Ascent

by Thorby Rudbek

  “She’s a real beauty! How did you find her?”

  “A friend in the business said he knew of a nice boat which would probably be auctioned off soon because of an impending bankruptcy. I went to check it out and spent half an hour trying to disguise my enthusiasm, as I looked her over with the owner. Then we agreed on a price and the rest, as they say, is history.”

  “It certainly beats the city blues off!” Isaac stretched contentedly and put his feet up on the cushions, his lean legs almost reaching the end of the padded bench. “It’s so nice to be able to dress in jeans without having them stick to you.”

  “Yeah, the air-conditioning was a real bonus. It’s great when you’ve been fighting with some monster fish for an hour and finally pull it in,” Terry assured him.

  “Do you boys want a drink?” Ruth Hardy asked from the top of the companionway, her one-piece swimsuit covered with a silky wrap to prevent the coolness of the air from making her shiver. “I need something after a half hour of sunbathing on the roof.”

  “It’s that hot already, dear?” Isaac responded.

  “Blistering, I’d say. Over three hundred ten Kelvin, I think you’d call it. I might have overdone it. I guess I underestimated the heat of the Florida morning.”

  “Easily done. Oh, and the answer is sure, Ruth, and I think your husband looks like he really needs one, too,” joked Terry as he watched her start back down.

  “Make it something with tonic water, honey,” Isaac called down after her.

  “You were so lucky there,” Terry continued in a lower tone, when Ruth could be heard rattling ice into glasses in the lounge below and ahead of them. “I thought that I’d catch her for myself, you know.” He stared at the horizon with his steely blue eyes, remembering life as it had been several years before.

  “Yeah Terry, I know,” Isaac smiled easily at the familiar subject. He brushed the nap of the cushion sideways and watched the sheen change from light to dark. “So why didn’t you settle down with Nicki? She seemed like a nice girl, just what you said that you were looking for.”

  “Oh yes, she was nice;” Terry admitted readily, his prematurely lined face making him look much older than his twenty seven years. “Good-looking, talented - she even had money, so I knew she wasn’t after mine – but...”

  “Do I sense a revelation coming?” Isaac walked over and leaned back against the panelling, glancing back at his friend from the brilliance of the glass-like sea outside.

  “Ah, you’re impossible!” Terry paused. “No, she was, well, she was like Ruth, if you must know. I thought she was perfect for me, and then she found someone she liked better. She was very nice about it. She just thanked me for the fun times and hoped I would find someone to make as happy as she had been with me. Us rich folks don’t always get everything we want,” he grinned wryly, taking the sting out of his words as he stood up.

  There was a moment or two of silence, then Ruth stepped up into the cabin, and put the tray she was carrying down on the mahogany side table. Isaac looked at her, drinking in her curly, shoulder-length brown hair and sparkling blue eyes.

  “Poor Terry was jilted again, dear.”

  She sidled up to Terry and looked up into his eyes, noticing lines that seemed to have appeared on his face since they had last met. They were not laugh lines.

  “Oh Terry,” she said, “You are my best friend, next to Isaac,” she took his hands in hers, “I should have had a talk with her. Nicki, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “I would have convinced her that she needed to look no further.”

  There was an awkward silence, and then Terry pulled away and picked up one of the drinks. “Come on you guys,” he said as cheerfully as he could, “I didn’t invite you out here to discuss my love life! Let’s forget ‘Picki’ and her new boyfriend, and see if the sonar can find us some fish worthy enough to fight us!” He switched on the unit and made a show of watching as the tube warmed up and the screen came to life.

  “Did you really catch that, that monster you have mounted over the bar down there?” Ruth asked, her eyes wide with admiration, the previous subject now considered taboo, at least for the moment.

  “Yes, I did. It was quite the fight,” Terry assured her. “I’ll tell you all about it, sometime, when the sea is so calm that the fish are all sleeping on the ocean bed.” He looked again at the sonar display, and changed ranges. “Like now, for example,” he continued, at tinge of exasperation in his voice. “There’s not a fish in sight.”

  Isaac walked across and looked over Terry’s shoulder at the scope. “Are you sure it’s working, there’re always a few fish around, aren’t there?” This was said as he looked at the blank screen.

  “I thought you didn’t study anything bigger than a neutron?”

  “They’re not very photogenic.” Isaac chuckled and waved his arms about depreciatingly. “I always watch those nature shows when I’m not at the lab; they help me relax.”

  “I was thinking of renaming her ‘Calypso’,” Terry grinned. “But really Getaway is more–”

  “Hey, stop looking at that silly box,” Ruth interrupted from the side. “It’s clouding over, or something.” She was trying to look up from her seat by one of the windows, but the glass was angled to keep out the sunshine, so she couldn’t see high enough to verify her theory.

  “That’s strange, the forecast was for clear skies all day;” Terry mused. “It has been for weeks! I hope there isn’t any weird weather creeping up on us.” He walked over to the door and opened it, letting the air-conditioned coolness slip out with him into the heat.

  “What the!” Terry exclaimed as he looked upwards. Then, his sense of balance suddenly awry, he staggered back across the cabin and switched on the radio. There was a blue flame that seemed to flicker across the controls of the transmitter as he reached for the channel selector. He jumped back, clutching his right hand. A solitary wisp of smoke floated up from the controls.

  “Get me some ice from the refrigerator please, Ruth,” he said quietly with a warning glance at Isaac as she stepped curiously towards the door, her arms outstretched like a high-wire artist’s. Isaac got the message and blocked her path protectively, though he too was finding the floor strangely unstable.

  “Look, my hand is burnt.” Terry showed her his reddened fingers and the black streak across his palm.

  “I’ll get some bandages, too.” She turned, almost falling in the process, and hurried off down the stairs with an apprehensive glance towards the cabin door.

  Isaac looked at Terry thoughtfully, taking in the fear that he saw in those wide blue-grey eyes. He felt strangely light-headed as he walked deliberately over to the door and pushed it slowly open. He stepped out into the unnatural gloom that had descended all around them and looked up. As he did so, blackness engulfed him and he fell, glancing off the safety rope onto the deck. Back inside, ice cubes bounced across the floor as Ruth collapsed at the top of the stairs. One slid over towards Terry’s burnt hand, still clutched against his chest where he sat, slumped over by the captain’s chair on the fine hardwood floor of the upper cabin in the cruiser Getaway.

  ***

  “Priority One message, sir!” The communications officer announced.

  Captain Peter Stuart moved to the Comms board, grabbed the headphones from the officer and listened intently. He glanced across at his Exec, Commander Kevin Steele. His expression, which was often mistaken for surprise by those unfamiliar with him, but was just the standard ‘set’ of his face when he was concentrating, morphed into total amazement, as indicated by the highly raised eyebrows and super-furrowed forehead.

  “Get us topside A.S.A.P., Kevin, course east at 185 degrees,” Captain Stuart announced clearly. “And take us to ‘action stations’. We have a bogie, five to ten miles, probably still airborne.”

  “Action Stations! Ahead full, bring us to 185, load all torpedo tubes with heavies and bring cruisers to standby. This is no drill.” Commander Kevin S
teele covered his bases by requesting not only the Advanced Capacity twenty-one inch Mark 48 torpedo, but also the Tomahawk cruise missiles, so that they were prepared for an attack not only from surface or submerged forces, but also from the air. He took one last look through the marvellous optics of the periscope and then straightened up.

  “Ahead full, 185 degrees – mark.” The confirmation came back like an echo as the sleek, Los Angeles class submarine picked up more speed and slipped slickly through the calm sea.

  “Surface!” Commander Steele folded the handles on the periscope and watched as it slid smoothly out of sight. He felt the deck tilt slightly underneath his feet as the nuclear-powered USS Chicago rapidly responded to his command. The Captain watched silently from the rear of the control room, where he had moved after accepting the message, pleased with the crisp efficiency of his executive officer and crew.

  Senior Petty Officer Lewark glanced over at the newest addition to the crew, a heavily-built twenty-year-old named Joe Spackman, with brown eyes and blond hair cut in short, military fashion. He grinned as he noticed a tuft of hair that stood up at the back of the trainee’s head like a small antenna.

  “Ensign Spackman, you may commence surface watch with me.”

  With just a second of hesitation, then a grateful expression and salute, the young trainee climbed the ladder inside the sail (or conning tower, as it used to be called in years gone by) to the hatch. The sound of water rushing past diminished, and he spun the wheel, shouldering the hatch open, and ducking his head as the last of the tepid liquid splashed down on him. He climbed up through the hatch, onto the bridge and breathed in deeply as he leaned over the starboard side. His limited experience in the navy had already taught him that even the humid air off the Florida coast was better than the stale-smelling, processed variety found inside a submarine.

  Petty Officer Lewark took the port side, his binoculars almost immediately scanning the horizon, his red hair fairly blazing in the bright sunlight.

  Captain Stuart climbed up and stood between them.

  “Torpedoes ready - sir.” “Missiles ready, sir,” Anonymous voices announced in confirmation from the speakers on the sail.

  “The reported contact dropped below the radar somewhere ahead.” The Captain lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes. “It was described to me as ‘large’, whatever that means.”

  “Man the periscopes – search for aircraft.” He intoned after a brief, fruitless scan. “It doesn’t make sense, if it’s that big…”

  The crammed threesome scanned diligently, and others, below them in the Control room, augmented their efforts with the periscopes.

  “Looks like a lovely day for a breath of fresh air.” The Captain’s binoculars seemed attached to his furrowed brow as he scanned the area dead ahead.

  “You bet, sir.” Spackman smiled back his agreement, though the Captain’s presence still made him nervous. He unintentionally broke from his watch duties as he reported what he had learned just minutes before, in the comparative gloom down below. “Sonar said there was a small vessel a few miles ahead, on this heading. I thought–” He stopped talking as a tremendous flash lit up the sky.

  The binoculars slipped out of the Captain’s hands and he clutched at his face.

  “What the!” Spackman shook his head and looked out blindly over the side, waiting impatiently and anxiously until the white glare faded from his vision. When he looked back across the bridge he saw that Captain Stuart had his hands over his eyes. “Captain, are you all right?”

  “I can’t see,” Stuart gasped. “There was an aircraft, or a missile... is there a mushroom cloud?”

  Ensign Spackman glanced quickly towards the area from which the flash originated.

  “No, sir, nothing!” He looked back beyond his captain and noticed that somehow Lewark was missing. Spackman leaned over the inter-ship system, finally remembering his training. “X. O. to the sail – emergency.” He returned to scanning the sky with his binoculars.

  Commander Steele scrambled up hastily, jamming onto the cramped bridge beside Captain Stuart.

  “Captain?” he said with some concern as he discovered his superior’s incapacitation.

  “Take over, Kevin, I can’t see.” The now-helpless Peter Stuart felt his way down the hatch by memory.

  “What happened, Spackman?” Steele asked anxiously.

  “The Captain was looking ahead for the bogie, when a blinding light hit us, sir,” he reported briefly. “He mentioned seeing an aircraft,” the ensign managed to continue his scan of the sky as he talked, “but I haven’t located it yet.”

  “Where’s the PO?”

  Spackman glanced past the commander, about to repeat that Lewark had disappeared, when he noticed what looked at first like a pile of clothes in the shadows on the port side of the bridge. He stepped over, behind the commander, and bent down, then froze as he recognised Lewark’s belt buckle. A moment later and he was retching uncontrollably over the starboard side.

  Kevin Steele started to move to investigate, then called for the medical technician of the boat as the over-riding importance of his duty to protect the submarine automatically kicked in.

  “Radar, where’s that bogie?” He found his voice somehow, but it was flat, emotionless, as he pushed the gory image from his mind. Can’t change that. Too late for him. The Exec found it difficult to look away. Gripping his binoculars until his knuckles gleamed white, he continued with further commands. “Sonar, confirm vessel reported prior to surfacing.”

  “Negative trace, sir,” the voice sounded tinny through the small speaker. “There are no longer any screw signatures; she must have shut down her engines.”

  Commander Steele also scanned the sky above the horizon, while he was waiting for the medic, but without detecting anything.

  “Radar, can you confirm contact reported dead ahead?” Impatience boiled up inside him.

  “No target on the radar yet, either on the surface or above us,” another voice reported soon afterwards.

  The medical orderly climbed up and checked out the crumpled remains of the chief petty officer. A crewmember named Trego appeared briefly at the top of the ladder, then disappeared below again.

  “Make a coded transmission to Defence Command: ‘hostile action directed against USS Chicago – casualties, investigating’, and give our present position. Prepare for emergency dive on my order.”

  “Prepare for emergency dive.”

  Trego reappeared with a body bag, and he and the medic packaged up what was left of the body of PO Lewark, leaving only a pool of blood under the grating. Trego returned and took Lewark’s place on the port watch, his forehead glistening with sweat.

  Steele waited.

  “Ready for emergency dive - sir.” A nameless voice declared in confirmation. And moments later: “Transmission complete, sir.”

  “Stand by.”

  Minutes passed.

  Commander Steele, Rating Trego and Ensign Spackman scanned the ocean all around with their binoculars as the USS Chicago skimmed smoothly through the turquoise waters. The white, frothy wake spread out behind them on the otherwise smooth surface like the vapour trail of a high-flying jet. Radar finally reported something afloat not far ahead, and the submariners tensed as they continued to scan the horizon. An exact heading was provided as the object was imaged through the main periscope, and Steele issued a course correction immediately. The Chicago raced on relentlessly.

  “There it is!” Commander Steele pointed almost directly ahead.

  “I see it too, sir.” Joe Spackman glanced ahead reflexively, and saw something bobbing above the waves.

  The Commander turned away from the object and continued scanning above the horizon as he noticed the trainee fixate on the light coloured superstructure intermittently visible above the swell.

  “It’s sinking, sir!” Spackman announced incredulously a few minutes later, as they rapidly closed in.

  “Get the emergency rescue team up he
re on the double,” Steele barked, his normally gentle, almost boyish face exuding authority and power. “I’m not going to lose the only clue we have!”

  Chapter Three

  No one sees the uninteresting – Penchetan

  “Redcliff passengers disembark now, please,” called the driver. No one else got up to leave the bus, and soon Richard was left with his pile of suitcases and apple-boxes, packed with an assortment of clothes and memorabilia, outside the store.

  The sound of the bus faded in the distance, and Richard sat down on his belongings with a sigh. At six foot one inch when last measured by his diminutive mother, he looked positively crumpled when perched on an apple-box full of sweatshirts and books. His grey-blue eyes, set in a thin, square-jawed face, stared across the road at the old cottage opposite the store. Despite the lateness of the hour and the poor illumination, he noticed that the paint was peeling from the wooden window frames.

  Framing the face, and growing out from the convenient ‘coma crew-cut’ that it had been given, was a thick, wavy head of dark brown hair. His blue jeans and sweatshirt still hung a little more loosely on him than he remembered, and his skin was still pale from the months he had spent in hospital. He turned a little and looked out over the harbour at the lighthouse on the headland, watching it search out the fishing boats and then swing out to sea, where the beam became lost in the distance. The salt air felt fresh and invigorating, a great contrast with Boston’s menagerie of city smells.

  The sound of a door creaking made him glance over his shoulder at the store. A middle-aged, stoutly built woman looked over at him with friendly concern.

  “Somebody supposed to pick you up? Do you need to use the ‘phone?” she pointed back into the store.

  “Thanks, but I think Mrs. Schroder will be here soon,” Richard assured her.

  “Oh, of course!” The storekeeper slapped her thigh. “You must be her nephew; I remember about the - ah...” she stopped, embarrassed.

  A wave of numbness swept over Richard as he realised that she had been told about the death of his family. Everyone knows everything in a small town, I suppose.