‘They all think I’m useless,’ she whispered to Paddy. ‘But there’s something that I can do that they can’t. I can climb!’
She glanced up at the bridge. Finchin was bent over his sea charts. Brown was hauling a heavy coil of rope. She would have two minutes, three at most. She just had to get up on to the winch without alerting the bird to her plan.
Were there enough hand-holds? Where would she put her feet? She looked at the winch with a practised climber’s eye. She didn’t want to get halfway and get stuck. She calculated her ascent quickly. She could just about do it.
Her foot slipped off at her first attempt – a trail of thick grease applied too generously. But now she had her footing. She grasped the large metal pin with her right hand, put her left foot on the bolt. Her left hand reached up for the bracket, wet with seawater. She hauled her body up. She swung one leg over the winch arm. The Sea Witch tilted as it crested a wave. Marina was thrown backwards, but caught herself in time. She lay along the winch, holding tight with both arms. The trick would be to wait until the bird was close enough and she could risk taking one hand off. She should be frightened – this was not like climbing a tree. A gulp of sea air. Her legs soaked by a wave. But she only had to be brave for another minute and then she would have the wing of that malevolent bird. Up close, it was much smaller than she had thought – the size of a large crow. She straightened up, reached out her hand. Just a little further.
The sea below. How deep was it? Could it be as deep as it was wide? How long would it take to sink to the bottom? Hours? Days? Years? It was best not to think.
Paddy’s bark of alarm.
‘Oi! What you doing?’ Brown’s startled cry.
She mustn’t look down. Mustn’t look round, even though she could hear another man’s shout. ‘They must learn to be braver,’ Marina whispered to herself, quite calm. ‘They must learn that girls are every bit as much use as boys.’
She lunged forward, fingers outstretched. ‘I’ve got it!’ she cried in triumph.
There was an odd sound, like a hiss of steam. The bird flew on, as if unaware that she had it by the wing. It was dragging her with it.
She would have to let go, or her arm would be torn from its socket.
An odd, sick feeling in her stomach. Waves became clouds as she slipped underneath the winch. She clung on with both legs, one arm wrapped around the winch arm. She still had the bird in the other; its strength, though, was terrifying as it strained to be free.
How could she climb back up with the bird in her hand?
How long could she hang on with one arm?
Her leg slipped, a wave caught her hair, and she fell, the black sea closing over her head.
17
The first seconds she lost all sense of her weight, of her body, of how quickly she was falling through the dark, cold water. It was pressing in on her from all sides, squeezing the air out of her. How much longer would it take before she drowned?
But I have been in the sea before. It was an odd thought to have, especially when she should be panicking, when she should be trying to kick her legs and get up to the surface.
Her mother’s green silk skirt set out in a circle around her on the beach. It had been warm that day. Marina wore a sun bonnet. She reached out her little hands to play with the ropes of pearls that hung from her mother’s throat. Her mother – her face so beautiful, with those large emerald eyes and trailing black hair – smiled down at Marina, who now reached up to wind the pearls round her chubby wrists. Her mother bent down and kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose. And then she was clutched tight against her mother’s silk dress, the pearls pressed into her face. Her mother was wading into the sea, the green dress floating behind her like a seaweed garden. The sea! It splashed up into Marina’s face, cold and salty. ‘Mama!’ Marina cried out, shocked by the chill droplets on her skin. And then she roared as an icy wave caught her foot. But still her mother plunged forward, holding Marina so tightly that she couldn’t wriggle free, however hard she tried. Her father’s startled cry. Her mother stopped, waist-deep in water, as if turned to coral.
Her father’s arms had taken her from her mother’s tight embrace, she was sure. But where was her father now? He couldn’t follow her here, fathoms down in the dark cold water. He couldn’t save her.
She heard a low thrumming noise and, through her hair, which streamed across her face, she saw a great black shape, like a giant bug, scudding through the water.
Before it could get to her, a mesh of ropes closed around her . . . And Marina realized that she had not been at all frightened until that moment. But these ropes clawed at her hair and her face; they fastened themselves around her neck, her legs, her arms. She tried to kick free, but that made their grip even more deadly. She had to be free of them if she was to breathe. The ropes would drown her, not the sea – they would stop her breathing, not the embrace of the deep, dark, all-encompassing water. She was trapped. It was unbearable . . . to be caught like this . . . in the net . . . ropes tightening around her throat and chest. Impossible . . . to brea—
‘Is she breathing?’
‘She can’t be. She was under for too long.’
‘We’ll
