Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [10]
He knew he was drowning – then hands took hold of his clothing and tugged him clear of the snagging ceiling. As he rolled over in the water, a flash of white arm passed his face and he was gripped firmly beneath the shoulders. The arm that held him was thin but strong and pulled him against the owner’s body. Swiftly, he was propelled through the water – out and up – and suddenly he was gasping and coughing in the clean, fresh air and the dazzle of sunlight.
I’m alive! I’m alive! It was all he could think between retching coughs.
‘The rock – get hold of the rock,’ a girl’s voice commanded.
Blinded by the sunlight, Zaki groped with his hands as his rescuer pushed him on to the top of the now submerged boulder by the cave-mouth.
Zaki clung to the boulder. He squeezed shut his eyes to try to clear his vision; when he opened them, the girl’s face was inches from his own. Her hair was cropped short, the roughly cut curls sticking up in spikes around her head. Her mouth was set in a firm, no-nonsense line and the look in her grey, widely spaced eyes was not sympathetic.
‘What did you find? Did you touch anything?’
Then her eyes fell on the bracelet on Zaki’s wrist.
‘Give me the bracelet. It’s not yours.’
When Zaki failed to move, she seized his arm and twisted the bracelet over his hand then thrust it on to her own arm.
‘Don’t tell anyone what you have seen. Do you understand?’
Zaki stared at her in bewilderment.
‘Do you understand? You mustn’t tell.’
Zaki managed to nod.
‘No one. You understand?’
‘All right, I understand.’
‘No. That’s not good enough. You have to promise. Promise. Promise me you won’t tell.’
‘Yes, I promise. I promise.’
‘Good. But don’t forget you have promised.’
She looked towards Morveren and then sank down into the water.
‘Hold on to the rock. They’ll come for you now,’ she ordered.
Before he could say anything else, she was gone.
Too exhausted to wonder who had saved him, or how she had known he was in the cave, Zaki lay on the rock, too exhausted to move, half in the water, half out. Gradually he became aware of voices shouting his name, shouting instructions, telling him to ‘Stay where you are!’ – not to move – his father’s voice – and Michael’s. An outboard engine revved and whined then his father and brother in the inflatable were beside him.
‘Are you hurt?’ his father asked, the anxiety tight in his voice. Getting no reply he turned to Michael.
‘We’ll have to get him into the dinghy, then we can take a look at him. But be careful, we don’t know what’s happened to him.’
His father climbed out on to the rock as Michael held the inflatable steady.
‘Can you sit up?’
‘Think so,’ Zaki mumbled.
‘Anything hurting?’
‘Shoulder.’
Gently, his father and brother helped him to slide over the rubber side of the inflatable and down on to the floor. His father followed him. Then, kneeling beside him, he tried to ease open his sodden fleece to examine his shoulder.
‘How did you get on to that rock? Did you fall? What were you doing?’
Zaki shook his head. It was all too confusing.
His father’s fingers became clumsy with the effort of being gentle and, dropping his hands into his lap, he looked searchingly into Zaki’s face.
‘Zaki?’
Zaki closed his eyes.
‘Zaki! Where the HELL have you been?!’
His father’s sudden anger together with the relief of being alive and the exhaustion overwhelmed Zaki. His body shook and tears began to stream down his face. No words could possibly get out.
‘Dad,’ Michael leant forward from his place by the outboard. ‘Dad, let’s get him back to Morveren.