The Skeleton Coast Page 11

  Will was the first one to spot the floating object. ‘What do you think that is?’ he asked.

  ‘Some sort of buoy,’ Annalie said.

  ‘Pretty big buoy,’ Will said.

  ‘Is it for fishing?’ Essie suggested. ‘Some kind of marker?’

  ‘It’s got a solar panel on it,’ Pod pointed out. ‘Why would it need a solar panel?’

  ‘Is it a scientific instrument?’ Annalie suggested. ‘Maybe it measures the waves or something.’

  ‘I know what it’s for,’ Will said suddenly. ‘It’s part of Sundia’s coastal defences. I read something about this in that stuff you found, Essie. There’ll be more of these, up and down the coast. I think they’re all emitting a signal, and if you cross the signal and interrupt it, it sends a warning to the coastguard.’

  ‘Then how are we going to get to shore without letting them know we’re here?’ Annalie asked.

  ‘Do we risk it and hope that by the time they can send a ship after us we’re already gone?’ Essie suggested.

  ‘Pretty big risk,’ Annalie said.

  ‘Maybe we could disable the beacon,’ Pod suggested.

  A thoughtful look appeared on Will’s face. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  Will paddled out with his mask and flippers to look at the buoy. He didn’t dare take the Sunfish any closer, or even the dinghy, for fear of tripping the alert, but he guessed a swimmer in the water would probably go undetected.

  He swam around the buoy, wondering if it would be possible to simply detach it from its mooring. A solid metal chain held it in place, and he had nothing on the boat that would cut through that sort of metal. He began to examine the buoy itself. There was an access panel in the side, but it had been tightly sealed. To get it open, he’d have to rip out the side of the buoy, and he was still hoping he could disable it without creating any obvious signs of sabotage.

  He turned his attention to the solar panel on top. Perhaps there was some way to damage or disable it to stop the buoy from recharging. He knew it must have a battery so it could keep running at night when the sun wasn’t shining, but the battery life couldn’t last all that long, right? He looked for relays he could decouple, a panel he could prise loose or smash, but the couplings were all tucked away inside the buoy, and the panel was protected by a tough weatherproof housing. He could have taken a hammer to it. But again, not subtle.

  He studied the buoy for a moment longer, thinking. Then his eye was caught by a long white streak of bird poo that dribbled down the side. And he had a brilliant idea.

  ‘You want Graham to poo on the solar panel?’ Pod repeated.

  Essie had dissolved into hopeless giggles.

  ‘It’ll take a lot of poo to cover the whole panel,’ Annalie said.

  ‘Graham not poo on demand,’ Graham said haughtily.

  Will turned to Annalie. ‘Which foods make him really squirty?’ he asked.

  ‘You’d need something that came out with a thick consistency,’ Annalie said thoughtfully. ‘Otherwise you’re not going to get the coverage.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re discussing the consistency of Graham’s poo,’ Essie said.

  ‘Graham not say yes,’ Graham reminded them.

  ‘Come on, Graham, you don’t usually care where you let them go,’ Will said. ‘Why not poo somewhere that will actually help us for a change?’

  Grudgingly, Graham agreed to stuff himself with food, then fly over to the buoy and wait for the results. They ended up having to do this several times before they had a thick enough coating on the solar panel. Then all they had to do was wait until the tiny winking green light on the side of the buoy stopped working. Late that night, the light went off—the buoy was dark. They sailed into Sundia’s territorial waters.

  The Skeleton Coast

  Will was at the wheel as they sailed towards the still-distant shore. Annalie came to join him. The air began to grow perceptibly damper and colder.

  ‘Feel that?’ Will said.

  All around them, the starlight grew hazy. Then it disappeared.

  ‘Fog,’ Will said.

  ‘We’re going to have to be extra careful from now on,’ Annalie said. ‘They call this the Skeleton Coast.’

  ‘That’s here?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Rocks, reefs and fog. It’s a bad combination.’

  ‘What are our charts like?’

  ‘Out of date,’ Annalie said. ‘Pre-Flood.’

  ‘That’s got to be good news, right? Some of the rocks and reefs are further underwater now. Not so much stuff to hit.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Annalie said. ‘Maybe not.’

  The Skeleton Coast was one of the more notorious regions of the Sundian coastline. Its treacherous conditions had made it a graveyard of ships for the early sailors from the north; many ran aground on reefs they couldn’t see in the fog, and those sailors who made it into longboats and got ashore found themselves pinned on the stony beaches between the pounding surf of the Outer Ocean and the vast immensity of the desert, unable to escape.

  The next day, the fog was still there; as they sailed, they discovered that it rarely lifted, blanketing the coastline, making it impossible to see the shore. Where possible, Will skirted the edge of the fog rather than sailing through it—it was too exhausting and too dangerous to sail through it for hours at a time, eyes struggling to penetrate the shifting amorphous greyness. The rocks and reefs were a very real danger—easy enough to see in the daytime but harder to see at night—and the charts were not a reliable guide. It felt sometimes that they were feeling their way south, sailing by hand and eye.

  They drew up a roster; even Blossom was forced to do her share of keeping watch, and it was she who discovered one of the other ways the Sundians protected their coastline.

  ‘What’s that thing in the water?’ she called to Will, who was at the wheel. She had spotted another floating object, different from the signal buoy.

  ‘Where?’ Will asked, coming to look.

  Blossom pointed. Will looked, then ran back to the wheel and spun it hard. The boom swung; the boat began to turn. Something tipped over down in the saloon, and Annalie came up to see what was the matter.

  ‘Everything okay?’ she said.

  ‘There are mines,’ Will said. ‘Look!’

  Annalie ran to the railing where Blossom was standing. She watched in horror as the Sunfish sailed past a huge, round, spiky object floating on the surface of the water.

  ‘Are you sure that’s a mine?’ she asked.

  Essie had come to join her. ‘That’s what they look like in old war movies.’

  ‘I bet that’s not the only one,’ Will said.

  ‘What would have happened if we’d hit it?’ Blossom asked.

  ‘Ka-boom!’ Will said, his hands flying up expressively.

  After that, they steered clear of the fog; the risk of crossing the electronic barrier seemed less immediate than the risk of crashing into a mine. But this carried other dangers too: once they were out of the fog, they could be seen.

  One day, Graham raised the alarm.

  ‘What is it?’ Pod asked, grabbing the binoculars.

  ‘A ship!’ Graham said, as the others came running.

  ‘Sundian coastguard?’ Will said.

  ‘I think—’ Pod said, and stopped. He handed the binoculars to Annalie, who was standing next to him.

  ‘Oh no.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Will said.

  ‘It’s the Admiralty.’

  The Cauldron

  The Admiralty ship was still far away on the horizon, but there was no mistaking it. It was the same boat they’d encountered in Dio, the boat that had carried Beckett halfway round the world in pursuit of them. And now here it was again.

  ‘Do you think it’s the same ship?’ asked Essie.

  ‘It has to be,’ Will said.

  ‘How did they find us?’ Annalie wailed.

  ‘They’re the Admiralty,’ Pod said. ‘That’s what they do.’

  ‘What
are we going to do?’ asked Essie.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve got a choice,’ Will said grimly. ‘We try and lose them in the fog.’

  They sailed into the veil of fog. The greyness closed around them, cold, bleak, disorienting. ‘Everybody watch out for rocks!’ Will ordered.

  Pod, Essie, even Blossom took positions around the deck and watched the water. Will sailed on as fast as he dared.

  ‘Be really careful,’ Annalie warned, checking the charts. ‘There’s a thing called the Cauldron somewhere near our position.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m not exactly sure, but they warn us to stay away from it.’

  Not long afterwards, Will noticed a tell-tale droning sound. ‘Can you hear that?’

  Annalie listened. ‘Sounds like an engine.’

  ‘They’re coming after us.’

  The sound began to build, but the fog was so thick that they could see nothing. Suddenly, an inflatable boat filled with heavily armed marines appeared out of the fog. Will expected them to hail him, as they had done every other time he’d encountered them, but these marines said nothing at all. They just took up a position to their rear and kept pace with them.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Essie called fearfully.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Will said.

  For a minute or two, they sailed along and the inflatable kept pace. Then the inflatable dropped back astern; they heard a distant crack, and something came whistling across their bows.

  Will let out a startled cry and turned the wheel sharply.

  ‘What was that?’ Annalie gasped.

  ‘They’re shooting at us!’ Essie cried.

  ‘It’s a rope!’ Pod called from the bow.

  The inflatable zipped back into view and took a pass around the Sunfish to see what had happened. This time, Will could see a marine with a radio reporting back.

  ‘Why would they shoot a rope at us?’ he muttered.

  The sound of engines multiplied; a second inflatable emerged from the fog and joined them.

  ‘Why aren’t they boarding us?’ Annalie said, perturbed.

  The dinghies spun away from the Sunfish and they heard the same distant crack. Something flew across the deck, nearly taking Will’s head off. He crashed to the ground and saw that a huge grappling hook on a steel cable had crossed their bows and hooked itself onto the railing around the edge of the deck.

  ‘We’re hooked!’ Will said grimly. ‘I bet they’re going to try and pull us in.’

  ‘We’ve got to get unhooked!’ Annalie cried.

  ‘We’ll never cut that cable,’ Essie said.

  ‘Then cut the railing!’ Will shouted. ‘Annalie! Take the wheel!’

  Annalie took the wheel while Will ran to grab an axe. Desperately he swung it into the railing with a dull thunk of metal on metal. The Sunfish creaked and groaned as the sails pulled it one way, the cable another. Clang! Clang! Will’s arms were getting numb. Creak! The Sunfish moaned.

  ‘Look!’ Pod shrieked. ‘Up ahead!’

  From out of the swirling grey a huge shape had suddenly materialised: a vast rocky headland, looming directly in their path.

  ‘That’s our chance!’ Will shouted.

  He dropped the axe with a clatter, ran back to the wheel, grabbed onto it with Annalie and swung it as hard as it would go. The Sunfish turned. It skimmed the edge of the rocks and the rope that tethered it to the Admiralty warship struck the headland. For a moment it hung there, straining across the rocky outcrop, then with a terrible tearing sound, the whole railing ripped away. Annalie and Will dropped to the deck again in the nick of time as it broke free and went swinging off into the ocean, barely skimming their heads and only just missing the wheel.

  Pod, Essie and Blossom came hurrying back to join Will and Annalie, keeping clear of the large gap in the railing.

  ‘Let’s hope this rock gives us some cover,’ Will said.

  ‘Those little boats are still coming after us,’ Essie reported.

  ‘Let’s see how fast we can go then,’ Will said. ‘Guys, get the sails down, quick.’

  He switched to engine power as Essie and Pod rushed to bring in the sails.

  Annalie was studying the charts. ‘I could be wrong,’ she said, ‘but I think we’re sailing into the Cauldron. There are some islands off the mainland, and a channel that runs between them. The Cauldron lies somewhere in that channel.’

  ‘Sounds like that place Spinner told us about—the one in the legend, where if you sail between the rocks at the wrong time, you get sucked down and smashed by a whirlpool.’

  ‘Right,’ Annalie said, remembering the story. ‘Only that isn’t a legend, it’s a real place.’

  ‘Oh, great! Now you tell me!’ Will said.

  ‘Look at that current,’ Annalie said.

  The current was ferocious, and they were hurtling through the water, rocks on one side of them, the invisible shore on the other. Somewhere out to sea, the Admiralty ship lay in wait. The two inflatables filled with marines were still cruising on their tail.

  ‘As soon as we get round this island, they’re going to have another go at us,’ Annalie warned, still studying the chart.

  ‘We’ve got bigger problems,’ Will said. ‘Look.’

  The current was running faster and faster towards an area of turbulent water. As they got closer, they could see it was beginning to spin, as if someone had pulled a plug out of the ocean.

  ‘Look at that thing,’ Annalie said. ‘It’s like a centrifuge.’

  ‘They only do that at high tide,’ Will said.

  ‘Trust us to come along at just the wrong time.’

  ‘Or the right time,’ Will said.

  ‘We’ve got to turn back!’ Annalie said.

  ‘Not a chance,’ Will said.

  ‘If we get caught in it, it could break us apart or sink us!’

  ‘We won’t sink,’ Will said. ‘The Sunfish can handle it.’

  ‘No!’ Annalie cried, but Will had already made up his mind. He kept moving forward, directly into the growing whirlpool. Annalie looked back and saw the two inflatables circle back and hover, staying clear of the powerful current, their engines working hard to keep them in place. It made her even more frightened of what they were getting into when she realised even hardened marines were not willing to risk it.

  ‘Guys! Get hold of something and hang on!’ Will yelled.

  The others ran to find a safe handhold, and then they were into the whirlpool. The water swirled and rushed around them. The boat creaked and groaned and strained. Will struggled to keep control of the steering, but the force of the water was dragging them broadside, the current beating at them.

  ‘Look!’ Essie cried.

  Annalie looked back and to her disbelief saw that one of the inflatables had decided to come after them. ‘They’re crazy!’ she whispered.

  The Sunfish struggled, timbers groaning as the extreme force of the whirlpool battered her sides; she tilted, pushed sideways by the current, and water started rushing over the deck.

  ‘Hang on! This is going to get even bumpier!’ Will yelled.

  He motored on through the turbulence, water rushing and smashing at them. Behind them, the inflatable cut through the whirlpool as it turned faster and faster. Then all of a sudden, the inflatable was caught by a curl of the current; it tipped, then flew up into the air and landed upside down.

  ‘They’re in the water!’ Annalie cried.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do for them,’ Will said. ‘We’ll be lucky if we get across this thing ourselves.’

  He fought on, across the swirling water.

  ‘I think we’re going to make it,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t jinx us!’ Pod said.

  But Will was right. The force of the water was already lessening. The current was slowing. They had made it through the Cauldron.

  Annalie was still looking back, worried about what had happened to the other marines. ‘The second inflatable’s going i
n to help,’ she reported. ‘There are a lot of marines in the water. They’re going to have to call for back up. It could take them ages to find them all.’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping for,’ Will said. ‘While they’re doing a rescue mission, we can get away. Come and keep an eye on these charts. I’m going to take us right in close to shore.’

  In moments, the island, the whirlpool and the inflatables had vanished once more into the fog. Will switched the noisy motor off and they raced to raise the sails once more, then he steered as close to shore as he dared. Pod, Essie and Blossom kept a lookout for rocks, Annalie following the charts. They sailed like this for many hours, their ears straining for the sound of engines, but they heard nothing but the boom of the surf and the occasional cry of a seabird. The strange thing about sailing through fog was that they had no idea how far or how fast they were going. The boat was in motion, pushed by the wind and the waves, but sometimes it felt like they were trapped in a bottle, being shaken by a giant, and were not really going anywhere at all.

  ‘It’s no use,’ Annalie said finally. ‘I have no idea where we are.’

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Will said. ‘Do we stick our heads out and look?’

  ‘We’re going to have to at some point,’ Annalie said. ‘Or we might hit something.’

  Essie looked over at them. ‘What if Beckett’s still out there?’

  ‘Let’s find out,’ Will said.

  They sailed cautiously out of the fog. The late afternoon sun as it struck them was like a blessing.

  The ocean stretched out all around them, sunlit, empty.

  ‘I think we lost them,’ Will said, and smiled.

  Kinlemotukinle

  Expecting Beckett’s ship to appear again at any moment, they sailed as fast as they could down the coast of Sundia. The clinging fog faded as they travelled south, revealing stark red desert, and the wind that blew off it was baking hot. But as they travelled still further south, they began to see signs of life: coastal scrub, green and silver and white, emerged from the intense red, promising water; birds, and people, too.