Chapter Eleven
The Children
I had a plan. A wild hope, that is, at least.
I’d had a backup plan prearranged with Flynn. Instead of running back through the forest I dodged down through the ruins toward the beach that was nearby. I thanked God as I saw the small craft bobbing offshore under anchor.
If we hadn’t come back to the dock in time Flynn was to leave the Celestia’s Prize’s life rafts stationed off of the North, East, West sides of the island. The Celestia’s Prize had two air boats and one six foot dinghy. It was the dinghy I saw offshore bobbing as its white paint gleamed in the orange glow.
How was I going to reach it with Christina unconscious?
I was a strong swimmer, but I wasn’t that strong. I heard noise and I turned prepared to defend Christina or risk the swim if need be.
I relaxed as I saw it was Jim and Matt. Jim didn’t look so good, but he was still moving. Matt looked completely drained of energy in his efforts to help the big Samoan along. I looked beyond them and saw no visible signs of pursuit, which was odd.
“Aren’t they following you?” I exclaimed out in question.
Matt shook his head negatively as he was still too out of breath to speak, but Jim mumbled out “I think they’ll want to finish the rite first.”
He was probably right. I helped steady him as he looked about to fall and Matt helped him to sit down on the sand and then I laid Christina down so that her head was resting on his lap.
“You guys stay here. I’ll swim out and bring the boat in close.”
I left running into the surf, until I had to swim for it. It had been one never-ending adventure ever since we’d landed in this inner world and I was tired, but the prospect of my friends being eaten on the beach by giants had me swimming for the dinghy in record fashion.
Reaching it I barely had the energy to pull myself up and over its high side. I fell into the boat cracking my head painfully off the bottom.
I crawled aft and pulled in the anchor buoy. Then I pulled the cord to the little prop engine and it fired to life faithfully.
I cut the rudder over and let the throttle all the way open as I aimed for the beach still devoid of monsters. Pulling up in the shallows I watched Jim painfully get up to his feet carrying Christina as Matt protested for him to stop. Jim didn’t listen though and kept walking into the surf every step looking like it cost him a year of his life, but he held Christina’s head above the waves.
I reached over the side and took her from him. I laid her on the floor against the other side of the dinghy before I turned back to Jim. He gave me a pained look that said he couldn’t do it.
“Oh yes you are! The girl needs a father and I need a good friend!” I said roughly in denial of his look of defeat.
He tried and I grabbed a hold of his belt from behind his back and pulled as Matt pushed from below. Jim tumbled over the side to join Christina on the bottom of the dinghy and I turned back for Matt.
It was actually harder for me to get him on board than it had been for Jim. Both Matt and I were totally spent and run out of adrenaline, but after a bit of a struggle Matt was on board too.
He sat down shakily as I crawled back to the prop and got us the heck away from this godforsaken island. I’d take my chances with the sea sooner that I’d set foot on this island again!
I leaned back and let the little prop engine do the work of taking us out to sea. The plan was to get out to sea and on the edge of the fog bank where we wouldn’t be too noticeable and wait for Flynn and Ortega to circle back around the island and pick us up.
We were halfway to the fog bank when the unwelcome sight of two whaling ships tacking around the headland came into view. We wouldn’t reach the concealing fog in time to escape from them!
Matt pointed and I looked straight ahead to see the Celestia’s Prize come storming out of the fog bank where we had been headed for. There was no time for them to pick us up and even then it was doubtful that we’d be able to out run the two whalers under full sail.
They’d harpoon us to a standstill and board us at will. To make matters worse the Celestia’s Prize couldn’t have much fuel left by now by which to even make a run for it.
All that must’ve occurred to Flynn as he didn’t head for us. He headed for the two whalers, which in turn broke off from us to focus on the Celestia’s Prize.
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Flynn held the wheel and squinted as he watched the two whalers turn to meet him. What he wouldn’t do for a chew of tobacco right now!
It was a nasty habit and he was glad that he’d given it up before it had been the death of him. The thought of that irony almost made him laugh out loud given the present circumstances, but people thought he was crazy enough as it was already without adding sudden outbursts of laughter to the cuckoo list.
The actual truth was that he was crazy, but he wanted to keep that a secret for the time being. The proof of his lunacy was that you’d have to be crazy to try what he was about to.
“Ortega where are you, you sorry son of a sea cook?” Flynn growled out.
“Right behind you dog.” Ortega said succinctly.
Flynn smiled grimly, “Break out the children.”
Ortega left on the double as Flynn chuckled to himself. The Captain was going to be so mad! He was going to completely miss out on doing the honors that now fell upon Flynn as interim Captain.
Flynn watched as Ortega ran forward with a bar and began prying the deck boards up on either side of the ship’s prowl. He grimaced at the sight of the splintering wood, but it couldn’t be helped. The Celestia’s Prize didn’t have much seaworthy time left anyway, Flynn acknowledged darkly, as he glanced down at the fuel gauge.
Glancing back up he saw that Ortega had done well at removing the decking, not that he ever intended on giving Ortega any praise for it. No, he liked to egg on the Mexican, as much as possible, but there was no denying that Ortega was an excellent sailor despite his derogatory comments to the contrary.
Ortega was at the hoist and he flipped the manual control over to divert the hydraulic power over to a secondary hoist apparatus that rose up out of the two shattered sections of the deck. As the twin secondary hoists rose they carried along their burden with them, which for all the world looked like a nondescript section of pipe.
It was a pipe with a purpose though. The twin pipes to either side of the front of the ship were makeshift torpedo tubes and they were loaded. The tubes themselves along with the hydraulic hoist mechanisms were custom-made by none other than himself.
The only part of the process he hadn’t built were the torpedoes. They were Russian-made.
Four years earlier the Captain had been salvaging a cruise liner that had run aground on a shallow coral reef, when on a dive he’d discovered a second wreck in close proximity to the first. An antiquated Soviet attack sub had run afoul of the same reef in the past and had one side of it completely sheared off.
The torpedoes had been among the debris littering the floor of the ocean near the sub. The Captain had brought them aboard but had decided they would be a too hot ticket of an item to sell, as he didn’t traffic in weapons. He’d kept them though and devised this ingenious defensive system, which Flynn had been only too willing to construct.
Now the pressing question was, would the torpedoes fire from their modified firing harnesses?
Along with that unknown was the all too real possibility that they might just blow up and explode when activated. They’d gotten an expatriate Russian engineer in Singapore to do the wiring of the tubes, but the man had been half drunk at the time.
Flynn pushed on a panel of decorative wood paneling off to the side of the main controls and it slid away to reveal two buttons. Holding his breath he pushed both simultaneously.
No explosions followed. He breathed in again shallowly as he noticed that both buttons now glowed red. The torpedoes had been armed successfully. Now came the tricky part of timing them so that their trajectories would be on target.
Flynn centered the Celestia’s Prize to pass in between the rapidly approaching whalers. The whalers kept a distance apart from each other and looked only too pleased at Flynn’s decision to go between them.
Why was that, he wandered abstractly to himself?
Whatever the reason it didn’t matter now because he had committed the ship to the course of action at hand. Before he drew abreast of the two whalers he spun the Celestia’s Prize hard to starboard and leading the Whaler on that side by about a boat length Flynn pressed the button to the starboard torpedo.
With an express of air the torpedo shot out of its tube to begin racing through the water for its target. Flynn pulled the wheel hard over cackling all the time at the grand time all this was.
The Celestia’s Prize hung over in the water as she tacked over to a head on course once more with the other two ships. A giant harpoon plowed into the water where the Celestia’s prize had just been before it had made its turn back to center.
Ortega looked back at Flynn in alarm and Flynn nodded, as he registered the threat of the harpoons.
The plan of the two Whalers then was to harpoon the Celestia’s Prize and drag her to a standstill so she could be boarded. Not today!
Flynn spun the wheel hard to port with a sense of urgency. They had to get the second torpedo off before a harpoon landed.
Flynn had to almost come about as he turned in order to lead the second Whaler for the torpedo to be just right. There was a terrific explosion at Flynn’s back and he registered the sound of a confirmed kill with glee, even as he hammered the other button-down.
Success would’ve been complete this day only the second torpedo didn’t leave the tube!
Flynn hammered the second button again, but the result was nothing once again.
The Celestia’s Prize shuddered hard as a harpoon slammed into the prow on the port side. There was a brief moment of nothing and then the Celestia’s Prize was hauled around to make it a complete circle as it was towed after the Whaler by the harpoon stuck fast just above the waterline.
The force of the jerk bringing the boat all the way around knocked Flynn off his feet to the wheelhouse floor. He had just started to raise up when the metal shaft of a harpoon punched through the wheelhouse wall and shattered the wheel to pieces.
Flynn fought his way back up to his feet, only to see more harpoons coming. These harpoons have no anchor ropes attached to them. They were being shot off free with the intent to kill those aboard the Celestia’s Prize before they could repeat what they’d done to the first Whaler, which had been reduced to burning wood fragments drifting on the water.
Flynn saw Ortega run along the deck caring something very heavy from the starboard side as a rope trailed out behind him. What was the man up to?
Then Flynn recognized what it was that he was carrying. He had the backup ship’s anchor in his arms!
Ortega tossed the anchor over the port side and almost went in with it from his exhaustion of carrying it. Harpoons whizzed past him, but he didn’t seem to care. He stumbled to the port side torpedo that had failed to release even as rope ripped out over the deck railing to fall into the seawater after the anchor plunging into the depths.
Ortega picked up a sledgehammer and for the first time he looked up to the wheelhouse where Flynn was starting to put two and two together. Flynn nodded affirmatively and waited as did Ortega.
It took a few moments of fast disappearing rope during which time Flynn almost saw Ortega harpooned. Ortega stood where he was though ready with the sledgehammer.
The boat jerked hard as it was pulled down in the water both forwards and aft. The back end of the boat was pulled out toward the port side and when it did the torpedo tube came in line with the bowel of the Whaler ahead of the Celestia’s Prize.
Ortega swung the sledgehammer down to connect solidly with the back end of the torpedo tube at the same moment that Flynn hammered down on the red glowing button once again. With a protesting screech of metal the torpedo shot free of its canister and streaked out through the water ahead toward the Whaler.
A second later the rope with the anchor snapped under the strain. A piece of it whipped back to knock Ortega off his feet to land heavily on the deck. Flynn bailed out of the wheelhouse and down the gangway ladder towards Ortega as he knew what would happen next.
The torpedo smashed into the rear of the Whaler and exploded magnificently. The whole back end of the Whaler was completely blown away, but the line holding the Celestia’s Prize prisoner remained taunt.
The sailing ship ahead reared up and sank bowel first sliding backward and down as sailors jumped free of it or at least tried to.
The rope binding the Celestia’s Prize was too thick to saw through in the time available and so Flynn did all he could in the moment. He grabbed up Ortega whose face was tight with pain and headed for the ship’s railing. They managed to both jump over the side into the water.
The Celestia’s Prize swept past them as it groaned under the strain of its tether that soon drug it beneath the waves and out of view as its second victim took it along for the ride down to the briny depths of the inner sea.
Flynn struggled to keep Ortega’s head above water and latched out desperately for a piece of driftwood from one of the whalers. Catching a hold of it he laboriously pushed Ortega’s upper body onto it until Ortega was able to hold himself there.
Flynn latched on to the other side and sputtering on seawater said, “I’m too old for this!”
“Si, you is a very very old man Senor.” Ortega huffed out.
Flynn gave him a look and Ortega’s mouth split open to reveal a pearly grin.
Flynn shook his head trying to bite back a smile of his own as he said, “I should’ve drowned you while I had the chance!”
“But you didn’t Senor and for that a senorita out there is very much grateful.”
Both men became aware quickly that they weren’t the only survivors in the water.
“We may get drowned yet Senor.” Ortega said darkly, as with a yell several swimmers headed for them.
Flynn nodded grimly, as he and Ortega watched their executioners approach. Suddenly the surface of the water boiled as something shot to the surface from below. It was the snakehead sea monsters!
They popped to the surface everywhere throughout the carnage of the two whalers. Screams rang out as Ortega and Flynn watched themselves exchange one fate for another. They were forgotten at least temporarily as the sea monsters ripped into the vengeful swimmers that had been headed their way.
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“Need a lift there?” I asked.
Both men in the water craned their heads around as I brought the dinghy up alongside of them and their piece of driftwood. With Matt’s help we hauled the two men out of the sea. Ortega had some nasty bruising going on, but seemed alright otherwise.
I waited for Flynn to catch his breath before asking, “So Flynn how was it to push the button?”
His face broke out into a grin as he launched right into it in ribald fashion, “You remember how it was Captain when you had a wom………….” Flynn’s voice trailed off as his eyes found Christina’s who had regained consciousness.
Flint swallowed the words he had been going to say and substituted, “It was a real dream moment Captain!” He winked at Christina upon finishing and she smiled and shook her head.
Flynn instantly sobered up as a look of heartfelt contrition came across his features, “Sorry about the boat Captain. I know you loved her.”
“She was a good boat, but I have everything that matters right here in this boat. I have a great crew and you’re what I don’t want to lose most.” I said.
Matt tapped my shoulder and gestured out into the water. I was steering us away from the destruction of the two Whalers, but off to our right was a lone swimmer. I pulled the prop over and came up alongside of the man.
The man stopped swimming and treaded water for a moment. From the look on his face I could tell he expected us to kill him.
“I’m not going back to shore, but you’re welcome to come with us if you like.” I said.
The man shook his head negatively, “I’ll take my chances with swimming.”
I glanced off to the shore a long ways off. I reached down and unsnapped a life preserver and tossed it out to him. As it splatted down beside him in the water I said, “It’s a long swim my friend. You might need to rest every once and a while.”
The man reluctantly grabbed a hold of the life preserver out of necessity’s sake before asking, “Why you do this for me? We were trying to hunt you down and kill you!” The man exclaimed looking uncertain as to what was taking place.
“We don’t have to be enemies. That’s not what I want. Best of luck with your swim.” I finished with before turning the rudder and heading out toward the offshore fog bank once more.
The man in the water watched us for a moment before beginning to swim toward shore again tugging the life preserver along after him.