"I don't care! Run them over if you have to! Just speed up!" Robert shouted at the crew.

He turned and spotted Roderick. He tried to put on a sad face. "Darius crashed his boat."

Yes! He was making it! Who knew it would be so easy to just swim instead of relying on some big dumb boat?

Edwin hurried on, swimming frantically towards the finish line. One boat had already passed it and the rest were surely catching up, but- oh, had the clouds suddenly drifted over the sun? He turned his head to check.

Nope. Nope. That was the shadow of a big dumb boat.

He opened his mouth to yell, but the sound gurgled out in the water as the Carrington boat charged ahead and pushed him under.

“I-” Mehmet stuttered, “I didn’t miss!”

“What a shame,” Roderick said, approaching.

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. Could he do this?

Third place was not so bad as the fact they’d narrowly lost to the men of her family … but, they had still chopped past a fair amount of boats!

She pumped her arm after they crossed the line, then turned to look out at the others.

Oh, dear! Just in time to see that boat run clear over some fop! Her mouth went from open with awe to gaping with horror.

The lifeguards had finally dispatched. In their departure … Anita slunk onto their towel and drank their beer, watching placidly as the disastrous race reeled on.

She saw the rich boat clip over one of the men and winced, then took a swig of beer. Hope that wasn’t Harry. Where was Harry?

There was chaos in the water. Their second place might not have been a prize winning victory, but he had been proud of the accomplishment for all of two seconds before he realized. Seeing the closest was a man who was trying to swim to the finish line get pushed under by a ship, he jumped into the water. He dove towards the nearest victim. He hoped someone would save the man who'd been struck by the buoy tossed by the first place ship.

He made it to the spot just as the ship passed, searching under for the man though it was hard to see in the chilly waters. He managed to find him and tug him to the surface hoping it was in time as he gasped for air and checked to see if the man was still breathing, worry filling him that he'd been too late or the strike to the head had already done the damage.

There was so much going on. It was chaos and brought back nightmares of his days at sea. He still grabbed onto the boy and had him cling to the man's shoulders. "Hold on like your life depends on it." He told the kid, as he grabbed the bleating goat. An old man was fruitlessly trying to swim to them, but he had bigger worries as the other old man on the boat went under after being hit by one of his own crew. He would have glared at the man, but it was clearly an accident with good intentions.

He found the floating buoy that had done the deed and got the boy to hold onto it, and left the goat to swim in place helplessly as he grabbed the unconscious man who was floating towards the surface. This was so much to handle, he was looking for the lifeguards , thinking they were so useless. Truly, this sort of thing didn't happen every year but accidents must occur!

As he surfaced with the man, he grabbed the boy to hold on and tried to grab the goat as well. At least they weren't struggling too hard, now it was just trying to get to the pier before some other boat in their hurry just ran them over.

Christine watched in shock at the goings on. She wanted to celebrate their third place, but barely managed to call to the others to stop the ship. What was it? Drop anchor? Whatever worked.

She heard a woman near her gasp, and turned her head. She didn't know her but had been brought in by Cheri. "Don't look." Christine tried to sound somber and say it quietly, but perhaps it came off cold. She stared, wanting to see if they were brought to safety, like happy endings did exist, but it kept looking like it would get worse. What if the other boats coming up didn't stop or try to avoid them. Or the lifeguards didn't act quickly enough. It felt like there'd be a black mark on this year's regatta.

Turns out, getting run over by a yacht really hurt.

But what a story!

Oh, it was almost as exciting as the time he was chased out of a soiree by burly men with guns, or the time he (allegedly) set that fancy opium den on fire! Edwin thrashed about beneath the darkness of the water, having released the flotational device in the chaos of it all.

In the instant he felt something grab him, Edwin latched on. Was this even more exciting? No one had ever helped him escape from the sight of angered gunmen, that was for sure. He sputtered and coughed as he was pulled to the surface, clinging onto his savior for dear life.

“O, sweet siren!” Edwin exclaimed, only to be interrupted by a forceful cough. “Let these waves not- kghkh- still by beating heart,” another cough.

“To shore!”