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

by Michael Atkins

  “I believe you, Uncle Gabe.”

  “Okay then. You and I gotta do something tonight.”

  “What’s that?” Jonas asked.

  “We gotta go see your mom. You need to tell her that you love her and that your dad’s predicament is not her fault.”

  “I love mom …but I’m not going to say it’s not her fault, because it is.”

  “Really? How ya figure that, Jonas?”

  “She divorced him and that’s why he went sailing alone.”

  “You got it wrong son, on both counts.”

  “Uncle Gabe, you just don’t -.”

  “Have I ever lied to ya? Even once in your whole life?” Gabriel asked.

  “No, you never have.”

  “Then listen to me when I tell you this. Your Pop has wanted to sail solo in the tropics since we were boys. Your grandfather took us to Hawaii when Tom and I were teenagers and all your father could talk about was how he was going to sail to Hawaii all by himself when he got older. The only reason he didn’t do it before now was because he loved your mom and you and Jess and devoted his life to being there for his family twenty four seven, three sixty five.”

  “But if Mom hadn’t kicked him out -.”

  “Your parents still love each other. You get that, don’t ya? Have you ever seen them talk nasty to each other or fight and fuss?”

  “No,” Jonas had to admit.

  “Things happen in life. Being married is really tough, especially for people as smart and ambitious as your folks. You can love someone but not be happy living with them. I get it, that’s an adult concept and a tough one to grasp, but you gotta know that both your dad and your mom tried as hard as they could to make it work. They both agreed to end the marriage; Syd didn’t throw Tom out. She still loves your father very much. Believe that, son.”

  “But she -.”

  “But nothin’, Jonas. Your mother needs your love and support. Your father, and I guarantee you this, would want you to step up and be a man here. He’d want you to do everything you could to help your mom through this. You know I’m telling you straight.”

  “Okay, I guess I need to think about this. Sorry,” Jonas said.

  “Hey kiddo. No need to say you’re sorry. That’s what uncles are for, to keep their nephews’ heads screwed on straight. We’ll take pizza with us over there; you won’t have to eat any of that vegan crap.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Gabe.”

  “We’re outta here in an hour. Take a shower and dress nice.”

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Two more days passed. Henry fed once more and Tom received another mackerel meal sans sharks. They were getting closer to the California coast now, perhaps only a few days away. Tom thought he had enough food and water to make it to land even if Henry didn’t go fishing again.

  But there was another problem. The third degree burn on Tom’s leg was infected. There was a red ring around the charred flesh and it was expanding. A yellow discharge was oozing from the burn site and the lymph nodes in Tom’s groin were blowing up like water balloons. If he got a blood infection or the wrong type of bacteria managed to… Why the hell didn’t these emergency pack people include some penicillin in their first aid kits? He didn’t want to think about the grim possibilities.

  He was running a fever now and it was getting worse. Riding on the back of a sperm whale in the Pacific was a hot and messy thing to do. The smell was horrible and the wind whipping Tom took was abusive. But the fever… That could quickly become a serious problem. He had about a half a bottle of aspirin left, maybe fifty tablets. If he took four tablets every five hours, he might be able to control the symptoms enough to endure the final leg of his fantastic voyage.

  Tom cut the remains of the second emergency blanket into a bandage that he wrapped around his leg. He secured the sides of the bandage with gauze tape. His main intent in doing this was to shield the burn from the sun and the spray and from whatever germs tried to invade the open wound. He knew that if Henry went for a dive again he would have to re-apply the entire bandage, so he left enough of the second emergency blanket uncut to make two more leg wraps.

  Henry continued to move at a steady pace towards the southeast. Tom figured that no one would be looking for him in this area. However, he also knew that he would soon be entering waters that had a large amount of steady commercial ship traffic. He had six flares left to signal for help.

  The first ship sighting he made was a glimpse of an oiler; since Tom had no binoculars or sunglasses observing objects on the water through the blinding sunlight was very difficult, especially in the late afternoon looking west. When he saw the ship he pulled out his flare gun, but he didn’t fire. The freighter was headed northwest and Henry was moving southeast. He guessed that they were at least two miles apart and the gap was widening every second. Tom knew that the maximum distance an average person could see across the open water at sea level was around two and a half miles.

  Near dusk, Tom spotted another vessel on the distant horizon. It was on a course that appeared would cross Henry’s path. This was what he’d been waiting for! It seemed perfect. The vessel was large; it was a military ship or a freighter. As the minutes passed and the sun began to set Tom could see the ship more clearly. He guessed it was still two miles away or so, but if both Henry and ship continued to move in the same direction at the same speed they would pass very close to each other.

  Then Henry stopped swimming and began his logging behavior. This shouldn’t have surprised Tom in the least since the whale did this every evening at this same time.

  “Henry, no!” Tom cried out. “Keep going! You’ve got to keep going!”

  The whale did not react to Tom’s outburst. From Henry’s perspective, the day was over. He’d been motoring along at a steady clip for almost eleven hours and it was time to rest.

  When Tom stopped shouting at Henry and looked up he noticed that the vessel, clearly a freighter, had made a course change. It was headed more north than west now, but it was still moving at the same speed.

  Tom sent two flares into the twilight sky. He considered this to be an opportune moment to send up a flare because the sun had just set and whoever was on the freighter might be looking west just to admire the beauty. The flares would frame themselves nicely over the dull orange horizon.

  “Carmen,” the Chief Mate said. “I still got the... you know. Damn Chinese food! I told the cook something was wrong with it.”

  “You want me to relieve you, Butch?” Carmen joked. Carmen was a Deck Cadet, training to become an officer.

  “Give me fifteen minutes. I’ll be back by then… and in slightly better shape I hope,” the Chief Mate answered.

  “You got it,” Carmen said.

  The Mary Louise had just made the turn towards Long Beach harbor, still a day and half’s pull away. The Chief Mate was on watch which meant he was in charge while the Captain was off duty, as was the case now. Going strictly by the book, a Deck Cadet could not relieve a Chief Mate, but all Butch had to do was visit the head.

  Carmen wasn’t worried. If anything happened of any significance he’d simply call Butch on the intercom and Butch would come running, even if his pants were at half-mast.

  Bored more than anything else Deck Cadet Carmen grabbed the binoculars and looked to the east. They were still too far out to sea to spot land, but he wasn’t looking for land he was looking for traffic. Out here the biggest navigational safety risk was colliding with a small craft that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Most of the time on Mary Louise there were two or three hands on deck doing one thing or the other, but when the sun set two seamen went below to fetch tools they needed to repair a sticky hatch and a third headed into a cargo bay to perform a routine check.

  If Carmen would have looked behind him, he would have seen a couple of flares go up in the distance almost due west from Mary Louise. Anyone on the ship looking in that direction would have clearly seen the signal. The flares bur
ned bright for sixty seconds and then went out.

  “Why aren’t you turning? Or sending up a response flare?” Tom said as he watched the ship move farther away. He reloaded his flare guns. He had four flares left. It was decision time. Should he use all four of his flares to try and signal the ship? Should he try one more? It was a judgment call to be sure, but making the wrong call could cost him his life.

  For whatever reason, and it was more of a gut feeling than a well thought conclusion, Tom didn’t fire another flare. As soon as the freighter disappeared he questioned his decision. Yes, I’m getting closer to shore every day, Tom reassured himself, but how long will Henry keep doing what he’s been doing? And where was Henry’s destination? A couple of miles off shore? An oil rig? Some kind of sperm whale rendezvous point?

  Tom’s leg was hurting worse now. The aspirin was not dulling the pain. If his leg didn’t stop throbbing, Tom thought it might not be possible to sleep. Despite his desperate circumstances, a voice in Tom’s brain was urging him not to let this experience end. You’re riding a whale in the Pacific! Whether you live or die isn’t as important as living this dream out to the fullest! When Tom had these thoughts they were often interrupted by images of his children. He knew that, regardless of any other concerns, he needed to do everything possible to get back to the world for them.

  Tom didn’t fire the flares at the ship because he wanted to stay with Henry; he thought there would be a better use for them later. As he lay down on Henry’s back and tried to rest he hoped to God that he hadn’t made a fatal mistake.

  ^^^^^^

  “Okay, assessments,” Commander Robinson ordered.

  “If Campbell made into a life raft he could still be alive. We’re well within the range of that possible outcome especially since we don’t have a good estimated date on the sinking,” Lieutenant Watkins said.

  “Is that the consensus of your team?” Robinson asked.

  “It is, sir,” Watkins reported.

  “What does SAROPS have to say?” Robinson needed to know.

  “The projection is that the odds that Mr. Campbell is still breathing are less than ten percent,” an NCO reported.

  “Have we found any more debris?” the Commander asked.

  “Negative. We’ve completed an intensive search of the area within forty square miles of where we found the clothes and the sail piece,” Watkins said as she thumbed through her notes.

  “Who is handling the media on this?” Robinson asked.

  “Lt. Commander Ricks, sir. He’s very experienced,” Watkins answered.

  “We absolutely do not release the SAROPS life expectancy projection to the family or to the media. We continue the search patterns for at least another seventy two hours. Send Ricks in here, please. Dismissed.”

  Chapter Thirty

  It had been a day and a half since Tom saw the freighter. By his best estimate, he and Henry were within a hundred nautical miles of the California coast. They had to be unless he was completely wrong about either Henry’s course or speed and that didn’t seem possible.

  This morning he didn’t want to look at his leg. The stench told him everything he didn’t want to know. The infection was getting worse, much worse. If the smell of his gammy leg overpowered the odor of the whale, then he was in real trouble.

  But he undid the bandage anyway. He decided to use some of his precious fresh water to clean the wound. He also thought it couldn’t hurt to crush a few of his aspirin tablets and gently sprinkle them on the burn. Not that it would do him any good at all if Henry got hungry and decided to dive for his lunch. Since the whale hadn’t done this for four days now, Tom assumed Henry must be famished. Didn’t sperm whales eat almost every day? Why would Henry not be eating?

  Despite knowing the dangers of anthropomorphizing, Tom had come to believe that Henry was not regularly eating because the whale somehow knew that Tom needed to be brought back to shore as quickly as possible. Could this be true? Was the whale endangering his own survival to save a human being? Henry the selfless whale?

  The skin in the burned area was totally black, which meant it was dead. Yellow pus was oozing out of the wound. The inside of Tom’s right leg and his groin were swelled. He used the gauze bandages from the first aid to kit to clean it up as much as possible. Then he cut a new strip of emergency blanket and taped up his leg to hold the bandage in place.

  He was dizzy too. Not a good sign. If he could not maintain equilibrium he was done for. The aspirins were not helping with the pain from his leg or from his ribs, which hurt like hell now too. His fever was in check at least enough for him to remain conscious.

  “Henry, my friend,” Tom said. Henry was still logging, he didn’t seem to be in a rush to take off today. “We better hurry. I’ll do my best, but I’m kinda running on fumes here. Do all -.”

  What was that? Tom asked himself. Just then Henry spouted and he was off. Tom was sure that he heard something. A minute or two later he heard it again. He didn't imagine it, it was a helicopter.

  “San Diego Center, Echo Two Three Charlie,” the pilot said into the mic.

  “Echo Two Three Charlie,” San Diego Center squawked back.

  “Ah, San Diego Center be advised Echo Two Three Charlie… ah… stand by San Diego.” The pilot stopped his transmission.

  “Ricky, what the hell is that?” Gordon Helms asked his co-pilot, who was also his son-in-law.

  “Looks like a signal flare. Wait one.” Ricky Davis took out his binoculars and scanned the horizon. “It’s a… I have no idea what that is!”

  “Ah… Ricky. We’re at the end of our range here. We’re forty miles out to sea. Not a lot of time to be -.”

  “Okay Gordo. Remember now, I haven’t had a drink in two years and I don’t do drugs.”

  “Get to the point Ricky, was that a flare or wasn’t it?”

  “It was a flare. The guy who fired it is waving his arms at us.”

  “The guy?” Gordon said. “All I see is a whale down there, I think.”

  “The guy riding the whale is waving his arms at us. He fired the flare,” Ricky explained.

  “The guy… what?” Gordon grabbed his own binoculars and looked at Henry and Tom, who were now 200 feet below them and to their starboard.

  “That’s not possible… is it?” Gordon said.

  “Is it more possible that we’re both hallucinating?” Ricky asked.

  Now both Gordon and Ricky were looking at Henry and Tom. The whale was continuing to move in the same direction at the same steady speed. Tom was busy waving his arms and shouting.

  “Get out that fancy camera of yours, son,” Gordon said. “I’m dropping down for a better look. There is no way I’m calling this in until you get pictures.”

  Ricky did as he was told. Gordon dropped to within fifty feet of Henry and Tom and Ricky clicked away. Tom was almost standing up now. Ricky leaned out of the chopper and waved at him.

  “We gotta turn back,” Gordon said. “We’ll be landing on fumes as it is. Got the photos?”

  “Yea, over twenty,” Ricky said.

  “This is incredible… I mean… what the hell just happened?”

  “We saw a man riding on the back of a sperm whale and from the looks of the guy we better get help out to him right quick.”

  ^^^^^^

  “Yes, she’s right here. I’ll get her for you,” Harold said. Sydney was still in the shower. Lately, she didn’t get to sleep until almost dawn or get out of bed until the early afternoon.

  “Syd!” Harold yelled. “The San Diego Coast Guard is trying to reach you. They say it’s urgent.”

  All Sydney heard was “Coast Guard” and “urgent”. She had been dreading this call. They had not found any evidence of Tom or his boat for days on end. The only possible outcome now seemed to be the inevitable, “We regret to inform you that…”

  She rinsed her hair and got out of the shower. There was an extension in the bathroom. “This is Ms. Campbell,” Sydney said as she picked
up the phone and sat down on the toilet seat. She wasn’t sure that she could remain standing after getting the news she expected to receive.

  “Ms. Campbell, this is Commander Forest from the San Diego Coast Guard office. I’m calling about your ex-husband, Tom Campbell, who has been missing at sea for some days now.”

  “Yes…” Syd hesitated and said, “The San Diego Coast Guard? What do you have to do with this?”

  “Are you sitting down Ms. Campbell?” Forest asked.

  “As a matter of fact I am. Why? You can -.”

  “Thomas Campbell is alive. At least he was as of two hours ago. We are sending out a sea plane to pick him up right now.”

  “My God!” Sydney shouted. “Really! You know this for sure!”

  “Yes ma’am. We have photos of him… Now here’s where I need you to listen carefully to what I have to say. It’s going to sound bizarre,” Forest said.

  “I can’t believe it! I don’t care how or why! My God, Tom is alive!”

  “He’s about thirty five miles off of the coast of Southern California. We have pictures of Mr. Campbell riding on the back of an adult sperm whale. The whale is bringing him back to land, or so it seems.”

  “What?” Sydney certainly wasn’t expecting to be told that. “Say that again, and if this is your idea of a sick joke, so help me I will sue you for -.”

  “Thomas Campbell is on the back of an adult sperm whale. We have confirmed visual evidence of this. So does the world, there was nothing we could do to stop it.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “We have no idea but… do you have access to the internet or television?” Forest asked.

  Syd’s i Pad was in the bathroom. She Googled CNN and there it was, the lead story - Thomas Campbell and his whale. She watched as the pictures rolled by. Tom looked like hell. He was burnt to a crisp and he had some sort of wound on his right leg. He was wearing a silver cape, but there was no doubt it was Tom.