The Other Side of Nowhere Read Online Free PDF

wildly. I watched on helplessly as his arm slipped between its spokes and was pulled down with a violent jerk. He screamed and fell to the deck, clutching his shoulder.
    Then, above the chaos of the storm, we all heard it – a long, tortured squeal as something tore at the hull. The stern lifted high out of the water and shifted to the side and when, abruptly as it began, the noise stopped, we had rotated almost 180 degrees. The giant waves were now coming at us from behind.
    The Dolphin was a sitting duck, and in a split second a wall of water rose up behind us in a humungous, quivering mass. With a cruel roar, its crest heaved over, picking up The Dolphin like a piece of driftwood and pitching her sideways across the face of the wave. An avalanche of white water surged into the cockpit, smashing me backwards into the guardrail at the stern. A searing pain shot through me as the wire pressed deep into my back. But that wire was the only thing between the sea and me. I reached around, tightening my hands around it. We were rolling.
    A shrill, hysterical scream pierced the roar of the storm. As everything turned black, I realised it was mine.

Like a sock in a washing machine I was spun through the icy water on the drag of The Dolphin ’s capsize. Just as it felt like my lungs were crushing, the yacht completed her roll and somehow I found myself still within the cockpit, my hands locked to the guardrail wire. As the yacht righted herself, a torrent of gurgling water rushed away over the sides and threatened to pull me into the angry sea. I roared back and tightened my grip despite the searing pain. As the sea drained off the deck I could see the others – soaked, stunned, gasping for air – but alive.
    George was gripping Matt’s life jacket with one hand and the guardrail with the other. She blinked furiously to clear the water from her eyes and managed a bewildered nod as if to say, ‘We’re okay’.
    The same couldn’t be said for Nick. He was lying on deck, gripping the wheel fiercely with his good arm. The sinews on his forearm were standing out like rope from the strain of holding on so tight. His face was screwed up and his eyes were half shut. It was obvious he was in a world of pain.
    After a quick check to make sure there wasn’t another wave bearing down, I let go and stumbled towards him, grabbing hold of the wheel with one hand and his leg with the other.
    ‘Nick, you okay?’ I called above the wind.
    ‘My shoulder,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘It’s stuffed.’
    He was slumped over, but even on that angle I could see that his right arm was hanging lower than normal, and looked limp. Too scared and confused to think straight, I turned to get George. She’d know what to do. ‘Can you hold on while I check on the others?’
    He grunted.
    I made sure he had a steady grip on the wheel with his good arm and then slid across the lurching deck to where George and Matt had tucked themselves up against the cabin. That’s when I noticed that the force of the capsizing had snapped the mast clean off and wrapped it around the side of the boat in a tangle of rigging. I had to duck under a snarl of wire and rope to reach George and Matt. George was still clinging to Matt’s jacket, her white knuckle grip so tight it looked as if she might be strangling him.
    ‘Are you okay?’
    ‘I think so,’ George said, her whole body trembling.
    ‘What happened?’ I asked, remembering George’s yell just before we were hit.
    ‘Not sure. But there was something … something in the wave,’ she said, shaking her head as if struggling to understand what she had seen. ‘How’s Nick? What’s wrong with his arm?’
    ‘It’s his shoulder … and it’s bad.’
    ‘What are we going do?’
    As if I had a clue. ‘I was hoping you’d know.’
    But George’s face was a blank. ‘God, I don’t know. I guess we have to make sure Nick’s all right. I mean, he’s the only one who really knows what to