Crocodile Tears

breaths in this cramped compartment available to him. The water was rising all the time, the air space beneath the ceiling becoming narrower and narrower. But once the water reached the level of the air vents, it would stop.
    They would be sitting in a bubble of air that would quickly diminish as they breathed out carbon dioxide. Sabina had been wrong. They wouldn’t drown. They would suffocate.
    “ We have to get out of the car and swim for the surface,” he said. “It’s the only way.”
    “ What about Dad?”
    “ Don’t worry. I’ll look after him.”
    “ But how do we open the window?”

    All the windows in the Nissan were electrically operated, and even if the battery still had power, it wouldn’t have been enough to move them. The pressure outside was too great. A manual handle would have been equally useless. They had to break the glass. Alex thought about leaning back and kicking out, using the heel of his shoe. But he knew it wouldn’t work. He couldn’t get the right angle, and anyway, the glass was reinforced. He’d never have the strength.
    He needed a hammer or an ax. Something metallic. A fire extinguisher? There wasn’t one. Golf clubs?
    Edward Pleasure had brought golf clubs with him, but they weren’t in the car. He’d left them back at Hawk’s Lodge.
    Then Alex remembered.
    “ Sabina, where’s your dad’s walking stick?”
    “ It’s here.”
    “ Pass it to me.” He couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice. He could feel the seconds ticking away.
    Sabina passed it across and Alex quickly examined it in the tentative light. The handle was metal and shaped like a duck’s head. He could use it like a hammer … except it was too long. He didn’t have enough room to swing it. It had to be shorter. How?
    “ Take this.” He handed the flashlight to Sabina. “Shine it on me.”
    “ What are you doing?”

    He didn’t answer her. He took the walking stick and fed it through the steering wheel, slanting diagonally across the dashboard so that the tip was in the far corner. The bulk of the walking stick was now in front of him. Using all his strength and his own body weight, he wrenched forward, pushing the stick in front of him. There was a creak of straining wood, but the stick held.
    The water was rising over his chest. He could feel its grip, as cold as death. He tried again and this time he was successful. The walking stick snapped in half.
    There was no time to lose. He let the bottom half drop and took the splintered end in his hand. He now had something like a hammer, about a foot long.
    “ I’m going to break the window,” he shouted. “Take a deep breath. As soon as the water’s over your head, you’ll be able to open the door.”
    Sabina nodded. She was either too cold or too frightened to speak.
    Alex clutched the walking stick. Then, at the last minute, he remembered something he had learned from his days scuba diving with his uncle. “Don’t hold your breath!” he exclaimed. It was one of the most common reasons for diving accidents. If he and Sabina held their breath as they rose through the different pressure levels, they would end up puncturing their lungs. “Swim as fast as you can,” he said.
    “But remember to hum as you go.”
    “ What do you want me to hum, Alex? ‘Auld Lang Syne’?”
    Alex almost smiled. Only Sabina could still make jokes at a time like this. Perhaps that was why the two of them were so close. “Hum anything, Sabina,” he said. “As long as you’re humming, your lungs will be open.”

    He unfastened Edward’s seat belt and checked that the driver’s door was unlocked. The car was filling more slowly now, but there couldn’t be much more oxygen left. He tightened his grip on the broken walking stick, then swung it with all his strength, aiming for his own passenger window, as high up as possible. The duck’s-beak handle slammed into the glass.
    Sabina had aimed the flashlight toward him, and he saw a series of spidery cracks in the glass. Water oozed in, but the window held. Was it his imagination or was it already getting more difficult to breathe? He had seconds left. He swung the makeshift hammer again, then once more.
    On the third strike, the window shattered, and Alex was almost torn out of his seat by the torrent of water that came rushing in, filling up the available space. The flashlight went out and the blackness returned so suddenly that he wondered if the force of the water might have knocked him out.