Arch Patton

by James Strauss

  There were no more thoughts of Dutch following or watching my back. There was no threat. No sharp edges. No clefts to get caught in or lost. Just white sand everywhere. The ship glided over us, the thrum of its two great propellers beating and thrashing above. It seemed too close. The Lindy drew twenty-five feet, so we had a little less than forty feet of water over us when we went under the hull. It seemed more like five feet.

  The stern passed over us but we were still in her shadow and jostled by the twisting unseen currents, stirred by her power. I nearly panicked, as a huge black snake reared its head out of the sand. A thrill of fear went through me.

  I sucked deeply on the regulator. Then I noted a large hole in the snake’s head. The “head” was the broken end-link of our anchor chain. We were moving so fast we almost blew right by it. Dutch caught the link with one gloved hand and then grabbed my weight belt until I could get a handhold. The current was unbelievable. You could not face sideways into it while stopped. I lost my mask twice and had to clear. My eyes and nose were near frozen with exposure to the freezing water. But there was nothing to be done. The sharp, shiny edges of the link break had to be avoided. Any damage to our dry suits while in 40-degree water could quickly become fatal.

  Commercial dives were much harder than sports dives. Commercial divers worked harder. Dutch and I scrambled to hang on, attempting to thread the uncoiled rope through the second, unbroken link. It was much, much more difficult than can be imagined. Finally, we achieved it. We next attached the canister. Tying the line was near impossible with the gloves on. I had to remove mine. Then it was easy, but there was no putting the tight rubber gloves back on after I finished. I tucked them into my belt, instead, and pulled the cord on the CO2 cartridge. It zoomed for the surface while the doubled line played out.

  We did not have to guide it. We saw the float canister plunge up through the surface. We looked at each other and smirked, using the thumbs-up gesture at the same time. We let go and began our ascent to our pick up.

  For some reason, the current had dragged us closer to the island than we had calculated. Stalagmites appeared, jutting out of the sand. I knew it was time to surface and pointed up. We inflated our B.C.’s together and headed up. Don was far back but finally waved back, having spotted us. I could see people on the fantail of the ship waving, as well. I looked for Marlys without success. “Where the hell is Yemaya when I need her?” I implored the wind.

  Don motored up. By this time Dutch and I were only yards from a great high cliff face. I waved Don back, but he came towards us anyway. He got close, then turned and gave us the side of the hull. There were ropes extending all along the rubber tubes of the Zodiac. We grabbed and held. My frozen fingers had no feeling, but I held on anyway.

  “Cut the engine,” I yelled, trying to give him a slit-throat gesture, knowing that he was unaware of the up-thrusting stalagmites. He cupped one ear without benefit. I thought we could just float past the island, and then restart the motor on the far side.

  There was a huge bang. At the same time, I felt a heavy impact penetrate right through the boat. Almost immediately the top of an upward stabbing stalagmite struck me. My suit ripped, as ice water instantly poured in. Don pulled Dutch aboard, but even he and Don, tugging together, were nearly unable to bring me, with a full dry suit of water, aboard.

  I lay on the bottom of the boat, exhausted and cold to the bone. When I sat up, at last, Don delivered the bad news.

  “Prop washer’s busted at the shaft,” he said, in resignation. I then looked to the fantail of the ship, but it was gone. I clambered to my feet in shock, only to see the Lindy far away. Very far away, and moving farther away fast.

  “What the hell?” I cursed into the strong wind.

  We were past the island. The current was abating, yet the wind and huge swells were building. Don put his palms out and up, his forehead wrinkled in question, then pulled a hand-held radio out of his jacket.

  “I’ve got communication. I’ll just call ’em,” he assured me. He pushed the button on the radio down.

  “Dive One to the Captain”, he repeated, over and over. A Germanic voice answered on the fifth try, although the reception was too scratchy for me to understand the words. “Almost outta range,” Don said, a worried look on his face. He talked for several minutes; his back turned away from the wind. Finally, he put the radio back into his coat. His face was white.

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  “It seems that there’s a cruise ship on fire. An emergency. The Lindy’s bound to race to their assistance. They’re the closest. It’s the Law of the Sea and all, but the burning ship’s only fifty miles away. They’ll be back for us in a few hours.” He smiled, weakly, when he finished.

  “Jesus Christ Don,” I blasphemed, “with this current, we could be on the Russian Coast in a few hours.” I thought hard and fast.

  “Oars?” I asked, looking at Don.

  He shook his head.

  “Paddle?”

  He said nothing.

  I moved closer to the inebriated Assistant Cruise Director.

  “Dutch, get your snorkel and get in the water. You’re our only hope. We’re in the lee of the island. Swim us in. We can wait this out behind the island if we can find a place to land. My suit’s full of water, or I’d be in there with you.”

  Dutch scrambled to get his snorkel and mask back on. I hoped that his level of alcohol would not prevent him from swimming the boat in. I looked into the distance at the Isle of the Tsar of Russia. The Bering Sea was a brutal, punishing beast at any time, much less in a storm. The ominous clouds to the north, beyond the island, did not look tropical at all. Nor did they look like they would be long in arriving.

  CHAPTER TEN:

  The Isle of the Tsar of Russia

  The slow stuttering trip out of the current and into the island’s lee took less time than it seemed it should because of the back current. Dutch had held to a dogged steady pace, stroke after slow stroke, swimming out in front of the Zodiac. Without warning, the boat had run right up over his shoulder, as the wind, in concert with the current, exerted a suctioning pull back into the lee of the island. I had replaced the wetsuit gloves on my hands, and, as with the water-filled dry suit, they responded warmly to the insulating properties of only a thin layer of liquid.

  I was not warm, but I had feelings to my body. We pulled Dutch aboard as the Zodiac moved sideways toward the cove, which served as the innermost point of the lee of the island. Waves pounded onto the small rocks, appearing to run in on swells only four to five feet in elevation. I looked up at the small chunk of water-isolated land. It was a kidney shaped piece of rock about eight hundred feet high. The only landing spot possible, at the base of the cliff, was a narrow cove the boat was being sucked into. Huge pines appeared to cover the flat top of the quarter mile wide body of gray rock, high above.

  There was no attempt on our part to manage the Zodiac’s direction or lessen its impact when we went over the falls of a wave. The boat’s soft-bodied hull was made of a hard rubber called Hypalon. When the hull struck, the resulting sound was a huge flat crack. The twenty-foot vessel bounced and flew. I flipped out in mid-air, landing on the rocks, my back down. The rocks, which had appeared so substantial from a distance, proved slippery and full of giving. The dry suit, in its water-filled state, protected me. I was uninjured.

  The boat, however, was high and dry, wedged into a pliable rock base. I grabbed a hull line and climbed to my feet. Don and Dutch were doing the same on the far side. We looked at each other. Jokingly, in imitation of The Three Stooges, we all slapped our foreheads in unison. The reaction was automatic. It had happened to me many times before. The elation of survival, under the difficult or impossible circumstance, forced an appreciation for simply being alive. That feeling overcame all other emotions. I understood what it was. It’s a rare emotion, not experienced or understood by “norma
l” people.

  Nothing was said for a full minute as we stood by the Zodiac, breathing hard. It had been a close call. I re-engaged with both men and waited, but neither wanted to be the first to speak about the ordeal. And what was next.

  “Don,” I finally said, “grab the canvas sack out of the boat. Dutch, get the top off the outboard. We’re going to need the cover if we want to hear something.”

  Both men clambered aboard the beached craft. Neither seemed to mind being ordered around at all. Dutch looked more comfortable than Don, which surprised me. I had expected some macho trouble from the mercurial, alcoholic young man. I pulled out the knife I’d strapped to my calf. I removed the screw top with some difficulty. The gloves gave me warmth, but not manipulative ability. I dumped the Bic into my hand. I opened a waterproof zip pocket on my thigh, the tang of the zipper huge and convenient for my gloves. I popped the Bic in and re-zipped before approaching the rubber hull.

  “Here, Dutch,” I gestured with the knife. “Cut the gas line and squirt some gas into the handle. Screw it down and we’ll have some great accelerant for a fire.” I knew that our survival for any extended time was not going to be dependent upon either food or water. It was going to be a direct function of how good we might be at building and maintaining a source of constant heat. Don and Dutch came over the transom of the boat. I helped them land on the rocks without causing damage to any of us.

  “Anything else you think we can use on this thing?” I asked, looking over the top of the big rubber-tubed siding.

  “Use for what, Arch? To do what? To go where?” Dutch replied, looking all about the rocky shore.

  There was nothing at all on the shore, not even wet washed up wood. There was no vegetation. Rain began to fall softly, as all three of us absorbed our surroundings.

  “Up there,” I said, pointing toward the top of the escarpment eight hundred feet above. Then I pointed at the steep slide of riprap, which had fallen through a cleft in the face. The cleft angled upward, then switched back and went on. We all stared at the incline together. I could not see, from our bad angle, if the cleft made it all the way to the pine forest above. But I also realized that we had little choice. We wouldn’t last twelve hours on the brutal rocky shore. Not with the rain, the wind, and unknown surf conditions.

  “We can’t make the climb wearing this stuff, and I don’t have any boots,” Dutch complained.

  I pulled out my knife.

  “You’ve got that right. Let’s cut and paste!”

  “We can’t destroy the equipment—” Don began until I held up the knife and pointed it at him.

  “We just saved the company almost a hundred grand, Don, and the First Mate his job, I think we can sacrifice a few thousand bucks to stay alive.”

  I began working on the bottom of my suit, cutting the booties free. Then I sliced around the waist. I tossed the knife over to Dutch.

  “Cut. We’ll do some better tailoring up on top.”

  I looked up then, to examine the likely course of our climb. I had sounded a lot more confident than I really felt.

  “I’m getting wet,” Don whined. “You guys are waterproof, at least.”

  I sniffed but said nothing. I was wet to the bone but it hardly seemed worth mentioning. Why belabor the obvious? Dutch finished cutting, then handed the knife back to me, butt end first, almost subservient in his manner. I was surprised, yet again.

  “Forgot my own knife aboard,” he confessed, then climbed back aboard the Zodiac. He rummaged around for a few minutes before rejoining us. He held a folded knife out for us to see. We moved toward the cliff face, Dutch carrying the outboard cover. Don hauled the canvas sack. I replaced the knife in my sheath, curious about why Dutch had felt it necessary to show us that he had found his knife. That was a “tell” in my business. The “tell” was not in his going back for his knife. It was in displaying it to validate his public explanation.

  People seldom do things which are truly meaningless. They almost never throw up evidence for things that appear to require none. I did not know what Dutch had been doing, while he had been bent down on the boat. Almost certainly, though, it was not what he had purported it to be. I banked his insincerity and started the ascent. I’d think about it later.

  Although the dry suit booties were not the best climbing boots ever designed, they did the job. The riprap was easy but tiring. Our feet sank deeply into the thimble-sized stones, which then rolled down the steep slope behind us. Step by slow agonizing step we made it to the area where the cleft changed direction. There was a small flat clearing there, with the first sign of vegetation covering it. Short wild grass covered rock and thick mud.

  “Don, the sack,” I said, holding out my hand. I squatted while he settled onto his haunches.

  He tossed the sack gently to me. I pulled out the large chunk of tin foil wrapped sandwiches.

  “Eat. Fish. It’s protein. We need the warmth and the energy. Eat it all, we’ll find other stuff later.”

  I handed out sandwiches. Two for each of us. They were gone in no time. I crumpled the tin foil into a ball and put it back inside. Don grabbed up the sack. We started off toward the top. Looking ahead I realized that we had lucked out. The cleft went all the way, at a much more gentle angle than it had started out at, and the narrow surface was grass covered rock. We might just be alive when the ship came back.

  If the ship ever came back, I thought sourly, hating Captain Borman without ever really having met the man.

  We stepped up over the last ledge onto hard packed earth, which was covered with pine needles all the way to the edge. The pine trees were so close together that they seemed impenetrable.

  “White Pine,” Don said, in his professor’s lecture voice. “Circumboreal….some Black Spruce, the tall ones, which will have a look out if they get real tall, are Black Spruce, and that’s about it.”

  We stood in the rain, now coming down harder, and looked at the wall of pine branches. I broke the silence.

  “Well, Botany Bay, it’s your call. What do we do?”

  Don rubbed his chin. “How are your knees?” he asked, then sank down and crawled forward on all fours, satisfaction on his face.

  Dutch and I looked at one another, agreeing to follow the big Canadian’s lead. Don burrowed in and under the lowest of the branches, moving faster than I thought possible. He snaked deeply into and under the bottom foliage. He finally stopped under what had to be a huge pine or spruce. There was enough room under the lowest branches for him to sit and lean his back against the trunk. It was thicker than he was.

  “Check the needles,” he suggested, holding up a handful.

  I stuck my hand into the heavy layer of light brown needles. Right away I understood.

  The needles were bone dry, even with rain falling heavily just above. None of it got to the base of the huge pine. Water ran down and off the waterproof living needles. It ran in runnels around the trees but not to the bases.

  “Desiccation,” Don observed, smiling. “Many of the pines here die of it, while it’s raining right overhead.”

  Dutch slumped down, lying on his stomach, “How the hell do we build a fire in here?”

  Yes, it was dry, but it was still frigid. I reached for the canvas bag and pulled out the tin foil. Carefully, I smoothed it flat on top of the dry needles, then began working it up under the bottom of the lowest hanging branch, about shoulder height.

  “We’ll just clear the pines to ground below and then let the tin foil diffuse the heat above,” I said. I pulled the knife out and handed it to Dutch. “Go cut some low hanging limbs, dry ones, or find some dead ones while I get things ready here.”

  Dutch crawled away, looking like a huge baby bear foraging for food. I pulled off my gloves and then finished fastening the foil into the tree.

  “That radio will work better from up here. What’s the range?” I ask
ed Don, as I worked, my mind more on getting warm than on his answer.

  “About five miles on the surface. Probably more like ten from up top here,” he replied. There was something in his voice that caught me, however.

  “What’s on your mind?” I challenged him.

  I watched Don think for a moment, bringing the radio out to set at the base of the tree. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out and looked at me as if waiting. I shook my head in negation, then unzipped my thigh pocket and took out the used Bic. I tossed it over. Don flicked once. He got a strong flame and then lit the cigarette.

  “I know, I know, you don’t smoke,” I offered. He blew a big exhalation at me.

  “Didn’t myself, really, but then I met you. You’ve changed everything.” But he smiled when he said the words. It vanished with his next question. “Who did the anchor in?”

  It came out of him so softly, and out of place, that I did a double take. I didn’t say “say what?” but I thought it.

  “What’d ya see down there?” He dug deeper, pursuing the subject.

  I still said nothing. Instead, I cleared the pine needles in order to have a base for the fire’s foundation. When done, I relaxed back on one elbow and resumed my talk with Don.

  “The link was sheared, but it wasn’t distorted, as if from being taken to its tensile strength and failing. The ends were shiny. It appeared to have been filed or cut. But it would have taken a lot of work, and somebody with access to do that. The chain locker is secured.”

  I hesitated, and then went on.

  “It would’ve taken somebody with motivation. Somebody who understood where we might lay-up, and what might happen to the ship if it broke loose from the anchor too close to this island. It was just a stroke of good fortune that the engines were still running when that link went. We’d have been on the rocks within a minute with that current.”