The fort and the jagged rocks were approaching, though there was some good news, the gauges had all calmed down. Even the fuel gauge held its position. The craft liked running with the wind. It virtually surfed in on the waves. Even the three blue lights on the very right of the dashboard had stopped glowing. “Now, see how you like this,” Alex screamed as he spun the wheel first hard right and then back again to stop the boat from going into a full spin, whilst pushing the hand-throttle fully forward.
The craft dipped, yawed, and took on far too much water. The blue lights were instantly back! The sea spray was so bad that Alex was driving blind. He momentarily wondered why there were so many gauges in front of him when they acted as one. There were red lines and red lights everywhere. Once a safe distance from the rocks, he pulled back, only slightly, on the power. The lights almost instantly turned to orange. A further minute and he reduced the power just slightly more. Now this was much more interesting. Green, orange, blinking orange and even a couple of yellow lights glowed before him. The three blue lights remained steadfastly on. What they all meant was anybody’s guess and now was not the time to read the manual.
He could not see Kate up upon the battlements, even though the visibility looking back was not at all bad. He let go of the wheel in order to get to the back of the craft and release the winch. All he had to do was hit the yellow lever. He knew this from having read the sticker on the winch whilst nonchalantly standing by the boat before he had ‘borrowed’ it. It released the parachute and the wind would do the rest. Once parachute and cable were extended far enough, the red lever was the brake, and the green lever started the winch motor which pulled everything back in. For now, Alex could not care less about the red or green levers, but he must release the yellow one.
Letting go of the wheel, even for a second or two, he had found out, was likely to lead to the boat being swung around and either flooded or capsized. There was nothing else for it, he had to use the soldier’s belt, the only thing that was keeping his ‘skirt’ in place. He was satisfied that the wheel would now stay in place, as one end of the belt was tied to it, the other to a hand grab.
He stood whilst trying to keep hold of his ‘skirt’. It was never going to work. The soldier’s flip-flops slid on the wet floor, and as Alex fell back and hit the deck he saw his ‘skirt’ fly off into the ether. It appeared to him as though it had formed into the biggest grin before it had disappeared completely. With no damage done, except to his pride, Alex kicked off the lethal flip-flops and headed to the blunt end.
Buffeted, half standing, half on his knees, whilst being lashed by wind and water, he made it to the chrome frame. Pulling himself up he hit the lever. Upon seeing the package that was the parachute leave the boat, and hearing the scream of the cable following it, he fought his way back to the pointy end.
Alex struggled to get the boat back into the position he needed it to be in. The engine was working hard, though for most of the time he was able to keep it well off of full throttle as he only needed to hold position. The dashboard lights were now universally orange, apart from the three blue lights which were beginning to bug him.
He really could not see what was ahead of him, so he used points to his left and right for positioning. He could see behind well, but it was difficult to look back and keep both hands on the wheel. Once the cable was fully extended he would have to look back. He would have to position the boat so that Kate could grab the harness. It was the only way.
Suddenly being aware of seeing far too much of the pointy end he had no option except to look back. Water was flooding into the back of the boat. “NO, NO, NO,” he screamed as he saw the now fully deployed parachute, at some distance, almost directly behind the boat. It had failed to gain height in these conditions. Some sort of auto-braking had kicked in on the winch. It was still letting out cable, though now at a much slower rate. He thought of Kate telling him about her teacher’s favourite saying – cause and effect – and how she had virtually seen this written in neon lights as Aggie had been ejected from a police launch as if she had been shot from a cannon. The cause here was an almost horizontal wind. The effect was the parachute failing to gain any height and dragging the boat under the water, now that the automatic winch brake had started to be applied.
An alarm went off and Alex’s attention was drawn to the dashboard. A previously unnoticed blue push switch was now blinking rapidly at him. He wiped water from the dashboard with his hand before leaning in to read a little screen printed notice above the blue lights. His curiosity would not let him die without knowing. Green, orange and red were easy to understand, even yellow at a push, but blue! Once read, he thumped the blinking blue switch so hard that he broke the plastic. Not only did he break the plastic, there was now a hole in the dashboard where the switch had once been.
He was now armed with the information that the three blue lights each confirmed the operation of a bilge pump. It did not say where these were fitted, only that they were automatically pumping out water. However, the rapidly blinking blue push switch and the alarm, according to the screen printed notice, were telling him that the engine compartment was flooding. “So automatically turn the damn bilge pump on,” he had angrily thought to himself. Hence the hole in the dashboard. Three automatic bilge pumps, and the really serious one, the one that would stop the engine from being drowned, needed the pressing of a switch to work! He was going to have serious words with the owner of this speedboat when he got back. He was going to put him straight. Alex chuckled to himself. He was beginning to sound like Kate. “Kate, oh my god, Kate!”
The parachute was fully deployed and the safety harness was being blown about in the wind a few metres below it. The strength of the wind and the automatic braking of the winch had caused Alex to have to push harder with the motor. Water was coming in faster than any pump, or pumps, could cope with unless they were bigger than the actual boat.
“Updraft, I need and updraft.” He literally had seconds to think of an idea. He pulled the hand-throttle back to neutral. The boat went backward and took in so much water that it was likely to turn into a submarine at any moment.
His thinking was fairly simple, quite straight forward … straight forward for Alex that was. He needed an updraft if the parachute was going to gain height. Without this he was sunk … both figuratively and literally. Having spent his time fighting to keep the boat away from Qait Fort, now he needed its straight high walls. The wind had to go somewhere when it hit the wall and that somewhere was up, which would give the parachute the updraft it needed. The boat, he estimated, should still be far enough away from the jagged rocks as the parachute rose in such a strong wind, and in doing so it would pull the back of the speedboat up, allowing the bilge pumps to get on top of the pumping out of the water.
His only real worry was losing the engine, as water continued to flood into the boat. He was well aware that it was fitted within a watertight compartment. The lid of which shook like crazy, even though it was securely bolted down behind him. Yes, some water must have gotten in from somewhere, but the engine compartment bilge pump was running and had been for a while now. Chances were that there was no longer any water in that compartment and the air it contained would keep the boat afloat for long enough. There was also going to be a lot of heat in there, so hopefully that would keep the electrics dry.
This was his biggest gamble, because without the motor neither he nor the boat would stand any chance of survival against the ever approaching rocks.
Alex was clinging on to the steering wheel for dear life, he was standing, naked – because he had discovered that wet skin was even slipperier on the plastic seat than his Greek skirt had been – with water up to just below his knees, even though he was as far forward in the boat as he was.
Kate heard a noise, somebody was coming. She lifted her head from between her knees and put a hand out to grab the sword. There was nobody. Cleopatra’s ancients had her trapped, so they were obviously happy to wait for the last
tourist to leave. With the wind making the beaches unusable, the fort offering total protection from the wind, and the free show, it was probably busier with tourists than it had been in months. The battlements, where she was, were closed due to safety reasons. She and Alex had ignored the signs. The wind had if anything gained in strength. A young child, a baby, could easily be blown off of here.
Aware now that the noise she had heard was coming from behind her, Kate rolled over onto her knees and looked out to sea. She blinked, blinked again, and then rubbed her eyes. This was not from the effects of sea spray as she was far above the water. This was from what she was looking. There was Alex standing naked in a half sunk boat travelling backwards in a rough sea. She turned back over and … and what! Was she losing her mind? First today she had heard the screams of Cairo and had seen him flying by nothing more than flapping his arms. Now this! The dead Alex had come back to haunt her, and if he had, why, after their discussion in the tent, would he have come back naked?
Chapter 32
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The Dressing Gown
The noise from the other side of the wall continued to raise Kate’s curiosity. Whatever was causing it was close, much, much closer than the speedboat, and getting closer by the second. Rolling over for the second time in as many minutes she peered over the edge just in time to be smacked squarely in the face by several square metres of parachute. Without a second thought she grabbed handfuls of the material and held onto it as hard as she could. Everything made sense, yet nothing made sense.
The dead Alex was here to rescue her in a sinking boat! “That is so Alex,” she thought.
“Unorthodox!” Alex thought whilst taking a quick second look at the silhouetted shape of Kate through the material, as she clung to the outside of the parachute. With the back of the boat now so high in the water – the parachute having broken free of the castle and rising – his worry was that the boat’s propeller may well be lifted clear. Thankfully Kate’s added weight had somewhat stemmed the parachute’s meteoric rise.
Alex pushed the hand-throttle all the way forward, and then kept pushing in the hope of a few extra revs. Even though the motor responded instantly, this was going to be touch and go. He was far too close to the rocks, much closer than he had estimated. The feeling of immense relief went through him as the vibration of the propellers travelled through the boat as they cut through the waves.
Not yet going forward, though no longer going backwards, he felt that the worst was over … WRONG! An extra strong gust of wind caught in the parachute. There was the most dreadful noise as the propellers left the water; the boat shot backwards. Now he really was far too close to the rocks, alarmingly too close to them. The extra strong gust having passed, the rear of the boat crashed down into the water. In panic Alex pushed even harder upon the throttle. Glancing down at the instruments everything was back to red-lining. Only the fuel gauge was dropping, and that was now dropping so fast that if he did not know better he would have thought he had a leak. The boat made some headway before it was again lifted from the water and it was right back at the rocks.
Kate’s strength was leaving her. “If you get me killed, Alex Cumberpatch, I’m coming back to make your life hell!” she screamed at the top of her voice even though nobody could hear. It gave her the adrenaline rush she needed, or it did until she considered that she was already making his life hell. It was as if she was fighting a bucking bronco. Unless she did something, and did it quickly, there was only a finite amount of time she could cling on for before she ‘hit the dirt’, only here there was no dirt, though there were plenty of jagged rocks a long, long way beneath her. The sound of the boat’s propellers leaving the water with each strong gust did reach her. The way the parachute immediately travelled backwards, followed by the sudden jolt as the boat re-entered the water, was sapping her strength. “The ninth wave,” she thought. Kate reckoned that their only chance was for her to make air spill from the parachute. If it did not catch so much air then Alex, for she had now convinced herself that he was indeed alive, could get them both away from the rocks and reel her in.
There was no way she could even consider changing her handholds. Her knuckles were white from having to grab on so hard; the blood having been forced from her hands. She tried swinging her legs to the left and then to the right. No change. She was already being buffeted so much that her legs had been swinging left and right anyway. She had an idea. She would make herself into a ball: more weight in a single spot. With great effort she pulled her knees up and sunk her head between her arms. She knew that if this worked she would sink into the canvas and only have the air around her to breathe.
Alex glanced over his shoulder and saw that the shape of Kate had changed. He hoped she was able to continue clinging on, though he had no idea how he was going to get them out of here. If he dared to leave the controls in an attempt to winch her in, she could easily be beaten against the fort walls and the boat lost upon the rocks.
The last gust had been particularly strong. It lifted the rear of the boat so far out of the water that the pointy end disappeared under the waves. Then, as that gust subsided, and before another could arrive, the parachute shrank in size as Kate sank through the middle of it. The drag behind the boat more than halved.
Crashing down into the water, one of the propellers hit a rock, causing the boat to shudder violently. The engine continued to run just as fast, possibly faster as its tone changed, but the boat had lost power. Not all power, though Alex was now having to fight hard with the steering, using his body weight as well as his arms.
He involuntarily thought back to a novel he had once read, where the criminals had failed to make their getaway due to the boat they had stolen losing – throwing was the word that had been used – its propeller. Something about a shear-pin. That must be what has happened here. The propeller had hit the rocks, the pin which held the propeller in place had sheared in order to protect it. If Alex was the kind to really swear, then he would have been swearing right now. He could not believe the stupidity of boat design. Great, an almost perfect propeller could be recovered and sold on eBay, whilst the boat and lives were lost. That made perfect sense in a crazy world.
In these circumstances a wobbly propeller, a heavily damaged propeller, was better than no propeller at all. The owner was not getting this boat back. It deserved to sink, to be smashed upon the rocks. Alex chuckled again, almost hysterically, as he thought that he really was being far too Kate with his thoughts. After all, the boat still had forward motion, so one of the two propellers must be okay. However, one propeller was not up to the job if it had to also contend with the drag of the parachute.
Kate had made the parachute less able to hold the wind, which would have been perfect had the boat not thrown a propeller.
There was nothing else for it. It was do or die, possibly die or die he thought. After tying the wheel in place, he made it to the winch and back in record time. Having hit the green lever Kate was now being winched in centimetre by centimetre. With every centimetre the drag was reduced and the boat gained some ground. It was a full fifteen minutes before Kate was on board.
“So, do tell me again, Kate, he was naked, totally naked when you set him on fire.”
“Not me, Emmy. He set himself on fire. He was so embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed about being naked, or embarrassed about setting himself on fire?” Emmy asked through tears of laughter.
“Both, I expect.” Kate almost failed to contain her laughter.
“I wasn’t embarrassed; I was doing what I had to in order to rescue you.” Alex was as red as a beetroot, and very embarrassed, even though he could see the funny side.
“Only you could rescue me in a sinking boat, and then set half the boats in the harbour on fire.” Kate was now really struggling to contain her laughter.
Kate finally lost it as Emmy said, “Only half the boats? There were more fires out there than on November the fifth!”
“You know t
hat I didn’t set myself on fire,” Alex pleaded.
“No, you set boats on fire!” Cairo was the only one able to reply to Alex.
“I didn’t, Cairo.”
“Well, they on fire.”
“Yes … but I didn’t intentionally set them on fire.”
“Intention or not, they on fire now.”
Despite Alex’s utter embarrassment they all could see the funny side. Looking out of the picture window of their room, the view over the Eastern Harbour was that of a war zone, not one of a tourist resort.
Having seen Alex rescue Kate and pass by them on their way to the shore, Cairo and Emmy had easily attracted Kate’s attention. Alex had been too busy fighting with the controls to see anything except land. Once they had gotten them both on board, in a far from easy manoeuvre with only one propeller – as this had had the effect of constantly trying to turn the boat in circles – the run to the beach had been both quick and easy.
The one remaining propeller had proved to be more than adequate when running with the waves and wind. Alex had been relieved not to have to fight with the steering anymore. With the throttle all the way to maximum he had been content to let Mother Nature guide the speedboat straight to the shore, like a rocket. It had ended so far up the empty beach that Alex had almost parked it on the coast road.
Because so many boats had been burning – there had even been an exploding floating petrol station which had been exceptionally spectacular, if not to say loud – police vehicles had arrived from every direction. Fire crews had also started to arrive. There had been obvious disagreement as to where to start putting out the fires. And then there had been the ambulances, though as there had been nobody on the boats in this weather, the medics had most probably just arrived to watch.
Gold of the Ancients Page 26
