The Outcasts by John Flanagan

under. But he resisted the urge and fought his way back to the surface. He roared aloud then, with the shock and the cold. The bucket was floating close by and he grabbed the rope handle, turning on his back and holding it to his chest, and kicking out with his legs.
    The bucket gave him buoyancy and he glanced over his shoulder to spot Stig. There he was! Five or six meters away. His struggles were becoming weaker. The heavy vest was now a death trap and the cold and the mouthfuls of seawater that he’d swallowed joined with it to take him under. His arms thrashed the water still in a desperate, clumsy parody of swimming. But his energy was all but gone.
    Hal swam up behind the exhausted boy. It was as well that Stig was so far gone, he thought. If he’d had more energy, he might well have dragged them both under. As it was, he was barely conscious. Hal thrust the bucket at him, pushing it against his chest.
    “Hold on to this!” he told him, burbling the words as water slopped into his mouth. “It’ll keep you afloat!”
    Instinctively, Stig grabbed at the bucket, wrapping both arms around it. He felt an instant surge of relief as the bucket took his weight and he realized he was no longer sinking. He heard a voice close by his ear.
    “Relax! Don’t struggle! The bucket will keep you afloat! Just let yourself go limp. Trust me!”
    Stig did as he was told. He was aware of something tugging at the shoulders of his sheepskin vest as Hal slashed away at the tops of the armholes with his fishing knife. Then the heavy, sodden garment fell clear and drifted away, sinking slowly, and he felt even lighter in the water.
    He opened his mouth to thank his rescuer. A wave promptly slapped him in the face and he swallowed seawater again, panicking as it choked him. He tensed up and began to struggle.
    “Shut up! Shut up and relax!” Hal yelled at him, feeling his body tense. And Stig heard him and obeyed again, clasping the bucket firmly to his chest.
    Hal studied the rocks where he’d jumped in after Stig. The waves were rising and falling more than a meter, alternately leaving the rocks bare, then flooding up and over them, smashing against them with enormous force and sending spray fountaining high into the air. If he tried to get Stig ashore there, the odds were good that they’d both be slammed into the rock face. There was even a chance that the precious bucket might be shattered. Their best chance would be to swim round to Hal’s secret fishing spot, where an offshore hedge of rocks broke the force of the incoming waves. It would mean a swim of more than a hundred meters in the rough sea, towing Stig. But there was no other choice. Hal felt a brief flicker of fear as he wondered if his own energy would hold out. One hundred meters wasn’t too far to swim in calm water. But the sea was rough and the water was brutally cold and energy sapping.
    “Putting it off won’t make it easier,” he said to himself. He seized hold of Stig’s collar and began towing him, swimming in a one-armed sidestroke, kicking with his legs and stroking with his free arm.
    The cold was eating into him as he cleared the point. He wanted above all to stop and rest for a while. They could just drift here, he thought. The empty bucket would support them both. Then he realized in a moment of clarity that, if he stopped, he would never start again. The cold was all pervasive. He couldn’t feel his fingers and toes. It was draining his energy away as his body tried to fight it. He shook his head determinedly and continued stroking, kicking more strongly in an effort to drive warming blood into his legs and feet.
    It would be so easy to stop and rest, he thought. So easy to doze off for a few seconds …
    “No!” he shouted. At least, he tried to shout. The word came out as a garbled grunting sound, cut off by another mouthful of cold seawater. He coughed, spluttered and kept swimming.
    Behind him, Stig was a deadweight. It seemed an eternity