Doctor Who_ Rip Tide - Louise Cooper [5]
The usual, if smaller, gaggle of fascinated children converged on the lifeboat tractor as it trundled down the slipway to the beach with the boat bumping behind on the trailer, and the crew, in drysuits and lifejackets, answered their questions with patient good humour. Steve had been keeping a hopeful eye out for the black-haired girl, but there was no sign of her today. Doubtless the weather had put her off, and he couldn't help remembering his sister's comment about her being a townie. It annoyed him to think that Nina might have been right, especially in the wake of the trouble there had been yesterday evening, when she had turned up at his front door just as he was getting ready to go out. She had apparently had (another) spectacular row with their parents, and had stormed out of the house saying she was going to live at Steve's flat and they could go to hell. Steve had told her in no uncertain terms that she was not going to live at his flat, and Barry, his flatmate, had hastily backed him up. So she had quarrelled with them, too, and finally had flounced off. Steve had called his parents later and discovered that she had, of course, gone back home, and was sulking in her room. He was relieved to know she was safe, but even more relieved when she had not come slouching down to the boathouse this morning to hang around and get in everyone's way. Let her have her sulks. She'd grow out of it, one day.
As they prepared to launch the lifeboat, he saw another craft out in the bay: a squat, practical-looking little fishing boat with a red-and-white hull. Charlie Johns' Fair Go; and if he narrowed his eyes he could just make out Charlie's white hair as he hauled on one of his crab pot lines. Some half-dozen local men had small boats that could be launched from the beach in reasonable weather, and the fish and shellfish they caught provided useful beer money. Charlie had several pots moored to marker buoys offshore; doubtless he wanted to get his latest catch in before the weather deteriorated to the point where it would be impossible to take the boat out at all.
The lifeboat was afloat now, and Steve climbed in while the launchers held the craft steady against the tide. The 40 horsepower engine started (first time, he was satisfied to note) with a staccato roar, the other two crew members scrambled in after him, and they were off, powering through the breakers and out into the rising swell. Steve had started to train one of the younger crew up to secondary helmsman, but as soon as they reached open water he abandoned his original plan to put the trainee through his paces on a mock rescue. These conditions were too rough; the swell was heavy and the waves running in unpredictable directions. Spray smacked over the bows and into their faces, and it would be all an inexperienced man could do to hang on and maintain his station. So instead, he kept control of the helm himself, and headed towards Charlie Johns' boat.
'Might as well see if he's caught anything,' he shouted over the racket of the engine. 'I wouldn't mind a spider crab, if he's got any.'
The Fair Go was still near one of Charlie's buoys. She was pitching,
too; the swell seemed to be increasing by the minute. As the lifeboat approached and throttled down, Charlie looked round. His hair was whipping to a surf-like froth, and seventy years of exposure to salt, wind and sun had pickled his broad face the colour and texture of seasoned wood. He looked like a small child's drawing of God. But if his frown was anything to judge by, God wasn't feeling benign this morning.
'Got a crane on you, boy?' he shouted.
'A crane?' Steve grinned, then grabbed at a stanchion to steady himself as the lifeboat lifted on a cross-wave. 'What've you done; fouled the line?'
'God knows.' Charlie was sweating despite the wind, and he gestured at the pot line. 'It's snarled up, all right; I can't shift it. Feels like something big caught down there. Buggered if I know what, though.'
Steve peered at the line disappearing into the sea's heaving grey depths. Each time