Pirate - Duncan Falconer [90]
He grabbed for the line and drew the edge of the blade across it.
In an instant the prop thrust him upwards and he burst to the surface, launched up into the wake. He spun in the wash, gasping for air, with something running across his body. It was the line, cutting into his life jacket, with the girl on the end of it hurtling towards him. The second before she collided with him he yanked the blade across it and she rolled to a stop face down, her arms and legs thrashing in desperation.
Stratton grabbed hold of her and yanked her over. She choked and spluttered as she fought to catch her breath, instinctively clutching at him as if she might go under again.
‘It’s OK,’ Stratton said. ‘It’s me. You’re OK.’
She regained her breath enough to look at him through feverishly blinking eyes.
But it wasn’t over. The back of the bulker was fast moving away. He thought he could see people on the stern and he waved in the hope that they gave a damn about who he and the girl were. As the carrier steamed away, Stratton continued to wave his arms at them.
The security guards had been stunned when the torpedo turned into a person, and then two.
‘Bleedin’ ’ell!’ one of them exclaimed. The comment seemed to satisfy the moment for them all.
‘Who the hell are they?’ another said.
‘They don’t look black,’ another offered. ‘Maybe they ain’t pirates.’
‘Man overboard!’ Bob shouted into his radio, keeping an eye on the pirate vessel. It had turned away and was still going full speed, its two speedboats alongside it. He knew it had been plastered by rounds and wasn’t surprised to see it withdraw.
One of the guards grabbed a life ring from a rail and tossed it as hard as he could off the back of the boat.
‘Launch a lifeboat,’ Bob shouted and a couple of his men hurried away. ‘Captain, this is Bob. You can slow the ship and cancel evasive manoeuvring. The pirates have had enough. We’ve got a couple of people in the water we need to pick up.’
‘Roger. Understood,’ the captain replied.
Bob and the remaining guards stared at the two people in the water who by then had become tiny specks.
‘I wonder who the bloody ’ell they are,’ one of them said.
It was what they were all thinking.
15
A steel, pyramid-shaped baggage cage, on the end of a heavy, twisted cable, rose up the side of the bulker as it cruised along at slow speed. The sun shone high in the sky, giving the ocean a deep and inviting look. A gentle breeze rounded off the tops of the waves that lapped against the huge orange-painted side of the vessel. Stratton and the girl stood on a narrow rim around the bottom of the basket hanging on to its rope surrounds as it ascended. The lifeboat that had rescued them rode the swell below, its two crewmen attaching the shackles to its ends before it would also be winched aboard.
The Chinese girl still felt in a daze. Once again she had been reprieved, having left her life in the hands of the ocean and been prepared to accept the inevitable. She experienced the same clarity of thought as she had after deciding against suicide before dawn that day. But this time it wouldn’t be a temporary reprieve. She was free of that living nightmare. The ship was large and powerful. It had electricity, engines, food and warmth. Civilised people operated it and had aimed it towards a civilised port that would connect her with her home. She could hardly believe it.
But the euphoria didn’t last long and even before she stepped on board, it had been replaced by a stark reality. Returning to her normal life also meant seeing through her responsibilities to the end. Because the only way she could have shirked her duties would have been to have died. While she had been faced with that possibility, she had forgotten them. So her reprieve was temporary after all. She had work to continue. She could never return to China if she failed to complete her task. Impossible. Before getting to Somalia she had considered running away to live somewhere else in the world. But those