The Rancher's Nephew by Drake Koefoed - HTML preview

Laura took the pole, and put the butt in the socket.

“Pump a little, take line when you can, if he runs, don’t get upset.  Henry is sneaking back right now, so the fish might seem to gain some line, but you are getting him away from any obstructions he could break off on.”

Syd looked at the pole.  “Big Jew.  I’d say over 600 pounds.”

“They don’t call them jewfish any more, do they?”

“You think Silver is a fucking goy name?”

Syd ran around on the first deck rail, telling everyone that Laura had a big Jewfish on.  Real big.

Frank sat near Laura.  “You are in command, Laura.  Henry is doing what he thinks you want, and you should probably let him do what he likes, but you don’t have to.”

Laura worked on the fish for another 4 hours.  He was coming in.  As the fish came in close, a shark showed up.  Syd ran below decks, and came up with a Remington semi auto in stainless with a plastic stock.  It was chambered for .338.  It had a 3x50 Loupold scope with see through mounts that allowed her to use the iron sights.  She fired three rounds, and the shark rolled over and sank.

She dropped the magazine, ejected the round in the chamber, put it in the magazine, decocked it, and handed the rifle to Rollie.  ‘Leave it on safe.”

Henry used the loudspeaker.  “Gaff crew on deck.”

Syd went over the rail, and put a heavily made gaff into the grouper’s gill plate.   Frank took the handle.  She took another and did the same on the other side.  Frank reminded Laura to be ready in case he slipped the gaffs.  Laura would have to take up slack and keep the fish on for another try.   Frank, Greg, Carlos, and Crow had the gaffs.  Kenny and Tabby came to help.

They almost could not do it, but Syd gave a powerful push at the right moment, and the fish slammed to the deck.  They put it on the fillet table.  Lots of pix were taken of Laura and her fish.  Syd and Jeff knew it was a female before she was gutted.  Jeff, an AB on a fish boat, had a masters in marine biology.  He could have been a chemist, and been either a dissatisfied water quality enforcement officer, or a lying dirt bag expert witness for polluters.  Or he could have dropped out of high school and driven a delivery truck for more money than Laura made.

The fish eventually got cut up.  Crow wanted to preserve the skull, so it went to the freezer.  Also, some stuff like the liver and all, which were not discussed.  Skin, guts and such went to the freezer in bits.  After the vacationers got their chance to catch a lot of snappers, the boat went late at night to set 225 crab traps.  When the sun came up, she was back out in deep water.  This was the real thing, 290 feet of water with a beautiful indigo color to it, air temperature of 82 degrees, and puffy clouds stopping about half the sun.  The bottom, of course, was lousy with sharks.  In a rational world, you would run a trenching machine at exact interval, and bury sharks and such useless things in the trenches, then disk the ground, and then plant row crops over the trenches.  We could also just give the sharks to the starving people in Africa, Latin America, or the United States.  Louisiana only allows a boat to take one shark.  Whales, fine, but protect the sharks.  In a rational world, there would be no license required and no limit on sharks.  Getting rid of every shark on the planet may not be a bad idea, but we could never do it.  There is one requirement to be a rule maker for a state fish and game agency.  You must not be smarter than a jackrabbit.

* * *

The fishermen let down, and got lots of snappers.  This being a snapper eat snapper world, the fillet scraps would serve as bait.  They could not land in Louisiana, though, because Louisiana does not permit filleting on board.  

The fishermen got lots of good fishes.  They ate so many oysters they didn’t even like them any more.  At night, the boat went in and ran the crab traps.  There were masses of crabs, and the bait was easily come by, too.  Crab sorting could go on until midnight.  The workers cooked the legal ones and threw the rest over the side.  Some of the gang got a taste for crab eggs, and they just cooked the crabs and ate them.  The ones with eggs on their tails, nobody took.  That would be going too far.

Being pretty close in, the boat stopped in port and sold the largest male crabs, and bought diesel and water, though she was not low.  She headed out.

“20 On the Indigo Sea”

Rosy fingered dawn found Clarissa Marlene about 300 miles from Houston hanging off an oil rig.  A helicopter landed on the rig.  A personnel basket came down with Alice and Tom and some baggage.  Duffels, two more bags of oysters, some cases of alcohol, and a very large and very quiet Filipino introduced as Jorge.  According to Tom, Jorge was a steward.  Apparently he knew Syd, because she said something about wanting a rematch.  They pretended to spar for a few minutes.  Frank could see that if they were really boxing, Jorge would no more be able to hit Syd than he could catch a flying mosquito by its wing.  

Jeremy and Kelly came out and sat at one of the spools.  “Something up, Tom?”

“No.  Everything is fine, and I’m happy with your work.  No complaints.  The quarry is piling up rock pretty well.  Highway jobs are being discussed.  We might be pushing hard in 6 weeks or so.  You know, a guy told me about being in the gulf war.  He said you don’t have to say you don’t like Kuwait because nobody likes Kuwait.”

“Nobody likes Nowhere.”

“They don’t.  We can’t have hunting or fishing.  Sitting at a bar with a thousand yard stare is not going to make anyone happy,” Tom said “You planted some flowers.  You got them a little store, which was a real good idea.”

“We were happier when we had water in the ponds.  Swimming and so on.”

“I can’t make it rain.  I could look for Bedouins to work for you, but that is not really what you need.”

“No.  We need something to make the place more attractive.”

Carlos came over, and pointed at a chair.  Tom nodded.  “Money helps.”

Tom said, “It does, but it does not get loyalty.  People also need to be treated well.  I could run that quarry with mercenaries like Cattie, but mercs leave when the money isn’t coming, or for whatever reason.  I don’t mean to pry, Carlos, but you are here and she is there.”

“She is a very good operator.”

“That says it all.  Jeremy thinks I might put you on the anvil and make a manager out of you.”

“Jeremy said that?”

“Yes.  He pushed pretty hard for you.  But Alice, give Carlos his grades.  For operator?”

“A for sure.”

“Mechanic.”

“A again.  He’s a treasure.  He can do almost any job in a quarry.”

“People skills.”

“C minus.  He is a good trainer, and he can explain how things work, but he has no insight into other people’s thoughts and feelings.”

“Why would you pick Jeremy for a manager rather than Carlos?”

“Jeremy listens better.  He is a B minus operator and a C minus mechanic.  He is studious, but he will never be the quarryman Carlos is.  People skills B plus and improving.  He will never be anything like the manager you are, but he will be pretty good.  I doubt he will ever be as good as me, even, but I’d love to be proved wrong.”

“Carlos, I am increasing your pay $2 an hour, and making you director of operations at Nowhere.  You are responsible for the equipment having fluid levels right, maintenance and repairs, scheduling workers if Jeremy doesn’t have it done.  I want another pickup.  Confer with Jeremy, but it’s your job to pick it out.  Jeremy is to look over the decision, and see if something looks wrong.  You are buying this truck.  And if one of the machines needs a new tire, buy it.  You decide what lube oil we need, and how much to buy.  Also spare parts.  Make a list.  $50-100 thousand for now.  Jeremy and I will look at your list but be right, because we will tend to assume you are.”

“Now,” Tom said, “We have to think about morale at Nowhere.  Anyone who works at Nowhere, come over if you like.  Someone get us some oysters.”

A bowl of oysters came right away.  “Champagne, too, please.”

Tom went to work on an oyster.  “Here is the problem, my gangsters.  We have a quarry with lots of good rock in a place where lots of highway jobs are done, but it’s a dry, ugly, hot, dusty place nobody likes.  How do we get people to work there.  Assume the pay is good.”

Chases the Moon said, “I’m just here for the oysters, but I have a thought.”

“Please.”

“We came to Big Bird because we didn’t have much work in Oklahoma, and Crow found a good employer who would let us work as we liked, and pay us well.  We are all very appreciative of what Frank and the Barkers have done for us.  There are many poor people in Texas, Oklahoma, and all around.  You could have a free course at Junior Colleges.  Give away the textbook, too.  Something you make with a printer and a big stapler, or maybe it’s in a binder.  Anyone who does all right in the course, you let them come to the Nowhere quarry at minimum wage.  The work is what, scoop up rocks and put them in the crusher.  Scoop up rocks and put them in a truck.  Repeat.  You get a poor person working, and he is all right.  Give them a little raise now and then.  They can look to work at Black Rock.  Maybe Smithfield.”

“This is some good thinking, Chases the Moon.  Comments, anyone?”

Carlos said, “It takes one day to show someone the basics.  You will have lots of dents and scratches, and you can’t make a dragliner or a crusher/sorter operator that fast.”

“You, Cattie and Jeremy can drag and run the crusher/sorter?”

“Yeah.  Alex, too if we give him a little practice time.”

“So we need to get two more operators to learn that.  Three is barely enough, and with my director of operations and manager as two of them, I am just getting by.  I should really have three more.  Jeremy and Carlos need to look into the College thing when they go back to work.  We might make some videos.  Maybe do it as an online course.”

* * *

Frank called Melody.  Everything was going fine.  The sorters were filling boxes.  She was a little unsure about some of the ordering.  Frank said to order as much as she was selling if the inventory labels were unclear.  The big tumbler had its time in, so she should run lake water into it and run it for a few hours to get the rocks clean.  If the garden looked wilty, she should flood it a foot deep.  If it started taking more than 8 hours to drain, they might need to put less water.  

Complaints were few.  Melody should call or email people.  She could say, re-order and we will refund the price, so you pay the postage for the free rocks.  She could promise to pack the order personally.  If she had to, she could refund the price and the postage, but we would no longer sell to that customer.  They signed off.

The boat was still hanging off, and a few lines were down, but the snappers were slow to come.  Henry decided to move.  They rolled up and headed for a wreck.  The story went that a German submarine had torpedoed a tanker coming into Louisiana for a load in probably 1942.  The legend says the tanker, being in ballast, did not sink on the one hit, and executed a fast turn and rammed the submarine, which was on the surface at night.  Then the government, not wanting to alarm the public, hid the whole incident, and refused to chart the wreck.  Drag boats found it the hard way, losing nets that, to paraphrase Marcie Della, ‘cost more than you might think.’  Midwater trawlers like the Clarissa Marlene would not have run afoul of such an obstacle, having side scanning sonar on their nets.  Except that now they could not operate nets with sonar on them.  Clari had several million dollars worth of equipment sitting in a warehouse becoming obsolete.  With that gear on board, she could have gone out on the gulf and caught enough sand sharks to feed everyone in Bangladesh a nice lunch and dinner.  Sand sharks eat the food that could have gone to snappers, groupers, king mackerel, and tuna.  Sand sharks are not much good to eat, unless you have been making do with bugs and grass, in which case they are pretty good.

They arrived at the wreck(s) at mid day.  Henry kept everyone away from the stern, because he would need to use the engines to maintain position.  He had Ed keeping the boat in position.  He spoke to the people on deck.  “We will be hove to, as we are now.  Sinkers on breakaways.  You might want to make your leaders lighter than your mainlines so you can break off.  This is two uncharted wrecks that have been catching long lines, trawler nets and all kinds of junk for probably 70 years.  We will move over them, and I will tell you when we are coming up or dropping off.  

They rigged up with whatever was at hand.  Lots of rusty steel sinkers went on.  When Henry called gear down, most everyone was ready.  Laura hooked a nice snapper as soon as she touched bottom.  Frank had three good hits in a few seconds, and pulled some weight up.  The two fishermen next to them broke off, so they were able to spread a little.  

Frank said “I have the quantity, but you have the quality, Laura.”  

“I am the quality.”

Frank got up faster because he had three small ones.  They could not break off.  Laura’s big one could, so she had to be careful.  Frank put his fishes in the box.  Suddenly, Laura’s line went tight, and then slack.  She pulled up the head of a nice snapper.  The rest had been taken by a shark.

“Try running it right back down.  The other snappers will eat that head, and you might hook one.”

She let it down, but what she hooked was the shark.  Syd came out with the .338 and got a real nice shot right in the brain, which is a small target.  Laura pulled the disgusting creature alongside, and Syd cut the leader.  The shark sank, most likely to be eaten by his own family.

The snappers were good, but the sharks were bad.  Tom proposed that they head in, and haul the crab pots.  When they did, a lot of waypoints were empty.  Henry called the Coast Guard, and was told not much could be done, but maybe.

Clarissa Marlene went to harbor with about 50 traps missing.  She went on in, and stopped to sell some crabs.  There was a boat at the dock with about 50 crab traps on deck.  They were selling Tom's crabs.  Tom called the Houston police, and had Henry block the boat in.  You might imagine Syd seeing all this happening and not coming on deck with a vest and a rifle.  You might imagine that, but it would never happen.

The Houston police called the Texas Rangers, who, being advised that the thefts had been in Texas waters, came and busted the boat.  They had a search warrant.  This is one of those little funny things about Texas.  Texans like their criminals.  They like them hung, shot, injected, run over by trucks or however you prepare them.  The Rangers seized the boat, but they had to ask Syd to take it to impound.  They gave Syd the correct dock but went to the wrong one themselves.  The boat was only 88 feet, so Syd threw a bow line on a bollard, backed her down and threw a stern line on a bollard, threw a mid ship line on a bollard, and shut her down.  She tightened the lines as she came to the dock.  Frank put out the gangplank and sat on a bucket waiting for the Rangers.

They came.  “Captain Jesse Albers, Texas Rangers.”

“Pleased to meet you.  Detective Frank James, Big Bird Police.”

“How did this boat get here?”

“Your men told Syd to take her here.”

“How did it get tied up?”

“We assumed you wanted her tied up.”

“You brought this ship over here by yourselves?”

“It’s a boat.  If it was a ship, we would have asked a deckhand to help us.  Can I have a chain of custody form and a ride back to my boat?”

“I need the keys.”

“There aren’t any keys.  You should have one man on watch at all times, so you need at least two.”

A lieutenant handed him the chain of custody form, showing that he had turned the boat over to the Rangers.  She pointed at her car, and Frank got in.

As they headed back to the Clari, she asked Frank what the difference between a ship and a boat was.

“Clarissa Marlene is a 295 foot commercial fish boat.  That LNG tanker out there and the container ship, those are ships.”

“Captain Albers doesn’t like you.  Not because of anything, but he had a Ranger company and didn’t know how to put that boat at the dock, and you took it over like you were parking someone’s compact car.”

Syd laughed. “You dock an aircraft carrier the same way you dock a rowboat.  You just need a lot more space to do it in.”

“Could you dock an aircraft carrier by yourself?”

Syd said, “Probably not.  You would have to get her alongside, then swing a cable out with a crane and a bunch of things, then run five decks up to the wheelhouse to handle the ship.  The size of it would stop me.”

“Do you think anyone could?”

Frank said, “If Syd couldn’t...”

They went aboard.  “What does Clarissa Marlene do, Frank?”

“She was built to be a midwater trawler.  They fished themselves out of work.  She crabs, long lines, and traps.  Since she is the victim, there are no conflicts for her to give you some crabs for the Ranger company?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Cooked?”

“Best of all, yes.”

Frank asked Pierre to cook a bunch of crabs for the Rangers.  Pierre boiled up some water from the deep gulf, and put lots of cayenne peppers in it.  He put in lots of garlic.  He let the crabs cool a little, then put them in bags inside boxes.  He put some ice on them, and put the boxes in the lieutenant’s pickup.

Clarissa Marlene headed out to the deep water.  The thieves headed for the Texas Department of Corrections.  The gang sat around the spools on the deck.  The long stated but never proven claim that there were ship’s cats was proven when 4 of them came out, in line astern.  Frank and Laura had a new friend, Sally, who liked shrimp tails and purring in ears.  

They sat out in the beautiful night with the stars, and a seemingly bright moon.  Sally worked her claws in Frank’s shirt while they tried to eat some shrimp and keep from opening the box while the cat was in striking distance.  

Syd came by.  “We really do have cats!”

“Take a seat, Syd, and see if Sally likes you.”

Sally and Syd were soon playing a cat game where Syd’s finger came at Sally, but when Sally tried to hit it, it was gone.  Syd would flick an ear or a whisker, and Sally would act really annoyed, and try to bite, kick and claw.  Syd let her draw enough blood to satisfy feline instincts.

Laura said, “Syd, can you tell any of your war stories?  Not the gruesome ones, but something funny?”

“You never hears this, because it is black.”

“We never heard it.”

“We was spying on them, and we see these guys going here and there.  So one comes along almost as small as me, so I do it for him, and now I have an Iraqi uniform.  Then I see this captain, so I take him out, too, and put on his bars, and I am an Iraqi captain.  We go up real close, and it seems they are sending tanks back to somewhere to get the oil changed or something.  So I come and drive away with one.  A T-72.  There is this lake, so I drive it into the lake.  I get about 30 feet down, and swim out.  Tanks, you know, don’t run for long underwater.  Then I go back, and get another one.  On the fourth one, some guy challenges me, and I say in Arabic, that he better not question me, and I put my hand on this 9x18 Makarov, which is a real piece of junk Eastern Bloc handgun.  I drive the fourth one into the water, and the place looks like an anthill run down by a tractor.  So I went back to connect with my team, and they had thought I was for sure lost, and they had left.  So I go to a Marine base, and I tell them I am friendly but wearing an enemy uniform.  This just will not do.  So I say, all right, Mac, I am friendly and I am not wearing anything.  That goes over all right, and the Corps captures me.  They put me in this orange jumpsuit and it takes 4 hours before someone finally calls someone who calls someone else, and they say “Fergawdsake, you have a Navy Lieutenant SG there.  While this all was going down, the Marines were fighting a tank battle with the same mother fuckers I had been ‘helping’.  So they give me some BDU and make me an honorary Marine, and let me eat breakfast at this place where they had a bunch of stuff they got from the Iraqis the same way I got the tanks.  3 of the marines asked me to marry them.  But they didn’t know.  I’m nutty, and I will always be alone.  Nice guys want to love me, but loving Syd is like loving a thunderstorm.”

Frank said “That’s cool.  Thanks for telling us, Syd.”

“I’m going to leave now, and let you be alone.”

Laura said, “You could stay.”

“No, I couldn’t.  I can never have what you have, Laura.  I’m mentally unstable.  I can have some guy all crazy about me, but then the dark time comes, and they leave.”

“There must be a solution.”

“There is, but I have yet to give in to it.”

She walked away.

“She’s not happy.”

“So far as I can understand, Laura, her life is a bunch of thrills in the bright sunshine, and some dips into a darkness so awful that you can’t even describe it.  People think something like that tank stealing is dangerous and crazy, but that is when she lives.  That is what she likes to do.”

When they went in, Frank got on the net and found a picture.  It showed 4 T-72 tanks parked in a row and covered with water weed.  The caption said they were stolen from the Iraqi army by an unidentified American, and driven into the lake, now drained.

They went to sleep.

In the morning, Syd was standing on the roof of the wheelhouse crowing like a rooster, and trying to wake everyone up.  She dove into the sea and came on deck, and ran around to bang on everyone’s door to tell them they were on Mysterious Reef, and it was time for the real fishermen to come out and show what they could do.  

They came out on deck, and Henry had a deckhand at the wheel.  They would be over the reef in an hour.

“Mysterious reef gets its name from the way it sometimes shows on sonar and sometimes does not.  This is about 600 feet of water, which makes it a hard place to fish.    It is also a confluence of the major currents in the Gulf.  Almost none of the sport fishing boats come here.  This is a good place to fish, but it’s too tough for most sportsmen.  Who wants to go first?”

“Les, Crow, Freddie, Tabby, Chases the Moon, Jeremy, Denise, Sammy and Carlos.  Y’all have the first two hours.  Get some heavy rigs and 4# balls.  A small runner with two hooks in his snout.  Use 250 for your leaders.  Everyone on starboard side.  If you don’t find any runners, we got some squid last night, so use those.

Everyone rigged up.  Frank made sure they were ready.

There is a special thrill to letting down on a deep reef.  The massive reel revolving and letting out line.  The roller eyes whirling.  The lanyard fixed to the rail to prevent the pole from being taken over side.  The current swung the boat wildly around.  Several of the fishermen got powerful hits.  Henry called a roll up, and it came down to Les, Chases the Moon and Carlos fighting big fishes.  Carlos’ fish was the fastest.  Syd opined that Les had a grouper, Chases the Moon had a king mackerel, and Carlos had a tuna.  Carlos moved to the stern, and when the line was clear, Henry rotated the boat to put him on port side.  Chases the Moon moved aft, and Les moved forward.

Frank moved for the champagne and oysters.  Laura came with him, and pointed out that the other rigs would have to be set up when these fishes came in.  Frank told her she was right, but that would not be any time soon, so they could sit on one of the two person deck chairs for a while.

Frank opened an oyster.  “We’re fishing in troubled waters.”

“Is that ominous?”

“No.  This is where the rotating currents driven by the Gulf Stream meet.  The power of these currents makes the Clarissa Marlene look like a toy boat.  Trillions of times the power we have.”

“This is a kind of scary place.”

“Scary places get your blood moving.  This is the Clarissa Marlene.  The guys in that wheelhouse have taken this boat through 60 foot seas in the Gulf of Alaska”

“How does this boat take a 60 foot sea?”

“She goes up the face, and hits the crest with a bash.  She shakes and creaks at the impact.  Then she puts her bow out into the air, and as the wave passes, she drops into the trough with a shuddering slam.  Then the helmsman lets off power so that when the screws come out of the water, she will not over rev.  Then he puts power on again and takes the next wave.”

“I don’t want to see it.”

“Nobody in his right mind does.  There is a film of 2 SEALS in a 20 foot Zodiac in a sea nearly that big.   They don’t have much trouble with the seas, but the wind throws them in the air a few times.  They try having the guy on the bow, but the wind blows the boat like a leaf.  So the ship picks them up.  The Zodiac is lost.  But this was a 100 knot wind.  I guess the Navy wanted to see the limits.”

“Do I know one of the SEALS in that film?”

“You know both of them.”

There was a lot of yelling.  Chases the Moon had her fish in close.  Syd gaffed it, and it was on deck.  A lovely king mackerel.  The king mackerel has a unique taste, a lot like a snapper but not the same.  The jack mackerel has a fishy taste like an anchovie, sort of.  Cats like them.  Chases the Moon asked that her fish be cut in steaks, and asked Pierre to fry the liver.  She and Crow ate the liver, and it was for sure Cherokee business.  

Carlos got his fish next, and it was a tuna.  To the fillet table it went.

Les finally got his fish up, and it was a grouper.  To the fillet table.

Frank had the other rigs ready, and they baited up and got ready.  The fishermen who had not gotten a try went first, and then a few who had not gotten a bite.  They let down again on Mysterious Reef.  Everyone was getting snappers.  The depth made the work hard, so it turned out everyone who wanted to fish got in.  Some of the hard core stuck it out and got lots of snappers.  Jeremy, Sammy, and Carlos were the true die hards, with Kenny and Amy close behind.  

There was a strong interest in oysters and champagne.  Some of the squid were eaten as calamari.  The die hards might have been right, because about 0230, the snappers started coming to anything that reminded you of a bait.  By 0430, they had a pile of fishes that would not have been permitted on a sport fishing boat.

Clarissa Marlene came in and worked her crab traps, and tied up long before sunrise.  The crab buyers came and bought, the crawfish sellers came and sold, and a truck brought 100 crab traps, buoys, and a spool of line.  Clarissa Marlene left, still sorting crabs.  The little ones went over the rail at a speed that made you wonder what they were all going to do.  A little before first light, she turned on her work lights, and brought in the squid.  She would pull ahead a little every so often, with her butterfly nets down.  She got several tons of squid with that trick, most of which went to the freezer.  

“21 New Gear New Ideas”

Morning found Clarissa Marlene about 50 miles out, heading for deep water.  Syd, Jeff, Ed, and Tom Jackson, the mate, were splicing lines to the new crab traps.  Crow was painting the buoys, a yellow, white and orange pattern, with a few little added eagles, coyotes, and things.  The white nylon with a green stripe was a 50’.  The line was cut to 55’ so it would be good for 50’ after the splice and all.  Each pot had a piece of braided nylon ¼” tied to it.  The lines were coiled, and tied with the ¼ nylon with a bow.  Crabbing doctrine says you put the bait in the bait box and keep the crabs from eating it.  Clarissa Marlene theory is that crab bait is junk anyway, so let the crabs eat.  The theory says that a crab who is eating will put small fragments of fish into the water, attracting other crabs, and also the sound of a crab eating will attract other crabs.  The theory continues that a crab who eats such an amount of bait will weigh more than one who does not.  Fatter crabs, more money.

The traps got put on the foredeck in a fairly neat stack.  Some of the gang napped, and some rigged up fishing poles.  Some ate oysters and consumed alcohol.  Some ate crawfish and smoked pot.  

Clarissa Marlene came up to a wreck.  It was in about 250 feet of water, so not much fished.  They let down and got snappers one after another.  After a couple of hours, Syd ran up to the wheelhouse.  She took a telescope and viewed something.  She took the telescope and went up to the wheelhouse roof.  “Turn off the radar, Henr