“Hi, I’m Dr. Elizabeth.”
Al stiffly stood, and made a point of wiping his grease-stained right hand on his coveralls, before pulling down the bill of his sailor’s cap and issuing a mock salute.
“Pleased to meet ya. Doc. The name’s Alphonse Cloyd. But please, call me Al.”
Dr. Elizabeth scanned the wooden stern and curiously peered into the engine compartment.
“How’s she been runnin’, Al?”
“Sunshine’s a lot like her master. Doc. She just keeps movin’ right along, slowly but surely. So don’t you worry none, she’ll get us there sure no ugh “I believe she will,” said the psychic, who read the truth of this promise in the black man’s honest face.
Mimi boarded the boat, and carefully handed the cage to its owner. Dr. Elizabeth wasted no time opening the wire-grill door, and Isis strolled onto the deck.
The cat contentedly stretched, and then was kept busy with the assortment of scents that permeated her new home.
“My, what a beautiful pussycat,” commented Al.
“When I was a lad, we once had a big white cat who used to hang out down by da docks. Boy, did it ever get friendly when it got to be time to cut up da day’s catch.”
“Isis just loves fish, Al,” replied Dr. Elizabeth.
“Then she certainly came to da right place, Doc, because I’ve got a locker just plumb full of fresh bonito fillets, just waitin’ for her.”
Mimi returned to the dock for her bag, then stowed it away in the boat’s interior cabin. The cramped compartment featured a tiny private bathroom, a small galley, complete with a hot plate, a table with four wooden chairs, and two bulkhead-mounted sofas that doubled as beds. The only artwork present was a poster, tacked to the wall beside the kitchen area. It showed a large, swampy expanse of water, with a flat bottomed John boat floating on it. A pair of shabbily dressed black fishermen occupied this vessel, and it was Al who explained this poster’s significance while he was preparing them some tea.
“That’s a scene right outta my childhood, ladies.”
Mimi and Dr. Elizabeth were gathered around the table, and it was the psychic who politely probed.
“Where were you raised, Al?”
“Florida’s Lake Okeechobee,” answered Al proudly.
“I was born in Port Mayaca, just a stone’s throw from da water. My, oh my, was that some wild place in those days. We had gators comin’ right up to da front door, and you never saw so many snakes in all your life.”
“Sounds dangerous,” remarked Mimi.
“Not really,” returned Al.
“My pappy taught us to respect nature, and da only critters we had any trouble with were da mosquitoes. I soon enough learned that skunk oil would take care of them, and I spent my childhood without so much as a snake bite.” “I envy you,” said Dr. Elizabeth.
“I grew up in the wilds of Brooklyn. A city of that size didn’t have much nature to offer — an occasional songbird and plenty of rats and roaches.”
“I don’t mean to be nosy, or anything, but what’s callin’ you to da waters off Andros?” asked Al, as he wiped chipped ceramic mugs, none of which matched.
“I know dat it’s not for da fishin’.”
“That’s for sure,” answered Dr. Elizabeth with a chuckle.
“The closest that I ever want to get to a fish is my dinner plate.”
“Then why go to all da expense of charterin’ this boat?” continued the oldtimer.
“Al, you look to me like you’re a man of some religion,” observed Dr. Elizabeth.
Al pointed to the ceiling and replied to this.
“I respect and fear da Lord — if dat’s what you mean, Doc?”
Dr. Elizabeth nodded and directly met the black man’s curious stare.
“Al, I guess you could say that we’ve chartered your boat for some very special prayers.
All that we ask is that you leave us alone when these prayers begin, and that you guarantee us absolute quiet.”
“I can certainly handle dat. Doc,” replied Al, who poured a spoonful of loose tea into each of the mugs and then filled them with hot water.
“I thought you could,” said Dr. Elizabeth, while catching Mimi’s furtive glance.
Al served them their tea, and began whistling as he proceeded to pull a dented pewter flask from his pocket. To the melodic strains of “Summertime,” he poured a good portion of the flask’s contents into his tea, then looked up and smiled.
“I’ve got some tasty red-eye sweetener here, if you’d care to join me.”
“Pour away,” instructed Dr. Elizabeth as she anxiously held out her mug.
Mimi declined this offer, but she recognized the song she’d heard in the hotel’s piano bar. It had been from Al’s lips, just yesterday.
Captain Alexander Litvinov spent most of his afternoon inside his cabin aboard the Pantera, working on his personal log. He had started keeping a diary shortly before entering the Nakhimov Naval Academy in Sevastopol. The early days of his military career had been exciting, and he was glad that his father had recommended that he document this portion of his life.
He had kept on writing, and he couldn’t count the number of small, spiral notebooks that he had filled with his impressions and exploits.
Alexander hoped someday to combine these books into a cohesive account, and then have it published.
For he was living proof that no matter how humble one’s beginnings were, there was always the opportunity to better oneself.
Forty-two years ago, he had been born in the small Siberian town of Bratsk. His parents were both Kievbred engineers, who had volunteered to work on the Angara River hydroelectric facility. This was in the days when the pioneer Communist spirit swayed the hearts of young and old, and his parents spent the rest of their lives attempting to harness the wild rivers of Siberia, to obtain clean, inexpensive electrical power.
Alexander’s fate was sealed the day his father took him on a weekend fishing trip to the shores of Lake Baikal. Never had the impressionable youngster seen anything like this lake, the largest fresh-water body on the entire planet. The surging waves entranced him, and when his father told him of other bodies of water called oceans, which made Lake Baikal look like a mere pond in comparison, Alexander knew that his destiny lay at sea.
Soon after entering middle school, he joined the All-Union Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Navy, otherwise known as the DOSAAF. This paramilitary club did much to prepare him both physically and mentally for his chosen career. Because of his excellent grades and spotless disciplinary record, his application for enrollment in the Nakhimov Academy was accepted, and on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, he left Bratsk to become a man of the world.
He then broke the seal of his first diary, to record his journey on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. This was a great adventure, and he fought the urge to sleep, so eager was he not to miss a sight.
His father’s stories did little to prepare him for the immensity of their country. It took a week just to reach the Ural mountains. From there a rail journey of several more days was needed to reach Stalingrad, Dnepropetrovsk, and finally, Sevastopol.
The Nakhimov Academy was situated on the shores of the Black Sea, and Alexander initiated his studies with one eye on the sparkling blue waters. Four years later, he graduated number one in his class, and received his first junior assignment, aboard a diesel powered training submarine, based on the Baltic Sea, outside of Leningrad.
To get there, he boarded another train, and saw yet more of the rodina with memorable stops in Odessa, Kirov, and Moscow itself. Though he had only a day to spare, his hasty tour of the capital brought him to the Kremlin and the grave of the Soviet Union’s founder.