Chandin pushed the throttle forward and the motor sluggishly came to life. He spun the wheel to swing the boat near to them, then cut the motor to idle speed and drifted up alongside.

The white man said something in a choked, hoarse voice. It was English, and Chandin couldn’t understand. He could see that the man’s lips were cracked and his face was weathered and pale. The woman looked drugged, barely able to hold on to the side of the boat. How long had they been in the water? Ajith and Chandin leaned over the side and awkwardly pulled them on board. The big man tumbled on to the deck and lay there, contorted and shivering. The father and son were able to hoist the woman fairly easily and they leaned her against the netting in the bow. Both of them wore wetsuits and diving fins, which Chandin quickly wrenched off their feet.

“Ajith, water!” he instructed tersely in Tamil. Ajith ran to the cabin and came back with a full two-liter plastic bottle. Chandin took it from him and poured some into the woman’s mouth. She gulped at it and then gagged and vomited on the deck. “Himming, himming,” Chandin said in Sinhala, hoping she would understand. She nodded weakly and drank again, this time swallowing. Chandin did the same for the man, who had managed to pull himself next to the woman and prop himself up. He held the water in his mouth for a while before swallowing.

Chandin ran back to the cabin and pushed the throttle forward, bringing the old boat to life. He decided to risk the motor. These people were in rough shape. The bow wallowed at first, then careened up and over each successive swell. The shoreline drew closer and he could see men out raking the sand in front of the tourist hotels. As he neared the small beach just south of the point, he throttled back and, without pausing, motored through the cut in the reef. Normally he wouldn’t take it so fast, but he’d done this a thousand times and knew exactly where his hull would make it without scraping bottom.