New batteries were commissioned from the stocks of battery cases and acid carboys held on Marina Hill, and AWOL’s wind generation and solar panels linked up. Mark was pleased to find that the electrics had survived their years of idleness. Even the impressive array of radio equipment was working.
The children watched, fascinated, as he twiddled the dials and spoke into the microphone. ‘This is the vessel AWOL, Alpha, Whiskey, Oscar, Lima, location Hobbs Bay, Whangaparaoa, Auckland, New Zealand — does anyone receive?’
As he anticipated, the question went unanswered. He considered removing the equipment and installing another bookcase in the space, but his growing list of essential tasks and concern that he might disturb essential wiring in the process caused him to leave it in place.
Commander Ball had assembled an impressive library, containing not only the cruising sailor’s Bible — Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes — but a full set of weather guides and tide tables. There was also a complete collection of charts, AWOL’s professionally kept log and travel guides for all the countries and islands the Ball family had visited — including the west coast of America.
Mark had decided to leave New Zealand in late March and expected to reach San Francisco before June. If he found no Chatfield survivors in there, he planned to spend the hurricane season hopping from port to port along the west coast of the United States and Mexico, concentrating on those ports beginning with the word San. They would then head south in time to round the Horn during December or January, the most favourable months to attempt the notoriously dangerous passage.
With so much to do, the months flew by. At the end of February they began loading food for the voyage. Their main provisions were smoked fish, dried meat, biscuits and a wide range of bottled food carefully packed into wooden boxes lined with straw. Also loaded, much to Mark’s displeasure, was a huge quantity of cat litter that the children had made from waste paper.
Generally, the community respected his wishes, but when it came to the old cat Misty he discovered he had a rebellion on his hands. His argument that the nineteen-year-old cat would be happier seeing out his remaining days in the familiar surroundings of Marina Hill fell on deaf ears. Nicole in particular was adamant that Misty was joining the voyage. She knew his hunting days were over and how reliant he was on the food she put in his dish each day. He was becoming thin and slow. Occasionally he would stumble and lose his balance.
And it was Nicole who, on the planned day of AWOL’s departure, refused point blank to join her grandfather in the dinghy when she discovered Misty was missing.
‘You see,’ Mark said, resting on the oars, ‘Misty wants to stay in Gulf Harbour.’ Gina, Zach, Audrey and Tommy were already seated in the dinghy; Jane, Jessica, the twins and Fergus had been ferried out to AWOL earlier. ‘Now come on, be a good girl and climb aboard.’
Not only did Nicole refuse to join him, but the other children clambered out of the dinghy to help her search. Mark was furious. ‘Come back,’ he shouted. ‘The breeze is coming up. I want to get away while we’ve still got a good wind.’
But he was too late. The children had scattered in all directions. Cries of ‘Misty!’ echoed off the empty buildings on Marina Hill. Mark’s anger grew. An hour later the cat had still not been found. He kept rounding up groups of children and telling them to stay put while he searched for the others, but each time when he had found the missing children he discovered the ones he had located previously had disappeared again.
The wind was building even faster than his anger. By the time Misty nonchalantly wandered out from a clump of bushes, a storm had developed. It was too dangerous to row the children out to AWOL. Aboard the yacht Fergus was frantically paying out every metre of chain he could. The ferocity of the wind became even greater than Mark recalled from Cyclone Bola that had struck decades before.
As Mark and the children cowered in a house on Marina Hill, listening to the windows rattling, Fergus and Jane realised the anchor was dragging and desperately dropped the spare — the anchor that had once been snagged on the Upper Harbour Bridge. Despite being in the lee of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, the yacht was being carried across Hobbs Bay towards Kotanui Island.
Finally the second anchor held. Jane, soaking wet from spray, stumbled below to comfort Jessica, who was sitting on the bunk protectively cradling the twins. All three were terrified by the sound of the wind screaming through the rigging and the violent bucking motion as AWOL butted the steep chop that had built in the shallow waters. The two women held the babies close as they waited out the night.
The destruction that greeted Mark when he ventured out of the house the following morning left him in no doubt that had they got away at their planned time, they would almost certainly have been wrecked on Motutapu Island. He looked down at Misty, affectionately winding his way between his legs, and silently thanked the cat for having gone missing.
It was early evening before the wind had dropped enough for Mark to lead the children down to the canal. The cyclone had blown away Mark’s sadness at leaving. The winds had destroyed the recently erected windmill, the plants in the gardens had been stripped of their leaves, and most of the trees in the orchard had toppled. Gulf Harbour was releasing him. His blood roots were summoning him home to England.
AWOL had fared better in the cyclone than the buildings around Gulf Harbour. Its wind generation systems had automatically feathered and locked as the wind increased. The lashings Mark had checked, tightened and re-tightened had held.
Fergus had retrieved one anchor and shortened the chain on the other. ‘We’re ready for the off, as soon as you are,’ he said to Mark as the children scrambled aboard.
Mark handed up Misty. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ he said. Misty made his way slowly and unsteadily around the cockpit coamings, sniffed at the wind coming from Gulf Harbour, arched his back, yawned and settled down under the dodger. With a final sniff of the air, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
10
As they passed Rakino Island, Fergus and Jessica said goodnight and took the small children below with them. Mark, at AWOL’s helm, settled into the weather quarter and played the wind shifts. When he had sailed to England with Steven he had known he would come back to New Zealand. This time he knew there would be no return voyage. He felt guilty that he hadn’t visited his wife Helen’s grave before they left and sensed that Jane, Nicole and Zach sitting beside him in the darkness might be experiencing similar thoughts about Bruce’s grave. With so much to be done in preparation for the voyage, they had not had time.
‘When we get to England,’ he said softly, ‘we’ll build a memorial to those we’ve left behind in New Zealand, somewhere to go and sit and remember them.’
His words caused a flood of tears. An hour later his family kissed him goodnight and disappeared below.
Alone on deck as AWOL sailed east, Mark picked out the dim outline of Waiheke Island to the south. It brought back thoughts about his yacht Raconteur, which had been wrecked at Oneroa during the tsunami, and the deaths there of his nieces Sarah and Katie.
At dawn a bleary-eyed Fergus stuck his head through the companionway. ‘Why didn’t you call me for my watch at midnight?’
‘Judging by the look of you, you needed the sleep.’
Fergus rubbed his eyes again and scanned the horizon. ‘Where are we?’
‘Off Cape Colville. We’ll change course after breakfast and head southeast.’
‘So you intend making straight for the Horn?’
Mark shook his head. ‘No. We’ll head southeast till we pick up westerlies, run with them for a while and then hook north to pass to the east of Tahiti and Hawaii before turning northeast towards San Francisco.’
‘I still think America’s a waste of time.’
‘Me too,’ Jessica agreed, as she climbed up the companionway ladder to join them.
‘We have to try to find survivors. It’s all a question …’
‘We know, we know, it�
��s all a question of the genes,’ Jessica interrupted. There was a hint of ridicule in her voice.
‘Do you intend searching islands along the way for other possible survivors?’ Fergus asked.
His uncle shook his head again. ‘The engine’s dicky. We’ve hardly any fuel. Making unnecessary landfalls is just asking for trouble.’
AWOL continued southeast to the thirty-eighth parallel before heading due east. Mark had found the westerly winds he wanted. He also found bitterly cold weather. With no fuel for the stove, and the seas too lumpy to light the wood-fired barbecue, all food and drink was served cold. Despite non-stop complaints from the crew he resisted the temptation to hook north until he had crossed the one hundred and fifty degree meridian.
As they headed north the weather quickly improved, and Jessica and Fergus were secretly relieved they were not heading even further south in order to round the Horn. Their relief proved short-lived. Headwinds dogged them. Day after day AWOL butted into the waves. The continual pounding got on everyone’s nerves. An easterly gale developed three hundred miles to the southeast of the Society Islands.
Desperate to preserve the eastward progress they had made, Mark hove to. For three miserable days, the crew cowered below as AWOL clung onto Commander Ball’s parachute drogue and wave after crashing wave swept across the decks. Inevitably water found its way into the cabin. By the end of the ordeal the crew were miserable, damp, exhausted and close to mutiny.
Mark announced they would make for Tahiti and rest up for a few days.
‘Perhaps Captain Bligh’s human after all,’ Jessica whispered in Fergus’s ear. Fergus didn’t destroy her illusion by mentioning the damaged rigging he and his uncle had found during their post-gale inspection.
Mark had hoped to make Papeete, but the fickle winds forced him west and AWOL finally anchored off the former Club Med resort on the island of Moorea. While Fergus and Mark set about repairing the rigging, Jane and Jessica rowed the children ashore. With the brood playing happily on the beach, Jane and Jessica searched the resort’s kitchens for any canned or preserved food. As they feared, there was not a scrap to be had. In bungalows they found skeletons locked together where honeymooners’ lives had been cut tragically short. As Jane and Jessica, helped by the children, gathered coconuts they kept an eye open for plumes of smoke. There were none. No one on Moorea had survived the pandemic.
The skeletons preyed on Jane and Jessica’s minds and they did not complain when Mark announced, as soon as the repairs were complete, that it was time to move on.
They picked their way nervously through the Society Islands and held to the west of the Tuamotu group and to the east of the Hawaiian Islands before finally swinging northeast towards California.
It was more than three months since they had left Gulf Harbour. As they headed towards the west coast of America everyone was bored. The breeze had at last swung to the west, but had dropped to a mere whisper. The yacht wallowed in the slop, the boom jerking against the preventer, the sails slamming from side to side. At the helm Zach did his best to keep the sails full, but despite his efforts AWOL made less than one knot.
Jessica and Fergus tried to rest in their bunks. Jane stood in the galley attempting to maintain her balance as she prepared lunch. Mark and Nicole read in the cockpit. The three youngest children, Audrey, Gina and Tommy, endeavoured to amuse themselves.
Misty watched out of the corner of his eye as Tommy started twiddling the knobs on the radio set. The boy had seen Mark test the equipment before the voyage and had been intrigued by the strange hissing and whining sounds. The radio suddenly spluttered to life.
‘… Look Hank, you’ll have to do better than that …’ The younger children were taken aback by the strange accent. They had never heard an American drawl before.
The cabin momentarily darkened as Mark scrambled down the companionway.
‘What would you accept then, Brad?’ asked another voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ Tommy said as he reached for the dials. ‘Don’t touch the knobs!’ Mark yelled. But it was too late. The little boy, frightened he was in trouble for playing with the equipment, moved several dials in a frantic attempt to turn the radio off.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again as he stepped back.
‘It’s all right,’ Mark assured him. ‘You’ve done well, very well.’
The tiny area that housed AWOL’s communication and navigation centre was quickly crammed with bodies. Jessica, Fergus and Jane squeezed in beside Mark as Zach and Nicole peered down from the cockpit. Everyone was talking at once.
‘Keep quiet!’ Mark shouted as he feverishly turned the dials. He could get nothing. ‘Which ones did you touch?’ he asked Tommy gently.
‘That one and that one,’ Tommy said, pointing out the dials.
‘And that one,’ Gina added, pointing to a third.
Again Mark tuned the dials. There was a squawk, then a crackle and finally a very faint voice. With infinite care Mark worked the knob clockwise and anti-clockwise as the conversation drifted in and out.
‘… So all you’re offering us is one of the Chat girls for three days?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Which one, Brad?’
‘Which one d’yer want?’
‘The one with the big tits of course.’
‘Could be difficult, Julie’s our most popular …’
The voices faded and Mark carefully tuned the set again.
‘… last time you loaned us a Chat she ran away.’
‘They’ve been tagged now.’
‘We’d expect five days for the amount of heroin we’re offering. I’ll have to run it past the other guys. We’ll let you know tomorrow.’
‘Talk to you tomorrow then.’
Mark could barely contain his excitement. He lifted the microphone and pressed the transmit button, but before he could speak Fergus reached over and switched off the radio.
‘What the hell?’ Mark said angrily, reaching for the switch.
Fergus grabbed Mark’s arm and then manoeuvred himself between the radio and the older man. ‘They said Chats.’
‘So what?’
‘My nickname at school was Chats.’
‘I don’t see the problem. My brother was called Chats too. Half the Chatfield family were nicknamed Chats at one time or another. You should hardly be surprised Chatfields are alive. That’s what we expected, after all. Now, let me make contact.’
Fergus stood his ground. ‘The guy said he wanted one of the Chat girls. That suggests he wasn’t a Chatfield himself.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘The point,’ Jessica said, ‘is that the Chat girl was being traded for heroin.’
‘She’s right,’ Jane agreed, ‘and Hank also said the Chats had run away. Why? What were they running away from? It sounds to me as if something nasty’s going on.’
‘Exactly,’ Fergus said as he released Mark’s arm. ‘And the best thing we can do is listen in and learn exactly what’s happening.’
‘We should make contact while we can,’ Mark insisted. ‘We don’t know what time they’ll transmit or what frequency they’ll use.’
‘They said they’d talk tomorrow. They didn’t arrange a frequency so my guess is they use the same frequency at the same time each day. Let’s listen in again then.’
11
Excitement and speculation aboard AWOL grew. She was still over a thousand miles from San Francisco. The breeze was light but steady and the self-steering system had been engaged. Everyone clustered around the navigation station the next day to listen in. Half an hour before Tommy had picked up the transmission the day before, the radio hissed to life.
‘You there, Brad?’
The signal was weak. The man called Hank called anxiously several times before Brad answered, and despite Mark’s endeavours the signal drifted in and out and only snatches of the conversation were heard.
‘… we’ve discussed it and agreed in principle to have Julie for th
ree nights in return for two hundred grams of heroin…’
‘She’s worth …’ The signal faded again. ‘… and I’ve got to be careful … I can’t afford the boss finding …’
‘… your problem … Three nights or no deal …’
The signal died altogether.
Everyone was quiet as Mark tweaked the dials. They could not hear another word. In desperation he reached for the microphone. Jane’s hand stretched over and rested gently on his arm. ‘Dad, I think that girl Julie’s in real trouble.’
Over the next four days the crew aboard AWOL carefully monitored Hank and Brad’s conversations. Some days the transmissions were clear, on others they were scratchy. Every word the two men spoke was recorded, however trivial, with Jane and Fergus recording Brad’s words and Mark and Jessica recording Hank’s. When the transmissions ended, the records were compared and discussed and an official version of what had been said agreed. The significance of voice, tone and laughter were also noted. Every scrap of information was analysed. Street names and references to buildings, hills and landmarks were extracted and listed.
Following the transmissions Mark pored over the travel guide for San Francisco. He matched the odd street name, but other related facts just didn’t add up.
‘Perhaps it’s not San Francisco at all,’ Fergus suggested, after the third transmission. ‘Why don’t we search some of the other travel guides?’
‘Pity we don’t have Google,’ Nicole remarked.
Everyone, including the older children, started to help study Commander Ball’s impressive collection of travel guides, looking at cities along the west coast.
Blood Roots: Are the roots strong enough to save the pandemic survivors? Page 6