in the back seat of the plane. One was unconscious, a cut on her temple, blood spilling over her ear. The other woman was screaming, pounding on the window, begging them to release her from the plane. The door next to the pilot had been ripped off by the force of the crash, and the pilot appeared to be unconscious. At first, Daria thought the pilot was a man. All of them did. A man who was twisted somehow in the front seat, his body contorted at an angle, his head bent forward, long dark hair covering his face. Daria was not sure he was alive.
Pete struggled with the pilot’s seat belt.
“He’s got a pulse,” he called over his shoulder to Daria and Andy.
“But I can’t get him out.
Let’s go for the passengers first. “
If they’d had a tool, even a crowbar, extricating the passengers would have been easy, since the skin of the plane was thin and pliable. But they only had their bare hands and the oars to use, and although the sea was calm, the bobbing of the plane and boats made the work difficult.
Shelly suddenly appeared at the side of the boat, and Andy was first to spot her.
“Shelly!” he said.
“What are you doing out here, crazy woman?”
“Get in the boat, hon,” Daria said to her sister.
“You’ll freeze.”
“I’m all right,” Shelly said. She was treading water, her hair flowing out from her head like pale sea grass. The water was dark, but Daria could see no skim of fuel on its surface. Shelly would be all right.
Pete barely seemed to register Shelly’s arrival, and Daria thought it was probably just as well. He picked up an oar.
“Move your head back!” he shouted to one of the women in the back seat.
“I’m going to break the window!”
The woman cowered beneath her arms, and Pete rammed the oar into the Plexiglas. It popped out in one piece, and the woman let out a scream, then started sobbing. With the window out, Daria could see that the interior of the plane was filling with water.
“We’ll go around the other side,” yelled a man in the second boat.
They rowed to the far side of the plane and broke the window there.
Pete was able to pull the woman nearest him through the window and into the boat, while the men on the other side of the plane did the same.
“This one’s hurt bad,” one of the men called out.
“And the pontoon over here is shot. The one on that side is the only thing keeping this tin can up.”
“Bring her over here,” Daria shouted. She turned at the sound of sirens. An ambulance had pulled onto the beach, lights flashing. It looked very far away.
The woman in their boat seemed more shaken up than injured.
“The pilot passed out, or something,” she said.
“We just started going down and she didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“She?” Daria asked. That’s when she took another look at the pilot, contorted beneath the seat belt. Long hair, slim body. The pilot was indeed a woman.
The second boat had pulled next to them again, barely visible now because of the darkness.
“I should get in the other boat with the injured woman,” Daria said to Pete.
“No, stay here,” Pete said.
“Help me with the pilot. The ambulance crew is on the beach now.” He called to the men in the second boat.
“You guys take these ladies in, okay?” he said.
“And bring us back a knife or something to cut this seat belt with.”
Daria was usually crew chief, usually the one giving the orders, but this was not an official call, and she didn’t balk at following Pete’s instructions. She helped Pete and Andy transfer their terrified passenger into the second boat, and as the two men and the injured women sailed away, Daria and Pete turned their attention back to the pilot.
Daria reached into the plane and pressed her fingertips against the woman’s throat, feeling for a pulse.
“Is she alive?” Shelly asked from the water.
“Yes.” The pulse was very rapid, but strong. The woman suddenly rolled her head back against the seat and her brown eyes fluttered open. It was an instant before they registered alarm.
“Stay calm,” Daria said. She was shocked to realize that the pilot was very young, no more than eighteen or nineteen, with long dark hair and a pronounced widow’s peak that only added beauty to her heart-shaped face. Like the passenger, she also had a gash across her forehead, this one bleeding profusely.
“We’ve just about got you out,” Daria said as she took off her own T-shirt and pressed it against the woman’s head. It was a lie, but a necessary one. The water was up to the woman’s waist, and Pete’s arms were submerged as he leaned over the side of the boat, struggling with her seat belt.
“The door frame’s twisted somehow,” he said under his breath to Daria.
