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And then the run was over.
They were both panting, windblown, gleeful.
Ben kissed him wildly, salt shared between them. ‘Again!’ For one moment, Ben sounded and looked so like his daughter screaming in glee when turned upside down or swung or whizzed that the breath caught in Aleksey’s throat.
He grinned back, and they tacked up for another battering beneath the light.
* * *
Chapter Forty-Seven
As they slowly worked west once more, ready to head back into the wind, Ben suddenly said, ‘Hand me your telescope.’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘Shut up. Quick.’
‘I didn’t bring it.’Too precious. ‘I thought we would be too busy to use it. Why?’
‘Damn we’ve gone past it again. I thought I saw a little structure last time. It’s probably the power hut.’
‘Hmm. Maybe. We’ll find it when we do our mapping. Okay. You take over.’
Ben was a natural really. Aleksey had suspected he would be. Entirely physically undaunted, reckless and confident, Ben had quickly mastered the arts of tacking and gybing and avoiding the boom, all there was to it really, when you thought about it.
The wind strength was more like twenty-five knots when they came in view of the dark edifice on the headland this time. Aleksey wanted to check the wind indicator and nodded to the open cabin door. Ben grinned and braced his legs at the helm, nodding back. Aleksey slipped inside, holding onto the few bits of furniture until he reached his jacket where he’d left his glasses.
He heard a shout. It wasn’t gleeful this time.
He turned, was flung badly into the table and jolted his hip. The pain was instant, his leg wound flaring at the jar.
Another shout, this time more furious. Aleksey dragged himself through the door. The light almost blinded him. They were flying through the water, running with the wind, heeling over, the bow rail slicing the water. Ben had brought them around on his own, desperate to go bareboat perhaps and prove his mettle, and perhaps this wouldn’t have mattered, but skimming back now towards the cliffs, they were not alone.
Rounding from the southern side of Seabird Stack was a huge powered yacht. It was incredibly fast.
They were on a collision course, and Ben did not know how to gybe in time. He was trying, but the boom was against the main shrouds, and he was struggling single handed. Aleksey took over and shouted above the sound of the wind, ‘We have the right of way under sail. They are powered. Theymusthave seen us.’
‘They came out of fucking nowhere, around the arch.’
‘Hold on!’ He was wasting his breath. Ben’s knuckles were already white on the rim of the deck beside him.
Even though with a low draft and sleek to the water, the interloper towered over them. A hundred and fifty feet long at least, doing possibly sixty knots, its bow wave was higher than their gunwale.
At the last minute, Aleksey hauled on the mainsheet and the boom centred. They began the gybe, swinging away from the looming shine of white, and they almost made it. They almost skimmed down the side of the sleek yacht unharmed, but he had not reckoned on this luxury behemoth turning into them. With this sudden swing, the bow hit them midships. They were violently wrenched like a mouse being shaken by a cat to snap its spine, and then they were over and with a bang like an explosion the deck ripped up and apart like a zip opening as the super yacht ploughed on through them, regardless.
All Aleksey knew then was cold, deep water. It had been so sudden he’d not had time to prepare, but he went down as instinct told him to—away from the chaos on the surface. The bow wave washed him away from the hull, but he thoughtpropellerand swam lower, his lungs burning, his eyes stinging with salt. When he came to the surface, he saw Ben, and although he tried hard not to believe in God, he sent Him a small acknowledgement of thanks that whatever else He’d been doing this day, He’d taken the time to save Ben Rider’s life. Ben swam over to him.
They appeared to be having the same thought. For a moment they only stared, doggy-paddling to stay afloat in the wake, shocked at the empty ocean around them. It seemed impossible that the Spindriftwas entirely gone, dragged under and drowned by the collision.
‘Can you swim?’
Aleksey gave him a suitable one finger response.
Ben began a slow crawl south parallel with the cliffs, keeping his distance from the breakers crashing into Seabird Stack. Aleksey took a final look at the departing boat, which appeared to have as much life on it as a ghost ship, and then started to follow the swimming figure. Ben glanced behind to check he was following and then spluttered out, ‘Hey, they did see us.Fuckers!They’re turning and sending a boat.’
A small rigid inflatable was indeed being lowered into the water from the stern of this otherwise remarkably empty and apparently soulless vessel. For the first time, sculling in the swell, with the large craft now side on to them, Aleksey recognised the modern luxury craft as the one he’d seen the day before: Appaloosa. The helicopter was still sitting on the landing pad.
Two men jumped into the little inflatable craft and it began to whip over the waves to pick them up.
