Chapter 31

"Yes ... what's going on?" asked the Gaffer, "Who are you and how did you do that?"

Wendy Too waffled and minced, "Er ... ah ... umm ... fuck ... TIM?!?" She both shouted and begged.

"Princess?"

"Tim, I fucked up," she pointed at the throng ... maybe more than a throng ... more than a gathering but less than a crowd.

"Popped in without checking?"

"Junior needed me ... you know how mothers are..." she trailed off.

"Mothers ... I understand." 'Mothers' was an expletive... 'I understand.' was in a resigned voice.

"Look," said Andrea, "Do everybody except the old guys ... they deserve an adventure."

"We're standing here ... listening ... don't treat us like we're old and deaf."

"How many get the adventure?" Tim asked.

Andrea started pointing them out ... it was Bill the younger, the Gaffer, and the War Vets. "Everybody else. Send them home too."

Tim said, "You sixteen ... turn around. The rest of you? Look at the shiny pen." Naturally, not everyone who wasn't suppose to look ... didn't. And not everyone who was supposed to look ... did.

Later ... but not much later, the Gaffer said, "That was a right old clusterfuck ... I wouldn't have missed it for the world. You sure we won't remember? You know ... we'll never tell anyone ... they'd put us in a home. And I have to admit ... that was more fun than shooting fish in a barrel."

It was still sixteen in the end.

The sailor ... Mick ... who knew the route they had to take ... not that he knew it at the time ... said of the three who looked, "Those three never did pay attention ... probably why they got captured by the Italians."

The three who were supposed to look but didn't were sons of soldiers and friends of Bill the younger. They went ... but had to be erased when it was over.

"What do you have in mind?" Too asked Andrea.

"The records state plainly that there was a pirate ship in the Celebes Sea ... it shot down ten attacking Jap aircraft. The records also state that it took an extensive search to find the ship ... but they never did. Who do you know that can do that?"

Tim lost it. When he settled down, he waved his hand at Andrea, "Only you, Andy. Only you." He went off again. This time when he stopped, he exclaimed, "I might as well go too. It's been pretty dull since David and his wives left Colorado."

"I wanna go too," said Violet.

The Gaffer jumped, "Are there any more of you weirdos? Who are you, young lady?"

"I'm Violet ... I'm mostly what you could call magic. The local indigenous know me as Yhi, goddess of light, creation and healing. And since Tim is here and you are too, evidently it doesn't matter if you know it." She turned to Connie, "Did you get your watch swapped out?" she asked.

"Yes, Ma'am," affirmed the now seventeen year old Texan

"Figured it out yet?"

"Fuck no!" Not much of an affirmation but the truth.

"You will." Violet asked, "So? What are we doing ... someone said adventure ... I'm in."

"Gaffer?" Andrea asked, "You said you know what happened to the Southern Star?"

"It's going to take some telling ... got any beer?" The Gaffer grinned, "Keep 'em coming and I'll tell you."

They settled in, down in the silent and sparkling engine room. David started sanitizing Cornelius Kegs. "Don't mind me ... I've got a brew to keg. I'll listen while I'm doing it. Hey Junior ... Connie ... I have a keg of homemade root beer ... I need an experimental animal to test it."

Connie and Junior sampled the root beer, the adults checked out the porter.

"When we left the 'Pore, we sailed into the off shore islands. Mick, here," he pointed, "He was a second mate on the tramps and knew every little port and coal pile from India to Seattle. Some of those coaling stations had been abandoned before the Great War ... Mick ... you tell it."

(You readers ... Mick drank as much as the Gaffer ... storytelling is thirsty work. You put your own pauses for sips and new glasses where you like.)

Mick took up the thread, "Out of Singapore we headed south east by east to Pulau Batam and cut through the islands. There's thousands of them, coal here and coal there ... little ones with water and little ones without ... big ones with natives and Japs ... but lots of help from the natives. We were heading for Sumatra.