The Boat - part 2

Grasping the orange-bladed paddle in one hand, she pushed the kayak carefully into the shallows and jumped into the seat. ‘Scrunch!’ The kayak sank under her weight and bedded itself on the shingle. She rocked backwards and forwards without result. She leapt out and pushed the craft further out into the water, shin-deep this time and scrambled back on board. The kayak swivelled wildly, almost dumping her into the water; instinctively, she swung her weight in the opposite direction and stayed upright. Tentatively, she dug her paddle into the water.

Like most novice kayakers, Catherine couldn’t quite get the right balance between digging her paddle too far into the water and letting it skim uselessly over the surface. Still, she made erratic progress along the shoreline. Her little base camp of belongings receded into the distance, the rocks of the sea-defences becoming correspondingly larger.

The wind, which up to now had been a low, constant murmur, was becoming more insistent. Occasional larger waves banged into the kayak, making it rock from side to side. Spray clattered across the bright green body of the kayak, like someone throwing gravel at a window. Bits of white foam were beginning to fleck the gunmetal grey.

She decided to turn around and head back to her camp. She dug the left side of her paddle into the water a couple of times and the kayak swung around, obligingly if a little unsteadily. She dug in on the right side, then the left again, trying to set up a rhythm. Left, right, left, right, left….Catherine paused, then tried again: Left, right, left, right, left, right…harder this time, her shoulder blades aching with the effort. And again, and again. The shore wasn’t get closer; it was receding. Why? The tide? An undertow? (Catherine wasn’t quite sure what an undertow was, but she’d read that it was something to beware of.) The wind? The wind was stronger, steadier now, beginning to churn up the water into white flecks.

Catherine wasn’t panicking. Not at this stage. It was more a dawning realisation that she was in a sticky situation, maybe the stickiest of her entire life.

Should she stay with the kayak? Perhaps the tide, the undertow, the wind, whatever it was would drop and she’d be able to make it back to the beach. Unlikely, she thought. Then she would drift further and further out into the English Channel, perhaps to be picked up by a passing ship or, more likely, mown down by one. She hadn’t taken her phone. There was no signal out on the water anyway.

Or she could jump out of the kayak and swim for it. If she couldn’t paddle, could she swim? If she did, would she freeze in the mid-April waters of the English Channel? Would her three-decades old lifejacket fail? Catherine had no idea.

She made up her mind: swim. It was, at least, action, even if it should ultimately turn out to be the wrong action.

She dropped the paddle, stood up in the kayak, nearly overbalanced, recovered and catapulted herself shorewards. Two extra yards might make all the difference. She swam, breaststroke, scooping armfuls of water in her cupped hands. She could feel the weight of her waterproofs tugging her down, but her lifejacket was keeping her afloat. The water was chilly, but not gasp-inducing. Waves broke over her head periodically; she could taste the salt. Strangely, it was the first time she’d tasted the actual sea on the whole trip.

The waves were ganging up on her. One would break over her head, making her cough and splutter; she gasped, just in time for another to crash over her.

Keep swimming. What else was there to do?

Now her legs were beginning to ache. She could no longer feel her feet. She yelped as a sharp pang of cramp shot down her thigh. She paused for a few seconds, watching the shore slowly recede again. More breaststrokes; now she was beginning to lose the sensation in her hands and fingers. She felt colder now, not the coldness of a frosty winter’s day but a hopeless cold, as if she would never feel warm again, however many fires and radiators and sunshine....Her clothes felt as if they’d turned to concrete.

Was this how her life would end?

After what seemed to Catherine like hours, but in reality was only ten minutes or so, the rocks of the sea-defences were close. Gratefully, hysterically she stretched her arms out to grab the slippery surface, trying to hug it. Nothing to get a grip on. She tried again, but now the water sucked her away again before flinging her back. The solid rock thudded through her thick helmet. It wasn’t painful, but she felt the impact reverberate all the way through her skull. She hit the rock again, this time with her face. The taste of blood this time.

Arms flailing on the slippery roc k, she tried to get a handhold, a fingerhold, anything. ‘H-H-H-HELP!’ she shouted. ‘HELP! HELP!’

Then she remembered the orange whistle, secured by a piece of cord to the front of her lifejacket. She scrabbled with numb fingers, found it and jammed it between her lips. ‘PHREEP! PHREEEEP! PHREEEEEEP! PHREEeeeee….’

---***---

The English may no longer be a nation of shopkeepers, but they are a nation of dog walkers, and it was Mrs Penelope Latchett’s Terrier cross, who saved the day. She’d taken him out for their mid-morning stroll on the shingle, ten minutes later than their usual time as Penelope had been detained by a phone call from her sister.

Fred started barking furiously, and it was only when Penelope got him to shut up that she heard Catherine’s final, dying ‘phreep’ as it tailed off. Instinctively, Penelope headed for the sea defence rocks, Fred rushing ahead. She spotted something yellow in the water.

Without waiting to find out what it was, she speed-dialled her neighbour Sid as she stumbled towards the edge of the rock.

Within minutes, a small posse of neighbours had arrived. Hands reached down to grab now barely conscious Catherine. The Coastguard, the ambulance had been summoned.  At least two of the neighbours were filming the event on their phones.

The following morning, Catherine limped slowly along the road from Ashford General Hospital towards the station, her remaining belongings stuffed into the blue rucksack on her back. Her legs still throbbed from the torture she’d put them through the day before. They’d only kept her in overnight. Mild hypothermia and a few superficial face wounds, they’d said. They’d needed the bed.

Just as she reached the station forecourt, her phone rang. Pat. ‘Catherine! What on EARTH have you been up to? Why are you on the BBC news? Are you OK? Tell me you’re OK, Please, please, PLEASE tell me you’re OK…’

‘Yes, I’m fine. Pretty much, anyway. A few lacerations and a touch of hypothermia. But how did you KNOW, Patricia. What’s this about the news?’

Just then, Catherine caught sight of the TV screen in the station coffee shop; blurry shaking footage of a dripping, unconscious woman in a yellow lifejacket being hauled out of the water. ‘Mystery woman rescued from the Channel of Kent Coast…Home Office says possible links to people smuggling gangs under investigation…’

‘Really, I’m fine, Pat. But I just need to get on a train.’ She hung up. The train didn’t leave for quite a few minutes, but she didn’t feel up to fending off Pat and her questions just now.

Well, the rolling TV news boys and girls were a bit behind the curve. She’d given her name and contact details to the hospital staff as soon she’d regained consciousness, late that afternoon, and she was just plain old Catherine Butler again.

At the station bookstall, a blurred of her rescue was on the front page of The Sun: ‘YELLOW…PERIL’. Not a bad headline, she thought. She bought two copies, one for herself and the other for Nicola, and jumped on the train for Charing Cross.