by Jase Kovacs
Consider this: I can't sail straight into the wind. Always have to be at some angle off. My boat: forty degrees true. I look to the portside. I can make out the vague shadow of the headland. It is about five hundred metres away and comes out in front of me. Probably twenty degrees off my bow. So, I can't get out there on one tack. Five hundred metres is a long way though, I can do short tacks out that way, throwing the helm over, whipping the jib around - no, I'll use the staysail, smaller sail but I can get closer to the wind and it's easier to tack - throw it about and get out.
But how far does the reef come out? How quickly does it shallow? Will I go fifty metres and then KER-UNCH found the reef, stuck hard on a falling tide. Not ideal. No charts for this mystery island. Its contours unsurveyed. Might as well fill in the blank myself VOODOO ISLAND, HERE BE DRAGONS.
And my other limit. The western side of the bay is Black Harvest. Sailing in close to it, then tacking out. The thought of taking Voodoo near that hellship makes me sick. The marys lining the rails like silent crows. So many. Watching and waiting. How far could one jump from the top of the bridge? I don't even want to think about it.
Long and short of it. Sailing out against wind at night in a tight unsurveyed bay is not an ideal situation. Other options: stay here tonight. Yeah right. The marys can't swim. They seem to be afraid of water. But there's no way I'm going to risk it. Dark and stormy night, no moon. You've got to be kidding. Imagine Blong rowing over in a lifeboat, packed to the gunnels with his pale, suntan adverse friends. Yeah, screw that.
Other options. Use the diesel.
Fire up the Perkins 4108, haven't run it for more than fifteen minutes in a year. Jealously hoarding the last fifty litres of diesel I've got, running it through filters, keeping it clean, trying to keep the bug out. Not a good idea to keep a fueltank half full, that's how the bug gets in, algae, bacteria growing in a dark mix of fuel and air, so I'm storing it in two twenty five litre jerries that I've plumbed straight to the fuel filters, so even if one goes bad I can still use the other. Saving it for a special occasion.
Think this qualifies. Go straight out the way I came out. Out into the teeth of the wind, through a proven route. Think through the qualifiers, pros and cons list one more time.
Let's do it.
Okay. Things to do to get out of here. Might as well get the mainsail up now. I move forward to the mast. Wrap the main halyard around the winch, slip it into the self tailing groove. Slacken the lazy jacks, the rope cradle supporting the sail, or the battens will get caught up. Slip off the first two sail ties, winch quickly, promising my back that soon, soon we will be sailing and I can rest. The sail rising, flapping in the wind. Voodoo pointing to the south like a weather vane. I raise the mainsail to the first reef, enough to be clear of the lazyjacks, ready to sail as soon as we are out of the bay, but not so much that I'll need to deal if a squall comes in. I can smell rain on the air. It's going to be a nasty night.
Next I go to the bow. The CQR anchor is down. Sixty metres of rope spliced onto thirty metres of chain. I slot the ratchetting handle into the windlass. Start bringing up the rope. The wind would make it hard going, but the tide has carried me over the chain so the rope comes up easily. The splice comes over the bow roller and then welcome clatter of chain coming aboard.
Thing is, I'm not sure how well the diesel will run. I don't want to waste time. So I'm getting everything ready so we can go double quick smart. Get all the rope and about ten metres of chain onboard, so I'm just hooked in, ready to go quickly as soon as the engine is warmed.
Each of these steps are a routine that is deeply comforting for me. I am back on Voodoo. Where things make sense. No monsters. No insanity here. Except my own haha. My boat. My sanctuary. I know where everything lives. I don't need light. I can move around this ship in absolute darkness. My hands finding holds, reaching into lockers, retrieving equipment. I know this boat like a blind man knows his house.
But the problem with routines are that they are automatic. Your hands, your body moving without thought. Freeing your mind to wander, to think, to start to process the events of the day.
I'm not ready for that.
I can still feel his touch. The presence of his thoughts. What happened in that hold? What happened in Hold One? It can't have been real. Yeah, a portal to deep space in the belly of a shipwreck. It must have been something else.
Katie, for once, is helpful.
He reached into your mind. Don't know how. But it's not normal. Nothing about it was normal. You had no defence against that. Not the first time.
Doesn't matter. He plucked me like a flower. I was weak as piss.
Bullshit. She's adamant. Bullshit. We've never seen anything like him before. And remember, he tried again, when we were running, and he couldn't. You beat him. You reduced him to screaming threats. Turned him into a playground bully.
Doesn't matter.
Yes it does.
Okay, well we can go back and forth with this all day. Doesn't change the fact I capped Stacy. And had no problem with trying to cap a child.
Don't even go there. She was gone. You put down a monster. And Blong is not a child. Would you regret cutting off the Captain's hand?
I ignore her, which is usually a sign that she's right, I've got no more arguments but I'm not interested in dealing with her truth. So I go back to the cockpit. Retrieve the key from the navstation and slide it into the ignition. The tumblers stiff and rusty as they shift to accept the key. Before I start, I stop. Mental check list. What have I missed?
I did full engine maintenance before leaving Madau. Checked all the cables. Hoses and fitting. Nothing loose. No leaks that I could see. Nothing to short out the starter motor or the circuit. The alternator dead anyway, no charge coming from there. Is there anything that can go wrong? Is there anything I have missed -
SHIT.
The dinghy is still in the water.
Imagine that. Ho ho. Engine going and off we go! Oh dear, the dinghy painter is wrapped around the propeller, pulled it in, jammed the prop, hell smashed the dinghy, broken the gearbox and now we're going onto the rocks, those marys can't swim but I bet they're happy to walk around the bay and come at me from the shore.
I run my hands over my face, the nightmare situation filling my mind. I'm so tired. So very tired. Okay. Get it together. I go downstairs, work the galley toepump with my foot and fill the sink with fresh water. Dunk my head in the tepid water, open my mouth and scream, bubbles boiling the surface, whip my face out, my hair flicking a parabola across the galley. Water dripping down my body, pooling at my feet and I feel a hundred percent better.
Let's do this.
The chop is worse. Half metre waves plunging Voodoo's stern up and down. Pitch dark, just the white fleck of waves gleaming faintly in the red cockpit lights. I've got davits, thank god, a stainless steel frame that lift the dinghy straight up over the stern. I pull down the triple blocked rope falls, Dad sized them for lifting a 3.5m aluminium RIB with a 9.9hp Yamaha so they are way oversized for my little rowboat. No problem.
Watching the pitch of the waves, the dinghy tossed around like a kid's toy. Judge the right moment and I'm across, in the dinghy. Clip the bow and stern rope falls in place, step back to the boat. Haul them up, the dinghy rising easily, pull it in tight until its tight against the tension bar that holds it level.
Okay. Move around the boat. Systematic. What else have I forgotten? No lines over the side. Nothing to foul the prop. That's the thing with routines. Break your routine and you'll miss something.
Back to the helm. Take the key again. My heart is hammering. My throat is dry and it hurts when I swallow. I'm frightened. Scared to start the engine. What if it doesn't go? What if I've missed something? Count one two three, say a prayer, check this out Mum and Dad, and turn the key.
The starter whines. Struggling with low current, the engine battery weak. It protests as it forces the crankshaft to turn, the cylinders to rise up and down. The injector spraying mists of
diesel that the cylinders need to compress to great pressure to ignite. At least, that's what should be happening.
The diesel starts to chuff. Like a steam train. What a weird association, I doubt I've heard a steam train in my life. Don't wander, focus on this. The starter motor speeds up, the chuffs coming closer together, getting there getting there come on you bitch!
The chuffs slow. Further apart. The starter struggling. Whining. Fading.
Damn.
Just god damn it.
I release the key and it slows and stops. No start. The silence on the boat overwhelming. It's not even silence, there's the moan of the wind and the slap of the pitching waves. The mainsail flapping. It's not silence. It's the hole in the noise that I wish was filled with a roaring engine, burning true blue.
What have I missed?
Diesels need fuel and air and compression. Air is good, fuel is okay, tick those boxes. Compression should be fine, I started her up no problem back before leaving Madau and I couldn't have blown a gasket since then. Maybe corrosion? Could a fuel injector have rusted through?
First principles, Katie reminds me. What's the most likely cause of problems with diesel?
Fuel. It's always fuel. Blockage? Something loose in the tank, shifted in this swell, moved down and blocking the lines. I can switch to the second jerry, that might free it up.
Right. But consider this. It struggled right from the start.
I could hit myself. So obvious. Power.
Yep.
The engine battery is weak. Old lead plates sulphurating. When I started it back on Madau it was a bright sunny day. Got some kick from the solar. No kick tonight. I need more battery power.
Simple.
I go down below, behind the companionway into the short tunnel that runs under the cockpit, separating the saloon from the stern cabin. Where the side bunk is, under which are my batteries. Dark down here but yeah, don't need to see on Voodoo. The battery selector a fat toggle under the bunk. I picture it in my mind's eye. Been so long since I touched it - but I can remember, the toggle cycles through four settings. OFF - 1 - ALL - 2. It is on 1 - engine starts off start battery. 2 is house batteries. I twist it to ALL, linking the whole system together.
I go back up into the cockpit. Katie is there, of course I can see her no problem, don't need light to see her. She grins. Attagirl.
Shut up. I grin back. You want to do this or will I?
She gestures expansively. Be my guest.
I turn the key and the starter whirls like a dervish and the engine coughs twice its chuffs coming fast together clearing her throat before roaring and she's off and running, Voodoo shivering with her contained power. I slump, relief weakening me almost as much as failure. I advance the throttle a smidge, the engine steadies and I leave her to warm up. No tacho without the alternator but I know her, I remember her sounds still.
Idle. We're idling.
The next question - how long before something goes wrong versus how long should I let her run before she's warmed up, treat her right so something doesn't go wrong. Dad used to say—
Matty?
Yeah?
Just shut up and stop worrying.
I breathe. Deep. Slow. Okay. So what now?
I think you can use this time productively, says Katie.
Yep. I've got two empty magazines, one in my belt, one in the weapon that is lying on the cockpit seat. Might as well sort them out while I'm waiting. There's a metal ammo tin under the companionway stairs with three hundred and twenty seven rounds in it, the number written on a piece of tape across its lid.
I stand to go forward when the boat gives a sudden lurch. I stagger, barking my shins painfully on the helm, my hands flying out and grabbing the stainless railing of the bimini. Something just hit us. We can't have run aground, we're still anchored. Shit did we drag? Was there not enough chain down, have we slid onto rocks?
No.
The ship wasn't hit by something.
It was moving. Now it isn't.
Something has locked us down.
I know what I'm going to see before I even do it. This happened to me before. I lean out the cockpit and point the M4 at the bow and turn on the Surefire.
Remember the sharks? The caravan of sharks? Remember why I was down there in the first place? The chain, wrapped around a boulder and caught up, locking the bow down. Fouled.
Yep. The anchor chain is tight, drum tight, the bow not moving, bound to the ground with links of iron.
Caught up on a boulder down there. At the bottom of the black sea, the waves pitching and tossing. The wind growing. The diesel rumbling, a beast ready to charge. But we're going nowhere. Night stretching out before me, as deep and as dark as a grave.
Chapter 21
To say I'm not looking forward to dealing with a fouled anchor is an understatement. I think one day I'll sit down and write this all out. Call it Matty's Terrible No Good Day. Best seller among the kids on Madau Island. I think back to that morning when I saw the sharks in the Solomons. Beautiful clear morning. Calm sea. Deep blue holding me, folding around me, wrapping me in the salty brine of the earth's womb.
Tonight is a little different. The Surefire won't work underwater. Don't want to go down there into the dark. Next best option: I've got three chemlights left, little break-n-shake glowsticks about six inches long. I grab one from the navstation. Bend it and hear the tiny glass tube inside shatter with a sound like I've stepped on a beetle. Shake it and it comes to life. Two swirls of chemicals mixing and glowing sunflower yellow phosphorescence, brighter than any beast made of nature. I hold it in my hands and I look at my palms and see the deep scored wounds in there, the rope burns, the ripped blisters from the flare, deep with filth and black muck and I just want to sit down and cry.
But I don't.
I hold the chemlight in my mouth, in my teeth like a horse's bit, to keep my hands free as I move forward. I've got a scuba mask around my neck and have stripped down to shirt and pants. The wind unseasonably brisk. Raises goosepimples on my skin, my arm hairs standing at attention.
The bow of the boat is unnaturally still. The waves rising up and breaking over the deck. The groan of the roller taking the full weight of the boat on each roll brings a sympathetic echo from me. Hold in there, baby. I pat Voodoo consolingly on a stanchion. Not long until you're free. Until we can run away from this cursed place and get back where we belong.
The open sea.
I run over the coming play in my mind. A way of getting my ducks in a row, calming me down. The key is to zen out - wait I've told you this, haven't I? Well, it bears repeating. Relax the body, slow down my oxygen consumption rate, maximise my time down there. I'm going to drop off the bow, straight over the chain, take it in my hands and pull myself down to the bottom. Keep the chemlight in my teeth, unhook the chain, pop back up to the surface. Easy peasy.
Let's hope so.
I climb over the stainless steel pulpit rail. Standing back to the ocean, feet on the toerail, hands ready to let go when I step back and plunge into the sea. Already started my preparatory breathing, long and slow, pushing out my stomach to maximise my lung capacity. Okay. Hope it's not too cold.
Just before I step off, I glance down. A long held instinct learned from scuba. Mum and Dad taught me of course. Check your point of entry. Not like this is a crowded diveboat but wouldn't do to land on a log or something—
I look down into the pale leering face of a mary holding onto the chain. A wave breaks over it and water swirls and for a moment I deny what I saw, I could have imagined it, come on, but then a yellow hand, with long black fingernails, bursts from the water, stretching up to grab the chain and haul the creature up. Its face breaks free, water pouring out of its bright blazing eye sockets. Its rotting scalp torn open and a hard scrape of skull visible. Its mouth wide open in a toothy agonized hateful grin. Water burst from its mouth in a powerful spray that splattered my legs as it voids its lungs in a vile scream.
I screamed
right back at it. The glowstick falls from my mouth and I pitch myself forward, throwing myself over the rail. Back onto Voodoo. Feeling the brush of hard nails as it swipes at me, a clawing grasp that would have ripped my calf open. I land in a heap as the boat lurches. The windlass serves me a painful knock on my shoulder.
The rifle is back in the cockpit. The magazines empty. Three hundred and twenty seven rounds, sitting useless in a tin under the stairs. I push myself up off the deck and turn as the mary comes level with the deck, its head slowly appearing over the rail. The water making it sluggish. It sees me and reaches its long rotting talons out, grasping at me through the pulpit rails.
I don't remember just how I did it but next moment I have the ratchetting handle, a three feet long stainless steel rod, in my hands and am bringing it down on that grabbing hand. All my weakened paltry strength behind it. The bones shattering, grey flesh pulping against the deck. Part of me unhinged.
This is against the rules. You don't come up the anchor chain. You just don't. Maybe I'm yelling those words. Like a crazy person. I smash the hand again and it withdraws. The creature screaming, hauling itself up over the pulpit, its strength returning as it breaks free of the water. They hate water, they don't go in it they—
We'll talk about this later.
I swing the bar in sideways and bury it against the creature's ear. Its head goes sideways with the blow. Hard bones crunching. I know I'm lucky. Never could survive getting this close to one. You can't go toe to toe with these things. But it's dull and stupid, its skin burning with salt, dazed from its wander across the bay.
It lunges at me with its other hand. Its feet on the toerail now. The damaged hand hooked around the pulpit. I know I can't beat the thing to death so I bring my next blow down on the injured arm. On the elbow. Their skulls and chests are thick, armour plated. But joints are the weak point on anything. I feel something break satisfyingly and the creature falls back.
It grabs onto the rail with its good hand, hanging there. Hauls itself back up, its broken shattered arm milling, its feet scrabbling for a foothold, gouging deep scratches in the boat's hull. I bring the bar down again and again, screaming until its fingers are mashed to nothing and it is gone. I look over and it sinking, thank god, it is gone—
