Red Fever by Caroline Clough Page B

now?”
    “Yep, we’ve just enough fuel and supplies to get back now,” he replied. “You finish off here. I’ll get us out of here.” He pecked Sylvie on the cheek, and dashed from the cabin.
    “Are we going home now?” asked Sylvie, snuggling down her bed.
    “Yeah, won’t that be great?” replied Toby. “I’m worn out by all this excitement. I want to sleep for a week in my comfy bed.”
    “What were those men doing?” she asked.
    “Oh, just having a bit of fun, I suppose,” said Toby. “Come on, let’s get you out of those pyjamas. They’re filthy.”
    Once he’d made sure Sylvie was clean and comfortable, Toby went up on deck to talk to his father. His dadlooked hollow eyed and sunken faced. The tension of the last few days had taken its toll on him, and he looked a lot older than his forty years.
    “Can we risk going home?” Toby asked him.
    “We’ll have to,” he replied. “We can’t keep this up. It’s too stressful for all of us, especially Sylvie. We need to get home and get some proper sleep and food. Anyway, the chickens will starve if we don’t go back soon.”
    “D’you think the pirates will come looking for us?”
    “I’m not sure,” said his dad. “They may be more interested in what they can scavenge from Peterhead now. It looked like there was still a lot of stuff lying around. There may be some fuel left in the big tanks up by the breakwaters. And there’s probably some fuel to be siphoned out of all those little boats in the fishing harbour. Depends how desperate they are.”
    “We’re not far from home here, are we?” asked Toby.
    “No, not far at all.”
    “Dad,” blurted Toby, “do you think Sylvie has red fever?” He just had to ask; he’d been worrying about it so long.
    “Let’s not talk about that now, son,” sighed his dad. “Let’s get her home. We’ll be there soon, don’t worry. Now, tell me about what happened in the harbour. A pirate saw you — and he didn’t let on?”
    “Yes, it was weird. He could have told the others I was hiding under the tarpaulin but instead he told me he’dhad a son once and then warned me to get away from the others — said they were trouble. Why do you think that was?”
    “It just shows that people get involved in some terrible things when they’re desperate to survive. Sounds like he’s not a bad man — he’s obviously lost his son.”
    Toby told his dad about how scared he’d been when the boats started bobbing around and he thought the Lucky Lady was going to be crushed.
    “You did well to get us out of that scrape, son, but we still need to be on our guard. You’d better go and keep watch.”
    Toby went out into the afternoon sunshine and scanned the horizon. He watched the waves foaming beside them as the Lucky Lady cruised across the harbour and out into the ocean. It was a beautiful sunny day. It was hard to believe that the world could be such a dangerous place on a lovely day like this. The boat swung right under the headland where the tall white prison building stood. There was no sign of the dogs. The boat struck out towards the cliffs at Buchan Ness. It felt good to have the sun on his face and the wind rippling his hair. He really must get his dad to cut it; the long straggles had reached his shoulders. He went inside to get his woolly hat; even on a sunny day the sea breeze made his ears tingle with cold.
    Back on deck, Toby watched his dad expertly handling the boat as it scudded across the sea.
    “Dad?” Toby asked. “What happened to all the prisoners in the jails when the sickness came?”
    “I’m not sure,” answered his dad. “I suppose they died like so many did. Any infection would spread like wildfire in a place like that. I heard various stories at the time. Horrible stories, I’d rather not repeat.”
    “D’you think a lot of them escaped?”
    “I don’t think so, Tobes. The government put the country into a state of emergency quite quickly, and the army took over