Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [107]
‘Pull yourself together, Will,’ she shouted at him one day. ‘We’re heading towards the reef and we’ll be holed.’
He muttered something about needing speed to beat the monsoon, which sounded crazy to her, so she took the tiller and headed back towards the relative safety of the shore. By now the boat was filling with water, from both above and below the water-line, and they were in real danger of sinking.
Just when it looked as if all was lost, they saw the mouth of a river. Will rallied round then, took over at the tiller and skilfully negotiated the boat through shoals where the water was only five or six feet deep. At last, close to complete exhaustion, they managed to pull the boat up on to the river bank.
There was plenty of fresh water, but they were unable to catch any fish or find anything else to eat. Yet even with only rice and the last of the salted pork, just to get dry and be able to stretch out and sleep was enough.
The following morning the men set to work to repair the boat again. The resin they’d brought with them was all gone, but resourceful James came up with the idea of using soap instead. They knew they would have to move on quickly to find food, and Mary was very anxious now about Emmanuel and Charlotte who didn’t appear to be recovering as the adults had. They seemed listless. Charlotte took only a couple of mouthfuls of rice and fell asleep again. Emmanuel lay in her arms, not even attempting to suckle.
‘They’ll be all right,’ James said comfortingly to her. ‘They’re just worn out. Let them sleep.’
They had only gone a couple of miles the following morning when the monsoon finally caught up with them. Torrential rain hammered down, the wind stronger than they’d ever known it before. Once again the sea was mountainous, and they lost sight of land altogether as the wind sped them along.
For the first two days and nights Mary concentrated all her efforts on her children, trying to shelter them with a tarpaulin, singing to them and rocking them. But when she saw all the men were losing heart, she knew she had to induce them to fight for their survival.
‘We can do it,’ she yelled at them. ‘It’s no good just giving up. At least this wind is carrying us fast, let’s lighten the boat by throwing out all the surplus stuff.’
They threw out spare clothing and personal possessions, and when water still poured into the boat, Mary took off her hat and began bailing it out.
‘Come on,’ she screamed at them. ‘Bail, every one of you. Your life depends on it now.’
One by one they joined her, apathetically at first, but as they saw the boat rise in the water, they worked faster. ‘That’s right,’ she yelled. ‘Come on, Sam, Jamie and William, do you want to end up as fish food? You can kill yourselves if you’ve a mind to when we get ashore, but don’t let it happen out here just because you’re tired.’
For eight days in all they couldn’t see land. Still the rain came down, and still Mary shouted at the men. Her arms felt as if they were coming out of their sockets with bailing and her voice was hoarse, but she knew she was winning. Not one of the men would stop while she was bailing, and the boat was speeding along.
They saw the shore again just as night was falling, but the surf was so high they couldn’t attempt to go in. Will dropped the anchor and used the grapnel to hold the boat faster overnight, hoping that by morning the wind would have dropped enough for them to get ashore.
In the early hours of the morning, as they tried to get some rest, they heard the ominous sound of the anchor being dragged along the rocks, and all at once the boat was drifting out towards the reef.
‘It will be holed and we’ll all drown,’ Will shouted hysterically above the sound of the roaring wind. ‘Oh God, why did I attempt this?’
Mary scrabbled her way to the mast and pulled herself up. She looked down at the cowering, frightened men, and snarled at them. ‘It’s just water, wind and rain,’ she