For Those In Peril (Book 2): The Outbreak (27 page)

Daz
nodded, taking in this new information. ‘And you can eat them?’

‘You
bet!’

Daz
and I started hauling on the rope, while Tom coiled what we pulled on board into
a neat pile. Within a few minutes, the first trap broke the surface and a moment
later it was on deck. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few crabs which
were too small to bother with, it was empty. I threw the crabs over the side and
we hauled in the next one: it was completely empty.

Tom
wiped his hands on the guard rail, trying to get rid of the slime which had come
off the rope as he’d coiled it. ‘Is this really worth it?’

‘Hopefully.’ I reached up, stretching out my back. ‘Even if there’s nothing in
them now, the creels themselves will be useful for catching food.’

We
went back to work and brought up the next one. It was covered in a mass of
writhing arms.

Daz
watched as one of the animals drop onto the deck and wriggled across it. ‘What
the hell’s
that
?’

I
chuckled at his reaction. ‘It’s a brittle star. It’s a kind of starfish.’

Daz
knelt down and examined it. ‘Mental!’

After
a few seconds, he tried to pick it up, but its arm snapped off in his hand. ‘Oh
shit! I didn’t mean to hurt it.’ Then he noticed the severed arm was still
moving and dropped it with surprise. It thrashed around on the deck. ‘What the
fuck?’

‘Don’t
worry. It’ll grow back.’ I scooped up the brittle star and its dismembered arm,
and threw then both over the side. ‘It’s something they do to distract
predators.’

I
opened the door of the creel and emptied the rest of the brittle stars over the
side. Together, we watched as they sank from sight.

‘What’s that then?’ Daz pointed to a round object about the size of a man’s fist
and covered in short spines which was wedged into a corner of the trap.

‘That,’ I carefully plucked it out, ‘is good eating!’

Daz
wrinkled his nose. ‘You can’t eat that, can you?’

‘Not
all of it, but some of it.’ I placed the sea urchin in the bucket I’d put nearby
in case we got anything worth keeping. ‘Just the roe really: it’s a bit of a
delicacy.’

Daz
remained unconvinced, and slightly disgusted, while Tom just laughed.

After
an hour of hard work, we’d pulled up some thirty traps and had a bucket filled
with shellfish of various descriptions, as well as three more large, spiny sea
urchins: they’d make a nice change from the fish which had made up almost our
entire diet since we’d left the Clyde. I put the bucket aside and tried to work
out what to do with the creels which were now piled untidily on the bow. There
was no way we could take all of them with us, but I was keen to take some. I
surveyed the deck and figured we could probably store about a dozen on top of
the cabin without them getting too much in the way. After I cut the rope, Daz
and Tom threw the unwanted creels back into the sea while I tied the ones we
were keeping securely into place.

‘Now
we get our reward for all that hard work.’ I picked up one of the sea urchins
and cracked it open before scooping out five plump orange lobes and throwing the
rest away. I cut a small piece off one of the lobes and popped it into my mouth,
savouring the texture and the taste. Daz and Tom watched curiously.

I cut
off some more slices and held them out towards Daz and Tom. ‘You want to try
some?’

Tentatively, they took the orange morsels, examining them closely and then
looking at each other. Daz spoke first. ‘I’ll do it, if you do it, too.’

‘Deal.’ Tom took a deep breath. ‘On the count of three: one, two, three!’

While
Daz swallowed his, Tom’s was spat over the side. He wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand. ‘That’s disgusting!’

‘I
dunno.’ Daz was still undecided. ‘It’s an interestin’ sort of taste.’

I cut
off another piece and held it out. ‘You want some more?’

‘Yeah,’ Daz said noncommittally, ‘but what exactly is it?’

I
waited until he’d put the next bit into his mouth before answering. ‘Gonads!’

This
time Daz spat over the side rather than swallowing. ‘Urgh! You mean like ...?
Awww, that’s mingin’.’ He spat over the side again. ‘Why d’you no’ tell me
that’s what I was eatin’?’

I
laughed at his reaction and cut off another piece for myself before carrying
everything down to the galley. Once inside, I threw crab claws, langoustines and
lobster tails into a large pan with some olive oil and a bit of paprika, and put
it on the stove. Tom sat at the table, while Daz filled a glass with water and
used it to rinse out his mouth. The other two came through from the front cabin
and Claire sniffed the pan. ‘That smells good.’

‘You
want some of that?’ I pointed to where the orange lobes from the sea urchins lay
on a plate.

Daz
turned round. ‘Don’t fall for that. They’re sea urchin gonads. You know like
...’

‘Uni!’
Claire and Sophie called out in unison.

I
smiled at them. ‘Freshest you’ll ever get.’

A
confused expression spread across Daz’s face. ‘But ... What’s
uni?’

‘It’s
what the Japanese call it: it’s great. We had it when Mum took us to Tokyo last
summer. Jake wouldn’t even try it though ...’ Sophie stopped suddenly and her
face dropped. A moment later, she turned and walked quickly from the room.

I
looked at Claire. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s
not your fault. You couldn’t have known, could you?’ Claire got to her feet.
‘I’d better go after her.’

That
evening, Tom, Claire and I sat in the cockpit, while Daz and Sophie sat up by
the bow, dangling their legs over the side and chatting. Tom was fidgeting, and
I could tell he was missing his cigarettes. I decided I’d see if I could take
his mind off it.

‘Hey,
Tom, I’ve been meaning to say, thanks for what you said the other night, it
really helped.’

‘I
thought it might have; you seem to be doing better now.’ Tom replied
distractedly. ‘You know I was only returning the favour.’

Claire
raised a curious eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. I figured I owed her an
explanation. ‘I got a little overwhelmed by everything the other night, and Tom
helped me put it all in perspective.’

‘The
way I see it,’ Tom glanced at each of us in turn, ‘we’re all going to struggle
from time to time, and we’ll all need to be there for each other when that
happens.’

Claire
nodded, and we fell back into silence. I looked towards the bow and remembered
something which had been niggling away since the first day. ‘Claire, can I ask
you about something Sophie said? You don’t need to answer if you don’t want to.’

Claire
frowned. ‘What?’

‘Remember on the first night, when the infected was trying to drag you over the
side?’

‘How
could I forget!’

‘Well,
Sophie said she couldn’t lose you, too, not after losing her father. What was
she talking about?’

Claire
shifted uncomfortably and said nothing.

Realising it was something Claire didn’t want to talk about, I quickly
apologised. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.’

Claire
cleared her throat. ‘No, it’s okay.’ She stared down at her hands. ‘Dan, my
partner, and I had been together since our late twenties. We met when we were
working in the same refugee camp; just two people from Glasgow who found
ourselves a long way from home.’

She
smiled sadly as she relived the memory. ‘Anyway, we hit it off right away, and
when I found out I was pregnant a few years later, we both decided to go back
home so we could have a proper family life.’

Claire
swept her hair back and looked off into the distance. ‘When Sophie was ten, Dan
started to get ill. It took a while for the doctors to work it out, but it
turned out to be leukaemia. He didn’t respond to chemotherapy and a bone marrow
transplant was the next step. When no one else in either of our families turned
out to be a suitable donor, Sophie insisted she should be tested, too, and she
was a perfect match. We both said she didn’t have to do it if she didn’t want
to, but she did it anyway. She was so brave about it.’

Claire
wiped the corner of her eye. ‘It seemed to work at first, and he went into
remission, but after a couple of years it came back. They tried another
transplant, but this time it didn’t work. Sophie was so close to her dad; in
many ways closer than me and her ever were, and it was awful to watch her have
to go through it all again only for it not to make any difference.’

Claire’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. ‘He died just over a year ago, and
Sophie was so lost without him. Somewhere deep inside, she blames herself for
the transplant not working the second time; she thinks there was something more
she could have done.’ Claire swallowed. ‘Losing Jake, and then almost losing me,
brought it all back again, just as it seemed like she was finally starting to
get over it.’

Claire
glanced towards the bow. ‘Sometimes, I don’t know how she does it. She’s so
young and she’s been through so much, yet she just keeps on going. And now all
this: if it wasn’t for her, I think I’d have given up by now. The only thing
that’s keeping me going is knowing I can’t leave her on her own. I think that’s
her biggest fear: having no one left and being all alone in the world.’

I
thought about this. The way the world was now, we all needed something to keep
us going. For Claire and Sophie, it was to be there for each other; Tom and I
knew each other inside out, we had our shared past to help us keep each other
from falling apart, but, I wondered, what was keeping Daz going? Then I
realised: Daz kept going for himself; with his upbringing, if he hadn’t learned
how to do that as a kid, he’d never have made it as far as he had in life.

***

The
next morning we were up early: our passage would be a tricky one as we’d finally
be passing the entrance to the Corryvreckan whirlpool. I checked my watch; we’d
have the tide with us for the next six hours, which was just as well. The
currents were so strong in the channel we were aiming for that we’d have no
chance of getting through it under sail if they were flowing the other way. The
only problem was that this would mean the tide would also be pushing us towards
the whirlpool.

I
checked the wind: it was blowing from the south-west; that would at least help
keep us away from danger. I turned to the others. ‘You all need to be on deck
today, and you need to do whatever I say as soon as I say it. If you don’t hear
me or understand what I said, let me know immediately. Put your life jackets on
now and keep them on.’ I looked at Sophie. ‘No matter what.’

Claire
leant forward on her seat. ‘Ben, just how dangerous is this?’

‘Don’t
worry, it’s not
that
dangerous, at least if everything goes to plan. It’s
just that if things do go wrong, they could go very wrong, very fast, and we
won’t have much time to sort it out.’ I glanced at Claire. I didn’t seem to have
eased her concerns. I pointed to the north. ‘We’re aiming to go through the
channel between those two islands up there. We just need to make sure we don’t
get drawn into that channel there.’ I pointed to the north-west.

‘Why
no’?’ Daz enquired.

I
shifted nervously. ‘Because that’s the entrance to a bloody great whirlpool.’

‘A
whirlpool?’ Sophie sounded worried. ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

‘It
will be if we get pulled into it, but we’re going to stay well clear. Daz, you
want to get the anchor up? Claire, can you deal with the main sail? Sophie, the
mizzen, and Tom, will you be able to handle the jib?’ I looked round. ‘Everyone
ready?’

‘Just
one question,’ Tom scratched his head in an exaggerated manner, ‘which one’s the
jib again?

‘It’s
the one at the front!’ Daz cried out in exasperation. ‘How can you no’ remember
th—?’ He turned to find Tom grinning at him. ‘You’re just messin’ around, aren’t
you?’

I
surveyed the waters ahead of us. ‘I think we need to go a little further east.’

In the
hour since we’d left the previous night’s anchorage, the wind had picked up and
turned into an easterly. Now both it and the tide were pushing us steadily
towards the whirlpool. While we were making good headway, without a motor we’d
be at the mercy of the currents if anything went wrong.

Originally, I’d planned to take a relatively straight route north, but now I
wanted to position us further away from the dangers which lay immediately to our
west: this meant we needed to tack our way into the strengthening wind, costing
us time, but it was only prudent given our situation.

I
called out. ‘Ready about?’

‘Ready!’ The others chorused back.

I
glanced round quickly to double-check everyone was in place. ‘Lee ho!’

We
were halfway through the turn when the jib crashed onto the foredeck. With no
head sail, the turn stalled and we were pushed back towards our previous course.
As this happened, the wind took hold of the fallen sail, blowing much of it over
the side and into the sea.