‘We might as well get on with it,’ he said. ‘If we leave it too late, they’ll see us in the water. Put on as many life jackets as you can.’
‘They’ll see the bright orange.’
‘Not if we put the sweaters over us,’ he said, pointing to some clothing he had sorted out. ‘They’ll also keep us warm for longer. Truth is we’ll die of hypothermia long before we die of thirst.’
He picked up one of the life jackets, pulled it over his head and tied the lines around his waist and between his legs. She sighed as she watched him. She had come to terms with ending her life there and then and been only minutes away from grabbing a hold of something heavy that Stratton hadn’t already thrown overboard and diving into the water with it. She figured all she needed to do was hang on to it for as long as she could while she sank. Then even when she released it as she began to panic, as the man in Stratton’s story had, she would never be able to reach the surface before succumbing.
‘Don’t hang about,’ he said, pulling another life jacket over the one he already wore.
She picked up a jacket and put it on. He handed her another and helped her fasten it.
‘Put this over the top,’ he said, handing her a large sweater.
‘Is hypothermia as painless as drowning, do you think?’ she asked.
‘It’s even more pleasant. I’ve had it on several occasions. Once you get past the freezing cold stage, it’s fine. Like drowning but without the freaking-out panic phase. Put this on,’ he said, handing her a fishing reel harness.
‘What for?’
‘To hold it all together. If we get through this phase, I have another idea that’ll keep us occupied for a while longer. Keeping oneself busy is the key to longevity they say.’
She thought he was acting a bit weirdly but nothing about him surprised her any more. She pulled the harness on while he donned one himself and after fastening up his buckles he helped her with hers.
When they were finished, the pair of them looked more than twice their normal sizes. She broke into a smile.
‘I’m glad you see the funny side,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to think you’d lost your sense of humour.’
When he looked back at the pirate vessel he could make out the front mast and wisps of smoke from the exhaust stack.
‘We’d better get into the water. I’m going to change the boat’s direction to take them away from where we jump in. Soon as I set the tiller, we go overboard.’
She nodded.
It was an effort for him to bend down to untie the tiller with all the clothing he was wearing.
‘Wait!’ she called out.
He stopped, one hand on the tiller.
She quickly unfastened the drinking water container that was still half full and held it in her arms. ‘OK!’
‘Good thinking,’ he said and yanked the tiller over. The boat turned sharply.
‘Go!’ Stratton shouted as he tied the tiller off with fishing line.
She leaped into the water. He rolled over the side. When he surfaced he watched the boat cruise away from them.
They then turned their attentions to the following vessel to see what it would do.
The mother craft continued straight at them. Stratton couldn’t believe that no one on board was watching the fishing boat. Maybe the lookouts had seen them jump into the water.
Then the vessel turned in pursuit of the little fishing boat.
They bobbed in the water and watched the raiders come on. The ship passed them some distance away. But it was the first time they could really confirm that it had been the pirate mother ship.
‘Won’t they just backtrack when they find it’s empty?’ she said.
‘They won’t know when we jumped off. Hopefully they’ll come to the same conclusion you did about us getting captured and think we’ve killed ourselves.’
They watched the back of the vessel cruise into the distance. Without its lights, it would soon have become invisible in the darkness.
‘I can see your life jacket on your right side,’ Stratton said, inspecting her. She adjusted her sweater to cover it up.
‘How do I look?’ he asked.
She studied him. ‘You’ll do.’
Stratton turned to look in every direction. ‘Quite a few boats about,’ he noted.
‘None within a mile of us, though,’ she said, acting as the voice of doom.
‘Dawn will crack in no time,’ he said, looking to the east where there was a faint glow on the horizon.
She unscrewed the water bottle and took a little sip. ‘Want some?’ she asked.
‘Thanks,’ he said. She passed it to him. He took a couple of mouthfuls and handed it back to her.
‘So,’ she began, leaning back and looking up at the stars. ‘We just wait here for a boat to happen by? Could be a while. But I guess we have all the time in the world.’
‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘My plan is not just to wait here for a boat to happen by. The odds on that would be very small indeed.’
He exposed the large fishing reel attached to the front of his harness. ‘Turn around,’ he said.
She didn’t bother to ask why.
He pulled out a length of the line, looped it through the back of her harness and tied it off several times.
She turned to face him again, finding the line that went from her back to the reel on his chest. ‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘We won’t lose each other.’
‘That’s part of the idea. It’s to keep us together, but from a long way apart.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m going to go for a swim. Due north. You’re going to stay here. There’s about two kilometres of fishing line here. When I get to the end of the line, we’re going to keep it nice and tight.’
‘You’re going to be two kilometres away?’
‘Yes. Any boat that passes in between us will snag us. That gives us quite a large catchment area.’
She thought about the concept, trying to see the operation in her mind’s eye. ‘What do we do if we get snagged?’
‘We get dragged behind the ship,’ he said, like it was obvious.
‘Yes, but. Then what?’
‘Well. We try and get the attention of someone on board.’
‘But if the ship snags the middle of the line, we’ll be a kilometre away from the back of it.’
‘Hence the reel,’ he said, raising it out of the water for her to see. ‘I reel us in, or me.’
She continued to stare at him, trying to see the plan.
‘It has to be better than just floating here together,’ he said.
She decided it was insane. But he was doing what he had done from the moment she had met him. He moved seamlessly from precarious step to precarious step with one perilous plan followed by another impossible one. This one was the craziest yet but he had pulled it out of the rubbish found on a beaten-up Somali fishing boat.
‘It’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘No, I really think it’s crazy brilliant.’
‘May I have another drink of water?’
She handed the container to him and he took a long slug before giving it back to her. He looked at the pirate vessel. The lights appeared to be the same size as they had been a few minutes earlier. He suspected they had caught up with the fishing boat.
‘If this doesn’t work out, we probably won’t see each other again,’ he said, his tone serious.
She looked into his eyes. She suspected it wasn’t the first time he had said such a thing to someone.
‘Hypothermia is as pleasant as drowning,’ he reminded her.
‘Without the panic.’
‘And you wake up in another life.’
She found a little smile. She had been so close to death so many times in the last few days it no longer had such a disabling effect. She felt sad because he was finally leaving her. She had come to rely on him
