“No,” Martin said.

“No really, we’ll be fine!” Richard tried to reassure him. “That bulkhead is designed to withstand the chamber being completely flooded. We can pump out these others and we’ll be okay. We might need to pump some ballast into the tanks to balance us up a bit.”

“No. Shit, no, not that.” Martin was staring at the water.

Richard looked down. He understood the problem. It wasn’t just water they were standing in. There was diesel fuel mixed in with it too.

• • • • •

Chuck ripped off his jacket, kicked off his shoes, and leapt into the water. The icy cold nearly stopped his heart, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. He swam as fast as he could in the direction of the raft. Fortunately it hadn’t fallen far from the ship, and there was no current to speak of, so it hadn’t moved far. Within a minute of hitting the sea he swam right into one of the oars. Stopping to tread water, he picked it up and threw it as hard as he could manage in the direction of the raft. He swam on, stopping twice more to throw the oar further, before finally it landed inside the inflatable. Shortly afterwards he arrived there himself. Using the orange rope tied around the outside to pull himself up, he rolled into the emergency vessel. He got to his knees and looked around for the second oar. It had floated off towards the shore. Positioning himself at the front of the raft he began to paddle. A stroke to the left, pull the paddle out of the water, then a stroke to the right. It wasn’t quick, but he was going in the right direction. When he reached the second oar he retrieved it and set it down beside him. The raft was too wide for one person to row conventionally, but the oar would be useful when he had help coming back.

• • • • •

“What just happened?” Jake was desperately trying to see where the noise had come from, but the ship was too far out to see clearly. From his position on the shore everything looked fine. “Get Max on the radio, find out what’s going on!”

Reeve put his hand in his inside pocket. His expression changed. He pulled out an empty hand, tried the other pocket. “Shit.”

“Where’s the radio, Reeve?” Jake already knew the answer.

“It must have fallen out when I slipped. Damn it!”

“Well, there’s not much we can do about that, so I guess we’ll find out what’s happened when we get back over there.” Jake was starting to feel a certain sense of detachment. This landing expedition had turned into a disaster. If he didn’t know what had just happened on the ship, well at least it was one less thing to worry about. For now.

Dante had got his breath back. He and Reeve were perched on top of the tender. Jake and Kiera were sitting opposite on the very edge of the broken pier, as far away from the deadly ash as they could.

“I hadn’t got far, but I wasn’t sure I was going the right way. On the map we looked at, there was a road from here to the airport. I couldn’t tell if I was on the road or just some rock, it was all covered in the ash. So I was kicking the ash with my feet, trying to see what was underneath, you know, like you do in the snow sometimes? And I saw something shiny, where I’d cleared a bit with my foot. So I crouched down to get a better look. I started pushing the ash away to the sides with my hands. And then,” he raised the stubs of his forearms in the air, looked at them like he still couldn’t quite believe it.

“How did you stop it going any further?” Jake asked. “With Horace and Stacey it…well, you know.”

“I ran to the sea and shoved my hands in. I thought they were burning, it felt like they were on fire. I just wanted them to stop burning! And when they hit the water they just…they just kind of disintegrated.”

“Jesus,” Reeve said, shaking his head.

Kiera wore an expression of deep sympathy, but didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Jake said. “This is my fault. We should never have brought so many people over here. We should have taken it slower.”

“No,” Dante said. “This is nobody’s fault.”

“Look!” Kiera was pointing out towards the fjord.

Reeve and Dante turned their heads. Paddling over the water was a black and red inflatable life raft.

• • • • •

“The fuel take ruptured?” Richard had’t moved, he remained rooted to the spot.

“Impossible. It’s too far from the hull. Whatever we hit couldn’t have pierced that deeply.” Martin shook his head.

“But that’s oil, diesel oil. Floating on the water.”

“Yes. But it can’t be. Unless…oh shit!”

Martin flew forwards, trying to run around the massive tank in the chamber. But his legs had to fight against the water, slowing him down. Richard watched as the chief engineer appeared to advance in slow motion. On the other side of the tank was a thick white pipe that ran the length of the chamber. It passed through the walls at each end, and at half a meter from both walls, a red wheel protruded from the pipe. Martin spun the wheel nearest the flooded chamber.

“Of course,” Richard said looking on. “The fuel line. It didn’t puncture the tank, it broke the fuel line.”

“That’s shut off the line,” Martin said panting from the effort. “That’ll stop any fuel from tank three leaking out.”

“You realise, of course you do, that it means we lose access to tank five?”

“I know. But it’s going to leak out of the broken line too. One and two are already empty. We’ve just lost the use of two thirds of our remaining fuel supply.”

• • • • •

It took a considerable time for the raft to reach the pier. For one thing, paddling from the front with a single oar was slow work. For another, Chuck had to try and steer round the giant lumps of concrete protruding from the water, and the even more dangerous ones hidden just beneath the surface. When he did eventually reach the upturned tender, Dante had lost consciousness. The pain and the cold had been too much.

“I’m going to lower him down, grab his legs,” Reeve called to Chuck. He had his hands under the unconscious man’s arms and was dragging him nearer the raft. He pulled him round so that his legs hung over the side facing the Spirit of Arcadia. Chuck grabbed the Dante’s ankles and pulled them into the raft as Reeve lowered him down.

“One down. Now you two,” Reeve said looking over at Jake and Kiera. “Woah!”

All the movement had unbalanced the capsized boat. They had assumed it had come to a rest on the sea bed, but in fact the water was much deeper. The underwater side of the tender was actually stuck on a pointed piece of concrete below the surface. The shifting weight of Reeve and Dante had caused the tender to tilt towards its back. With a creak, it upended, launching Reeve headfirst into the fjord. He disappeared from view, then popped out of the water a few metres away, spitting and coughing. He was just in time to see the remainder of the boat disappear with a glugging sound and a muddle of air bubbles. Chuck was already paddling towards Reeve, who reached out for the rope and pulled himself onto the raft. He understood why Dante had lost consciousness; the cold water had sucked the feeling from his hands and feet. Dante had the added problems of blood loss and shock to deal with. Passing out was probably he best he could have done under the circumstances.

With the tender gone, it was actually easier for Chuck to get up close to the pier. Jake and Kiera lowered themselves into it with relative ease.

“Okay Reeve, ready to help me row?” Chuck said, holding out a plastic oar.

Thirty-Nine

THE LIFE RAFT made quick time back to the ship, aided by Reeve. Max was waiting at the bottom of the steps, along with one of his new recruits. Jake noted with dismay that they were both bearing arms.