“You all right up there?” Charlie’s voice suddenly erupted in the radio. “That sucker hit the water just off the stern.”
“We’re fine,” Kerry answered. “Everything’s all right.”
Dar glanced up at the sky. “This isn’t gonna work. I’m going to turn and get out of here,” she decided. “We’ll report the mayday when we get into dock.” She reset their course and checked the depth. “I’m not risking you or the boat.”
“Dar.”
Dar turned and looked her in the eye. “Yes?”
Kerry knew that look. She knew Dar didn’t like to be challenged, especially when she was off balance and scared. Kerry could see the jangled nerves in her lover’s eyes, and by the short, restless motions of her hands on the controls she knew that Dar’s temper was very much on edge. “We’re all he’s got,” she said very gently. “Can we try for a few more minutes?”
Dar very much wanted to say no, Kerry could read it. “Let me call him one more time and see if he can at least give us a click. If Terrors of the High Seas 73
not,” she watched the rain plaster Dar’s hair to her forehead, half obscuring her eyes, “at least we tried.”
A deep breath preceded her capitulation. “Okay,” Dar said briefly. “Then, please, Kerry, go below.”
“Okay,” Kerry agreed, flexing her hand around the mic. She hesitated, set it down, then reached out and caught Dar’s hand, squeezing it. “Thanks.”
“Grumph.” Dar adjusted the throttles and started the boat on a long, shallow curve to cut across the swells. She didn’t want to turn too sharply and get caught inside them, since the waves were cresting up to around twenty feet.
“Siren of the Sea… Siren of the Sea…if you can hear this, please key in twice.” Kerry requested, speaking clearly. She listened intently to the hiss. “Siren of the Sea, please key in twice if you receive this. We are trying to locate you.”
The hiss broke, returned, and then broke again. Kerry grinned, then looked up at Dar.
“Could be coincidence.”
“Siren of the Sea, please key in twice again.”
Two clicks answered her again, and then a voice crackled through. “I’m here! Help!”
Dar sighed and shook her head. “We still don’t have a chance of finding him,” she said. “All I’ve seen on radar for the last half hour is…” Dar stopped, leaned closer to the small scope. “Wait.”
She increased the magnitude of the pulse and studied the screen, unsure. It might be a tiny blip, but then it might not. “Could just be wave return.” But she was already swinging the wheel around and gunning the engines. “Either way, if that’s not him we’re going back.”
“Right.” Kerry put the mic down and stood. “I’m going to go up on the bow.”
Dar’s eyes widened. “Not without a safety belt,” she stated flatly. “I don’t want you launched overboard.”
“Aye, Aye, cap’n.” Kerry patted Dar, then made her way to the stairs, carefully climbed down them and stepped onto the pitching deck. Charlie and Bud were standing in the cabin doorway. “We think we see him,” she said.
“’Bout time.” Bud picked up the rope and floatation gear and slung it over his broad shoulder. “Seems like a lotta trouble for some jackass who didn’t have the sense to get out of the rain.” He got up onto the railing and walked around to the bow.
Kerry counted to ten under her breath as she got a double clipped safety rope and hooked one end onto the rail, then followed him. The wind hit her as she went around to the front of the boat, driving rain right into her eyes. Kerry gamely struggled forward, careful to keep her footing as she edged around the large cruiser 74 Melissa Good cabin and emerged onto the sloping bow of the boat. It was pitching up and down, and seawater was crashing over the rails, chilling her even through her jacket.
She got to the very front of the boat and knelt, peering into the darkness. The swells rose and fell, making it hard to see anything at all. All Kerry could see was ruffling waves and rain.
“There.” Bud was standing next to her. “To starboard.”
Kerry strained her eyes. “I don’t see anything… Oh. Wait!” In a break in the waves, she spotted a flash of white, then it disappeared. Her mind tried to resolve it as part of a sailboat, and failed. “Wh…”
Dar, apparently, had also seen it. The Bertram altered course to starboard, and the engine speed diminished.
Kerry leaned forward. Then the waves broke again, and she got another look. “He’s capsized!” she yelled, recognizing the white flash as an overturned hull.
“Yeap.” Bud didn’t seem surprised. “Jerk probably didn’t bring the sail in.”
Kerry stood up, biting her tongue to keep back the sharp words. Their boat worked itself closer, and she could see the upended boat more clearly. “He’s on the back!” She pointed at a dark, forlorn-looking figure clinging to the hull.
Then her eyes almost came out of her head as the sea in front of her dropped, and they were looking downslope at the shipwreck from twenty feet up. Kerry’s stomach almost came out of her nostrils as the wave crested, then she hung on as the Bertram rode the wave down, its forward motion slowed.
The wave picked up the sailing boat and lifted it, then a cross wave unexpectedly tossed it to one side. As Kerry watched in horror, the small figure on the back flew off into the water and disappeared. Without really thinking once, much less twice, she unclipped her safety rope and jumped to the top of the railing, then leaped out into the darkness.
Hitting the water was a total shock. It was cold, and it grabbed her mercilessly and whirled her around. Kerry fought her way to the surface and realized she’d probably just made a really big mistake. A wave nearly swamped her, but she rode through it, then felt something hit her on the shoulder. She whirled to find the floatation ring next to her and grabbed it.
The storm was too loud for her to hear any shouting, but she knew it was there. A dagger of hot fear hit her in the gut, and she got an arm around the ring, glad for its buoyancy. Trying not to swallow the seawater constantly washing over her head, she turned and started for the last place she’d seen the hapless boater.
At first, it was hard to make any headway. Then Kerry discovered if she found the right waves, they’d take her where she Terrors of the High Seas 75
wanted to go. She waited for one, then swam into it and let it carry her down and across the bow of the capsized boat.
The searchlight suddenly penetrated the rain, blazing across the choppy water. It tracked over Kerry, pausing a moment before it reluctantly moved on. Kerry’s eyes followed it, then she lunged forward as she caught just a glimpse of a hand near the back end of the boat. She struggled toward it, hearing the rumbling roar of the big diesels behind her as the Bertram fought to hold its position in the water.
Kerry got her head above water and yelled. “Hey!” She flailed with her arms through the wave, feeling under the surface near the edge of the capsized hull. Three times and nothing, then suddenly her hand touched something that wasn’t water and wasn’t boat.
Her fingers closed, with a brief, heartfelt prayer to God that it was a person and not a shark she was grabbing onto. She felt cloth and pulled hard, heaving backwards with all the strength she could muster. It was like pulling at a wet, sand filled sack. “C’mon!”
Kerry gave another tug. An arm broke the surface, then a dark, wet head.
For a moment, Kerry wasn’t sure she’d been in time. Then the head lifted and the other arm flailed out, smacking against the boat.
The man coughed, spitting up a mouthful of water.