Chapter 5: The plot thickens

Shirlynn's inner watch mercilessly woke her at a quarter to seven, just in time for breakfast. In daylight the room looked and smelled even worse. There was no way she could ever hide what had happened during the night. Also for some strange reason, that she could no even identify herself, she did not want her slumbering lover to wake up while she was there, so she dressed silently and made her way to the galley.

Everyone was there, already busily gulping down the first meal of the day. When Shirlynn entered, the room went quiet and all looked up at her. At first she thought that they could all tell that she had gotten laid, but then she realized that she was simply their only source of information. If anything had happened during the night, she would know. She decided to play it cool:

"What are you all staring at? Did I grow and extra head or something?" she said and made her way to the breakfast table.

"Don't be snide, Richie", Cathy said, "We just want to know if there are any signs of our mystery man recovering!" Shirlynn gave them her most blank expression:

"He was still out when I left him."

"We'll check on him when we are done eating." Jane said. With that apparently Shirlynn was off the hook and she sighed silently with relief. Soon the crew was discussing cabin assignments and workloads again and Shirlynn was back to being totally ignored. Or almost ignored. Isi was not participating in the discussions, but was observing her silently instead. Shirlynn tried to ignore her, but felt Isi looking right thorough her and had ample time to consider her own situation: When her mother learned that she had been able to get in trouble in the middle of the Northern Atlantic on a boat with an all female crew, there was no telling what she would do. Send her to the moon probably!

Shirlynn could have contemplated endlessly, but at exactly that time the door was suddenly opened from the outside.

It is hard to describe the effect of this, but consider if you will, that to the knowledge of everybody but Shirlynn, each and everyone on board who could open doors was already 'in' the galley. Malu and Cathy shrieked and everybody turned to the door.

Ducking to get through the door their enormous refugee entered and smiled at them. Evidently he had found the linen closet. One sheet he had folded and applied like a giant diaper and another he had ripped open and wore like a poncho. By ripping a third sheet, he had made a piece of cloth to tie the 'poncho' around his waist. He should have looked ridiculous but he did not; he looked like a Greek god.

No one seemed to know how to proceed for a while and then Jane's sense of responsibility boosted her into action. She got to her feet and went to the giant man.

"I am the Captain on board. My name is Jane Street." The man smiled widely and shook her hand.

"Captain. Hi! Larry Johnson. Mighty glad to be on your ship, mighty glad." He gave her no chance to get a word in, "Thought I was dead and gone to heaven, when I woke. How long have I been here? Where are we anyway? And...", he looked longingly at the breakfast table, "could I have some chow? I'm starving? Haven't eaten for days!"

'Lie nr. 1' Jane thought, 'There is no way you were out there more than 24 hours!' Aloud she said, "It's the morning of the 18. Do you know how long you were adrift?", and invited him to the table with the extension of her arm. Immediately Isi moved to the side of Shirlynn making room for 'Larry' across from them. He appeared to think shortly:

"3 days!" he said and proceeded to load his plate heavily while the crew observed him in barely concealed excitement. When he sat down Jane took the lead again.

"Mister Johnson, we found you floating..."

"Larry" he said, "Call me Larry." Jane started again:

"Larry. Last night around 01.00 AM Malu here spotted your raft at about 300 feet." Poor Maul blushed from head to toe by the honorable mentioning and would probably have crawled under the table if Shirlynn had not grabbed her. Jane proceeded to tell the story of their daring rescue while 'Larry' ate, skipping lightly over the parts that seemed strange to her about Larry's previous predicament.

He had finished eating and was smoking a borrowed cigarette when she finished. She knew that she was a god storyteller and this particular story should have captured him even if it had been told badly. Still she had the feeling that he had not been listening at all and that something was going on between 'Larry' and both Isi and Shirlynn. She could not imagine that Isi would have kept it from her if the man had woken up when she was dressing his wood the previous night, but there was 'something' there. She resolved to find out later.

"Well...", she said, "tell us your story!"

He spread his big hands and shrugged:

"Isn't much to tell. Set out from Amsterdam on the 2. with a pal of mine and his wife. The sailboat was his, but I was the only 'sailor', if you know what I mean. We got into a storm down south 4 days ago. It didn't seem too bad and I just slept on - it was his shift. I guess the fool got us turned out of the wind for the only big blow in the storm. We went round and sunk - cant have taken more than 10 seconds." His voice did not waver during his tale. In fact he seemed a little bored by it, just as he had seemed by hers. During it all he kept smiling and winking at Isi and even before his tale became improbable, Jane had decided that she did not trust him as far as she could throw him.

He bummed another cigarette and continued his story, occasionally taking long breaks where he just smoked and appeared to be thinking. The core of the matter seemed to be that his idiotic friend had purchased a life boat but had, instead of filling water in the tanks and servicing it regularly, emptied the raft of all provisions for a theme-party he had held half a year earlier. Jane was pretty sure that the provisions of an inflatable life raft were unreachable until it was in fact inflated. She grabbed on to one of the other oddities instead:

"You said, that you 'got into a storm south of here'." She looked at him quizzingly, "How would you know that, not knowing where 'here' is?" The accusation threw him off the track and his speech reverted to something that was most likely much more 'him'.

"Watched the sun, didn't I?" he said, "Any fool knows sun rises in east, don'tey? Drifted north like honkey dory, saw it all along, I did!"

"Right!" Jane said sarcastically, "Was that before or after you became unconscious?"

The reaction was immediate. He flew up and slapped her across the face yelling:

"Don't make fun of me bitch! I'll fucking kill ya!" He did not seem to exert himself to hit her, but she was lifted off of the stool and flew backwards. Isi and Cathy both threw themselves at the man, but they were empty-handed and he waved them away like flies. Bending down he grabbed the stool he had been sitting on, turned it over and broke one of the legs of. Weighing it in his hand he tossed the broken stool.

"Sit down!" he shouted. Isi got off the floor slowly and sat on the bench. Cathy ignored him and crawled to Jane, who had still not moved since he hit her.

"Sit down now!" he yelled again, "I 'will' bash you fucking head in, bitch. Sit!" Jane had begun to move and Cathy got up to the table slowly and sat down, eying him with burning hatred.

"As I see it..." he stated, "you girls are lucky. Out here all alone, no man to tell ya what to do? I figure I was sent by God to keep an eye on you!" Jane had gotten up and was wiped her bleeding mouth with the back of her hand:

"I figure you were sent too, " she spat, "but it sure as hell wasn't from above." He feigned hitting her again, but then he laughed; a surprisingly friendly and nice sound.

"Are you fucking stupid?" he said looking at Jane, "I am the captain and this is my fucking boat. You can stay as my bitch, or you can sleep with the fishies - I really don't give a fuck! Just make up your mind now. I have no time for this bullshit." He glared down at her and pointed to a stool with the piece of wood. Jane sat resignedly.

"You are the captain." she almost whispered through her broken lip, "I am your bitch." Tears of pain and anger were flowing down her face.

"Better!" he yelled, "Much better! This ship is going to Africa and you can all come, if you behave." He smiled brightly at the women around the table. They each squirmed under his look.