . . . I need to get down faster . . . without wasting energy swimming.’

‘What about this?’ Jake picked up the dinghy’s painter. It was normally only a few feet long, but had broken in Jamaica. I had tied a forty-five foot length of manila in its place, meaning to cut it short and splice the end, like Jake had taught me. ‘If we tie a rock or something to the end you can pull yourself down in no time.’

We spent some time on shore searching for a heavy rock until we found one which we could barely lift between us. The dinghy had a mere inch or two of freeboard when we rowed slowly back across the lagoon.

‘We need to be careful not to drop this bloody thing on top of the
Lady
,’ gasped Jake, helping me to lift the rock, to throw overboard. ‘I’d hate to damage her any more, seems sac . . . sac . . . wrong, somehow.’

‘I agree, almost sacrilegious,’ I grinned. I soon stopped grinning as with an oath we overbalanced, fell into the lagoon and the boat overturned. Spluttering, gasping and spitting water we righted the dinghy and climbed in over the stern. If we had tried to climb in over the side the dingy would have tipped over again. Leaning over the side we saw the rock a foot or two to the side of the
Lucky Lady
. I stood, took three deep breaths and dived in. The rope was, of course, tied to the dinghy. I grabbed hold of it a few feet below the surface and pulled myself rapidly down to the sea bed. I cut the rope near to the rock, swam to the cockpit and tied it to the wheel. I was gasping for air when I reached the dinghy, my head was dizzy and Jake had to help me into the boat. After a few minutes my breathing returned to near normal and I sat up.

‘If you get down Jake, start opening the locker, will you? It shouldn’t be too difficult.’

Jake rubbed his chin. ‘I’ve been thinking. We need more rope to tie stuff to and to haul up. I’ll go down as far as I can and cut the mizzen stays. I can feel the top of them here. Together they’ll easily be long enough.’

He dived over the stern and I watched his progress, his body a shimmering white mass through the ruffled water. After a second dive we had a length of rope some fifty feet long. Next I went down and opened the locker. Jake followed and tied the rope to a roll of spare canvas. As we hauled it inboard it unravelled and we had to drag it behind us to the beach. There was only an hour of sunlight left and we decided to stop. We had just landed when we heard the gun shot.