Dark Side of the Street - Jack Higgins [59]
Youngblood stopped engines and joined him hurriedly. "Let's make it quick. The current could have us on those rocks before you know it."
"Give me an hour," Chavasse said as they unshipped the dinghy from its davits. "Then come back for a look. If I stay back on the shingle, that means I want you to sail round to the jetty. If I stand in the surf, then the whole think stinks. You'd better let me have your watch."
Youngblood unstrapped it and handed it across. "What will you do then?"
"I'll try to swim back to the boat."
Youngblood laughed harshly. "Rather you than me. Let's have her over then."
The dinghy was constructed of fibreglass and was therefore extremely light. They put her over the stern between them and Youngblood held on to the line while Chavasse struggled into the straps of his aqualung. He pulled the visor down over his face, adjusted the air flow and went over the side. Youngblood waved, the line went slack and as he reached for the oars, the current jerked him away.
The wind was freshening, lifting the waves into whitecaps and as he reached for the oars, the dinghy heeled and water poured in over the gunn'l. He adjusted his weight and started to row.
The engines coughed into life and the Pride of Man started to move away, but he had no time to watch its progress. He glanced over his shoulder and through the curtain of spray, the cliffs loomed larger, the surf boiling in over ragged, dangerous looking rocks. There was a hollow drumming on the hull of the dinghy and it spun round several times, grazing a black razor edge that would undoubteldy have split it neatly in half.
It was no good--his left arm simply didn't have the strength to haul on that oar under such extreme conditions. He tried desperately to control the dinghy with just the right hand, but it was no good. The oar was snatched away by a sudden fierce eddy and he grasped the sides and waited.
The cliffs were very close now, the sea breaking over great ledges of rock in a dirty white foam and behind him, a great heaving swell rolled in, sweeping the dinghy before it.
He went over the stern, water closing over his head for only a moment or so. He surfaced in time to see the dinghy smashed down against the first line of rocks. Another wave lifted it high into the air, then it bounced across the reef twice and disintegrated.
There was a great smooth funnel in the rocks to the right and as another great swell lifted behind him, he dived and started to swim towards it, his webbed feet driving him through the water.
There was turbulence all around him, thousands of white bubbles and a great curtain of sand and grit and then he was lifted up as if by a giant hand. He surfaced, aware of the smooth black sides of the funnel on either side of him and suddenly found himself lying, arms outstretched, sprawled across a great moving bank of sand and shingle.
A giant hand seemed to be trying to pull him back and he crawled forward on hands and knees. Again the sea washed over him in a green curtain and as it receded, he staggered to his feet and stumbled forward. A moment later he was safe on the strip of beach at the foot of the cliffs.
The Pride of Man, on automatic pilot, cruised at a steady three knots, four hundred yards out from the cliffs and Youngblood stood at the rail watching Chavasse through a pair of binoculars he had found in the wheelhouse.
The tiny black figure on the beach waved once and then the curtain of mist dropped into place, hiding him from view.
Youngblood lowered the binoculars. "So far, so good," he said softly. "And now we wait."
He turned from the rail and went down the companionway to the saloon. There was no sign of Molly, but when he called her name, she answered from the galley and he found her at the stove making more coffee.
"I thought you were trying to get some sleep," he said.
She shook her head. "I just couldn't--I've got a splitting headache."