Book Excerpt: Tide’s Ebb by Alexandra Lambert-Brenton
To Marianna’s left, there were only blue skies, the same blue skies that broke with the dawn. But to her right, dark clouds whipped in, pushing forward a cresting sea. The water around her was already becoming choppy. Before the crowd was even aware of what was happening, a fifteen-foot wave slammed into the raft-up, shaking the boats and sending revelers to the deck.
Out of the corner of her eye, Marianna saw something moving. One of the boats on the far end of the raft had come loose and was now floating aimlessly in the heedless sea. There were still passengers on the boat, clearly visible in their bright Brooks Brothers plaids.
“Look out!” She tried to get the words out, but the wind swallowed her tiny voice. The passengers on the boat were staggering—perhaps the effect of too many gin and tonics or the rough sea. They behaved as if paralyzed and incapable of trying to steer the boat. Another wave rolled in. The rest of the boats in the raft held firm, but the next savage wave sent the wayward boat drifting swiftly back towards…
No! Not the Mayor’s boat!
Indeed, the lost boat was careening towards the Mayor’s boat—with only the Mayor’s child, Chas, on board. People on all of the other boats began to scream and gesture furiously, hoping to convince the Mayor’s sweet boy to put on a life vest.
But the boy thought the people were waving at him. At the time of impact, the boy was merely waving back, making perfect figure-eight motions with his tiny hand.
Marianna would remember the crunch of the boats for the rest of her life. She closed her eyes tight, but the sickening thud of boat-upon-boat could not be shut out.
When she looked again, she saw the passenger yacht with a massive hole in its stern—water was gushing into the hole and upending the boat. The boat stood like that for a second, but another wave hit and knocked it over, capsizing it. The passengers were now trapped underneath. The hull of the boat started to sway, before finally sinking, taking its well-dressed passengers into the deep.
The Mayor’s boat was listing, as well—a thin, but jagged stripe on its hull evidence that it too had been breached in the collision. It was only a matter of time. But somehow, the boy Chas still stood, still waving, but his other hand gripped the mast, comely white knuckles even whiter with tension.
Marianna found herself paralyzed with fear. Fear—for the fates of those poor souls, and for the fate of the Mayor’s good-looking little boy. If the boy had been ugly, perhaps it wouldn’t have felt so painful. But as it was, the child was cute enough to appear in commercials, and the loss was unimaginable.
Most of the crowd seemed similarly rooted to the decks of their boats. But a lone voice rose over the howls of wind, and the peals of thunder, robust and driven by determination. It was Marianna’s courageous captain. “Men, lower the sails and make for the Mayor’s boat”
Captain Larry’s men responded to the urgency of his voice, each taking his station and working furiously, some positioning the vessel’s archboard, others angling the bilge and binnacle. Larry’s boat, unanchored, quickly approached the Mayor’s ailing yacht. Marianna sensed the danger here. The yacht was unstable and even the slightest of bumps might flip it over. The sea rocked all of the boats viciously, the maneuver ever more precarious. Larry piloted his boat so that it was at a ninety degree angle to the yacht and then moved forward at high speed.
Without a doubt, Larry’s boat would crash into the Mayor’s yacht!
Miraculously, Larry’s boat turned at exactly the right moment, so that the vessels were now parallel—and Larry’s boat did not so much as graze the Mayor’s yacht. Larry stood at the edge of the boat and called to the Mayor’s winsome young child, even as waves pummeled both vessels.
“Boy! You must jump! We haven’t much time!”
The Mayor’s boy still clasped tightly to the troubled craft’s mast, frozen with fear. “I’m scared!”
“Boy! These seas will smash us both to pieces! You must jump!”
But the boy would not move.
Larry surveyed the scene frantically.
“Men! Get me some line!”
Larry’s men rushed over with some rope, which Larry looped over his shoulder. Larry stepped to the edge of his boat and looked over the edge—now there was at least six feet between the two boats. But Larry leapt like a cat with a beer belly and landed ungracefully on the Mayor’s yacht, each jiggle as rhythmic as the ocean itself.
The yacht was now listing dangerously to port. The tip of its mast tilted down at a twenty-degree angle to a hungry sea that had already swallowed its share of seamen that fateful day.
Larry hung onto the railing of the Mayor’s boat and scooped up the boy, but as Larry tried to pull away, he felt a tug. The boy’s foot was wrapped tightly in part of the jib. Larry’s hands worked furiously trying to free the boy. But the precious child was truly trapped.
Larry’s blue eyes squinted. “It’s no use!” he shouted to himself and to the uncaring sea.
Both Larry and the child were in danger. Would both be lost?
