Or it would be if they could restore enough power to keep them warm and dry pretty quickly, and Maxima remained safely afloat — and as long as someone could be tempted into the biblical deluge to rescue them sometime soon. Ideally before the meteorological Armageddon that was scheduled to follow it arrived with its massive seas and its hurricane-force winds. It was with these dark thoughts in mind that Robin climbed back aboard the crippled Maxima. She followed the others across the lowered bathing deck with hardly a glance towards the sad spectacle of the pool, though she did wonder how they were going to raise the bathing deck back into place if the electrics were dead for any length of time. And she thought — briefly, because she simply squashed the speculation — how Maxima would fare in a hurricane with no power, no propulsion, the pool in the state it was and the bathing deck still down. Then, like the others, she hurried up the narrow, smoke-free gangway to the accommodation areas.
As Robin stepped in out of the rain, however, her expression grew more worried. Things hadn’t looked any worse from outside in the RIB but they certainly smelt worse in here. Even if the fire down below was out, the smoke damage up here was quite noticeable. The fumes made her cough, bringing tears to her eyes. Her normally buoyant mood darkened. The worries she had squashed earlier were not so easy to overcome now. Maxima was in no shape to offer refuge to anyone as things stood. If things grew worse they’d find themselves in real trouble. And if things got as bad as the USGS predicted for California, they were all as good as dead.
Robin pushed past the others as they staggered, exhausted, towards the cabins they had shared before going aboard Katapult8. She slipped past Nic, who was seeing to their comfort, very much the caring paterfamilias, and ran up the companionway to the bridge. Captain Toro was there, but there was little for him to do other than oversee the varying attempts to repair his vessel and the various areas aboard that had been damaged, seemingly almost everywhere, from the golf balls high aloft to the engines far below.
‘How’s the radio?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Have we had any contacts?’
‘Like the automatic CO2 fire-fighting equipment it is on an isolated circuit that is battery powered,’ he said. ‘If Manuel did not do too much damage aloft it should still be working. I have to insist that you do not put out a general distress call yet, however, if that’s what you were considering. Especially as the engineers say the fire came under control almost immediately. Lots of smoke but limited damage.’
‘I wasn’t,’ she answered. ‘It’s not my place to do so. I’m a passenger. You’re in command and Mr Greenbaum is the owner. I’m not about to second guess either of you. I just want to reach my husband if I can.’
‘Very well. But please understand I am not questioning your experience or your competence to take such decisions. My priority, too, is the safety of the passengers and crew. But it is also my duty to try and retrieve this situation without handing Maxima over to salvage under Lloyds Open Form, which is what will happen if we call for help because we cannot sail to safe haven ourselves.’
‘I’m aware of that. But on the other hand, I suspect that if your weather predictors were working they would warn you that what we are experiencing is only the first stage of one of the worst storms to hit the West Coast of America in more than a century. Unless we can arrange for some sort of Plan B to be in place we will simply be another set of statistics on the missing, presumed drowned list in the aftermath of whatever this thing turns out to be.’
‘I understand your concern. Do you wish me to summon the radio operator? He is, of course, with the other electrical specialists and the engineers fighting the fire.’
‘No. I know how the radio works and I know the wavelength and call sign of the man I want to speak to.’
Just as she said this, Captain Toro’s walkie-talkie buzzed and he answered it. ‘You’re wanted below,’ he said after a moment. ‘Miss Liberty and her friends need a check-up and are reluctant to let our medic do it because he’s a man.’
‘OK,’ answered Robin. ‘But I’ll be back to try to use the radio as soon as I’ve finished. If I can’t get through then no one can. If I do get through then I think we have a good chance. If I can’t for any reason, then I suggest that everyone aboard starts praying for a miracle.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘It was a miracle,’ gasped Miguel-Angel. ‘I have thanked San Andreas, who must have been watching over me; and when we return home I will light a candle in the cathedral to his name. I was never so frightened in all my life. When that tiburon looked me in the eye and I could see he had decided to kill me, Madre de Dios!’
Some of the crew were impatient with the boy, for while he stood there on top of the net, gabbling out his terror, they could not retrieve the length they had lost and proceed with loading their fabulous catch. Hernan and the captain, however, were more indulgent.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Hernan gently. ‘It was a galano. Galanos are the worst. Everyone knows this. San Andreas was smiling down on you today, Miguel-Angel. And so was San Telmo.’
‘But you showed no fear,’ added the captain from the top step by the bridge-house door, staring down the rest of the crew as they grew restless. ‘I know many men who would have cried out in fear at such a time. But not you. You looked the galano straight in the eye and dared him to do his worst, eh?’
The boy was not so innocent that he would risk the respect of such men by admitting that he had actually been too terrified to scream. But the little deception broke the moment. He stopped jabbering and stepped off the net. The crew went back to work. This time, when the shark came back aboard there was no doubt that it was dead, for it was folded in half and its belly had burst. Miguel-Angel made a point of spitting on the broad grey shovel of its head before he slid back under the seat and continued keeping the scuppers clear as the broken body rolled overboard and splashed into the sea beside Pilar.
As time passed, the rain began to ease. The men in general conversation agreed that this was a thoroughly good thing. Without the downpour to distract them, they began to work faster, forcing Miguel-Angel to work faster too as the volume of weed and rubbish that came aboard with the nets grew in proportion to the speed with which Hernan winched them in. The increasing drag, however, pulled the stern down further so that, although the rain eased, the larger waves began breaking in over the open transom, spewing across the deck and draining out through the scuppers. Miguel-Angel didn’t get much benefit from the fact that the rain clouds were relenting, therefore. But the others did, and soon felt confident enough to open the hatch cover altogether, which in turn made it easier for them to throw the fish in, which allowed them to work faster, which made Hernan winch the nets in more rapidly still.
Miguel-Angel soon lost track of time, but he was certain that several hours must have passed. His work became a series of flashes that punctuated a dream of near exhaustion like the jellyfish and the shark had done. But the seat above, the side in front with the openings of the scuppers at its base, and the restless legs behind kept the boy cocooned. The others, hard at work, fiercely focused on making the most of this one last chance to mend their fortunes, did not really notice the slow changes in the weather around them, other than those which continued to make their work easier.