A Stranger On Board by Ward Cameron

Author:Ward, Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781405951166
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2022-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

23

It came earlier than I expected. Jack appeared behind me as I scanned over the bow with a small pair of high-powered binoculars. The Escape was surging through an ever-growing search pattern, which had revealed nothing. Not that I expected it to. A body would sink after a few hours. Fish food within ten. We might find scraps of clothing, but unlikely. I found myself assessing these facts dispassionately, conscious of my growing responsibility.

‘We have to stop soon,’ he said.

I checked my watch. We’d been unable to get the tender or the jet skis in the water – the motion was too great and the winches had slammed them back into the launching platform. Arno had tried, but injured his arm as a result. I called it off – there was nothing to investigate at that level in the water. We’d end up losing another person if we risked it.

‘We’ve only been going five hours,’ I said. ‘Not long enough.’

‘Five hours at full throttle,’ said Jack. ‘It’s not that. It’s the fact Greg had us on full power for the first few days – our fuel load is precariously low. If we don’t stop soon, we’ll have another problem.’

‘You think we might run out?’

‘We’re literally bang smack in the middle of the North Atlantic. Azores are maybe a thousand miles, Cape Verde the same. Antigua thirteen hundred,’ he said. ‘If we spend another day out here, burning this amount of fuel, we risk ending even further from help than we are now. The water won’t last, either – people are being lazy on rations.’

Typical.

‘How much?’

‘It’s not an emergency, yet,’ he said. ‘But … we can’t circle here for much longer. You have to make the call.’

Jack looked at me for instruction.

Me. I had to do it.

Karis had dragged herself to the bridge but, so far, she just stared out of the windows, lost in a daze of grief. Denial was crowding her mind – I could see her heart breaking with each passing moment, and I had to check my own in turn.

Memories of Kay flashed in and out as I watched the water. Karis and I were in very different situations, but I could already see the signs – the guilt, blaming herself – though she couldn’t yet put her finger on what for. She jumped, startled, every few minutes – adjusting her binos, taking a breath, sagging uncontrollably when a perceived object turned out to be nothing – just a strange-shaped wave, a shadow, a burst of white water creating shapes in her head.

After Kay, I remembered being OK at first. Shell-shocked, perhaps. It wasn’t until a week later it hit me. The nightmare woke me in the early hours, the crippling anxiety following well into the next day. I shrugged it off, throwing myself into exercise, drinking a little more – someone always had a stash. I was doing anything to avoid thinking – I needed to push the grief anywhere but front and centre.

The numbness didn’t hit for another week.

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