Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [5]
What time was it?
Above Zaki’s head the hatch cover was propped slightly open. A little light entered through the gap. Must be nearly morning.
Zaki wriggled his shoulders and arms free and tilted his watch to catch the light. Quarter to five.
All that was visible of Michael in the other bunk was an untidy tuft of hair protruding from the mouth of his sleeping bag.
The air in the cabin was cold. Zaki felt along the narrow shelf for clothes, found a fleece and his shorts, freed his legs from the sleeping bag and dressed quickly.
What now?
Wake Michael?
Last year he would have.
Better let him sleep.
Standing on his bunk, Zaki eased the hatch cover back and put his head out. A few faded stars were visible in a pale sky. A little colour was creeping across the very tops of the hills. The estuary valley was still in darkness.
He quietly closed the hatch, got down off the bunk and opened the door to the larger, rear cabin that doubled as the saloon and their parents’ sleeping quarters. In the centre of the cabin was a table flanked by two settees that served for seating and lounging during the day and sleeping at night. His father was fast asleep on one of them.
At nine metres over all, Morveren was not a large yacht by modern standards. Below decks she was cosy, as Zaki’s grandad liked to say, or a little cramped, depending on your point of view. On the starboard side of the companionway, the steep steps that led to the main hatch, was the galley with its sink and spirit stove, opposite which, on the port side, was the chart table. No space in the saloon was wasted; there were shelves beside the chart table to hold tide atlases and coastal pilots, the logbook, books on seamanship and ocean-lore and a selection of Grandad’s favourite whodunnits. Around the galley were more shelves for mugs and glasses, bowls and plates, all cleverly designed with fiddles and pegs so that nothing could fall out no matter how Morveren pitched or rocked. Although the woodwork had darkened with repeated varnishings down through the years, there was an elegance about the yacht’s interior that bore witness to Grandad’s skill as a boatbuilder and cabinetmaker.
Aft of the chart table a narrow gap gave access to Grandad’s bunk, which ran back under the cockpit. When Michael and Zaki were little, Grandad had come on holidays with them, but he had now declared himself too old for long passages and only came out for the occasional day’s sailing.
Zaki crept past his sleeping father and lifted the sloping top of the chart table, revealing folded charts, parallel rules, a hand-bearing compass, binoculars and a spare spark plug for the dinghy’s outboard motor. He found what he was looking for, a slim, silver torch, and slipped it into the pocket of his fleece.
Quietly, he climbed up the companionway steps. The deck was wet and slippery. Peering over the side, he saw that a thin mist surrounded the boat.
He made his way to the back of the boat; climbed down the boarding ladder and dropped the last few feet on to the sand, into the mist. He looked up at the boat’s stern, where a painted mermaid swam under its name – ‘Morveren’ – maid of the sea.
How strange to be standing where the sea has so recently been; knowing that in a few hours this place would, once again, be deep underwater. Through the mist, Zaki could make out the anchor chain looping down from Morveren’s bow. He followed it along the ground until he came to the half-buried anchor.
He had a clear two hours before the tide began edging back across the sand. He set off for the rock ledge.
Last year, at low tide, they had found the rock pools full of pulsating jellyfish, the small ones pink and transparent, the centres of the largest purple and dangerous. They had dared each other to touch them. Perhaps he would discover some other remarkable stranded sea creatures.