Prologue
Can I Borrow Your Safety Harness?
I woke in the darkness, groggy yet anxious, to a sound I couldn't place. The usual cacophony of the bamboo cabin, flexing and creaking like a rabble of ancient rocking chairs, had ceased. Instead came a kind of muffled roaring.
Holding back a swill of fear, I groped for the few familiar reference points: the rounded bamboo roof beams; my spectacles hanging from a string; my life jacket used as a pillow; my harness hanging at the end of my bunk. Good: all there. It was 1:30 A.M. I lay there feeling the shift of my body against the safety rope, waiting to remember.
The noise was constant like radio static, yet swelling too, all around us, as if we were inside it. Familiar yet...
Something snatched at the canvas flap of the cabin door, flung it wetly open.
Rain. Torrential rain. A wall of rain so dense that the head which appeared, sleek and seal-like in the magnesium glare of a hurricane lamp, seemed to be suspended behind the glazed panel of an aquarium.
"Everybody up! We have an emergency!" shouted Phil, spitting raindrops into the cabin. Our captain sou ... read full excerpt from: 8 Men and a Duck: An Improbable Voyage by Reed Boat to Easter Island ebook
