by Sean Blaise
A shredded piece of jib flew past John's head in the tumult. The mainsail started to slide down now that the pressure was off, but the main boom was flogging violently back and forth.
“Sheet that sail in!” John screamed. Rick worked like a mad man on the line, hand over hand as Smith tried to catch up. Charlie was up off the deck, his head bleeding as he grabbed the sheet with Rick. Together, the crew started to gain control of the sail.
“Pull it down Amanda!” John barked.
Amanda climbed to the top of the deck cabin and grabbed fistfuls of sail and started pulling down with everything she had. She weighed nothing, so the sail wasn’t budging. Ben jumped in to give her a hand, and they began to make progress lowering the sail.
Beagle was now headed directly into the seas. Until they got the sail down John could go nowhere else, and he was not anywhere closer to Jack and Lubanzi. He looked at his GPS unit for the Man-Overboard marker and couldn’t even see it on his screen. He zoomed it out and was shocked at how far away the Beagle had traveled from where Jack had gone over.
“It's down!” Smith screamed through the gale.
“Hold on!” John shouted at Amanda and Wayland, as he pushed Beagle broadside to the enormous swells, getting the ship headed back toward the last known position.
“Smith work the radar. See if you can spot the rescue boat. Everyone else, look for those strobe lights!”
John knew the odds of finding Jack and even Lubanzi were getting shorter by the second. The odds were stacked completely against him and he knew it.
The storm was practically a hurricane at this point. Visibility was awful.
John felt fear creeping into his bones. He tried to shove it back, but it reared its ugly head, refusing to go. He had to find them.
Chapter 58
Lubanzi was a powerful swimmer. His large hands shoved the water behind him, and he was making progress even against the ocean swells.
The problem was the water that he was inhaling. Each wave waterboarded him and he was struggling to turn his head for a clear breath. The wind was creating so much sea spray that he was starting to choke.
He knew he had to stop and catch his breath. Lubanzi stopped and turned the back of his head to the seas and wind. He dragged in two massive breathes before he turned back into the swells and began stroking out again heading for Jack's light.
Lubanzi had no idea how long he had been swimming when he finally got to Jack. He grabbed Jack and spun him face to face. Lubanzi felt under his nose and thought he felt a whiff of a breath. Still, he was unresponsive. Lubanzi knew he could do nothing in the water to help him.
Lubanzi roped his right hand through Jack’s lifejacket as he turned around, looking for the rescue boat. With horror, he realized he had no idea which direction he had come from.
The ocean was completely disorienting. For a split second, he felt sheer panic. He tried to kick himself up higher for a better vantage, but his view was too limited. He had no idea which way to swim.
Lubanzi had to watch each sector of waves for a period long enough to spot a crest and a trough of that wave or he could spin around aimlessly and keep missing the boat. The problem was he had no directional reference. Or did he?
The wave crests were all being scooped off at the tops by the wind and being thrown away from the wind. That was his reference.
Lubanzi faced the waves and waited. He watched a single wave, through its trough and crest and saw no rescue boat light. He turned his left shoulder into the swell and watched the crest and trough again. No light.
He repeated the process, watching each compass quadrant for a sign of the rescue boat. Finally, he saw a flicker further away than he had hoped. He waited and watched as another group of waves passed until he was sure. The light strobed about 300 yards away. A good swimmer on a perfect day would find this easy but towing a body it was anything but.
Lubanzi grabbed Jack's jacket with his right hand, never taking his eyes off of the rescue boat's light. He knew if he lost track of it again, he was doomed. He made a mental note of the direction the boat was in reference to the swells. Then he stroked out hard with his left arm, kicking his powerful feet, dragging Jack through the ocean.
His arm burned from the strain and his heart was beating faster than he had ever felt before. He was lucky, the submerged boat had plenty of drag so the ocean swells weren’t moving it as fast as Lubanzi was even though he was dragging Jack. He was clearly making progress toward the boat. He knew it wouldn’t be long now.
Finally, Lubanzi got alongside the capsized rescue boat. Now came the hard part. He grabbed Jacks's arm and pushed it through the rope on the side of the boat, holding him in place. Lubanzi used his grip from before and was able to pull himself back onto the submerged boat’s bottom.
He then laid down on his stomach over the bottom and grabbed Jack’s lifejacket with both hands. He pulled like he had never pulled in his life dragging Jack onto the boat’s keel and then he collapsed. Lubanzi struggled to catch his breath but he had no time to waste. He stood over Jack and began to check his vitals again. It wasn’t an illusion Jack was still breathing.
Lubanzi now looked around for Beagle. It was nowhere in sight. He grabbed the lifejacket light that he had attached to the rescue boat and wrapped its lanyard around his wrist.
He then grabbed the light from Jack’s lifejacket. With the two strobe lights in his hands, Lubanzi stood up and began waving them at his full height, in no particular direction. If John was out there, he would see it.
Lubanzi had no idea how long he had been waving the lights, when he thought he saw something in the rain. He wasn’t sure but the rain was flowing differently around it. It was something big.
The object exploded from the rainstorm, lights blaring, and huge waves falling off of its massive bow.
Lubanzi said a prayer as he looked up at the massive oil tanker barreling right toward them.
Chapter 59
“I found something!” Smith screamed at John from the radar station in the chart room.
“The rescue boat? What’s the heading?”
“No it’s not that. Much bigger, I think it’s a….”
John didn’t need Smith to finish that sentence. He saw the massive ship himself heading not a mile off his starboard bow. The tanker was shrugging off the massive ocean swells as if they were nothing. It was going to be past Beagle without ever seeing her.
John knew this was his one chance to at least get Beagle's position reported to the rescue authorities and get some word out to the school about their situation. But he had a more pressing issue, finding his crewmembers.
“Charlie, arm the SARTS now! The ship should see that. Then, get back on that radar and find me Lubanzi! Amanda, do you see anything? Does anyone see the rescue boat?”
The students shook their heads no.
John was just blindly heading back toward his original Man Overboard GPS marker now, with no reference to Lubanzi’s current location.
Charlie grabbed the Search and Rescue Transponders and turned them on. Now, on oil tanker’s radars, a very distinctive 12 dots would appear on their screen pointing to Beagle’s location. The problem was, someone had to be looking at the radar screen on the ship to see it.
“Let me go up the ratlines and see if I can spot the rescue boat,” Rick offered.
The last thing John wanted was to put someone up the rig in the storm, especially since they no longer had the mainsail to hold the ship's motion down. But Rick was a rock climber of some note and John desperately needed a lookout with a higher vantage point.
“Do it, clip your harness into every step.”
Rick rushed to the starboard side. He climbed outboard of the safety rail and clipped himself in. He began to climb. The easy rope ladder was no match for the cliff climber, and he was up the rig in record time.
John watched as the boy scanned in every direction from his vantage point up the mast. He knew he still had to slow down the oil tanker
, the more eyes looking for Lubanzi the better.
John knew that he was already writing off Jack as lost, but he couldn’t help it. The odds were so stacked against him now. John snatched the VHF radio off its cradle and tried to call the oil tanker.
“PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN this is the school ship Beagle to the passing oil tanker. We have two men overboard. We are conducting a search can you assist over?” John shouted into the radio.
The only response was radio static. John pressed the mic again and repeated the radio call. Still, no response. John looked at the VHF radio screen when he depressed the mic. It displayed that the radio was transmitting. There was no way the ship was not receiving his call.
He hoped now that some lazy third mate onboard the tanker, hadn’t turned the volume on the radio down too low to hear it. The oil tanker kept on its current course, never altering. It occurred to John that there was another way to get their attention.
He flipped the small, red plastic cover up and depressed the DSC Distress button. The radio would now set off an alarm on the oil tanker’s VHF radio regardless of its volume that an officer would have to manually acknowledge in order to kill the alarm. And the alarm was piercing, it couldn’t be ignored.
“PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN.” John began again on the radio again. The ship still showed no indication it was receiving the call. The alarm should have been acknowledged by now. It didn’t make sense.
John looked up and realized what the problem was. When the ‘fisherman’ sail had torn itself to pieces the heavy wooden block had taken out the VHF antenna which was located on the mainmast. That meant the VHF radio on the helm was now useless and not transmitting any signal at all.
“Smith, grab the flare gun! And get my handheld VHF out of the cabin. Hurry!” John shouted. Smith raced back down to the chart room.
Just then, Rick screamed from the mast, “I see him!”
John looked in the direction that Rick was pointing and saw strobe lights waving back and forth in between the massive swells.
John turned Beagle toward the strobes and hammered down on the engine pushing for Beagle to go faster.
Once he was on course with the strobes directly off his bow, he realized suddenly that he was now on a collision course with the oil tanker.
Chapter 60
Lubanzi mouthed a silent prayer.
The tanker was headed right for the overturned rescue boat. Lubanzi started waving like a madman hoping the massive ship would see the strobe lights in his hands. But he knew there was little chance over the ship’s huge bow.
“I thought I was dead,” Jack said dazed and staring up at Lubanzi.
Lubanzi turned, never stopping his hand waving. “Jack you’re awake thank God. I need you to be ready to swim again soon.”
“What why?” Jack asked, sitting up.
Lubanzi turned back and faced the ship. Jack’s eyes got massive as he saw it for the first time.
“Oh fuck!”
On its current course, the ship would run them directly over, most likely flipping the rescue boat into the ship’s massive propeller. There was little chance they would survive it. The tanker was heading at an enormous clip toward them.
Lubanzi knew they were running out of time. Their best bet was not to try and swim away from the ship but to hold on to the rescue boat for dear life and hope it missed them.
Just then, Lubanzi remembered that the rescue boat was always stocked with flares, in case Beagle sank and it became a life raft. He also knew he had almost no time.
“Jack stand up! Keep moving these strobe lights, like I am.”
“Wait what are you going to be doing?”
“Jack, stand up now. No questions!” Lubanzi shouted.
Lubanzi handed the strobes to Jack, as Jack unsteadily stood. Lubanzi ripped off his lifejacket, knowing he couldn’t dive under the rescue boat with it on. The flares were in the center console of the boat which was now upside down. He dropped his lifejacket on the deck and dove back into the water.
Lubanzi swam under the rescue boat's tube. He could hear the massive churning sound of the oil tanker’s propeller through the water. He felt a cold shiver, thinking about what it would do to them.
Lubanzi popped up in the air pocket underneath the rescue boat and swam toward the overturned center console. He worked the latch holding the console door closed and swung it open.
A paperwork box floated free as well as other junk that had been stored in the console. Lubanzi dove down into the console compartment, looking frantically for the orange flare box. He spotted it and grabbed the waterproof box as the oil tanker’s propeller churned ever louder in his ears.
Lubanzi burst back out from underneath the rescue boat. Jack was swinging his arms like a madman with the strobes. Lubanzi could see the ship even closer, it was nearly on them. He knew there was no time left.
He wrapped his arm through the rescue boat’s tube lines to steady himself and swung the flare box open. He grabbed the gun and fumbled to put a shell into the gun with his shaking hands. He looked up and could see the bridge of the colossal ship now. It was going to be to0 late. He raised the gun into the air and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 61
The night sky turned a brilliant red. Lubanzi nearly put the flare directly through the oil tanker's bridge window. He could almost imagine the level of shock the helmsman had experienced when his entire window was turned bright red as if a nuclear bomb had gone off.
John spotted the flare and could now clearly see the rescue boat in the flares glow. The strobes had never stopped waving and John couldn’t believe there was a chance that both men were together.
Smith threw the handheld VHF radio at John. He switched the battery powered radio on.
“PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, oil tanker alter course to Port to avoid man overboard. Oil tanker hard over to Port now!” John commanded.
There was no response but Lubanzi’s flare had done the trick and maybe John’s direct instructions had helped the large tanker’s reaction time. He heard the large ship's General Alarm begin ringing as she made a clear port turn.
The ship had a massive turning radius, but John hoped that even if the bow struck the rescue boat, the massive stern and more importantly the enormous suction of the ship's propeller would be moving away from the rescue boat, avoiding them.
Lubanzi fired another flare shell for good measure. The sky was lit up and he could barely see the helm anymore now that the bow of the tanker was over them.
“Jack, lie down and grab the lines!” Lubanzi screamed.
Jack dropped down to the hull, and reached each of his arms out, grabbing the tube lines. Lubanzi reached with his right arm and wrapped it a few more times for good measure, repeating the process with his left. He could hear the ship's alarms overhead, and he heard the massive onrush of water from her bow wave.
John lost sight of the rescue boat as it disappeared in front of the ship. Their only hope was if they were on the port side of the ship, since its massive turn to port was pulling the propeller away from them. If the rescue boat was riding down the starboard side of the ship, the prop was going right toward them.
John altered Beagle hard to port as well, turning away from the direction that the ship was now heading to avoid their own collision.
“Tanker this is sailing ship Beagle, altering hard to port. Our man overboard is in front of you.”
“This is tanker, Korol’ Volk. We are altering to port. Will reduce speed and help with the Man-Overboard search. PAN-PAN received.”
John knew that Beagle was still the quickest way to get Lubanzi and Jack back on board, if they even made it. It would take the tanker miles to circle and slow. John pushed Beagle’s bow back toward the tanker now, seeing that they were going to clearly miss each other.
Lubanzi felt the rescue boat being lifted on the bow wave of the oil tanker. The force was nothing short of titanic. He looked up at the tanker now completely blotting out anything else t
hat he could see. There was an eerie calm, as the large ship blocked the storm momentarily.
Lubanzi looked at Jack, laying on the hull. Jack had his eyes closed. Lubanzi couldn’t blame him, there was no point in seeing it coming. But he couldn’t bring himself to close his own. The sound of rushing water was deafening. Lubanzi looked straight up to see the ship's massive anchor, now directly over their heads.
The rescue boat was picked up like a rag doll and began surfing down the bow wave of the ship. Lubanzi screamed as he felt his arms nearly ripped out of his sockets as he struggled to maintain his grip on the tube lines.
The rescue boat crashed into the side of the tanker’s hull as the ship moved past. Lubanzi felt the massive suction caused by the ship's bulbous bow’s passage.
It felt like the Kraken had both of Lubanzi’s legs and was pulling with all its might, trying to drag him into the depths. Lubanzi was no longer wearing his lifejacket. He knew if his arms gave out, he would never come back up. He prayed for strength as his knuckles went white, holding the lines. Then it happened, his left shoulder dislocated. The depth of pain he felt took his breath away.
He almost let go, but the bow suction’s relented, just as the rescue boat traveled down the port side of the ship. Lubanzi could now hear the massive sound of the ship’s propeller. Lubanzi closed his eyes. It was over.
He never saw the rudder hard over away from him, pushing the ship’s propeller away and past the rescue boat. Once the massive tanker was past, Lubanzi felt the storm again in earnest. They were no longer in the lee of the ship and the storm still wanted to claim its prize. Lubanzi knew he couldn’t hold on much longer.
Chapter 62
John spotted the overturned rescue boat as it came clear of the tanker’s stern.
“Smith get the spotlight on them and don’t lose them!”
