Aftermath

it,” Howard yelled, grabbing his arm and pulling him back. “If the waves don’t smash you against the rocks, the cold will kill you.”
    “Recognize anything?” Driver asked Michael as he fought with the controls. The boat’s small, stuttering engine was having next to no effect now. It was going wherever the sea wanted it to.
    “Not a damn thing,” he shouted back over the wind. “Just get us onto land and we’ll take it from there. Keep the last flare with you whatever you do. We should try and set it off when we’ve landed.”
    Now, finally, they appeared to have circumnavigated the rocks and were getting closer to the shingle beach. And with unimaginable relief, they felt the direction of the boat change too. The waves and the engine combined to send them closer to the shore, forcing them into what looked like a small cove.
    “What was that?” Kieran asked, and he leaned down over the side of the boat again until he was sure. And then they all heard and felt it: the bottom of the boat scraping along the seabed. Michael didn’t stop to think about what he was going to do next. He jumped over the side of the boat and fell into the surf, losing his footing and going under. The ice-cold temperature stunned him and stole the air from his lungs. He managed to get his head out of the water but cracked the back of his skull against the hull of the boat. Barely able to coordinate his movements now, he forced himself to try and swim, then managed to dig his feet into the shingle and start walking. Harte followed his lead, landing with a little more success, and between them they managed to catch the mooring rope and pull the boat to shore, the waves at last helping, not hindering, their progress.
    And then, finally, they stopped. The boat listed over and became still. No more rolling or lurching. The waves continued to crash around them but the boat had at last come to rest. The others disembarked and immediately went to Michael and Harte’s aid, wrapping them in layers of their own slightly less wet clothes.
    “We need to find some shelter, fast,” Howard said, scouting around the small beach, looking for somewhere they might be protected from the biting wind.
    “Use the boat,” Driver suggested. “We can drag it further up the shore.”
    “Do we have any food?” Caron asked. “Anything we can give to these two?”
    “Nothing,” Kieran replied.
    “Anything we can start a fire with, then?”
    Harte dug a trembling hand into his pocket and threw Caron his lighter. He was shaking violently, blue with cold. Caron tried to flick it into life but it was dead, as wet and useless as everything else.
    “There’s nothing we can burn, anyway,” she grumbled.
    “Well, we need to do something,” Lorna said. “If we’re out here much longer we’ll all end up with hypothermia, never mind these two.”
    “I’ll go and look around,” Kieran said. “I’ll try and get up onto the rocks and get a better view.”
    He was gone before anyone could say anything. Lorna and Caron helped Michael and Harte to get as far as they could from the water, then nestled up with them beneath a slight overhang. Howard and Driver were close behind, Driver having fetched the last flare from the boat. Might as well take it , he thought, though Christ knows what good it’s going to be .
    Kieran returned a few minutes later, clambering down the rocks, then running back down the beach toward them.
    “Anything?” Howard asked. Kieran nodded as he struggled to catch his breath.
    “It’s not much, but it’s something,” he explained, still panting hard. “There’s a wreck. Looks like a fishing boat or something. It’ll get us out of the wind for a while, at least.”
    The seven of them began the unsteady climb up the rocks to find the wreck Kieran had discovered. Lorna had images of huge trawlers in her mind, and was disappointed when she saw that it was just a small vessel, and that it appeared to have been there for some time. It had crashed at the bottom of another rock face, and she hadn’t even seen it until she’d been almost on top of it. At first glance it appeared to be little more than a few scraps of corroded metal and wood.
    “Is this it?” Caron asked.
    “It’s better than nothing,” Kieran said. “It’ll have to do.”
    “Wait…” Michael said, but his throat was dry and his body was shaking, and he couldn’t finish his sentence. They looked at him and he looked back, but still he couldn’t