With the cable secured, he pressed the microphone to his mouth and presumably spoke to someone on the other end of the line.
Somewhere in the distance, a winch started taking up slack. As it did, the cable rose out of the water. Only now did the helmsman realize what he had in mind. “A breeches buoy,” he shouted.
“A what?” one of the crew asked.
“Think of it like a zip line,” the helmsman said. “It’ll carry us over the water and onto shore.”
The stranger climbed down, shrugged the backpack off his shoulder and pulled out several harnesses, each of which was attached to a wheeled runner.
As he handed out the harnesses, the stranger explained what was about to happen. “The other end of the cable is attached to a trailer manned by a friend of mine down on the beach near the point. He has orders to keep the line taut and haul you in. How many on board?”
“Nine.”
“Two trips,” the stranger said. “Four people at a time. Then the last man goes with me.”
The helmsman nodded and began directing his men to climb into the harnesses. The first four went up the boom and, one by one, hooked their new gear onto the steel cable and then to one another like a line of freight cars. With all four dangling out over the edge and the line sagging with the weight, the stranger spoke into his radio.
Instantaneously, a smaller secondary cable linked to the first harness pulled tight and the group began to move.
They went out across the water, dropping slightly and racing off into the distance. With the rain, the dim light and the blowing spray, it was hard to see them beyond the first hundred yards.
For the first time since they’d run aground, the helmsman felt a glimmer of hope. He looked back up at the stranger. “I’d like to say a proper thanks, but I don’t know your name?”
“Austin,” the man replied. “Kurt Austin.”
CHAPTER 4
“Where did you come from?” the helmsman asked.
Kurt was the Director of Special Projects for an American government agency known as NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency. Now was not the time to explain all that. “McCloud Tavern,” he said. “We saw that you were in trouble. Crazy to be out fishing in weather like this.”
“We weren’t fishing,” the helmsman said. “Just trying to get back to Dunvegan before the weather hit.”
That sounded reasonable, except it meant sailing into the teeth of the storm. Heading south would have been far safer. Kurt filed the thought away and pressed the radio’s TRANSMIT button connected to his headset. “What’s the word?” he asked. “Has the first group reached you yet?”
A quarter mile away, close enough that an Olympic swimmer could cover the distance in four minutes, Joe Zavala stood on the back end of a trailer hitched to a powerful F-150 pickup truck. He was parked halfway up a deserted beach, watching as the winch on the trailer reeled in the cable.
Joe was Kurt’s second-in-command at NUMA and his closest friend. He had a stocky build, short black hair and an easy smile that suggested things would be all right even when that appeared highly unlikely, considering the situation. This was one of those situations.
Despite being less than five hundred yards from the trawler, all Joe could see of the wreck was a shroud of light around the dim silhouette of the vessel. He strained for any sight of the men coming in on the line.
Finally, the cable began to bend, telling him there was weight on it, and four shapes emerged from the mist. They came sliding toward Joe, pulling their feet up as a wave tried to swipe them from the line, and crashed onto the beach in a four-man pileup.
Joe shut the winch down, hopped off the trailer and ran down to where they’d landed. He helped them out of their harnesses. “Get in the truck,” he said, pointing to the crew cab of the Ford. “The heat’s on. Make yourself comfortable, but don’t play with the radio dial.”
The men looked at him blankly, not getting the joke, and then stumbled toward the truck. As they opened the doors and climbed in, Joe pressed TALK on his own headset. “Congratulations, amigo. We’ve got four men on dry ground. Make that solid ground. Nothing’s dry around here for miles.”
“Roger that,” Kurt said. “Get them out of those harnesses so I can pull the harnesses back and send over the next group.”
Joe had already clipped the harnesses together and made sure they were secure on the cable. Heading back to the truck, he disconnected the brake on the winch, allowing the drum to spin freely and the cable to play out. “All clear,” he said into the radio. “Use those biceps and pull to your heart’s content.”
Back on the ship, Kurt began hauling in the cable, pulling the harnesses back toward the foundering vessel. He worked quickly and without a rest. Finally, with his arms burning from the effort, the harnesses came into view. When they were close enough, he reached out and grabbed them.
“Next group,” he shouted.
It took only a minute for the helmsman and two other crew members to get situated in the harnesses and hooked onto the cable.
By Kurt’s count, they were missing some men. “Am I confused or are we a couple of people short?” Kurt said to the helmsman.
“What?”
“These men are numbers five and six,” Kurt shouted over the wind. “You make seven. But you told me there were nine on board. Where are the other two?”
The helmsman looked toward the wheelhouse. “The captain. He went down below to get our passenger.”
“Passenger?”
“When we hit the rocks, he went below. The captain went down after him.”
Kurt glanced toward the wheelhouse. With the lights on, it looked warm and inviting against the leaden storm, but it was no place to hide when the ship came apart. “Go with your men,” he said. “I’ll get your captain and this passenger.”
The helmsman looked as if he was about to argue, but Kurt didn’t give him a chance. He hooked the harness to the cable and pressed the radio’s TALK switch to call Joe. “Next group ready to go. Reel them in.”
The cable tightened and lifted the helmsman and his remaining crew off the gantry and out across the waves. As they rode toward safety, Kurt climbed down to the tilted deck and made his way toward the wheelhouse.
Just when he stepped inside the wheelhouse, the hull shifted with yet another wave, groaning in protest. If Kurt didn’t find the captain and the passenger quickly, there would be no ship left to escape from.
CHAPTER 5
Austin stepped onto the bridge of the trawler and found it empty, then moved to the stairwell at the back of the pilothouse.
With the boat listing sharply to the side, the stairs resembled something from an amusement park attraction. “All ashore that’s going ashore!” Kurt shouted.
His call brought no response and, with little choice, Kurt descended the diagonally slanted stairs. He found a short corridor with two doors on either side, the first on the right led to a radio room, the others to small cabins. All four proved to be empty.
At the end of the hallway another stairwell beckoned. Here, Kurt found a rope tied to the railing and trailing downward. The lights on the next level were out, so Kurt took a flashlight from a small pocket in the arm of his wetsuit and aimed it into the dark. Three feet of seawater was sloshing about at the bottom. But no sign of any person.
“Captain?” Kurt shouted.
Still no response.
Kurt followed the rope down and waded into the water. With the trawler rocking and the hull groaning with every passing wave, he wondered first about the captain and his passenger, then about his own sanity. “We’re all out of our minds.”
Panning around with the flashlight, he found another corridor and a second bank of accommodations. Six doors, three on either side. Pipes ran along the ceiling. And electrical conduits.
Aiming the flashlight down the length of the corridor, he spied a body floating at the far end. He rushed toward it, pushing a wave of buoyant debris ahead of him. Strangely
enough, several life jackets, tied together in an awkward fashion, bobbed up and down nearby.
He turned the body over and lifted the man’s head free of the muck. It was the captain. As his flashlight illuminated the face and head, Kurt noticed blood running from a nasty gash on the back of the man’s skull. Bubbles by his nose and mouth suggested he might still be breathing.
Keeping the captain’s head above water, Kurt pulled the floating mass of life vests toward him, untangled one from the others and strapped the captain in it.
“No …” the captain mumbled. “Let me go.”
“Captain!” Kurt shouted.
The man’s eyes opened a fraction. Kurt couldn’t tell if they saw anything. “Can you hear me?”
A half nod, no words.
“Where’s your passenger?”
The captain looked around in the dark. He seemed confused.
“Your passenger,” Kurt repeated. “Is he down here?”
“He’s dead,” the captain blurted out.
“Dead?”
“Down below,” he struggled to explain. “Drowned … the damned fool … I couldn’t … get to him …”
Kurt nodded grimly. “Then we have no reason to stay. Can you stand?”
With Kurt’s help, the captain got to his feet. The two of them waded through the muck to the stairs and climbed slowly back to the bridge.
“Who are you?” the captain asked.
“I’ll explain in the pub,” Kurt said. “Just stay with me and I’ll get you out of here.”
“What about my crew?”
“Already onshore.”
That news lifted a burden from the captain’s shoulders.
Kurt pushed the hatchway door open and helped the captain out onto the sloping deck. The wind whipped past and the rain came at them sideways. And footing proved treacherous. With the boat rocking every time a wave attempted to dislodge it from the rocks, before long the captain went down, taking Kurt along with him. In unnerving fashion, they slid toward the edge of the deck, stopping only as Kurt’s feet hit against one of the cleats.
The captain took one look at the spires of rock ahead and shuddered. “Life jacket be damned. We’ll never survive that. How did you get my crew off?”
“Breeches buoy,” Kurt said. “But we’re taking a more personal mode of transportation.”
Kurt dragged the captain to the aqua sled, where it remained tethered to the ship’s ladder. Each time a wave washed over the deck, the sled floated briefly, swung around to a new position and then settled again as the water drained away.
Kurt grabbed the handlebars and steadied it. “Climb on the back,” he said. “Loop your fingers through those handholds. And whatever you do, don’t let go.”
As the captain got in position, Kurt climbed on the front. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Kurt fired the engine up, reached for the carabiner that held them to the ship and unlatched it. Another wave arrived, flooding the deck, lifting the aqua sled and banging it and them against the gantry.
Kurt shook off the impact and gunned the engine, pointing the nose away from the trawler. A rooster tail spraying out behind them, they rode straight off the deck and onto the bay. With the throttle pinned wide open, the aqua sled swiftly picked up speed, but, even as it did, the wave began dropping out from beneath them, creating a horrible, unsettling sensation just as they crossed the field of rocks.
Kurt leaned to starboard as an outcropping of mottled stone appeared in front of him. Avoiding that obstacle put them on a collision course with another algae-covered boulder. Kurt threw the weight of his body over the other way, split the gap and rushed out into the channel.
They were clear of the shoal and now out among the swells. To be safe, Kurt swung wide and headed for the shoreline below the tavern. Nearing the breakers, he timed his approach, slowing down and allowing the hill of water from behind to roll beneath him before speeding up once more.
By following the crest of the wave in and allowing it to crash and fan out, Kurt had given himself a watery carpet to ride up onto the stone-covered beach on. He took it all the way in, as far as he could go, stopping only when the aqua sled ground noisily to a halt on the shore.
Thrown forward by the sudden landing, Kurt pushed himself up off the handlebars. They’d come ashore at the tavern. A group of people already inside was rushing outside to help. They came down a crooked stairway that clung to the bluff and raced along the beach toward Kurt and the captain.
They arrived in joyous fashion, congratulating Kurt and helping the captain off the aqua sled. While a few of them helped him to the pub, several others helped Kurt lift the sled higher on the beach, where it wouldn’t wash away.
The old man who’d stood beside him in the tavern handed him an open bottle of Talisker Whisky, proudly bottled nearby. “It’ll warm your bones, lad.”
Kurt had no doubt about that. He took a swig, handed the bottle back and walked with the small crowd back toward the cheerfully lit tavern.
Pressing the radio’s TALK switch, he contacted Joe. “Did the second set of crewmen reach you safely?”
“They’re in the back of the truck. Where are you?”
“I’m on the beach and heading up to the tavern for a drink,” Kurt said. “Why don’t you join me?”
“See you there,” Joe replied.
Thankful that the rest of the crew was safe, Kurt allowed himself to relax. It was a truly euphoric moment, with one exception—the loss of the ship’s passenger.
As he neared the warmth of the tavern, Kurt wondered what would make a man run into the bowels of a sinking ship. It made little sense, considering the trawler was flooding and the danger was down below.
Something wasn’t right. Kurt felt it. And even the whisky wasn’t enough to drive that sensation away.
CHAPTER 6
Kurt met Joe outside the tavern as he pulled up in the F-150 they’d shipped over from America.
The trawler’s crew piled out—some from inside the heated, dry cab, the rest from the open bed in back. Kurt hustled them into McCloud’s, cutting off any more talk of thanks and appreciation.
“And would you believe none of them tipped me?” Joe said.
With the rescued sailors inside the tavern, Kurt jumped inside the truck and grabbed his duffel bag. Peeling off the wetsuit and getting into dry clothes felt terrific. The applause welcoming them when he and Joe entered the pub didn’t feel bad either.
Before they could even say thanks, toasts were being made and food was being brought out from the kitchen. The sailors were treated to heaping plates of shepherd’s pie, along with pots of hot tea and coffee. It wasn’t long before townsfolk began to appear with other gifts. An older couple brought a basket filled with dry clothes. A younger man brought his son and daughter, explaining that the men who’d been rescued were fishermen like the children’s uncle. A nurse, who everyone in McCloud’s knew well, showed up and tended to the captain, putting antiseptic in the gash on the back of his head and getting ready to sew it up right there in the bar.
Trying to escape the fanfare as quickly as possible, Kurt and Joe settled into a booth in the corner of the pub. A fire crackled in a stone hearth nearby and the high walls gave them some privacy. A plate of food was delivered. Haggis and chips, which Americans call French fries.
Joe sampled the haggis. “So flavorful.”
“You will literally eat anything,” Kurt said.
“Food is fuel,” Joe said. “And my tank is on empty.”
Kurt traded whisky for coffee as a way of warming his bones. He took no milk or sugar. As long as it was piping hot, it was good by him. Taking a sip, he studied all the activity around them.
Everyone seemed happy and intent on celebrating. Everyone except for the captain. Then again, he’d just lost a ship and cracked his skull open trying to rescue a passenger who’d ultimately drowned. “You ever see a man run belowdecks on a sinking ship?”
Joe
shrugged. “Some folks freeze up. I’ve seen people hide in closets instead of running out of a burning building. And last year we plucked those yachtsmen from the mast of their boat. Remember how they hung on until we forced them to let go?”
“True,” Kurt said. “But in those cases, people were hiding from the danger, hoping desperately that it would stay away from them. The people in the building are hoping—irrationally, of course—that the closet door will keep the fire away. That if they don’t see it, the fire won’t get them. The sailors you’re talking about climbed higher and higher. They’d have been smarter to get a raft off before the boat went under, but they were still trying to keep away from the danger. If the helmsman is telling the truth, this guy went down below and into the water after they hit the rocks.”
“That is odd,” Joe said.
“So is the captain’s injury.”
Joe glanced over at the man, who had his head down on a table while the nurse took out a suture kit. “We’ve all banged our heads on low-hanging pipes and hatchways,” he pointed out. “If I ever go bald, you’ll see a collection of scars on my noggin that go all the way back to my Navy days.”
Kurt had a few of his own. “What part of your head?”
Joe ran his fingers through his hair, feeling for the scars. “Front and center mostly. One bad one, right on top.”
Kurt nodded. “And yet our captain is getting the back side of his scalp stitched up.”
“You think someone clubbed him?”
“Could be.”
“Who?”
“Who else?” Kurt said. “The missing passenger.”
Joe sat back, suddenly uninterested in the food. “Can’t we just bask in the glory of this rescue like regular people? Does your suspicious mind have to work overtime?”
“Sorry,” Kurt said. “When things don’t add up, I look for reasons why.”
“It’s a bad habit,” Joe said, shaking his head. “One I’ve tried to break you of for years.”
Journey of the Pharaohs - NUMA Files Series 17 (2020) Page 4
