Chapter 6

The voice coming over the scanner was so loud that Karl reached out and paused the scan, then lowered the volume slightly, but listened closely.

“Charlie, are you awake? There’s a boat going by, a big one too,” a voice said loudly just as they passed the tip of one of the islands that formed the shores of the pass they were entering.

“I don’t hear nothin’ and I can’t see a damn thing in this stinkin’ fog, “ a second voice answered.

“It’s running real quiet, but it came right past me. Just shut up and pull out slow and easy. If you’re closer you’ll see it and me. I’ll be following it into the pass.“

“I wonder who that could be?” Linda asked.

“I don’t know, but their chatter is very loud considering the volume level on the scanner, so they’re very close and they might be referring to us. If you check the radar, you can see there’s a boat following us now. It’s just off the tip of the island on our starboard side” he said, pointing at the radar screen above her head. “They might be trying to intercept us before we get into the pass.”

“Oh shit, why would they do that?” she frowned.

“I’m not sure, but bring the burner up to full fire and adjust the water feed pump a bit to compensate. Not too much water though, we want a full head of steam in the pass anyway, just in case we need it. You can bring the boiler pressure up to just below the red line on the gauge, that’s where the safety blows off.”

“You don’t want to stop for whoever is in that boat?” Linda reached down and adjusted the controls carefully.

“Maybe I’m paranoid, but I haven’t heard them say anything that sounded even vaguely like they’re marine officials of any sort. It’s certainly not on a marine band, that’s a CB channel and neither the Coast Guard nor Search and Rescue use CB. With the tsunami, this storm and everything else that’s gone on lately, especially that bunch of pretenders this morning, I’m going to assume that it’s someone else who wants to forcibly steal the boat. If they were officials or had any legal authority of any sort, I’d have expected them to hail us directly. Even if they can prove to me that they represent some kind of local authority, I’m still going to give them an argument.”

Linda looked carefully at the radar screen and frowned, then turned her head and stared out the window.

“Karl, I’m not sure, but isn’t that another boat moving over there, just off the tip of the other island?”

“It looks like it might be,” he said, standing quickly and staring off into the rain, trying to make it out. “Good eyes. I’ve been looking for that boat since the first guy mentioned someone else. I can’t see a boat myself, just some whitecaps or maybe their wake, but there’s something over there, at least that’s what I see on the radar.”

The cat had meowed loudly after being rudely dumped off Karl’s lap, then hopped up to the window sill, flipping the tip of its tail rapidly in disgust at losing its comfortable position.

“Could you take over the controls, please?” Linda asked. “If we are being chased by someone you know the boat a lot better than I do and I’d feel a lot safer with you running things.”

“All right,” he nodded, taking her place quickly. “Stick close by though, I may need you to do something or other in a hurry. Since the tide is changing, we may be caught in a tidal rip going through the pass, which means I’m not sure it will be an easy passage, even if we weren’t being followed. I can’t think of any reason for anyone to be following us though.”

Squinting to look back through the pouring rain, Linda could just make out the boat following in their wake. It appeared to be quite small, possibly an inflatable of some sort. No matter how hard she tried, she could no longer make out the other boat that the voices on the radio had implied was off their port side. She could make out its position on the radar screen though. The boat on their stern was gaining, but checking their position on the radar screen, she was sure they would be in the pass before it caught up to them.

“Karl, I think they want us to go into the pass,” she suggested. “They almost seem to be herding us.”

“I was thinking that,” he said softly and slowly. “And they’re certainly faster than we are, even though we’re a lot bigger than either of them.”

“I’m worried,” Linda said just as quietly. “What could they be doing?”

“I’m worried that this setup may be a trap of some sort, so I’d best stay at the wheel. Could you check the chart for me, please? I’m certain this pass should be clear sailing, but according to the radar there appears to be some sort of blockage in the channel. Only I remember being able to see right through the gap when I was here the last time. Of course that was on a clear day.”

Linda scooted over to the chart table, but had to brace herself as Karl reversed the engines to slow the boat. Both of them heard the boil of the water against the hull as he revved the engine in reverse and Linda felt the boat try to swing off to one side. She concentrated on the chart though, found their position, and checked along their course.

“According to the chart, this channel should be clear, Karl, but you’re right, the radar shows an almost solid line of objects ahead of us,” she said quickly. “What could the boats behind us be after? Do they want us to wreck against whatever is in the channel?”

“Maybe,” Karl growled. “Hang on. I’m going try to turn the boat around and see what happens.”

The ‘Skolka’ had slowed drastically, but they had already entered the gradually narrowing pass between the islands. High rocky cliffs were just visible on either side even through the heavy rain. He threw the wheel hard over to port so the bow entered a small back eddy, then he ran the engine up to full speed, but now in forward. As the boat began to swing faster, he slipped the engine into full reverse, but he didn’t move the wheel from the hard over position. Linda was amazed as the boat heeled over and began to swing around quickly, yet still seemed to be travelling along almost the same path as before. Now though, they were swinging sideways to the current, but they were moving down the cut much more slowly, hardly faster than the current.

Karl repeated the move, full ahead, then full astern, the wheel still in the same position. Soon they’d spun almost completely around, so he threw the throttle to its full forward position, then swung the wheel until he was headed back toward open water. Now the the tip of the island that they’d recently passed on their starboard was ahead, but on their port side. Not only that, but they seemed to heading directly toward the radar image of the second boat on the radar screen, only now the ‘Skolka’ was making headway as it fought both the current and their former momentum.

Karl had accomplished his goal, in less than a minute they had reversed their direction and they’d done it in an amazingly short distance. Then they began to breast the oncoming current and were soon making speed against the tidal rip.

“Now, we’ll see if we’re dealing with breakers or what,” he growled softly as the boat began to move into slower current as the channel widened.

“Breakers,” Linda asked. “What are breakers?”

“Breakers, or wreckers, or whatever you want to call them. Years ago, before we became so civilised and hired coast guards, cops and such, there were groups that used to lure boats onto the rocks in many places in the world. They were called breakers, living off the salvage from the wrecked boats.”

Glancing up at the radar, he grinned, a wolfish grin, and pointed out the window at the boat ahead of them, now easily visible through the rain and mist. Linda could make out one man in the bow, waving his arm wildly and the boat swinging away rapidly. It raced off in a wild surge of spray.

“They’ve turned around somehow, Charlie. They’re heading straight for us, and that boat is fucking big! We’re getting to hell outta here,” the radio crackled to life.

“They don’t want us to get close,” Karl laughed. “I guess they didn’t expect that turn.”

The second boat was easily visible now as well. There were two roughly dressed young men in it and they were staring at the ‘Skolka’, seemingly in shock. Then they both ducked lower in the boat and it swung away. Soon its powerful engine was raising a small rooster tail as they raced off into the mist and rain. It was headed in the same direction as the other boat had gone.

“What the hell happened, Charlie? Could you see what they did?” a voice on the radio asked. “How the hell did they turn so fast?”

“Who’n hell knows? Maybe they’ve got bow thrusters or somethin’ like that?” the other voice answered. “Just be glad they didn’t get too close. If they’da had guns, they coulda blown us all outta the water.”

“Well, now what do we do?”

“Go talk to the boss, that boat is really worth somethin’.”

“Maybe we should radio him?”

“Not on your life, you know these piddley walkie talkie things ain’t got enough power to reach him from here an’ if’n we use the big radio he’ll kill us. I’ll bet he’ll want that boat though, but I gotta wonder if we can take it without sinkin’ it? Then I dunno if’n we got anybody in the gang what’s run anythin’ that big, have we?”

“Who knows? Shut up for now, Charlie. If they’ve got a CB rig as well as a normal marine short wave, they can hear us.”

Karl looked at Linda whose eyes were big as saucers, and saw that she was watching the radar screen as the small boats raced away. It was only a moment or two before their echo disappeared from the radar as they rounded the headland of the island at a high rate of speed.

“I don’t understand, do you think they wanted us to run into whatever was there in the pass?” Linda asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” Karl frowned. “But since both of them turned tail and ran when we got closer to them, I don’t think they were too friendly.”

“You aren’t going to try to go through the pass then?”

“Nope, it’ll take longer, but we can go around this island just as easily. What worries me is that we’ll be following them. That means if they’re fast enough, they might get a second chance at us, but now they know that we know they’re there. They could try something else and I’m not sure if there’s any way we can be certain of avoiding them. If they do intercept us, things could get violent.”

“Shouldn’t we report them to someone?”

“Well, we could try to call the coast guard, but we aren’t supposed to be out here either. Remember, there’s a ban on travel, at least according to what we heard on the radio.”

“We’ve got to do something. If they’re really trying to lure people onto the rocks they should be stopped. For all we know they might be killing the people on the boats they catch and...”

“They might have just wanted to check to see what we were doing,” Karl interrupted. “We don’t know that they were up to no good, even though that last conversation they had was pretty convincing to me. I was suspicious even before that though, especially after the way they ran off when we turned around so quickly.”

“How did you do that, anyway?” Linda asked shortly. “I mean the pass is so narrow and the current is so strong that I’d never have tried to turn around like that.”

“The current actually helped us to turn. I just swung our stern out of true with the bow and pointed the bow into a bit of a back eddy. Then I used the sweep of the current and the tendency of the ‘Skolka’ to crab to starboard when she’s running astern to quickly swap ends. If you had an inboard engine on your boat, you’ve probably done nearly the same thing when you docked in tight quarters, just to a lesser degree.”

“Well, yeah, but never like that. We heeled over a hell of a long way. I’d have been chicken to even try a stunt like that in tight quarters, especially at the speed we were going and with the current running so fast. I’d be afraid of the boat heeling right over and turning turtle.”

“Well, the ‘Skolka’ has a very low center of gravity, so I was certain she’d stay round side down, but if we’d waited much longer we wouldn’t have made it,” he said slowly. “First off we couldn’t have swung around if we were in a much narrower space. Then too, we’d have had a bloody hard time bucking that current if it was much faster, and it becomes a lot stronger as the pass narrows.”

He sighed. “I was just lucky to do it soon enough. Now, let’s see that chart again. This detour is going to add a good hour to our travel time. We’re going to have to make up for part of that time by running faster, since we do have a time limit on this trip. We have to be close enough to rescue George and his family around midnight.”

“I guess we should have started last night after all,” Linda suggested.

“If we’d started last night, we’d probably have gotten caught in that trap or whatever it is,” Karl answered her, concentrating on the chart. “Can you imagine being in that channel in the dark, when there was an even faster rip tide running through it? I’m glad we did it on this tide, thank you. I wouldn’t want to get George’s hopes up, then let him down because I screwed up.”

“Can we still make it there in time if we have to detour?”

“Oh yeah, I was counting on some delays, but then this weather is helping us at the moment. The wind and the tide are actually working with us, so we’re moving faster than normal. But still, until we’re away from this island group and we’ve made up the time we’ve lost I’m going to run at full throttle. I’m a bit worried by those two boats we saw. If a whole bunch of them came out at once, we might have to fight them off or we could be boarded by a bunch of thugs.”

“Do you have any guns on board?”

“Only a flare gun,” Karl snorted, pointing to the wall mount where it was hung. “I wasn’t expecting to be in a situation where I’d need to repel boarders.”

“I always wondered what a flare would do to an inflatable,” Linda smiled almost viciously as she picked up the flare pistol, breaking it open and checking the barrel.

“That’s an idea, but you wouldn’t really shoot them with that would you?”

“Sure I would,” she said in a determined tone. “No one better try to take this boat from us right now, because this bunch and those dolts back in the bay have me ‘P’d off. This flare gun looks new, has it ever been used?”

“Once, just to test it, but it was cleaned and oiled afterward,” Karl answered as he adjusted their course to steer well clear of the far end of the island they could just make out on their port side.

“Okay, how many flares do you have?”

“Um, a box of a dozen up here, stored in the cabinet under the flaregun mount and an almost full box stored down below, but those down below are outdated. They’d probably still work, but they might not, so I’ve been meaning to get rid of them.”

“Where are they stored?” she asked, putting the flare gun back in its rack.

“In the work room, on the top shelf of the oil cupboard, why?”

“Outdated flares usually work for years after their dates run out and this sounds like a good time to use them up. Where is the oil cupboard?”

“It’s the metal cabinet in the stern end of the engine room, next to the workbench.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll go get the rest of the flares, just in case we need extras,” she said, then disappeared down the ladder.

Karl stared after her for a second, then concentrated on the radar and the view out the forward window. There was no sign of either of the boats they had seen earlier and no sign of any other boat at the moment, either by eye or on the radar. Actually he was looking for lights now since the storm clouds had grown so thick and a heavy fog or thick mist had rolled in, so it was growing quite dark. Because of that he was glad they hadn’t been able to go through the pass, even though they might run a little behind time because of their detour. This route was probably safer, provided they could get past the gang who were trying to commandeer the ‘Skolka.’

With the tide and the wind both coming from behind their aft starboard quarter, Karl was forced to constantly make slight corrections for drift, otherwise he’d approach the island too closely. However, since the speed of the tidal rip was strongest near the island, he didn’t want to be too far away either. Both the tide and the wind were helping them make time, so he was trying to take as much advantage of that increase in speed as possible. Several minutes passed as he waited for Linda to come back from below. He kept glancing at the radar and the GPS to make sure he was in clear water and had to admit to himself that he was quite worried about the situation that might soon unfold.

Then he saw the first boat appear on radar, rounding a point far ahead of him. In seconds there were two, then four and finally, a fifth boat appeared on the radar screen. He watched them spread out in the distance, but from the way they moved he doubted if they had radar on their boats. In fact, they seemed to stay within visible distance of each other in the heavy fog and mist. Just in case, he had automatically altered course, heading somewhat further out to sea and shutting off their running lights at the same time, anything to make the ‘Skolka’ even less easy to spot.

“Linda,” he called. “We’ve got company coming.”

She came charging back up the ladder from below, carrying the box of old flares under one arm with a bright red tin box in one hand and a blackpowder rifle that he’d built from a kit in the other.

“I thought you said you didn’t have a gun aboard. Does this thing work? There are powder and balls stored in this box that was sitting with the flares, so I hunted until I found the gun.”

“I forgot that. I made it years ago, but it’s not very accurate, so I’ve only fired it a few times,” Karl stared at her. “It was made more for appearance, not with any idea of using it as a weapon.”

“We aren’t going to need to worry about accuracy. Would you load it, please? I don’t know how much powder to use. I might blow it up and hurt myself, instead of hitting whatever I was shooting at,” she said as she handed him the rifle and took the wheel.

Karl checked the powder. It was kept in a tightly sealed tin box which was lined with waxed paper and then plastic, so the powder hadn’t hardened and he thought it was still dry. He was lucky that the powder scoop was still in the powder box and that he still remembered how much to use. Without any argument, he showed her how to load the rifle, keeping one eye on the radar to see what was happening. It looked like they were going to pass just outside the end of the line of boats, but they would soon be opposite the ragged line of smaller vessels, so he quickly tamped home powder, wadding and a ball, then he fit a cap under the hammer.

“Don’t cock the hammer until you’re almost ready to fire, but just what are you planning to do?” he asked.

“Well, from the way they’re acting, they can’t have radar on those boats and since we travel almost silently, I don’t think they have any idea where we are. We’re travelling almost twice as fast as we were before, so that should surprise them as well,” she said, taking the rifle from him and handing him the flare gun. “From the looks of it, only one boat is going to be able to see us. If you fire a flare to go off above and in front of the rest of them, I’m going to shoot across the bow of the closest boat. I’ll try to make the bullet skip on the water close to their boat. I hope this thing is noisy when it goes off.”

“Oh, it’s noisy all right,” he chuckled. “It sounds like a cannon. Would you rather I shot it, and you took the flare gun?”

“I don’t know,” she said, hefting it in her hands “It might be an idea though. Does it kick?”

“Yeah, it’s got more powder in it than a 12 gauge shotgun, so even though it’s only black powder, it kicks like a mule,” Karl snorted. “Make sure you keep the stock tight against your shoulder and brace yourself. Even then you might shoot high.”

“Could you do it then? I’ve never shot a gun at anything, but targets,” she admitted. “Besides, you know how much it kicks. It might throw off my aim.”

“Okay,” Karl answered, hefting the long rifle easily. “I’m ready.”

“I’m ready too,” she said picking up the flare gun and staring into the rain for a view of the boats. “Let’s get out on deck. We should be able to see the closest boat soon.”

Karl checked the setting of the steering before lashing it in position. Then he checked the throttle and glanced one last time at the radar before he followed her outside and toward the foredeck. Neither of them bothered to put on rain gear, but Karl protected the firing mechanism of the old muzzle loading rifle with one hand.

“There it is,” he whispered, pointing off their bow on the port side.

Linda dropped to one knee on the deck, resting the barrel of the flare gun on the handrail.

“I’m ready to shoot the flare any time,” she whispered.

Karl guessed where the rest of the boats were and nodded his head.

“Fire the flare well above the center of the string of boats when I give the word,” he said as he knelt and steadied the barrel of the rifle on the handrail as well. “Okay, do it... Now!”

In the dim light he could just make out the shape of the first boat and he realised that it was an older boat with a wooden hull. Karl decided at the last instant that he should blow a hole its bow, so he drew a bead on the hull near the water line. In the brief flash of light when the flare shot skyward, Karl pulled the trigger, aiming at the bow wave of the boat. The sharp whoosh of the flare must have startled the operator of the boat near them because the engine revved and it shot forward just as the black powder rifle thundered loudly. In the damp weather you could feel the shock wave of the explosion in your bones and even pointed away from him, the noise made Karl’s ears ring.

“Damn,” he said softly and almost instantaneously.

He lowered the rifle then, knowing that the boat had run forward into the shot. The boom of the rifle had been followed almost instantly by a snapping sound as the shot hit the boat’s hull, but that was followed by a strangely loud whomp that he couldn’t place.

“It’s a fucking cannon,” he heard a hoarse voice shout and the sound of the boat engines lessened suddenly.

“Where the hell are they?” a second voice sounded from farther away, probably from the next boat in line.

“Shit, they hit us with an incendiary shell! We’re on fire!” the first voice screamed.

Karl was trying to see, but the cloud of smoke from the black powder obscured his vision for a second or two, then as the flare lit the water far away, a corresponding flash of fire lit the water much nearer. The nearer flash was accompanied by a sharp boom and Karl stared in surprise. The closest boat really was on fire and there was a gaping hole in the wooden hull just forward of midships. There had to have been something explosive inside that boat and his shot must have set it off, then started a fire.

He could easily see the boat now in the light of the fire. There were two men on board, one had been in the bow and the other in the stern, while the fire was amidships and separating them. Karl’s shot and the following explosion must have ignited their gas tank or something extremely inflammable. They were soon fighting a losing battle with the flames, shouting loudly at each other as they used fire extinguishers. Karl whipped inside the cabin and cut back the throttle. He rapidly reloaded the old rifle, then ran back on deck. Linda was still kneeling at the rail, staring at the fire.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she was whispering softly.

The ‘Skolka’ was still moving ahead, so the burning boat was falling astern. The flare had gone out, leaving the fire on the boat as the only light.

“Let it burn and jump Dave,” they heard another voice coming out of the mist and rain. “We’ll pick you up.”

Then with the added light of the fire as it flared higher, Karl could see a second boat approach the one that was burning.

“The bastard shot us with a fucking cannon,” the hoarse voice Karl had heard before complained. “Get closer. I don’t want to get wet.”

“Shut up and jump, I’m not getting any closer to that fire and I want to listen for that boat’s engine. They might be coming back. I think that was probably meant as a warning shot, but someone screwed up and shot your boat instead.”

In the sudden silence there were two loud splashes, then the sounds of disturbed water as the two men swam energetically to the second boat. Since they were still moving and gradually drawing apart, Karl could no longer make out the men or the boat, just the glow of the fire in the rain and mist

“Did you hear that fucking cannon?”

“Yeah, it’s lucky you shot off that flare.”

“I didn’t shoot any fucking flare. They did it so they could see us clearly.”

“Shut up, everyone. They’re still out there and I can’t hear a damn thing, so they must be drifting. That’s got to be a fucking gunboat to have a cannon like that. Do you think they’d only have one shell? They could shoot another one at any time and they can see us in the light from Dave’s boat now, so we might be their next target.”

In the silence, Karl grinned and reached into the cabin for the whistle lanyard. Glancing at the steam gauge he saw the safety was about to blow anyway, so he pulled long and hard, then let it go and signed for Linda to be quiet.

“Holy Shit,” someone yelled. “What was that?”

“That’s a bloody ship and they’re right behind us.”

“No way, that came from in front of us,” another voice argued.

“I don’t give a fuck where they are. Let’s get to fuck out of here,” a third voice screamed. “I don’t want to get run over by a freighter or a damn destroyer.”

“Linda, fire another flare over them,” Karl ordered, hoping she had reloaded the flare gun.

She looked at him in surprise, but raised the pistol and fired again. As the flare rose upward he heard new cries from the men in the boats.

“Holy Shit, they’re attacking again,” a voice shouted.

“Where the fuck are they?” another voice responded. “I don’t want to run into them.

To add to their terror, he aimed the rifle high in the air and fired again. There was a second’s silence following the boom of the rifle, then a babble of screaming voices.

Karl had to chuckle as he heard an outboard rev up to race away, then the sound of the engine seemed to lessen as it was joined by shouting voices. After a few panicked shouts, the sound of several other outboards joined the first as they raced away toward the island. He stepped back into the cabin and watched the four receding dots on the radar as they followed the curving shoreline, then seemed to enter a harbour. Linda came inside as well.

“I hope nobody got hurt,” she said in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “I don’t know what happened. Weren’t you trying to aim to miss? I thought you were just trying to scare them?”

“I was at first, but I decided it would slow them down if I put a hole in their hull at the water line, but your flare must have startled the guy at the wheel. Their boat leaped forward when the flare went off and just as I shot. Between that and the kick of the rifle I hit higher on the hull and closer to amidships than I planned. I don’t understand how a lead slug could start a fire, but in the long run I think setting their boat on fire was the best possible thing that could have happened after all,” he chuckled. “From what they said, I don’t think anyone was hurt, but from the sounds of it they’re certain that we’re a navy gunboat, complete with a cannon of some sort. I’ll bet it will be while before they try to sink another boat.”

He threw the throttle of the engine over to full speed again and then slipped his arm around her shoulder.

“It couldn’t have worked out better,” he chuckled pulling her close and hugging her tightly. “They aren’t going to bother us again and from now on they’re going to be worried that we may come back. Once we get well clear of this vicinity, I’m going to fake a call to the coast guard, giving a report about pirates in the area. I’ll cut off the broadcast in the middle, as if we sank or something. That’ll do two things, it’ll report them and on top of that it’ll tie up the local coast guard, keeping them from checking for stray boats who are further away, meaning us.”

Linda was shivering, Karl assumed she was cold from the damp clothes she was wearing.

“Maybe you should change your clothes,” he said, trying to express his concern in his tone of voice.

“I guess,” she whispered and pulled out of his arms to slip downstairs.

She was gone quite a while. Karl heard the splash of water running and decided she was showering as well as changing. He kept an eye on their speed and direction, but spent some time scanning the radio channels for any traffic that he thought might be related to them or the sea near them.

In a few spare moments, he cleaned and lightly oiled the outside of the old rifle and used a chunk of lightly oiled rag tied to the ramrod to roughly clean the bore. Once he had it clean enough that it wouldn’t corrode, he looked around the cabin for somewhere to hang it, frowning slightly. After he’d built the kit, the government had insisted that he take out a licence in order for him to keep the damn thing, but had told him that he had to keep it in his home. Well, the boat was his home for part of the year, so technically it was semi-legal to have it here and right at the moment he’d use that excuse to provide a measure of safety. There were several pegs along the roof beams and he lifted the rifle to hang it there, taking the time to check that it hung solidly. Actually, it looked almost as if the pegs had been put up there just to hold the old gun, then he recalled that this had been a fish boat. He remembered that years ago fishermen had often shot seals when they bothered their fishnets, so the pegs could very well have been put there for the purpose of holding a rifle. After making sure the powder and shot were resealed, he put the container in a locking cabinet and tucked the older flares away in a cupboard under the chart table, then cleaned the flare gun before hanging it back in its place.