Point of Honor

by Maurice Medland

  “No. We’re in the eye of the storm. The other side will hit us in an hour, maybe sooner. How about the number two?”

  “Still too wet. We’re wiping it down now.”

  “And Tobin?”

  “In a lot of pain. His leg is flopping around.”

  Blake covered the phone and turned to Kelly, wondering where their silent friend was riding out the storm. He hoped he’d gotten his head bashed in on the roll that fractured Tobin’s leg. “Can you secure the bridge?”

  “I can secure the bridge,” Kelly said, patting the stainless-steel revolver in the hip pocket of her dungarees. “After going through this cyclone, nothing will ever scare me again.”

  “We’re coming down,” Blake said into the phone, smiling at the grim set of her jaw line and the decisive look in her eyes. He jammed the phone back into its bracket. “Let’s go, Doc.”

  A blast of humid air hit Blake in the face as he dropped down the ladder into the engine room. He quickly cast his eyes over the scene. Thin streams of water shot in around the temporary shoring that had been jammed into place. Panels of plywood had been rigged up to deflect the streams of seawater from hitting the number two boiler. Two submersible pumps hummed in the background. Tobin lay groaning on a narrow steel catwalk, placed there to stabilize him during the worst rolls.

  The chief and Blake exchanged nods as Blake walked up to the number two boiler and squinted inside. Robertson was furiously wiping down the burner assembly. “How’s it going?” Blake asked.

  “Getting there,” the chief said, glancing at his watch. “How much time you think we’ve got?”

  “An hour, maybe less,” Blake said.

  Robertson withdrew a grimy arm from the oil-burner assembly. “That should do it,” he said, mopping his face with a shirt-sleeve.

  Blake squinted into the burner assembly. “Okay, let’s do it,” he said as Tobin let out a loud wail behind him. “Make sure the blow valves are secured.”

  He turned to see Doc Jones hunched over Tobin, twisting a roll of black electrician’s tape tightly around two lengths of pipe flanking his leg as the machinist’s mate threw his head back and howled.

  The chief ran through the checklist with Blake’s prompting, lit an oil-soaked rag attached to the end of a metal pole and thrust it into the burner assembly. The burner ignited with a “whump.” An orange flame glowed through the observation port.

  “I want this boiler up to line pressure within thirty minutes, Chief,” Blake said.

  “If we try to bring her up that fast, she might blow all to hell,” the chief said. “The manufacturer recommends-”

  “The manufacturer isn’t about to get hit with a wall of water as high as a mountain,” Blake said. “We’re going to need all the power we can get, as soon as we can get it. Watch it closely, but bring it up fast.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the chief said as Blake walked over to the catwalk where Doc Jones was kneeling over Tobin, smiling at his workmanship. Tobin glowered back.

  “How do you feel?” Blake asked.

  “He like to killed me, sir.” Tobin gripped his pipe splint with both hands and grimaced.

  “You’ll live,” Doc said with a grin.

  “I’m heading for the bridge,” Blake said. “Join me as soon as you’re done here, Doc.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper,” Doc said, wrapping another strip of tape around Tobin’s splint.

  Blake turned to the chief. “When it hits this time, we’re going to be on the wrong side of the storm. It’s going to be even worse. Keep those boilers burning, come hell or high water.”

  “We’ll do our damnedest, Skipper.”

  “I know you will.” Blake looked into the chief’s eyes and knew that this conversation might be the last they would ever have. There were things he wanted to say to the man but knew he couldn’t. Finally, he put his hand on the older man’s shoulder and held it there for an instant. “Stand by to answer a bell.”

  Blake ascended the ladder to the bridge wing two steps at a time, surveying the damage as he went. The two five-ton cargo booms forward of the number one king post had been ripped cleanly off and were nowhere to be seen. The stack was crumpled, leaning to starboard like an old top hat. The cluster of navigation lights and antennae mounted at the top of the mainmast now dangled over the side, a tangled mess suspended by wires. Looking aft, he could see that three of the five-ton booms over the number four cargo hold were missing; the fourth hung limply over the port quarter, swaying gently, creaking with the slight motion of the ship. The starboard door to the pilothouse had been torn from its hinges. He vaguely remembered seeing it go during the storm.

  Blake glanced around. No sign of El Callado, but he wasn’t far away unless he’d gotten his head bashed in or been swept overboard. That wasn’t likely; he knew his way around the ship, would stay secure belowdecks in one of his little hiding places until they got through the second half of the storm, and then make his move. He should be making a plan to deal with him then, but looking at the storm they were about to go through, he wasn’t that optimistic.

  On the surface, the plucky old ship appeared to have survived the first half of the storm with only superficial damage, but she was bleeding from wounds that wouldn’t heal. He stared across at the raging wall of water that surrounded the ship and shook his head. There was no possible way she could survive what was coming; the sea would find her wounds and rip her apart.

  He stood gripping the rail in the ominous hush, mesmerized by the haunting beauty of the scene. The eye of the storm. They appeared to be at the center of a gigantic coliseum twenty miles in diameter. The walls were formed by a funnel of black clouds that slanted thousands of feet upward, then flared out, fading into the blue sky. At the crest, rays of sunlight shone through wisps of white clouds. The sea was glasslike, a luminescent green the color of emeralds, pulsing with gentle, conical swells. The wind was still. At the base of the funnel, a barricade of white water surrounded the ship, 100,000 Niagara Falls gathered in an immense circle. He turned slowly around in a complete orbit, wanting to see it all, fascinated with the means of his own destruction. From every direction, he heard the deep, distant roar of the water, like blood pounding in his ears, and the baleful howl of the wind.

  A shudder swelled up through him. So this storm was how it would end. His own death had always been impossible to imagine. Now it was imminent. He took a deep breath. All men had to die sooner or later. At least he would die doing what he wanted and seeing something few men would ever see. Accepting his own death should have given him a sense of peace, but instead, it left him with an angry sense of betrayal. The ocean floor was lined with the bones of men who had treated the sea with contempt, but Blake had always treated it with respect.

  Looking back, he saw Kelly and Maria huddled together in the pilothouse and felt something twist in his stomach. Not only the bones of men but women and children too. The sea was no respecter of flesh.

  Glancing up, they saw him and flashed relieved smiles. The look of hope in their eyes stirred something within him. Curiously, he could accept his own death, but not theirs. Looking at their eyes filled him with a sudden resolve to fight the sea with his last breath.

  “El ojo,” Maria said, stepping out onto the bridge wing. The girl’s voice was full of wonder.

  Blake looked at Kelly.

  “The eye,” Kelly said. “The eye of the storm. Her father told her about it.” Kelly turned slowly around in a full circle as if in a trance. “What an unbelievable sight.”

  “Not many people ever see it,” Blake said.

  “It’s so peaceful, so calm.”

  “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

  “When are we going to get under way?”

  “Right now,” Blake said. “Now that our helmsman is here. He glanced over his shoulder as Doc Jones came up behind them. The corpsman’s face looked drawn.

  “How’s Tobin?” Blake asked.

  “Compound fracture of the fibula,” Doc said.
“Got him bound up pretty tight. He’ll be okay. As okay as any of us, I guess.”

  Blake took one last look around, wishing he could freeze this moment in time, knowing that it might be his last look at Mother Earth. The sun was shining brilliantly. A few wispy white clouds formed against the powder blue sky. The wind was almost still. A beautiful day to die.

  “Let’s do it,” he said.

  Maria pointed overhead excitedly. “Pájaros.”

  “Look,” Kelly said.

  A cloud of seabirds appeared overhead, crying mournfully. Mingled with the seabirds were land birds, lost and confused. Exhausted, the more aggressive among them began to land on the freighter. Within minutes, the deck was covered with hundreds of shuddering, squawking birds.

  “Let’s go.” Blake walked into the pilothouse.

  “We must be close to land,” Kelly said, walking in behind him.

  “There’s a small island,” Blake said, “just a dot on one of the charts I found in the chart room. The land birds are probably from there, swept up in the storm.”

  “How far is it?” Kelly asked, taking her place at the engine-order telegraph.

  “Forget it,” Blake said. “It’s about fifty miles southeast of where we were before the storm hit. God knows where it is now.” He glanced at his watch and looked out at the black wall, trying to estimate how fast it was moving. “We need to keep our minds on business. This one is going to be rough.” He looked at Doc and Kelly. “Everybody straight?”

  They both nodded and chorused, “Yes, sir.”

  “Slow ahead.”

  Kelly repeated the order and pulled the telegraph handle into position.

  The vibration in the deck started almost immediately, and the ship eased forward into the calm sea.

  “Hard right rudder,” Blake said. “Let’s bring her around into the wind.”

  “Hard right rudder, aye, sir,” Doc said, twisting the wheel to starboard.

  “But couldn’t we find it?” Kelly asked.

  Blake stared through binoculars at the dark wall. “Find what?”

  “The island,” Kelly said.

  “In the first place, it’s not an island,” Blake said. “It’s an atoll, made out of coral. It may not even be there anymore. It was an old chart.” Blake looked at her curiously. “What is it with you and that island?”

  Kelly shrugged. “I don’t know. Given the fix we’re in, it just seems like a good idea to know where the nearest land is.”

  “The first thing we have to worry about is getting through that,” Blake said, nodding at the slowly moving wall of the cyclone. “If we do, we’ll wait for the Colombian frigate to take us off. If we go wandering around, it’ll make it harder to find us.”

  “I hear the Colombians have beer on their ships like the Brits do,” Doc Jones said. “Is that true, Lieutenant?”

  Blake shook his head. “No idea.”

  “But what if they don’t find us?” Kelly asked. “God knows where we are right now. You said it yourself.”

  “They’ll find us,” Blake said. “We can’t be that far from our last reported position. If we make it through the storm, we’ll drop anchor and wait for the frigate. It’ll be easier to find us if we’re not moving around.”

  “I can’t wait to be picked up and have one of them cool Colombian beers,” Doc said to himself. His eyes seemed to glaze over.

  “But-”

  “Let’s stay focused on business,” Blake said, cutting her off. He stared at the black wall of clouds surrounding them. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about right now than finding an island.”

  “How much time do you figure we’ve got before it hits?” Kelly asked.

  “Not much,” Blake said. “Just about enough time to get up a head of steam and get her headed against the rotation of the cyclone.”

  Doc gripped the ship’s wheel and looked across the shimmering water. “Man, I can’t believe the other side of this mother is going to be worse than what we went through.”

  “The wind should be higher by a factor of two at least,” Blake said.

  “I guess that means the waves will be higher too,” Kelly said.

  Blake nodded. “A lot higher.”

  “Jesus,” Doc said. “We’ll never make it. The hull’s already-”

  “We’ll make it,” Blake said.

  “What about the hull?” Kelly asked.

  “We’ve got some problems, but they’re under control,” Blake said. He threw an irritated glance at Doc.

  “What kind of problems?”

  “A break in the hull in the engine room, but we’ve got it shored up.”

  “My God,” Kelly said, looking off at the ring of white water that surrounded them. “We’re going into that with the hull cracked open? I think that’s a pretty good argument for knowing where the nearest land is.”

  “Knowing where it is is one thing,” Blake said. “Finding it is another. We’d have to be able to navigate with pinpoint accuracy to hit it.”

  “But you’re an officer, you know how to do that,” Kelly said.

  “The radio direction finder and all the other navigation equipment was trashed along with the ship’s radio,” Blake said. “You know that.”

  “But can’t you do it by the stars, or whatever?” Kelly asked. “You know, like the old seamen did it?”

  Blake ignored the question and said a little prayer that the Colombian frigate would find them and he wouldn’t have to try. He was an engineer. His navigation skills had never been very good. After two years of being stuck in the engine room of the Carlyle, they were practically nonexistent.

  Kelly stared at the solid curtain of water moving closer and shook her head. “Oh Sarah,” she said. “You were right.”

  “Who’s Sarah?” Blake asked.

  “My roommate at San Jose State.”

  “What was she right about?”

  “Joining the Navy. She told me I was crazy. I should have listened to her.”

  Blake flashed a wry smile. “If it helps any, you’re having an experience very few people will ever have.”

  Kelly shook her head. “It doesn’t.”

  “Think of the stories you can tell when you get back home,” Blake said.

  “If we get back,” Doc said. “No shit, Lieutenant. You really think we can make it through that wall of water?” They both stared at him.

  “The first hit will be a jolt,” Blake said. “There won’t be a gradual buildup like we saw with the first half.”

  “Oh, God,” Kelly said.

  “But if we make it through that hit, we might have a chance.” Blake looked at Maria and said irritably, “Where’s your life jacket? Don’t you have one?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “Here.” Blake unbuckled his life jacket and slipped it off. He pulled it around Maria’s slender frame and cinched it tight. It hung on her like a sack. He glanced at the missing door to the pilothouse and motioned for Maria to go inside the chart room. She pulled the door closed behind her and stood with her face pressed against the window, watching Blake intently.

  “Half ahead,” Blake said.

  Kelly repeated the order and pulled the handle down. The vibration in the deck increased, and the ship cut cleanly through the glasslike water. “Won’t we need more than this speed, Lieutenant?”

  “We’ll want to be at full speed when we hit the perimeter,” Blake said, staring through binoculars at the barrier of water moving toward them. “But not before. We’ll ease her into it. I’m not eager to rush into that storm any sooner than we have to.”

  As the gap narrowed between the ship and the roaring waterfall that encircled them, Blake began to feel powerful blasts of wind buffeting the starboard side of the ship through the open door to the bridge wing. “Right standard rudder, Doc,” Blake said. “Ease her into the wind. We’re getting close now.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper,” Doc said, twisting the wheel to starboard. “What do we do once we’re in it?�
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  “Keep her headed into the wind and give her all the power we can muster,” Blake said. “That’s all we can do.”

  As they approached the perimeter of the eye of the storm, the roar of the water grew louder. The wind rose to a high shrieking sound. The wall of black clouds loomed over them, spreading a dark shadow across the green water. A gradual darkness fell over the ship as it moved into the shadow of the clouds. The wind shrieked through the superstructure, and black rain fell in torrents, rattling the bridge with marbles of water.

  “Full ahead,” Blake shouted over the tumultuous clatter before his voice was drowned out by the roar of water that enveloped the ship.

  Instantly, the whole world turned to water. Tons of white water boiled against the bridge windows, as though the ship had been submerged, then shot into the pilothouse through the missing door, filling it to the overhead with warm, sticky water. Maria watched open-mouthed through the windows in the chart room for a few seconds before the thin wall separating the chart room from the pilothouse collapsed against her. Blake heard her garbled scream dissolve amidst the roar of water in his ears. He tumbled about underwater until he thought his lungs would explode. Suddenly the ship pitched upward, and the water in the pilothouse was forced out with a loud sucking sound. Blake and Doc dived for the ship’s wheel at the same time and hung on as the force of the withdrawing water pulled at them, drawing them toward the open door. Kelly clung to the telegraph stand. Maria spun around in the far corner of the pilothouse like laundry in a washing machine before being caught up in the current. She washed past Blake toward the door, too terrified to scream.

  Coughing and sputtering, blinking water out of his eyes, Blake lunged for her and missed. “Grab her, Kelly!”

  Kelly opened her eyes, reached out with one hand and caught a strap on Maria’s life jacket just as the girl’s feet were at the door. Kelly clung to the telegraph stand with her right arm while the fingers of her left hand gripped the strap. The ship canted sharply to starboard. The effect was like being in a water slide. “I can’t hold her! God, help me.”

  “Hang on, I’m coming!” Blake slid down the length of Doc Jones’s legs and clung to the corpsman’s ankle with one hand and reached for Maria with the other. She slipped from Kelly’s grasp just as Blake grabbed for the child, catching her by the hair. The ship heeled to port, and they all tumbled back away from the open door long enough for Blake to get a grip on her life jacket. He pulled her back into the pilothouse.