******Chapter 7

Sara hadn't been able to contact anyone, of course not. Walker let her walk around on the ship but never let her unattended. Once she had managed to escape her guard feigning to be fallen asleep on the deck in the afternoon sunshine. The man had left to see if he could find someone with a cigarette. She had made it to the wheelhouse, sneaked in and grabbed the radio. But Jack had seen her and stopped her before she could use it. Since then there had always been a guard at the wheelhouse.
After what Sara had overheard, she had made some backup plan herself. Preparing her diving equipment always on her own - that was something she had insisted on and Walker had let her go with it - she had added some more weight than usual to her weight belt and in the pockets of her BC for the next dive. That would make it harder to maintain a neutral buoyancy but she could compensate that with little effort. She also made sure she had a completely refilled scuba tank and an extra torch. Nobody had noticed her adjustments, the men knew she always took great care for her diving equipment.

Floating in the water on the ship's port side, Sara now felt like she had done the right thing. Walker was smiling down at her from the deck.
"Sunshine, it was a pleasure working with you."
How she hated that nickname he used for her. She carefully used the dump valve on her BC to release all the gas left and stayed afloat only by using her fins now.
"But as sad as it is, we have to go separate ways now. I'm sorry, I told you I would play nice but that's over now. Tom sends his kind regards, wishing you all the best. He's sorry too but you know how it works. Money makes the world go round."
Two things happened simultaneously. Walker pointed a gun at her and shot two times. Sara stopped paddling and sunk like a stone. The extra weight pulled her down fast.

"Did you hit her?" Jack asked curiously and leant over the rail.
"I don't know for sure but I think so. There seems to be blood in the water and all those bubbles. I might have hit her BC as well. Let's wait some time and see if she comes up again."

Sara would have shrieked if she hadn't been under water. It had worked! She had known that Walker would try to kill her the minute he wouldn't have any use for her any more. She looked at her gauge console. 15m and dropping. Hastily she tried to stop her way to the bottom. She knew it wasn't deep around here, 40m at the deepest point but she wouldn't have to go down that far to play it safe. Dropping some of the extra weight and inflating her BC she managed to stop herself at 25m. When looking up she could see the shadowy figure of the boat on top of her. She tried to breathe slowly to reduce the revealing bubbles to a minimum and waited. How long are they going to stay to make sure I'm no risk any more? The woman looked at her gauge again. If she was calculating right, there was still air for more than 20 minutes if she didn't move around too much. That should be enough. Movement caught her gaze. The needle was dropping, now it showed less air than before. Sara shook her head and looked again. The needle had moved indeed, she was loosing air! Pushing her upcoming panic away she made a quick assessment of her situation. I'm at 25m … Sara frowned. It was showing 28m now. She made some quick moves with her fins, 25m again. Over her head she could hear the engine come alive. Finally they were leaving.

And then she noticed the small line of bubbles coming out of her BC right over her right pocket. They were followed by a small red cloud. That was bad. Sara all of a sudden realised the sharp stabbing pain in her arm. Walker hadn't missed her as she had thought. It was only the compression of the depths, her wet suit and the BC that had reduced the loss of blood to a minimum for now.

She had to surface, right now. There would be decompression problems, that she knew but if she lost conciousness under water she would drown. There was no time for safety stops. Coming up as slowly as she dared, Sara reached the surface with just little air left. She fiddled around with her weight belt and managed to get rid of it. Now that would buy her some time. She also tried to loosen the band that hold her scuba tank on the BC. But that task was far too difficult with just one hand. And she couldn't use her right arm, it hurt too much. The first bullet must have been slowed by the lead in her weight bag. But it seemed to have scratched the air blatter of her BC. The second bullet had hit her upper arm. The woman struggled with her equipment and prepared herself for a long night. It was getting darker with every minute, it must be around 2000 already. Her plan had been to swim towards the islands but with her injured arm and the barely functioning BC she had no chance to reach it, again. I really should stop making plans like that! she thought, angry with herself. Hopefully someone would see her torch and come to investigate.

"Sir, we do have a course."
Mike Flynn stood up from the captain's chair and looked over Kate's shoulder at the sea map. RO pointed at a line he had marked on the map.
"These three points are the data we got from coast watch and the Feds. We assumed that the Marlin took a straight course and that leads us here." RO's forefinger stopped at a small group of islands. "There's nothing out there but some tourist fishing vessels and a small fishing village on the largest of these islands. I wonder what they were looking for out there."
The CO compared their actual patrol course with the one RO had just shown him. These islands laid way out of their course. But he needed to go there and see if they could find something!
"Well, we hopefully find out soon. RO, wasn't there a suspected FFV reported next to these islands?" he asked casually.
The radio officer looked perplexed for a moment, then his face lit up as he understood. "Yes Boss, I think I heard something over the radio."
"Then we should have a closer look, shouldn't we?" Mike smiled. "X, plot a course. Spider, get us there full steam. It looks as if our maps are not quite up to date and I won't risk going aground at night. We get as close as we can and wait for the next morning." Mike looked at his watch, 1730. That left them around 30 minutes until sunset.
"RO, who long 'till we reach the islands?"
"I'd say about 50 minutes, Sir."
That was not what Mike had hoped for but he couldn't help it right now.
"X, you have the ship. I'll be in my cabin."
"X has the ship." Kate confirmed.

Bomber hated the night watch. It was mostly boring and with the Hammersley just rolling until the sunrise there was not much to do. She yawned and had a look at her watch, 0400 hours.
"Buffer, I go and make a brew. Do you want anything?" she asked.
"Thanks, Bomber. That's a good idea. Maybe you find something to eat as well.", her crew mate replied, sitting at the helm and yawning himself. "This is going to be a boring night." He didn't knew how wrong he was.

When Bomber came back up the staircase to the bridge, she had two cups with her and a plate with muffins.
"Look what I got, Buffer." She handed him one cup and the plate and took one pair of the binoculars. "I'm just having a look outside, I'm back in a minute. Don't you dare eating all of the muffins!" She smiled at him and climbed through the hatch.
Outside she let her gaze sweep around. Nothing! Just as she had expected. The night was chilly and starlit, sea was a little rough. Maybe a storm was gathering. Bomber turned round and wanted to go inside when she saw a light. The young sailor stopped short and took a second look. The light was gone. She blinked, there it was again. Now she could clearly see the light, it looked like someone was waving.
"Buffer!" she called. "I think there's someone in the water!"
Buffer was with her in a second. "Where?"
Bomber pointed in the direction where she had seen the light. "There was a light, like someone was waving a torch or so. It's gone now."
The older seaman had a second look himself and then saw it too.
"Well spotted, Bomber! Go wake the CO and Swain. Whoever this is might be in need of medical attention."
They hurried inside, Bomber was already on her way to the CO's cabin when she heard Buffer raising the man overboard alarm.

Sara started when something gently nudged her left fin. She must have fallen asleep. There it was again, right fin this time, pulling softly. Alarmed, she tried to get rid of whatever was pulling at her fin. It held firmly. Starting to panic, Sara went down and swallowed some amount of seawater. That made her coughing and she swallowed even more. The cold water splashing over her head kicked in her reflexes. She calmed down a bit, pushed herself back at the surface and used her torch and her mask to see underwater what had nudged her. She cried with relief and laughed at the same time. A sea turtle was swimming around her, attracted by the light of her torch. For a second, Sara had been sure it was a shark testing if she was worth having a second bite. And then she saw it. In the distant were lights, not moving, but it looked as if there was a ship. This could be navigation lights! Sara waved her torch from sight to sight, giving the emergency signal and wished she had packed a strobbe or a whistle but there was nothing like that on Walker's ship, of course not. He hadn't wished his divers to be detected. But she was glad she had brought a second flashlight with her. The first one had given up some hours ago. Did they see me? Sara was not sure until she heard someone's voice over the water.

"Away seaboat, away seaboat!"

"Hey!" Sara tried to attract attention but she was so exhausted all she managed was a soft mumble. They wouldn't be able to hear her over the roar of the engine. A blinding light shone in her direction. She could hear voices coming closer now, calling. And then her second torch flickered and gave up.

The X lead the boat party. They steered in the direction the light had come from until just a minute ago and soon could see someone floating in the water.
"Sir, there is someone in the water." Kate reported back to the Hammersley.

At the bridge, Spider looked in his captain's face and saw the hopes and fears he had himself been reflected. "Boss, you think it's..." He didn't finish his sentence.
Mike looked up, trying to pull himself together and keeping his composure. "We'll know soon enough, Spider." he answered casually. Everyone on the bridge could hear the agitation in his voice though.

"Slow down the engine, we don't want to run over whoever it is." Kate McGregor ordered the sailor at the helm. The RHIB slowly closed in to the position where they had seen the light coming from.
Swain used his torch to have a closer look. "You're right, ma'am, it seems to be someone in a wet suit. He's moving. Hey there, are you ok? We're from the Australian Navy." he called. The RHIB went alongside the barely floating swimmer, Swain and Buffer leant overboard and pulled him inside the RHIB.
"Swain?" Kate asked. She couldn't see who it was with the mask and the hood covering most of the face.
"It's a young man, X. He's ok, but he's suffering from hypothermia. We need to get him back to Hammersley, I can't do anything out here."
Kate felt disappointed. She had had the hope it would be Sara River whom they had found. The sailor at the helm didn't need an order, he already had turned around and was heading towards the warship.
"Mate, can you hear me? What's your name?" A soft moaning was all Swain got as an answer. Then the swimmer opened his eyes.
"I'm Jason." he mumbled. "My buddy and I made a bet whether I could make it to the coast up from here alone or not. He left some hours ago with our boat. He said he would be back and look after me if I don't show up till sunset but we must have missed each other. Waves are a bit higher than we thought." Seeing the looks they gave him, he added "It sounds really stupid now but it seemed to be a good idea this afternoon."
Kate wondered how someone could be so stupid and let himself been left behind out on the ocean.
"Well, you're safe now, We're on our way to the HMAS Hammersley right now. Try to stay awake for a little longer, will you? Our captain sure has some questions." she added when the man closed his eyes again.
"Are you in pain?" Swain asked trying to keep him awake.
"My muscles are aching like hell, I feel a little dizzy and I'm really cold." Jason tumbled, his teeth chattering now.
"We'll get you warm in no time back at the Hammersley, you'll see." Noticing that he tried to sit up, Swain helped him in a sitting position.
"Please don't tell my father, he's the owner of a fish farm and the towns mayor on the next island. He wouldn't understand." the young man pleaded and gratefully accepted the blanket now offered to him.
Buffer snorted and turned round, facing his superior officer. "Now we're playing nanny for some stupid kid?! What's next? Swimming lessons for bored upper class teenagers? We should have left him out there waiting for his buddy." he used the word Jason had, giving it a slightly twisted sound.
"You know we couldn't possibly do that. Although I find the thought of it quite appealing." Kate replied thinking of her warm and cosy bed which she had to leave behind when the man overboard alarm had been raised.

Nobody looked back. And even if they had, they hadn't had a chance noticing the small figure waving weakly in the dark, rolling up and down with the waves, drifting away with the current.

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