The Great Wide Sea

by M. H. Herlong

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I LOST THE ABILITY to think. I wanted to call Dylan up to tell him, but I couldn’t move and I couldn’t yell loud enough to make him hear. What was the point anyway? I would just be telling him so I would have somebody else be as scared as I was.

  And they were probably scared enough already, stuck down below in their bunks with no light. They couldn’t see the storm, only hear it and feel the pounding on the boat and the sharp heel to port. I hoped they were wedged in somehow. Two hot bodies in the dark of a tiny boat smashed by the waves and wind. All they could do was wait. I wondered if Gerry was crying—or if he was too scared even for that.

  And still Chrysalis tore through the waves, black in the half-light except where they foamed yellow over and past the hull. The wind shrieked through the stays and shoved the waves up higher and higher until the tops blew off and fell raining into the cockpit. The waves grabbed for the forepeak, then picked up the bow and slammed it down in the troughs. Chrysalis shuddered with every blow, every joint in her hull loosening. We were taking in water somewhere, but I couldn’t go look. I could only steer and look at the sail, stretched by the screaming wind to a big, round, peculiar shape.

  Then something exploded. Suddenly. Like a bomb detonated right on our deck. A crack, a boom, a roar of sound that knocked me backward and drowned out the shriek of the wind as the echoes reverberated in my head.

  The sail. Our sail had exploded, ripped to shreds by the wind’s pressure. The leading edge hugging the mast was still intact, but the leech was torn into a string of ridiculous signal flags flashing mindlessly at the storm. The boom swung wildly while yards of canvas hung from it, dragging across the cockpit and dipping into the sea.

  I stared. One second we were screaming along with the sail bellied out tight and whole. The next, the sail was gone and the boat was stalled, turning slowly sideways to the waves.

  I didn’t have to call Dylan. The hatch boards were flying out of the companionway, and he was climbing into the cockpit as I hauled in the boom and pulled the longest shreds out of the water. Dylan didn’t need me to explain anything. He saw immediately what had happened. He turned and motioned Gerry back down. I pointed to the tiller and yelled, “Keep the wind behind us. Keep the waves coming from the stern.”

  I found the longest line we had in the cockpit locker and stood. Just as I looked at Dylan, a wave broke over the stern, dropping gallons of water straight down on us. I lost sight of Dylan for that instant. Then he was there again. Wet. Water running off his nose. And trembling slightly. I turned to go forward. My plan was simple. Lower the mainsail and tie the shreds to the boom. Under the conditions, it was an impossible plan.

  I crawled along the edge of the boat. I could have brushed the rushing, bubbling water with my fingers if I could have let go to reach out.

  When I got to the mast, I crawled slowly up to the center of the boat. I lodged the line between my knees and the mast and took hold of the main halyard to release it. My fingers were cold and felt like exposed bone. I picked at the wet, stiff line. It wouldn’t give. Then suddenly it let go, and the force of the heavy slapping shreds of sail against the line almost jerked me up. I used the cleat as a pulley and let the sail down slowly.

  As it lowered, it billowed out with the wind. Dylan tugged at the tiller to meet this new force. Then the sail was completely down, its acres of white canvas heaving in the wind, the torn edges flashing up and slapping at the deck.

  I clung to the mast with both arms while the boat twisted back and forth, trying to throw me into the sea. I knew I had to let go with one arm. I had to gather the sail and tie it off. A pinpoint in my mind again thought of Gerry down below. Where could he be wedged? How frightened must he be?

  I held on with my left arm and crushed down the sail with my right. I tied one end of the line around that first hump of broken sail. Then I stepped aft six inches and crushed, again and again, wrapping the line in a spiral around the flapping, soaked edges of the shredded sail as I hauled them in inch by inch and pound by pound and beat them into a sodden lump on top of the boom.

  I couldn’t feel my left arm anymore. It was just a hook that I slid along the boom to hold me on. The muscles in my right arm were past exhausted and moved like a machine. I caught every flap, every shred. I was screaming at the sail. I almost fell into the cockpit when my blind feet stepped backward. Then I was down to the last flying triangle of sail beating Dylan in the face. I grabbed it and pulled. It ripped completely off. It streaked out from my hand and disappeared into the sea.

  The sail was quiet. I turned to Dylan. He pointed toward the companionway where we had forgotten to replace the hatch boards. I looked.

  The cockpit was still awash from the last wave. Whirlpools spiraled down the scupper holes where the water drained out. As the boat slid down the back of another wave, the water in the cockpit sloshed through the companionway opening. The cabin sole was wet. Gerry lay on the sole with a cushion wedged on either side of him. He was not rolling. He was not crying. His eyes were closed and his arms were crossed over his chest, over Blankie and the red life jacket he had put on all alone in the wet, dark boat.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I LOOKED AT GERRY for a moment and thought about going down to say something. But I didn’t know what to say, and I figured if he was in his roly-poly mode, I would just break his concentration. I hoped he was doing that. Otherwise I didn’t know how you could stand to be barely six years old, terrified of the water, and believing you were about to be thrown into the worst water you’d ever seen in your life.

  So I crawled back to take the tiller from Dylan and sent him down below.

  “Dry off,” I yelled in his ear. “Feed yourselves.”

  I settled back to the helm. Now we were running bare poled before the wind, the hull alone giving the wind enough surface to push us flying across the seas.

  Usually when you’re steering a boat, it’s like steering a car—you aim yourself in the right direction and move the tiller a little this way or that way to keep on course. Occasionally a stronger puff of wind or a sudden wave pushes you off—like a bump in the road or a car that swings too far into your lane. But you correct. You get back on course. And you start again with the little movements. It’s easy. Anyone can do it.

  But this tiller was a raging dog I had to hold at heel. We swung wildly from side to side as the waves lifted the boat and twisted it to one side. I pulled the tiller toward me with all my strength, leaning back to get out of the way so I could pull it more and more toward starboard. Then the waves dropped us and twisted us the other way and I was shoving the tiller to port. Away from me. Hard. Hard. As far as it would go. Then we rolled up the back of a wave and were dropped again, maybe this time in the other direction. Maybe not. The compass needle swung through eighty degrees with each wave as I fought to keep our stern to the wind and waves, to keep the boat afloat.

  The wind kept shoving us over the waves and shrieking in my ears. The rain kept pummeling me with wet and cold and pounding on my face. The waves kept rising up under us, crashing on top of us, and washing over us. Still we rode on. And on. And on. The day slipped into night. The night slid away, and it was day again. I’d been at the helm for almost twenty-four hours. I hadn’t eaten or drunk. I hadn’t rested.

  As the new day began to lessen the darkness, I realized the rain had almost stopped and the wind was less. It was still stronger than any I’d ever sailed in before, but it was less than it had been. I began to notice my body again, but it was as if it were someone else’s. I couldn’t change any of the things that were wrong. I was still a human machine acting as an extension of the rudder.

  Even so, a piece of my insides unwound enough to think, and I wondered if maybe Dylan had been on the radio this whole time. Maybe rescuers were out there waiting for the storm to calm down enough so they could come and get us. But where would we say we were? We didn’t know where we’d started from, and now we’d traveled more t
han twenty-four hours in a basically southerly direction at an average speed of at least eight knots. Wherever we were, we were definitely a long way from wherever we started.

  After a while I saw the hatch boards begin to move. The top one wiggled out and I saw Dylan. He took out the rest of the boards and then crawled out on deck with me. In his foul weather gear he looked like a yellow caterpillar easing through the companionway and clinging to the slanting deck as he crept to my side.

  He sat right next to me—bone to bone—and yelled in my ear, “It’s my turn.”

  I looked down at him. Dylan didn’t have Gerry’s shock of blond hair. His hair was a brownish color. It was too long, of course, and it hung down his neck and over his forehead in wet points. He reached out for the tiller and I saw that his hand was bigger than I remembered. When I didn’t let go, he tried to push my hand away.

  “You’re not strong enough,” I screamed, and suddenly had to shove the tiller way to the other side of the boat. Dylan lost his balance and tumbled onto the cockpit floor. I watched the yellow heap sort itself back into arms and legs and he stood again.

  “You’re not, either—anymore,” he yelled back at me. His eyes were so intense and sad. Just looking at them made me feel a little scared.

  “I can do it!” I shouted.

  “So can I. You’re tired.”

  He put his hand on mine again and pushed. This time my fingers let go their grip. When they moved they hurt. Tears started in my eyes. The boat took a wave too much on the side and suddenly heeled hard to starboard. I fell against a winch and Dylan pulled the tiller tight up against him. Slowly the bow turned south again. We didn’t have as much speed without the screaming wind. Steering was going to be different.

  “What’s the course?” Dylan was staring at the compass.

  “No course. Just keep the stern to the waves. That’s been roughly south, but we’re swinging through eighty degrees.”

  He didn’t look at me. He just nodded once, peered deeply into the compass, and shoved the tiller away from him as he felt the bow swinging around.

  He was doing it by feel, exactly the way he should. I rubbed my ribs where the winch had gotten me. A wave dumped a couple of bathtubs of water on top of us, and for the first time since the storm began, I stood and looked aft out across the ocean.

  There was enough light now to see, and the sight sent shock waves through me. We were in the trough of a wave. I was staring into a wall of water. I looked up for the top of the waves. I kept looking. I craned my head backwards.

  Forty feet? But I was afraid of exaggerating. Thirty feet at least. Three stories of water, topped by blowing spray, rolled like a moving wall toward the boat. At the bottom of the trough we almost stalled for a moment because the wall blocked the wind. But our momentum from our slide down the front of that monster kept us moving. The rudder still worked. We could still steer. We rose up again to the top of the waves.

  The stern began rising first as the wave rolled under us. Then the bow. And by some miracle, the whole massive wall slid underneath us, and we were riding on top of its broad smooth back.

  I looked at Dylan. He was like I had been, totally focused on the tiller. He was not conscious of anything around him except keeping our stern facing the waves.

  I looked aft again. As far into the gloom as I could see were more waves rolling like an army convoy toward us. One behind the other, each exactly the same, each huge, each mindless, each deadly. How did they get so big while I was watching the compass? Where were they coming from? How long would they go on?

  Dylan glanced up at me quickly. “Go down below,” he ordered. “You’re tired. We need you to rest.”

  Dylan had already seen the waves. He had seen them hours ago when the sail exploded. He had seen them just now when he came up and insisted on taking the tiller. He knew about them and he wasn’t scared.

  I had looked at Dylan practically every day of my life. I knew what he looked like. But sitting there like that, a little blob of yellow holding on to a tiller while thirty-foot waves broke on top of him, slinging the water out of his eyes and peering into the compass, suddenly Dylan looked different to me. I went down below.

  Gerry was still wedged between the cushions on the floor. I knelt close to his head. He opened his eyes. “I went pee,” he said. “Right here on the floor.”

  “It’s okay, buddy,” I said. “We all have.” I looked down at him. His eyes were pools of darkness in the half-light, but his lips were outlined clearly and the white of his teeth showed between them. The teeth were all still baby teeth. I saw he had bruises on his face. “You’re hurt.”

  He nodded. “I fell off the bunk—a long time ago.”

  I nodded back, then lay down beside him, the top of my head just touching his. I could feel his warmth and hear him breathing.

  “Has Dylan been on the radio?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “He tried. It didn’t work.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “What about Dad?” he asked.

  “Go back to sleep,” I said, and then my body and my brain turned off. Dylan was right. I wasn’t strong enough. Not anymore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  WHEN I WOKE up, I realized I had made another mistake. I might have slept longer if I hadn’t done it, but I had forgotten to put the hatch boards back in when I came below. Water came flying through the companionway and dumped on my head, just like somebody throwing a bucket of water right at me. I felt the water squishing down into my clothes under my foul weather gear. Then the boat shifted and the water rolled back across the cabin floor and into my face again. I lifted up my head and looked around.

  The inside of the boat was a little lighter. Everything loose was on the floor. Cans of food were rolling around. Books were lying open, wet and flapping. Dad’s charts were pushed up into a corner in a wet heap. As I watched, the sea lifted us high on the starboard side and all the water sloshing on the floor rolled to port. Something plastic swirled around on top. Some of Gerry’s little cars flew from the starboard bunk where they had landed in some earlier twist of the boat. They crashed on Gerry’s legs where he lay on the floor, his eyes still closed, his arms still crossed over his chest.

  I pulled myself back to sit, but it hurt. My ribs were especially sore where I had crashed into the winch, and my left arm felt weak from the time I had spent gripping the boom to tie down the sail. The elbow and wrist ached even when I didn’t move.

  The boat rose up the front of a wave passing under our stern. Our bow pointed down sharply and everything rolled forward. I reached out and grabbed a can before it rolled into Gerry’s head.

  I was thinking very slowly, trying hard to be careful but not really awake. I set the can upright, wedged on the floor so that it could not roll from aft to forward again. The boat leveled out on the top of the wave. The wind hit us and raced through the open hole of the companionway. The books fluttered like scared birds, but the charts didn’t move. They were a soaked mass of useless paper now.

  Then the wave began to move out from under us. The bow tilted up, the stern fell back, and we slid down the wave’s back. The can fell over and rolled aft. I came awake completely. There was no such thing as safely wedged in this boat. I felt the boat stall in the trough, and another load of water rushed through the companionway.

  I stood and looked at Dylan framed in the companionway opening. He was a yellow spot against a vertical background of black, curling water. The runoff from the last wave was still rolling off his shoulders. He was squinting against the wet and salt in his eyes. One hand clutched the tiller, the other held fast to the rail. The boat yawed in the trough, and he worked with the tiller to keep the boat’s stern to the waves. He glanced back for one second to see the next wave coming. The stern began to rise. He looked forward again and saw me standing in the companionway watching.

  I came up and out into the storm again.

  The sky was lighter and the rain had stopped completely, but th
e wind was still fierce. When I came topsides, I could hear it howling. It slapped me in the face and pressed against my foul weather gear. It swept my hair back away from my forehead and flung spray into my face, burning my eyes with the wet and the salt.

  Then we began to slide down into another trough and the wind eased. Suddenly, I could hear. I sat down beside Dylan. He turned and looked at me, and I saw that he wasn’t an eleven-year-old boy anymore. He was an eleven-year-old man. I reached for the tiller.

  “I can go longer,” he said.

  “Don’t exhaust yourself,” I said. I reached up and pushed the points of hair away from his forehead. Then the top of a wave dropped on us. When it rolled away, his hair was plastered down on his forehead again and water was dripping off the end of his nose. I pushed his hand off the tiller and took over the helm. “Try the radio,” I told him.

  “I already did,” he said. “It’s not working.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “Same problem. I can hear other people, but they can’t hear me.”

  “What do they say?”

  “Get to a safe port.”

  We sat together for a minute. “Go below,” I finally said. “Eat something. Drink. Take care of Gerry. Come spell me again in a few hours. We’ll take turns.”

  In the eerie quiet of the trough, I could hear his voice talking to Gerry as he slid the hatch boards into the companionway opening.

  Then I was alone again with the waves and wind. The sun was still high somewhere behind the thick cloud cover—it must have been early afternoon now of the second day—but here on the ocean, the light was dim and there was a new rhythm for me to learn. The race across the top of the waves, the foaming wake, the flying spray, the pull of the rudder against the tiller. Then everything getting slower and slower, quieter and quieter, as we slid down into the windless vacuum of the trough, yawing dangerously at the bottom before slowly climbing up to the top once more.