When, a good deal later, Miguel-Angel was at last given the chance of a toilet break and a cup of coffee, he noticed the changes as soon as he pulled himself out from under the seat. The rain had fallen light, though there was still no hint of blue sky above the clouds, and in place of the blinding downpour was an impenetrable mist of drizzle. The wind had shifted and strengthened. The set of the sea had swung round too — the rollers seemed bigger. They were coming from the north-east now and they were breaking in through the gap in the transom more regularly, sometimes heaving lengths of net in with them before Hernan winched them aboard. Miguel-Angel did not like the look of the new weather. But the exhausted men all around him raised no concerns. So the boy who had looked a galano in the eye and not screamed could hardly say he was worried by improving conditions. Not even to his capitan.
Captain Carlos was on the bridge when the boy found him. ‘I am going below for coffee, Capitan. Would you like some? There is no food left, though of course we can eat some of the catch, if you like. There are several tuna that we cannot put in the freezer because they have been half-eaten by sharks or barracudas, but they are still fat and would be tasty enough.’
‘No,’ said the capitan, preoccupied. Then he changed the subject altogether. ‘Your eyes are better than mine. Can you see something to the north of us? Another vessel?’
Miguel-Angel crossed to the rear-facing window and rubbed the foggy glass with his sleeve. He peered into the drizzling mist to the north, but he could see nothing distinct. ‘If there is anything there I cannot make it out,’ he said after a while.
‘I am concerned that it might be a fisheries protection vessel sneaking up on us,’ said Carlos. ‘Take the prismaticos and go aloft. Take a good long look from up there.’ As he spoke, the old man handed over the battered binoculars. Although the boy was bursting to use the toilet, he took the binoculars and obeyed. He slung them round his neck and swarmed up the ladder to the cluttered little deck on top of the bridge house. He stood tall, straddling his legs against Pilar’s rhythmic pitching. The change in the weather was even more obvious up here. But he disregarded this. He put one arm round the slim communications mast which fed the radio Capitan Carlos kept switched off because he wanted no contact with anyone at the moment. He steadied himself and brought the binoculars to his eyes. He looked back down the length of Pilar, over the open hatch, over the line of exhausted men sitting on the portside bench on his left, past the open transom and the net still spewing apparently endlessly out of it. And he looked into the drizzling mist to the north.
There was nothing distinct. Just a fog of grey, as though the air was filled with dusty spiders’ webs. Then he began to notice that the dullness was occasionally lit by flickers of brightness. Not the sort of brightness that might come from a nearby vessel, but something brighter, vaster, more distant. Miguel-Angel held his breath, willed his thumping heart to quieten. He disregarded the creaking of the pitching boat and the hissing whisper of the passing waves. Far away, there was a continuous rumbling. It was like thunder, he thought. No, it was thunder. He frowned, and suddenly his heart seemed to be making even more noise than before. Almost as much, in fact, as when the shark’s yellow eye had met his. But he had no idea why he should suddenly be so terrified.
And yet, he was.
TWENTY-EIGHT
‘Hello, Sulu Queen, this is Robin Mariner aboard Maxima. Is Captain Mariner available? Hello, Sulu Queen?’
‘Any luck?’ asked Captain Toro.
‘Nothing yet. I have the right wavelength and Sulu Queen’s call sign. She should be able to hear me as long as there’s someone on radio duty. And I can’t imagine that there isn’t, not with Richard in charge. Not under these conditions. And it’s less than a thousand miles. She’s not on the moon! God, I got through on my cell phone a little while ago! Signal’s gone on that now too!’
It was the better part of an hour since Robin and Nic had brought Liberty and her crew aboard. At Nic’s request, Robin, first-aid trained and careful to keep her certificates up to date, had checked them all over one at a time in preference to Maxima’s perfectly capable but masculine medic. After a thorough examination, she declared them surprisingly fit under the circumstances but battered, bruised, exhausted and suffering from mild exposure. She prescribed a stiff drink and eight hours’ sleep. Then she tucked them into bed. Nic was in the lounge immediately outside their accommodation in case they needed anything. The lounge was no longer so glorious, though. The TV had fallen off the wall and the carpets were soaking with water from the damaged pool. There was, as yet, no power, light or heat. Robin left him to his vigil and came up to try to contact Richard — so far with a spectacular lack of success. After a while, Toro had returned from the engine room with the news that the fire was safely out and repairs were well in hand. Robin could not meet his good news with good news of her own. The only positive she had to offer was that the weather immediately around them was moderating once again. But the clearer air did not mean a stronger radio signal.
‘Perhaps Manuel did more damage than we thought when he fell,’ suggested the captain.
‘Possibly. I’ve been thinking, though. If I can’t get through I’ll have to borrow another electrical engineer, if you have one, and go back aloft. The weather’s eased enough to make it fairly safe even if we still have high seas running. See if we can make some repairs.’
Toro shook his head. ‘Only Manuel. Electrical officer and radio officer. What you would call “Sparks”, I believe …’
‘Well, he’ll have to do, no matter what state his ribs are in. And the quicker the better. It’s all hands to the pump.’
‘Literally, if we aren’t careful,’ said Toro grimly. ‘I’m going back below to get an assessment as to when we can restore power. Will you hold the bridge? I’ll be on the end of a walkie-talkie if you need to call me back.’
‘Fine. I’ll keep trying for a bit longer then; if I can’t raise Sulu Queen I’ll ask you to send Manuel back up and we’ll take it from there.’
‘OK.’ Toro went through the rear door of the bridge and vanished into the shadowy, smoke-smelling corridor.
Robin looked down at the recalcitrant radio with a frown. ‘I don’t know,’ she told it. ‘If you can’t reach Sulu Queen then you probably aren’t going to reach the emergency services either when Captain Toro or Nic decides the situation is bad enough to start calling for help — no matter what it’s going to cost. We really need you fixed as the next priority after putting the fire out and restoring power. I truly do not want to find us just relying on the emergency beacons.’
The radio did not answer. She made herself comfortable in the radio officer’s seat and put on the headphones. She pulled the stick microphone towards her, checked the digital readout and started again. ‘Sulu Queen? Hello, Sulu Queen, this is yacht Maxima …’
Half an hour later she admitted defeat. She threw herself back in the chair and pulled the headphones off. She picked up the walkie-talkie, which was lying on the table beside the useless radio, and put it to her bruised lip. ‘Captain Toro,’ she said, ‘could you please send up Manuel with whatever equipment he needs to test the communications system?’ She looked out of the bridge windows and raised her eyebrows in pleased surprise. ‘It looks like the rain’s moderating even further. If we shake a leg we should be able to do some good before things close in again.’