by Philip Roy
“I’ll do my best.”
“Just park your sea monster down the coast a ways, give me a call, and I’ll come and pick you up in my own jeep.”
“Okay.”
“Aye. Look after yourself now, my son, and have a fabulous sail to Tasmania.”
“We will. Thank you again for all your help!” I climbed into the portal, waved one last time, closed the hatch, jumped down the ladder, and started up the engine. As we headed out past Australia’s twelve-mile zone, I looked back through the periscope and saw Brian toss his fishing line into the sea. Thanks to him we were back on the water where we belonged. But once again I was an outlaw. I wondered who really had sabotaged the tanker, and how long I would be blamed for it. I had no idea but I sure was grateful to escape. I hoped the crew had enjoyed their shore leave, brief as it was; it would be another two weeks before we’d set eyes on land again.
Chapter Thirteen
FOR THE FIRST TIME at sea, we were hungry. I should have seen it coming, but didn’t. It wasn’t that we didn’t have any food at all—we still had oats, potatoes, salt, sugar, spices, and tea—but we had run out of powdered milk, the potatoes had roots in them, and we had to eat porridge, without milk, three times a day. It was my own fault because I had never thought to stock up on fresh food before leaving Perth. We had left in too much of a hurry, and I didn’t see how we could make land again until Tasmania; the risk of getting caught was too high. Once we rounded the southwest corner of Australia and entered the Great Australian Bight—an enormous bay half the size of the country—it was too far to return to shore anyway. If we followed the coast, which would be very foolish to do, our journey would take twice as long. So I set a course directly for Tasmania, and figured we’d just ration our food until we got there. With any luck, it would only take us a week.
But it took two. And our food was gone sooner than expected. Half of the potatoes weren’t even eatable, the other half were tasteless, and Hollie’s dog biscuits were finished. I fed the worst of the potatoes to Seaweed, who didn’t care as much as we did, and shared the better ones, and my porridge, with Hollie. Still, after a few days, we were down to nothing but porridge.
I no longer felt much like riding the bike for exercise. Nor did Hollie care to run on his doggie treadmill. After a week, I stopped doing pull-ups on the bar in the portal. It quickly became obvious to me that when you didn’t eat, you didn’t have the energy to do anything. I spent a lot of time lying in bed, dreaming of food.
I was also a little concerned about our fuel. We should have had enough, except that with the current and wind against us we were burning more fuel than expected, and I had given all of our reserve fuel to Margaret. What made me nervous was that if we did run out of fuel, our only source of propulsion would be the stationary bike, which was terribly slow—about three or four knots—and wouldn’t get us anywhere against a three-knot current. Without food I wouldn’t have the energy to pedal anyway.
And so, at the end of two weeks, the sight of Tasmania was an emotional experience for me of a different sort. This time my tears were tears of relief, and I felt a strong urge to moor the sub somewhere secure, and spend at least a month on land, somewhere with nice trees, and nice people to talk to, and lots of shops with fresh food. Never again would I go to sea unprepared.
It would be hard to describe just how magical Tasmania seemed to me, though it sure wasn’t easy to get ashore. Because I was exhausted, hungry, and feeling depressed—which is what happens when you are exhausted and hungry—it was surprisingly difficult to make smart decisions. I knew that I had to, and so I tried to force myself to act on the smartest thing to do, not on what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was sail up the Derwent River into the city of Hobart, moor the sub, and find a restaurant. Instead, I spent a whole day and night searching for a place to hide the sub safely for at least a few days, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. I couldn’t afford to be spotted. And I was in no condition to play a game of stealth with the coast guard or harbour police.
It was agonizing searching for the right spot, because the best ones were populated, and the unpopulated ones were too shallow or exposed, and at times I was so frustrated I just wanted to yell and scream. But that was my hunger talking. Hollie lay on his blanket with his head on his paws, watching me patiently. He had the patience of a saint. This was one time that I felt I had let him down, by running out of his food and offering him nothing but oats, which he ate anyway, without enthusiasm. Seaweed left the sub at the first sight of land, of course, and filled his belly with all the things that seagulls liked to eat, which was everything. He would return every few hours with a satisfied look on his face. But I knew that whatever he was eating was not something we would ever want to eat, no matter how hungry.
The spot I finally chose was in a tiny alcove on a peninsula in the mouth of the Derwent River. As far as I could tell through the periscope, half of the peninsula was covered with houses, and the other half held trees and wild rocky hills. The little alcove was below a steep cliff, above which were a few small farms, nice homes, and an unmanned lighthouse called the Tinderbox.
The sea was rough against the cliff, and there was a strong current and undertow, which made that part of the shore completely unusable for pleasure craft and swimmers, and therefore great for hiding a submarine. The rocky cliffs, tiny coves, and gushing sea reminded me a lot of Newfoundland, and made me feel homesick. But that was also my hunger and exhaustion talking.
What was best about the spot I chose was that there were tough, scraggly trees overhanging the water, which created a perfect cover for the sub. Not only would they hide the portal beneath their spidery branches, I could tie it securely to their trunks, keeping it from scraping against the rocks, while allowing for the rise and fall of the tide. The alcove wasn’t a whole lot bigger than the sub, but provided a great shelter from the waves. I didn’t know what kind of trees they were but they had to be awfully tough to survive in the midst of crashing waves, wind, and salt.
It wasn’t easy to climb out. The branches formed a thorny canopy that scraped my back as I lifted Hollie out in the tool bag, along with my tent, sleeping bag and knapsack. I also took a spare set of clothes. I didn’t know how long we’d be gone, or if it would be cold at night, and I wanted to be prepared. Seaweed was gone when we hid the sub, and I doubted he’d be able to spot it beneath the trees. He’d find us along the road, though, or in the city, sooner or later. I felt confident about that.
Getting up the cliff was a lot harder than I had expected, too. I had the weight of the backpack, and Hollie in the tool bag as I gripped the rock with my hands and searched for safe crevices for my feet. It was so much harder because I had so little energy, and found it difficult to concentrate. I couldn’t imagine how difficult life must be for people who are always hungry.
Slowly and carefully I made our way up the cliff in a diagonal direction, and entered a wooded area that could have been in Canada, if it weren’t so dry. The more places around the world that I visited, the more I realized how wet Canada actually is, and especially Newfoundland.
Once we were in the trees, and turned to see the water, I felt another gush of emotion. But this time it was happiness and relief, and there were no tears. My belly was grumbling like a bear that had just come out of its cave in the spring. It knew that food was not far away. The centre of Hobart was ten miles, but we were only a mile or so from Blackman’s Bay. I had seen it through the periscope, and knew that we would find food there. I bent down, let Hollie out of the tool bag, and we headed off through the woods like two escaped convicts.
Eventually we found a road, and followed it into the centre of Blackman’s Bay. I knew it was possible that people might recognize us from the news back in Perth, but since that was over two weeks ago, I hoped that most people would have forgotten already. I wore my hat, and hadn’t shaved since Perth, so I had a small stubbly beard that made me look a lot older, or so I thought, though it felt like I was w
earing a wool sock on my face.
It was pleasant on the road. We started to see houses, and I thought they were incredibly beautiful, because I knew they had people and food in them. Then we started to see shops, and I saw a sign for a restaurant, just a small family restaurant, but I felt we had arrived in Heaven.
I carried Hollie in on my back, and left my knapsack outside behind a garbage can. A young woman met us inside the door, and showed us to a booth. I could smell food from the kitchen. I wanted to order everything they had on the menu. She asked me where I was from, and I said Sydney, and did my best to sound Australian. She asked me if I’d like to order something to drink before I looked over the menu, and I said I’d like two tall glasses of pop, a glass of milk, and a glass of water. She looked at me strangely. “You’ve been walking a while?”
“Aye.”
Then I ordered a plate of spaghetti, a vegetable omelette, a spinach salad, apple pie and ice cream. The waitress grinned as she wrote it all down. “Do you want any potatoes on the side?” she said with a big smile.
“No, thank you.” The one thing I had no appetite for was potatoes.
“You’re going to stuff yourself, are you?”
“Aye.”
“Are you going to share any of it with the little dog?”
I looked at Hollie staring up at us through the mesh, and I nodded.
“Okay then.” And away she went. It felt like forever until she came back, and I had already started to nod off to sleep. The next thing I knew, she was standing beside the table, her arms loaded with plates. “Are you all right?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, and forgot to use an Australian accent.
“You don’t look so good. Were you lost in the woods or something?”
“No, we were just hiking a long way, and we’re really hungry and tired. After this meal we’ll be great.”
She stood and stared as I opened the tool bag and let Hollie out. “Do I know you?” she said. “You look kind of familiar.”
“I don’t think so. We’ve never been here before.”
“Why did you come?”
I picked up the knife and fork. I was hoping she would leave now so we could eat. I almost didn’t care if she recognized us, and we had to run away, just as long as we could eat this meal first. “To become an environmentalist.”
“Well, I’d say you’ve come to the right place for that. Enjoy your meal.”
“Thank you, we will.” I didn’t think anybody ever enjoyed a meal more.
There was a TV hanging from the ceiling in one corner of the room, but I paid no notice to anything but our food for the first twenty minutes or so. Gradually, as my belly began to fill up, I started to glance at the TV more and more. Eventually I saw something on the screen that pulled me out of my seat. It was a harpoon shot from the bow of a ship, striking a whale. There was a lot of blood in the water. The screen showed dozens of whales bleeding on the deck of the ship, and blood pouring in steady streams into the sea. It was horrible. The screen shifted to a picture of a white bearded-man, with an angry scowl, standing in front of a ship. The ship was called the Steve Irwin. The words at the bottom of the screen read:
CAPTAIN PAUL WATSON OF THE SEA
SHEPHERD SOCIETY PREPARING TO LEAVE
HOBART HARBOUR FOR THE SOUTHERN OCEAN.
The photo had been taken just half a dozen miles away from where we were sitting. Boy, had we come to the right place.
Chapter Fourteen
AS SOON AS WE LEFT the restaurant, we headed towards the dockyard where the Steve Irwin was moored, where dozens of young men and women in black t-shirts were rolling barrels and carrying boxes and burlap sacks up a ramp. They were loading the ship by hand. They were clowning around a little, with a nervous energy, but looked dedicated. They were sailing to the Antarctic to risk their lives to save whales.
There were TV crews on the dock, and in one corner, by the bow of the ship, they were gathered around the captain. I recognized him from the photo. He was answering their questions but wasn’t smiling. He was frowning, and looking impatient. He was older than everyone else there, but looked as though he had just stepped away from a fight to answer their questions.
Hollie and I walked as close to the ship as we dared. It fascinated me. It was painted with blue and grey camouflage, had scrapes and dents all over it, and looked as though it had been in a battle with a giant mechanical monster. But I knew, from what Jewels had told me, that it had been used to ram other ships. Jutting out of its sides were sharp iron blades, fitted to the hull specifically for ripping and tearing the hulls of whaling ships. This was no protest movement; this was a war.
I wasn’t really worried that anyone would recognize us. Even if people remembered the incident in Perth, it was extremely unlikely they would remember what the suspects looked like from a single police sketch. So we walked around without fear. But we were recognized, I was sure of it, but by the person least likely to tell on us.
We had stopped just behind the camera crews, where the captain was being interviewed. I picked up Hollie because he was curious and wanted to see what was going on. The captain was wearing dark sunglasses, but at one point he took them off, stared hard in our direction, and his mouth curled into a smile. He stared right at us, and I knew that he knew. I raised my hand and waved. He raised his thumb and nodded ever so slightly. Suddenly, the cameras swung around, trying to see who he was smiling at. I bent down and let Hollie go, turned around, and walked away. It was pretty cool to see the captain. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last time.
We went searching for the first person on Brian’s list of friends—Merwin Hughes. Brian had said that Merwin was an inventor of sorts, and a dedicated environmentalist. He said he thought we would get along like two fish in a pond. I wasn’t looking for a place to stay. I was just hoping that, if he were an inventor, he could help me convert the engine of the sub to burn vegetable fat instead of diesel fuel. It was something I had decided to do back in South Africa. I didn’t know if he would be the right person to do it, but it was worth a try.
He lived in Claremont, about eight miles upriver from the centre of Hobart. I had to buy a map to find it. Hobart’s harbour was fed by a river that quickly narrowed, as in Perth, but the city was much hillier, the roads were winding, and it was not as dry. It sat beneath Mount Wellington, a mountain with snow on its peak. It was the first time we had seen snow since sailing through the Arctic almost a year ago. The snow didn’t make me feel homesick.
Now that our bellies were full, the walk felt miraculous, and I didn’t mind if we didn’t return to sea for a whole month. Hobart was friendly, welcoming, and beautiful, and there was a feeling of magic in the air, or maybe inside my head, I wasn’t really sure, I was just so happy. I felt it strongest when we reached Merwin’s house, and stood in front of the mailbox. It was fashioned in the shape of a man’s head, cut and welded from rusty iron, with stars and crescent moons cut out of it, and a tall, bent, wizard’s hat welded on top. It looked magical and ghastly at the same time. Rust has a way of doing that to metal.
The front of the house was low, and the back stretched down the hill, as if the whole thing were slipping slowly into the bay. There were trees on his property, and in between the trees were metal sculptures—finished ones, and partly finished ones. There were dinosaur-like creatures, animal-like creatures, lizards, and indescribable shapes that might have been just junk. It was hard for me to tell. On the side of the house, beneath a long tarp suspended between four trees, three old Volkswagen camper vans stood side by side like old friends from an earlier time—the “hippy” generation. With the sculpture, vans, odds and ends, Merwin’s property stood out from all of his neighbours by a virtue I could relate to: it was really messy.
I went up to the door and knocked. Hollie was asleep in the tool bag but the knock woke him up. No one answered, so I knocked again. Still no one answered. I waited. Then, I figured there must be a workshop out back, and maybe he was in
there. So, I went around the side, squeezed between the campers, stepped over a bit of junk, and found the back of the house. Sure enough, there was a large workshop tucked in behind the house, and there was a light on. It was part way down the hill towards the water. At the bottom was a boatshed.
I could hear an electric tool running. It was the shrill sound of metal cutting metal, a sound I knew well from the building of the sub. I went to the door, poked my head inside, and got a surprise. The shop was filled with strange creatures and machines, all cut and welded from metal. Some looked functional, and some looked scary, like monsters from a horror movie. At the very back, lying the length of the building, about twenty-five feet long, was a dragon. It had hinges and pulleys attached to its wings, and looked as though it was just sleeping, waiting for someone to walk in front of its mouth and wake it up. It looked so real I could imagine fire pouring from its nostrils. I was amazed.
I stood at the door, mesmerized by the dragon, until the cutter was shut off and the shop grew quiet. Then I heard a gentle but curious voice say “G’day? Can I help you?” I turned to see a short, middle-aged man standing in brown overalls and old-fashioned welder’s goggles. He was almost bald, but the hair he had left was white and stiff with dust, and stuck out from his head like tinsel. He stood perfectly still, waiting for a response. At his feet, a large, bright orange cat suddenly appeared.
“Hi! My name is Alfred. Brian Bennett told me to look you up. He said he would call you about it.”
He pulled off his goggles, lifted a pair of spectacles out of his pocket, and put them on. He frowned and shook his head. “No.…I don’t think…wait now; he might have called. I haven’t checked my messages for weeks. What did you say your name was?”
“Alfred.”
“And why are you here?”
“I’m visiting Tasmania.”
“From where?”
