Eco Warrior (5 page)

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“Nope.”

“Aren’t you afraid at sea, alone?”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Then why should I be? Somewhere along the way I passed the point of being afraid. I’ve already lived longer than I ever expected to. We’re all terminal, Alfred. Here would be as good a place to go as any, don’t you think?”

I raised my head over the bags of clothing to look at her face. I realized I couldn’t tell when she was joking and when she wasn’t. Maybe she was never joking. I really didn’t know.

“If a bad storm comes, I think you’ll be glad to have a working engine.”

“I’ve been through plenty a storm, let me tell you. I just tie everything down and go to sleep.” She raised her eyebrows. Man, she was stubborn. But I supposed she had to be.

“I’ll be right back. Can I leave Hollie here?”

“You sure can. You can leave him with me and pick him up on your way back to Newfoundland.”

Now she was joking. I mean, I thought she was. I went back to the sub, filled the tool bag with a can of oil, an assortment of tools, and a plastic tarp, and hung it over my shoulder. Then I picked up one of the portable tanks of diesel. It was so heavy I had to make a separate trip for it, and carry it with both hands. Getting it up the ladder was really tough. If I hadn’t been doing chin-ups every day for the past two years, I probably wouldn’t have been able to lift it out by myself. But I managed. When I climbed out, Seaweed was there to greet me.

“Hey, Seaweed.” He stared at the can and twisted his head. He wasn’t impressed. He had just learned that there was no land. That meant no beaches with dead carcasses to tear apart, or crabs to attack and eat. I knew he would explore Margaret’s boat for food though, and that’s what he did next. He took a hop and landed on her cabin. “Good luck with that, Seaweed.” I dragged the fuel over.

As I expected, there was no oil in the engine, either. The whole thing would need a flushing and a tune up, but before I could even consider doing that, I needed to know if it would start. So, I poured in a little oil, and let it seep into the engine. It was a small, old, two-stroke diesel motor, the kind that runs forever and is easy to fix. I emptied the whole tank of diesel into the tank. That was a bit sneaky. I wanted to know that she had enough fuel to ride out a storm, whether she planned to use it or not.

“That stinks!” said Margaret, and she went out on deck with Hollie.

“It will go away,” I said, “after a while.”

“I sure am glad Brutus and Clive don’t play around with engines.”

Now
was she being serious? She sure sounded serious. If she was, that meant she was crazy for sure. But then I thought of my grandfather’s sense of humour, if you could call it that, and realized that she must have been joking. Maybe really old people just didn’t care anymore if you thought they were funny or not.

I greased the engine everywhere that I could. It had nice brass fittings. It would look really beautiful cleaned up and polished. Margaret had protected it from the salt without knowing it by wrapping it so tightly with plastic bags. I spun the flywheel. It turned easily enough. That was a good sign. Once the fuel and oil had settled in, I tried igniting the engine. Nothing. I tapped the starter gently with a wrench and tried again. Nothing. I tapped it a little harder and tried again. This time the engine coughed a little, like an old troll waking up under a bridge. “
Cough…cough…cough…cough…chug…chug…chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug…
” Awesome!

“Alfred! There’s a cloud of blue smoke out here! It’s horrible! Turn the darned thing off! You’re killing the environment!”

I poked my head outside. “Please just give it a minute. It’s burning old oil. The blue smoke will go away in a minute. But I really should clean the engine. Do you mind if I do that? It would take a day or two.”

Margaret made a fussy face. “I don’t see the point, Alfred. I’m not planning on using it. You’d just be wasting your time.”

“It would be good practice for me, actually.”

“I won’t use it.”

Gosh she was stubborn. “Do you mind if I do it anyway?”

“Don’t you have to get to Australia to save the world?”

She was losing her patience. But I felt stubborn, too. I didn’t want to leave her without fuel and a working engine. Maybe she was ready to throw in the towel, I didn’t know, but I wouldn’t be part of that. My newfound gratitude for life made me very determined.

“One or two days shouldn’t make too much difference.”

“Oh, suit yourself!” She went to the bow with Hollie, and sat down.

So, I got to work. I shut off the engine, drained the oil, and flushed the engine with diesel fuel. Then, I left it to dry. I sprayed lubricating and anti-rust oil everywhere there were moving parts that could be loosened, tightened, or removed, and let it sit. I took fine steel wool and buffed the rust from the casing and driveshaft as well as I could. It was a small engine, and it didn’t take two whole days for that much work, but it took a whole day for everything to dry and the oil to work its magic.

Once it was dry, I tightened everything up again, filled the engine with oil, and snuck in another can of fuel for the tank. It was slow, steady, relaxing work. While I kept at it, Margaret and I chatted. Usually she was out on deck, and I was inside, and we talked without seeing each other, except when she got worked up over something. Then, she’d come in and stand in the doorway to the cabin with her hands on her hips, and wait for me to make eye contact, such as when I suggested that she didn’t have to be so negative, that it wasn’t too late, there was still time to save the oceans and the world. I had my head buried beneath the engine when she stood in front of the light and darkened my view.

“The reason we are in the mess we are in is because humans are greedy and thoughtless, Alfred. They want bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger steaks, bigger toys, and they don’t care how they get them. They don’t want anyone digging, cutting, or burning in their own backyard, but they sure as heck don’t mind someone digging, cutting, or burning in somebody else’s backyard, just so long as they don’t have to see it. And if people on the other side of the world are dying in war or drought, that’s just fine so long as they can have their oil, coal, and all their consumer goods. But what humans haven’t realized in all this time is that we’re all connected. We’re all connected to each other, and to the Earth, and to every other living creature. What one creature does affects everybody else. That’s a lesson we should have learned from aboriginal peoples a long time ago, but didn’t, and now it’s too late.”

I raised my head. “Aboriginal peoples?”

“Yes, Aboriginal peoples, because they have a healthier relationship with the Earth. They only take what they need, and they give back. Aboriginal peoples tend to be self-sufficient and naturally sustaining, when left to their own devices. They’ve learned to be that way over thousands of years. Then we come along with our industrial revolution, and we just can’t use up the Earth’s resources fast enough. We don’t care how garbage piles up. We don’t care if we poison rivers and lakes and oceans. And even when it’s evident that it’s too late, as it is now, people still don’t care so long as they can get to the store to buy something else. The last gallon of gas is probably going to be burned up in the tank of some guy on his way to a dealership to buy a new truck!” She stood behind the bags of clothing with her arms folded like a wrestler. There was a slight breeze now, and it came inside and lifted her hair off her shoulders. The weather was changing. “We’re the most destructive creature that ever crawled out from underneath a rock. It’s a wonder there’s anything still alive. Do you know who’s going to inherit the Earth?”

“Who?”

“Jellyfish!”

“Oh.”

Chapter Six

BY THE SECOND DAY, the sea had changed. It was choppy once again, and the brown algae had disappeared, probably because we had drifted away from it. Now, a grey sea reflected a grey sky. I wondered how comfortable Margaret would be in a choppy sea. One glance at her walking along the deck told me it made no difference to her whatsoever. She was the seasoned sailor I had thought Brutus and Clive were.

By the middle of the day, I was finished with the engine. It was topped up with oil, and I had put enough fuel in her tank to allow her to travel maybe five hundred miles. It was a small motor, and wouldn’t propel her anywhere in a hurry, but she wouldn’t have to stay in the middle of a storm, either. And something told me there was one coming. After two years at sea, I could tell. I wondered if Margaret could.

“We’ve drifted out of the doldrums.”

“Or perhaps they have drifted out of us?”

“What?”

She smiled, but it wasn’t as warm as before. And I sensed that she was agitated about something. “You’d better get on your way now, Alfred. You’ve got a world to save.” She made more effort to smile this time. I turned and looked at the horizon. There was definitely bad weather coming. The sea in the east was rougher than in the west.

“Maybe I should leave in the morning.”

“But you’ve done everything that you wanted to do. Why would you stay until morning?”

“I think there’s a storm coming.”

“So what if there is? Do you think you have to stay around and protect me?”

“It’s what I’d do for anybody else.”

“Yes, I’m sure that it is. But what if I don’t want someone to protect me? What if I want to face the storm by myself, as I am used to doing? What then?”

Her words sounded unfriendly, but I didn’t think she meant them to be. She was still smiling at me, if awkwardly, and speaking in a friendly tone. She simply didn’t want my help. She wanted to look after herself. I knew I should have understood that because I was exactly the same way. If I hadn’t almost drowned a few days ago I probably would have found it easier to accept. “You don’t want me to stay?”

“No. I am perfectly able to look after myself. Just like you. Maybe you look at me and see an old woman, but I can assure you I can look after myself just as well as you can. I think maybe we’re cut from the same cloth, Alfred—both of us sailing around the world by ourselves. You should be able to understand me better than anybody else, don’t you think?”

“I guess so. If that’s what you want.”

“It is. There’s just one thing I’d like to ask of you.”

“What’s that?”

“Have you got any books that I haven’t read, that you wouldn’t mind parting with?”

“I don’t know. I’ll show you what I have.”

So I went in, grabbed all my books, and carried them out. It wasn’t a very big collection. Margaret looked them over quickly. “Read it, read it, read it…Oh! The
Bhagavad Gita
! Oh, that’s fabulous! I’ve always wanted to read it, and never got around to it. Do you think you could part with this?”

“Sure. You can have it.” I was glad I had something that she wanted.

“Thank you.”

The wind was beginning to howl now, and swells were raising and dropping the boat.

“I’m going to tie everything down now and get cosy in my bed. You had really better get going, Alfred. Please give your doggie and seagull a hug for me, will you?” She had to speak loudly now to be heard over the wind. If the severity of a storm could be measured by how quickly it blew in, then I’d have said we were in for a bad one, but I didn’t honestly know if that were true.

“Are you absolutely certain you don’t want me to stay around till morning?”

“I am absolutely certain. Goodbye, Alfred. It was a real pleasure meeting you.” Margaret shot out her hand. I reached over and shook it. Her hand was bony, but strong.

“Good luck to you!” she said. Now, she was smiling warmly again, and seemed almost glad the storm was coming. “You’d better go.”

“Okay.” I took a few steps towards the railing. The sub and boat were starting to bang against each other. I turned around again. Margaret waved. “Goodbye!”

Her voice was swallowed up by the wind. I waved back, then untied the rope, climbed over the railing, and jumped onto the hull of the sub. From the portal, I watched her toss a sea anchor over the bow, then lift heavy coils of rope, and drop them overboard. That was smart. The sea anchor was a heavy nylon bag that would sit at the end of a couple of hundred feet of rope, and keep the bow pointed into the waves and wind, so that the boat wouldn’t turn sideways and swamp. She knew what she was doing. I waved one more time, but she was too busy to look my way. It would soon be dark. I took a final glance at Brutus and Clive before I shut the hatch, climbed down the ladder, and joined Hollie and Seaweed inside. Reluctantly, I let water into the tanks and we began to submerge.

But we didn’t go anywhere. I had agreed to leave Margaret’s boat, but she couldn’t make us leave the area. Nor could she know we were still here, just a hundred feet directly below her. But we were. I fed the crew, made myself a cup of tea, sat on my bed, and opened the book by Thoreau. I tried to read for an hour, but was so sleepy it was hard to concentrate. I kept reading the same sentences over and over. Then I lay down and shut my eyes. I only intended to take a nap.

Seven hours later, I woke. It was perfectly quiet inside the sub, except for Hollie’s soft breathing, and the occasional ruffling of Seaweed’s feathers. Above us, I knew a storm was raging. I wondered how bad it was. I wondered how Margaret was doing. Should I go up and check? Would she be angry if I did? Hollie saw me raise my head, and he came over.