They were also taking spray over the starboard side. “Can you nose her a little more into the wind, Chief?”
“Can do, XO,” Mark said. “Helm, bring her around to one-two-five.”
“One-two-five, aye.”
The Sojourner Truth, great ride that she was, responded instantly to the new course, water from both propellers hitting the rudder full force, bow pulling to port, slicing neatly through the heavy seas. With the bow taking the brunt of the southeast gale, the deck immediately aft of the hangar had a little more shelter. It helped, but it was still going to take another thirty minutes to get the helo ready for launch.
There was another potential problem, Sara thought, watching the salt spray hit the foredeck. She turned her head to look at the status board, where Tommy was marking their new course and speed. Barometric pressure was 99.2 and falling. She looked out on deck.
The chief followed her gaze. “We making ice?”
“Not yet,” Sara said.
A half hour later the aviators were buttoned into the helo, the captain gave the go, and they were up and off a few minutes later. The Sojourner Truth resumed her former course, all ahead full for the south shore of St. George. “How long before we get there, Tommy? Sara said.
Tom’s eyes went out of focus as she calculated. “It’s about a hundred miles to the location of the sinking, we’re doing”-she glanced up at the Transas screen-“fifteen knots.” She looked at Sara. “A little under six hours, XO.”
“Thanks,” Sara said, and went to stand next to the captain’s chair, feet spread to ride out the plunging motion of the ship. No one was taking a step without holding on to or leaning up against something.
He looked at her. “All assholes and elbows today, eh, XO?”
She was slightly shocked at the use of profanity, but recovered enough to say reproachfully, “I thought that was an aviator’s expression, sir, unbecoming a sailor.”
The corners of his mouth quirked. She saw it, and dared to smile. “I just hope we don’t get something else thrown at us today, XO.”
Ostlund touched his headset, listened, and spoke into the mike around his neck. “Captain, the helo has their man and is on its way to the St. Paul clinic.”
Everyone raised binoculars. The hull of the Chugiak Rose was by now the barest line appearing and reappearing on a violent green horizon, but the bright orange of the helicopter showed briefly as it sped toward the island, which also kept appearing and reappearing in the mist and the sleet. It was getting dark, too.
“Lieutenant Sams says the guy’s in a bad way. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Best speed for the clinic,” the captain said, “all they’ve got.”
“Aye aye, sir. Lieutenant Sams wants to know if they should refuel when they get to the island and then go look for the Terra Dawns crew.”
The captain looked again at the southeastern horizon. It looked not just dark, Sara thought, but black with ill-tempered weather. “Tell them yes. Tell them to take a run right after they deliver the injured man to the clinic, see if they can get some idea of what direction the rafts are drifting.”
Probably onshore, Sara thought, as the wind was blowing from the southeast. It would depend on how far to the west off the coast of St. George they had foundered, though.
“After which they are to return to base, refuel again, and stand by. We’ll recover them when the weather eases up.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
They came abeam of the Lee Side, the inflatable bobbing between them, and pulled the bow around enough to give the small boat as much shelter as could be found in seas like these. Shortly afterward Hank Ryan was on the bridge, making his report to the captain. The ensign was not pleased. “They could have handled it themselves, sir. There were five of them and one of him.”
“He had a weapon, they said.”
“Yes, sir, but not a nine-millimeter automatic.”
“What was it, then?”
“A twenty-two pistol that hadn’t been cleaned in twenty years. If he’d tried to fire, it would have blown up in his hand. Always assuming he’d thought to load it first.”
“I thought that they said he was firing at them.”
Ryan shook his head. “They were mistaken, sir.”
“We sent ten men and a small boat in twelve-foot seas to go to the rescue of a ship’s crew held hostage at the point of an old, unloaded twenty-two pistol?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a long, thoughtful silence on the bridge, which lasted through a complete swing of the pendulum, all the way to port, all the way to starboard.
“Maybe we could bill them,” Sara said.
Nobody laughed, but then Sara hadn’t been joking.
The door to the bridge opened and closed, and a seaman brought a slip of paper to Ops. He read it, and read it again. Sara, watching him, caught his eye. He held out the slip of paper. She read it. She, too, read it twice. She returned it to Ops and took an unobtrusive step back, she hoped far enough out of range.
Ops gave her a look of burning reproach, waited for the tilt of the deck to be right, and then stepped up to take Sara’s place next to the captain’s chair. “Captain, we’ve just received a message from District.”
The captain swiveled to give Ops a quizzical look. “Do not tell me what I don’t want to hear, Ops.”
“Sorry, sir. District says a Here on the last patrol found a fishing vessel over the line. They want us back up there.”
Captain Lowe was not a man given to public invective, but Sara, standing a little behind him, did notice his ears begin to redden. He slid to the deck and said curtly, “I’ll be in my cabin.”
“Aye aye, sir,” she said smartly.
The door closed behind him.
“Cap’n below,” Tommy said.
Ops looked at Sara. “Think he can talk them out of it?”
“Whoever talked District out of anything?” If Sara hated anything about the Coast Guard, it was that operational decisions were made on shore. The job was difficult enough without someone looking over your shoulder from Juneau.
It didn’t help to know that the fishing vessel in question would be long gone by the time they got there. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t have seen the Here and known what that meant.
Ops said tentatively, “He could always just say no.”
“He could,” Sara said, and left it at that.
Lowe wouldn’t, and they both knew it. “Get me a weather report for the Maritime Boundary Line,” she told Ops, and followed the captain below.
JANUARY
BY A MIRACLE THEY had picked up every single crew member of the Terra Dawn, close enough to St. George that the small boats were able to ferry them in and drop them off in St. George’s harbor. “It was one hell of a ride in, though,” Ryan told Sara.
It was the first time in the twelve months he’d been assigned to the Sojourner Truth that Sara had seen the young ensign look tired. “Hit the sack,” she told him. “You can write your report tomorrow. We’re underway for the line. Holiday routine until we get there.”
“Aye aye, XO.” He gave her a tired smile and stumbled below.
They plowed northwestward for the rest of the night. No aids-to-navigation malfunctions were reported, no fishermen fell overboard, and no skippers went apeshit, which marginally mollified the tone of the e-mails coming at them from District, and, more important, let the crew catch up on their sleep. FSO Kyla Aman worked a heroic fourteen-hour shift in the galley, producing, among other various and succulent things, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, Rice Krispy treats frosted with a melted mixture of chocolate and butterscotch chips, and strawberry shortcake, dedicating mess cooks to carry trays of said bounty up to the bridge, the wardroom, and the engine room as well as putting out loaded trays in the crew’s mess. It was amazing how the aroma of baked goods lightened the crew’s mood.