Whale Pot Bay (14 page)

The time it took for the elevator to come back up seemed endless. Milt and I waited with growing concern, which with me was getting near to a panic.

At first Milt had told me to stay at the top, but I knew I had to go. I couldn’t watch things happening to Steph without being there. We’d come a long way together and I wasn’t going to desert her now.

When the elevator finally arrived, Milt almost forced the door off its mounts as we pushed our way in. Then we began the painfully slow trip back down to the bottom.

‘Come on, come on,’ complained Milt. ‘What’s wrong? It was never this slow in the past.’

‘It was the whale pot,’ I explained. ‘It was too heavy.’

For a moment he looked at me as if it was my fault. Then he took a deep breath and turned to the window. Through it we could see Steph wading into the water. Pimi was some distance out, waiting for her. Fortunately, the sea was still dead flat. Nothing was happening—no tsunami wave or anything like it. Maybe we were panicking unnecessarily.

As soon as the cage touched the sand, Milt had the door open and was running towards the sea. I was close behind him. A moment later we were in the water, splashing after Steph. That’s when we discovered that something
was
happening: as we ploughed forward, the water wasn’t getting any deeper. It seemed as if the tide was going out, only it was happening much faster than normal.

Milt glanced over to me. ‘The water’s going out,’ he said, grimly. He didn’t need to explain the problem. All morning the television had been telling us that the first sign of the wave would probably be water moving away from the beach.

I looked up to find that Steph had already reached Pimi and was talking to her. Beyond her, there was still no sign of a wave. We splashed on.

Pimi had turned and was facing out to sea when we got to her.

‘Go on, Pimi,’ Steph was saying. ‘You’ve got to go. You can’t stay here.’

We joined in. ‘Go, Pimi! Go!’

Some of our urgency must have got through to the whale, for her tail flipped a couple of times.

‘Go! Go!
Go!
’

She went. Three flips, four, five, and soon she was well clear of us. It was working. ‘Keep on going,’ I said, more to myself than to her. ‘Keep on going.’

She swam for a few seconds more before coming to a sudden stop. ‘Oh no!’ wailed Steph. ‘She’s stuck on a sandbank.’

‘Come on!’ yelled Milt, splashing forward. ‘We might still have time.’

I waded after him. But Steph didn’t move.

‘C’mon, Steph,’ I called. ‘We’ll need you as well.’

Still she didn’t move. Then she raised her hands to her mouth and screamed. I stopped and rushed back to her. ‘What is it? What is it?’

Her eyes were wide and fixed on a point out to sea. I looked, and instantly I was as scared as she was. Coming
around the point at the side of the bay was an aluminium dinghy. At the helm was Vermin, dressed in his commando gear. He had the boat aimed directly at Pimi.

I grabbed Steph’s arm and hauled her along with me. ‘C’mon! We’ve got to stop him.’

Milt had also seen Vermin and was now powering through the water. However, no matter how fast he went, it was clear that Vermin would get to Pimi first.

When Vermin was about twenty metres short, he throttled the motor back, leaving the boat to drift the remaining distance. He ducked down, and a moment later reappeared with an object in his hands. It was the harpoon. But this was no longer a rusty relic. All the rust had been removed to create a shiny, sharp weapon. A rope was tied to the end just as it would have been when used in a whaleboat. The harpoon was now as lethal as when it was first used, two hundred years before.

While the dinghy drifted into position, Vermin climbed up onto the bow. For a moment he stood there, holding the harpoon above his head. Then he lowered it and took aim at Pimi.

‘No!’ screamed Steph. ‘No!
No!
’

‘Don’t!’ yelled Milt. ‘Please don’t.’

Vermin lowered the harpoon a little and looked over at us. ‘Thisss isss for you Missster Milton Sssummer. Thisss whale is going to die because of you. Try explaining that to all your adoring fansss.’ Then he lifted his head and let out a loud cackle of laughter.

We stopped and stared. This man was crazy. There was nothing we could do to stop him. How could you reason with someone like him?

By now the boat was right alongside the whale. Once again, Vermin lifted the harpoon and aimed it down at Pimi. He was so close that he would be able to stab it into her brain without having to let go. He couldn’t miss.

Steph screamed, ‘Go, Pimi! Go! You’ve got to
go!
’

Pimi must’ve heard her name, for she gave a flick of her tail in a vain attempt to move. A fluke touched the boat, lifting it a little. At the same time Vermin stabbed down. The point shot towards Pimi’s head—but the nudge had been enough to put Vermin off balance. Instead of driving into her brain, the harpoon skimmed the side of her head and plunged into the water. Vermin had to let go to avoid ending up in the water as well.

Now we were all screaming. ‘Go, Pimi!’ ‘Get out of here!’ ’Go! Go!
Go!
’

Vermin grabbed hold of the rope and began reeling the harpoon back in. Soon he’d be ready for another go. Pimi struggled to swim, but there simply was not enough water.

Then, as the harpoon was dragged back over her body, the barb caught near her eye. Vermin jerked the line to free it. That drove the barb in further. Pimi reared up in pain. The front of her body jerked out of the water, tossing the boat to one side. Vermin crashed down into the bottom of the dinghy as the harpoon came free.

Now was our chance. If we could get to her before Vermin recovered, we might be able to save her.

Milt got there first and tried to get a hold on the struggling whale. Steph and I arrived a moment later. By then Vermin was sitting up, trying to untangle the rope.

It was impossible to get a grip on her body—she was thrashing around in the water far too much. She certainly
knew she had to get out of there. If only we could lift her a bit, she’d be able to do the rest herself.

Vermin was now up on his feet, getting organized for another attempt. Milt must’ve seen this, for with a cry he dived into the water. An instant later, Pimi rose up as Milt pushed from below.

It worked. Steph and I gave a mighty heave and Pimi slid forward, off Milt’s back and then off the sandbank, and into the deeper water beyond. She gave two huge flips with her tail and lurched forward, ploughing her way towards the open sea.

Vermin swore before launching the harpoon after her, only to see it pulled to a halt when the rope ran out.

At last, Pimi was safe.

But looking out to sea to where she’d dived, we soon saw that
we
weren’t. Beyond the bay, the water was swelling up as if a huge monster was rising from the depths. It was the first of the waves. The tsunami had arrived.

‘Let’s go!’ shouted Milt.

Steph and I took off. But Milt paused. ‘Come on, Grey. You can’t stay here—you’ve got to get to the shore.’

‘Get lost, Sssummer. I’ve got work to do.’ The motor roared as Vermin thrust the throttle forward and spun the wheel around. ‘That whale’s ssstill gonna die!’ he yelled. The boat turned and headed directly at the growing wave.

Nobody watched him go. We were too busy saving ourselves. The water had receded so much that we were running on the empty seabed. Steph was having difficulty with the deep ripples in the sand. We were almost clear when she went over on an ankle. She screamed with pain.
Almost without stopping, Milt bent over and scooped her up into his arms.

Then we were on the smooth sand, heading for the elevator. I dared not look behind to see where the wave was, but a movement on the other side of the beach caught my eye. There was a figure running towards us from the track. It was Scatworm, with his camera to his head, shooting as he ran, determined to get the photo of a lifetime.

I got to the elevator first and thrust the door open for Milt and Steph. When they were in, I slammed it behind them and pressed the button to go up.

It seemed to take forever before the glass cage began to move. All the time we could see the wave building up across the width of the bay. Soon it was a foaming wall racing towards us. Scatworm had given up photographing and was running towards the boats which were his nearest shelter. It even looked like he might make it.

I began to think that we would, too, even though the elevator was moving at a snail’s pace. With a bit of luck we would soon be higher than the wave.

But then the cage stopped moving, just as it had when we were carrying the whale pot. I stabbed at the button several times, hoping to get the elevator working again. It didn’t. The motor had finally given up.

‘Hit the emergency button!’ screamed Milt. ‘That should make it move.’

He was right. The cage began to move—but not upwards. The emergency button was lowering the elevator safely back to the sand: the one place on earth where we didn’t want to be.

We watched in horror as the wave approached. While it was not as big as some I’d seen in the movies, it was the biggest I’d ever seen in real life.

At its front I could see Vermin’s boat getting tossed around like a lost surfboard. The man himself was nowhere to be seen.

Then, with a crashing thud, the wave hit us, cracking the glass all down one side. At first we stayed on the rails, but, as the weight of water increased, the cage was lifted and dragged towards the back of the bay, where we smashed against the cliff. More glass cracked, but we continued to float.

Over and over, we crashed into the rock, with the glass cracking more each time. If this kept up it was going to break, exposing us to the sea.

However, the force gradually subsided and the glass didn’t break. Then for a moment the cage was bobbing on the surface. Everything seemed calm, as if the wave was catching its breath.

It was! It was getting ready for the return journey. Slowly at first, and then with a rush, the water flowed back the way it had come, dragging the elevator with it. We scraped past the rails before being slammed into the cliff on the other side when the cable reached its limit.

This time the glass shattered, spraying us with hailstone-sized fragments. With our protective bubble broken, we
could no longer stay afloat. Now the water could get at us—the force was unbelievable. Milt had one arm around Steph, and the other around the guardrail. I was holding onto the guardrail but it wasn’t enough—my hands were slipping. I tried to pull my body up so that I could get my arms around the rail, but the water was too strong, and the effort caused me to lose grip completely.

I flailed my arms as the water sucked me out. One arm went around a bar that had once supported the glass. It held. I wrapped the other around as well, and dangled there—half in and half out of the cage. It seemed as if we were being dragged down into the depths of the ocean. My lungs felt as though they were bursting. Again and again, the elevator was tossed against the cliff. Each bash loosened my grip until I knew I couldn’t last much longer.

But luckily neither could the water. The flow eased, the force lessened, and soon the cage was back on the sand, although tilted at a strange angle. My lungs filled with air the moment we broke through the surface. I’d made it.

As the last of the water flowed past my legs, I looked up to see a reflected wave almost as big as the original one heading out to sea. For the time being the water had gone. But I knew it would be back, and by then we had to be out of the bay. There was no way we would survive a second onslaught.

‘Everyone all right?’ asked Milt.

I said I was, even though I wasn’t sure. It was just that nothing in particular ached more than any other bit.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Steph. ‘So much of me hurts. I don’t know if I’m all right.’

‘Let’s see if you can stand.’ Milt gently lifted her until she was standing on one leg. ‘Put some weight on it.’

She did, and immediately her body tensed with pain. ‘I can’t,’ she moaned.

‘It’s all right, Steph. I can carry you. But we’ve got to get out of here before the second wave comes. We’ve got to get over to the track. We’ll never survive if we stay here.’ He turned to me. ‘How long was it between those waves?’

‘Fifteen minutes is what they said on TV.’

‘Then we’ve got plenty of time.’

‘Only if that was the right time,’ I warned.

He nodded. ‘Let’s get going. I want to be well out of the bay before that wave arrives.’

I climbed out of the cage and then supported Steph as she was helped out. She leaned on my shoulder while Milt squeezed himself through a space that had once been filled with glass. Soon she was back in his arms.

I was surprised to find that, apart from a few cuts and bruises, I really was OK. I’d been lucky: if I’d got caught between the elevator and the rock, things might have been a whole lot different.

For the first time I had a chance to study the damage done to the beach. Surprisingly there was very little. In fact, it looked as though the bay had just had a decent clean-up. The fence surrounding the whale graveyard had gone somewhere—out to sea, probably. A lot of the plants growing on top had gone, and those that were left were badly battered.

However, it was the boats that surprised me most. Both were still sitting on their trailers. Ours had been
tilted to one side, but Milt’s looked untouched.

Beyond the boats was the mound where the dig had been. The top of the mound had been washed away, and the water had carved in under the cliff where we’d been working. Yet the cliff hadn’t fallen, and the buried whaleboat was untouched.

The other thing was the absence of shells. I’d expected the bay to be littered with stuff from the sea. It wasn’t. If the wave had brought stuff in, then it had also taken it out again. Even Vermin’s boat had gone.

When we were about halfway across, Milt needed to take a rest. He laid Steph on the sand so that he could stretch his body for a while. I took the opportunity to look out to sea. There was no sign of the next wave, nor had the water begun to recede like it had before the first one. I was beginning to think that the television could be wrong—there might not be a second wave.

We had just started moving again when I heard what sounded like a voice. I stopped. ‘What was that?’

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Milt.

‘Neither did I,’ added Steph.

‘Quiet!’ I said.

This time I heard it clearly. It sounded like someone crying ‘help’. Then it came again louder. ‘Help!’

‘I hear it,’ said Milt. ‘Sounds like it’s coming from my boat.’ He looked puzzled for a moment. ‘It must be Scott Grey. He must’ve survived all that.’

‘No! Not him!’ cried Steph.

‘It’s all right, Steph,’ soothed Milt. ‘He won’t harm you. It sounds like he’s the one who’s been harmed.’

‘It’s not Vermin,’ I proclaimed. ‘It’ll be Scatworm.’

‘Weston? Was he here?’

‘Yeah! Photographing you as you carried Steph to the elevator.’

He shook his head in disbelief. ‘What some of them will do!’ He let out a long sigh. ‘We’d better go over and see what his problem is.’

It
was
Scatworm. He was lying in the back of Milt’s boat with his hands clutched to his chest; his face was twisted in agony.

‘Heart attack!’ he croaked, when he saw us. ‘Help me! Heart attack!’ Then he passed out.

‘Support Steph,’ ordered Milt, lowering her to the ground. I did, and soon he was in the boat beside Scatworm, taking his pulse. After a while he began to nod. ‘He’s still got a pulse.’

‘What are we going to do with him?’ I asked.

‘Get him out of here is the first thing,’ said Milt. ‘Then get him up the cliff.’

I turned and took a look at the sea. It had changed. In the time since we’d rested, the water had gone out quite some way. ‘We better do it quickly,’ I urged.

‘All right, I’ll need some help to get him out. Then you take Steph, and I’ll see if I can manage this lump.’

Getting Scatworm out took far too long. He was a dead weight and probably heavier than Milt and me put together. Eventually, we had him on the sand. Again I checked the sea and found that the water was now a long way out, and beyond the bay it was beginning to swell once more. I pointed it out to Milt.

He nodded grimly. ‘Don’t wait for me. You get moving with Steph.’

It was slow work. Even though Steph had most of her weight supported on my shoulder, she still couldn’t put her bad foot down to help. So we moved forward using a three-legged hop.

Milt was having even greater problems. At first he tried to carry Scatworm, but after ten metres or so he had to stop. He changed to walking backwards, dragging Scatworm behind like a bag of coal. It was a lot of effort to save a man who’d once tried to destroy him.

At last I got Steph to the bottom of the track. I paused to take a look at the sea. The wave was now clearly visible and approaching the bay at speed. I turned around to find that Milt was a long way back. ‘Keep going!’ he yelled at me. ‘Keep going! Don’t wait for me.’

I kept going.

Under normal circumstances, it was never easy climbing up the track. It was almost impossible on that day: the first half was slippery from the wave, and Steph was exhausted from so much hopping. It seemed to take ages, and yet somehow we made it to the dry part. Again I looked out to sea. The wave was close to the mouth of the bay. Another minute and it would be on us. Unfortunately, Milt had only made it to the bottom of the track.

‘Go and help him,’ said Steph. ‘I can crawl up from here.’ Without waiting for a reply, she got onto her hands and knees and set off.

I rushed back to Milt, who looked near the end of his strength. He gave a grateful nod as I grabbed one side of Scatworm and started dragging. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought—the unconscious man’s body slid easily
across the slippery track. If we’d let go, I had the feeling he would’ve slid all the way back down.

The wave was well into the bay by the time we reached the dry part. However, we didn’t pause: the second wave was expected to be bigger than the first. We’d gone only a few metres when we discovered that that prediction was very true. The wave smashed into the cliff below with a mighty roar. A huge spout of water leapt up to tower above us, hovering there for an instant before crashing down on top of us.

For a moment I thought we were going to be all right. But then the water that had fallen further up the track came rushing down, sweeping our feet out from under us. Immediately we began to slide towards the raging water. I was on the cliff side where a few plants grew. I grabbed one, only to have it pull out of the ground. I grabbed another and it held. Then the full weight of the three of us came on and the plant slipped through my fingers. Once more we were sliding. I had a third try, and this time got a good grip on a bracken frond. It held!

By then the wave was bashing into the back of the bay. Soon, it would be on its way back. I didn’t know if I had the strength to hold on for that long. Milt was holding on to Scatworm with one arm and sweeping around with his other, trying to find something to grab. But there wasn’t anything near. If I let go, all three of us were doomed.

Then a miracle happened.

As the wave came back, a surge of water swept up the track like a river going uphill. I pulled my hand from the bracken, and off we went, swept up and along with the surge.

It didn’t take us all the way to the top, but it took us up to where manuka bushes grew in the bank. They were our safety line. Both of us got a good grip and we held on as the last of the wave swept by below us. Only then did we stand and drag Scatworm to the top, where we flopped down on the grass, totally exhausted.

The wave was well out to sea by the time I eventually sat up, and found Steph lying beside me. ‘You OK, Steph?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I think so. It doesn’t hurt so much now.’

I helped her to sit up. Milt got up and crouched over Scatworm.

‘How is he?’ I asked.

‘He’s still alive. But we need to get help quickly.’

I was about to say that I’d go, when Steph let out a long, anguished scream.

‘What is it?’ I demanded, spinning around to her.

She was staring down at the beach. ‘Look,’ she sobbed, lifting her arm. ‘It’s Pimi—she’s dead.’

With sinking heart, I turned and looked; and yes, it was Pimi, lying just below the whale’s graveyard. ‘No!’ I cried, covering my face with my hands. ‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Milt.

I nodded.

He closed his eyes. ‘Oh! That is so horrible. After everything that’s happened…’

Steph began sobbing hysterically. I put my arm around her, and she responded by turning her head into my chest. That’s when I lost it, too. All the events of the past few weeks rushed into my head, clammering to be released. I held onto Steph tightly and let them all go.

We could only have been like that for a short time before Colin turned up.

‘The rescue helicopter’s on its way,’ he said, climbing out of the jeep. ‘It’ll be about half an hour. Who’s damaged most?’

‘He is,’ said Milt, indicating Scatworm. ‘He’s had a heart attack, and Steph’s got a broken ankle, I think. The rest of us are all right.’

‘Pimi’s not,’ sobbed Steph. ‘She’s dead.’

Colin looked puzzled. ‘But we saw her going out to sea. She would’ve been well out before the first wave hit.’

‘She must’ve turned back,’ I said, sadly. ‘Her body’s down there.’

He moved to the edge. After staring for a while he said, ‘That’s too small to be Pimi.’

I stood up and looked again. This time I saw that the sand was littered with the sea life I had expected after the first wave. There were a number of fish, flapping as they tried to get back to the water, and one had got stuck alongside the whale’s body. Now the whale didn’t look anywhere near as big.

‘No, it’s not Pimi,’ I said softly. ‘It’s much too small.’

‘Then it’s her calf,’ wailed Steph. ‘She’s had her calf and it’s drowned.’

Colin turned back to the bay. ‘I don’t think so. It’s too big for a new calf.’

That’s when I worked out what had happened. Before saying anything I studied the part of the whale graveyard alongside our boat, and sure enough it had changed. The second wave had dug deep into the sand.

‘It
is
her calf,’ I said, smiling. ‘It’s her first calf. The one we buried before Christmas. It’s been washed out of the sand.’

The transformation on Steph’s face was wonderful to watch. She went from utter despair to absolute joy in just a few seconds. The fact that a stinking corpse now lay on the beach didn’t seem to worry her at all. The only thing that mattered was that it was not Pimi. It wasn’t our whale. We couldn’t know for certain that Pimi had survived, but we did know that it was not her lying on the sand below us.