River Odyssey (12 page)

A short distance from the sub I climbed onto the shoal, and that brought me standing up to my waist. When I reached the cat, I was up to my chest. Probably I should have gone back for the dinghy then, but the shore was so close, and surely it would get shallower soon.

I took hold of the cat, which wasn’t easy because I had to hold it above water and its fur covered my face. And still it meowed! It kept trying to climb on top of my head and it was hard not to get scratched. I made my way towards shore. It did get shallower but I had to watch my step. Several times the rock beneath my feet gave way to mud. I kept turning around to see the sub, which was hard to spot in the foggy air, as it was just the portal jutting up a foot amongst a few scattered rocks. Once or twice I had the impression the sub had shifted its position, but figured that was just my imagination. The fog blocked my view completely a few times but I was almost at the shore. The water was only up to my knees now. The cat never stopped meowing and I felt like throwing it from there, but I thought of Sheba, and how pleased she would be that I had rescued a cat. If we hadn’t sailed by, it would have drowned.

I reached the shore finally and put the cat down, but not before it scratched me trying to jump out of my arms. It disappeared the moment it touched ground. What a relief! I turned around. The fog had thickened again. As I started back, I felt uneasy. I should have stretched rope as far as possible towards the shore when I came in, as a guide. I really hadn’t thought things through. All I could do now was retrace my steps and look for the same stones. But the fog covered everything. I tried to walk straight out, but once I was just a few steps from shore the fog concealed so much that I couldn’t use the shore as a guide. It was important to stay calm, but that uneasy feeling was growing in my stomach. I reached waist depth again, then chest depth and I thought I found the rock where the cat had been, and felt encouraged. I went to waist depth once again and to the end of the shoal. Where was the sub? I felt confused. Which way was the current flowing? Had it changed? Where was the sub?

I searched through the fog. I climbed on rocks and tried to see through it. The river wasn’t visible and neither was the shore. What a sickening feeling that was. I didn’t even know which way was shore.

“Don’t panic!” I told myself.

I made it back to the rock where I had found the cat. Now I was pretty certain the current had turned around. It was stronger now, even in the shallows. I felt a breeze on my face. The wind had picked up with the tide. Maybe it would finally break up the fog. Gradually, it did, and it revealed my worst nightmare. The sub was gone.

I FELT SICK.
I was in shock. When the river turned, it was as if I had been pushing a cart uphill and it suddenly got away from me and was tumbling back down. It would take five and a half hours for the tide to flow out, all of that water rushing back out to sea. The thought of the sub lost in it was too overwhelming for me, and it took me a while to really understand what was happening. For a couple of minutes I just stood there and stared, while the fog continued to break up. I was waiting to see the sub appear. I turned my head from side to side expecting to see it at any moment and realize, oh, that’s where I left it.

But that never happened. As the tide went out, the river began to pick up speed. It pulled the water from the shoal into the current. The river had never filled the shoal completely, and now it was going to empty it. The cat had indeed wandered out in low tide, and if I had left it alone, it would have just walked home the way it came. I might have realized that if I hadn’t been so tired.

I broke my trance and jumped into action. Although the sub had been swept away, it wouldn’t have travelled far yet. I crouched down and looked carefully down the surface of the river for any rises but couldn’t see much through the fog patches. Had the sub gone completely under? Different images raced through my head. Probably what happened was that the current pulled the sub sideways and tilted it because it was tied to the rock. As it tilted, water spilled inside. Then, the rope slipped from the rock and the sub started to drift. As soon as the sensors on the floor picked up water rushing in, the hatch shut and sealed automatically. Hollie and Seaweed had gotten wet but were fine. I felt certain this was what happened, exactly like that.

I jumped into the water and began to swim downstream. It was a desperate thing to do but I felt that the sub wasn’t far away, and maybe with a little luck I would find it. It didn’t take long to realize what a foolish idea that was. The current was so strong I could hardly even swim with it; it just pulled me where it wanted me to go. And I was so busy fighting it I couldn’t look for the sub.

“Come on!” I yelled to myself. “Find it!”

With a lot of effort I managed to get back to the rocky shallows, pull myself up and make my way to shore. It was exhausting. But at least I was on dry land now. I could run along the bank and try to spot the sub.

That was very hard and very discouraging. Not only was the fog hanging around still, but the sky had darkened. It was going to rain. And though I was on the beach, there was no road beside the water. Farther east there was. I had seen it. But for now, I had to run along the rocky shore, and sometimes amongst trees and bushes.

And then, I thought I saw it. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I did. The water that poured into the sub must have pulled it down, and then, after the sump pumps removed that water, it rose again, but not quite to where it had been. There was also the current to account for. It could easily make the difference of a foot or so in the sub’s buoyancy. In any case, I thought I caught a glimpse of the top of the hatch in the growing choppiness. And if I had, I had an idea of how fast it was moving. I would have to run to keep up.

Inside the sub Hollie and Seaweed would be fine. I knew they would be sitting on their spots, well, except that Hollie’s blanket would be all wet, and Seaweed probably had hopped onto my cot. Hollie would be on it too, if the water had reached that far, but I couldn’t imagine it had. He could have climbed onto my seat though, or the bicycle seat. Hollie was a very smart dog and he was a survivor. The bigger danger was that the sub would collide with another vessel, especially one sailing upriver, especially a large one, like a freighter, that would not be able to turn quickly and would assume that the vessel heading towards it would swerve first. That was my biggest fear.

The only thing going in our favour at the moment was the fact that we had been sailing so close to the south side of the river, at least a mile from the main traffic area. But that would change when the sub approached the city once again, five miles downstream, where the river narrowed briefly to just half a mile wide at the bridges. Then, it narrowed once again at Levis, six miles farther downstream, then veered north a tiny way, then split in two, with the sail-able part of the river making a very sharp right turn and the rest of it flowing straight on into the shallows north of Isle-de-Orleans. The sub would never make that turn on its own. It would drift north until it struck bottom somewhere in the shallows and would be exposed in the low tide. But that’s only if it didn’t collide with another vessel along the way.

I ran along the shore and climbed over rocks and mud and went up and down hills and around tiny inlets but never caught another glimpse of the sub. Then, I found an old buoy. Running into the water as far as I could, I threw the buoy with all my might. The river grabbed it and pulled it along. Now I had something with which to gauge the speed of the current. Now I would be able to tell if I were keeping up with it.

I wasn’t! The shore was twisting around too much and it was too hard to run fast enough. I was growing more exhausted and feeling sicker in my stomach all the time. There had to be another way.

I reached a small road that ran alongside the river. The buoy was out of my sight now. Along the road were a few houses. Between two houses I saw a fence. Leaning against the fence was a bicycle.

I had never stolen anything in my whole life. I stared at the door of the house. It didn’t look like anyone was home. I thought it over quickly. I could run to the door and bang on it and wait for the owner to come out. Then, they might speak English and they might not. I would have to explain to them that I needed to borrow their bicycle but would bring it back. Why did I need it? To catch up with my submarine. Who was going to believe that?

I ran across the yard, grabbed the bicycle and jumped on it. As I rode out of the yard I heard someone come out of the house and yell after me. They chased me into the road and continued yelling. It was the first time I truly
felt
like an outlaw. Even then, I promised myself I would return the bicycle if I could. The truth was: I would do anything to save Hollie and Seaweed.

I raced down the street as fast as I could, and I
was
fast on the bike because of all the pedalling I did in the sub. My legs were very strong and I could pedal for hours if I had to, even when I was tired. But I was expecting somebody to come chasing me with a car. And they did. I also expected the road to swing away from the river and it did. But that worked in my favour because I kept going straight, right across the fields and through a wooded area, until I reached another street. There were little pockets of neighborhoods here and there, then nothing between but fields and woods. But eventually the road veered closer to the river. That’s where I knew they might catch me. They would call the police for sure. I was hoping to reach the bridges first. If I could get onto one of the bridges, I’d be able to spot the sub drifting below.

Two bridges crossed the St. Lawrence River at Quebec City. They lay side by side at the narrowest point in the river, just west of the city. I had seen them just that morning on our way up the river. The one on the downstream side was older, one of those big iron trestle bridges that you can see for miles and miles. The other one was just a long, flat concrete slab. Both were high above the river, too high for a person to jump from without getting killed. But the trestle bridge had iron arches that curved downward into the water. I had seen them clearly enough, even through the fog, and figured it was possible to climb down to a height from which I could jump without getting killed. I mean, it would be dangerous but it was possible.

I reached the road beside the river and I saw the buoy! Farther down the river the trestle bridge was barely visible. The sky was darkening and the fog was turning to heavier mist. I could feel it was going to rain.

I knew I was pedalling faster than the current because I passed the buoy easily. The sub couldn’t be more than half a mile ahead of that. If I could just reach the bridge, I’d have time to see it pass beneath. Then I could climb down the arches, jump into the water, regain the sub and rescue my crew. It was a good plan. And then, I heard a siren.

The road followed the river until the last two miles or so, when it veered to avoid a wooded area. I saw a trail enter the woods and I took it. As I disappeared into the trees I turned around and saw the lights of a police car on the road. Yikes! Had they seen me?

Where the trail came out of the woods was another neighbourhood with lots of streets and houses. I pedalled as close to the river as possible. The bridges were closer now. So was the wail of the police siren. They must have seen me enter the woods and guessed where I’d come out. If they caught me they would surely arrest me, and I’d go to jail, or at least some sort of correctional centre. I tried not to think about it. Nothing was going to stop me from trying to rescue Hollie and Seaweed.

The police car was racing through the neighbourhood. Sometimes its siren grew louder and sometimes fainter. They were searching for me. Probably they just thought I was trying to hide. Luckily they didn’t know where I was heading. I decided that if they saw me now, where they could easily catch me, I would race to the river and jump in. They would have to call rescue boats then, and that would take a while, and that would buy me some time. But my chances of finding the sub like that were pretty slim. I needed to get onto the bridge.

As I came to the very end of the last neighbourhood before the bridge, and rode to the end of the last street, I saw the police car pass in the other direction just one street up and heard its engine race after we passed each other. They had seen me. But they had to reach the end of that street, turn down one block and race up the street I had just crossed. That would take them at least half a minute. I raced onto the grass that led to the last wooded area. I jumped off and ran with the bike through the trees, where I found a dirt road. I climbed back on the bike and followed the road down and around and under the first bridge. I heard the siren again. The dirt road continued to the second bridge, the trestle bridge, and ended there. I jumped off the bike and ran up the hill to where the highway went onto the bridge. It was a steep hill and I was so out of breath my lungs were burning. But I couldn’t allow them to catch me now.