Simon was under the sail. The sail and the sheet were all around him, and for several he could see nothing. The 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 boar 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 them, put his mouth over hers, and blew into it. He