Roberta was struggling determinedly up the rope, her frantic movements making it sway wildly from side to side and even harder for Ben to keep his grip as he fought to reel her upwards, one hand over the other while trying to keep himself from toppling off the beam.
The roar of the impending wave was growing louder and louder. ‘Faster!’ Ben yelled. Snatching another glance through the window, he saw it was too late. The wall of water was nearly on them. It had to be tearing towards the coastline at five hundred miles an hour. Roberta wasn’t going to make it.
Then the wave hit the shore in a simultaneous explosion the whole length of the miles of coast Ben could see from the window. The violence of the impact made the earth shake as the gigantic force of tens of millions of tons of rushing water swallowed up the shore and ripped unstoppably through the forest of the little peninsula. Instantly, the crushing momentum of the tsunami turned into a battering ram of unimaginable power as it became dense with the mass of a thousand disembodied and uprooted trees.
Ben could do nothing but keep hauling on the rope. Roberta was nearly there … nearly there …
In just a few pounding heartbeats, the mountain of water reached the building. Ben was very nearly jolted from his seating by an impact five times greater than the tremors that had shaken the building minutes before. He didn’t even have time to shout to Roberta to hang on. The cracks in the ocean-facing wall widened into splits and suddenly a whole section of stonework gave way and came bursting inwards in an explosion of foaming water and rubble. The floor below was almost instantly engulfed. Desperately clutching the rope, Ben saw Quigley go down in the surging foam and vanish. He resurfaced for an instant and then was gone again as a gigantic uprooted tree trunk came crashing through the broken wall and seemed to roll right over him.
Roberta swung wildly on the end of the rope, her eyes and mouth wide open in horror. She was just a few feet short of the girder now, but the foaming water was cascading in relentlessly and rising faster than Ben could have imagined. Its roar all but drowned out Roberta’s cry as the churning surface engulfed her legs, then surged up to her waist.
‘I can’t swim!’ she screamed up at Ben. ‘Don’t let me—’ But before she could get the words out, her shoulders and head disappeared under the surface and all Ben could see was the rope stretched taut between him and the rising water. He was suddenly grappling with a far greater weight as the enormous force of the current threatened to carry her away. He cried out as the rope slipped through his hands, stripping the skin off his palms. He didn’t know how he was able to hang on, only that he couldn’t – mustn’t – let go.
He gritted his teeth and kept pulling. After shooting up twenty-five feet in a matter of moments, the water level had stabilised and was rising only imperceptibly. But the entire ocean seemed to be pouring into the building, bringing with it an endless mass of tree wreckage. More sections of wall were beginning to cave in.
Roberta’s head and shoulders broke through the boiling foam. Her hair was slicked across her face and she was coughing and spluttering, but clutching the rope with an iron will. Ben quickly secured his end to the girder, then gripped on with his leg and flipped himself over to hang upside down so he could reach out and take her hand.
His fist closed around her wrist. ‘I’ve got you! You’re okay!’ he shouted over the deafening thunder of the water. With a heave, he hauled her free of the swirling current and she was able to clamber up his dangling body to the girder. She clung there dripping, speechless from shock, trembling with cold. Ben righted himself and held her tight as the wreckage-laden flood surged just a few feet below them.
He’d given up on Jack Quigley minutes ago. It was with amazement that he saw the American suddenly surface, spewing water and hanging doggedly to the branches of the huge trunk that Ben had been certain must have driven him under and crushed him to a pulp. Quigley’s tree was spinning round on itself in the current. A powerful eddy was drawing it towards the middle of the roof support section on which Ben and Roberta were perched. It was coming in fast. Too fast, Ben thought as he realised it was going to ram right into the central pillar supporting the beams.
It hit with a crash and an explosion of spray, smashing the pillar to pieces. With its underneath support gone, Ben and Roberta’s girder gave a lurch and, with a screech of buckling metal, sagged towards the water. For an instant, Ben was convinced they were going under – but the iron structure was still attached at one end to the last section of seaward wall still standing and held together, dangling low above the racing surface.
‘Quigley!’ Ben yelled. The American was thrashing blindly in the water, trying to disentangle himself from the branches of the tree. Any moment, the current was going to roll the trunk back over him, driving him underwater again. Nobody could be so lucky twice. ‘Come on! You can make it!’ Ben reached out to him and gripped his arm.
The battered, soaked Quigley scrambled up to join them on the girder. His face was white under the bruises, his hands were shaking violently and he was too aghast to utter a word.
The torrent had inched its way almost to the level of the windows. Ben knew that if the remnants of the wall gave way, the whole building was going to collapse beneath the surface and take them with it. He jabbed a pointing finger at the windows and shouted, ‘We have to get to the roof! Keep moving higher!’
But the words were barely out of his mouth before the thing he’d been most dreading began to happen.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
As if in slow-motion, the section of wall holding up the end of their girder buckled inwards and collapsed. Torn from its anchorage, the roof support to which Ben, Roberta and Quigley were clinging like shipwrecked mariners began to fall.
Through the surge of foam rushing up to meet them, Ben caught a glimpse of something huge and white surging fast with the current. The realisation flashed through him: it hadn’t been just the pressure of the water that had brought down the wall. It was the dismasted hull of the sailing yacht he’d witnessed being engulfed by the wave miles out to sea. The boat’s wooden prow, smashed flat where it had rammed through the wall, cleaved the water just inches below the falling girder.
Gripping Roberta’s hand, Ben leapt for the deck as it flashed by. The two of them splashed down on the slippery, waterlogged timbers and were immediately sliding out of control towards the stern as the boat raced onwards. Ben’s shoulder struck the corner of the wheelhouse. He lashed out his free arm and grabbed hold of a deck rail, arresting their slide. A third splash nearby told him that Quigley had had the same idea.
If the collapsing girder had hit the boat it would have broken the vessel in two and carried them all down to a watery grave – but it missed the stern by an inch and sent up a curtain of spray behind them as the half-wrecked, half-submerged yacht ploughed on with the current, only its forward momentum keeping it afloat. Tree wreckage battered and scraped the sides of the hull from all directions, knocking it violently left and right. Momentarily blinded by the sting of the salt water in his eyes, Ben hung tightly to the rail with one hand and to Roberta with the other. Something nudged his leg: Quigley, braced against a deck fixture and clinging on for dear life.
Ben blinked the water out of his eyes and saw they were heading straight towards the remnants of the opposite wall of the building. He cringed, waiting for the impact that might crush the hull like a concertina.
It was Quigley’s tree that saved them by crashing into the wall first, ramming a huge V-shaped hole through the stonework. A second later, the hull of the yacht was juddering and scraping over the jagged remnants, bits of loose masonry striking and bouncing off the deck; then it was through, carried onwards inland by the force of the monster tide. There was a grating bump as the yacht ploughed down what was left standing of the perimeter fence. Ahead there seemed to be nothing but the endless racing water and the few trees dotted around the factory building that were still upright. They were being tossed about like a shell, knocked this way
and that by the near-solid mass of wreckage all around them.
The force of the flood was incredible. It was as if they were plummeting out of control down a giant waterfall, only horizontally instead of vertically, the laws of physics having been laid on their side in the grip of some insane power. Blinded by the spray, Ben had a death grip on Roberta’s hand. It seemed almost impossible that they could have survived the crushing might of the tsunami this long. Every second that went by, Ben fully expected them all to be killed. Every second that went by, another miracle happened to spare them until the next.
There was no telling how deep the water was as they were carried relentlessly inland, crashing violently through branches and vegetation, slamming off rocks, spinning round and round, the prow sometimes high in the air, sometimes buried in boiling foam with water churning right over the top of the wheelhouse.
How far had they come from the building? Ben managed to twist himself around for a backwards glance and could see nothing but unbroken sea where the peninsula had been. It was impossible to know how far inland the momentum of the tsunami could take them. All he knew was that they had to hang on tight and pray the wrecked hull of the yacht didn’t get driven completely underwater and become swamped with wreckage.
A shuddering impact from the side rocked the waterlogged hull and almost tore the rail from Ben’s grip. The deck tipped up and he saw through the blinding spray that a giant tree stump had ploughed into them. Its massive roots had become entangled with the side of the hull, and now the motion of the current was dragging it down and threatening to capsize them.
Ben knew something had to be done before they were all tipped into the water and dragged under by the slipstream. Clipped to the outer bulkhead of the wheelhouse just a few feet away was an axe. If he could just make it the short distance across the wildly sloping deck and grab it, he might be able to hack away the roots and free them … but he didn’t dare let go of Roberta.
‘I’m all right!’ she screamed over the roar. ‘I’m holding on!’
Ben let go of her hand, then the rail, and felt himself sliding. All that stopped him from going overboard was the opposite deck rail. His feet hit against it with painful force. Suddenly the deck was righting itself as the tree was heaved up by the current. It might be seconds before it was driven back down again and might flip the whole hull over. Ben saw his chance. Sliding from side to side with the violent rocking of the deck, he scrambled towards the wheelhouse. A surge of water slammed him bodily against the bulkhead. Gasping for breath, too numb to feel the pain, he stretched out his arm to grab the axe shaft.
At the moment he felt it tear away from its retaining clips, a flat, angular shape he could barely make out came hurtling straight towards him out of the torrent of water. He flattened himself to the deck, his head and shoulders going underwater. A massive crash as the tin roofing sheet torn from the factory building passed overhead and sliced edge-on like a blade into the wheelhouse. It guillotined through flimsy wood, carrying away everything in its path. If he’d reacted half a second later, it would have cut him in two.
But now the boat was capsizing for real as the entangled tree was pressed deep underwater by the current. Ben managed to grab hold of the shattered framework of the wheelhouse and hung dangling as the hull tipped up to a near-vertical angle. He heard Roberta cry out but couldn’t see her.
The boat overturned completely and Ben was plunged beneath the water. The powerful eddies tried to suck him downwards as he swam for the surface. Through the gurgling roar that filled his ears, he was dimly aware of a grinding crash from above. Something hit him hard across the back, driving an explosion of bubbles out of his lungs and pushing him deeper into the water.
For an instant his body was limp, motionless. Sinking, sinking. It was tranquil down here. He didn’t want to fight it any more. He could just go to sleep …
Then his eyes opened and he started thrashing his way towards the surface. He could see the shapes of the wreckage drifting around him. The submerged, overturned stern end of the boat, too. Pale light sparkled down its side where its keel protruded from the water.
As consciousness came back, Ben realised that the boat wasn’t moving any more, and that the current seemed to have slowed. He peered through the dense murk and floating filth and debris, and was able to make out the crushed nose of the hull wedged between two trees. That they were still standing meant that the momentum of the disaster was finally spent.
Ben burst gasping up to the surface, blinked the water out of his eyes and looked around him. Where were Roberta and Quigley? He yelled for them. No reply, no sign.
The capsized yacht had grounded on a high wooded ridge on the rising slope of the terrain inland. The uprooted trunk that had tipped the vessel over must have been torn away under the impact, and had taken half the hull with it. What was left of the boat was stuck fast between the two trees and its prow buried in a mud bank.
‘Roberta!’ he yelled again. ‘Quigley!’
He swam for the bank, reached out for an exposed tree root and dragged himself up the slippery mud onto solid ground, where he clambered to his feet on aching, trembling legs and looked back in the direction of the ocean.
He’d never seen such unbelievable devastation, not even in war. From his vantage point he could see all along the coastline that stretched away to the east – except that it wasn’t there any more. Only the tops of a few trees and buildings that had withstood the force of the tsunami protruded from the water. Further inland, the flood was still surging onwards over the lower ground. From a distance the wreckage-strewn tide seemed to move like lava. As he watched, a distant village was swamped. A truck, carried sideways on the current, smashed through the front of a wooden house. Tiny figures of running villagers were engulfed and disappeared.
Nothing could be done to save those poor souls. Ben looked away. ‘Roberta!’ he bellowed once more at the top of his voice. Still no reply. A feeling of chill dread began to grip him. He blamed himself for losing her. Why, why did you let go of her hand?
From the ridge where the boat had grounded, the forested terrain rose steadily upwards. Maybe she’d been flung clear of the water. He staggered through the bushes, searching left and right.
It was then that he heard a hoarse shout. Quigley’s voice, coming from the far side of the overturned boat. Ben turned and scrambled back down the bank towards the sound, clambered over the upside-down hull and saw him lying in the mud near the water’s edge.
Quigley’s face was bloody from a fresh gash on his forehead. ‘Help me!’ he gasped in pain, pointing at his left leg. ‘I can’t move.’ Ben saw why: his left leg was pinned underneath the boat wreck.
Ben hesitated for a moment, torn between the need to help the man and the overwhelming desire to find Roberta, but he couldn’t leave the American lying there trapped. He slid the rest of the way down the bank, hunted around in the mud for something to dig with and found a large flat stone that could act as an improvised shovel. He crouched next to Quigley and began to scoop the wet earth out from under his leg.
‘Where’s Roberta?’ the American gasped.
‘I don’t know,’ Ben said grimly and kept digging. In a couple of minutes Quigley’s leg was free. ‘It’s not broken,’ Ben said, looking at the ugly swelling on his ankle. ‘Just a sprain. Can you stand?’
‘I think so.’ Quigley gripped the hand that Ben offered him, scrambled wincing to his feet and limped up the bank to lean against a tree on the more solid ground. ‘Holy shit,’ Quigley breathed, gazing across the scene of absolute destruction.
‘Stay there,’ Ben said.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I have to find her,’ Ben replied over his shoulder as he scrambled back down towards the water. Without hesitation he plunged in and began to swim out past the boat, fighting against the drifting debris, searching everywhere, yelling her name. With every passing moment the awful certainty increased: she couldn’t swim. Even if she’d managed t
o escape being crushed under the overturning boat, the currents had overwhelmed her. He wasn’t going to see her again.
He gasped in a lungful of air and dived deeper into the murk, propelling himself downwards with powerful strokes. Where the tree roots had torn part of the yacht’s hull away he found the ragged hole eight feet down and swam inside the dark space. Hoping for a trapped air pocket. Visualising Roberta clinging on inside, still alive.
But there was nothing inside the wreck but dirty water. He swam back out through the hole and thrust his way back to the surface.
‘There’s no use,’ came Quigley’s call from the bank. ‘Give it up; she’s gone, man.’
Ben ignored him. He couldn’t give it up. He battled his way around the half-submerged stern end of the hull to where more of the western side of the ridge came into view, and swam hard towards it. Treading water, he paused to run his eye along the waterline, up the sloping banks to the trees. The edge of the flood was a seething, bobbing mass of debris. Above the waterline, he could see nothing but thick foliage. The voice of despair inside him was telling him that Quigley was right. It was hopeless.
Until that moment, Ben hadn’t realised fully how much he cared for Roberta. He turned away, defeated, suddenly as weary as he could remember having ever been in his life. He could barely muster up the energy to keep himself afloat. The water was beginning to recede now, as if the ocean was calling it back. He could feel the current dragging him, and had to fight it. All along the edge of the ridge, the level was dropping visibly by the foot, so that the ground appeared to rise up from the surface, surrounded by the gigantic mass of wreckage washed up in the mud.