Blood Roots: Are the roots strong enough to save the pandemic survivors? (11 page)

He didn’t like Rick; he didn’t like the way he strutted about, he didn’t like the way he argued with his grandfather, and he hated the way he spoke suggestively to his mother.

But most of all, Zach felt lonely. He wasn’t accepted as an adult, yet he was too old to play with the children. He wanted to be treated as a man. He wished he had stayed on
AWOL
with his grandfather. But even his grandfather seemed to have less time for him these days. The discussions his grandfather used to have with him he was now having with that woman Anne.

Two doors away, Nicole was growing up fast too. She had similar feelings to Zach. She had the body of a young woman and she wanted to be treated as a woman, not as a child. In the lounge she’d found photograph albums belonging to the family who had lived in the house before the pandemic. She spent hours studying the pictures a doting mother had taken of her teenage daughters.

Nicole looked enviously at the photographs of parties, beach trips and exotic holidays. She studied the pictures of handsome, muscular young men with their arms around the teenage girls. She would often
stand naked in her bedroom looking at her developing body in the mirror, telling herself her breasts were as big as those hidden beneath the swimsuits in the photographs, willing them to grow.

One day, as she stood naked looking in the mirror, she suddenly became aware of eyes peering at her from the bushes. Instead of covering herself up, she continued to pose.

‘Do we have to go already?’ Nicole challenged her grandfather when he announced during the last week of November that he intended to sail in ten days’ time. He looked at her quizzically as he turned the food on the barbecue. ‘It’s going to be horrible and cramped on
AWOL
,’ she complained. ‘I hate sailing.’ He looked at her again. She had never complained about sailing before. She was just being difficult.

‘Well, we can’t sail soon enough as far as I’m concerned,’ Jessica said. She was beaming and clearly relieved that the date had been set at last.

‘Is there any rush?’ Rick asked, leaning back and sipping at his grape juice. As usual he was stripped to the waist, showing off his muscular body. And as usual he seemed to relish the opportunity to challenge Mark’s authority.

Mark had already made the departure date later than he originally intended because he knew there would be few opportunities to be
alone with Anne once they sailed. ‘I want to round the Horn mid-January. I reckon it’ll take about fifty days to sail south from here.’

‘So what do we load first?’ Jessica asked eagerly.

AWOL
was ready three days earlier than expected. The barometer was steady and Mark ordered everyone aboard. Misty made his way to the dockside, determined to be taken on the first trip out to the yacht.

As he rowed out, Mark noticed how frail the old cat had become. At one time Misty would have sprung off the dinghy onto
AWOL
’s boarding ladder; now he waited to be lifted. He hoped the cat would make it to England. Misty was Nicole’s cat, and about the only thing that seemed to make her happy these days. If anything, his granddaughter had become moodier than ever.

And so began the long slog south towards Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America.
AWOL
seemed unbearably cramped. Boxes of stores invaded every space. Hammocks, held in readiness to be slung in the main saloon if the weather deteriorated, had been stuffed down the side of each of the three double berths, reducing the comfort of the adults.

The crew returned to the two-watch system. The sailing was easy but there was tension in the air; too many people, including Mark, wanted to be alone with someone they shouldn’t be alone with.

The atmosphere between Fergus and Rick was particularly strained. They seemed to have developed a mutual loathing for one another.

‘Why don’t you wash your mouth out?’ Fergus shouted at Rick on the fourth morning out of Ensenada. ‘You’re like a bad American film. Every second word you utter starts with an f!’

‘What’s your problem, buddy?’

‘My kids are the problem. They don’t need to listen to that sort of language.’

‘Christ, what you being so precious about?’

‘None of us like your language,’ Jessica said. There was a nodding of heads from others in the cockpit. Rick stormed below, swearing as he went.

Maybe it was fear of spoiling his chances with the women, but whatever the reason, he did tone down his language.

It was almost a relief when the winds started to blow and everyone had to knuckle down to help sail the boat. The tension faded in the fogginess of fatigue. As the weather worsened, they became engaged in a fight for survival tougher than any that had been encountered before.

As they ran south towards the Horn in the storm, even Commander Ball’s oversized wind-vane steering couldn’t hold
AWOL
’s course. Crew fatigue grew as
AWOL
crashed through the seas carrying a storm jib and fully reefed main. She had to be hand-steered up mountainous waves at an angle of forty-five degrees, before being turned head-on momentarily in order to punch through the crest. After teetering on the peak she would slowly gather speed to career down the back of the wave and dig her bow into the face of the next wave with a shudder. Then she would lift her head and slowly gather speed as she climbed the next wave, the helmsman struggling to gain steerage way for the essential turn at the top.

For hour after hour
AWOL
fought on, the helmsman changing every fifteen minutes. Mark, Fergus, Rick, Roger and Zach shared the steering, with two in the cockpit at all times and three resting, fully clothed, in the hammocks slung across the main saloon. Mark was glad of the strength of the younger men. His aging body ached; even Zach seemed stronger than he was.

The women, none strong enough to helm the yacht in the mountainous seas, spent most of their time in their berths praying for the misery to end. They took it in turns to take food and drink to the children, and to help them to the toilet. Apart from these trips, the children lay wedged in their pipe berths, their knuckles white from gripping the lee cloths.

As
AWOL
neared the Horn, their prayers were answered. The weather improved. Although the waves were still high and the wind was blowing twenty knots, the seas seemed calm after what they had been through.

Gradually the women and children dragged themselves, bruised
and battered, from below decks. Even Misty was pleased to see the light of day, pulling himself slowly paw after paw up the companionway. Nicole picked him up and lifted him to his favourite spot under the dodger, where he curled up to watch proceedings.

The children were all keen to see the headland they had heard so much about. The sky was clearing, the barometer was rising and there was a great sense of relief. The rounding of Cape Horn no longer held the fear it had previously. They all believed the worst was over.

‘Why don’t you and Zach go below?’ Jane suggested to her father. ‘Have a rest like the other men. You look done in. We can manage now.’

Mark looked at Zach. The boy’s hair was matted with salt, his face thin and strained. He knew he must look even worse himself. He felt a hundred years old.

He reconnected the wind-vane steering system. ‘Take care,’ he said, ‘it’ll get lumpy off the cape. Call me as soon as it’s in view.’

Zach had already made his way down the companionway, and the three hammocks swinging in unison above the saloon table were occupied by Rick, Fergus and Roger. Exhausted, Zach slumped down on the cabin floor. Mark simply lay down beside him.

Mark seemed to have barely slept when Nicole’s terrified shriek pierced the cabin: ‘Granddad, Mum’s fallen overboard.’

Mark was first up the companionway, closely followed by Zach. Fergus, Roger and Rick tumbled from their hammocks and arrived on deck seconds later. Lashing rain stung their eyes.

‘What happened?’ Mark asked as he grabbed a dan buoy and threw it overboard.

‘She went up to free a halyard that was wrapped round the spreaders,’ Nicole explained. She was peering anxiously astern.

‘Why wasn’t she clipped on?’ Mark didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Just keep your eyes on that flag — whatever you do, don’t lose sight of it.’ The orders rattled from Mark’s mouth. ‘Rick, get the engine started. Fergus, take Roger forward and be ready to drop the main. Jessica and Zach, stand by to furl the foresail. Everyone clip yourselves on.’

‘I can’t see the flag,’ Nicole cried.

‘I told you to keep your eyes on it.’

‘It’s the rain,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t see anything.’

Mark checked the yacht’s compass course and speed, grabbed the remaining dan buoy and threw it over the side. ‘Don’t lose that one,’ he barked as he struggled to disengage the wind-vane. It seemed to take forever.

On the second attempt the engine coughed to life.

‘I can’t see the flag!’ Nicole shouted again.

‘Drop the main as soon as you can,’ Mark yelled. ‘Furl the foresail.’

The sails began flogging. Eventually the main was dropped into the lazy jacks. He swung the wheel hard over.
AWOL
bucked wildly as she drew beam-on to the sea. Misty lost his footing and slid down onto the cockpit seat, claw marks on the paintwork detailing his descent. Nicole returned him to under the dodger.

AWOL
began to run with the sea, but with no sail up she continued to lurch violently. At least the noise of the flogging sails had ceased. Mark had not appreciated just how bad the seas still were. After the storm they had seemed relatively calm, but in fact they were still running at more than two metres. Worse still, the wind was still blowing the tops off the waves, which were streaked white.

Mark checked he was steering the reciprocal course to what
AWOL
had been on when Jane fell over the side. ‘Can you give the engine any more?’ he asked Rick.

Rick shook his head. ‘She’s flat out.’

Mark turned to Zach. ‘Go forward and try to sight the dan buoys. On your way, tell Roger and Fergus to join you as soon as they’ve secured the mainsail.’

Nicole was standing on the cockpit seats, gripping the top of the dodger, staring ahead.

‘How long was your mother over the side before you called me?’ Mark asked.

‘I shouted as she went over.’

‘Was she wearing her life-jacket?’

‘Of course.’

He guessed it had taken him about a minute to get on deck and throw the dan buoy, two minutes later the second dan buoy, and four more minutes before he had got
AWOL
turned onto a reciprocal course. With the boat travelling at eight knots Jane had to be within a nautical mile of them, and there were two dan buoys in line between her and
AWOL
.

On a fine day in Auckland Harbour, locating his daughter would have been simple. Today, with the whitecaps, and lashing rain reducing visibility to a hundred metres or so, it was highly problematical.

He checked his watch. They should have seen the first dan buoy by now. ‘Fergus, up the mast, to the spreaders,’ he yelled above the wind. ‘Don’t forget to stay clipped on.’

Four minutes had passed and still no dan buoy had been sighted. After another two minutes, he swung
AWOL
ninety degrees to windward and held the course for two hundred metres before turning back onto the course the yacht had been sailing when Jane had gone over the side. The rain seemed worse than ever. He knew he was running out of time. Jane had been well dressed but even so the cold would get to her.

‘Dan buoy starboard bow, twenty degrees, about two hundred metres,’ Fergus yelled from the spreaders. Mark changed course again.

‘I can see it too,’ yelled a relieved Nicole a little later. Then Mark saw it himself. But which dan buoy was it? For once Commander Ball had let them down. Both dan buoys carried orange flags. If they had had different colours, Mark would have known in which direction to head.

He changed course again and ran for five minutes along the imaginary line he believed Jane to be on. The second dan buoy was not spotted. He reversed course again. Five minutes later, the dan buoy they had spotted previously came back into view. They raced past it. Two minutes later they spotted the second buoy.

‘She’s got to be somewhere close,’ he yelled a minute later. ‘Throw the cockpit cushions overboard,’ he instructed Nicole.

‘But why?’

‘Just do it.’

Using the bright yellow squabs as a marker he circled wider and wider from the spot. As the minutes passed, his despair increased. Then he noticed Misty staring out to starboard, sniffing the air. The cat began his weird calling. Mark changed course, following the direction in which the old cat was looking.

‘I can see her, I can see her,’ Fergus yelled from the spreaders. ‘She’s dead ahead.’

‘What a clever old cat you are!’ Mark said. At the sound of Mark’s voice Misty turned in his direction and miaowed softly. A wave caught
AWOL
’s quarter, the yacht lurched, and the old cat lost his footing and fell over the side. Mark was the only one who noticed, as everyone else was staring ahead at the figure lying motionless in the water.

Fergus scrambled down the mast and rushed into the cockpit. He saw the tears streaming down his uncle’s face. ‘I’m sure she’ll be all right,’ he said, unaware of what was causing the tears.

Mark brought
AWOL
to a stop to windward of Jane. Rick, Roger, Zach and Fergus, hanging over the side of the cockpit with the women and children clinging onto their legs, grabbed her as
AWOL
rolled down towards her.

‘Bring her aboard horizontally,’ Roger cautioned, ‘otherwise the blood could rush into her legs and cause a heart attack.’ Carefully they manoeuvred her around the stanchions and into the cockpit. She was deathly white. Roger leant over her and took her pulse. ‘She’s alive. Just,’ he announced.

A fresh stream of tears flowed down Mark’s cheeks.

As soon as Jane had been carried below, Mark swung
AWOL
around and began the search for Misty. It proved a hopeless mission. While those on deck diligently kept a lookout, there was no sign of the old cat. When a beaming Nicole stuck her head through the companionway to tell her grandfather that her mother was sipping hot tea in her bunk and that Roger had said she would be fine, he could not bring himself to tell her the old cat had gone.

The engine spluttered to a halt. They had run out of fuel. It was only when the sails had been hoisted and
AWOL
was back on course, heading southeast past Cape Horn, that Mark finally plucked up courage and headed below decks to break the news about Misty.

‘Well, I don’t expect as many tears when I go,’ he said when the others finally stopped crying. It was a poor joke, and it only made them cry again.

Perhaps the drama off Cape Horn made everyone on board realise how precious life was. Everyone became more accepting, more accommodating. Even Rick was more amenable.

It was a long trudge through the Atlantic to England — a journey of seven thousand one hundred nautical miles by great-circle course, but so much longer for
AWOL
as she was often forced to beat to windward. Following the scare with Jane, everyone clipped on their safety harnesses at night when on deck, irrespective of the wind strength, and everyone clipped on during the day when the wind rose above fifteen knots. It was only when the wind died totally in the Doldrums that they took off their harnesses and life-jackets and whooped and hollered with delight as they dived over the side for respite from the heat.

Sometimes it would rain in the evenings and the men and children would stand naked in the rain rinsing the salt from their bodies. Then they would be ordered below so that the women could do the same. Mark wondered why the women were so coy.

Due to the predominance of head winds, it took one hundred and nineteen days from when they left Ensenada to reach the Bay of Biscay. They were down to their last precious rations. Had they had fuel left, Mark would have made landfall to find fresh supplies. As it was, desperate not to risk an additional landfall without an engine when they were so close to their final destination, he ordered everyone onto short rations.

‘I don’t know why all you women keep being sick,’ he said irritably. It was a beautiful morning and the Bay of Biscay was not living up to its fearsome reputation. On the contrary, it was the best sailing they had had all trip. Everyone except Zach and Fergus, who had stood the last watch, was on deck enjoying the sunshine. ‘It’s not as if you can afford to throw up what little you’re being given to eat.’

Then he felt sorry for his unsympathetic words, particularly when Anne put her head through the lifelines and was sick too.

Roger looked in his direction, a smirk on his face.

‘You’re not telling me …’ he began.

Anne turned round and nodded. He looked at Jane and she nodded too, her cheeks flushing.

‘I’m going to be busy in about five months’ time,’ Roger announced. ‘I’ve got six babies to deliver.’

Mark’s jaw dropped momentarily. Then he smiled, looking in turn at Louise, Julie and Jessica. They all smiled back and nodded in confirmation.

‘So who’s having the twins?’ he asked.

‘Yes, which of us is having twins?’ the women asked one another.

Roger looked uncomfortable. Everyone was looking at him, waiting for an answer.

Nicole suddenly turned around and retched over the side.

‘Surely, you’re not …’ Mark began, his voice petering out.

‘Nicole, you can’t be pregnant!’ Jane exclaimed. ‘You can’t be.’

‘She is,’ Roger confirmed.

‘She’s a child,’ Mark screamed, barely able to control his anger.

‘Who’s the father?’ Jane asked, her voice hysterical. No one answered.

‘Who’s the father?’ Mark repeated. Still no one answered. ‘Who is it?’ he shouted at Nicole. She retched again.

‘Stop shouting at her,’ Roger said sharply. ‘The last thing she needs is you upsetting her.’

‘Do you know who the father is?’

Mark could tell by the evasive look in Roger’s eyes that the doctor knew. ‘Who is it?’

‘That’s between me and my patient.’

‘Who is it?’

‘It doesn’t matter who it is. It’s between Nicole, the father and me. It’s nobody else’s business.’

Zach and Fergus, who had been woken by the shouting, were standing on the companionway steps, peering into the cockpit.

‘Of course it matters,’ Mark spat angrily. ‘We’ve got a bloody paedophile on the boat.’

‘What you going to do, chuck him over the side?’ Rick asked sarcastically. ‘You’re the one always talking about the need to increase the gene pool.’

‘Is it you?’

Rick did not answer.

‘Who is it? I demand to know,’ Mark repeated, rounding on Nicole.

Roger had had enough. He stood up and took Nicole by the hand. ‘She’s a thirteen-year-old girl. She’s frightened, she’s ashamed and she’s your granddaughter. Now get out of her face. The last thing a thirteen-year-old pregnant girl needs is stress. Just think yourself lucky she’s fit and healthy, and that I’ve delivered more than my fair share of babies to thirteen year-olds!’

With the rebuke delivered, Roger motioned Zach and Fergus to clear the companionway. They scrambled up into the cockpit and stood aside as the doctor led Nicole below. Jane, weeping, followed.

‘Well, which one of you bastards was it?’ Mark demanded, looking each of the men in the eye. No one owned up.

Not only would Nicole not tell her grandfather who the father of her baby was, she wouldn’t tell her mother either — not that Jane, having taken on board Roger’s comments about stress, pressed too hard. She had already made up her mind who the father was. She felt wretched. She felt that both her trust and her body had been violated.

The stress aboard was palpable. All the women, momentarily at least, suspected their own partner, even Louise, who fleetingly suspected Roger. Julie knew Rick was a ladies’ man, but any suspicions she had of him were centred on Jane. She thought, and then hoped, that he would not have taken advantage of a thirteen-year-old girl. But could she be sure?

Only the small children, oblivious to the drama, were immune to the stress. They were growing increasingly excited as
AWOL
approached England. Eventually their joy infected the adults too and the drama of Nicole’s pregnancy slipped into the background.

Mark, however, nursed his anger. He barely spoke to Nicole and
often snapped at other members of the crew. He seemed to be civil only when he was talking to Anne, Zach and the young children.

Tommy, who celebrated his ninth birthday two days out from England, was the only child aboard who had been to Haver. He had been six years old when he had been whisked away in the middle of the night as his mother Jessica escaped with Mark, Steven and other members of the Chatfield community. As a result he held court over the smaller children, telling them about his tyrannical uncle Nigel, who called himself Lord Chatfield of Haver, and had to be addressed as Your Lordship. What Tommy lacked in memory, he made up for in imagination — not that the hardships the little boy had suffered at Haver could have been surpassed by even the most creative storyteller.

He also told his cousins about His Lordship’s sons, the horrid knights — Sir Jasper, Sir Damian and Sir Greg. It was only when Tommy began to frighten the wide-eyed children with the story of how Sir Damian had chopped off the heads of his Uncle Mathew and Great Aunt Margaret that Mark intervened and directed the story towards descriptions of the Great Hall and the grandeur of the thousand acre deer park that surrounded the grand house.

As Tommy told his stories, the memory of the brutality of Haver came flooding back to Mark, and with it a torrent of anxiety. Had Steven managed to sail safely to England? Had he found the Union Jack and the Cross of St George both flying above the West Tower — the signal Mark had arranged with his brother Paul to be flown if Nigel had been overthrown? And if it hadn’t been safe to enter Haver, had Steven managed to engineer Nigel’s overthrow from outside the walls? If not, had Steven and the others found somewhere else to live? And if so, would Mark be able to find them?

There were so many questions, so many concerns, that even Nicole’s pregnancy seemed to lessen in importance.

On the third day of April they spotted the southern coast of England. With no fuel to run the motor, Mark kept well out in the English Channel. Over the ages many voyages had ended in disaster within
sight of home, and he didn’t want
AWOL
’s to be one of them.

He decided to follow the course he and Steven had taken in
Archangel
on their previous voyage to England, and to anchor in the River Medway. Though he hadn’t discussed with Steven where he intended to anchor when he arrived in England on his second voyage, he assumed his son would have made the same decision. While they could reach the coastal ports of Sussex and Kent sooner, none offered the protection afforded by the Medway.

A safe anchorage was essential. He had already agreed with Roger to leave the bulk of the drugs and medicines in the solar-and wind-powered fridge and freezer aboard
AWOL
. They would return and retrieve them once they knew there was suitable storage at Haver. If necessary they would have to wait till winter, and until the ancient ice-house in Haver Park had been recommissioned, to store them safely.

They sailed around the eastern tip of Kent and headed west towards the Thames and the mouth of the Medway which ran into it. Mark was amazed how clear the water was. The Thames had always been a grey river, even after it had supposedly been cleaned up during the late twentieth century. Now he could see what clean really meant — clear water teeming with fish.

All hands were on deck as they entered the Medway and sailed past Stangate and Half Acre creeks. The breeze was steady, the sun shining. It was as if England was welcoming them home. As they reached the bend in the river near Gillingham, Mark handed the helm over to Zach and raised his binoculars. When he had escaped from England almost four years previously there had been more than a hundred yachts anchored in the vicinity. Now there were less than a dozen, some listing badly. He could only assure from the wreckage on the shoreline that the majority had either broken loose from their moorings or sunk on them.

His heart sank.
Archangel
was not one of the vessels still afloat. He scanned the yachts washed up on the shore, but she wasn’t there either. He was worried. Then he remembered that Jasper and Damian had discovered
Archangel
’s anchorage before he and Steven had
escaped. He told Zach to continue on up the channel, speculating to himself that perhaps Steven would have wished to keep his new anchorage secret. They sailed up the estuary till they could go no further.
Archangel
wasn’t there.

Opposite Chatham’s historic dockyard, with a rattling of chain and a chorus of ‘Three cheers for the Captain, hip, hip …’,
AWOL
came to rest.

Mark slumped down on the cockpit seat. He felt totally drained. They’d made it to England, but who knew what now lay ahead of them.