Ghosts of the Pacific (8 page)

“. . .
WHAT'S THE SITUATION, AL?
”

“I cut my arm.”

“. . . bad cut? Are . . . okay?

“I'm okay. But it's swollen and really sore.”

“How . . . happen?”

“Uhh . . . I fell.”

“. . . fell?”

“Yes.”

“. . . bad cut?”

“It's getting swollen.”

“. . . fell where?”

“Uhh . . . down the ladder.”

“. . . the ladder?”

“Yes.”

I didn't want to lie to Ziegfried but I didn't want to tell
him I got shot either. He would worry too much, especially
when there wasn't anything he could do. It had taken hours
to reach him on the shortwave. There was static but I could
hear him.

“How big . . . cut?”

“It's about four inches long, half an inch wide and really
deep.”

“Did you . . . bone?”

“I don't know. It's really sore.”

“Can you open . . . hand?”

I tried to open my hand. “A little. Not much.”

“And you fell . . .
ladder
?”

“Yes.”

He paused. “Al?”

“Yes?”

“Tell me . . . really happened?”

“I'm okay. Really.”

“Al . . .”

“It's just my arm that's hurt. I'm all right now.”

“Al . . .”

“Uhh . . . I got shot.”

“
Shot
?”

“Yes, but I'm okay now. Honestly. It's just really sore.”

There was a really long pause. “Are you there? Ziegfried?”

“Who shot . . . Al?”

“A fisherman.”

“. . . fisherman?”

“I was freeing some dolphins and turtles from their net.”

There was another pause. And then, “. . . want me to
come?”

“No! No! Don't come. I'm fine, I really am. I just need to
know what to do about my arm. I'm afraid of it getting
infected. What should I do?”

“You'd better . . . tetanus . . . Al. Also . . . antibiotics. Where
are you?”

“I'm in the Pacific but I'm not close to anything. I'll probably reach the Marshall Islands in a week or so.”

“Find a . . . ship, Al . . . for medical . . . supplies . . . tetanus
and . . . otics. Do . . . understand?”

“Yes. I understand. I will. Thank you. Say hello to Sheba
and my grandparents, please.”

“Will do . . . sends . . . love. Al . . . typhoon . . . careful.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Look . . . self, Al.”

“I will. Please don't worry. Thank you.”

“Call . . . tomorrow . . .”

“I'll try.”

“Bye, Al.”

“Bye.”

I knew this was typhoon season in the Pacific. What did
ships do when a typhoon came? Where did boats like that
trawler go? According to my radar the trawler hadn't left the
area. Were they just planning to ride out the storm? They
must have known what they were doing because the trawler
was old. It had spent many years on the sea. But what was
their plan when a typhoon was coming? They didn't seem to
be doing anything yet.

Ziegfried said I should seek medical help from a passing
ship, that I needed a tetanus shot and maybe some antibiotics. Well, I knew
one
boat I wouldn't be asking. But where
would I find another one out here?

I was feeling better than before. I was just really weak and
felt like sleeping a lot. My arm was swollen and very sore but
it was not infected, as far as I could tell. I kept it clean and
tried to hold it above my heart so that the swelling would go
down. I could move my fingers but couldn't open and close
my hand. I didn't think the bone was broken, but maybe it
was chipped. I knew that bones took longer to heal than
muscles and skin.

If a typhoon was coming there was no point in trying to
go anywhere. Better to let it pass. If I sailed five hundred
miles in one direction the typhoon might follow me there.
Besides, in a submarine you can stay beneath the storm. The
only thing I needed to do was surface from time to time to
recharge the batteries and grab some air. That was hard to
do in a storm, but not impossible. I didn't really know what
a typhoon was like.

By the time we surfaced again, ten hours later, the sea was
a different world from when we had last submerged. The
swells were gigantic now, maybe the biggest ones I had ever
seen. But they weren't cresting, which meant that they hadn't
reached their full height yet. I was guessing the winds were
blowing forty to fifty knots, which was already a storm.
When the rain hit you in the face at that speed it hurt!

I didn't open the hatch fully because, with only one good
arm, it might be too hard to pull it down again. I took a peek
and shut it. We stayed on the surface for half an hour, ran
the engine and pumped air into the pressurized tanks. It was
a punishing half-hour. The waves swung us up and down
and tossed us around quite a bit. Hollie and Seaweed were
used to it. They hopped onto my cot, which swung freely
from bungee cords, so you didn't feel the movement of the
sea as much. They settled down close to each other in the
centre and prepared to wait it out.

There was a vessel on radar seven miles away. It must have
been the trawler. It wasn't moving. They must have planned
to ride out the storm. They didn't have any choice now.
Probably they would point the bow into the oncoming
waves. Still, they were in for a heck of a ride. I wondered
where Hugh was. What did sea turtles do during typhoons?

We went back down to one hundred feet. I fiddled around
a bit, made hot chocolate, put on some music and sat down
on the floor by the observation window and leaned against
the wall. Hollie jumped off my cot immediately and joined
me. Then Seaweed joined us. It was peaceful. I had a hard
time leaving my wound alone. I kept looking at it even
though it was so ugly. I wondered how bad it really was. It
was going to leave a scar; that was for sure. For the rest of my
life it would remind me of the fight to save those turtles,
dolphins and sharks. Strange that I would care about saving
sharks—they would probably eat me if they could; that was
their nature. But seeing that man stand on the boat and
shoot them just felt so wrong. Every molecule in my body
knew it was wrong. Everything I felt about life—about what
was good and bad, what was valuable and not valuable, what
was worth living for and not—rose up in me at the sight of
him shooting them. If I hadn't done something about it, it
would have haunted me all my life. I just knew. I was glad I
had done something. Now I would wear the scar and remember.

I supposed that fisherman was really trying to kill me.

I HAD HEARD OF
mega-waves. They were gigantic waves at
sea that few people ever saw and lived to describe. They were
supposedly hundreds of feet high. That was pretty hard to
believe. A hundred-foot wave was a tsunami, and that was
already unbelievably high. That was as tall as three or four
houses stacked on top of one another. A wave like that would
hit the shore so hard it would flatten houses and tear trees
right out of the ground. Were there waves two or three times
bigger than that? I didn't think so. But if you were in a sailboat and a hundred-foot wave came along I bet it would
look about five hundred feet high. That's what I thought,
anyway.

I changed my opinion a bit the next time we surfaced.

We were fifty feet from the surface, when something didn't
feel right. I felt the sub roll the way it did in a trough. But
that was impossible; we weren't even close to the surface yet.
I rushed to the periscope. The sub was moving sideways. I
took a quick peek. We were still underwater but the water
was grey, not black. It should have been black. We were in
the trough of a giant wave. We hadn't come up to the surface; the surface had come down to us.

I hit the dive switch, grabbed Hollie with my left arm,
raced to my cot and threw myself onto it, holding Hollie as
snugly as I could. If the wave sucked us up, it was going to
roll us like a shell in the surf. It was going to be a very rough
ride. Seaweed could fend for himself better because he could
jump into the air.

The stern went down sharply. We were going up. I just
hoped that by the time the wave threw us, the tanks would
be full of water and we'd submerge before the next wave
grabbed us again.

After a few seconds we levelled out. I saw a lighter grey
coming through the observation window. We were riding
the crest of the wave. I held on as hard as I could with my
arms and legs. It was frightening. The sub rolled upside down
and we started to fall. Hollie and I fell off the bed, hit the
ceiling and rolled a little. That hurt! Then the sub righted
and we fell back. Then it turned upside down again and
rolled around and around. I couldn't hold on to Hollie. He
was lucky he was so small and quick on his feet. A bigger dog
would have been hurt. Seaweed was fluttering in the air the
whole time, but even he was banging against the walls. Now
we were diving again. I felt the next wave's trough tug at us
again but it wasn't enough to pull us up. We went down
quickly.

I dove to two hundred feet. I checked Hollie and Seaweed.
They seemed all right. If they had bruises I couldn't see them
beneath their fur and feathers anyway. I had banged my
forehead, back and arms. I sat and lifted the dressing off my
wound. It was bleeding again. I was sore everywhere. I decided not to attempt surfacing again for at least ten hours. I
didn't know how big that wave was but I wouldn't laugh at
stories of mega-waves anymore.

Ten hours later, we came up very slowly. At fifty feet I didn't
feel any tug whatsoever. At twenty-five feet I felt the spinning movement of current, but that was typical in a storm.
So, I rose to periscope depth but stayed ready to fill the tanks
and go back down. Through the periscope I saw a dark,
stormy sea. The waves were high, maybe thirty feet or so. We
were tossing around a lot but wouldn't somersault. Hollie
and Seaweed jumped onto the cot anyway. I sat at the controls, turned on the engine and cranked it up. I wanted to
keep the batteries full. That would only take ten minutes or
so; we hadn't used much power. I turned on radar and was
surprised to see a vessel in the water just three miles away.
The signal was appearing and disappearing but that was
probably because of the waves. Or maybe it was Hugh, but I
didn't think so because he would have swum far away by
now.

The vessel wasn't moving. I wondered if it was the trawler.
Probably. I was curious to know, and so, after we went back
down to fifty feet, I motored in that direction on battery
power. Quarter of a mile away I surfaced again. I picked her
up on radar right away. Strangely, I also picked up something on sonar, about half a mile down and falling slowly.
Something had sunk.

From quarter of a mile I couldn't see anything through
the storm: no lights, nothing. I motored closer. Maybe it
was
Hugh. But what was half a mile below and drifting down? It
was pretty big.

As I closed in on the signal through the storm, I caught a
glimpse of a capsized lifeboat. I was pretty sure it was from
the trawler. It had the same orange stripe. The trawler had
sunk.

I tried to make a search of the water around the lifeboat
but it was very difficult. If I'd had the use of both arms I
probably would have opened the hatch and tried harder to
search but I didn't. I wasn't going to risk getting swamped,
especially when I didn't see any signs of life.

A strange feeling came over me. There were powers bigger than the trawler and the storm. Bigger than the sea. It
wasn't something I could explain. It was just a feeling. I felt
bad for the crew. They were all dead now—though it could
have been us too. This was the risk all sailors took. I couldn't
help but wonder: if I had not pulled their net down, would
they have left the area in time and survived the typhoon?
Maybe. I didn't really think so, but maybe. On the other
hand, a lot more sea creatures would have died.

I knew what Sheba would have said: she would have
called it karma. It was karma that the trawler had sunk,
though I never really understood what she meant by that.
She would also say that their ghosts would haunt the sea
now. I wasn't sure about that either. All I knew was that
today those fishermen had died. Someday, hopefully far, far
away, my turn would come. That wasn't a good feeling, but
it wasn't a bad feeling either.

The typhoon passed and took the wind and rain with it. The
sun came out strong again and the sky turned blue. But the
sea still rolled in large swells. They were twenty feet at least
but were wide at the bottom, round and smooth. The sub
rode on top of them with so little tossing and pitching it
seemed almost calm. The surface lost its choppiness and
became smooth and silky. It looked like silver. Each day the
swells became smaller until eventually the surface spread
out flat. Now, there was no wind, waves, rain, nothing but an
almost eerie calm. And then, like a ghost, the fog appeared.

I had never seen fog like this before. You couldn't see it
coming; it just appeared. It wasn't fog that settled and made
your hands and face wet. It was lighter than that. Light
passed through it, yet I couldn't see the horizon. Hollie
stood in the portal with me and we could see the stern of the
sub very clearly, and the water a little beyond that, but the
water beyond that just seemed to disappear into nothingness. It was the strangest feeling to open the hatch and climb
out. With no sounds from the sub, no sounds from the sea
or sky, there was nothing but a spooky stillness that made
me feel as though we were in a dream. We couldn't see, hear
or feel anything. The only thing we could do was smell—
that very slight smell of something burning.

And then, there was a beep on the radar. I thought of
Hugh right away. But the signal was strong and not moving.
It was ten miles away. I decided this time I would sneak up
on whatever it was. So, I submerged to periscope depth,
cranked up the batteries and motored towards the signal.

Forty-five minutes later we were close but I couldn't see
anything through the periscope. Sonar told me there was a
ship here, probably a freighter by the size of her. But she was
just sitting there. That was weird. I surfaced but kept my
hand on the dive switch, ready to go down at the first sign of
danger. Ten minutes later nothing had happened so I climbed
the portal and opened the hatch. The ship was right beside
us but I couldn't see her. I smelled her though. Then I heard
something. I thought I must have been losing my mind. It
sounded like an elephant. Then, I heard a lion. Okay, I
thought, now I am dreaming.

But I wasn't.