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this berth, with its ramp and double doors at the end, was for launching.
Vic straightened, grinning.  Lived here all my life, Doc! he yelled over the noise.  Watched
the lifeboats going in and out, bringing people home. This is my contribution. She s called the
Shell shock. I m gonna donate her, if we don t sink the bitch tonight.
Tom looked at him. For a moment, the gale found a voice even louder than the throbbing
Mercury, but he did not hear it. He was feeling the beginnings of a bright, prickling heat, in his
chest and his belly, at once strange and utterly familiar. The pain in his limbs seemed to drop
from him. Yes, he remembered this. It was the pure joy of action, most of it lost back in boy-
hood, the dregs of it spilled out across the dust of Afghanistan. Of not thinking but doing. He
said,  I ll get the doors.
 You ll wait a bloody second, Vic corrected him. He opened a locker in the cabin and
handed Tom a life vest. When he looked up from fastening it, his friend was holding out to him
what he took for one second to be a flare gun then recognised for a Browning 9mm service
revolver, from the weight of it loaded and ready.
 Vic& What the fuck?
 There s something not right about Bobby Tremaine, isn t there? That s why you re so wor-
ried.
Bobby Tremaine. You know him too. Tom swallowed dryly.  Yeah. I m not sure whose side
he s on. And he s got Flynn.
 Right. So whatever he s up to, I doubt we re gonna talk him out of it. Take the gun. I know
you can shoot can you operate radar and navigate?
In helicopters, military convoy planes when he was doubling up for injured crew. The prin-
ciple was, he prayed, the same on water.  Just about. Yes.
 Good lad. I ll pilot. Their last point of contact was ten miles out from Trewellard. We can
be there in half an hour.
Chapter Nine: The Ninth Wave
Forty-five degrees of pitch and yaw up, down, port or starboard. Tom knew that, had his
whole focus not lain thirty miles ahead of the boat, he would have lapsed into seasick terror
within five minutes of launch. He had been out on some wild nights, but never with a maniac
like Vic, riding sole shotgun on a craft that really required a six-man crew to keep her stable
and operational.
The first few jolts from wave crest to trough went through his spine like a pile driver. And
shotgun was generous Vic s top-line replica had her navigator and GPS station out front in
the prow, while the pilot manned the wheel from behind his right shoulder. The sense of being
catapulted forward from the rear increased the sense of helplessness, absolute lack of con-
trol, to a pitch that would have done for Tom before the advent of Flynn into his world had set
the whole thing flying off its axis anyway.
And if he had to be shot blindly into the dark, who better to trust with the task than Vic?
Shell-shocked nutcase he might be, but centuries of wrestling the ocean ran in his blood. Tom
soon saw a pattern to his madness, began to pick up how he raced the lifeboat in zigzag lines
from crest to crest, angling her back and forth to increase speed and lessen the swell s drag
on the hull. No one could have driven her faster. Knowing this watching the lights of Porth
Bay recede on either side of him a great elation seized Tom, so warm and bright it felt like
inner wings unfurling, felt as if it would crack his ribs from the inside. They were going out to
find Flynn. The next wave which burst up over the prow soaked him to the skin, and his own
laughter joined with Vic s wild roar of amusement. All fear died. He had one task. He turned
his attention to the GPS and radar and hung on.
They were at the Trewellard coordinates within twenty-five minutes of launch. Victor eased
off the engine when they drew near to target, allowing Tom the time and steady deck he
needed to make a thorough radar sweep. A downed chopper would show up fine, but Tom
knew thought Victor did too that they were not searching for an intact craft in the water.
Not by now. If the SAR helicopter had been afloat, they would have signalled home. All they
could hope for was wreckage.
Inside himself, Tom was running another countdown too. Half an hour since last contact. A
bailed-out crew would be nearing the end of the time they could expect to survive in Atlantic
water in June. The rules were fairly strict. People usually followed them, with the exception of
the occasional child who dropped into a deathlike hypothermia and came back like Lazarus
when warmed up hours later.
Victor yelled his name over the wind, calling him back from a chilly distraction.  We should
be right on top of them. Anything?
 Not a bloody thing. Not looking up from the screen, Tom felt Victor lock the helm and
come to stand beside him. Without her forward momentum, the boat was a cork on the
waves. Slap after drenching, blinding slap of salt water cracked against her hull, exploding
spray into his face and across the instrumentation.  Look, Vic, he said hoarsely, dragging a
cloth across the panel for the fiftieth time.  Nothing. Christ, they must have gone under.
Victor didn t reply. He reached across Tom, steadying both of them with his grip on the
rail, shielding him from some of the gale s ferocity while Tom reset the unit and began another
sweep.  No, wait. There. Look!
 Okay, yes. That size, though, could be a porpoise or a fish school.
Tom understood. Victor, the good soldier, would offer neither empty words of comfort nor
of hope, not until they were sure. He swung away from the radar, and a moment later Tom
heard the engines snarl as he turned her in the direction of the screen s pale ghost.
The rigid-inflatable life raft, low in the water from the weight of her crew. The lights of the
Shellshock picked out her RNAS colours and insignia, a match for her mother-ship chopper,
as she became more than an echo on the scanner, and Victor steered close, bringing her
round in a sweeping arc to protect her from the swell.
Tom remained at his station. The navigator s job was done, he supposed. In a moment, he
would get up and help Vic throw out a cable, make sure it was caught, and haul the raft, with
its waving, gesticulating cargo of lives, towards the relative safety of the larger craft. He would
overcome the aching lassitude that had slowed his heartbeat, weighted his limbs with cold
lead. He could not see Flynn, in the strobing, shifting light. The faces of the rescued men
were sombre, even while they yelled their greetings and thanks across the diminishing gap. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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