He entered the water. It was savagely cold. It pulled at his ankles, sand shifted under the tidal drag. How deep was it where Clayton laired? Not over a man's height: Clayton was planning to get Corinna also, he'd have to come back ashore without wetting his gun too much. Not that a brief soak would disable a well-oiled automatic. But he would first lure Kintyre to him, if he could. A man struggling through chest-deep turbulence ought to make an easy target.
Kintyre strained eyes into the fog. He could just see the fortress rock as a shadow, fifteen feet high at the peak, forty feet long, Gibraltar-shaped. Breakers hurled against its seaward flank. This was a rapidly sloping bottom. The depth on Clayton's side was hardly over four feet, but it might be ten at the western end of the rock.
Kintyre waded straight out until a wave hit him in the face. He kicked off his shoes and swam.
His bad arm gave him saw-toothed pain and reddened the water. He used his right, a side stroke. The undertow grabbed him and yanked him outward. He wrestled to stay afloat. A comber went over him. Briefly he was in a remembered darkness.
He drank salt fear, threshed to the wave's top, and spun down into the trough behind it. A chill seething had him. It bawled in his ears. He knew himself empty of strength and hope.
The sea battered itself upon the earth, recoiled, laughed, and reared back to gallop in again. It was like the beating of a maul. A ship, a man, a girl could be crunched between wave and stone until ribs broke across. Kintyre strangled in a noisy wild night. He was spewed up again for a moment, scornfully. Spray sheeted in his face. The cold drained him, he could feel how warmth ran out. The sea rolled him over and toned in his skull.
Somehow you could swim, he thought. It was only to keep going. Though all the world were smashed on a reef, you could keep going. And there could be victory.
He saw the rock face shine before him. The waves pounded him against its roughness. Fog smoked in his eyes. He let the sea upbear him, and took its anger, while he fumbled about. His fingers closed on something, a handhold. His toes sought beneath the surface.
He pulled himself out.
For a little while he lay on the sloping stone back. The tide covered his feet. Life returned in some measure. He sighed and began to climb.