دنیای سبز

CHAPTER TEN

Greenworld

Two days later Christine and Simon arrived at John’s house. It was very early - five o’clock in the morning - and they didn’t knock at the door, or try to wake anyone up. In fact John wasn’t there; Christine knew he had gone to Scotland to see Mary. He was coming back on the morning of the Enquiry.

Christine and Simon walked quietly down to the boathouse by the river. Without talking, they put the boat in the water, and sailed away across the river.

On the other side of the river they met two friends, Peter and Susan. Their friends were wearing white clothes, with Greenworld written on them. Simon and Christine also put on white clothes. Then they all got into the boat and sailed upstream, towards the paint factory.

It was a windy morning, and the waves on the river were quite big. But Christine was a good sailor, and in about half an hour, they reached the factory. Two photographers stood by the river, taking photos of them.

‘OK, Simon, where is it?’ shouted Christine.

‘Over there, look - in front of that post!’ he said. Christine sailed the boat towards the post. When they were near it, they could see under the water. It was the pipe that took the waste products out of the factory.

‘OK, here!’ shouted Simon. Christine turned the boat towards the wind, and Susan caught hold of the post. Then Simon and Peter climbed out of the boat into the water.

The water was moving fast here, and they had to hold onto the pipe and the boat. Peter then took several strong paper bags out of the boat. The bags were small but very heavy, because they were filled with building cement. Peter passed the bags one at a time to Simon, and Simon went down under the water and pushed each bag into the pipe. A few minutes later the mouth of the pipe was full of bags of cement.

Simon came up out of the water for the last time. ‘It’s OK!’ he shouted. ‘We’ve done it! The cement is wet already, and in a few hours it’ll be as hard as a rock. Nothing can come out of that pipe now!’ The two men climbed back into the boat and smiled at the photographers. Then Simon stood up in the boat with Christine, and held up a long white sheet. On the sheet was written: GREEN

WORLD

This pipe kills seals!

At that moment two things happened. A man ran out of the factory, shouting angrily. And the wind suddenly became stronger. It caught the sail and sent it quickly from one side of the boat to the other. The back of the sail hit Christine hard on the back of the head. She fell into the water, like a bag of potatoes. Then the wind caught the sail again and threw it back across the boat. This time the boat fell over on its side and lay with its sail under the water.

Simon was under the sail. The sail and the sheet were all around him, and for several seconds he could see nothing. Then he came up, into the air. He saw a foot kicking hard in the water beside him. Someone was moving under the sail. Quickly, he went down under the water again, and tried to help Peter. But Peter caught hold of Simon, and pulled him under water too. There was a quick, frightening fight, and then Simon managed to pull them both up, into the air again. They held onto the side of the boat together, breathing deeply.

Simon saw Susan holding onto the back of the boat. Then he heard someone shouting. He looked behind him and saw the man from the factory. He was shouting and pointing downstream. But Simon had water in his ears, and at first he couldn’t hear the words very well. Then he understood.

‘Look!’ the man said. ‘The girl! She’s drowning!’

Simon looked downstream, where the man was pointing. He saw something white, floating, far away. It was not doing anything, just floating round and round, like a bag of old clothes on the water. Christine! The river was taking her quickly downstream, towards the sea.

Hurriedly, Simon began to swim after her. He was a good swimmer, but the white clothes slowed him down. He swam as fast as he could, but he seemed to go slowly, so slowly. The water seemed heavy, and held him back. For the rest of his life he would dream about that long, slow swim, towards a white body that floated quickly away in front of him.

At last he reached Christine. She was floating with her face down, unconscious. He tried to turn her over, but it was so difficult. She was heavy, and her arms fell back in the water when he dropped them. He got her face out of the water but her head fell backwards, lifeless, and she was not breathing. He caught hold of her face then, put his mouth over hers, and blew into it. He rested, and then blew into her mouth again, and again. Nothing happened.

He looked around him. They were in the middle of the river, moving quickly downstream. Here, it was about twenty-five metres to the bank, but about two hundred metres downstream a second river came in from the left. The bank was further away there, and the water moved faster. Simon was tired, and afraid. It had rained last night, and there was a lot of water moving downstream to the sea. The strong wind blew little waves into his face.

He began to swim on his back, pulling Christine towards the trees on the bank. He swam for half a minute, then stopped, and blew four times into her mouth. Once, he thought he saw her breathe, but he couldn’t be sure. Her face was very white, and he had no idea if her heart was beating. The river was taking them quickly to the sea.

He swam harder, kicking strongly with his legs. Nearer - only five metres to go now. But the bank was moving past very quickly. There was a tree near the bank. Its branches were low over the water. Simon kicked hard, caught the branch, and held onto it. The water tried to pull him away. He took a deep breath, and blew strongly into Christine’s mouth again. And this time, he was sure, she took a breath by herself, afterwards.

It took him nearly five minutes to pull her on to the bank. When they got there, he put her on the ground, breathed into her mouth again, and then felt for her heart.

At first he couldn’t find it - his hands were too cold. Then - yes! - it was beating.

For another five minutes he helped her breathe, until he was sure she could do it by herself. Then he began to shiver. The wind made his wet clothes cold on his body. He wondered what to do. Then he looked down, and saw that Christine’s eyes were open.

‘Chris,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

She said something, but very quietly and he could not hear it. He lay down, and put his arms around her, to keep her warm. He could feel her heart beating, and her body breathing under him. Simon began to cry.