Authors: Tom Wright
As we walked around the topside, I stopped to admire a large bank of solar panels and two medium sized wind turbines.
Alastair noticed my interest. “Keeps the lights on and the wine room cool but it is not much for propulsion.”
We entered the galley, the final stop on our tour, and made the acquaintance of Alastair’s shipmate as he sat at a table, sipping a tumbler of some sort of doubtlessly expensive liquor.
“May I present to you, Mister Rowland Finlay the fourth, Esquire?”
Jeff and I introduced ourselves, after which he nodded and replied: “Charmed, I’m sure.” He conspicuously refrained from extending his hand for a shake, which was fine by us.
Rowland Finlay was a short, pudgy, balding man in his late fifties. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, which fit so tightly against his face that the skin around his ears closed up over them, nearly to the point of obscuration. He had a penetrating air of superiority about him.
“I suppose Alastair has told you quite a bit about me,” said Rowland. “Did he say that I drink too much?”
“Rowland, bloody please!” shouted Alastair. “Are you already buggered up?”
“Such a foul mouth for a man with your breeding, Alastair.”
Jeff and I stared cautiously at the two. They sounded like husband and wife.
“Rowland was my attorney and subsequently became my business partner. We splashed out in your American stock exchanges during the internet craze and let us just say that we overstayed our welcome. We exited too late and really fagged our investors. It was time to get out of town as neither of us was welcome there any longer. We decided to retire and sail the seven seas, and now you’ve found us here in sea number two.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Rowland deadpanned, as he hiccupped and chuckled to himself. He took another pull from his tumbler, hiccupped again, and then excused himself. “Dreadfully sorry,” he said.
“Now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries behind us, what’s all this talk of a virus?” Alastair asked.
We told them what we knew of world events. Alastair was shaken by the news, but Rowland seemed unfazed.
“Well, let’s have a look at your engine,” Jeff said, hurrying things along.
“I’ll show you to the engine room,” Alastair said.
“Actually, let’s start at the bridge,” Jeff said. “I’ll need a quick look at the gauges first.”
Alastair looked nervously at Rowland and then back to us.
“Very well then. This way.”
He led us up to the main deck and then through a narrow doorway which lead to the main bridge. Jeff turned the key, and the engine rumbled as it turned over. I turned and watched as exhaust bubbled and sputtered from the stern. After about a half dozen cranks, Jeff stopped. He tapped at a gauge.
Jeff turned to Alastair and began: “Have you….” then he trailed off.
Jeff looked at me, and I saw the fear in his eyes. He immediately spun, drew his gun and pointed it at Alastair. Alastair jumped.
“You’re just out of fuel,” Jeff said.
Just as I began to go for my own gun, I felt steel press against the base of my skull. Even in the tropical heat, it felt cool.
“Indeed we are,” Rowland said from behind me, holding his gun to me. Jeff spun and pointed the gun at Rowland.
“Ah ah ah,” said Rowland, clicking back the hammer.
Jeff spun back to Alastair. “I’ll shoot him.”
“I don’t bloody care!” shouted Rowland. “But I’ll bet you care if I shoot your friend.”
“Rowland, please!” said Alastair. “I knew this was a terrible idea. Just let them go.”
“Shut up!” replied Rowland. “All we want is your fuel.”
“But the RY runs on gas. The Horatio is diesel,” Jeff said.
“Excellent point!” said Rowland. He pressed the gun into far enough into my skull that it hurt. “We’ll take your vessel then.”
“Lower your gun or I’ll shoot him,” Rowland said through gritted teeth.
We were at a stalemate, but the house usually wins in the end. Jeff stared at me. I tried to signal him with my eyes. I wanted to drop to the deck and have him shoot Rowland. I didn’t think Rowland could act fast enough, but I couldn’t be sure Jeff understood. If he didn’t, I could get myself or Jeff killed. I shook my head to indicate that I did not want him to lower his weapon.
I felt Rowland readjust his grip on me and then switch hands on the gun. It was now in his left hand. He used his right hand to frisk my right side. I suddenly realized that he was right handed and acknowledged the moment with the gun in his weak hand as my chance—perhaps my last chance. I thought about my family and the jeopardy Rowland was putting them in. I instantly hated him more than I imagined possible. Realization, terror, and resolve swept through my mind in a split second. Time slowed, and I saw everything with great clarity. Colors brightened and sounds separated into their component frequencies, as if to allow me to process each individually. The stream opened to me, and I acted.
I lowered my head slightly away from the gun and grabbed his right hand with my left. With my strong arm free and his strong arm subdued, I wheeled around, swinging my elbow with every ounce of energy I had.
The gun went off. I felt a blast of heat on the back of my head, but knew immediately that it had missed. My elbow landing squarely in the middle of Rowland’s mushy face. I focused on the sensation as his cartilage ground and popped under the force of my elbow. His glasses shattered on his face and splintered into his eyes. Rowland tumbled back against the bulkhead. I grabbed his gun hand with my right hand and directed it away from me. It went off again, harmlessly over our heads and through the roof of the Horatio.
I marveled at how much time had slowed. I turned square to Rowland as blood began to spurt from his mangled nose. I pounded Rowland’s face with my left fist, and blood spurted and splashed across the controls of the bridge. I heard the crack of his cheek bone. I hammered away on him until he slumped to the floor in a bloody pile of fat and silk. He lay motionless.
Time sped back up; sound recombined; the present returned to normal. I turned, ready to repeat the feat on Alastair, if required.
Alastair stood shocked, Jeff’s gun still trained on him.
“Jesus!” Jeff said.
I took Rowland’s gun out of his limp hand and stuck it in my waistband.
Sonny ran in, gun drawn and soaking wet. “I heard shots!” he yelled. He looked at the pile of flesh known as Rowland lying on the floor. “Christ! What is going on?”
“Back out,” Jeff said calmly to Sonny.
“Please, I beg of you,” said Alastair. “Take me with you.”
“We came over here to help you, and this is what we get?” said Jeff. “I should shoot you dead. But then I’d be no better than you. We’ll just leave you here to suffer alone.”
I went over and checked Alastair for weapons. He flinched in fear as I began to frisk him. He had a gun in his jacket pocket. I took it.
Sonny backed out, followed by me and then Jeff.
Alastair tried to follow us out, begging for help. Jeff shoved him back down the stairs.
We rode their zodiac back the RY. Alastair slumped into a chair on the deck.
Once aboard the RY, Jeff shot through the rubber of the zodiac and set it adrift, as air squealed out. Sonny and I watched the Horatio as Jeff pulled us away from Wake Island. Alastair never moved from the deck, but sat with his head bowed.
My left hand began to hurt, and I held it up. Blood ran from my knuckles onto my forearm. I picked a shard of glass from one knuckle and threw it over the side.
“When did you start taking martial arts training?” Jeff asked me.
“I don’t know where that came from,” I replied. Actually, I did, but no one would believe it.
1
0
DAY 7 AT SEA, 183 MILES NE OF WAKE ATOLL (GPS POSITION: 21.0°N, 168.7°E)
Being on the ocean during the doldrums is a very strange sensation. The sea is like glass. If left to its own devices, the boat barely moves, which is great for sleeping, but terrible for making headway. Large cumulonimbus clouds grow in all directions, their mirror images reflecting in the still water. The clouds spew drenching downpours and occasional lightning whilst they live and die in virtually the same spot, no prevailing wind to drive them elsewhere. As each storm collapses, it sends out a brief gust of wind in all directions, a faint ghost representing the energy it once contained. Where the gusts from storms collide—an outflow boundary intersection it is called—new storms form. And so goes the cycle of convection in the doldrums. Many survivors adrift at sea have told stories of rain showers taunting them as they drop their life-giving, fresh water within sight but usually just out of reach of the withered, dying spectators.
We must have been in an unfavorable current because in the two days after we left Wake Island, we averaged just over three knots. We should have been able to motor at nearly twice that. At that agonizing pace, it would have taken another two months to reach the Pacific Northwest.
Our inability to contact our families was tantamount to psychological torture. Under such duress, the mind can conjure up all kinds of horrible thoughts. As I observed my mind in action, I wondered if I should be concerned at how easily I could imagine the abduction of my children, the rape of my wife, and murdering the people that did those things. I had had fleeting thoughts in the past which I found offensive, but they were becoming more frequent. I wondered where such thoughts came from and whether they should worry me.
I sat on the bow of the RY, my legs dangling but too short to touch the water, and I watched the reflections of the various cloud formations in the placid water. There were no winds to rough
en the surface of the ocean, but the bow of the boat bobbed rhythmically as it cut through the gentle swells from distant storms. My eyes observed the scene, and some part of my brain appreciated the beauty, but the majority of my consciousness worked on other problems.
An ominous storm bubbled dead ahead. Small ripples in the water occasionally distracted me, but the convection was so intense that even through the reflection, I could sense the upward motion. Certain things will draw a person out of a thoughtful trance. Lightning is one for a meteorologist—for most people, maybe. This time it was a rainbow that made me look up, its reflection almost certainly not as good as the real thing. It was a big, beautiful double-rainbow, and while not far ahead, I knew that due to the physics, or rather optics of it, we would never reach it. Sometimes science just takes the fun out of things.
I thought about my grandfather. He grew up during
World War I and endured the Great Depression and he knew hard times. He was a slender but strong man with poor Scandinavian Farmer arms that looked like long levers operated by thin elastic bands under the skin. The skin on his leathery, gaunt face hung and waddled in places but otherwise concealed no fat underneath. He ate well and despite his tireless labor—or perhaps because of it—he was still fully capable of working his farm even in his late 80s when he died.
He was smart but entirely uneducated in an ivory tower sense. A whiz with all things mechanical—out of necessity most likely—he could take apart a motor and put it back together in a few hours. I had helped him do such things
many times. “There ain’t nothin’ what can’t be solved with a little good old American engine-uity,” he frequently told me.
Despite his deep religious devotion, I credited him with sparking my interest in science. I found it fascinating how a man with such little education could know so much about the world. He inspired in me an obsession with understanding things, especially the world around me.
While he was proud of my interest and ability in science, he worried about the negative effect it was having on my “spiritual learnin’.” Of course, as a good Christian he felt obliged to impart his divinely inspired wisdom on me whenever he got the chance.
“I know from
readin’ the Old Testament that God sounds like a mean sum-bitch!” he’d say. “I just wants ya to keep looking for him is all, boy. Even when he don’t seem to be around nowheres, keep looking. Cause I spoze that a man can stand before God and at least say he looked best he could and still come up with nothing. That’s got to be better’n not having looked a’tall. A man’s just gotta do his best. If he done his best, what else could he a done?”
Truth be told: I never stopped looking for God because of science, but it forced me to look in different places. I resisted
my Grandfather’s religion, preferring instead the methods I learned in science courses. Grandpa knew all about that too. “Them scientists cain’t splain how your dad knowed you was lying in the ditch stung by bees just in time to get ya to old Doc Taylor when you was four, or how I know the rain is coming without any a them fancy computers, or how sometimes I’m thinking of an old friend I ain’t seen in twenty years, and then he all of a sudden shows up at my door. Now can they?”
A bolt of lightning brought me back to the present again. I automatically began counting: one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand—boom! Four-fifths of one mile. The flash reaches us instantaneously, but the thunder takes five seconds for every mile. Once again, we were the tallest thing on the open ocean during a thunderstorm. Just then, the bow swung to starboard as Jeff turned to avoid the storm.
“No thanks! Not again!” Jeff yelled to me.
“Agreed,” I said.
Observing that the storm was several miles wide and that we would likely be unable to avoid it unless we turned completely around, I continued: “We’re still too close. It’s less than a mile.”
I started to move back toward the helm when I felt my skin tingle and the hair on my neck stand up—both signs that I was near one of the storm’s leaders. A leader is one of the many channels a thunderstorm opens between the cloud and ground over which current can travel. The lightning that we see is just current traveling over whichever of those leaders is the path of least resistance.
“Did you see that?” Jeff yelled.
“No, but it was close.”
“Close? No, not that. The main bolt was to port, but a spark went up from the mast about a thousand feet into the air.”
“St. Elmo’s Fire!” I yelled back.
“What is?” Jeff asked, looking around frantically.
“A coronal discharge created by the electric field,” I replied.
“Oh, St.
Elmo’s Fire. Yeah, I know.”
“What did you think I said?”
“Something’s on fire.”
We continued to try to motor around the storm, but it was no use as the rain closed in around us. We set up the tarps designed to catch fresh water and divert it to the storage tanks. We had to bring them out each time it rained rather than leave them out, because we didn’t want salt building up and tainting the catch.
There were several more strikes nearby, but the lightning abated as the storm started to rain itself out. In the world of meteorological observing, a thunderstorm technically ends fifteen minutes after thunder was last heard. To real people in the real world, a thunderstorm is over when it, or the cell that produced it, gets the hell away from you.
Twenty minutes had passed and our fresh water tanks were overflowing, so I started to fold up the tarps. That was when the storm delivered its parting shot, directly to our mast. The flash blinded me for an instant, and while I did not see the actual strike, I did see tendrils of current crawl along the deck radially away from the center of the boat. I jumped to avoid the current, which was ridiculous in hindsight, since I could have never reacted fast enough to make any difference.
It took about ten seconds for my eyesight to return and my brain to begin processing external stimuli again. Curiously, I do not remember hearing any thunder from the direct hit, but I do remember wafts of hot air—like when you open an oven door—as well as the smell of fresh photocopies—the ozone created by the strike. The air was completely silent except for the falling rain. I realized that the engine had stopped running. Then I smelled smoke followed by the sound of a discharging fire extinguisher. When the smoke cleared and all of my senses returned, I saw Jeff standing dazed over the engine compartment holding a spent extinguisher. Sonny who had been sleeping below, was at his side, equally stunned.
I had never been struck by lightning before, but I assumed it would entail a great deal of pain. I took inventory of my body and noted nothing of concern. Jeff had already emerged from his daze and was trying to restart the motor. I asked Sonny if he was all right, and he indicated in the affirmative.
“Most of the electronics are fried,” Jeff said. “In fact, so far,
all
the electronics are fried. I can’t get any response from the motor.”
“Oh shit!” Jeff exclaimed, suddenly remembering something. He hastily descended the stairs into the cabin.
Sonny went in right behind Jeff, and I followed.
Once below, we saw what worried Jeff—water entering the boat from somewhere in the galley—probably under the sink—and from the head.
Jeff ripped past us and grabbed his swim goggles from the counter. He entered the storage area in the bow and proceeded to rifle through a metal box. He pulled out a couple of what looked like small fittings and a hammer and went topside. Before Sonny or I could determine what went wrong, or even ask, we heard the splash as Jeff entered the water.
We heard some muffled tapping on the port underside of the boat and after about thirty seconds, Jeff surfaced, swam around the stern to the starboard side, gulped some air and plunged under again. More muffled tapping and then Jeff surfaced and started treading water, gasping for air.
Through the driving rain, Jeff yelled: “I think I got them all. Go below and see if you can see or hear any water running—any leaks.”
Sonny and I both went below. Having realized that the lightning either blew out or melted some or all of the plastic drain cocks, we quickly checked all the places where they might be found.
After we told Jeff that the boat was no longer technically sinking, he tried to climb back aboard, but he was exhausted. Sonny and I pulled him over the gunwale, and he slumped to the deck. After a few seconds of panting, he sat up and threw the hammer, and it skittered across the deck. He cursed.
Sonny moved to the helm and tried to start the engine. It didn’t even make a sound. He picked up the radio mic and held down the button. Nothing happened. He flipped the switch to the flood light. Darkness.
“Don’t bother. We’re fucked,” Jeff said, with the calm voice of a madman.
“It’s just a short,” Sonny said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Yep. We only have to go through a thousand components and about five miles of wire,” Jeff replied.
I sure as hell didn’t know what to do. Sonny leaned back against the bulkhead and stared out over the ocean.
Jeff looked at me, then Sonny, then back at me. His face changed from anger and fear to worry. Then his face changed back to normal. He stood up and proclaimed: “Well, the compass will still work—it’s not electronic. Anybody know which way North America is? If we can get some damned wind, everything will be fine.”
I was glad to see our captain return, but we were in the doldrums and I knew it could be weeks before the wind came up again.
Jeff moved to the helm and began fiddling with wires.
I went below to lie down on my bunk. I felt defeated. After a few seconds, the fly landed lazily on my belly. I raised my hand, sure that I finally had him, and began to swing, but then I stopped. He just sat there, facing me, hundreds of little eyes locked onto mine. He looked like a little violinist as he rubbed his front legs together. I wondered if that made a sound that only he could hear. Maybe he's playing Beethoven, but only he can hear it. I wished I could hear it.
“You know, you don’t have much longer to live either way,” I said to the fly, wondering if I had already gone crazy. “I know that you only live about a month.”
I raised my hand again and stopped again.
“All right fine!” I said aloud as I shooed him away gently. “Just stay off my face and my food,” he lumbered slowly into the air, barely avoiding my hand. I could have killed him easily.
My grandfather popped back into my head. For some strange reason, a particular conversation with him pressed forward in my mind—a tirade against technology. He was incensed when the bank teller told him that he didn’t need his bankbooks anymore because everything was electronic. He wondered out loud: “what if the ‘lectricity goes out? How the hell is they spozed to know how much money I had in ‘ere if’n it weren’t written in my bankbook and stamped by the teller? Why, they might tell me I had none and whose ta say differnt?” Then he went on to rail against that “crooked sum-bitch Wilson” and how it used to be that our money was backed by gold and “a fella coulda gone down to Fort Knox and turn in that paper for real gold.” “Nowadays,” he lamented, “when you got a dollar alls you got is a promise from the government and, why, if you put a cracker (his word for a cow pile) in one hand and a dollar in the other, I’d take the cracker, cause at least it’ll fertilize the garden!”