Chapter 28

When Karl awoke in the morning he was alone in bed, but it was fully daylight. Since he had promised people to take them on a boat ride today, he quickly slipped out of bed and into the bathroom. He took the time in the shower, grinning to himself at the thought of last night, but he didn’t waste time dreaming, instead he finished his shower, then hurriedly dressed and went downstairs.

“Good morning,” Ely crowed as she set a plate of eggs and bacon in his place at the table. “You look like you’re in as good a mood as I feel.”

“I wonder why?” he laughed, slipping his arms around her and pulling her into a kiss.

“It just might be the fact that we had sex last night. We should try it more often,” she giggled, pushing away from him after a few seconds. “Although while all the crap was going on, I can’t say I was really very interested.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll just have to try to make up for lost time.”

“Deal,” she chuckled, grabbing her own plate and sitting down. “We need to eat and get going, remember we have a thrill ride to run today.”

“I refuse to rush all that fast,” he grinned, looking at his watch. “It’s almost three hours until high tide and since we’re going outward first, I don’t really want to buck much of a current.”

“I was thinking about cleaning and polishing up the boat first,” she announced firmly.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” he paused, staring at her in surprise. “Springfield’s crew did that while they were guarding the boat. They did a hell of a good job too.”

“They did? What did they say?”

“Oh, that was wonderful,” he grinned. “I really had a hard time keeping a straight face. They bellyached that we hadn’t cleaned and polished anything for weeks or maybe months. They thought the boat looked like we’d almost abandoned it. On top of that one of the guys they had guarding the boat must have been an excellent mechanic. He had repaired almost everything that was worn and put it partially back together. I only had a little work to do to get her running. Those guys did a top notch job of fixing and polishing, but they sure chewed me out for the state she was in.”

“They did?” she grinned. “Oh we have to tell David. He’ll be so proud.”

“Yeah, and since he’s going along today, we’d better tell him before he inadvertently says the wrong thing with the wrong people around.”

“Well, I can go over to Dad’s this morning before coming down to the boat, would you like me to talk to him?”

“Please,” Karl smiled. “I’d love to be the one to tell him, but I don’t think I can make time before we go out today. It’s okay though, the whole story can wait and I’ll tell him another time.”

“What if I suggest that he thank Mr. Springfield and Mr. Winchester for polishing things so well? He can even imply that some of it would have been his job.”

“Fine, but either tell him the whole tale or tell him that I’ll tell him, just so he knows there’s more to it, okay?”

“Absolutely, now do we have time to have a cup of coffee out on the deck?”

“Of course.”

Once they were out on the deck, they noticed a different atmosphere around the military camp. In only moments Karl was in a very thoughtful mood, feeling left out of the action somehow and almost feeling sorry for himself. He realized that it was a combination of relief and yet a sense of loss as well. These people who had come into his life for a few days were going to be moving on. All the Navy people would be going off to take care of other duties. Springfield and Winchester would disappear to handle another troubling situation somewhere else. Even the divers wouldn’t be around for long, but then he had scarcely gotten to know them.

Ely must have noticed his thoughtful stare. She smiled almost sadly. “Feeling weird now that it looks like it’s over?”

“Yeah, I’ve got the blues, I suppose,” he waved his hand toward the tents. “All our new friends and acquaintances are going to be gone soon and I just realized I’m going to miss them. I’m not going to miss the crap, just the people.”

“Well, we’ll still be seeing some of them for a while. Fran was saying that the Commander intends to leave Lyle and Raymonde here until they have Dad’s house fully repaired. They have leave due and they asked if they could take it here, so he granted it as long as it was okay with Dad. That means they’re moving one of the tents over to Dad’s meadow to be close by while they work on his house. They’ll be here for at least another two weeks,” she smiled. “Fran is going to be coming back at least once or twice a week for a while and she’s pulled rank on Springfield. Just as soon as this mission is finished, she’s having him sent to the hospital and then perhaps to rehab. According to her, he absolutely refused to be put in the hospital until this incident was over and actually shouldn’t be walking on that foot at all. Do you realize that fool might be walking around with a pulled tendon and shattered bones in his ankle? She’s worried that he’s doing irreparable damage to his leg and if he carries on it could wash him out of the service.”

“Well, he is getting a little long in the tooth for the job he has. Winchester was saying that even his bosses think Springfield might be better off on a desk job. It’s a shame in a way, since he’s so good at what he does,” Karl sighed. “We all get older though.”

“Yes, Don reminded me of that the other night, talking about you and old times,” she grinned. “But then he asked if he might be able to come back as a guest some time after this emergency is done, He wants to go out with you and me on the boat. It seems he has a girl friend who loves boats.”

“I hope you told him yes,” Karl laughed softly.

“Oh, of course. I thought you’d like that,” she grinned.

Their quiet talk was interrupted at that point by Fran coming over, then Don joining the group, each asking about the morning’s trip. Karl explained what he had decided to do with the ‘Skolka‘ and everyone agreed on a final plan.

It didn’t seem like any time had passed after that discussion before Karl was walking out onto the dock to ready the ‘Skolka‘ for her short trip. He hardly had time to say hello to Springfield and Winchester before everyone else started to arrive. In short order almost everyone on the island was there and Karl was astounded. There were more than thirty people and Karl felt he hardly knew most of them. Instead of worrying about it, he set about getting up steam and preparing to shove off. He asked George, David, Mary-Beth and Don Davis to ride in the wheelhouse with him, but Don asked to be excused, wanting to be out on deck with the rest of his contingent.

Once Karl had the ‘Skolka‘ almost up to steam pressure, he stepped out of the wheelhouse and asked people if they would please sit down or stay relatively still during the trip through the cut. He explained that if all of them happened to shift toward one side at the same time, it might change the balance of the ‘Skolka‘ and would make it hard for him to compensate in time to avoid hitting the rocks. Then he asked Keri and Linda to stand by on the bow with fending poles while they were going through the cut and asked Ely to take the stern, with Winchester standing by if she needed to call on him. He warned both crews that he was going to have David standing at the door to the wheelhouse to shout if he wanted help in fending off. He explained that he needed to be prepared for any fending push, otherwise it might do more damage than good. That explanation was mostly for the people who had never been aboard before, but it bore repeating as a reminder for the others.

He asked Don if he would please have two of his crew untie the boat on his signal and stepped back into the wheelhouse. Karl watched with a grin because after he reached up to give three sharp toots on his whistle as the signal that he was going to back out, Lyle Elgin and Raymonde Lebeaux made a ceremony out of untying and retrieving the stern line first and then followed that with the bow line. Raymonde, who had been the last on the dock, stepped aboard just as the ‘Skolka‘ widened the gap and pulled away. Karl eased her back until they were well clear, then threw the wheel hard over as he sounded the whistle with two short blasts and threw the engine quadrant and throttle into full forward.

There were no loud noises as the boat began to ease forward and to those on deck, the sound of rapidly churning water under the stern of the ‘Skolka‘ was louder than the sound of the engines. Then the slight heel to the boat, along with the rapidly increasing swing of the stern surprised several people as the boat began to move ahead. Those on the bow stared down at the end of the dock, wondering if they would hit it, but as the speed of the ‘Skolka‘ increased, the bow swung quickly and they missed it by half a boat length. Then they were rapidly pulling away from the dock and toward the open bay, the speed of the boat increasing with each turn of the prop.

Smoothly, nearly silently, the soft ‘chufa - chufa - chufa’ sound from the stack and the increasing sound of roiling water as the bow of the ‘Skolka‘ split the bay’s calm waters were the only sounds disturbing the morning calm. Even though they were soon travelling quite quickly, they could still hear the birds singing, and even the occasional grunt from one of the pigs on shore.

Karl was watching the faces of his passengers and was soon grinning broadly as he realized how quiet they all were, most not saying a word, but a few comments being made in whispers. Most of the passengers were navy people, accustomed to the sounds and smells of racketing diesels, whining turbines and snarling gasoline engines, not the quiet sounds of steam travel. To Karl and his family, the quiet sounds of the ‘Skolka‘ were something to be enjoyed, but to the visitors, the near silence was a marvel and seemed to be taking them all by surprise.

Karl swung well out into the bay, around the dive-boat, then back toward the entrance of the cut. By just skirting the little island near the cut, he was able to head almost directly into the slight incoming current, knowing that it would help him slow down. He needed that, because he was moving just a little too fast for safety. As they actually entered the cut itself, he heard quiet murmurs from the people on deck, but it was when everyone saw the raw, newly exposed rock of the slide that he heard louder voices. George’s eyes opened wide as they steamed along, relatively unaffected by currents.

“It seems that they have done an excellent job,” George smiled.

“They did George. They really did. The highest rock is probably only three feet above the low water mark and it’s near the wall. Still, they’re not happy with that, so they’re talking about doing more blasting,” Karl answered with a grin.

Then they were into some rougher water with hard currents and Karl had to pay strict attention to what he was doing. Even though the current had slowed their travel, it was only seconds before he had to swing the boat, use reverse and increase the throttle, even then, he almost called for help from Keri and Linda. He saw them on the bow, fending poles ready, but he felt the old boat responding, so he judged he could wait a few seconds, maybe more. The ‘Skolka’ shuddered as the water churned under her stern, then her bow swung, caught the current, and they made it around that first tight bend with no more that a foot or so to spare on the port side. On deck there were several sharply drawn breaths and a couple of quiet swear words.

For most of the trip through the gorge, Karl was able to maintain much more clearance from the walls, but almost the same close encounter with the walls happened on the very last corner. Perhaps they weren’t quite as close, but to everyone on deck they seemed to be moving much faster. Karl knew that wasn’t true and that it just seemed that way. It was actually an illusion, caused by the fact that the cut was narrower and shallower at that point, so the water itself was moving faster. He also knew that there was an underwater boil in the current near the rock face that actually acted almost like a buffer, so he used it to his advantage. It helped to keep them away from that edge while making their apparent speed seem to be higher than it actually was.

Then suddenly they were out into the open water. Karl glanced down at the pressure gauge and grinned, he’d gauged the steam use well. They had lots of pressure. Don had asked him to circumnavigate the island, so he began to ease the throttle open and increase the fuel flow to the boiler. Soon they were charging along, still moving almost silently, but now doing about twelve knots and Karl was pleased that the steam pressure was holding steady. Once Karl was certain that the boiler and engine were stable, he asked George, David, and Mary-Beth to take the wheel while he went outside, asking them to keep several boat lengths from the shoreline.

Out on deck he walked around thanking each and every person for their help, trying to be sure he would commit each person’s face into a special place in his memory. His timing was almost perfect, he ended up standing at Don Davis’ side just as they completed the circle around the island.

“Don, I’d like you to ride in the wheelhouse on one trip through the cut,” he said quietly.

“Okay, just as long as I’m not the one doing the steering,” Don grinned at him.

“Chicken?” Karl teased, remembering the times when they had dared each other to do silly childish stunts.

“Yep, as I’ve aged, I’ve found that it sometimes pays to be cautious.”

They made their way back to the wheelhouse and Karl took over from George, David, and Mary-Beth, making sure he thanked each of them. That made David and Mary-Beth glow with pride, even George smiled and winked.

The trip back through the cut was quieter, but to Karl it was the more satisfying passage since he used a slightly different line in going through two touchy places this time and he didn’t come as close to the rock walls. Once they were out of the cut, Karl made one slow circuit around the bay before docking. As people went ashore, most of them paused to say thank you to Karl and soon he was left with only a few people on board.

Before George and Trudy left, they admitted that although they liked being back in their house, it was still badly disrupted. Both Karl and Ely immediately suggested that they stay at the cabin for a few more days. Springfield and Winchester were below, packing up to leave and finally, only Karl, Ely, and Don Davis were left on deck.

All of them stood on the stern deck, simply thinking quietly for several moments. Finally Don broke the silence.

“I’m not sure if you realize how much the Navy feels we owe you,” he almost whispered. “When we found out that there was a chance that those bastards might have slipped a quarter ton of radioactive material into the country right under our noses...”

“I’d say it was extenuating circumstances,” Ely interrupted. “The earthquakes and tsunamis didn’t exactly help you.”

“Perhaps true,” Don sighed. “But even then, it was too close for comfort.”

“Keri is really the only person who might really have a grudge to hold against the Navy’s actions. I think she still believes that your warning about the smugglers came too late,” Karl interjected. “In a way I wish you’d managed to get word out about that earlier myself. It would certainly have made a difference in the way we handled things.”

“Hmmph, guess who had a hand in slowing that announcement from reaching you earlier?” Don growled.

“Not Lieutenant Commander Greene?” Ely asked in disbelief.

“Yes, he was involved with public communications before this duty. When it became clear that civilians had been endangered because of the decisions he had made, he demanded to be involved with the mission to set things to rights. We should have listened to Springfield; he expressed serious reservations about Greene from the start.”

“Yeah, it’s unfortunate that we can’t see the future as well as we do the past,” Karl sighed softly. “But now what’s going to happen?”

“Well, Greene is under investigation, so are several of his close associates. We will be getting out of your hair in the next few days. In fact by tonight a lot of our people and most of our gear will be removed from the area near your house,” Don paused. “There is one thing though, it turns out the navy had a secondary motive for approving all the blasting in the cut. Some of my superiors want to list the island on the charts as an emergency refuge in case of storms or problems at sea. They said they’ll make sure that it’s listed as a private island and that the entrance to the harbour is marked as extremely dangerous.”

“It won’t work Don,” Karl snapped. “What that will do is force me to waste my time trying to rescue damn fools. What I’ll see are the kind of idiots who decide they have an emergency because they’re running short of ice for their cocktails, then try come in through the cut while they’re dead drunk. That’s what the result will be if you list it as a navigable channel, so if they insist on that, I’d rather you leave the rocks alone and don’t do any more blasting.”

“This is a private island,” Ely said emphatically. “That channel is presently listed as unnavigable and even if all the rocks were removed there are very few people who could navigate it safely, even at the best of times. In fact, if you’re so damned adamant about changing the status of the cut, why don’t you to take one of your inflatable boats and run that channel when the tide is running. You’d do far better than most, since you’ve been through it several times, but afterward you’d understand what anyone coming through there would be up against.”

“Well, I may be a commander, but I’m not all that familiar with small boats,” Don snorted loudly. “I don’t think that would be safe.”

“Hell, I’m not even stupid enough to do that,” Karl snorted loudly, then he stared Don in the eye. “Have you even seen what it looks like from the cliffs above the cut when there’s a ten or twelve knot current running?”

“Well, no, but how do we prove to my superiors that it’s unsafe?”

“With simple English,” Karl said bluntly. “Just tell them that it would be a death trap. If they put that listing on the chart, come tourist time, they’ll know it. I’ll be calling you and your divers about once a week to come recover the corpses of the victims of their decision. Each time I go through there I worry whether I’ll make it cleanly or not. Every time I do I learn more about the currents, but even after a dozen years and multiple trips, I’m still not comfortable with that passage. In fact, I hope I never become blasé about it, because that would be asking for an accident. I don’t usually do it for the fun of it either, for us that passage is a hazard of living here on the island and it’s not something we take lightly. If you want to prove it to your bosses, turn loose an empty wooden hull in the tidal rip, but film it from a helicopter flying overhead, they can watch the hull get torn apart and smashed to bits.”

“Before you even do that, go talk to your divers,” Ely suggested. “Ask them what the currents are like.”

“Well since this is a private island, we would need your permission to make that change in the charts. Since it doesn’t look like you’ll be giving that, I think you’re fairly safe for now.”

“Good, but does that mean the blasting will stop?” Karl asked.

“Oh no. The blasting was my decision. I told them that due to the way the rocks had come down you clipped a rock on the way in and that due to the tidal changes we needed to blast to be able to get the dive boat out,” Don grinned. “Actually, I’m happy you’re as vehement as you are about the cut being dangerous. I dislike the idea of having the amateur politicians who have wangled their way into the service getting their way when they propose silly ideas. But, I should warn you, I’m betting that you’ll be approached by one of them.”

“Fine,” Karl smiled maliciously. “You pass on word to them that the only way we’ll even consider the idea is if they bring their proposition in writing and hand it to us themselves. However, there are two conditions; first, they have to come by boat and second, they have to come in through the cut while the tide is running fairly fast. If you want, I’ll put that in writing and you can deliver it to them by hand.”

“You’re still a mean son of a buck aren’t you?” Don said, shaking his head.

“Nope, just pragmatic. If they really believe the passage is safe for the general public, they get to prove it. If it isn’t possible, they’ll be killed, which means the world will lose a few idiots. Either way, someone wins, but I’ll wager that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the politicians will lose. I’ll even offer to help search for their bodies, but I won’t lose sleep over them being gone. I’ll consider it a Darwinian improvement of the species.”

Ely just rolled her eyes, then looked at Don seriously. “Don, since Karl has brought up the ruder facts of life, one thing you haven’t mentioned is this flu that we keep hearing is ravaging parts of the world. Could you update us on what you know about it?”

“Well, there’s not much I can tell you that you probably haven’t heard over the radio. It started spreading from somewhere in the desert of the United States, but once it got started, it spread like wildfire. In some ways it acts like whooping cough, but after a day or so, it starts to act like the Spanish flu of 1918. The US had a huge contingent of people from various bases on the prairies that they were going to send in to aid the earthquake and tsunami victims in Washington State and Oregon. The flu hit those bases before they were fully prepared to move out and they held off to see if they could control the illness. Needless to say, it decimated those who had become ill.

“Here in British Columbia, our airports took such a beating that the rescue services were going to try to send people overland. That would have been one hell of an adventure, since there were avalanches all through the mountain passes that wiped out the highways and railroad in several areas. Actually because of the way the flu was spreading the politicians in Victoria asked them not to come,” he sighed heavily. “We haven’t had many air drops of supplies and those which have been dropped have been avoided, but I don’t know what else we could do. Can we even trust that the supplies they dropped aren’t contaminated? So far we’ve been living on our own resources, but I don’t know how long that can last. Eventually we’re going to have to trust those drops, I suppose.”

“The airports were wiped out?”

“Yeah, the one at Victoria was overrun by the tsunami and a lot of the tarmac was washed away or broken up. The main airport in Vancouver was built on a delta and they used sand to raise the level over the years. As a result, when the quake hit it, the substrata liquefied, then the backwash of the tsunami swept in and finished the job. Further up the Fraser one of the airports is underwater because a slide blocked the river. There’s a new lake there that not only covers the airport, but the Trans Canada Highway. Here on the Island the only airport that’s really functioning is the one at Duncan and it can only handle smaller planes or choppers. Only helicopters are really workable in these conditions and we’re stretching them thin. Some of them need to go down for service and we’ve had to find repairs as well as fuel, so it’s a nightmare.”

“Wow,” Karl looked at him in surprise, he hadn’t realized that it was that bad.

“Actually, it affects us here now as well, which is another reason I wanted to talk to both of you. The helicopter flights out of here are going to be limited to personnel and their personal items. All the bulky items from our camp are going to have to go out by water. Now a lot of that can go out on the dive-boat when it leaves, but we may have to ask you to provide some transport as well. We can arrange for you to meet with Naval vessels standing off the island and can arrange times to work around tides and weather, but we’ll need your assistance with the actual transport through the cut. We can compensate you with some fuel and supplies, but even that will be limited, because we’re beginning to run short. Besides both heating fuel and diesel will be in heavy demand once the weather changes. It’s too bad you didn’t use another fuel.”

“What fuel were you suggesting?” Karl frowned. “The ‘Skolka’ has a boiler with a very adaptable appetite. It is a lot more work, but she can adapt to burn anything from wood to ‘Bunker C, ‘ although either the grates or the burner have to be changed for each type of fuel. To be honest, I hate to use most of them though, since it means that I have to clean the tubes in the boiler more often. And as far as ‘Bunker C’ is concerned, it’s a real pain in the butt to handle because of the viscosity; you have to heat the damn stuff just to make it flow.”

Don just shook his head, then grinned. “After all these years, why do I let you surprise me so often?”

“What do you mean?” Karl frowned again. “What did I surprise you with now?”

“Just the adaptability of your boiler,” Don grinned again. “I should have known there were several reasons for you using a steam engine to power your boat. Before we go any further, I should ask you one other question; how efficient is your burner? In other words, if I provided you with several hundred gallons of mildly contaminated diesel, how long could you operate? The contamination is really just heavy motor oil, but it’s sticky, so it screws up the injectors of normal diesel engines, but I think you could probably burn it.”

“That depends on the winds, currents and weather, but with fine weather and calm seas a batch of fuel like that would last a long time, provided I only needed to travel for limited distances,” Karl shrugged. “Being in the Navy, you should understand that fuel demands vary for each trip you make. I can say that on my last trip home from visiting some friends who lived on the mainland up past the northern end of Vancouver Island, I burned less than a hundred gallons of fuel oil. Now that included bucking a tidal current part of the way and a head wind for another portion, but I ran through the reverse situations as well, probably for as long or perhaps even longer.”

“Still, that’s damn efficient for an older design,” Don shook his head in wonder. “How the hell do you do that?”

“Well, I designed the boiler and engine to match each other and mated them to a very well designed hull that doesn’t present a lot of resistance to the water when it’s moving,” Karl shrugged. “This isn’t a great design, just a very good one for our needs. Of course if I had known how bad the cut was to navigate, I’d have tried to design a bow thruster of some sort to make turning her a bit easier.”

“A steam powered bow thruster?” Don looked at Karl with raised eyebrows.

“Sure, why not?” Karl laughed softly.”It would take some skull sweat, but it’s certainly possible.”

“One day, you and I are going to have to sit down and have a discussion about vessel design,” Don snorted, then grinned. “I do have one more request though; I’ve been asked by my superior officers to sound you out about further cooperation.”

“Oh, in what way?” Karl frowned.

“Well, to be honest, I’m not even certain about ways and means at this time. What I was thinking of was possibly asking your cooperation if we had a search and rescue operation happening in this area, but I’m unsure of the thinking of the Admiral and his aides. Your knowledge of local waters would be invaluable to us at times.”

“Well, considering the help we’ve been given by the navy, I can’t very well turn you down flat, but you have to understand that my help is dependent on the tides and weather.”

“It would also depend on the state of Karl’s health,” Ely interrupted. “I’m not about to have Karl out there, hunting for some stupid tourist during a storm, particularly if he’s suffering badly.”

“Well, that would be a foregone conclusion,” Don smiled at her. “In fact, Ely, I was thinking that your personal cooperation would be an additional asset. Having a trained nurse on board the ‘Skolka’ would be invaluable, especially if there was a case of hypothermia or injury. Of course your involvement would include supplying you with the necessary fuel for the boat and any other supplies you needed for the duration of the operation.”

“I think this might take a little negotiation,” Karl said quietly, but emphatically. “I’m not about to give the navy any extra authority over me or mine just to be a nice guy. For instance, I refuse to have someone from the navy having the authority to place either the ‘Skolka‘ or anyone aboard her in danger without my approval. I’d want final authority in what tasks and duties we would attempt. I do know about marine law and about conscription of service, so you can be certain that I’m not about to go much further than that, if I do get involved with this deal.”

Any further discussion stopped at that point because Springfield and Winchester came up from below decks. Rather than let Springfield walk up the hill, Don called back the divers who had returned to the dive boat. After Karl and Ely had said their goodbyes to them, the divers then ferried the two JTF2 men and their duffle over to the lower helicopter pad so they could be picked up there. As the inflatable swung away, Ely sighed softly.