Henry and Tom: Ocean Adventure Series Book 1: Rescue (Ocean Adventures Series)

by Michael Atkins

  “Sure… Yes, Syd, for sure. I think I’ll stay at Tom’s though. Where’s Jonas?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Does he know I’m coming?”

  “Yes, I told him.”

  “I might take him over to Tom’s place with me for a night or two if that’s alright with you.”

  “I think it might do him some good. Jonas is very upset. He basically hates me and he’s worried sick about Tom.”

  “Jess?” Gabriel asked.

  “She’s keeping everything in, as usual. I’ve talked to her about it, but she seems almost un-phased.”

  “How ‘bout you?” Gabriel said as he leaned over and gave his sister-in-law a kiss on the cheek and a strong hug.

  “I’m a wreck. The Coast Guard is finally out looking for him, thank God. But I feel like… I … I mean, what if something bad happened?”

  Syd teared up and Gabriel held her for a minute in the entryway. Then he kissed her on the cheek and went upstairs to find his nephew.

  “Hey Jonas,” Gabriel said as he knocked and went through Jonas’ partially opened bedroom door.

  “Uncle Gabe!” Jones said and rushed over to get a hug. “Thanks for coming.”

  “How ya doin’?” Gabriel asked.

  “Where’s my Dad?” Jonas asked.

  “I’m sure he’s alright. A lot can happen out there, not all of it totally terrible. Your mother is doing everything she can to help.”

  “I should be out there with him.”

  Gabriel sighed and squeezed his nephew’s shoulder. “No son, I should be out there with him. Don’t lay that weight on yourself.”

  “But Mom, she should -.”

  “Your mother loves you, Jonas. She needs you to be strong. Stop blaming her for things. That’s not the way to handle this situation. Your dad would not want you making it harder for your mom right now.”

  “I guess… I -.”

  “Hungry?” Gabriel asked.

  “Big time.”

  “Cheeseburger, fries and a shake?”

  “Oh yeah. I’ve had way too much healthy food lately. Harold is a vegan, ya know. Mom is becoming one.”

  “Off we go then,” Gabriel said. “Oh, and pack a bag. We’re staying at your dad’s house. Let me go say hi to Jess and we’re outta here.”

  Chapter Twenty Five

  It was raining again. Tom was in San Francisco casually strolling to work through the financial district. He looked up and got soaked. Tom walked another half a block and he was hit by another blast of water. He caught a little in his hand and tasted it. It was salt water. Since when…

  Opening his eyes, Tom realized that he’d been dreaming. The rain was spray from Henry’s blowhole. The whale wanted him to wake up, or maybe Henry was just checking to see if he was carrying a corpse.

  Tom tried to sit up, but at first he couldn’t move. The muscles in his back were severely cramped, so he stretched for a few seconds before he sat up. Then he took stock of his situation. No, it had not been a dream. He really was perched on the back of a giant whale. The emergency packs were still right in front of him. He had water! He was parched. Unlike yesterday, Tom used some judgment. He sipped the water, he didn’t gulp it.

  The aloe vera lotion treatments he’d applied yesterday helped, but he needed to do it again right now. He wondered if Henry would wait for him to do this before he started swimming. Maybe I just say something like, “Giddy up, Henry” when I want him to move. Tom laughed at his joke.

  His brain was working today, nearly on all cylinders. As Tom applied the green lotion to his legs and then to his torso and back he realized that the burns on his skin were serious. Some of the burns were second degree or worse. Infection would become a problem soon. After putting on the aloe vera gel, Tom slathered on sunscreen. His ribs were also barking at him, but as far as he could tell they were not broken. He ate two energy bars and swallowed five aspirins.

  From the position of the sun in the sky, Tom guessed it was less than an hour after sunrise. He was ready to move if Henry was. After a few moments of remaining still, Henry hit him with another blast of water from his blowhole.

  “Okay, I get it. How do I tell you it’s okay to start swimming? Let’s see, what if … whoa!!!”

  The whale kicked his massive tail and they were off. Henry was moving a bit quicker today. How fast were they traveling? Tom had nothing to gauge this by other than feel. He knew that sperm whales could move as fast as twenty miles per hour on the surface for up to an hour, but Henry was not swimming that quickly.

  “Henry is moving about the same speed I was going in Sydney,” Tom said aloud. He knew this pace well, about seven or eight miles per hour.

  As Tom sat there watching the ocean pass by he searched his memory for any recollection of a sperm whale doing anything like this before. Certainly Orcas have been trained to carry humans on their backs and dolphins and humans had been touching each other for millennia, but a sperm whale acting like this? It was unprecedented, it had to be.

  “What if no one ever knows about this?” Tom said aloud. He realized that he was having a conversation with Henry, but he did not expect an answer. If by some miracle, and he was living a miracle at the moment so why not expect more to come, he got through this ordeal alive would anyone believe his story? What if Henry sees a ship and just dumps me off? Would anyone in their right mind believe my tale? Tom knew that he wouldn’t believe it unless he lived it.

  “We’ve gotta make sure that doesn’t happen, Henry,” Tom said. This was something that had to be shared with the world. “Maybe the few idiots left on the planet who kill whales will be forced to stop doing it after they learn about you and me.”

  The whale encyclopedia in Tom’s brain kicked in again. Over the centuries people slaughtered sperm whales by the hundreds of thousands, primarily for their spermaceti oil, from which they were given their common name. The oil is stored in their head and it’s believed that the oil may offer the whale some protection from the stings of giant squid, one of their primary sources of food. Human beings no longer have any legitimate commercial use for spermaceti oil, but in the 19th century and earlier it was a prized economic resource.

  In his mind Tom could see the pictures of the old whaling stations in America, Australia, Russia and Japan where sperm whales carcasses were brought in by the hundreds by whaling fleets. It was a nightmarish vision. Tom had always believed that whaling for any reason was morally wrong, with the possible exception of the small whale harvest taken by native peoples in the Artic.

  “How could we slaughter such a magnificent creature?” Tom said aloud. “Have you forgiven us for being so cruel and stupid, Henry?” Tom laughed. Whales were very intelligent, but concepts like hate and love and forgiveness and unforgiveness were probably completely foreign to them. But then again…

  Tom looked at Henry’s skin. It was almost prune like, which was proving to be a huge advantage in riding the whale. Henry’s skin was not exactly grip tape, but because of the whale’s unique skin texture, massive girth and gentle traveling speed staying on top of Henry was surprisingly effortless. Every so often Henry would send out a blast of water from his S shaped blowhole. Tom had learned now to duck when he saw the water coming. Otherwise, the salt would sting his eyes.

  I wonder what we’d look like from above? Tom asked himself silently. Satellite imagery from space could focus in on an object as small as a license plate. Tom imagined someone looking at a screen and seeing a man with a silver cape and a silver bandana riding on the back of a fifty ton sperm whale. What a visual!

  “That’s what we need my friend. That’s really the only thing that will do. We need to make you a media sensation,” Tom shouted at the whale. Laughing to himself, Tom remembered that Henry had already been a media sensation two decades ago.

  The day went on and Tom tried his best to soak up every thought, every sight and every sound of the experience. He was at peace, almost incredibly so. He only got anxious when he tho
ught about Jess and Jonas. Was the Coast Guard out looking for him yet? Knowing Sydney the way he did, Tom was sure that she hit the panic button sooner rather than later.

  But Henry was rapidly taking him away from any reasonably defined search area. If they did send aircraft or even a ship out to look for him they would find nothing but empty ocean, or perhaps a small chunk of fiberglass with his name carved in it.

  ^^^^^^

  Watkins knocked on Commander Robinson’s door. She heard “Come” in response.

  “No sightings yet from the C-130s, sir,” the Lieutenant reported. “They have covered about half of the search grid.”

  “Will they finish the grid by nightfall?” Robinson asked.

  “Probably not, but they’ll cover 75% of it,” Watkins answered.

  “What about other commercial or private vessels in the area?”

  “There is commercial traffic in the southeast quadrant of the grid. We have reached a few other private craft, also sailboats, who are entering the area now. They have been alerted to look for Sydney and they are sending out radio messages to Sydney every half an hour,” Watkins reported.

  “So, no response from Sydney… we can conclude that his radio is out,” Robinson said.

  “That’s fair,” Watkins agreed. “Campbell is experienced enough to not turn off his radio, regardless of his position from shore.”

  “Keep Mrs. Campbell informed,” Robinson said.

  “Aye aye, sir,” Watkins said and then she turned and left.

  ^^^^^^

  Behind him and to his port side, Tom could see the sun setting. When the sun was almost below the horizon, Henry stopped swimming. How far had they traveled today? Tom was trying to keep at least a rough calculation in his mind; maybe a hundred miles, or perhaps a bit less. Henry was still headed southeast. Where was he going? The whale seemed to have a specific destination in mind.

  One thing Tom was sure of was that sooner or later Henry would cross major shipping lanes. The odds were pretty good that they would spot a ship, most likely a passing freighter. In his emergency packs were two flare guns. Tom had already loaded them.

  Henry was “logging” again. Tom remembered earlier in the day that this was the term used to describe what a sperm whale did while he was resting. The whale was lying motionless with part of his head and back exposed to the surface while his tail was hanging down.

  The moon was full tonight. Tom took out his water bottle and took another couple of sips as he watched the moonlight dance off of the water. Everything was incredibly still. At this moment, more than anything else Tom wished for a camera. No, he thought some more, a satellite phone and a camera.

  Henry was breathing slowly and rhythmically. Clearly the whale knew exactly what he was doing. Part of what he was doing was keeping Tom Campbell alive, but he was also taking him somewhere, but where? The nearest point of land from here, at least as far as Tom could roughly calculate in his head, would be Central California near Santa Barbara or perhaps the islands in the channel directly off that coastline.

  “Is that where you’re going, my friend? To the nearest point of land?” Tom paused and took in the incredible seascape in front of him. “I hope I can hang on that long.” How many days to get there? Ten? A couple more? Would Henry keep going in the same direction, or change course?

  Like he had the night before, Tom laid out the remnants of the second emergency blanket on Henry’s back in between his red packs and lay down. Once more, he quickly fell asleep.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  As light began to shine in the east Henry realized that he was very hungry. Normally he would consume as much as a ton of food daily. His energy level was low, so he had to eat soon. From experience, he knew that he could find enough food to satisfy his hunger in these waters if he went deep enough.

  Henry wondered if the land creature he trusted was also hungry. He did not know for sure what the land creature ate, but he assumed that he must eat fish. Many of the objects that floated on top of the water collected fish. Sperm whales assumed that the land creatures gathered fish so they could eat them.

  As he had done for the previous two days, Henry woke Tom up with a blast from his blowhole. Tom was expecting this and rose quickly, drank some water and applied his skin lotions. Henry continued to move on the same course he’d been on since he rescued Tom.

  About half an hour into his swim, Henry stopped. Then the whale sent out the only coda he thought the land creature who he trusted knew, “You are safe, you are safe”.

  Tom didn’t know what to think. Why was Henry stopping? What was he trying to tell him?

  Henry repeated the coda, “You are safe, you are safe.” Then Henry slipped under the surface.

  “Holy crap!” Tom yelled as he grabbed ahold of his emergency packs, which were now his life preservers. Within seconds, Henry was gone.

  Now Tom was floating in the middle of the Pacific with only his red packs standing between him and certain death. While he did not have to kick to stay afloat, Tom was well aware that his dangling legs made a tempting target for any passing shark.

  “What do I do now?” Tom said. Was Henry gone for good? Did he save me only to just drop me off? He’d gone from relatively relaxed to scared out of his mind in a few moments. Tom took a deep breath and decided that the most likely reason Henry left him was to feed. Sperm whales ate every day when they could.

  “He’ll come back, he has to,” Tom said aloud, encouraging himself.

  Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty. The good news was Tom had not seen any evidence of sharks or any other fish, in his vicinity. The bad news was Henry was still gone. How long did it take for a sperm whale to -.

  Tom’s thoughts were interrupted by a blast from the deep. A pressure wave was rising up through the water. He could hear the blast, but he felt it more than heard it. Something was coming at him from below, something that was making a lot of noise.

  “I’m going to die,” Tom said. All he could do was hang on to the packs and wait for the giant mouth that was no doubt speeding towards him to swallow him whole. Tom closed his eyes when another blast of sound or pressure or whatever hit him from below.

  Then he heard a strange sound, something like popcorn popping in a microwave bag. When his face was splashed by something, Tom was forced to open his eyes.

  All around him were common flying fish, Parexocoetus brachypterus. There were dozens of them just lying on the surface. Were they dead? Tom soon learned that not all of them were when one of the fish a few feet away from him took off in a rush. But the others weren’t moving.

  Sashimi! Tom’s brain told him. A feast is in front of you! Before he thought anymore about how or why the fish got here, Tom pulled his utility knife out of the pack and reached for a fish. Leaning over a pack, Tom cut the head off of the fish and set the carcass on top of the pack that he was not balancing on. He did this for a dozen more fish when suddenly, all at once, the vast majority of the fish around him came to their senses and either flew away across the water or just slipped back into the sea.

  After gathering five more fish that were clearly dead, Tom stopped and took stock of what he had – almost twenty fresh flying fish right in front of him ready to be eaten.

  “Henry!” Tom yelled. It had to be Henry! As he busied himself with fileting his first fish, Tom thought about sperm whales and how they fed. Unlike humpbacks and dolphins and some other marine mammal species, sperm whales did not bubble fish - capture fish en masse by surrounding them with a stream of bubbles. But somewhere in his mind Tom recalled a scientist positing the theory that sperm whales used sonar blasts to stun fish and then eat them. As far as Tom knew this theory had never been proven, this behavior was not yet documented in the wild… until now.

  The first bite of flying fish was pure heaven. Nothing had ever tasted so good! The fish satisfied both Tom’s hunger and his thirst. He had gobbled down three more before his brain urged him to slow down.

  A full belly re
sulted in a few minutes of very unpleasant cramping and then a violent defecation. Once that unpleasantness was over Tom felt better than he had since the Sydney exploded. His blistered skin was sore from exposure to salt water, but he had consumed five more aspirins and that eased the pain.

  How long had it been since Henry left? At least two hours or maybe more. Tom looked around him. He was sitting in a field of chum! Surrounding him a neat little circle were a few dead flying fish, severed fish heads and guts plus the mess he’d made after he ate. Talk about ringing the dinner bell! Tom gently paddled away from the blood and guts. He didn’t want to go too far, but floating in the middle of all of that was definitely not a good idea.

  Another hour passed. Tom was getting worried again. He was sure that Henry had not abandoned him when he sent the flying fish his way, but what if that was just a parting gift? Here’s some food, see ya later? That was certainly a possibility.

  Tom began to think about what he could do with the resources he had. He thought it might be possible to climb on top of both packs – propping his head on one and his feet on the other with his butt in the middle. Would that offer any real protection from hungry predators approaching from below? It might. Also, the flare guns he had could be aimed at the open mouth of a shark. The noise and commotion caused by the blast might be enough to …

  Then from beneath him Tom could feel the whale slowly rising to the surface. He scrambled to center himself on the whale’s back a few feet in front of the hump. Luckily, he only lost a few of his fileted flying fish in the process. Dinner was secure.

  “I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life old boy!” Tom yelled at the whale. “I love you Henry!”

  Henry didn’t respond with a coda, he just floated there logging. After a few minutes, Henry spouted a huge blast from his blowhole. Tom was learning, he knew what this meant.

  “Onward ho, my friend,” Tom said, laughing. Henry began to swim at the same steady pace on the same course as before.