Killer Aboard: A John Otter Novel

by Sean Blaise

  The Beagle was already in steady 8-foot ocean swells, which wasn’t bad, as their period was nice and slow. But it meant that for each wave the Beagle was either hiding in a trough that blocked out all vision or it was riding on high on the crest of the wave. Finding a bobbing head in all this would be next to impossible.

  To minimize the man overboard danger, Beagle had long, and uninterrupted steel cables strung the entire length of her deck-one on the Port Side and one on Starboard. These were one-inch-thick, stainless-steel wires. Attached to each crew member's lifejacket was a harness with a six-foot lanyard attached to a large stainless steel clip. Like roofers working up high, the kids had to clip their harnesses into the cables whenever they moved around the deck.

  Once clipped in they could roam the length of the ship, only having to reclip if they had to change sides from Port to Starboard. It was as safe a system as there could be while at crossing an ocean.

  But, there was only so much risk you could mitigate.

  Chapter 8

  John had not expected the first storm they encountered to last four days. Nor had he anticipated already having a medical emergency on board.

  “She’s crashing,” John exclaimed to Lubanzi as he removed the blood pressure cuff from Jennifer’s arm. What had started as a small squall, was now a relentless and never-ending storm.

  Steady thirty-knot winds, followed by forty-knot bursts had made life onboard crawl. The only upside was they were making a blistering nine knots, which made the 1700-mile journey from Cape Town to St. Helena a little shorter.

  Many of the students were violently ill. They looked and felt scared. Meals on board had been reduced to cold food only. Preparing hot portions in ten-foot seas was far too dangerous. Although the stove was gimbaled, Beagle’s now near-permanent ten-degree list made moving about limited. The Beagle’s list was the least of John’s concerns. Jennifer was dying.

  Jennifer had been ceaselessly puking over the side since the storm hit three days ago. John was constantly trying to rehydrate her, but her stomach couldn’t keep a single thing down.

  He had just given her anti-nausea pills from the ship’s medical chest, but since then she had refused to drink despite his pleas. She seemed to have given up, lying on the chart room floor in the fetal position, barely moving. John’s main concern was her blood pressure which kept dropping due to what was now an extreme state of dehydration.

  Greg came down the companionway for his tenth check on Jennifer that day. “How is she?” he asked anxiously.

  “Greg, nothing has changed. Like I told you before, I will update you if her condition improves.”

  Greg seemed to accept John’s answer, but he made his way to Jennifer’s side anyway. He sat down and stroked her head.

  “I hope you feel better.”

  Jennifer didn’t move or acknowledge him, and John felt growing alarm at her condition.

  Greg got up and signed the logbook entry for the hourly position report and went back on deck. John liked the kid. He seemed to genuinely care about Jennifer.

  John knew that he needed medical advice quickly. He dialed the “Med Save” call center number from the satellite phone. After what seemed like too many rings, an English doctor picked up.

  “This is Med Save, my name is Doctor McNab, how can I help you?”

  “I have a 20-year-old female on board the sail training ship Beagle. We’ve been in a storm for three days and she has been puking continuously. Can’t keep down food or water. I have issued her anti anti-nausea pills but now she won’t even attempt to drink water. What are my options?”

  “What is what is her blood pressure?”

  “75/45. She’s become unresponsive. I keep trying to get her to drink but she won’t move.”

  “Her blood pressure is very concerning. She is severely dehydrated, and you must get fluid back in her system immediately. Unfortunately, if she won’t drink due to nausea you will have to rehydrate her another way. You need to give her a subcutaneous IV. Can you do this?”

  John remembered from his training at Maine Maritime that subcutaneous IV’s went into the fat of the stomach area. A shallow needle would hydrate the fat cells and in turn rehydrate the body. It had been years since learning how to do it at college, but he thought could manage it.

  “I think I remember. Why cutaneous and not intravenous? Is there any other option before I have to do this?”

  “Mate, she’s dying, and will most likely go into shock if you continue to let her stay dehydrated. There is a chance that the IV intravenously can put her body into shock. It's either the subcutaneous IV or proctoclysis.”

  “What? Say that again, non-medically.”

  “Please open your ship’s hospital kit. In bag number two, satchel three you will find a suppository funnel. If you force-feed liquid into her rectum the colon can retain up to 500mls of fluids per hour. You can rehydrate her that way if the subcutaneous method fails. There is a risk of swelling at the point of the subcutaneous injection sight if she lacks fat to hold the fluid, so you might be better off with the rectum route.”

  Rectum route? What the fuck was he talking about?

  Chapter 9

  The English doctor was so nonchalant John wanted to punch the man. He was probably some war doctor who wasn’t impressed unless a limb was blown off.

  John looked down at Jennifer who was now permanently coiled on the floor of the professional crew quarters in a catatonic fetal position. She wouldn’t answer questions and was unresponsive for hours. John felt like she had given up.

  What scared John the most, was she had stopped puking. Nothing left in her to expel. The thought of pulling down a 20-year-old unresponsive girl’s pants and putting something up her rectum terrified John on a whole different level.

  “Ok so it’s either subcutaneous IV or suppository,” he repeated to the Med Save doctor, “and what should I be looking for in her BP to know if what I’m doing is working? How fast does it have to rise for her to be in the clear?”

  “Is she chubby?” the Brit doctor asked.

  No, Jennifer was a vegan, picky eater and weighed next to nothing, John thought.

  “No, very small and thin. Frail. I don’t know maybe 105 pounds.”

  “Then skip subcutaneous IV as she won’t absorb it fast enough and go with proctoclysis. Time is of the essence and you need to rehydrate her core as soon as possible.”

  The English doctor proceeded to give him an hourly checklist over the phone. Her BP had to rise over the next six hours, or he was in dire straits of losing her. John hung up the phone and looked at Lubanzi.

  “Get Smith.”

  Once Lubanzi, John, and Smith were in John’s cabin he closed the door, separating them from Jennifer on the floor of the chart room.

  “We have a very dire situation. Jennifer is unresponsive out there. I’ve tried to get her to drink, and she just ignores it. I just got off the phone with the Med Save doctor and they gave me two not so great options. “

  “Which are?” Lubanzi asked.

  “Subcutaneous IV. The problem is it's dependent on how much fat she has as to how rapidly she can reabsorb fluid that way. She’s a thin girl so I’m worried it’s not going to work and so is the doctor. It’s not a good option and he suggested the second option instead.”

  “Why not a vein IV?” Smith said.

  John opened the cabinet by his bed and started ruffling through his large medical kit bags until he found bag two. He dropped it to the floor and found the satchel with a large number three stenciled on its side.

  “I asked the same thing, but the doctor said at this point it can cause her to go into shock. We could end up killing her instead of saving her.”

  Smith started pacing, wiping her brow. John grabbed the necessary equipment out of the bag and grabbed Smith’s arm to stop her pace.

  “Smith, I need you calm. We can’t go to pieces here.”

  “Calm! We have a dying kid. How many kids have died on your ship
before! I’ve been doing this for years and never had anything like this happen.”

  John resented her statement.

  “What are you implying? That I’m somehow responsible for the most seasick person I have ever encountered?”

  “Stop, both of you. The priority is the girl. What needs to be done on the school front?” Lubanzi asked Smith.

  “I have to call the school and her parents and let them know what’s happening. I need to do it now.” Smith grabbed the door handle and stopped, “wait what was the second option?”

  John held up the large rectal catheter.

  “Where would that?” Smith drifted off as the realization dawned on her. “You can’t be serious? We aren’t going to do that to a student. The school will never allow it. Her parents! My god, we would be finished!”

  “I’m going to save her life, and this is what will save it. I don’t give a damn about approval. She’s a legal adult. She’s unresponsive so legally, I have implied consent to treat her. I will save her life, whatever it takes.”

  “You’re insane!” Smith shouted.

  “Smith, I’m not a doctor! And I was just told by a doctor that we pay for medical advice that this is what has to be done. I’m going to try one more thing before doing this. If that doesn’t work, then I will do what needs to be done.”

  “I have a call to make,” Smith opened the door and headed to the Sat phone.

  “You are the captain, it’s your ship. You have my support. But I hope you know what you are doing,” Lubanzi said.

  “Trust me, it’s the last thing I want to do. Smith cares more about the school’s reputation than the students’ lives. Do me a favor and listen to her make the phone call. I want to know what she says word for word. I don’t need her coloring the story to fit her agenda.”

  Lubanzi left. John had one more thing to try. He opened the door to the chart room and leaned down by Jennifer’s head. He flashed a light in her eye and found little reaction. He took her blood pressure again and it was even lower. He was out of time.

  “Jennifer, I need you to listen to me very carefully. You are in mortal danger. You have to rehydrate, or you will die.”

  John placed a Gatorade bottle by her head.

  “If you don’t try and drink again, I have to do something else, that you will find very unpleasant.”

  John placed the large funnel by Jennifer’s eyes. They twitched.

  “I’m going to put this inside you to rehydrate you. Do you know where this goes?”

  Jennifer’s eyes grew wide. Suddenly, she reached feebly for the bottle of Gatorade. Well, if a rectal probe got her to not give up John would take it.

  Chapter 10

  A day later, the storm had finally relented to the standard 15-knot trade winds that dominated the mid-Atlantic Ocean. The Beagle was covered in salt and so were the kids. They looked haggard and tired but also more confident. They had survived the storm; John knew it was a badge of honor for them.

  "Fish!" Ben shouted from the bow watch.

  John ran forward and looked off the bow. In the bow wave was an entire school of blackfin tuna. The tuna, were behaving just like the dolphins John had seen countless times running in front of the bow wave to eat the flying fish that the ship scared up. It was the first time John had ever seen tuna use the same trick.

  “I have an idea,” John shouted as he went below to his cabin and grabbed the Beagle’s only speargun. He also grabbed the two fishing poles from the helm station. As John climbed the companionway, he saw the disapproving look from Smith.

  “I don’t think,” Smith began.

  “Smith, I don’t care what you think.”

  John was still smarting from Smith’s implication that he had somehow been responsible for Jennifer’s sickness. John turned and headed up to the bow that was now filled with excited kids. The students needed some fun. John was actually glad that Smith and his relationship with her had come to a head.

  He was the Captain and there was a pecking order. He was in command and she was not. He was beginning to understand why most Captains preferred to be feared.

  It was easier to command a ship when the crew feared you outright than it was having to dance around friendships. Smith had made a habit of second-guessing John at every turn, and there could only be one Master on a ship at a time. John.

  “Ben and Greg, you set these fishing poles up off the stern and run these lures. If the tuna are in front of the ship they are bound to be behind it too. Set the drag to make a sound if they get hit.”

  Ben and Greg raced back down the deck, their metal harness clips making a sliding noise down the deck wires.

  John handed the unloaded speargun to Wayland. He clipped his harness onto the whisker stays of the bowsprit. The whisker stays ran from each side up to the tip of the bowsprit and kept it from shifting right or left.

  John straddled the bowsprit and slid himself forward a few inches. There was a no-man’s- land on the bowsprit of about three feet before the bowsprit net would catch a person. If John fell before getting into the net he would fall as low as his harness strap would let him.

  Beagle was doing about six knots, which meant if he fell, he would still be attached to Beagle, but he would be bouncing off her bow with the seas and get smashed to pieces. He started to think that his plan was a bad idea. But the kids behind him were pushing him forward and he didn’t want to let them down.

  John slid forward another two feet and finally had his feet over the bowsprit net. Like a cowboy dismounting a horse, he kicked his leg off the bowsprit and dropped into the rope net below the bowsprit. His large frame caused the net to drop lower toward the water which would make spearing the fish even easier.

  John held his hand out to Wayland who handed him the speargun. John pointed it down toward the ocean and bracing the gun butt against his hip, he pulled with both arms and set each of the three bands, with the safety still on. Below him, the purple-blue heads of the blackfin tuna were swerving back and forth just below the surface of the water. This will be a cakewalk, John thought.

  John flipped his body around kicking his legs toward the very front of the bowsprit. He lay on his stomach in the net with his arm and speargun in the gap between Beagle’s hull and the net. The net ropes cut into his bare chest, but he ignored it. John felt the thrill of the hunt coursing in his veins.

  John wrapped the speargun's wrist band around his right wrist and lowered the speargun toward the water. The tip of the gun was about one foot off the water and John began tracking a large tuna as it weaved in and out from underneath his gun. The kids were all looking down off the bow with rapt attention. If only John could get them to pay attention like this during navigation class.

  “You’ll have to account for refraction, John,” Bill said. He was ever the professor.

  “Good point.”

  “And who can tell me what refraction is?” Bill asked. Socrates had nothing on Bill. He never missed a teaching moment.

  “When light travels from air into water, it slows down, causing it to change direction slightly. This change of direction is called réfraction. Where Captain Otter sees the fish is not actually where the fish is,” Wayland remarked in his flat, monotone voice.

  “Wayland, I swear to god, you should be teaching us!” John said. “Now everyone quiet! I think someone just ordered tuna tacos for dinner.”

  John moved the gun quickly as the largest tuna weaved just inches below the surface. John fired and missed hopelessly.

  Two hours later John was still at it, convinced he could spear a tuna from Beagle’s bow. The kids had long since left, to lounge in the sun on Beagle’s cabin tops. Only Lubanzi remained on the bowsprit with John.

  “Did you ever see those machines at the arcade, with coins that look just about to fall?” Lubanzi asked John.

  “I’m guessing you’re going to make some point,” John said sitting up his chest now crisscrossed with red rope lines from lying down in the net.

 
“The coins, appear so close that you keep putting money in the machine, expecting each time that they will fall. But the only coins going in one direction are from your pocket into the machine. Trust me. I know all about thinking you have a sure bet.”

  “So, you think it’s impossible to spear one? But they are right there!” John said as he pointed at the tuna still cruising right beneath the net taunting him.

  “Captain, my aunt’s tribe is Zulu, they are hunters. When I was a boy, my uncle would take me hunting with a spear. I see you moving the spear to match the movement of the fish. This will never work; you are always behind the fish. Instead, keep the gun in one place and let the fish swim under it-then fire.”

  John lied down in the net again. He heeded Lubanzi’s advice and put the spear tip as close to the water as it would go, and waited. The tuna swept in and out from under the gun's aim in split seconds.

  He waited. And waited. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a large tuna sweeping back toward him. Before it was actually under his gun John pulled the trigger. The spear shot forward and buried itself into the tuna. The tuna thrashed violently pulling John's arm hard causing him to almost slide out of the net. In a lightening flash, John felt the large hand of Lubanzi crush his arm and pull him back.

  “Cannot have you going overboard, Captain. I’d hate to see Smith proven right.”

  Lubanzi flashed another smile and grabbed the speargun wire barehanded. He yanked the large blackfin tuna onto the deck. John straddled the bowsprit until he was able to jump back on board and then dragged the fish down the deck to where the students were lounging on the cabin tops.

  John grabbed Lubanzi’s hand and held it up like Rocky Balboa with the large tuna in his other hand.

  “Tonight, we feast!” John yelled. The kids roared their approval and John could see the begrudging smirk of Smith as she shook her head from the helm. Just then one of the fishing pole reels screamed as it took a large fish strike.

  “Get that Greg!” John shouted as he dropped the tuna and went for the second pole.