Red Fever (2 page)

Toby pulled on his oilskins and returned to the wheelhouse. The wind was picking up and the boat was getting tossed around as the waves grew higher and rougher. The
Lucky Lady’
s engine throbbed and juddered noisily as she strained against the battering sea.

Inside, it was quieter, except for the rhythmic
dub, dub
of the windscreen wipers as they cleared the spray that spattered over the front window. His dad stood staring stonily ahead, his hands still clenching the wheel.

“Sylvie’s sleeping,” Toby told him.

“Oh, good,” replied his dad. “Best not to alarm her. I’m taking us north, up towards Inverness. If the pirates have picked us up on their radar and are following us, we may be able to lose them before we try to head home. 
Don’t want to lead them straight back to Collieston.”

“OK, Dad. But Sylvie’s not looking great and I think the longer this trip is, the worse she’ll get,” replied Toby.

“Don’t you think I know that?” his dad retorted angrily. “I’m just thinking of our safety. If they follow us home they’ll find all our supplies. If we lose them, we’ll starve. They’re all we’ve got left.”

Toby put his hand out to touch his dad’s arm. “We’ll find some more. We will. We just need to find medicine for Sylvie first and then we can go hunting for food again,” said Toby.

His dad shrugged his hand away. “If only it was that easy,” he remarked. “Have you forgotten the dogs?”

No, I haven’t forgotten the dogs,
thought Toby.
I was trying to be positive, like you always used to tell me to be. But positive thoughts don’t seem to be helping much these days.

How could he have forgotten the dogs? What a stupid thing for his dad to say. Wasn’t it the dogs that had forced them to live their lives on this pathetic little fishing boat, trawling up and down the coast looking for food and fuel?

They couldn’t travel freely on land any more. Pirates were a rare problem compared to the packs of wild dogs which now roamed the countryside, desperate for food. After their owners died, the dogs had soon grouped into packs in which only the biggest and strongest had
survived. As time passed they were becoming more and more vicious and organised in their scavenging.

No, he couldn’t forget the dogs. They were yet another nightmare to cope with in a world that had been turned upside down.

As the wind gusted and blew the mist away, the rugged outline of the Buchan coast came into view in the distance.

“I’m going to keep as close to the shoreline as possible. The
Lucky Lady
will be no match for a big ship in open waters. If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll try and hide her in an inlet and make for safety on foot.”

“What about the dogs? You know they’ve started to track boats from the shore,” said Toby worriedly. “They might be there waiting for us.”

“It’s a risk we’ve got to take. We’ll deal with that if and when it happens. At the moment my main worry is being followed by pirates,” replied his dad. “Here, hold the wheel. Keep her steady,” he said, motioning Toby to step up. His dad left the wheelhouse, picking up an old telescope on the way out. He was gone for what seemed like ages, then suddenly he burst back in.

“Here!” he said, thrusting the telescope at Toby. “I had a feeling we were being followed. See for yourself.”

Toby took the cold brass telescope in his shaking hands, and leapt down the steps to the deck. Gripping the
handrail, he stumbled to the stern. Bracing his legs apart to hold himself steady, he lifted the instrument to his eye.

At first he could see nothing but angry foaming waves stretching for miles, but then he caught sight of the spiky outline of the oil platform. He wiped his hand across his face as the sea spray dripped from his hair down into his eyes.

I can’t see anything. Dad’s going mad! He’s seeing things now!

He lifted the telescope once more to his eye, scrunching up his other eye to focus fully. There was the platform, slowly receding as the
Lucky Lady
ploughed gamely away from it.

“Oh no!” Toby exclaimed. There, sitting on the horizon, just to the right of the platform, was a ship. It wasn’t a small fishing boat like theirs. It was a serious ship. Toby could see the ship’s graceful lines and
blue-grey
colour, which told him it was a warship. There was no navy left; it had to be pirates.

Toby strained to keep the ship in vision, then suddenly a bright flash lit the side of the warship.

Boom!
The sound of the gun firing hit Toby’s ears seconds after the flash.

“DAD!” he shrieked. “They’re firing at us!”

Just then he became aware of a loud whistling as something flew through the air above the
Lucky Lady
.
With a deafening roar the sea exploded in front of them as the shell hit the water. A towering plume cascaded over the decks, soaking Toby and throwing him to the floor.

The
Lucky Lady
swerved violently as his dad slewed the boat around the foaming waves, and set off in a different direction. Toby pulled himself back into the wheelhouse.

“Oh, Dad! That was near,” he stuttered, shaking with cold and shock.

“That was just a warning shot — letting us know of their presence,” his father said through gritted teeth. “They could have blown us out of the water if they’d wanted to.”

“Shouldn’t we stop and surrender?” gasped Toby.

“No way! They’ll rob us and leave us with nothing. Perhaps we can lose them in this mist, if we just head for the coast. Take the wheel whilst I have a look at the map; I’m sure there’s an inlet near here somewhere. Keep zigzagging — that’ll stop them getting a bearing. Come on, get a move on.”

Sometimes Toby wished his dad could just be a little nicer to him. He knew it was difficult for his dad, but things were difficult for them all. And it didn’t look like they were going to get any better.

He shook his damp hair out of his eyes and took the wheel, trying to concentrate on holding the boat on its
course. Maybe his dad’s plan would work — just to keep going as fast as they could and hope they lost the pirates in the mist, or maybe the pirates would lose interest in them. At that moment, neither of those seemed very likely. After all, they were pitting the poor old
Lucky Lady
against a warship.

And as for losing interest — what else had the pirates to do with their time? It wasn’t as if there was a lot of traffic in these seas. Toby and his dad had only come across a couple of boats in the two years they’d been sailing along this coastline.

The
Lucky Lady
bobbed choppily over the water as Toby concentrated on steering her right and then left, all the time heading for the thin dark line of the mainland glimpsed through the mist. The rough motion of the boat bouncing up and down on the waves no longer bothered Toby. When they had first taken trips away in the boat, in search of food and provisions, they had all been very sick. Even his dad had succumbed to seasickness, despite having been a weekend sailor all his life.

Toby had never liked sailing. He had refused to get into his dad’s dinghy from a young age. Looking back now, he couldn’t think why he had made such a fuss about it. Maybe that was why his dad was mean to him.

Toby didn’t think so. He knew the real reason. His dad blamed him for his mum’s death; he was sure of that
now. It had been an accident, but there was nothing more he could do to convince his father that it wasn’t his fault. And, anyway, it hadn’t always been like it was now. He could remember his dad playing footie on the beach with him, laughing and shouting at his mum to join in. She would sit with her knitting, a beanie hat pulled over her fair hair, watching over baby Sylvie in her wicker Moses basket. Toby still had that beanie hat. It was tucked away with the rest of his treasures in a box in his cubbyhole under the stern.

Toby yawned. He needed to sleep. His legs and arms felt leaden with exhaustion.

His dad burst back in, shaking the water from his oilskin jacket. “Getting a bit rough out there,” he remarked. “I’ve checked the map: if we head due north by north-west, it shouldn’t take long to get to the caves near the Bullers of Buchan. I know that area; it shouldn’t be difficult to find a cave big enough to hide
Lady
in. We’ve got to try — it’s our only chance.”

Toby nodded, his brain fuzzy with tiredness. He could let his dad take over — now he had a plan.

“Can you get something for Sylvie to eat? She needs to keep her strength up,” said his dad gruffly. “Then come back; I need you here to help. We both have to stay alert, calm and focused, otherwise we’ll not get out of this alive.” He came over and took the wheel.

“Yep, of course,” said Toby. “I’ll make Sylvie some noodles. She used to like those. We’ve still got a whole case of them left.”

He tiredly made his way round to the deckhouse, trying not to look to the horizon. He didn’t want to see how close the pirates were. Better not to know. Then he could look at Sylvie without the terror of pursuit in his face. But it was difficult not to think about what they might do next. Would they fire on them again? Only next time it might not be a warning shot …

“Sylvie?” called Toby, entering the cosy warmth of the cabin. He’d brought in a couple of logs from the lobby and, carefully opening the door of the small pot-belly stove, popped them in. The stove was their only source of heat in the cabin, and it was his job to make sure it didn’t go out. From Sylvie’s hump of blankets, came a muffled sob.

“Sylvie? You all right?” he asked, going over to the bunk.

There was another little yelp.

He pulled back the layers of duvets and blankets to reveal a wild-eyed Sylvie, creased and crumpled with sleep. She grabbed at his arm.

“Toby! Oh, Toby!” she cried. “I was alone on the
boat and I called for you and Dad and Mum but nobody came! And something else was here. I could hear it growling and snapping above deck. I could hear its claws scratching at the door of the cabin. And it forced the door open and then I could see it was a huge black dog. It was slobbering, Toby. It was going to eat me!”

Toby took Sylvie into his arms and held her tight.

“It’s all right, Sylvie, I’m here. It was just a nightmare,” he told her. “It’s OK, Dad and I are here. The dogs can’t get on to the boat; you know that. They can’t get us here.” He soothed her, stroking her matted blonde hair with his sore hand, the bloodstained hankie still tied around it.

“Oh, Tobes! It was SO real! I opened my mouth to scream but I couldn’t. It was horrible. I was going to die!” she exclaimed.

“It’s OK, Sylvie, you’re not going to die. Dad and I are here to protect you. Nothing bad is going to happen. D’you hear me?” he said, pushing her backwards so she could see his face. “Nothing is going to hurt you, d’you understand?”

She stared with wide frightened eyes into his, clinging hard on to him.

“Now, let’s calm down,” said Toby, trying to feel in control, but it was difficult, knowing the dangerous situation they were presently in. He wished he believed what he had told her — that everything was OK, that
nothing was going to hurt her. But the truth was, he just didn’t know what was going to happen.

“Hey, why don’t we get Henry out to play?” he suggested. “He always cheers you up, doesn’t he?”

Sylvie rubbed her tear-stained face with the sleeve of her pyjamas, and tried hard to smile.

“Yeah, let’s get him out. He’s not been out for ages,” she replied.

Toby went into the utility area on the other side of the stove. There was a shower cubicle and toilet in a narrow corridor, and another door that led on deck. In the corner, by the shower, balanced on crates of bottled water, was a small plastic hutch where Henry lived. Toby opened the hutch door carefully and pulled out the furry bundle that was Henry. Cradling him in his arms, he took the rabbit through to Sylvie.

“Here,” he said, “make a lap for him.” Toby gently lifted the rabbit from his arms and placed it into the folds of the blankets on Sylvie’s knees.

The tawny brown rabbit wrinkled his small black nose at them and stared around. He looked comical with his large floppy ears drooping down each side of his head.

“Hello, Henry,” said Sylvie, smiling broadly. “How are you today?”

“Did you manage to get up and feed him earlier?” Toby asked.

“Yes, I would never let Henry go hungry no matter how poorly I felt,” said Sylvie indignantly.

“Good. I don’t suppose you felt well enough to muck him out, though?”

“Oops, sorry, Tobes, I forgot,” replied Sylvie.

Toby wearily went back out to the corridor and started to clean out the hutch. What could he say? Sylvie was sick and he was a lot older — six years to be precise. As such, he felt he had to help his dad shoulder some of the responsibilities. Cleaning out a rabbit hutch wasn’t such a big deal, was it? Compared to the pirates on their tail!

Toby stopped to listen to the pulsating sound of the
Lucky Lady’
s engine, coming from down below in the engine room. She seemed to have developed a
high-pitched
whine along with all the usual engine noises.

Oh great, that’s all we need to happen — engine failure! We’ll be like a sitting duck, as Dad says. Maybe I should go and tell him the engine’s not sounding too good?

Toby paused and thought about his dad’s likely reaction. He wouldn’t be too pleased, and what was the point of adding another worry?

After all, I might be imagining it — stress can do funny things to you …

Toby went back into the cabin, where Sylvie sat calmly stroking Henry and chattering away to the rabbit, who was happily chewing a tassel on the bedspread.

Toby went to put on the gas cooker at the back of the cabin. They had managed to find several large canisters of gas on an earlier foraging trip. An old croft down by the shore front, near Balmedie beach, had for some reason been full of them. Cooking on the solid fuel stove was tiresome and took ages. Toby much preferred the cooker, even though it meant him and his dad had had to lug the heavy canisters from the croft across the sands and down to the mooring, where they had struggled to lift them on to the
Lucky Lady.
It felt worth all that effort when they sat down to a hot meal together.

He made some noodles for Sylvie, boiling them up in a pan on the hob, and sprinkling the sachet of
disgusting-smelling
powder on to the wriggling white tubes. She had loved the sticky pasta when she was younger, and had eaten nothing else for months before their mum died. But since then she had eaten less and less.

Toby handed Sylvie the bowl of noodles.

“D’you want something with that? Might be able to rustle you up a wee drop of Heinz tomato ketchup. This is a classy restaurant. We only have the best here!”

Sylvie smiled and took the bowl, sniffing at its contents.

“And don’t go feeding it to that blinking rabbit, either,” Toby gently teased.

“No, sir!” replied Sylvie.

“I’m just going to have a quick nap. I’m knackered,”
sighed Toby, lying down on his dad’s bunk. It smelt of his dad: a warm manly smell of old sweat mixed with diesel oil. Toby fell asleep before he heard Sylvie’s reply.

Toby woke with a start. Something was wrong. What was it?

The engine had stopped. The
Lucky Lady
was no longer powering forwards through the waves. She was sitting silently, bobbing in the choppy waters.

Suddenly his dad burst through the cabin door.

“Toby!” he shouted. “Come quickly! I need your help — the fuel line must be blocked. The engine’s stalled and I can’t restart it. Come on! Don’t just lie there!”

Toby swung his legs down over the bunk sides and stood up, rubbing the sleepy dust from his eyes. He felt like he’d been kicked by a mule.

“Er … yeah, Dad, I’m coming. Oh, my head’s so sore.” Toby rubbed his head with his good hand. The sore hand was too swollen to touch anything.

“It’s cold in here,” remarked his dad, moving over to Sylvie to tuck her in. She was fast asleep with Henry, fast asleep too, tucked under her chin. “Can’t I even trust you to keep the fire in the stove? You know that’s your job.”

“I did … I put some logs on earlier …” stuttered Toby, but he knew there was no point in saying anything. As far as his dad was concerned, he had let him down again.
“Sorry …” Toby mumbled.

“Come on, get the stove cracking and then come up on deck and keep watch whilst I try to fix the fuel line,” commanded his dad. “That last lot of diesel we got from the croft in Balmedie must have been dirty. Some rubbish or other is bunging up the fuel line.” His dad bent over Sylvie, kissed her gently on the top of her head, and then left, yelling, “And put that darned rabbit back in its box while you’re at it!”

Within five minutes Toby had followed all his dad’s orders and joined him on the deck. The evening had crept up on them whilst he’d been sleeping and now the only light was the spotlight that hung off the deckhouse wall. It threw an eerie puddle of yellow on to the sea, which looked black and menacing in the darkness.

“Have we lost the pirates?” Toby asked his dad anxiously.

“Can’t be sure one way or the other. I can’t see anything out there but the wind has dropped again and there are banks of fog rolling in and out along the coastline just now, so they could easily be quite near us and we’d never know until they ran us down,” replied his dad.

“That doesn’t sound too cheery,” said Toby. “And now we’ve got engine problems. Great!”

“I might be able to fix the engine if it’s what I think it is,” said his dad, “but you need to keep an eye out for
any lights, and listen carefully. You’ll be able to hear an outboard on an inflatable boat for miles. My guess is they won’t want to bring the warship too near this coast. It’s too rocky and dangerous for a big boat. No, I’m sure they’ll launch an attack by dinghy.”

His dad disappeared into the deckhouse and Toby could hear him descending the steep steps down to the engine room under the cabin. Toby decided to check the rope and anchor that were keeping them steady. His dad wouldn’t be pleased if there was too much movement when he was carrying out the delicate job of removing, cleaning and restoring the fuel line to the engine.

He went to the stern and tugged at the rope. Good, the boat felt firmly anchored, now all he had to do was keep a lookout.

Toby stood and stared out into the inky blackness of the night. How lonely it felt to be in the middle of the ocean when danger was just around the corner. Now there were no emergency services you could pick up the phone to and ring. There was no one to save you from the bad guys — no army, no police, not even paramedics or doctors. They had been the first to go when the red fever had swept like a bush fire across the world. Toby could understand why the doctors soon succumbed to the infection; after all, they were looking after the first wave of sick people that flooded the hospitals.

But the army and the navy and air forces? How come they didn’t withstand the onslaught? You’d think they would have had procedures in place to protect them from things like a virus. Toby had seen lots of films in which soldiers ran around in protective suits with breathing apparatus on, maintaining some degree of law and order. They were the ones that stopped civilisation imploding into mass panic and mob rule.

Without laws and people to enforce them, would mankind revert to behaving like animals? The survival of the fittest. Toby had learnt that theory at school. Wasn’t it Darwin who first put it forward? He couldn’t remember, but what did it matter now? The fittest had survived, and on land that had turned out to be the dogs.

Ha!
thought Toby.
They must be laughing now, after all those centuries of doing man’s bidding: fetching stupid balls and chasing sticks, rounding up sheep and digging out lost climbers. The boot is on the other paw now!

“Toby!” His dad’s shout jolted him from his wandering thoughts.

“Yes?” he replied.

“Can you go into my small tool bag in the wheelhouse and bring me an adjustable spanner?”

“Going!” Toby sped as fast as he could to find the tool his father wanted, returning with it clasped in his hand. “Here you are …” He held it out to his dad who had
surfaced from the engine room, wiping his oily hands on a rag.

“D’you hear that?” said his dad in a quiet voice. “Listen.”

Toby stopped in his tracks and listened.

There it was — the distant rising and falling whine of an outboard motor attached to an inflatable dinghy that was bouncing off and on the waves.

His father flung himself at the light switch for the deck light and they were plunged into darkness.

“They’re coming!” his dad whispered fiercely. “We must hide!”

“Hide? Where? It won’t take long to find us on this little boat,” Toby whispered back.

“Not us! Hide the
Lucky Lady
! We must hide her!” said his dad, turning to release the anchor rope and tugging up the anchor.

“Where?” asked Toby.

“I stopped here for a reason. We’re near the Bullers of Buchan. There are loads of caves around here. We just need to get her into one.”

“Dad, the Bullers of Buchan — isn’t that a very dangerous bit of rocky shore for a boat to be near, especially in the dark?”

“All the better then — the pirates won’t want to risk

“And how are we going to get her into a cave?”

“You steer her, and I’ll use the dinghy to pull her. I won’t use the outboard motor; I’ll row. I don’t want them to hear us. The tide’s coming in; she’ll only need guiding once we get going.”

“You sure about this?” Toby asked anxiously.

“Toby, we’ve no choice. Now let’s get on with it.” With that, his dad hoisted himself over the side and into the small rubber dinghy which sat tied at the back of the
Lucky Lady.

OK, Toby, time to focus. Go to the wheelhouse and steer. That’s all you have to do. It’s that easy. Now go!
His heart was thumping loudly as he pulled himself up the steps and into the wheelhouse.