by Ken Douglas
“ Yes, sir,” Broxton said.
“ I want to gain speed and stay well away from the rocks.”
Broxton spread his legs wide, to keep his balance, and gripped the oversized wheel with both hands. It was a chilly gray morning. The sea was snapping whitecaps and spitting foam over the deck. The wind whistled through the shrouds. The sun was hidden by cloud cover. It started to sprinkle. He tightened his hands on the wheel and squinted against the rain, straining to see the boat ahead.
“ Okay, they should be up ahead, between one and two o’clock,” Ramsingh said, pointing. Broxton followed Ramsingh’s finger.
“ I see them.” The sea broke around the rocks, the white caps shooting higher than the surrounding seas. “How many are there?”
“ I don’t know,” Ramsingh said. “You’re only seeing the tips of them.”
“ Any boats ever been sunk on them?”
“ I imagine that’s how they were discovered,” Ramsingh said, and Broxton shivered as a breaking wave hit the rocks sending foam high in the air. He pictured a tall ship breaking apart, its hands jumping over the side, grabbing at broken pieces of the boat, grabbing at each other, grabbing at crowded life rafts, and being pushed back into the cold, cold sea.
“ Frightening,” Broxton said.
“ Very,” Ramsingh said.
“ What’s she doing?” Broxton said, eyes again on Sea King.
“ What are you doing?” Earl called out. He’d watched her from behind the wheel as she circled the port jib sheet around the big electric winch.
“ Go below and get the gun,” she shouted to be heard above the crashing waves, “we’re going to jibe.”
“ What’s a jibe?”
“ Just get the gun.”
“ You got it,” he said. He let her have the wheel and he scurried below, appearing seconds later, pants on, gun in hand. “What’s a jibe?” he asked again.
“ We’re going to do a turn with the wind behind us. Normally I wouldn’t do it in weather like this without a more experienced crew, but without the main it isn’t a big deal.”
“ What are you talking about?” He was holding the gun, looking over her shoulder at the boat behind. It was gaining on them.
“ No boom to come around,” she said. “Take the wheel and crank it to the right when I tell you. When we come abreast of them, start shooting.”
“ Yes, ma’am. Do you still want me to spare Broxton?” he asked.
“ No,” she said. “Shoot them both.”
“ Yes, ma’am,” he said again. These were orders he understood. At last she was over her thing with him. If she’d let him deal with Broxton in Venezuela it would all be over now. They’d be on some tropical island somewhere drinking rum punches and lazing the days away. But mas vale tarde, que nunca, better late than never. And the Spanish phrase reminded him of Maria. He was finished with her now, but he’d seen that son-of-a-bitching bastard Broxton with her, the two of them cooing like love birds out by the pool. He’d sure enjoy turning his lights out.
Dani went back to the port winch and took off a loop of the line. “All right!” she yelled. “Jibe ho, start turning.” Earl turned the boat as she went to the starboard winch and took the line all the way off of it. Then she was back at the port winch, with the port jib sheet in her hands. “Turn, turn, turn,” she yelled, as she hauled on the line, pulling it, as Earl brought the boat around. The sail came across the deck and billowed on the other side as the wind hit their backs. She threw two more wraps on the winch, tugged the line into the self-tailing jaws and used the electric motor to power the sheet in. “All the way!” she wailed.
Then with the turn complete she took the wheel. “I’m going to sail close enough so that you can see the dirt under their nails. You think you’ll be able to hit them?”
“ You get me a shot, I’ll do the rest,” he said.
“ I want them both.”
“ I’ll get them both. Don’t you worry.”
“ She’s jibing,” Ramsingh said.
“ What?” Broxton said.
“ Turning.” Ramsingh’s voice dropped an octave, like he couldn’t comprehend what was going on. But then he grabbed hold of the situation and started issuing orders. “Keep on a steady course, I’m going below for a second.” Ramsingh slipped down through the companionway and in a few seconds was back with two large square sections of wood about three feet by four feet.
“ What’s that?” Broxton asked.
“ Sections of the cockpit sole, the boat’s floor. Teak, three quarters of an inch thick. I think we might need it up here.”
“ Why?”
“ Shields.”
Broxton nodded, then turned his attention to the boat in front. Sea King had completed her turn and was now headed back toward them. Broxton adjusted the wheel slightly. Turning a bit to the left, mindful of the rocks.
“ My guess is she’ll sail by as close to us as she can get, shooting away as they pass,” Ramsingh said.
Broxton didn’t say anything. He kept his eyes on the boat in front. It looked like she was planning on coming along their left side. His emotions were whirling out of control. She’d been a large part of his life. Still was. He was in love with her. At least he thought he was. He didn’t want anything to happen to her, yet he couldn’t let her get away. He wanted her stopped, but he didn’t want her arrested. It would ruin Warren.
He turned the boat a little more to the left. Ramsingh met his eyes, but didn’t say anything. Sea King was charging toward them, jib billowing, heeled over, slicing through the waves. She turned a little to her right, to avoid the collision course Broxton had put them on, but he turned a little to the left, keeping the boats nose to nose, racing toward each other, like two great animals about to do battle.
She turned again.
Broxton matched it. Once again he was playing chicken, but these weren’t kids on Cherry Avenue. Dani was on that boat and she had more nerve than anyone he’d ever met. If she perceived it as a contest between them, she wouldn’t flinch, she’d hold course and sail that boat right into them and damn the consequences.
He would turn aside, but not till the last minute, not till she was sure he was intent on playing out the game, not till she was bracing for collision, then he’d turn.
“ After I set this up, I’ll set the self-steering gear and we’ll go below,” Ramsingh said. Broxton smiled. The prime minister was laying the hatches across the cockpit seats.
“ We’re not going to hide behind your wooden shields?”
“ Of course not,” Ramsingh said, “but they’re going to think we are.” Then he went below and seconds later returned with a bagged sail. Broxton watched while he propped it under the teak floor covering. Now instead of lying across the two cockpit seats, the floor covering rested on the port seat and on the sail underneath.
“ This way it’ll look like we’re hiding behind, under the wood, and hopefully they’ll shoot where we’re not.” He moved behind the wheel to set the self-steering gear.
“ Don’t set it,” Broxton said. “You go below. I’ve got other plans.”
“ Mr. Broxton,” Ramsingh ordered. “We’re going below.”
“ No, sir,” Broxton said. “I have the helm now. My job is to keep you safe. I’ll be all right.” There was something about the way he said it that made Ramsingh smile.
“ Right, I’ll go below.” The prime minister slipped down the companion way, but kept watch as Broxton kept Gypsy Dancer on a collision course with Sea King.
“ Any minute,” Broxton yelled.
“ What’s going on?” Ramsingh said. From his position looking up and out the companionway he could see Broxton behind the wheel, but not much else.
“ Ramming speed,” Broxton said, as Sea King bore down on them, looming large in his vision, like a hulking monster ready do devour them.
“ Oh, God,” Ramsingh said.
A wave or slight wind shift altered Broxton’s course, but he corrected, keeping his eyes on
the vee of the approaching vessel. Sea King was slicing through the water like a sharp razor through soft skin. For a second he thought about playing the game out, but he knew his rival and he couldn’t imagine Dani giving up. He tensed his right hand on the wheel in anticipation of the turn. Then Sea King broke to his left. She was turning. The amazement zapped him like a cardiac arrest. She wasn’t interested in besting him. If she was, she could have held out longer. She didn’t want to take the chance and guess which way Broxton would turn. She wanted them off her left side and there could only be one reason for that. Ram was right. The Texan was in position to shoot at them as they sailed by.
Broxton turned, not away from her as he’d planned, but toward her. He kept them on a collision course. Sea King turned more to his left and he corrected, keeping Gypsy Dancer aimed at the bigger boat’s bow. There was no doubt in his mind who’d lose in a collision. The basic laws of physics favored the larger vessel and he had no desire to test those laws. He moved the wheel slightly to the right when Sea King was only a few yards away.
He heard the skin crawling sound of the two boats scrapping hulls, but he didn’t see the damage they were causing each other, because he was busy scurrying around the wheel. He dove under Ramsingh’s teak floorboard shields as the Texan opened up. The first two shots went wild. The third thunked into the teak. Broxton crouched low, hugging the sail. The fourth ricocheted off a winch. The fifth slammed into the teak, followed by the sixth. Then the screeching, scraping and shooting stopped and they were temporarily out of danger.
“ It’s all right,” Ramsingh said, coming up through the companionway. “They’re behind us and out of range.”
“ Sorry about your floor.” Broxton stood and set the floor hatches on the port cockpit seat.
“ Sod the floor,” Ramsingh said.
“ And your boat. It’s probably pretty scratched up. It sounded like it was coming apart.”
“ You’re alive. They missed. That’s all that counts,” Ramsingh said.
“ You missed,” Dani wailed and Earl almost cringed from the fury in her eyes. He had no problem hearing her above the sound of the flapping main or the choppy sea. But as suddenly as the anger was upon her it seemed to pass. “All right,” she said. “We’ll just have another go at it.”
“ We’re not going to fool them again,” he said.
“ We didn’t fool them last time. Broxton faked me out with his chicken game and he had some kind of cover rigged up to hide behind. It’s not going to be so easy.”
“ What are we going to do now?” Earl asked.
“ What I should have done the first time. We’re going to ram this boat up their ass and sink them.”
“ What about us?”
“ Sea King is a steel boat. Strong and sturdy. Ramsingh’s boat is made of fiberglass. When steel crashes into plastic, plastic loses.”
“ You should have rammed them then.”
“ I thought I said that,” she said, glaring at him. This was one woman he never wanted to cross, he thought. Not ever.
“ Take the wheel,” she ordered, and Earl obeyed. “We’re going to jibe around and finish it.” Earl watched as she looped a turn of the starboard jib sheet around the winch, then she turned back to him. “Just the opposite of what we did before. When I yell, “Jibe ho,” you crank it to the left. Stop your turn when you have the ass end of that boat sighted across the bow. Got it?”
“ Got it,” he answered.
She waited a few seconds, judging distance and speed, Earl thought, then she yelled out, “Jibe ho,” and Earl started spinning the wheel as she slacked the port jib sheet from its winch. Halfway through the hundred and eighty degree turn she started hauling in on the starboard sheet, taking in the line, hand over hand, a demon possessed. Muscles rippled along her bare arms. Sweat glistened on the back of her neck and ran down her naked back. Her hair flew in the wind, and he felt an animal power flow from her. She was like a great jungle cat, everyone else was just prey.
She cleated off the sheet, then ground some more of it in with the winch. “I’ll take the wheel now,” she said, and Earl let her have it. Then she reached over to the engine panel and pushed the ignition button. Earl heard and felt the rumble of the diesel as it started up. “I don’t think we can catch them without the main, but with the help of the engine they won’t have a chance of getting away.”
“ I don’t think that’s a problem,” he said.
“ Why not?”
“ I don’t think they want to get away.”
“ They’re turning around,” Broxton said. He was back at the wheel. Ramsingh had just come back up from below, after having replaced his damaged floor hatches.
“ I spend all of my spare time on this boat,” he said. He was talking loudly, but Broxton heard the sigh in his voice. “It’s more than a hobby.”
“ I’m sorry about hurting it,” Broxton said.
“ It’s not your fault,” Ramsingh said. “You were doing your job, but I’m taking over command now. I know you’re trying to keep me alive, but I don’t think Gypsy Dancer can take much more of your methods.”
Broxton nodded, meeting Ramsingh’s eyes. There was a grim determined set to his jaw, a sturdy, unafraid timbre to his voice and a sad, soulful look in those eyes. He’d made a decision and Broxton wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was, but he had to ask. “What do we do now?”
“ We let them catch up to us.”
Ramsingh let out some of the mainsheet and the boat slowed from seven to five knots. “Look, there,” he said, pointing, “those are the Porpoises, right off our starboard side.”
Broxton turned to look. They were close to the rocks and he still had trouble seeing them. If Ramsingh hadn’t pointed them out he’d have missed them completely. He looked behind. “They’ve completed their turn.”
“ Look at the island ahead,” Ramsingh said. “We’re headed directly for the south coast. When I tell you, turn to starboard, to the right. Keep turning till the island is off the port side. That’ll be a ninety degree turn. Hold that position till I tell you differently.”
“ But the rocks?”
“ We should be by them by then.”
“ Should be?” Broxton said.
“ Should be,” Ramsingh answered.
Broxton checked behind them again. He didn’t have to tell Ramsingh they were getting closer. He turned away and eyed the coastline, looked again toward the rocks, but they’d moved past and he couldn’t see them through the rising swell.
“ What are you doing?” he asked, as Ramsingh let out more of the mainsheet.
“ Slowing the boat down even more.”
“ They’re coming awfully fast.”
“ I think she wants to ram us.”
“ Won’t she go down, too?”
“ Good possibility, but she’s thinking she’s got a steel boat. We’re fiberglass, she’s bigger. She probably thinks she’d survive a collision and we wouldn’t. She’d be wrong. Fiberglass is a lot tougher than it looks, and that thin skinned steel boat isn’t as strong as she thinks. Anything can sink, even the Titanic went down, and that boat’s no Titanic.”
Broxton looked over his shoulder. They weren’t far behind now and they were rapidly closing the distance. “Shit,” he said, staring at the stainless steel bow roller. Two heavy anchors rested in it and to his eyes they looked like great steel tipped battering rams charging up the ass end of their small boat. He gripped the wheel in a fit of panic.
“ Don’t!” Ramsingh yelled. “Not yet.”
And Broxton stayed his hand. He’d been about to turn out of the way, but there was something about the authority in Ramsingh’s voice that screamed out to be obeyed.
“ We don’t turn till the last possible moment. We want her to think we’re running like frightened jackals. If she even suspects what I have in mind we could all find ourselves swimming.” So Broxton kept a steady hand on the wheel as Ramsingh fiddled with the lines, making ready for the
turn.
He grabbed another look behind. The twin anchors seemed to be aimed right between his eyes, chromed and glistening, so polished that they reflected, like a mirror, the few rays of sunlight that managed to sneak through the gray clouds.
“ Hold steady your course,” Ramsingh said, as the monstrous form of the boat behind filled his vision. “Eyes front,” Ramsingh said, and Broxton turned away from Sea King and faced Grenada’s south shore. “Steady, steady,” Ramsingh cautioned. Broxton felt like there were a million eyes shooting laser-like pin pricks up his back, but he held the boat steady as Ramsingh commanded.
“ Now!” Ramsingh screamed, and Broxton spun the wheel to the right as Ramsingh played the sheets. The wind from behind filled the jib and the boat heeled and picked up speed. Broxton risked a quick look back and shivered. Sea King slipped by, missing them by less than a yard.
“ Two strikes!” Dani yelled out across the space between their two boats. Broxton shivered again. She had been his friend his whole life through. He loved her. She was all he wanted. If only he could make her see the light. But the fleeting look he caught from her eyes as they flew past told his heart what he already knew in his head. There was no going back. Though he and Dani both lived, their friendship was dead. He loved her still, but there was nothing he could do about that.
“ We’re going to turn right again in a few minutes,” Ramsingh shouted, “so be ready.” He heard the voice, nodded to let Ramsingh know he understood, but he kept his eyes on Sea King and watched as Dani rushed around the wheel. The Texan took her place as she struggled at a winch, making ready to turn and give chase.
“ Did you make out what she said?” Ramsingh asked.
“ Two strikes,” Broxton said. “It’s from baseball.”
“ We play cricket here, but I know what it means.”
“ They’re coming around,” Broxton said.
“ And so are we. Turn now, right again, ninety degrees,” and again Ramsingh was at the sheets as the little boat bucked and turned through the churning seas. When the sail had come around to the other side and they had the land directly at their backs, Ramsingh said, “Turn a little more right, not too much.” Broxton obeyed as Ramsingh tightened sail. He stole a look at the knot meter. Seven and a half knots. The wind was across their left side now, blowing strong. They were heeled over, rails back in the water, headed back toward Trinidad, seventy-eight miles away, going full tilt, as fast as Gypsy Dancer was able to take them.
