Dead Sea by Peter Tonkin Page A

on to her new heading, pulling out of the twister’s clutches like a knight breaking free from a witch’s spell in a fairy tale. And, as though the breaking of its spell could lead to the undoing of its power, the waterspout began to falter. When Robin glanced over her shoulder for the first time a couple of seconds later, the trunk had lifted once again, and the cone wall was thinning, slowing, falling back into the restless water. The fierceness began to fade from that relentless headwind, hitting her now in the face instead of the back. And, perhaps most weirdly of all, the day ahead of her was as bright, blue and sunshiny as any she had enjoyed on Tuvalu. It was only when she looked back, like Lot’s wife in the Bible, that she saw the bright day’s exact opposite still treading at her heels.
    And that was what Flo saw first as she came up out of the cabin wearing a starkly impractical combination tiny bikini and bulky lifebelt. ‘Jesus,’ she said forthrightly, ‘that looks nasty.’
    â€˜But at least the spout seems to have gone,’ answered Robin breathlessly. ‘I think we can stow the emergency equipment and get rigged – and dressed – for some stormy weather.’
    Flo gave a grin. ‘That’s just what this baby was built for.’ She patted
Katapult
with sisterly pride. ‘You don’t win the Fastnet in anything less than a gale.’
    â€˜True enough,’ agreed Robin. ‘And you don’t win it in a bikini either.’
    Rohini and Akelita appeared a moment later, both more sensibly clad in shorts and shirts. Robin handed over the wheel, then she and Flo changed and tidied up below.
    Robin found that she was moving like a very old lady indeed, her arms, shoulders and back all stiff and sore. But the pain she felt was as nothing compared to the shock she got when she looked in a mirror and saw what the wind had done to her hair.
    The storm front had closed over the sky by mid-afternoon and the lazy, misty calm was replaced by a brisk wet south-westerly which
Katapult
approved of very much indeed. She filled her sails, kicked up her heels, and headed towards the forty-five-knot top speed she was famously capable of delivering. At the same time she seemed to settle to work, her central hull sitting steadily in the water leaning only a few degrees off the vertical even in the strongest gusts, as the outriggers aquaplaned on or below the surface, holding her steadier than even
Flint
’s keel could ever have done. Holding her steady enough to allow Robin to light the LPG hob on the cooker in their tiny galley so that she could fry the fish presented to them by the waterspout that morning.
    Fish in such abundance, indeed, that they were still eating it three days later when their long fast run came to an abrupt end.

News
    C ommunications with
Katapult
, thought Richard wryly, were a little like London buses. You waited ages for a message, and then . . .
    The first call came through a little after four a.m. London time. It came through on Richard’s bedside phone and he sat up at the first ring, his heart racing, wrenched out of a nightmare involving Robin, sharks and, of all things, a giant octopus. He grabbed the handset and slammed it to his ear, fearing the worst. ‘Yes?’ he grated, his throat dry and rusty.
    â€˜It’s Audrey at the Crewfinders twenty-four-hour desk, Captain Mariner . . .’
    â€˜Yes?’ he repeated. Audrey was only about thirty metres away from him in the Crewfinders office which, with the company flat, occupied the top floor of Heritage House. Crewfinders was always on the alert. Its famous promise was to replace any crew member on any vessel, anywhere in the world within twenty-four hours. There was a team in that office waiting to send sailors from one place to another twenty-four seven. High days and holidays as well. Particularly then, for it was at the traditional celebration times