Chapter 5B

I jammed my hand against the horn button for a second, then ran out of the wheelhouse screaming "MAN OVERBOARD" as loudly as I could. I ran the short distance to the stern and flung myself over the rail grabbing a life belt and a danbouy as I went.

"MAN OVERBOARD" I screamed as I flew through the air.

"MAN OVERBOARD" I yelled as I crashed into the cold water.

Fuck!

Don't ever do this if you can avoid it, it bloody well hurts. Throw the ring first and jump after it.

I hit the water and went under but the life belt floated and damn near tore my arm off. Not that I paid much attention to it just then as I was more concerned with not gulping in mouthfuls of salt water due to the shocking cold.

I surfaced, shook the water and hair from my eyes and looked around desperately for Harry. I was fortunate, we were both fortunate that Harry was wearing a bright yellow waterproof jacket. Without that I would not have seen her in the water nor would anyone on Spirit stand a chance of seeing her, and hence me either.

But she was wearing that yellow jacket and I saw her, just a few metres away lying face down in the water. Hurriedly I swam over to her and struggled with her inert body for a few moments before flipping her over onto her back. Blood welled from the cut on her head where she had hit the tender and it only took me a few seconds to realise that she was in trouble.

Dammit! She wasn't breathing and I was getting much too old for this shit.

Pinching her nose closed I blew into her mouth. Not enough for I was out of breath myself.

How many breaths I minute?

I don't know. I can't remember.

I took two frantic breaths for me and then one long one for her.

Under my fingers I could feel the pulse in her neck and I thanked who or whatever was looking after us that I didn't need to try to get her heart going as well. That would have been beyond me, not that it would have stopped me trying but it would have surely killed us both.

Two more breaths from me and one for her.

Two for me and one for her.

On and on I breathed for me and for her.

I could feel the heat being sucked out of my body as I breathed.

I lost any feeling in my toes, then my feet.

And still I breathed.

I could feel myself getting weaker and weaker as I tried to do too many things at once. Hold onto Harry, stop her from rolling over, breathe into Harry, hold onto the life belt, try not to choke on the sea water splashing around us and try to stay afloat.

My world shrank around me until all it encompassed was the life belt and Harry and still she didn't breath.

Soon, very soon I would be too weak to continue.

I could feel my thoughts slowing as the relentless cold pulled the energy from my body.

Suddenly I was choking on sea water. Harry breathed and coughed a mouthful of water into mine just as I drew a breath in.

I nearly drowned in that moment but just managed to keep my head above water as I coughed and coughed trying to get one good breath. Finally I managed to get rid of the water and looked to Harry.

Only semi-conscious I could see the panic welling in here eyes as she now struggled to understand where she was and what she was doing.

"Harry, stop struggling" I gasped at her "it's alright." I was lying of course but the sound of my voice calmed her a little and rationality flooded back into her eyes.

"James! My head hurts. What are we doing in the sea?"

A bout of coughing prevented her from saying more. Just as well as I had no energy left to answer.

We clung to the life ring for a few minutes, the centre of our shared universe of wet and cold.

I looked up and tried to see around me. Where was Spirit? What were they doing?

I sense the waves around me calm dramatically. I knew the reason for that, if only I could think of it.

Then I remembered and looked up wind again. Sure enough there, a short distance away in the darkness was Spirit, hove to and gliding down towards us broadside on. It was her bulk sheltering us from the weather that caused the calming of the sea. I could see her deck lights and two powerful torches stabbing at the sea trying to locate us.

Feebly I waved my right arm as high as I could reach, the left one didn't seem to want to work properly. I knew that the eyes were sensitive to motion so I continued to wave until I could wave no more.

But it was enough and I had to close my eyes as both lanterns were turned in our direction. I could hear shouting from the ship but could understand nothing.

Harry lay quietly beside me in the water, movement other than breathing was beyond her. I knew better than to risk trying to swim towards the ship, my dwindling energy reserves would be needed for other things. No, Spirit was coming to us.

Eons passed and the cold grew.

Finally, Spirit was close enough for us to be recovered. I could see hands reaching down and with the last of my strength I pushed Harry up towards the reaching arms. I felt her being lifted.

As I was finally taken by the dark and cold I faintly heard someone frantically calling.

"James!"

I awoke with a start as the deck above my head thumped. Someone, I thought, had dropped something I hope they hadn't damaged the deck.

It was such a normal thought that it took me few minutes to realise that I was both warm and dry. I tried to sit up, suddenly concerned about everything.

I didn't get far before all my senses were swamped by unbelievable pain radiating from my left shoulder.

Gradually the pain receded and I was able to take note of things around me again. I must have made some noise from the pain since Sharon, Janice, Ayesha and April were clustered around me holding me and gently encouraging me to lie down. I relaxed into their arms and the lowered me down.

"Wait" called May as she came in with several pillows. She put these under my back and head so that when the others lowered me down again, I was not flat on my back but raised up.

"Ouch!" I said causing a chuckle. "Okay, tell me how long and why I hurt so."

"Just 14 hours and you dislocated your shoulder. We think that's because you held onto the life belt when you jumped in. That in itself wouldn't have been too much of a problem, but your subsequent exertions badly strained every muscle on your left side due to the dislocation." Sharon explained.

"How's Harry?"

"A lot better than you, She has a terrible sore head and some stitches but she doesn't seem to have a fractured skull and only a mild concussion. She was up a few hours ago although a little unsteadily."

"It there anything to eat?" I asked hopefully.

"We'll get one of the cooks to bring you in something."

All the time we were talking I was being touched and stroked by the hands on my wives. I felt warm, loved and relaxed.

"How long before I can get up?"

"That depends on your muscles. You need to start using them gently or they will seize up and need a lot more work. Ideally I'd like to get you up on deck and into the sun but I'm not sure you could make it that far."

"I guess I'll have to try. With you all helping me up and supporting me so that I can keep the muscles relaxed I could make it. If the hammock were rigged I would be able to relax there in relative comfort."

"We'll see. Eat something first and then you'll probably need a potty break. Then we'll talk about that."

I spent the next few days being supported, sometime literally, by my wives. And by and large their efforts succeeded. I jarred my aching muscles once or twice but no more than that. Oh, and I slept a lot. I think Sharon put something in my food because shortly after I'd eaten I because so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Finally, I was told that I was to stop lazing around and to get up and do some work. Work consisting of walking around, drinking tea and swinging my left arm around gently.

It worked. After only a few hours a had most of the movement back in my arm but the muscles were quite hot to the touch as my body worked hard to repair the damage. Both Harry and I slept with the aid of pills. Me because of my arm, Harry because of the dreams.

Ayesha ran the ship and we sailed up and down the coast, if you can call going North then South about 50 miles offshore going up and down the coast. One day up and one day down. The bad weather had gone leaving behind sunny and warm days.

A few days after the overboard Bob sauntered over to where was resting, again, in the hammock. He passed me a mug of tea, then held out his hand. I took it and we shook hands.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't have saved her." He paused for a moment. "I don't want to find out either, so thanks, we owe you big time."

"Didn't think about it really, just did it."

We sat there for a few moments in silence.

"Harry still has the nightmares without the pills and Sharon says that she must stop taking them."

He looked at me seriously.

"I need a favour."

"If I can."

"Sleep with us."

"What?" I started, spilling half my tea over my chest.

"Not like that you loon, although I know Harry wouldn't object and you and her together wouldn't worry me, no, I mean be there with us when she has the dreams. I've talked with Sharon and the rest of your wives and mine and we think that you being there will comfort her enough that the dreams will go away."

I thought about it for a moment.

"Okay, let's give it a try."

To say that it could have been awkward was an understatement, but the ladies got together and arranged everything. They, somehow, made up a big bed in the saloon and as many as could slept there. I think at one point there were eight of us on that bed and it changed from hour to hour as the watches changed.

The first night Harry woke screaming. They had all arranged things so that Harry and I were together in the middle of the bed and Bob was on the other side of Harry to me. When she woke screaming we both held her and talked to her until she calmed down enough to sleep again. That first night she woke us three times.

The three of us were excused duties due to our lack of sleep. The second night there were just four in the bed, I think the disturbed sleeping was affecting the others so I didn't complain. That night she woke three times again but only screamed on the first time.

All in all it took four nights to get to the point were Bob alone could calm her down, I spent one more night with them and then we went back to our old sleeping arrangements. Harry still suffered from the dreams but with decreasing frequency and Bob was all she required to calm her. She suffered the dreams on and off for nearly two years before she was finally free of them. I guess a near death experience will do that to you.

Anyway, we had just been sailing around in all this time waiting until we could continue with a fully functional crew, or as near as we could get. I took over as skipper from Ayesha who gratefully accepted two days off duty to catch up on her sleep, and we started back towards the land.

I don't think we had gone more than 5 miles when Eve called out.

"Fireworks, look at the fireworks."

She pointed away to our starboard and sure enough we could see a red light now falling down towards the sea, only it wasn't a firework, it was a rocket flare, a red rocket flare.

I ran to the wheelhouse and grabbed the hand bearing compass and took a sight on the position of the flare.

"All hand on deck, Bob get the engines started, Annie take the helm and bring the ship round to this course when I call." I gave her the heading I wanted and then turned to the rest of the crew. Hurriedly we rest the sails and turned the ship onto the new heading.

"Half power." I called to Annie and she advanced the throttles. This meant that we had to re-adjust the sails a bit but that was expected. When we were on the correct heading I called the crew to the wheelhouse.

"That was a distress flare we saw earlier and we're going to take a look. It could be a trick or it could be real. We'll assume that it is real for now but not blindly. Everyone get your arms and wear them. Ayesha & Chang you are our best rifle shots, so you get to use those. You know what to do, we've practised it before. The rest of you take turns on lookout. The sooner we can see what we are heading for the better."

We motor-sailed at near our theoretical maximum speed towards whoever had fired the flare as the crew collected their firearms and we sorted ourselves out. April took the helm as Annie wanted to climb the rigging. No sooner had she climbed up than she called out.

"Skipper." I looked up in the rigging where Annie clung.

"What can you see?"

"It looks like a Navy ship. Not a very big one, but it's grey all over and looks ugly."

I laughed. "Okay, are we heading the right direction?"

"Almost exactly."

"Good. You can either stay up there or come down as you wish."

"I'll stay here until you can all see it."

That didn't take too long, perhaps ten minutes before the upper parts of the ship could been seen from the deck.

"May?"

"Yes, skipper."

"Try the standard marine radio, channel 16"

She did for a few moments before coming out of the wheelhouse to report.

"No reply."

"Keep trying every five minutes or so."

"I'll do that."

She gave me a scorching kiss and went back to the radio. I watched her as she walked away and got a hard on just watching her in that miniscule bikini. I shook my head to try and clear it and looked back at the ship ahead.

At the speed we were travelling, I think I probably only took about an hour to reach the ship, which turned out to be a British Navy vessel, dead in the water from all appearances. When we got close enough I could see through the binoculars that there were several people watching as we approached. They all looked fine, so why the flare?

We stopped Spirit about 100 metres away, stowed the sails but left the engines running, just in case.

"Unidentified sailing vessel, do you hear me?" I looked to the ship to see one of the people there using a bullhorn to speak through.

I walked to the bulwarks, cupped my hands round my mouth and shouted back.

"Yes. Radio."

"No power for marine radio, only naval issue." Came the answer.

Well, we didn't have a bullhorn and there was no way that I was going to stand there shouting nor was I going to get any closer.

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Do we have 40 sheets of paper and a thick marker pen?"

"Sure do, I'll get them for you."

"Bring up four or five pens if you can."

She went below and returned with the paper and five pens.

"Okay, five of you grab a pen each and then draw a capital letter on each sheet as large as you can as well as the numbers zero to nine, one on a sheet."

I turned back to the navy ship.

"Binoculars." I shouted and saw two of the people on the ship hold up what looked like binoculars.

"Good. Watch." I shouted. Then I turned to Silvia, "Could I please have a cup of tea, that loud shouting has hurt my throat?"

While she went below I talked to the others.

"Okay, I want to ask what they want, pass me the letters for 'what do you want' one at a time. I'll hold them up and then give the letter back for the next one."

"We need assistance. We have no power and little food."

"Who are you?"

"British Navy, or we were. Only ten of us left on this ship, we've been unable to contact anyone. We saw your sails and let off a flare. Will you help us?"

"One moment."

This was a very tedious way to communicate. I turned to my crew.

"What do you think? Proceed with caution?"

We had a few minutes discussion but we quickly agreed with my suggestion.

"Can two of you come over to discuss this?"

Now it was their turn to talk things over. Very un-navy like, I thought. Still, there was no navy anymore so perhaps it wasn't so surprising.

"Yes." Came the answer finally.

We waited as a rope ladder was slung over the side and two people started down. I realised after a few seconds that they were intending to swim.

"Stop!" I shouted. "Quick, one of you hand me the letters for 'wait for boat' the others get one of the tenders over the side. Chang let May have your rifle, you and I are going to collect our visitors.

"Skipper," Chang started.

"I know, but I don't think this is like the last time. We'll go armed but I think they really are in trouble.

I held up the letters one by one and was relieved to see the two start climbing back up the ladder after talking to one of the people with the binoculars.