Chapter Fifteen
Glory to God!
I stood with one hand on the mast fondly remembering my kissing experience with Keturah of several hours ago, even as I vainly tried to muster the seriousness that the situation involved I be under.
Elizabeth was on board as was the rest of my crew. Elizabeth had something she wanted to show me. Something she thought might help us in the war against the giants.
We sailed in and around the tiny islands scattered throughout the lagoon, until at Elizabeth’s word we heaved the boat to a complete stop. I looked about the bubbly surface of the lagoon and the two tiny islands that lay off to either side of us completely puzzled as to what could possibly help us combat giants.
I looked to Elizabeth for some direction and she gestured to the water, “Look beneath the water.”
I gave her an odd look, but I got down on my belly and leaned out over the water to stick my head beneath it feeling very much like I was being made a fool of. The water was crystal clear and my eyes found the shapes of two vessels almost immediately.
I blinked and did a double take. It wasn’t possible, but it was!
I pulled my head up out of the water and wiped the water from my eyes. I glanced around the subject of the expectant looks of my crew.
“Take a look Flynn.” I said trying to hold my glee in and look serious.
Flynn got down and did the impersonation of a duck just like I had done for a long moment. His gray head popped above the water and sputtering water he turned to me and said, “Blimey! But what good will they do us? Their sunk and beyond that they’ve got to be rusted up beyond any use!”
Elizabeth broke into the conversation, “Metal for some unknown reason does not rust when submerged in the waters of these freshwater lagoons. The ships were starting to rust above the waterline so that is why our ancestors sunk them here in order to preserve them. This is the shallowest spot in the lagoon.”
“Gunpowder and fuses?” I asked in hopeful earnestness.
Elizabeth nodded, “They were sealed away in watertight barrels and boxes.”
Flynn interrupted in exasperation, “What good does black powder and fuses do us when the boats are sunk? Their sunk!” He repeated as he pointed to the water with emphasis.
I saw Elizabeth and Keturah share a knowing look between them. I turned to Flynn and with a growing inner sense of jubilation I said, “Whales Mister Flynn! Whales.”
“Whales?” He asked completely dumbfounded as to what I could possibly be referring to.
I turned to Elizabeth and asked in barely repressed excitement, “When will the whales be here?”
Elizabeth smiled and pointed beyond me, “They are already here.”
I turned to see a huge pod of whales that had to number at least a hundred or more strong entering the mouth of the lagoon’s main entrance to the sea beyond. I clapped my hands together gleefully and turned towards Ortega who was looking at me as if he thought I’d lost it mentally. The truth was that I hadn’t had this much fun in years!
“What do you know about steam driven propulsion Ortega?”
“Nothing other than that it’s been extinct for a long time.” Ortega said slowly.
“Ahh there’s where you’re wrong my good man. It’s about to come back in style!”
I turned back to the approaching whales only to see countless catamarans similar to Keturah’s had joined in on the scene. The Whale People were coming to help raise the past back to life.
I lifted my hands skywards, “Glory to God in the highest for You are a God that provides!” I said as my voice boomed out over the lagoon in my exuberance, as I felt an inner song of joy ripple through me like I hadn’t in ages.
I turned to the others, “Ladies and gentlemen it looks like we’re finally going to put some Confederate ironclads to good use!”
Matt turned to a widely grinning Jim and elatedly asked, “Could this trip get any better or what?”
Jim brought Serena’s hand to his lips and kissed it, “No it could not.”
Serena’s eyes were all sparkles and her smile reflected true joy as she stared at her secret admirer of many years now turned man of her life for evermore.
I had to hand it to the Whale People’s forbearers for doing a quality job of storing their ships away for a rainy day. They hadn’t just opened the scuttle cocks and let the boats sink of their own volition.
Instead they had sunk them gradually and with precision down onto a wooden receiver apparatus that had been attached to the hulls of the two boats. As a result the two ships rested slightly stilted up from the floor of the lagoon, which enabled ropes to be threaded back and forth beneath the hulls of the two ships.
I was treading water next to Jim and I couldn’t help the grin I still had on my face in attempting this whole endeavor. I glanced at Jim, “Guess we’re going to have a bit of a salvage operation out this time anyway.”
“Sure looks like it boss.”
I waved my arm up above my head to Keturah and the other whale riders. Keturah waved back and dove into the water from off Dimbo’s back. The other divers jumped free of their whales into the water in like fashion.
The whales submerged downward into the crystal clear water with us. It was awe-inspiring and somewhat terrifying to be in the presence of so many big monsters as there were congregated in a small patch of water.
Never could I ever have imagined that I would experience anything to compare with this underwater scene I was experiencing. It was both odd and awe inspiring to witness the interplay going on between the gigantic whales and their tiny human counterparts.
These whales ate dinosaurs for breakfast and yet they seemed as eager as puppies to heed the instruction of their riders. I credited Keturah the most for the success of what was happening.
She more than any of the other whale people seemed best able to communicate with the whales or at least Dimbo. She showed him what was needed and he went through the motions of lining up. The water suddenly danced with squeaks and pinging noises delivered at high frequency as Dimbo conveyed what to do to the other whales who soon followed in like order and took their positions.
The whales turned away from the larger of the ironclads and waited patiently at the bottom of the lagoon with their bellies rubbing the seafloor as they waited on their riders. Teams of divers pulled the heavy ropes out from beneath the hull and swam past the bulk of the resting whales to hook the loops of the rope ends over the tusks of the whales. Through it all the whales remained still their big eyes moving only, as they curiously took in the scene.
With the ropes all in place Keturah signaled Dimbo and once again the water vibrated with percussionary clicks and warbles. In unison the whales all began to rise.
They didn’t launch into their burdens, but rather they eased their way there as the ropes grew taunt with tension. Once tension was achieved then they began to work hard at the game of tug-of-war.
There were two whales per rope only they were on opposite ends and facing away from each other with the ship in between. There were fifteen such pairs of whales with two solitary whales tied off at the forward prow and one at the rudder.
The ironclad began to rise ponderously, as the whales chugged relentlessly upward toward the surface of the lagoon. It was hard to see anything because of all the stirred up sediment and the perfusion of bubbles in the water.
I clung to the deck of the ironclad, as it grudgingly lifted up through the water. I was in grave need of air to feed my oxygen deprived lungs, but I wasn’t about to attempt what the whale divers had done.
They’d done that drown a little bit at a time thing until they breathed the oxygenated water of the lagoon as if it was air. No thanks! That was for the birds in my opinion.
The ironclad crowned out of the water reborn after a hundred and fifty years below. Water sheeted off everywhere and I gasped for air for a few brief moments before making my way below decks for the open scuttle cocks near the rudder even as Jim went for the one at the forward prow.
It was dark, but I knew what to feel for. Soon I had the job accomplished and I made my way back up out of the water below decks to suck down more air topside. In my absence Matt and his crew had climbed on board.
Matt was already directing how the manual bilge pumps worked that would free the boat of the remaining water even as more helpers went below and started bailing water out open gun ports. The whales with their tusks to the sky had risen out of the water as far as they could go.
The whales let off and sank downward, but the ironclad though heavy laden with water stayed afloat. A cheer went up all around and I began to be the recipient of many exuberant backslaps.
The good mood was infectious and I returned some equally exuberant backslaps of my own.
Gaining control of myself I called out an end to the celebration, “All right, that’s enough for now. We’ve got another ship to raise.”
The second ship went much easier and quicker as it was half the length and less in diameter than the first ship had been. I was back on the first ironclad that was now free of water.
I was standing in the boiler room with Ortega and Flynn. The expression on Ortega’s face was comical as he stared about the foreign environment with a sort of dread filled curiosity.
I slapped him on the back good naturedly and said, “Well I’m sure that with enough tinkering around you’ll find out how it all works Ortega. Everything depends on you getting this working Ortega so don’t let me down.”
I left the room grinning at the dead eyed look he’d given me in response to my last comment.
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Ortega turned back to the boiler, his brow furrowed in concentration, as he tried to put a foreign language of parts into a readable context he could understand.
Flynn patted his shoulder surprisingly sympathetic for once, “Well, they really stuck you with a tough nut to crack this time old son.”
Ortega rubbed at his temples with both hands, “I don’t even know where to start Senor!”
Flynn looked around before commenting, “Well this thing is supposed to run on steam power right?”
Ortega nodded.
“Well let’s make a fire and boil some water and see where that gets us.” Flynn said objectively.
Ortega gave him a wry look, “I am thinking it is a little more complex than that old son, but I suppose it’s a place to start.”
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Matt, Jim, and Serena seemed to have things well under control. I walked to the edge and dove off into the water in search of my pretty mermaid.
I found her with her whale, of course. She was rubbing his nose and jabbering away underwater.
She noticed me and stopped talking. I drew closer and gestured upward to where her catamaran floated on the surface. She seemed to sigh before nodding obediently.
She patted Dimbo once more, while I was given the stern one eyed stare all over again. I did not want this whale as my enemy that was for sure, but he was going to have to learn to share his mistress’s affections with me.
I beat Keturah to the surface and hauled myself out of the water and onto the low-lying netting quickly. I got ready to help Keturah as I had been told what she would be having to do. She’d breathed the water in and now she would have to expel it.
Her head crested the water and I caught her hands and hauled her up onto the netting. She lay on her belly and began to hack out lagoon water even as she choked on it.
I rubbed my hands rhythmically up her back trying to help her expel the water from her lungs. It was painful to just be a bystander.
I could only imagine what she was experiencing right now. It had to be like drowning all over again.
She was starting to breathe better and I relaxed at the sound of it. The girl mattered to me. She mattered an awful lot!
I didn’t want to ever lose her. In my heart she’d become mine, but there was yet a battle to face.
I was momentarily distracted by the realization of how far up the raggedy edge of her dress had slipped up. The desire to push it higher was overpowering for a moment, but that wasn’t the plan right now.
Reluctantly I tugged the worn edge of her dress down to mid thigh and rolled off of her to lay on my back beside her. Not wanting to, but feeling a need to I glanced over to her to see if she had noticed my silent war against going too far.
Her head was turned to me and she said smiling, “I wish you would’ve.” Her voice was kind of hoarse sounding, but her meaning was clear.
I lay one of my arms across my eyes and said, “I wish I would’ve too.”
Suddenly I very much wanted to survive a battle that before I might have mercifully used as a means of putting an honorable end to my life and the pain that it had brought me to keep on breathing. Life wasn’t such an empty emotional vacuum anymore.
Unwittingly my mind dwelled on my companion’s luscious form and how badly I had wanted to take things further a moment ago.
First the battle. Kill the giants. Rescue the slaves. Escape the island and then…… then I would lift the hem of that dress as high as I wanted to!
I still felt guilty inside, but not enough to keep from making a new life with Keturah. Laura had been a special person and so was Keturah. How did I rate having two such women in my life?
Keturah’s fingers grasped my arm and pulled it aside and pressing closer she kissed me. She drew back quickly from the kiss with a horrified look and pressed one hand to her mouth.
Curious at her reaction to the kiss I asked, “What’s the matter?”
“I was just throwing up! I’m so sorry! I……”
Reaching up I speared the fingers of one hand through the beaded mass of her hair as I pulled her hand from her mouth with my other hand and roughly said, “Like I care!”
I pulled her head back down to mine for a kiss that reflected all the passion that I felt for her.