The Drift (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 1) (25 page)

T
he
patter of rain replaced the thump of the chopper, the sky growing darker still.
Hans leaned out of the doorway, flare in hand, wired on adrenaline and denial.
Anticipating the chopper’s return, he craned for an age, until the prospect of
a wet sleeping bag forced him to accept the awful truth: it was not coming
back.

The canopy’s emergency light cast an ever more feeble glow
around the miserable damp cave. Lying on his back, Hans stared up at the
flickering bulb as it sapped the remaining life from the battery pack. It was
tempting to wallow in despair. Often the occupants of life rafts died within a
few days of abandoning ship, even before their supplies ran out, losing either their
minds or the will to live.

Shaking himself, Hans set about collecting rainwater, Jessica’s
welfare foremost in his mind. Leaning over the canopy, he untied the cord
securing the radar reflector and then removed its horizontal stabilizing plates.
The remaining fins now formed an X-shape like the tail fin of a bomb.

Hans rammed the device into the observation port to act as a
gutter, channeling the lifesaving drops into its drooping neck. Inside the
raft, he tucked the Disney mug into the webbing pocket below the opening and
trailed the drawstring down into it. As Hans explained the process, Jessica watched,
looking mesmerized.

After a few minutes the drawstring started to glisten, and a
puddle accumulated in the mug. Within half an hour droplets were spiraling down
and the reservoir deepening. Hans giggled at first, until the stress of
previous days evaporated into whoops of joy. “We’ve done it!”

Jessica gave him a toothy grin and shoved her arms in the
air, her tiny biceps smothering her ears.

“Yaay!”

It took the best part of two hours to fill the beaker. Hans
stuck to his resolve not to drink for two days. Instead he topped up the gas
can to replace their first night’s consumption. The beaker half filled a third
time as the rain petered off.

Jessica eyed the all-important resource.

“Okay, just a little.” Hans held up the cup and let her take
a couple of sips, then as an afterthought took one himself to check its saltiness.

“Tphuh!”
He spat it out.

It tasted vile, like bitter almonds. The chemical
impregnation in the canopy’s fabric must have contaminated the collection, and
not just the water in the Disney mug but now the gas can too.

It was yet another crushing blow.

However, Hans was no stranger to disillusionment, developing
immunity from a young age. No one ever said life was fair. That had been his
experience, his creed, and now was no different. Rather than indulge in regret,
he assessed the situation with a clinical detachment – a requisite quality in
his former profession. He once watched an army ranger use a comrade’s dead body
as a windbreaker for his field stove. “You gotta roll with reality, brother,”
the soldier had said, casually stirring his chow. That same ranger made a satphone
call to his wife a month later when insurgents surrounded his recon patrol in
Afghanistan. “You better cancel Christmas dinner, honey” he told her.

As far as Hans was concerned, death was not something to
fear, just something to delay if possible. He had to keep his head for the
girl. The dilemma facing him was whether the water in the gas can was drinkable,
despite its awful taste. Jessica looked okay, but she’d only had a sip or two.
He doubted it was poisonous but worried it might make them vomit, leading to
further dehydration.

A second rain shower compelled him to act. He emptied the
gas can overboard and, using the filleting knife, sliced the bottoms off three ziplock
plastic bags. With one of them turned inside out, Hans was able to connect it
to another by pressing their nylon zippers together, thus forming a protective
chute. After lengthening it using duct tape to stick on the third bag, he
wrapped one end of the makeshift liner around the radar fins and draped the other
down through the neck of the portal. The plastic now formed a barrier between
the canopy’s foul chemical treatment and the incoming flow. With the drops
growing heavier, it looked as if their worries were over, but as the Disney mug
slowly filled . . . the rain ceased.

A
ccording
to the instruction booklet, the US military had used this type of solar-power
still since the Second World War, and it could yield up to three pints of water
a day. Two feet in diameter, the device consisted of an inflatable see-through plastic
dome with a black cloth wick covering its base to create a distillation
chamber. Floating on the sea like an enormous jellyfish, the unlikely contraption
utilized the sun’s rays to vaporize salt water into fresh, which then condensed
and trickled down the sides of the dome to collect in a bag dangling in the
ocean on a length of tube. Hans blew the still up and filled it with the
recommended amount of brine, streaming it alongside the raft on its
fifteen-foot tether.

Despite his reservations, their survival might soon depend
on it. The area they drifted in, the Sahelian Belt, received minimal rainfall, as
the dry wind blowing off the North African desert didn’t have sufficient time
over the sea for precipitation to occur. The rogue weather battering the raft
previously was likely a Cape Verde hurricane, a twice-yearly phenomenon in
which humid air sweeping upwards across the Central African savannah meets warm
offshore water to create a tropical storm. It was unlikely they would experience
such ferocious conditions again, nor the lifesaving commodity accompanying it.

Hans took up the pump and began replacing lost air from the
tubes. They leaked more and more as the days passed, leaving the raft flaccid and
slow in the water. The pump itself was inappropriately suited to the task, the type
of foot-operated device you might inflate a rubber dingy with on solid ground –
the terra firma desperately lacking in this scenario. In the end Hans resorted
to squeezing it like an accordion, its tedious wheeze not a composition any
self-respecting musician would play.

The gash in Hans’ head showed signs of infection, with swollen
red lips surrounding the scab as it attempted to heal. His right eyelid was permanently
half-closed. Every time he tried to open it, yellow fluid trickled down his
cheek and pain shot the length of his arm. Sores had broken out all over his
body – but not on Jessica, who appeared to weather the conditions better. Particularly
bad were his knees, hips, and ankles, the joints in regular contact with the
raft’s wet floor. He put some serious thought into how to repair the punctures
in the rubberized groundsheet, the ones made by the filleting knife when
abandoning ship.

Again he rejected the repair kit’s aluminum plugs, knowing
he would have to widen the slits to accommodate them. The risk being if anything
caught on the fatheaded screws, they might rip out and create an even bigger leak.
Instead he rummaged through the rest of the equipment.

Pulling eight Bic ballpoints wrapped in an elastic band from
the ditch kit gave Hans an idea. He removed a lid from one of the pens and, using
the chopping board and filleting knife, cut notches in the shirt pocket clip to
form an arrowhead. Having snipped the clip from the lid, he used the cigarette
lighter to melt and flatten its end, the result a black plastic tack with a
self-anchoring shank. He eased the improvised plug into one of the slits.

Damn!

It was a fraction too long, which meant it would ride up and
create a snag. Hans repeated the process using another pen lid, this time
paying attention to the finer detail. Squeezing it into place, he felt the
little jaws grip the underside of the raft as the head of the tack came flush
with the rubber deck.

Perfect!

He did the same for the other leaks, the gratification of
something going favorably for once seeing him take a celebratory swig from
their limited water reserve.

“Oh . . .
ooh-be-doo . . . I wanna be like you-ooh-ooh
!”

“
I wanna walk like you
!”

“
Talk like you toooo
!”

Singing aloud, Hans hugged his baby girl with all the
strength he could muster.

The ballpoints reminded Hans of something he had read in
Steven Callahan’s account of his seventy-six days in a life raft. Using elastic
bands, Hans lashed three of the pens together to form a right-angled triangle.
He now had a crude sextant. When pointing one pen at the horizon and another at
Polaris, the North Star, the V-shaped angle it created equaled their latitude.
He could measure the angle using the degrees printed on the Silva compass. What
with paying out the horseshoe float to give an idea of speed, Hans was able to estimate
and chart their progress.

Kneeling in the doorway, he stared out across the endless undulating
mass. By now the ocean’s rise and fall had become a part of him, like a second
pulse. He wondered if the sensation would continue after rescue – if rescue ever
came. If not, Neptune’s mocking embrace would be with them to the grave, continuing
well into the afterlife until the raft succumbed to the waves, sinking to the seabed
and taking their bleached bones with it.

At their current rate of drift, it would take almost a month
to reach the shipping lanes, six hundred miles away across the desperate watery
flat. With supplies running low, it was imperative to source food and water
soon.

Despite them being in the tropics, as night fell there was a
distinct drop in temperature. Hans shivered, stroking his daughter’s cheek as she
lay on her sleeping bag staring into space. Not once had the little girl complained.
He felt as proud as ever to be her father. He pulled in the leash to retrieve
the solar still, delighted to find a good half pint in the collection bag hanging
down in the sea. Raising it to his cracked lips, he took a sip
. .
. and
promptly spat it out. Somehow salt water had contaminated the distillation
process. It was another blow to morale.

His little companion girl gave him a look. It said
everything but nothing.

“
T
here’s
one, Papa!”

The small fish darted for the foil attractor but veered off
at the last moment. Jessica watched, excited.

Beneath the raft, barnacles, algae and seaweed had begun to
form, initiating a traveling ecosystem in which these innocent minnows
seemingly spawned from nowhere. Having no bait at hand, Hans had wrapped silver
wrapper from an energy bar around a hook to form a lure, the sets in the
fishing kit far too big for the mouths of these tiny creatures.

“I see it. Damn!”

Even with the smallest hook tied to the handline, it proved
impossible to impale one of the tiddlers. To add to the frustration, every so
often a shoal of flying fish burst through the surface, their tail fins
powering from side to side to get them airborne, followed by a graceful
hundred-yard glide to evade the ocean’s predators. During the night a rogue
fish had slammed into the canopy, shaking Hans from slumber but rolling off
again to deprive them of a meal. Now desperately low on food, they needed to
catch something soon.

That night searing pain kept Hans awake, denying him respite
from the constant fear and doubt. Never in his life had he felt so desperate,
so powerless and vulnerable. He pictured their home life in Portland, images so
vivid he could almost reach out and touch them . . .

“Good efening, sir, madam. Nice to see you again,”
announced Aldo in his Latino tones, leading Hans and his wife to a table overlooking
the harbor, the navigation lights on passing craft rebounding off the jet-black
water to add a jazzy aura to this treasured seafood hideaway, Aldo’s pristine
white shirt open to the navel to expose a hefty gold medallion bouncing against
the thick mat of hair sprouting from his olive-skinned chest . . . Hans
ordering a bourbon and a beer, his partner – as always – a dry white wine and a
starter of house chowder . . . Cracking open fiddly lobster shells before going
on to the opera. Ahhh, the opera! Arriving at the Merrill Auditorium’s
nondescript building, its retro-style marquee more fitting of a movie theater than
the world-renowned acoustical experience lying behind its blocky gray façade. Passing
through the foyer to enter a sea of red velvet and sit beneath an impressive art
deco ceiling with similarly exquisite cream-and-gold flair surrounding them, his
wife as ever stunning in lilac silk and the beads he bought her for their
anniversary. Then a libretto to savor as Bizet’s
Carmen
unfolded. Carmen’s
mezzo soprano trill fluttering around the hall, holding the audience in awe and
complemented by José’s robust tenor pleading for her to return to him from the
arms of Escamillo the Toreador. The knife plunging into her breast as Escamillo
receives applause from the bull pit’s bloodthirsty crowd . . .

Simple daily events, such as making coffee, watching a ball
game on TV or chatting to a neighbor, now seemed such unbelievable luxuries, so
taken for granted at the time. How he yearned to be there now. He would
appreciate every moment. Forget faxes, emails and telephone calls. Forget healthy
living, adventurous vacations and improving his marathon time. Forget bills,
mortgages and saving for the future. None of it was remotely relevant – pointless
distractions to keep you from appreciating and enjoying the essence of life and
the wonderful gift of just being, which cost nothing. He would willingly
relinquish it all in exchange for rescue, for the chance to sit in the sand
with Jessica on East End Beach tossing pebbles into the sea, content to never
venture further than knee-deep in the waves lapping against the shore.

Upon their return to Maine, he would sell up and buy an RV
so they could travel the United States and experience some of the unparalleled
beauty the country had to offer, meeting interesting individuals along the way,
all with their own stories to tell. Black, white, Hispanic, Jew, Muslim, Asian,
Native American, young, old, rich, poor . . .

They would visit sites of historical importance – Little
Bighorn in Montana, where Custer’s cavalry bit off more than they could chew by
taking on Sitting Bull and his nation of braves . . .

Man, I’ve never been there!

The Great Lakes, the Hoover Dam
. . .

Ah!

The list would be endless.

Of course, Jessica would be in charge of the itinerary. He
would even let her drive, sitting on his lap along the dirt tracks in the
desert. They would make campfires, grill the fish they caught and gaze at the stars.
It would be her trip, her future, her fulfillment. Content with having his feet
on dry land, safe and secure with the sun on his face and fresh air in his
lungs, Hans would want for nothing, his needs met, the trauma of being held
hostage by a merciless ocean a far-distant memory.

The sense of not being alone interrupted Hans’ muse, and, although
irrational, he got up off his sleeping bag to check it out. When he crawled
into the doorway to scan the horizon for the umpteenth time that evening, the
scabs on his knees ripped off, seeing him wince in further agony. In this damp
environment the sores never got a chance to heal and the red raw patches had
turned into ulcers that oozed pus and grew larger by the day.

In the blackness he could just make out the contrast between
sea and sky. No ships lay ahead or to the right of the opening. He kicked
himself for his pathetic false hope, for acting like a child who keeps sneaking
out of bed on Christmas Eve in the hope it will make the big day arrive sooner.

Out of bitterness and frustration he considered ignoring the
left-hand side of the vista, but the obsessive-compulsive regime of raft life saw
him unable to resist. He leant out around the canopy and, after a cursory
glance, was about to retreat inside when a red dot caught his eye.

A ship! Definitely a ship!

It was heading straight for them.

Flustered, heart pounding, Hans fought to compose himself,
the pain racking his body for days miraculously disappearing. He paddled the
raft around so the doorway faced their rescuers and then retrieved the strobe
light from its mesh holder. Fingers trembling, he switched it on and, after clipping
it to the outside of the canopy, fumbled with the lid of the Poly Bottle
containing the flares.

“Rescue, Jessie! We’re being rescued!”

“Can we play Bop Rabbit again with Penny, Papa?” She looked
at him in earnest.

“We can play Bop Rabbit, sweet pea, and . . .”

Hans grabbed a pint can of water and peeled off its plastic
lid. He reached into his pocket, pulled out Jessica’s clasp knife and spiked it
through the top of the can twice. After placing it in her lap, he grabbed a
parachute flare.

Whoomph!

The fiery red ball soared skyward and turned in a graceful
arc before beginning its illuminating descent back to earth.

The vessel drew nearer.

Hans judged it was not approaching them directly but would
pass at an angle some distance away. He reconciled himself with the notion the skipper
had obviously spotted their plight but decided to intercept the raft’s drift from
downwind to avoid any last-minute complications. To acknowledge the unspoken yet
understood arrangement, he fired off another flare.

By now the deep rumbling of the ship’s engines eclipsed all
other sounds, engulfing the tiny raft in an atmosphere of exhilaration. A
thousand thoughts ran through Hans’ mind, his soul enraptured by the prospect
of closure. In addition to the red navigation light, he could now make out a
green and a white one too, as well as the sodium-yellow glow of the bridge lighting
as it radiated salvation from the block-shaped superstructure on deck. To celebrate,
he spiked the lid of another pint can, guzzling its contents in homage to emancipation
from the ocean’s cruel grip and the further luxuries soon to be bestowed upon
them by a welcoming crew.

As if to seal the deal, he let rip one more flare, reveling
in its profligate flight and reassuring red blossom, feeling certain the vessel
would slow at any second.

It thundered right on by.

In horror Hans witnessed the unmanned bridge, like that of a
ghost ship, passing just fifty yards away, with no welcoming committee lining
the decks ready to receive them. He fired off another flare and then another
and another in hopes a crew member might be smoking a cigarette on the
quarterdeck and raise the alarm.

Oblivious to Hans and Jessica’s plight, their best chance of
rescue slipped into the conspiring night.

Hans slumped back in the raft, his whole being telling him
to scream aloud, to purge his anguish and not stop screaming until the vestiges
of life drained from his useless body. Instead sheer shock and confusion saw
him sit in silence, staring into the Poly Bottle to see all of the parachute flares
gone. The pint can of water had spilled in Jessica’s lap.