Marion Lennox - Prescription-One Husband

Most had eaten Lizzy’s oysters.

They’d still be feeling weak and washed out after last night’s stomach upsets and the sea would have little appeal.

Fern walked slowly from boat to boat. They were as familiar as…as familiar as Sam.

She walked halfway down the jetty and then stopped dead as an unfamiliar sound smashed across the silence.

Fern turned, trying to figure out where the sound had come from.

There was another smash, the splintering of timber under something that sounded like an axe. Then a shout of horror echoed over the water from the end of the jetty and, as if driven by the shout, a diesel engine roared into life.

In the dim moonlight Fern saw a fishing boat swerve out from its moorings and head for the open sea. Fast!

It was Lizzy’s boat. The fishing boat that Lizzy’s father had operated before her. The Dolphin…

What on earth was the crash, though? Instinctively, Fern started to run toward the gap Lizzy’s boat had left, her sneaker-clad feet moving swiftly on the jetty boards.

There was someone else there. The boat next to Lizzy’s belonged to Alf Gunn. Alf was in his eighties and his boat was the old fisherman’s only home. He slept below deck. Now he was standing on the jetty, rubbing his eyes as if waking from a bad dream.

‘Alf, what is it?’ Fern reached the old man and took his shoulders in her hands. The sense of urgency inside her was making her feel sick. She just knew…

‘The girl…’ Alf’s voice was a disbelieving whisper. ‘Lizzy…I heard the first smash and was up like a cork in a bottle of fizz, thinking it was vandals. It was Lizzy, miss. She’s stove a ruddy great hole in her boat-in her lovely boat!-right below the Plimsoll line. And she’s headed out to sea with water pouring in! Top speed…’

‘Why…?’

They both knew why. The old man and the girl stared at each other in horror as they came to terms with what Lizzy had done.

‘It’s suicide, isn’t it, Fern?’ Alf said bleakly. ‘After what she did yesterday…’

‘I guess…’ Fern’s mind was racing at a hundred miles an hour. ‘How big was the hole?’

‘Big enough. Not so big that she’ll go down in the harbour, though. Most of the hole was above water. It’s only when the boat hits the ocean swell…’

Lizzy had thought this out well. If the boat went down in the harbour she wouldn’t drown. She could swim like a fish. But if she got her boat out into the main ocean currents…and her boat sank…There was no way Lizzy could change her mind after that.

‘So we follow her,’ Fern said frantically. ‘Can we do it, Alf?’

‘We don’t have a choice,’ Alf said grimly. ‘Come on, girl!’

Alf was born on the boat and born to the sea. The same as Lizzy. It took such a one to follow Lizzy because the girl was moving with both desperation and skill.

From the mouth of the harbour a reef ran eastward in a foaming, jagged line. Lizzy’s boat, lights cut, turned north-straight across the reef. If it hadn’t been a moonlit night they wouldn’t have seen her. As it was, Fern could hardly believe her eyes.

‘She’ll smash on the rocks,’ Fern gasped.

‘Not Lizzy,’ Alf said grimly. ‘Not that she’d mind if she did-but there’s a gap, if you know the way. If she hits the reef she’ll risk being washed up on the beach within minutes. It’s my guess Lizzy doesn’t want that to happen.’

‘Do you know the way…?’

She didn’t have to ask. Alf was already swinging his boat north and it was all Fern could do not to close her eyes in horror.

There was foam surging all around their boat and jagged rocks on either side. Surely this was impossible…In the dark…

It wasn’t impossible. The boat lurched through the last breaking wave and surged on. Ahead of them was Lizzy’s boat, sinking lower and lower in the water as she went

‘May it keep afloat another five minutes,’ Alf said through gritted teeth, ‘or she’ll drift back onto the reef.’

His wish was granted. Lizzy’s boat was gunned hard out to sea; it went on and on, its deck sinking to an impossible level…

Then it stopped dead. A swell must have caught it broadside and the huge mass of water below decks shifted.

The boat reared sideways and slowly, slowly, slipped under the water.

As it disappeared under the surface, a thin, forlorn figure raised her hands in the air and slipped beneath the waves with her boat.

‘DEAR God!’

Alf had unconsciously gripped Fern’s arm in-for Alf-an almost unheard-of gesture of emotional need. He’d throttled right back to dead still.

‘The boat will suck her down,’ Fern whispered.

‘It’s not big enough to pull her right down and hold her,’ Alf said, as though thinking to himself. ‘Too small a boat for huge suction. It’ll put her down a way but she’ll come up again-unless she’s caught…’

‘But…’

‘She’s aimed right for the middle of the slipstream.’ Alf chewed his lip and then gunned his boat forward fast, slowing as they reached the point where Lizzy’s boat had sunk. ‘She’s thought this out, all right.’

There was nothing to see. A vague turbulence swirled on the surface as though air was escaping from the cabin below but there was no Lizzy.

Alf cut his engine. He grabbed the lifebuoy on the side of the boat and tossed it overboard and then tossed a couple of life-jackets over, for good measure.

No one tried to swim to them.

There were no cries for help. Nothing.

There was dead silence apart from the slap of water against the wooden sides of Alf’s boat.

Nothing at all to show that Lizzy had ever been here.

‘She’s gone…’

‘She won’t have drowned yet,’ Alf said grimly. ‘It’s darned hard to make yourself drown if you’re as strong a swimmer as Lizzy Hurst. The slipstream here runs straight out to sea and it’s too strong to swim against. That’s why she’s come here, I reckon. Lizzy’ll be carried out-and the only way we can stay within cooee of her is by letting ourselves be carried with her.’

‘But, Alf…’

‘Water pushes everything along at the same rate,’ Alf muttered. He was talking more to himself than to Fern. ‘See the lifebuoy and life-jackets I tossed over? They’re still almost together. As soon as we start the engine we’ll lose her. Drifting with her is our only hope. Her only hope.’

The old man cupped his hands around his mouth.

‘Lizzy,’ he yelled. ‘We’re here. Swim to us and stop being a damned fool…’

The old man stopped on a spurt of coughing.

‘You yell,’ he said grimly. ‘My lungs aren’t as strong as they used to be. I’m going below to see if I can find a torch.’

‘Lizzy…’

Fern’s yell drifted over the eerie silence like a hopeless dirge.

Ten seconds later Alf was back with his torch-a big flashlight with a powerful beam. He played it over the water while Fern yelled.

On Fern’s tenth yell they both saw her, a frail floating figure that ducked under the surface as the spotlight hit her.

‘Lizzy,’ Fern screamed. ‘Lizzy…’

‘Go away…’ The girl was within thirty yards of the boat, sobbing with despair. ‘Go away. Let me drown…’

And she duck-dived again into the depths.

‘We’ll never get her,’ Alf said morosely. ‘Not if she don’t want to be got The water in this slipstream comes straight from the Antarctic, Fern. She’ll get hypothermia and drown-that’s if the sharks don’t get her first.’

‘Sharks…’

‘Not many round here.’ Alf moved the torch over the water again. Nothing. ‘Water’s too cold. But enough…’

‘So…’

‘If she wants to die, I don’t see how we can stop her,’ Alf said. ‘Guess we just stay here in case she changes her mind. Maybe we ought to radio the local cop-not that he can do anything…’

Of course. The radio…

‘Sam might be more use…’

‘Beg pardon?’ Alf queried but Fern was already clambering below, her thoughts converting to instant action. Fern had spent heaps of time on fishing boats as a teenager and knew how the radio worked. She needed Sam…

Sam thought he was ill. He wouldn’t come.

He must.

Quinn Gallagher would get him here. The thought steadied her. If anyone could help, it was Quinn Gallagher…

There wasn’t any logic in such a thought but Fern was beyond logic.

She wanted Quinn.

She had him.

Every building on the island was connected to marine radio and two minutes later Quinn picked up the radio in the hospital. One of the nurses had answered the relayed call and fetched him fast.

The fear in Fern’s voice was enough to drive the slowest to speed.

‘Fern…! What the…?’

Quinn’s voice made Fern give a sob of relief. The fear took a tiny step back.

‘Quinn, Quinn, is Sam still there?’

Quinn caught the tremor. There was a sharp intake of breath.

‘What’s wrong, Dr Rycroft?’ Quinn Gallagher’s voice was incisive-professional and competent. It cut across Fern’s panic and steadied her further.

She was right. Quinn Gallagher was an emergency specialist. She needed him…

Swiftly she outlined what was happening, knowing that by transmitting on the distress frequency she’d have half the island listening.

It was best this way. There was no time for considering Lizzy’s finer feelings now and the more islanders who knew what was happening the better chance Lizzy had.

‘Sam’s the only one who might…might make her respond,’ Fern told Quinn as she faltered to a halt. ‘If he were here and calling-instead of me. She might come if it was Sam who wanted her.’

‘I’ll get him out there if I have to get four strong men to carry him,’ Quinn promised grimly. ‘Fast. Keep the line open, Fern. Is there any fisherman listening who can take Sam Hubert out to sea…?’

The line crackled with offers.

Most islanders left their radios permanently on by their kitchen tables, tuned low to the distress frequency-just in case. They were a long way from the mainland and the islanders looked after their own. Clearly now the whole island had been listening to the story, aghast.