Long Voyage Back (30 page)

`Roger, Macon. Affirmative. Are you sure it was a genuine Mayday? Over?'

Àffirmative, Avenger. Sounded real to me. Over.'

Òkay Macon. Avenger headed to Shackleford to provide assistance . .

'I'm going up and get us moving full speed to the rendezvous,' Frank said to Captain Olly.

'Keep listening.'

After Frank had disappeared up out of the cabin Captain Olly lowered his head to the radio. For a minute or so there was nothing. Then: `. . Avenger now only about three hundred yards off Shackleford. No sign of a vessel aground .. . Okay, Macon, we've got our light on a black-hulled fishing smack aground and partially submerged . . . She's taking a pounding . . . Moonchaser? . . . It's Moonchaser . . . No sign of men aboard. We'

re sending the small launch to investigate. Stay tuned. Over.'

As the seconds ticked away Captain Olly became aware of Vagabond beginning to pitch and smash into the ocean swells

as she rushed at full speed towards the inlet. He heard Frank say something loudly to Jeanne but couldn't hear what. Two minutes passed before the voice spoke again from the radio. `This is Avenger. There's no one aboard the Moonchaser, Macon . . . When was your last radio transmission from the vessel? Over.'

`Just before we radioed you, Avenger. Over.'

Another long silence ensued, broken once by Fort Macon Coast Guard Station asking Avenger if it 'read me'.

Àffirmative, Macon. I'm waiting for my launch crew to report . . Another silence. Captain Olly realized that Vagabond had slowed and become stationary again. She was pitching and slamming more steeply into the swells. They must be at the rendezvous point. After another minute, the voice: ' Avenger to Macon. Something strange going on here. Launch reports there's no radio aboard the Moonchaser . . . How could she send a Mayday? . .

Bewildered by the nightmarish suddenness of being pitched into the ocean and having the dinghy torn out of his grasp into the turbulent darkness, Jim had dived clumsily into the water and begun swimming in the direction the inflatable had disappeared. He took six or seven strong strokes and saw no sign of the dinghy when a rubber part of it bumped him in the back of the head as if teasing him. He grabbed a line on it just as another wave rolled indifferently over him. He found he could stand and, holding the dinghy and bracing himself for the next wave, called out into the darkness. Ì've got it! Over here!'

There was no answer and Jim could now see neither the boat nor Neil. He shouted again.

`NEIL! I've got it! Over here!'

`. . Jimmmm!' came an answering yell from off to his left and slightly closer to shore. Jim began struggling through the surges of water towards where the voice seemed to come from

and was startled when a huge fish splashed almost on top of him.

`Help me,' he heard Neil's voice say, and realized that the fish was Neil. He reached out with his free hand and grabbed hold of him. After a wave passed, Neil suddenly stood, choking and gasping for breath and clinging to Jim.

`My arm,' he said, grimacing. 'My elbow's killing me. I can't use it.'

The two men stood in three feet of water and braced themselves as another hill of water swept over them, slamming them a foot closer to shore.

Ì'll hold it now,' Neil gasped out. 'You get in. GET IN!' he shouted. In the ebb of a wave Jim quickly hauled himself over one side of the inflatable and plopped into the middle. It was filled with five or six inches of water. As he got on to his knees, he heard Neil shout: 'Start the engine!'

He turned aft and groped for the release lever that would lower the prop into the water. A wave smashed into the dinghy, jerked it sideways and spilled Jim against the left side nd almost out. He struggled up and groped again for the lever. When he found it, the engine fell with an abruptness that pinched his first finger and he gasped out a Frank-like oath even as he retrieved his hand and grabbed the starting cord. He pulled once but the engine didn't start.

`Start the engine!' Neil shouted again from somewhere in the water near the bow. Jim remembered the second time to pull out the choke and pulled again. No catch. Again. The engine sputtered and died. Again. No catch. Again: sputter, sputter - he pushed the choke in - roar: the engine was alive.

`Help me in!' Neil shouted, now emerging right beside the dinghy, one arm only over the bulge of inflated rubber. 'Grab the back of my belt!'

As Jim throttled down the outboard, another wave broke over them and smashed them into even shallower water. Neil

was then in only two or three feet of water and his whole torso now collapsed across the starboard side of the dinghy, permitting Jim to grab his belt and haul with all his strength to get him up and in. The next wave seemed to scoop Neil up and splash him down in the pool of the swamped inflatable. Jim shifted into forward and pulled out the throttle. The outboard roared and the dinghy exploded against the next wave, ploughing partly through it like a submarine rather than over it, then surged through fifteen feet of calm water before exploding through the next wave. Even with two men aboard and six inches of water, the boat was able to smash forward at four or five knots. Jim had no sense of direction except to get out of the surf and back into deeper water. Low in the plunging dinghy he couldn't see any channel lights and had only the vaguest idea of which way was west.

`Steer by the swells,' Neil shouted to him, kneeling beside him in the middle of the dinghy, one arm limp and held awkwardly in front of him. 'Keep them coming at you on the port beam.'

Jim had been heading into them but as soon as Neil spoke he realized that their destination of the other side of the inlet was simply across the swells at a right angle. He swung the dinghy to the right, squinted into the rain and spray, and steered at full throttle towards where he hoped to find Vagabond. A giant white eye suddenly peered at them from almost dead ahead, then swept away to the right. The Coast Guard cutter was coming directly at them.

`. . . strange going on here. Launch reports there's no radio aboard the Moonchaser.'

Captain 011y heard shouts from up on deck and felt something thud against one side of Vagabond.

Òkay, Fort Macon,' the voice from the Avenger went on. `We're leaving our small launch here to check ashore for survivors, but Avenger is now returning to patrol. Something's

not kosher about this. Over . .

Captain Olly hurried up the cabin steps and bumped into Frank scrambling across the wheelhouse to get to the controls and get Vagabond moving. Jim and Neil were visible in the darkness hauling up the dinghy into the starboard cockpit.

`Coast Guard's coming back,' he said to Frank, who simply gave him a wild look and put Vagabond into full speed forward. Neil stumbled into the wheelhouse and collapsed with a groan on the cushioned seat. Jeanne followed and knelt beside him, then called Macklin over.

Captain 01ly went to help Jim with the dinghy. He was pulling it off the open deck aft up over the cockpit seat into the cockpit. After the two of them had got it down into the cockpit Jim asked:

`Can we leave it here for now?'

`Sure. I'll lash it down,' Captain Olly said. 'Go help your dad.'

Jim took a long stride over the slightly squashed inflatable and went into the wheelhouse and stood beside his father. Jeanne ducked past them into the main cabin and then Jim leaned out to peer ahead into the rain.

They were motoring at full speed south along the western side of the inlet headed directly out to sea. They were already far to the right of the big ship channel and pounding into the steep swells that rolled directly at them. Jim's glance at the depthmeter showed it reading 'four feet' which meant they were in only seven or eight feet of water. Vagabond, with her dagger board up as it now was, but heavily loaded, probably drew a little less than four feet. There was a terrific slam and shudder as a big breaking wave smacked into all three hulls at once. Vagabond slowed seemingly to a halt and then surged forward again.

`Have we passed the point yet?' Frank shouted at Jim. `Look out your side!'

Jim stared out into the blackness off to his right, remembering that the point on which old Fort Macon and the

Coast Guard station were located was the last land to starboard before the open ocean. He thought he could see a few lights, probably the Coast Guard station, slightly aft of their starboard beam.

Ì see lights at about four o'clock,' he said to his father. 'I can't see anything directly abeam.'

Another breaking wave crashed into the trimaran, slowing her almost to a halt before she recovered and made good headway again.

`Two feet, DAD!' Jim cried at his father when he saw the depthmeter flicker at two feet, then zero, then three, then zero. 'Zero feet!'

White-faced and grimacing, Frank swung the wheel to bring Vagabond around towards the channel and deeper water, but also back towards the Coast Guard cutter. Ìt's just turbulence!' Neil shouted from behind them. `Does it stay steady at one or zero?'

he asked.

Ìt says "zero" now,' said Jim, frightened. 'And just occasionally a "two" or "three".'

It's turbulence,' Neil said, staggering up between Jim and Frank at the controls, Jeanne seeming to be trying to hold something against his arm. 'We should swing her southwest now. Away from the cutter.'

Ì'm not running her aground,' Frank said urgently, holding his course back towards the channel. He stared down first at the depthmeter, which fluctuated erratically between zero and now four and five feet, and then the compass, which showed them on a southeast heading.

`We're free, Frank!' Neil insisted, grimacing in pain. `We're out of the inlet. Head her southwest, even west. They'll see us if we stay on this course.'

Frank, frowning, his face, like each of the others, wet with rain and sweat, looked once briefly, fearfully at Neil. Àre you sure?' he asked.

`Head her west!'

`Six feet!' Jim announced.

Frank turned the wheel back to the right and Vagabond swung to starboard, first heading south, then southwest, where Frank straightened her. As they surged into the blackness, taking the swells now on their port side, Jim took a long look aft and saw the light sweep along the Fort Macon Point, then out towards them. A white eye blinded him as the wheelhouse filled with light, and then the light moved away out to sea. None of those standing in the wheelhouse spoke and Neil joined Jim in watching the subsequent movement of the light.

`They didn't see us,' Neil said quietly. 'Take her full west, Frank.'

Ì'll keep her on southwest,' Frank said, not looking at him. Ì tell you we're free!' Neil shouted.

Frank didn't answer.

`Five feet,' said Jim. All three men now looked at the depthmeter, which held at five feet for a few more seconds and then went on to six, seven, then ten feet. Frank eased the wheel a little to the right and slowly the boat swung more to the west until, after a half minute, Frank steadied her at 260 degrees, ten degrees south of west. Yet again the light, less bright now, exploded into the wheelhouse as the distant cutter swept the sea with its searchlight. Again it did not hesitate or return to Vagabond, which, at full rpm, sliced and ploughed away. For two or three more minutes the depthmeter read between ten and twelve feet, and then began climbing rapidly through the teens. Indeed, they were free.

WATER

Free. Except for the threat of radioactive fallout, of storms, of pirates, of their overloaded trimaran breaking apart, ofdeath by thirst or starvation or disease, of mutiny, of the antagonism that the whole rest of the world now felt against the white people of America and Russia, both of whom they blamed for the war, those aboard Vagabond were free to do as they pleased. They sailed south.

The war sailed with them. Although they increased their distance from the coast as they moved south, and the threat of fallout receded, its consequences in the bodies of Frank and Olly and possibly others remained. Frank looked much more haggard than anyone else, had lost ten pounds and was sick again after a three-day remission. Olly was 'better'

but still feeling 'poorly'. Even Neil still felt unaccountable nausea once or twice. Nevertheless, at sea after a whole day of adjusting sleeping accommodations, meal times and rationing, they settled into a routine. Their watches remained the same except that Katya sometimes spelled Lisa with Jim. Macklin and Tony were berthed together in the forepeak, Katya in with Jeanne, and Olly slept either in Neil's aft cabin or on the dinette settee.

Tony, in his big, bluff, self-confident way, had made himself thoroughly at home again. Although he spoke loudly the first day or two about his being forced to let his country down, after they heard a report about heavy radioactivity at Morehead City and the mass evacuation south of all who could move, he ceased to raise the subject. He flirted with both Jeanne and Katya, helping them in the galley more than any of the other males and turning out to be an excellent cook,

especially of fish - their principal food. He was also, Neil admitted to himself, the best all-around sailor of his crew.

Katya and Jeanne got along well together, and though Katya wasn't a cook she let Jeanne, Lisa and Tony instruct her. She was, as she had advertised, a good sailor and tough, usually volunteering to help with sail changes on any watch when she was awake. When Tony and Macklin began to come on to her she handled each of them in his own style. With Tony she was casual and playful; with Macklin quiet and direct. Neil never knew precisely what passed between her and Macklin their second evening at sea, but he saw him speak to her in the side cockpit with a tight smile, saw her flush and speak angrily at him. He sneered, said something back, and wandered quietly away. If Katya-was good at 'fucking' she apparently was in no hurry to prove it, at least with Macklin. Macklin himself rarely said or did anything to draw attention to himself. He blended in. On land he had stolen a case of canned fruit, a carton of cigarettes, and five six-packs of beer. Though the fruit was relegated to emergency rations, they worked their way through the beer at two a day, dividing it up and sipping at it as if it were a rare champagne. When asked where he had got these items he had simply shrugged and said he'd 'stumbled across them in some guy's cellar'.