The Southwind Saga (Book 3): Flood Tide

by Kovacs, Jase

  "Is he...?" asks Auntie.

  Abigail drops the forceps and tries to find a pulse in his wrist. "Blood pressure is so low the vein keeps collapsing. But I think... I think I can feel a pulse. So fast though."

  "Get those forceps!" snaps Abella. "You need to be ready if the artery breaks. I think I have the bullet. Are you ready?"

  "Yes."

  "Okay. I am going to lock the forceps on the bullet. Then open the wound some more so I can start to suture the artery." Now Larry is unconscious, I lean back. I grab a piece of cloth and wipe the sweat from Abella's dripping brow. "Thanks," she says. "We've got a lot of work yet to do."

  Abella gently works the forceps into Larry's wound, as intent as a safe cracker trying to intuit the hidden workings of an unseen mechanism. She closes her eyes and twists her wrist minutely, working for a good purchase on the bullet. This is the critical juncture – a slip here will spell disaster.

  "I think I have it," she hisses. She closes the forceps, the pawls engaging with gentle clicks as she locks around the bullet. "Okay. Auntie, take them. Gently now. I need to—"

  "Let me stitch, child," says Auntie. "I have sewn more wounds than you have had hot dinners."

  Abella nods and gingerly offers the forceps. Just as she does so, the yacht abruptly slides to the left and drops. Only ten centimetres or so, but enough that Abella's hand jerks the forceps away, yanking the bullet from within Larry's leg. She shrieks with surprise, the bullet suddenly free from the wound. Mercifully there is no movement from within; no sudden uncoiling as the artery snaps and disappears beyond recover into Larry's groin.

  "Oh my god," gasps Abella, looking to Auntie in mutual disbelief. "Oh my god, that was close."

  Random shouts of alarm come from the stern. I hang over the side to see the guys frantically stacking sandbags against the port hull. The tide has dropped enough now that the yacht's waterline is exposed by a hands breadth. "What's happening?" I ask.

  "The coral here is no good," says Enzo.

  Rod breaks the surface. His eyes are distorted behind a scuba mask yellowed with age. "It’s fucked, mate. The coral bed is rotten shit. It won't support the yacht. And the bow's no good either, the tide’s washing the sand away."

  "Then work faster," says Enzo. "There is hours until the tide is out."

  "Mate, we're shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic here. We're coming off this reef whether you like it or not. The only question is when."

  "How much time do they need?" Enzo asks me.

  I glance back at the doctors at work. Abella and Auntie are bowed to their work, their sweaty faces flecked with pinheads of dried blood. Abigail crouches to the side, forceps held in her hand, chewing her bottom lip ragged with a look of intense misgiving on her face.

  "More than they have," I say. "They need to operate on Kev when they've finished with Larry."

  "I'm telling you, mate, it's a matter of minutes before this yacht slides back off the reef," says Rod urgently. "If we can lift the stern, get some more sandbags under there, we might have a chance."

  As he speaks, Luke, Memafu and the other guys continue to ram sacks full of sand and coral under the port hull to shore it up.

  "We could run the anchor out, like they did last night," I say. "Up the front and pull the boat up."

  "Non. The angle is no good."

  "We could—"

  Enzo snaps his hand up to still my words. "Quiet! I am thinking!"

  We wait as the possibilities run through Enzo's mind. His eyebrows crease as an idea presents itself to him. He nods, considering it, running through his own objections and then, finding them of no consequence, he nods again in confirmation.

  "Okay. Get the sandbags from behind the saildrive."

  "Are you kidding, mate? We just got them in place—"

  "Free the propeller. We use it to push us onto the reef."

  "You want us to chock the boat up next to a spinning prop?" Rod's deadpan delivery only underscores his disbelief. It is a sign of just how much he dislikes this plan that he looks to me for support.

  "We'll need more than just that, right?" I ask.

  As if answering for us, Fidelio shivers again. Luke shouts with alarm as the sandbags along the port hull slide as the underlying coral bed collapses.

  I remember the chugs of black smoke that rose from Fidelio that day, seemingly so long ago, when I paddled out to fetch Matty and found her and Enzo working on the engines. I keep my misgivings to myself as Enzo grabs my outstretched hand, and I pull him aboard.

  I follow him to the helm. Abella doesn’t look up as she says, "We need more time. More steady time."

  "It is coming, mon chere." Enzo glances at the fish scale coloured clouds that blanket the sky. "No solar to help. Zac, you find the battery selector switch – it is under the sofa. Change to 'emergency parallel.'"

  I run into the saloon where Apo and Jarrod lie on the sofa. Apo's face is blank and relaxed, but Jarrod’s urchin spiked features widen in alarm as I come in. "What's going on?"

  I ignore him and duck under the table. There I see a small door and behind it is a heavy selector knob marked OFF – 1 – 2 – BOTH. No emergency parallel but I guess BOTH will do. I twist it into position and shout back, "Parallel on!"

  "Abella, a little jump is coming. Rod, is the propeller clear?"

  "Yeah!"

  Enzo looks at me and crosses himself as I come back out. "Both engines?" I ask him. He twists the start key to on and the harsh tone of the oil alarm goes off. At this he smiles – at least the electrics are working.

  "Non. Port only. Starboard's timing is not good." He shifts the gear select to neutral then presses the red start button above the helm. A protesting whine rises from the hull as the start motor drives reluctant cylinders to action. Then all at once the engine is alive, rumbling happily under its own power. The tacho lifts to a rough idle and the oil alarm shuts off. Enzo slaps the helm in delight then and then punches me hard enough that I stagger. "Fantastic! Rod, everyone is clear of the prop, no?"

  "Yeah, mate, all clear. Get her going."

  Abella says tersely, "We must continue!"

  "Fidelio might still move."

  "That's a risk I'll have to take. Come on, Auntie, keep stitching."

  "One moment," says Enzo. He drops his hand to the gearshift and slowly advances it to forward. A heavy metal clang shakes the ship from bow to stern and the engine stops with a shocking abruptness. "Merde!"

  "What happened?" I ask.

  "The gearbox jammed!" Enzo arches his back and claws his hands in frustration. "All these years, and now it jams!"

  Rod boosts himself up the stern of the boat. "It's proper fucked, ain't it?"

  "Oui. Fucked,"

  "All right." Rod nods philosophically, refusing to dwell on this failure for more than a moment. "What's another bright idea to get weight off the stern?"

  "Kedge the anchor?" I suggest again.

  "I tell you before, we need lift the stern, not drag the boat," snaps Enzo with exhausted frustration.

  "Yes, I know. We can run it up the masthead to get leverage."

  "That is—" Enzo cuts off his own rejoinder as his thoughts catch up to his mouth. "Maybe it can work." Then forcefully as he takes a moment to consider it fully. "Yes, fantastic. We do it. Get the dinghy out, Rod, and take the CQR out as far as you can. And lock it in good, yes?"

  "I'm on it."

  Another flurry of intense action follows. Fidelio shivers and shudders every minute as she slides centimetre by centimetre off the reef, as if reminding us we are racing the ticking clock of the falling tide. The doctors work without pause, rising above the appalling conditions to repair Larry's ruined artery. Luke and Memafu pile sandbags around the stern but the rotten coral underneath collapses as fast as they can fill the holes. Enzo works with a team of men up the mast, reinforcing the halyard blocks to take the extra strain while Rod rows out Fidelio's largest anchor and searches for a good place to drop it. Everyone drips sweat, exhau
sted, aching but moving with the drive that comes from having a desperate task within reach.

  Rod brings the bitter end of the anchor rope back to us; Enzo ties it into a network of halyards he has lofted up the mast. He has reinforced the mast to take the additional strain. He gestures to me, and I work the biggest winch on board; a three speed Ronstan which takes up the slack within moments. I shift down to the lowest gear as the stain comes on and the whole spider-web of lines goes drum tight as I bring the rope in, one agonizing click at a time.

  "Here, I try." Enzo leans on the winch handle with all his strength. His tendons tent his brown arms like cables. He gets another few clicks in before Rod comes to help. After a moment, they sit back, satisfied. There is no sound apart from the high note of the wind running over the new shrouds and backstays as if the whole boat was a great stringed instrument. We look from one to another, lost in the solidarity of completing a hard job well. We don't need to say it – the boat feels solid and stable.

  Our triumph evaporates when we return to the back deck and see the expressions on Abella, Abigail and Auntie's faces. For a moment I am confused; they have moved away from Larry. His wound is closed, with a row of neat black stitches holding the gash shut like a long spiky centipede. There is even some colour returning to his flesh, as they have started the slow, controlled process of removing the tourniquet.

  But they are not by him anymore. Abigail sits on the back rail, staring out to sea, her cheeks streaked with tears. Abella looks blankly at Kev, her hands balled up but her face slack with utter exhaustion.

  It is only Auntie who has the strength to act. She crouches by Kev. Her emotions are impossible to read. They had known each other for a decade – never amicably but you cannot have someone in your life for that long and remain unmoved by their passing.

  Later she tells me that none of them witnessed Kev's final moments, caught up as they were with treating Larry. He must have woken, right at the end. Perhaps even tried to sit up. She knows this, she says, because his eyes were open. Open, but unseeing.

  As I watch, the slow horror settling in my stomach like poison, Auntie gently reaches out and closes Kev's eyes for the last time.

  ***

  It is a grey afternoon, grey and spiritless, on a strangely still and lifeless sea. We drift downrange from the islands, no wind, no breeze to give our vessel life. No movement either, we sit around bereft, exhausted. The crisis has passed, this one at least, and now we sit and sleep if our minds let us. All of us pausing to take breath for the first time since the storm broke yesterday.

  The canoes have paddled back to the reef; their crew are slinging handlines without much enthusiasm. Excelsior and Razzmatazz drift with us; their sails furled. I can see Roman at Excelsior's helm; little Blong tucked under his arm. Larry sleeps. The tourniquet is off; his leg looks ghastly with deep purple blotches that extend up his abdomen to his chest. But he is breathing, shallow and weak, but breathing.

  We wrapped Kev in a sheet, swaddling his body up as if he was a baby. I caught Enzo's eye and he nodded; we knew what needed to be done, even if we haven't said it yet. No one is ready for what must come next.

  So many friends left behind. I feel the weight. As long as the race to save Kev and Larry was underway, we might have salvaged some meaning from the horrible slaughter of yesterday. I find that I can deal with our friends we lost in action – it was battle and such things are to be expected. Horrible but expected.

  But we came so far. After all our efforts, our plan worked. We got Abella the stable operating table she needed.

  But we were too late.

  ***

  We gather at the stern, where Enzo and Rod have laid Kev's body, wrapped tightly in a green sheet. Enzo has weighted him with scrap iron. For a moment I think it unfair that Kev gets a burial, when our other friends were left behind, or disappeared over the side in the heat of battle. But then I reflect that they are who are burying now – not just Kev but all those taken by the Green Lord. Robbo, Molo, Solomon, Ken and Dolf.

  And Matty.

  The sun is a ghost shrouded in clouds. There is no wind, and a long swell rolls Fidelio back and forth with an oily motion that sets all the bottles in her cupboards clinking.

  "Does anyone want to say something?" Abella asks.

  Rod swallows loudly. He has Kev's old forage cap in his hands, and he worries it like a puppy with a toy. "Yeah. I guess. Yeah, Kev— He was my boss, right? He was tough. A real tough boss. But fair. I. Fuck it... I don't know. Fuck this." His voice collapses in a choking sob.

  The silence is long and awkward. I reach for my feelings and find them a confused contradictory mess. I remember Rod's outrage when Matty left, and I want to avoid another provocation. But then I lift my eyes to the others and find them looking at me.

  "I didn't get along with Kev." I’m unsure where I’m going but the words feel right. "I didn't even like him much. I thought he was a bastard, a lot of the time. And a lot of the time I think I was right. He made his mind up early, and he rarely changed it. About locals. About women. About the way things should be done. You all know our community had a line down the middle and I don’t mean the creek. Kev was on one side and I the other.

  "But that didn't matter when we got to Dalbarade. There I saw a different man. And, I think he found a different man there as well. Or perhaps it's who he was all along, and he just needed to be seen in a different light. I guess you could say that about all of us who came to Dalbarade.

  "We leave our brothers and sisters behind us. Lost in the jungle and on the sand. Taken by the fire and the sea. That's the way it's always been for those who voyage beyond the horizon in search of answers.

  "All of us have lost so much to be here. Not just in the past week, but over the years since the Fall. So tonight we say goodbye to our friends, as we have said goodbye to them so many times before. And we return to our work, to what needs to be done. Because tomorrow is a new day."

  Enzo nudges Rod and they step to the rail together. "We commit this body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, and await the resurrection, when the sea shall give up her dead," murmurs Rod as they slip Kev over the side.

  A brief burst of birdsong comes from the bow where a kingfisher perches on the railing. Its emerald wings flash like a jewel as it lets loose another trill of gentle notes. Then, with a flit of its wings, it is gone.

  ***

  The afternoon fades away and still there is no wind; no wind, an ugly swell and a heavy heat, so humid that our sweat pools in the hollows of our bodies, and we loll around like sick dogs. Night offers no relief; the heat lies over us like blankets and the clouds smother the moon and stars.

  I sit out on the bow, both to be in the open air and, more importantly I think, to be away from the others. For all of the action of yesterday, I craved the time I could relax and sleep. But now, when I have no tasks and nothing to do but sleep, I find my emotions sloshes like the swell between Fidelio's twin hulls.

  Abigail steps gingerly across the net to me. The original nylon trampolines between Fidelio's hulls fell victim to the sun's abrasive UV light long ago; now her net is woven bamboo. She sits on the deck by me, both of us aware of an ugly silence between us.

  Eventually she says, "Did you mean what you said?"

  I cannot make out her features in the darkness, just the shape of her hair tied back and the curve of her back against the yacht's white hull. But her tone tells me what expression I would find on her face; sad, hurt, a little wistful.

  "When? We've said many things over the past days."

  "That you love me."

  I shake my head. If I wasn't so tired, I think I would laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, Abby, I do."

  "Oh, Zac. Don't you see that you can't?"

  "What is that supposed to mean? All you've wanted since the night of the quake is for me to open up to you. Now I have and you tell me I can't?"

  "It's not about what I want. Things have changed since that night. Everything has changed.
I see that now."

  "What changed? When?"

  "When you supported the others over me." She senses my confusion and elaborates. "When you sided with Abella over Larry's operation."

  "You have got to be kidding! You're going to hold that against me?"

  "No, Zac, I'm not doing that. I... Zac, I admire that you did that. That you stood up to me."

  "What are you saying?"

  "You can't love me. I'll never be part of this community. I see that. I'll always be... exactly what they think I am. A former servant of the Green Lord. I'll always be suspect."

  "It doesn’t matter what they think of you. What matters is how we feel."

  "That’s naive. Things are bigger than just us. We are in a war, Zac. A war for survival. These people – they need you. When the dust settles from this, they will need a leader they can trust. And they will never trust you so long as you are with me."

  "But I'm not their leader. I'm just a... I'm just a glorified messenger boy, running across the creek."

  Her voice catches as she tries to speak, and she takes a moment to compose herself before she continues. "I wasn't sure, until I heard you speak at the funeral. I saw the way the others looked at you."

  "Rod probably wanted to punch me out again. He hates my guts. Most of those guys do."

  "Rod punched you because he loves Matty. Not that he knows. He may hate you for letting her go but you did the right thing. And tomorrow you will do the right thing too. The others believe that. So, here, now, the right thing for me to do is walk away. I just owed it to you to explain why. And to say thank you."

  I can't keep the bitterness from my voice as I say, "Thank me? For what?"

  Her answer catches in her throat as a cool breeze wafts over us. We both turn to it together, and I feel her body press against my arm. Then she draws back as the breeze strengthens and holds. A moment later, Enzo calls from the helm, "Clear the bow! We are raising the sails."