Violent Daylight

by Caroline Angus Baker

  “What… what can I do, John?”

  “Nothing at this stage. I’m heading to Eden with Abigail Troublé. It’s the port in which Search and Rescue are based. An Australian naval boat has been dispatched in heavy seas to help Vainqueur to shore. I want to be there as all these sailors are brought in by boat or helicopter. Abigail wants to be there when her husband’s body is brought to shore.”

  “Where is Eden? How do I get there?”

  “Eden is 480 kilometres south of Sydney. It’s a small town, no airport, but it has a large port for ships and helicopters. It’s a six hour drive from Sydney, but Abigail has hired a chopper.”

  “I want to get to Eden, in case Canna is picked up off the life-raft.”

  “All serious injuries will be flown to Canberra or back here to Sydney anyway, Claudio. Maybe you should stay here.”

  “No, please, let me come to Eden. Abigail Troublé is a friend of my wife. I’m sure Canna would want me to travel with Abigail. The woman is all alone, and her husband is dead.”

  “Fair enough. But make it quick, we are ready to leave.”

  ~~~

  The sun began to set on the long Australian summer day as the helicopter reached its destination of Eden. Claudio looked out the window to see the yellow rocky cliffs and sandy beaches that surrounded the seaside hamlet. From the other side of the chopper, he saw the vast angry ocean they had been flying parallel to all the way south from Sydney. His eyes weaved around Snug Cove, a wide natural harbour filled with Australian warships and fishing boats alike. A Japanese cargo ship sat idle as woodchips got loaded on board. A cruise ship sat in the distance.

  “Christophe would love this trip,” Abigail sat in the seat next to Claudio.

  Claudio had to lean right over to hear her over the noisy helicopter. “You think so?”

  “Christophe loved helicopters his whole life. To be able to fly over the national parks and the sea here, in this model of chopper, he would have had a terrific time. I worried he would die in a helicopter crash… how wrong was I?”

  Claudio had no words. Poor Abigail was in a state of immense distress, and Claudio barely knew her, so how could he comfort her? If she wanted to make small talk about her husband, he couldn’t do anything but listen.

  “I guess to die at sea, in the most powerful stretch of ocean, fighting to win a race… that’s a pretty good way to go, too,” she added.

  Claudio nodded. All he did was nod as she spoke. If Canna wanted to die, then that would be how she would love it, face to the sea, attempting to defy nature. But maybe Canna died cold and alone, scared and injured. Christophe would have died in pain and fear, but Claudio couldn’t dare say that to Abigail. “I know how you feel right now.” The moment he said it, Claudio regretted every word.

  Abigail turned and faced him; her green eyes puffy from endless streams of tears. “I guess… I guess you’re the only person who has any idea how I feel right now. They could be pulling Canna’s body from the ocean soon. Maybe they will never find her.”

  Claudio just stared at Abigail as tears fell from her eyes again, running down her cheeks and onto her lips. She was right. There was no point in softening the blow. The situation was as bad as it could be. At least Abigail would get Christophe back. Claudio didn’t have that certainty.

  Abigail wiped the tears from her face and glanced down at Claudio’s phone in his hands. “What have you been looking at this whole time?”

  Claudio showed Abigail the photo of Canna, in her beautiful white dress, holding Casamiro just after his birth. “This is my world, right here,” he said.

  “I guess I won’t ever have children now,” Abigail replied, and the tears began to flow again. Claudio put his arms around the stricken widow and said nothing. There were no words for moments as painful as this one.

  They landed roughly, the wind whipping off the angry sea next to the exposed helipad at the Search and Rescue headquarters. Claudio, Abigail and John cleared the helicopter rotor and met with rescue staff. They needed to clear the helipad, another chopper was coming in fast from a rescue site in Bass Strait. Maybe this was it; maybe they had arrived just in time.

  “This is the helicopter that went to Vainqueur,” John said to the tired Spaniard and distraught French woman. They went and sat just inside the office of the rescue centre and watched the helicopter coming in to land. “Abigail, they have your husband on board, along with the guys from Vincitore. The Vainqueur crew will bring the boat back to shore with the help of the naval ship.”

  “What will happen to the Vincitore crew?” Claudio asked.

  “There is one serious injury, a broken leg. The rest are suffering from shock, and cuts and bruising. Ambulance staff are here to treat them before they are sent back to Sydney.”

  “What about my husband?” Abigail asked.

  “Christophe will be flown back to Sydney in the helicopter we just arrived in since you chartered it yourself. The coroner will assess him, pronounce his death and then we can take you back to Sydney, where arrangements can be made.”

  Abigail just nodded, and Claudio noticed that John tried not to cry. The burden of responsibility weighed on this middle-aged man, who had done his best to conduct a safe yacht race, which had ended in tragedy.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Claudio asked Abigail. “Sorry, that sounded stupid.”

  “No, it sounded noble.” Abigail took his hand and squeezed it. “I hope you find Canna, I do. I was looking forward to having Canna as my neighbour in Bonifacio. Who knows what happens now.”

  Claudio watched from the warmth of the rescue office as John and Abigail went out to the large rescue chopper. He watched, tears stinging his eyes, as the covered body of Christophe Troublé was unloaded. Abigail hugged what had been a man she appeared to be very in love with, and now that love had been destroyed.

  The ten members of Vincitore were unloaded and taken into the safety of the rescue centre. Claudio saw a stretcher being offloaded, and it was Mitchell, one of Canna’s American sailors, who had suffered the broken leg.

  It was Michele, an Italian sailor that Claudio had first met in Malta, who saw him waiting with the medical staff in the rescue centre. The pained look on the exhausted Italian’s face told Claudio a lot. The man rushed over to Claudio and hugged him.

  “I’m so sorry about this accident,” Michele said, his English slow but correct. “We all worried for Canna and her safety. She was extraordinarily brave.”

  “What happened?”

  “Everything happened so fast. Most of us were asleep downstairs, and so were safe when the boat rolled. Canna got dragged under the sea and resurfaced with the others on board and immediately knew we had to abandon ship. Canna seemed so calm as she made sure we had all our safety gear and deployed the complex rafts in the dark. I don’t know how Canna did it; she had almost drowned moments earlier. She was the one who set off the EPIRB. As we began loading the life-rafts, it was Canna who decided to try and climb back downstairs to attempt a mayday call. The broken hull was filling with water, and everyone knew it was dangerous, but she went anyway. The line holding our life-raft to the boat snapped in a wave, and we never saw if Canna made it back on deck. We lost the boat in seconds. The waves… oh, Claudio, you’ve never seen anything like it. Waves that could swallow apartment blocks. We were in a blow-up raft. The sight of Vainqueur, what a relief, but then we found their skipper, Christophe, had died in the night.” Michele took a deep breath, emotionally exhausted. He had a black eye and a limp. His hands were covered in bloody cuts. “Have you heard any news?”

  “They spotted the life-raft from the air, but no word about who is on board. Vincitore hasn’t been seen.”

  “I guess she sank. Canna was right to abandon right away.”

  Michele wandered away with an ambulance staff member and the tired Italian all but fell into a waiting wheelchair. The whole crew looked battered and bruised, all with faces of fatigue and pain, with multiple injuries and torn wet clothe
s. They all waved or spoke to Claudio, expressing their remorse over the loss of Canna. Mitchell, Michele, Ian, Max, Federico, Paul, Antonio, Greg, Marco, Simone, all safe on land. No one was to blame.

  John reappeared in the rescue office and found Claudio amid the chaos. They stood together and watched another helicopter approach, its lights flashing as it prepared for a descent in the rapidly fading light. “We have no way of knowing who will be on board, our job is to care for everyone, no matter who they are,” John said. “It is the first load of rescued sailors from the second life-raft. The information coming in is sketchy; with limited time to get them all off before dark, they pulled whoever was easiest to get off and left. A second chopper is still at the scene, out there at sea, pulling out any remaining crew members. Be prepared, Claudio, Canna may not be on board.”

  “I understand,” Claudio called back, his voice almost lost amid the sound of the landing chopper. He thought of Doug’s parents back in Sydney, scared their son had perished.

  Claudio stood paralysed as he watched John run to the helicopter along with ambulance staff. He watched sailors get out one by one, battered and wet bodies, limping and struggling with every breath. Claudio caught sight of young Doug, rolled off the helicopter on a stretcher and covered in a silver hypothermia blanket. Doug left in an ambulance so fast that Claudio had no time to approach him, but he could ring his parents back in Sydney. Canna would appreciate that. One by one, they were back on dry land – Doug, Gino, Tom, Johan and Daniele, all men Claudio knew. No Canna. No. Canna.

  As the sun set over the angry ocean, Claudio rested his forehead against the cold window of the rescue centre. He watched the helicopter leave, silence once again surrounding the hopeless situation. Once it was dark, and the life-raft had fewer people on board for stability, their chances of survival were slim. Claudio was no fool. He pulled Canna’s ruby from his pocket and held it tight in hand and let the helplessness take over his body. Nothing could hurt as much as this did.

  A hand rested on his shoulder, and Claudio’s opened his eyes. John again. Without a word, the burly Australian pointed out the window, and Claudio looked out. In the darkness, the lights of another helicopter flashed as it approached the helipad. Claudio turned and rushed through the doors out into the howling and bitter winds and watched the helicopter struggle to land its heavy and sturdy body on the ground. Ambulance staff surrounded him, ready to deal with whatever the helicopter had on board. Claudio watched the medical teams duck under the slowing rotor. Ryan, Gilberto, Flavio and Marcel took feeble steps off the helicopter and collapsed into waiting wheelchairs and stretchers.

  There was Claudio’s salvation. A stretcher appeared in the doorway of the helicopter and staff rushed to help the rescue team get the patient to the ground. Among the equipment and hypothermia blanket, a lock of thick black hair trailed along the pillow.

  Claudio raced across the tarmac, dodging patients and doctors alike until he reached the stretcher. There was Canna, just her head poking out from under the hypothermic layer. An oxygen mask covered her face, and her skin appeared almost blue. Claudio put his hands to her face, to feel her skin cold.

  “Do you know this woman, sir?” one of the rescue team asked.

  “She’s my wife. Canna’s my wife.”

  “You have a brave wife, sir,” the man replied. “Canna had to be hoisted into the chopper, almost 100 feet in total, on a stretcher alone so we could get her in the helicopter. Normally a rescue member is lowered and takes the journey up the cable with the patient. But Canna needed the stretcher and took the dark and dangerous trip all alone. She was one of the last loaded on board. I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to save her.”

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “She has damaged ribs, hypothermia and a serious head injury. She will need to be airlifted to Sydney as soon as possible for treatment.”

  “Thank you. I don’t know how I can ever repay the kindness and bravery you’ve all shown to save my wife and her crew.”

  “Just be safe, that’s all we want, sir.”

  The sound of the helicopter engine coughed to a stop; the machine had run out of petrol. That’s how close to death all involved had come.

  Claudio looked at Canna, lifeless on the stretcher. It was over.

  CHAPTER 50

  SYDNEY

  Canna didn’t feel any release from her pain, instead as she took a deep breath, she felt sore, numb, constricted. She took a few more deep breaths, and the pain continued. Canna finally realised she had survived.

  She struggled to open an eye and saw Claudio standing over her, his face close enough to hers that she could see him without her glasses. Oh God, where was she? She let out a pathetic little whimper; the reality of the situation all came back in a heartbeat.

  “It’s all right, my darling,” Claudio said as he tried to calm his worried wife. She looked so scared, so confused. “Canna, you’re in the hospital.”

  Canna tried to lift her arms, but one started to hurt. The painful familiar feeling of a blood pressure cuff and an IV needle sent shots of discomfort through the limb. Her right hand was bandaged. She reached out with the other arm, clinging to Claudio for dear life. “You’re here,” she whispered. “You came this time.”

  “If course I came,” Claudio said with a gentle smile. “Sweetheart, you’re going to be okay.”

  A sharp pain stabbed Canna’s heart. “The guys,” her dry croaky voice tried to yell. “The others?” With her arm still around Claudio’s neck, her cheek was against his, she was desperate to hold him close, to feel his warmth, his comfort, his soul.

  “The others are all safe and well,” Claudio said in her ear, his arms around her frail body in a tender hug. “Everyone was rescued.”

  “The other life-raft?”

  “The other life-raft was found first by Vainqueur. The others are going to be fine in a week or two.”

  Canna started to cry; she had no idea where she was or what had happened. The last thing she remembered was the weightless feeling of being hoisted into the helicopter. The freezing waves and driving winds pulled and pushed her, trying to grab her damaged body, and pull her back into the dark abyss. Her chest heaved as she began to cry, and she could feel Claudio cry against her. His warm tears fell against her skin.

  “This is all my fault,” Canna whispered.

  Claudio pulled away just enough to look at Canna. She rested back on the bed and he and ran a hand through her hair. “This was an accident.”

  “I shouldn’t have sailed through the storm,” she whispered, her throat still sore.

  “You couldn’t turn back, either.”

  “The wave, I swear it was bigger than the rig of the yacht, and that is 120 feet. It came out of nowhere. Oh God...” Canna couldn’t speak as she saw the whole thing again, the wave hit the deck, her crew mates scattered like bowling pins as the boat rolled.

  “Everyone is calling you a hero,” Claudio said as he tried to soothe her tears. “Your calm and collected emergency response amazed everyone. They said you helped Mitchell and his broken leg into the life-raft with superb skill and care. They thought you were a hero for going down below to make the radio call.”

  “I didn’t know if the call got through… the radio died. Ryan pulled me up on deck. He put me on the life-raft. I would be dead without him. I have to thank Ryan…”

  “Shh…” Claudio said and kissed her cheek. “There is plenty of time for the details.”

  Canna took a deep breath and her chest burned like the fires of hell. “My ribs… I got smashed against the grinding pedestal…”

  “You have four fractured ribs, two broken fingers and a fractured ankle, and so you won’t be running anywhere in heels any time soon.”

  Canna glanced down at her legs and saw her foot in a cast. “I don’t remember hurting my foot.”

  “You had hyperthermia, so you probably couldn’t feel the pain. You also hit your head, but tests only show concussion. You did
lose your nose stud in the commotion, and you have two black eyes.”

  “I can feel the black eyes. One doesn’t even open. I bet you thought you had finally got rid of me.”

  “This is your best escape attempt yet. I really thought I had lost you.” Claudio pulled the ruby from his pocket and placed it on her finger as gentle as he could.

  “It was so cold, floating for hours in the life-raft. I laid across the guys, each holding me steady as I cried out in pain. After a while, it went quiet, we were so cold we couldn’t speak. All we could hear was splashing waves and whistling wind. I thought I was dead. I wished I would die out there.”

  “You were in the water a long time.”

  “Did they give me morphine?” Canna tried to sit up, but no, there was no chance of that happening.

  “No, they gave you something much simpler, that’s why you are still in pain. They know all about your drug habit, so they are being very careful. You still have your anti-depressants in your system, so you don’t lose your tolerance and have to go through the ten days of hell again to build it up in your system.”

  “Thank God,” Canna whispered. “It’s the last time I make a wish on my birthday candles. I wished for safety and got this instead.”

  “Let’s blame the cake. To be fair, you are back with me. Your wish came true.”

  Canna glanced down at her left hand, all covered in spots that looked like red scales. “Shit, do I have sea sores?”

  “Yeah, most of your body is covered in little red spots but don’t worry, the doctors have started antibiotics to help you.”

  Canna looked at her spots on her arms. Sea salt had got into her four layers of clothing and irritated the skin, sitting wet for hours. It wasn’t unusual to peel off her sea boots after a long race and find her feet swollen and spotted, but her whole body? Yuck. “Is my face covered in them?”