The Bailer – Leonie Dyer

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

He bails water with his hands for two days and two nights to keep his family alive. His body is blistered and broken but he works without pause, one eye on his wife and babies and the other on the horizon, scanning for safe ground or a rescue vessel.

He bails as the navy ship approaches, over and over again as they lift his young daughters up on deck and with wild eyes he sees his frantic wife carried off and over the edge to join them. He scoops and heaves the relentless flooding water and watches as the others are lofted over the bow to safety. He fights and claws at the dark water until his exhausted body is finally on deck where the dark curled hair of his daughters meet his skin and his wife breathes in the salty relief of him, for now.

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