Depth Charge by Jason Heaton (carter reed .txt) 📗

boat capsized? He shouted back to them and ran to the cabin, shouting to Ajith to keep an eye on them.

Chandin pushed the throttle forward and the motor sluggishly came to life. He spun the wheel to swing the boat near to them, then cut the motor to idle speed and drifted up alongside.

The white man said something in a choked, hoarse voice. It was English, and Chandin couldn’t understand. He could see that the man’s lips were cracked and his face was weathered and pale. The woman looked drugged, barely able to hold on to the side of the boat. How long had they been in the water? Ajith and Chandin leaned over the side and awkwardly pulled them on board. The big man tumbled on to the deck and lay there, contorted and shivering. The father and son were able to hoist the woman fairly easily and they leaned her against the netting in the bow. Both of them wore wetsuits and diving fins, which Chandin quickly wrenched off their feet.

“Ajith, water!” he instructed tersely in Tamil. Ajith ran to the cabin and came back with a full two-liter plastic bottle. Chandin took it from him and poured some into the woman’s mouth. She gulped at it and then gagged and vomited on the deck. “Himming, himming,” Chandin said in Sinhala, hoping she would understand. She nodded weakly and drank again, this time swallowing. Chandin did the same for the man, who had managed to pull himself next to the woman and prop himself up. He held the water in his mouth for a while before swallowing.

Chandin ran back to the cabin and pushed the throttle forward, bringing the old boat to life. He decided to risk the motor. These people were in rough shape. The bow wallowed at first, then careened up and over each successive swell. The shoreline drew closer and he could see men out raking the sand in front of the tourist hotels. As he neared the small beach just south of the point, he throttled back and, without pausing, motored through the cut in the reef. Normally he wouldn’t take it so fast, but he’d done this a thousand times and knew exactly where his hull would make it without scraping bottom.

“Ajith, quickly, throw out the anchor!” His son was already waiting with the small grapple in his hand and he threw it over the side, then took up the slack to hold the boat fast in four feet of water. Chandin cut the motor and came out of the cabin. He and Ajith roused the man and woman. Their Tamil was met with blank stares. “Ajith, take an arm,” Chandin said, and threaded his own arm under the woman’s. A small crowd of fishermen had gathered in the waist-deep water at the beach. Chandin beckoned them to help and two rail-thin men waded out to the boat. Chandin and Ajith lowered the woman over the side into the water into the men’s arms. They carried her to the beach and set her alongside a small skiff that had been pulled up there, then ran back out for the man.

“This one’s heavy,” Chandin said, and he and Ajith half lowered, half dropped the man into the water, where the two fishermen struggled to keep him upright, dragging him by his armpits up next to the woman. Ajith followed, carrying the diving fins.

“Who are they?”

“Where did they come from?”

“What will you do with them?” The crowd had grown around the couple slumped on the sand, passed out.

Chandin raised his hands to the group and calmly said, “They are in a bad way. If a few of you will kindly help, we will take them to our house, give them something to eat and drink, and let them sleep. Then we will see how to get them home.”

The Kindness of Strangers

Pottuvil, Sri Lanka. That evening.

Tusker awoke to the smell of food. It was both incredibly appetizing and revolting. Pungent fish, oil, spices. Nearby, he could hear the clanging of a spoon in a pan, something frying.

Where was he? His eyes adjusted to the dark, and he lifted his head to look around. He was lying on a low bed in a small room. It was almost completely unadorned, with whitewashed walls and a single high window with flimsy curtains. Across from him, against the wall, was a table with a small statue on it. He recognized it as the Hindu god, Ganesha, with its distinctive elephant’s head. Sticks of incense stood unlit around it and a garland of flowers was draped over the back of the makeshift shrine.

Next to him, he heard a groan. Sam was lying on an identical bed across from his. She stirred and rolled over. “Where are we?” she whispered. Tusker sat up and reached across to her. He stroked her hair.

“I don’t know, but we’re alive,” he said. “I’ve got a pounding headache. Must be dehydration.” A bottle of water sat on the floor between the beds and he reached for it.

“We don’t know how clean that is,” Sam said to him. “I’m used to drinking the water here, but if you get diarrhea, it’ll only dehydrate you more.”

“I’m willing to risk that,” he chuckled. “I swallowed so much seawater, I’m desiccated.” He chugged at the bottle. It tasted of iodine. Someone had thoughtfully purified it for them. He passed it to Sam and she drank deeply from it.

“Slide over,” Tusker said and shimmied on to Sam’s bed. It was barely big enough for one, and groaned under his added 200-pound weight.

“Don’t you think we should go find out where we are?” Sam whispered, leaning up on one elbow to look at him. Tusker was shirtless, still in his swim trunks. She wore her bikini, but with a loose salwar top on over it. She didn’t know how she’d gotten it. Even in the dark, she could see the creases in Tusker’s face, his cracked lips. She licked her