Dangerous Shores: Book Two; Hell or High Water

by Christine Conaway

  Ellen, already at the helm, reached for the key and turned it to the on position and held it. The motor immediately turned over and started.

  Frank offered to take the wheel and Ellen having already stood her shift was happy to comply. Tension always got to her and she felt she would be better equipped mentally to stand a watch.

  “Alan, bring a couple of the guns topside and make sure Hannah knows to keep Olivia below and have them move into the main salon where there will be more protection with the cabinets.”

  Alan didn’t say anything, but went down into the cabin. Frank waited for one of them to question his request for the guns. Ellen acknowledged she’d heard him with a nod of her head. Without words they all seemed to be in agreement, the guns were a necessity.

  He thought that finally they were of the same mindset. It almost seemed as if the acquisition of Olivia, had changed them all. He felt they were all mentally prepared to protect the little girl. In his mind, Olivia was the daughter he had never had and probably never would have. He couldn’t know what she meant to the others, but so many times he had seen Hannah acting in the surrogate mother role. Despite the seriousness of their immediate situation, he smiled. Olivia had united the crew into a cohesive family unit whether they had wanted it or not. Maybe to each of them, she represented something missing from each of their lives.

  An hour later they were miles away from the near encounter with the unknowns. Alan had finally gone below to get some sleep taking the two rifles and Ellen’s shotgun with him.

  “I would kill for a cigarette right now,” Ellen said. “Well not really, but figuratively.”

  Frank, eyebrows raised in surprise said, “I wouldn’t have guessed that you were a smoker.”

  She laughed at his expression, “I’m not. At least not since the last time I had sex.” She slapped her hand over her mouth, aghast at what she had just revealed. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks and was grateful for the dark. At least he couldn’t see how much she had just embarrassed herself. “Oh my God, please tell me I didn’t just say that.”

  Frank didn’t know whether to acknowledge that indeed she had or pretend he hadn’t heard her. Unable to stop himself he laughed and admitted she had. “Well you said it, but you are the only one who can swear to it. I wasn’t there.”

  “I think it’s time for me to go for a walk,” she said as she stood, climbed onto the lazarette, and with her hand clutching the lifeline she went to the bow. She had completely disregarded their policy of a harness and tether to walk on deck when they were underway.

  Ellen wasn’t so sure why she had said that. Not the smoking part, but the sex part. She was sure she must have sounded either demented or desperate to him. She was sitting on the chain locker with her bare feet hanging over the side. She sighed and wondered about just letting go and following her feet.

  Frank startled her, when his hand touched her shoulder. “If you’re going to sit up here please put this on.” He held the harness out for her to slip her arms in. “I’m really hoping that someday I may get to see you smoke.” He reached around clicked the fastener together and walked back toward the cockpit, clipping the tether onto the jack-line.

  They had run the line from the cockpit to the forward cleat so they would always be tethered to the boat if they fell in. Once again he had showed common sense by bringing her the harness, if only she had thought of it herself. Having someone care enough to help keep her safe was new to Ellen. She had prided herself on not needing anyone to watch out for her, which in turn had driven more than one prospective suitor away. She could see where having Frank around was going to keep her on her toes.

  The water splashed up and over her feet as she lay back on the deck; arms folded under her head. She wasn’t very comfortable, but she wasn’t ready to go back to the cockpit yet.

  Ellen had almost fallen asleep when she found herself sliding off the edge of the deck when the boat slewed sideways in the water.

  Frank screamed from the cockpit, “Hold on…we’re going to hit it!”

  She felt the thump and felt the boat shudder as something scrapped down the side. She had her hands wrapped around the stanchion, body hanging in the water. The tether had prevented her from going all the way in.

  “Frank! Help! I can’t get back…”

  Frank leaned over the lifeline and bodily picked her out of the water. He stood with her wrapped in his arms. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see it until it was too late. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, you can put me down.” She squirmed away to look over the side. As best as she could from deck, Ellen worked her way down the hull trying to see if they had breached the hull. Against the white, she saw where they had made the initial contact by the dark smear of algae and slime. She couldn’t say if it was simply muck or if it was cracked. “There’s something here. Can’t see how bad it is there’s too much muck on it.” On hands and knees, she had made her way back to the cockpit.

  Ellen was shaking from the adrenalin rush and was having trouble getting out of the harness. “All I could think about was going in the drink. Thank God I had the harness on.”

  Ellen was facing aft trying to get out of the harness when she saw it. “Frank look there,” she said pointing at a shape floating just under the water. “It looks like a container.”

  Back behind the wheel, he slid the transmission into the forward gear, wanting to put some distance between them and it. Had they been at hull speed, hitting a sunken container could have been a disaster. He could only pray they hadn’t breached the hull in any way. Turning to see behind them, he couldn’t see anything in the water, but the chop from their propeller. The brief time they had motored had put it out of sight.

  “Alan check the bilges.” Frank hollered, he looked at Ellen and realized that if she had not been tethered, they could have lost her. She would have been out of sight in a heartbeat; just like the container.

  The sound of Olivia crying finally sank in. “Are you guys okay down there?”

  “We’re fine,” Hannah yelled back. “We both fell off the settees and Olivia bumped her head on the table leg. We’ll be okay. What happened?”

  “We hit a stupid container. It was floating just under the surface and Frank didn’t see it until too late.”

  “Are we going to sink?” Hannah asked. She had Olivia in her arms and was climbing the ladder. “We’d rather be up here just in case. Besides Alan’s tearing stuff up down below. He said he could hear water running somewhere.”

  “Of course not. It wasn’t a direct hit and this old boat is stronger than that!” Ellen declared. While the Catalina wasn’t specifically built for ocean crossings, she wasn’t exactly a piece of fluff either. Being a 1990, she was made back when the hull was built out of the older thicker lay-up. Many Catalina’s had documented ocean crossings. She felt confident the Annie-C would look after them.

  “Shit…we’ve got a leak down here,” Alan hollered. “Frank or Ellen can one of you get your ass down here?” Alan sounded panicky as if they were going to sink at any moment.

  Frank looked to Ellen who hadn’t acknowledged that she heard Alan. She seemed to be frozen in place and he wondered if she was going to go or not. When seconds went by and she neither moved nor answered he said, “Hannah take the helm and get that life jacket on Olivia.” Frank threw the jacket in Hannah’s direction and scrambled out of her way. He had to squeeze by Ellen who didn’t seem to notice when be brushed by her.

  Ellen stood frozen in place. The thought that her boat could possibly sink made her want to scream. She knew there was no way to get enough supplies in their dinghy for them all to survive. Having just the one, was going to be disastrous if the Annie-C was to sink. There would be no rescue from the Coast Guard or no tow boat to call. They would have to handle their own emergency if they hoped to survive. She told herself to stay calm and fix it. She had everything on board for small repairs, but fixing it would depend on where the leak was and how big. As if she had
come to some kind of conclusion or reconciled herself to fixing the problem she moved to the companionway.

  “Hannah, will you be okay up here for a couple minutes? I’m going to go down and help Frank, but I’ll send Alan up.”

  “I think so. I hooked Olivia to the tether so I can steer. She’s already to go back to sleep. The tether was long enough; Olivia was able to curl up on the lazarette.

  “We’re not going to sink are we?” Her voice was barely audible Olivia was curled with a cockpit pillow wedged in front of her as if Hannah thought she may fall off. Big brown eyes stared up at Ellen. She had one hand resting up by her face and her thumb was suspiciously wet as if she had just pulled it from her mouth.

  Ellen stopped and turned back to Olivia, she crouched down in front of the girl. She could only imagine what Olivia had already gone through and prayed they would not have to leave the boat.

  “No baby we are not. At least not if I have anything to say about it.” She rose, ruffled Olivia’s hair, and went below.

  Chapter Twelve

  Alan and Frank had removed the cushions from the starboard settee. There were three compartments behind the back cushions. The forward compartment had a crack in the fiberglass. To Ellen it looked like a corner of the container had hit and slid making a small puncture with a fore and aft crack. Water wasn’t pouring in, but if they didn’t find a way to repair it, the motion of the boat and the natural erosion of the water passing by the hull would open it up.

  “I don’t suppose you have any glass matting or epoxy?” Frank asked. On hands and knees Frank used his fingertips to test how soft the area around the crack was. “It could have been worse I guess but unless we can find a way to fix this it will be worse.”

  He sat back on his heels and looked at Ellen. His forehead was creased with frown lines, “I’m sorry. I should have seen it.”

  “Scared the crap out of me,” Alan said. “Can we fix it?”

  “Actually, it would be a bigger help if you could stand watch for Hannah. Keep the rpm’s down and the speed only fast enough to be able to steer.” Ellen asked him. There wasn’t enough room for two people to work in the small space let alone three. She assumed Frank would be a bigger help with the repairs and she sure as heck wasn’t going anywhere.

  Alan looked like a little boy getting ready to throw a tantrum. His body tensed up and his face turned red; he looked ready to explode. “But…”

  “Alan please think before you react. I’ve done glass work before and I’m pretty sure Frank has too. Have you?”

  He visibly relaxed and his demeanor changed. “Sorry, I just feel like I don’t do anything around here. I’m not pulling my weight. By the time you and Frank get done, there’s nothing left for me to do.”

  “Tell you what, as soon as we get this fixed we’ll talk. Right now Hannah and Olivia are up top alone and we need to get some kind of patch on here that will last until daylight; when we can make a more permanent repair.”

  Alan blew air out in a resigned sigh, turned and back to the cockpit. He understood that he needed to be up top with Hannah, but he felt he needed to learn how to fix things too. Book learning would only get him so far in this new world. He hadn’t had enough schooling to even be a good nurse. Hannah knew more about medicine than he did. She had already more hands on experience than he ever would. He felt as if he was doing nothing to contribute to their welfare. He realized he was feeling sorry for himself, and was trying to put his need to feel useful above the needs of the group as a whole. He understood why Ellen and Frank would be the ones to make the repairs; because they probably knew how and he didn’t.

  He shook his head in disdain. He would try to put his feeling of being unworthy aside and find something in this new world that he could excel at. He wondered briefly about survivor’s guilt. Should he have gone to his father instead of going with Ellen? To his dismay this was the first thought he had had about his father since leaving Palmetto.

  “Are you okay?” Hannah asked, Alan was standing and staring in deep thought about something. She saw when his whole body relaxed and the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. He must have reconciled a problem in his head, because in the space of seconds his whole demeanor changed.

  He went and sat beside her on the starboard seat. “Actually, I’m going to be fine. I just needed to clarify a few things in my head. Have you ever picked up someone else’s glasses and put them on without thinking?”

  Hannah shook her head, because she didn’t wear glasses and she hadn’t known that he did. This was new information to her. “Nope, not that it couldn’t happen if I wore them.”

  “Well I have. You can see out of them, but everything is blurry and you have the immediate thought that,” he held his first two fingers up in the classic sign for quotes, “Oh my God something is wrong with my eyes. Then you pull them off and you can see better without them. Well that’s what I’ve been doing.”

  Hannah laughed softly not wanting to wake Olivia, “You had someone else’s glasses on?”

  “Not literally, figuratively. I feel like I’ve been walking around in a daze since we left the marina. When it was just Ellen and I, I had a specific role and now with you, Frank and Olivia here, I couldn’t figure out what my role is now.” He reached up and placed his hand on the wheel on top of Hannah’s and sang, “I can see clearly now the…” He couldn’t finish because Hannah had burst into infectious laughter at his poor rendition of the Johnny Nash song.

  “What? You don’t like it?”

  “I love the song…however I still don’t know what you’re talking about with the wrong glasses and all. We all have something to contribute and we do our share. From what Ellen has told me that if it wasn’t for your help she could still be back there at the marina. I don’t want to think how much that could have changed all of our lives.”

  He thought about her words and knew she was right. The circumstances had played out in such a way, that if he or Ellen had done one thing differently, probably Hannah, Frank and sweet Olivia may not have lived. He gently squeezed his hand over Hannah’s as if to send a silent message, “I guess you’re right. I am superman in disguise.”

  “Maybe not superman quite yet…but getting closer.” In a sidelong glance, she gave him a shy smile. “You’re my hero and that should be enough.”

  Alan leaned back, his head resting against the backstay and closed his eyes, a thin lipped smile on his face. He began to hum the Johnny Nash song under his breath.

  The rise and fall of Frank and Ellen’s voices could be heard drifting from the cabin below. It seemed from the sound of it, they were having a disagreement in their methods of repair.

  “I’m telling you Frank, you can’t just spray that stuff in there and expect it to work and besides that I don’t think it will stick to the fiberglass because of the wax.”

  “The wax? What wax?” He held the can of “Spray Foam Insulation” in front of him, while he read the directions, squinting to read the small printing.

  Ellen took the can from him. “The wax they put in the mold to make it easier to get the hull out after they lay it up. This stuff…” she held the rattle can up in front of his face, “is for insulation. I bought it when I changed out the refer box.”

  “But it’ll fill in the crack…wait, you changed out your own refer box?”

  “Or, it’ll get in the crack and open it up bigger when it expands. Then we’ll have twice the sized hole to fix later, and yes I did.”

  His shoulders sank in dejection. He thought he understood what she was saying. “Why are you always right?”

  She laughed, “Because I read the label. It says right here, to not use it to fill with.” Her fingernail tapped the can right by the directions, a smug smile covered her face. Her blue eyes sparkled with humor. “And for surface preparation it says to be sure all surfaces are clean and free of dirt, oils, and wax.”

  “Okay smart ass, let’s hear your idea. How are we going to stop it?” He had to adm
it, she was pretty smart when it came to her boat. Some of her ideas sounded farfetched, but he would listen because after all, it was her boat.

  “Okay look, the water line is about here.” She put her hand about where she thought it was. The crack looks like it’s barely below the waterline. See how little water we’re taking on?”

  She was right again. The water didn’t pour in, only whenever the natural rhythm of the boat was on the down side of the gentle hobby-horse movement. He knew from experience all boats had a rhythm of their own and some hobby-horsed more than others. Hull displacement, length and sea-state all contributed to the boats action in the water. His boat, the Aurora had given him a miserable ride on rough water.

  “So we put it on and it should keep the water from coming in or wearing on the fiberglass until we get somewhere for a real repair.” She saw from his expression he probably hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

  He laughed, obviously embarrassed to be caught day-dreaming. “Sorry, I was thinking about the Aurora. You wouldn’t believe the emergency repair kit I had on board for her. Now I’ll never know if any of it would have worked.”

  “Well I suggest we try my idea and if it doesn’t work, we can always do something different.” She began to pull the cushions off the port settee. “Grab that roll of aluminum foil and rip me off about a foot-long piece.”

  Frank shook his head in confusion, “Guess I’m going to have to experience this to believe it.” He mumbled, knowing Ellen could hear him.

  She smiled, because she had heard him as she was meant to. Armed with tape, scissors, a cotton rag, a square of 200 grit sandpaper, a can of acetone. She turned to the table and put it all down.

  Frank stared, eyebrows pulled down magnifying the wrinkles between his eyes, his lips pursed, until he let loose a roar of laughter. He held on to the table with both hands, head down as if his laughter could sling him to the floor.

  “That’s right. Go ahead and laugh. But, I’m going to bet you a steak dinner, this is going to work.” She tore off a couple short pieces of the tape and taped the corners of the foil to the table. Then she began laying ten inch strips of tape side by side across the foil. When it was covered, she began again only placing the next layer cross-ways to the first. She continued until she had four layers. For the fifth layer she placed the tape the same direction as the first layer. Satisfied with the result she carefully pulled the tape from the corners and cut the piece into a ten by eight-inch rectangle. Carefully she rounded the corners and held it up for Frank to inspect. “Well what do you think?”