“There they are! There’s someone waving at us!” Allan was excited and waved back.
“Hello the sailboat!” the voice yelled. “Don’t leave we’re here!”
Frank tuned the boat back to the ship. “Alan, let’s get the dinghy in the water. We’ll tow it until we get close. Ellen and I will row in after we have a talk with them.”
As they sailed closer they saw a dozen or more people along the port bow. They were all waving seemingly happy to see them.
Frank pulled up on the port side and put it in neutral, “We mean you no harm. Can we expect the same?”
“Yes you can. We have nothing to harm you with unless you consider us being over joyed to see someone else, as harmful. Come on up.” It was a young man of maybe thirty years. Beside him stood a woman of twenty-five or so. His arm dropping to her shoulders said they were probably a couple. In fact, all the people standing at the rail were about the same age. Early twenties on up to the man who not only appeared older in age but also the one who was in charge. He was their voice.
“We’ll be coming armed; do you have a problem with that?”
“No sir, come any way you want. We have no weapons to speak of. But as long as you have nothing but good intentions we welcome you. No sense standing here yelling at each other come on aboard.”
Frank nodded their acceptance and moved to the dinghy.
“In about two minutes the lower side door will open and you can get in that way. Carrie and Darrell will meet you down there. I’d come down but I can’t do the stairs.”
Frank looked at Ellen. “Are you ready to do this?”
She didn’t hesitate, “Yes. Let’s do it.”
She eagerly climbed down and into the dingy. Frank passed her the shotgun. He knew she always packed her 357 as he did his Glock. He had no plans on using them, but he felt it was better to have them than not.
Once in the dinghy he asked Alan, “You okay with this? Remember what we talked about; if you don’t hear from us in an hour you motor off and do not under any circumstances approach. If only one of us waves you over you do not approach. You’ll know something is wrong if we are both there but we don’t wave or something. Question everything.”
“Yes Dad, we’ll be fine now go.”
He heard Ellen laugh from behind him and gave Alan his finger, but didn’t say it. Alan pushed them off.
Chapter Seven -Boarding the ship
Frank rowed to the ship with Ellen watching for the outline of a watertight door that was supposed to be just above the waterline. On most cruise ships there would be one used for loading passengers into a shore launch for day trips. Frank wondered how they were going to open it without power but apparently they had figured something out.
On the port side a door opened in increments measured in minutes. A couple inches at a time it dropped down. It appeared to be a dock used for small boats to tie up to. Once there Ellen grabbed a hold of the small cleat and held on.
“Now what? Maybe they don’t know we can’t get…Oh!” Another door beside the dock began to open in the same manner as the ramp had. They saw someone wave a hand through it.
“Hello out there,” a female called out in a sing-song voice. “This is going to take a couple of minutes. Darrell has to turn this big wheel to open the door. It’s kind of hard to turn by himself.”
Frank looked at Ellen, eyebrows raised. “Does this seem strange to you? Excited to see us I can understand but…this?”
“Why? I guess I don’t know what you mean by strange.” Ellen waited for him to answer.
“These people are acting so normal as if we just stopped by for coffee or a beer. Like this an everyday occurrence to them. They’re acting so…what is the word? Weird maybe. I don’t know but I feel like something is drastically wrong with the way they’re acting.”
“Would you rather they had guns in their hands or maybe someone is waiting behind the door with a huge butcher knife?” She grinned at him.
“Really?” Frank glared at her. “You had to say that?”
Ellen laughed softly, “As soon as I said it I wanted to take it back. It was supposed to be a joke, but I can see where it didn’t work.”
They could now make out the smiling face of a blonde girl, peering out from the cracked door. She was adorned in full face makeup as if she were going to a party or a date, and her hair was styled perfectly. As the door was cranked open, they could see she wore a sparkly semi-formal dress.
As soon as she could squeeze her upper body through the opening the girl flipped a stainless ladder down to the first platform.
“It’s a bit of a reach but you can handle it, it’s only a short step and you’d better hurry or you’ll be late for the party.” She giggled and waved her hand at them. Her fingernails screamed new manicure.
They had remained in the dinghy until the ladder came down. Reluctantly Ellen climbed on to the platform. She turned as if to help Frank. Careful to keep her voice quiet she said, “The party? Okay, I get it now. I’m feeling very scared about going in. Why did we have that conversation?”
“Do not show your gun and I’m going to leave the shotgun in the boat.” He turned and set the shotgun back on the seat and took the hand that Ellen held out to him.
She pulled him up and he squeezed her hand before he let go.
“Come on, come on,” the girl named Carrie said, encouraging them with her hand. “Bruce is waiting up top for you. We can’t start until you get up there.”
She had seen him set the shotgun down. “You can bring that with you. We trust you not to shoot us.” She laughed which completely set off Ellen’s radar.
Ellen pulled her hand from the bottom rail of the ladder, “Get back in the boat. We’re not going up there!”
Without question, Frank turned and jumped into the dinghy, Ellen followed close behind. Thank God she had only put a single hitch on the cleat; and in two seconds Frank was pulling on the oars. They were moving away from the ship as quick as he could row.
Ellen leaned over to pick up the shotgun from where it had fallen into the bottom, but before she could turn and sit back down on the pontoon a small knife buried itself in Frank’s shoulder. He groaned when it hit, but never quit rowing.
Ellen heard the soft thud when it hit but didn’t really know what had happened. It was the painful grunt from Frank that made her react.
Without a second thought Ellen turned back to the boat, pointed the shotgun in the general direction of the door and pulled the trigger. The guy was lining up another throw with a larger knife. She saw when he dropped it and grabbed his arm.
The girl began slapping the guy and screaming, “You’re an idiot! You were supposed to wait until they got inside…Bruce is going to kill you!” She pushed the guy as she turned and he fell into the water.
“Go Frank go!” Crockery and deck chairs began to rain down on them.
It looked like anything not tied down on deck was being used as artillery.
In spite of a knife sticking out of his shoulder Frank continued to row. Forcing an anguished groan from between his clenched lips with every pull.
Once they were out of range of the missiles still being thrown at them Ellen placed a hand on Franks back.
“We’re clear now. Let me pull that out.”
“No leave it it’ll bleed like a stuck pig if you remove it. I’m okay for right now.”
To Ellen’s surprise Frank turned the dinghy around so he faced the cruise ship. “Why?” He yelled. “Why do that? We could have helped you!”
The guy they had thought of as the leader leaned on the deck, his smile completely out of context. “That would have been great, if we had needed any help. All we wanted was your guns and maybe a dance or two with the little woman there.”
The woman standing beside him slugged him in the shoulder, but there was no force behind it.
Someone had closed the passenger door and they were cranking the platform up too. The man that the girl had pushed int
o the water was yelling for someone to help him. He was using his good arm to keep himself on top of the water but was fighting a losing battle. The people on deck leaned over the rail hooting and hollering at him. They began raining crockery down on him and cheered whenever one of them hit him.
Frank shook his head and turned to the Annie-C. He continued to row.
Alan had ascertained that Frank and Ellen might need his help and had the boat moving to them. When he was near he put it out of gear and glided slowly to them.
Well out of reach of the people on the ship, Frank rowed up to the stern of their sailboat. Alan grabbed the painter that Ellen threw from the bow and pulled them tight.
“What the hell was that? What happened?” he asked in disbelief. “I was watching through the binoculars and couldn’t believe it when I saw that guy throw the knife.”
“That is the last time! From here on we approach no one or nothing. We worry about ourselves and to hell with anyone else out here. Those bastards are all crazy…Hannah we need you.”
Ellen was so mad, she pushed herself past Alan. “Help Frank in, he has a knife sticking out of his shoulder so be careful.”
Had she had the room Ellen would have been stomping up and down. “I don’t understand people…we could have been killed. Those people were completely loony…out of their minds, wacko.” Frank reached out with his good arm and pulled her in close. It was exactly the tipping point for Ellen. She burst into tears.
He sat and pulled her down with him. “It’s okay. Thanks to your comment we’re safe. You knew it and we’re safe now.”
Hannah having seen the knife sticking out of Franks arm came prepared. With a towel and the first aid kit. “Okay, try to relax your muscles, this is going to hurt.” She held the towel close and pulled the knife out. She dropped it onto the table and clamped the towel over the wound.
Ellen finally pulled away from him, “I can’t believe we almost walked into that.” She blew her nose on the corner of the towel Hannah was holding on Franks shoulder.
“Ellen!” Hannah exclaimed. “Please…the towel was clean.”
“It still is. My snot is not dirty, just wet and it was running down my chin.”
After a few minutes Hannah removed the towel. There was little blood on it. She thought it would have bled more. But the cut was barely visible. She thought she should flush it out but Frank said it was alright.
“Just throw a bandage on it.”
Alan had the knife in his hand looking at it. He showed it to Hannah. “It looks like there’s more than just Franks blood there. See the fresh and then down around the base there’s some older dried blood too.”
Hannah looked and pulled the new bandage off of Frank’s shoulder. “We need to clean that out. You are not the first person or thing that knife has been in recently. Now hold still.”
She tried to squeeze the wound open but it was useless. The blade of the knife was so small the slit it had made had sealed itself up when she’d removed it. “Well shoot, this will have to do and we’ll start you on the last of the antibiotics.” She soaked a gauze pad in peroxide and taped it over his wound.
Frank didn’t relish being the center of attention, “I’ll live. It’s a long way from my heart so leave it be.”
“Listen!” Alan said. “What the heck?” He turned to the ship and stared.
They stood looking back at the cruise ship. The sun was near the horizon but the silhouette of the ship was lit up by what looked like a bonfire on the top deck. They could hear singing and wild laughter.
“We could have been in the middle of that if Ellen hadn’t said something to me. We could have walked right into that mess. All I can say is thank you God for woman’s intuition.”
Chapter Eight -Bath water for the crew
The day they left the ship behind was the last sighting they had of people or occupied vessels. For the next two and a half weeks they sailed. When the wind died they started the motor and motor-sailed. Frank said they were covering some serious ground. When he had calculated their trip he had figured at three knots per hour, but had since updated their progress to a four knot average.
He set the sextant on the cockpit table and wrote on his notepad. When he was finished writing he picked up the binoculars and searched the eastern horizon. Along the line where the sea meets the sky they were able to see a smudge of darker color. A thin line of dark gray separated the two shades of blue.
“Is that land?” Hannah asked “That darker line there.”
“Yes it is but more importantly, those are storm clouds. Hopefully and with the direction our wind is coming from we could get some rainfall.” Frank said and began a slow circle with the binoculars to his eyes checking the water all around them. “We’re getting too close to land for my liking but we need to find some water and those clouds are our best bet.”
“Ellen? Do you have your rain catcher? I think we should deploy it now before the clouds get here.”
“Right here,” she said and hoisted a nylon bag on deck. “Hannah can you gather the water jugs and there’s a filter in that little hanging locker in the aft cabin.”
With Alan at the helm, she and Frank dropped the mainsail and tied it in place. The rain catcher was nothing more than a canvas sheet that draped over the boom with the corners tied to the shrouds. The canvas bellied down catching the rain in the low hanging canvas. Ellen had reinforced the canvas at the corners and with several layers to thicken the material where she glued two small thru hull valves, one on each half. Her theory was to let the canvas rinse off until she felt the canvas was clean and then let the rainwater gather in the lowest part of the catcher. When enough was collected, she would open the valves and fill their containers. She had seen how it worked in her mind, built it and stored it away for the day she would need it and it had been a valuable tool ever since.
“We’re not going to rinse it this time,” she told Hannah. It was clean when we stored it and I don’t want to waste any of the water. We’ll let it fill then open the valves.”
“How do we get the water into the container? Do you have a funnel?”
“There should be a length of plastic pipe that fits on there. I’m pretty sure it was rolled up with the canvas.” She looked but it was gone.
Hannah looked at the valve, “What about a length of garden hose? We could cut it off and shove it up in there. The water would have to be deeper than the portion that sticks through but it would work…maybe”
Ellen grinned at Hannah, “Good idea and I have just the right hose. Those are one inch valves and we just happen to have a garden hose that might fit right in there. Be right back.”
From under the starboard aft seat she pulled a coil of brown hose. The lazarette opening was too small to put bulky things in but it was deep. The only permanent fixture was the battery charger fixed to the bulkhead. She had a hose, and replacements for the stays and shrouds coiled and hanging from lanyards tied to hooks around the inside rim of the lazarette. In the bottom were the extra lifejackets and an extra set of oars for the dinghy.
Frank cut two sections off the end and gave them to Hannah. “Try these.”
The hose pieces fitted into the valves as if they were made exactly for the purpose of draining the water into the jugs.
The breeze had picked up while Ellen and Hannah were setting up the rain catcher. The leading edge of the storm was nearly on top of them. The waves, uneven chop when they’d started had grown into three foot whitecaps.
“Put your harnesses on!” Frank hollered to be heard over the wind.
Ellen had heard him and she waved Hannah back to the cockpit with her. They donned the harnesses Frank had set out and clipped the carabiners to the jack-line. “Alan you may as well get into a harness too. You’re going to have to carry the full jugs back here for the girls.”
He traded places with Alan and took over the helm. He didn’t think he was up to carrying the full jugs with his shoulder. Hannah had put him on the last of
their fish antibiotics and had to finish up with some of the supplies they’d found on Flamenco Island. He had still ended up with a slight infection and Hannah had to open the wound up, clean it out and re-bandage it.
The rain began one splat at a time. Within seconds it had turned into a downpour. Rain funneled down the hose like someone had turned the faucet on. As fast as Ellen and Hannah could fill the jugs, Alan poured them through the filter he’d stuck into the fill valve on deck. They had filled both water tanks and he remembered to run down below and turn the pressure on to fill the hot water tank.
Back on deck he slogged the full water jugs to the gunnels and lined them up tying each one in place.
Hannah went below and returned with a Rubbermaid container she set it under the hose and filled it as full as she dared, put the lid on and pushed it up to the mast.
“Can we tie it here?” she asked Ellen who was standing with her face turned up to the rain.
“Yes, what’s it for?”
“Bathwater for Olivia and laundry water for our clothes.”
“Do we have any other empty containers? We could all use a bath in fresh water.”
“I can make a couple more.”
“Bring some soap back with you please.”
Ellen went to the cockpit, “Do you have a problem dropping the sail for all of us to bathe? It has been weeks since any of us has a freshwater rinse.”
“It’s too rough to be in the water.”
“I was thinking we could take turns on the bow with a shower. With a little discretion we could all have one.”
Frank nodded at Alan, “Drop the jib where it is please. We’ll be putting it back up as soon as we’re finished. Then come back here and keep your eyes aft. The girls can take theirs first and if they hurry then we get a shower too, but you better hustle before the rain lets up.”
Dangerous Shores: Book Three; The End of the Road Page 4