Captain Riley (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 1)

by Fernando Gamboa

  “We have an aft wind of over twenty knots,” Riley shouted, “which is just what we need. So all we have to do is build a sail to take advantage of it, and we’ll get the extra two or three knots needed to get to our appointment on time.” He gave it a few seconds to sink in. “Any questions?”

  No one said a word until Jack walked over to Riley and smelled his breath. “Are you drunk?” he asked, taking a step back.

  Riley’s expression changed when he realized they were silent because they couldn’t believe what he’d said.

  “I’m being serious,” Riley said, his tone as grave as his face. “We have the materials and capability, so unless someone has a better idea, we’re going to do it.”

  “Capability?” Jack asked doubtfully. “Who? How? With what material? Are we smuggling sails that I don’t know about?”

  Everyone else seemed to be waiting for Riley to prove he hadn’t gone crazy.

  Instead of being angry that they doubted his judgment, Riley walked calmly to the middle of the deck and put his hand on the neck of the crane. “This will be our mainmast,” he said, knocking on it. “Then all we have to do is use a spinnaker to make best use of the wind.”

  “A spinnaker?” Elsa asked. “What’s that?”

  “A large sail used to harness the full power of the wind. We’ll fix one corner to the base of the crane, another to the top,” he said, pointing up, “and the third we’ll tie to a rope that we can use to move and control the sail.”

  “And where are we going to find this spinnaker?” Jack insisted.

  “Nowhere. We have to make it ourselves.”

  “But . . . how?”

  Riley smiled. “With needle, thread, and fabric, Jack. Mostly lots and lots of fabric.”

  After resolving a few doubts, the crew went back to the superstructure with the mission of gathering all the fabric on the ship, from the sheets to the smallest scrap of cloth.

  One person stayed outside next to Riley. She stood covered in a blanket with her long black mane blowing in the wind, scrutinizing him.

  “I never thought,” Carmen said finally, “that the cynical, jaded Captain Riley would sacrifice himself for people he doesn’t even know.”

  “They’re my countrymen, and they’re innocent.”

  Carmen snorted. “You think no one is innocent, and since when does country mean anything to you?”

  “Maybe I’ve changed.”

  She seemed to consider his response. “Does this have something to do with what happened on that hill outside Madrid? A way of settling the score? Clearing your conscience?”

  Riley was about to deny it and say he would never put their lives at risk for something so absurd, but he realized he’d be lying if he did. Carmen was right, and she’d figured it out before him.

  “Thought so,” she said.

  “You’re right,” Riley admitted, dropping his shoulders. “I’m fooling myself . . . but maybe, just maybe, somehow what’s happened in the last few days has made me rethink some things. Maybe I’ve realized I can’t refuse, even though I’ve tried, to take sides in this war, where being neutral is supporting the fascists.”

  “‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,’” Carmen said.

  Riley was stunned to hear the Edmund Burke quote coming from her.

  “What’d you think?” she asked, frowning. “I don’t read books? I fuck all day and that’s it?”

  “God. No,” Riley said immediately. “I’m just impressed you memorized the quote.”

  “Yeah . . . of course.”

  “I’m surprised you decided to come with us,” Riley said, trying to correct the course of the conversation. “I never saw you playing the role of heroine.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then why didn’t you say no?”

  She gave him a questioning look. “Would that have done anything?”

  “Of course. That’s why I asked everyone.”

  “No, Alex. You asked us so you can keep a clear conscience and not add any more deaths to your count. Tell me, would you have turned back if I’d asked? If all of us had?”

  Riley hesitated before answering as the light rain turned heavy, though neither of them seemed to notice. “No. The truth is I wouldn’t have.”

  “Well, there you have it,” she said. “You know your crew, including the two passengers, would give their lives for you and would follow you wherever you take them, even if it’s stupid and suicidal. You knew it, Alex, even if you weren’t conscious of it. I’ll let you decide if you’ve taken advantage of that or not.”

  Then she put the blanket over her shoulders like a cloak and headed toward the cabins.

  When he realized how right she was, he felt a shiver run down his spine and the hair on his neck stand up. It was the same feeling he’d had on that tragic evening in the Jarama River Valley. A black wave of guilt and remorse came over him, larger and darker than those hitting the bow. His breath caught on a lump in his throat as the faces of all the boys in the Lincoln Battalion marched before his eyes. He was seized with the irrepressible desire to take refuge at the bottom of a bottle of bourbon, the only place he felt safe from ghosts.

  Then Carmen’s voice suddenly reached him. She had stopped at the entrance as if she were waiting for him. “If it helps to know,” she murmured, barely audible over the coming downpour, “I’m proud of you despite everything.” He saw an unexpected smile on her face.

  Through one of the holes in the bulkhead, Riley could see the dim light of the gray dawn painting the sky and revealing the white foam of the crests. It seemed the low-pressure center was southeast of them and the wind was still coming from the east, pushing them from behind in the direction of the Azores.

  Riley hung from a makeshift harness about ten feet above the floor of the hold, wearing a tool belt with a big wooden mallet, handsaw, and knife, and grasping a bag of wooden wedges and scraps of fabric.

  He looked inside the bag and picked a wedge to plug the hole in front of him. Anchoring his feet on the bulkhead, he got the wedge ready and, after shaving off a little with the knife, decided it was ready to go. He put the wedge in his left hand and gripped the mallet in his right. When he was about to strike, a violent lurch slammed his back against the steel bulkhead. The plug and mallet fell in the water, which was about a foot and a half deep and smelled of salt and gasoline.

  “Son of a . . . Fuck, Julie. Be more careful!” he shouted, looking at the ceiling, though he knew no one could hear him.

  The ship, though relatively new and well constructed, was designed for coastal voyages, not almost-twelve-foot-tall waves for extended periods of time. Riley was confident in Julie’s abilities, but sways like that were dangerous for the Pingarrón’s integrity in the best of circumstances. If they didn’t correct the forward and backward rocking, they could find themselves headfirst in a wave. The ship would break in half, capsize, or sink like a rock before anyone could even launch a lifeboat.

  Nonetheless, what really annoyed Riley was having to rappel into the flooded hull to try to recover the mallet.

  Once down there, with the water nearing his knees, he looked up and saw Elsa leaning on the railing of the catwalk, watching him with the beginnings of a sly smile on her lips. “Shouldn’t you be helping the others with the sail?” Riley asked sharply.

  Elsa ignored him and went slowly down the steps, her eyes fixed on his. When she reached the bottom, she started walking through the cold, dark, smelly water, seeming not to notice how it soaked her body and thin dress, which now stuck to her skin.

  “Elsa, what—”

  Before he could get the question out, she put a finger on his lips, then her arms around his neck and, standing up on her tiptoes, kissed him passionately.

  “Shh,” she whispered, biting his earlobe.

  “No. Wait . . .” he said, taking her by the shoulders, but unable to distance himself.

  “Quiet,” she said and pulled the straps
of her dress off her shoulders, letting them slide down to reveal her nakedness. She looked insanely beautiful.

  Riley closed his eyes, exhaled, and took a step back. “I can’t . . .” he murmured, taking another. “I can’t do it.”

  “What?” she asked incredulously. “Why can’t you?”

  “I shouldn’t. I . . . I’m sorry, but I’m not going to . . .” He waved.

  She glared into his eyes with fury. “What’s wrong with you?” she snapped, spreading her arms. “You don’t want me anymore?”

  Riley shook his head. “You’re very beautiful, but no . . . I can’t.”

  “Is it because of her? The slut?”

  Riley had to breathe in and count to ten before he could answer.

  But she stepped forward again. “I can give you more than she can,” she said, now suppliant. “Much more.” She took another step forward, putting one hand on his chest and another in his pants.

  “No, Elsa,” he responded, taking another step back in their strange dance. This was ludicrous. They were standing in over a foot of smelly water, rocking like mad through a storm on their way to a suicide mission, and sex was what was on Elsa’s mind?

  “You want me,” she insisted. “I know it.”

  Riley was about to answer when the compartment at the top of the hold creaked on its hinges and Carmen called, “Alex? Elsa told me to come look for you. What’s—”

  He looked up and froze when he realized Carmen saw him standing a few inches away from the completely naked girl. He understood everything—why Elsa had come down and done what she’d done.

  He looked up at Carmen and held out an arm. “Carmen, I . . .”

  But she had already turned to go back the way she came. Before she closed the door behind her, she coldly said, “The sail’s done.”

  When Riley went back on deck, Kirchner, Carmen, Marco, and Jack were there. Julie and César couldn’t leave their posts, and Riley had spent the night plugging holes in the hull, but all the rest had made the sail according to his instructions. It was carefully folded in front of the crane with ropes through each of the reinforced corners, ready to be raised as soon as he gave the order.

  He tried to meet Carmen’s gaze, but she just ignored him. Trying to pull himself together, Riley told himself there were more important things to do than clear up a misunderstanding. He shook off the distress like a dog would a flea and focused on what had to be the center of his attention from then on.

  He looked back to check the position of the sun—right above the eastern horizon. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the bridge deck to tell Julie to veer west-northwest. She responded by giving him a thumbs-up and rotating the wheel twenty degrees. The rain was now a steady, cold downpour that soaked them in a matter of seconds, but the tailwind, blowing at over thirty knots, thankfully hit their backs instead of their faces.

  “Okay!” he shouted over the wind. “Let’s raise this thing! Is the rope at the base of the mast well secured?”

  “Like a senator to his seat!” Jack answered.

  “Then put it through the winch and let’s raise it up!”

  Following his orders, they divided into two teams. Carmen, Elsa, and Kirchner used a pulley to bring one end of the spinnaker to the top of the crane, while Riley, Jack, and Marco pulled the other vertex of the triangle forward and left. The sail immediately filled with air, putting stress on the rigging and seams.

  Riley didn’t relax until he was sure all the ropes were firmly attached to their respective cleats. Only then did he appreciate the full scope of the work his crew had done. It looked like an old family quilt made of a hundred small squares of different fabrics that, together, formed a cheerful, colorful mosaic. It’d be ideal artwork for a child’s room, not a makeshift sail on a 420-ton freighter.

  “What do you think?” Jack asked in his ear.

  Riley thought of lying. Looking at that jumble of sheets and blankets stitched together like Frankenstein’s ass, he said, “It’s not very pretty, but it looks like it’ll hold up!”

  “It’s ugly as hell!” Jack shouted, smiling. “The edges are lined with rope so they don’t tear!” he said, pointing up. “And for the rope holes, we used washers from the spare engine!”

  “César’ll kill you if he finds out!”

  Jack nodded. “We don’t have blankets or sheets anymore, but the fucking sail is reinforced enough to withstand a hurricane!”

  Riley nodded as the bow broke through a particularly tall wave that crashed on the deck and flooded it in a burst of white foam, almost taking Dr. Kirchner with it.

  It was time to go inside before someone got hurt. They were done.

  They arranged four-hour shifts during which half of them slept while the others stayed up until it was their turn. It might be the only sleep they’d enjoy for a long time.

  47

  Taking advantage of their first turn to rest, Jack, Julie, Elsa, and Kirchner hurried off to their battered cabins. With broken windows and holes in the bulkheads from the 20 mm shells, especially on their starboard side, the cabins looked like the ruins of bombed-out shacks.

  The storm seemed to have peaked with seas somewhere between rough and very rough. The boat rocked hard, but its integrity was no longer at risk. Nonetheless, Riley had to turn the wheel constantly to face the waves at the optimal angle. They were enormous and came one after another without pause. He couldn’t help but close his eyes from time to time. He’d been awake sixty hours, and three or four naps clearly weren’t enough. But the violent storm and its cold December wind and rain kept him from falling asleep on his feet as he gripped the wheel.

  When Carmen appeared on the bridge with a cup of hot coffee in each hand, he felt incredibly grateful and rather intrigued. He looked at her, not daring to speak. Troubled by her presence, he was convinced what had happened in the hold hours ago had been a blow to whatever was between them.

  “Carmen,” he finally said, “I know what you must think happened, but I swear—”

  “That’s enough,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to hear a single excuse.”

  “I want to give you an explanation, not an excuse. What you saw wasn’t what it looked like.”

  Carmen made a disgusted face. “At least you could be more original.”

  “It’s the truth. She arranged everything so you would see us. You should’ve realized that.”

  “Of course I realized it,” she said angrily. “But that doesn’t mean you weren’t about to fuck your little German girlfriend.”

  “I was not about to . . .” he started to say, then threw his hands in the air. “Oh, forget it.” He faced forward again, slapping the wheel.

  “I’m trying.”

  Riley turned back to her. He couldn’t actually leave it at that. “I can’t believe I’m here explaining myself. You should understand better than anyone.”

  She gave him a suspicious look. “‘Better than anyone?’” The phrase hit Riley in the face. “What do you mean by that exactly?”

  He swallowed.

  “Nothing . . . I don’t mean anything,” he mumbled. “Just that you should be able to . . .”

  “Because I’m a prostitute? Is that it?” she said coldly and quietly, which made Riley even more uneasy than if she’d screamed. “Is that why I should understand?”

  Riley decided not to answer. Nothing could undo his poor choice of words, and he was definitely too tired to think or speak clearly, let alone argue.

  “I have no reason to lie to you, and I haven’t,” he said. “It’s your decision to believe me or not.”

  Carmen seemed to ignore his plea, her eyes fixed on the storm extending to the horizon.

  After a long, uncomfortable minute of silence, Riley was about to add something, thinking she hadn’t heard him. Then she motioned to one of the cups of coffee she’d left on a ledge next to the wheel. “Do you want it or not?”

  “Of course.” He nodded, confused and relieved at the
change of topic. He picked up the cup and took a sip. “Mmm . . . it’s delicious.”

  “It has brown sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon in it,” she said, her jaw tense.

  “I didn’t know you make such good coffee,” Riley said.

  She sipped hers and looked at him over the edge of the cup. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she said sharply.

  “I know,” Riley said carefully, “but that . . . that’s something I’d like to change.”

  Carmen examined his face closely. He was mentally prepared for a response like, “Not in a million years.”

  “That depends.” She put the cup down, turned, and headed to the door.

  “On what?” Riley asked.

  Her hand on the doorknob, she spoke without turning back around. “On how long you can keep us alive.”

  After the agreed-upon four hours, Julie appeared on the bridge to relieve Riley, and after a brief exchange about the state of the sea and their route, she took the wheel.

  “The sail’s working?” she asked.

  “As long as the wind doesn’t change direction, we have three or four extra knots, but at some point it’ll shift northeast, and we’ll only have one or two at the most.”

  “Is that enough?”

  Riley smiled tiredly. “Maybe, but it’s too early to tell.”

  “Anything else I should know about?” she asked as Riley made a note in the logbook.

  “Your husband figured out how to get every last bit of horsepower out of the engine without blowing us to pieces. Marco plugged a few holes despite his hurt leg, and Carmen kept me awake with coffee and conversation, which was harder than it sounds.”

  “I like Carmen a lot,” Julie said, causing Riley to look up from the notebook and give her a wicked smile.

  “Oh yeah? You don’t say?”

  “Oh no, mon Dieu!” she said, blushing. “I mean I like her for you.”

  It was neither the time nor the place for that conversation, but Riley couldn’t stop himself, his brain dull. “And why’s that?”

  Julie shrugged as if it were obvious. “She’s here, no?”