He didn’t quit. She put the shotgun in his hands, and he fired at the upper decks, racked a new shell in place and fired again. At number five, he handed it back to Sue to reload, and he concentrated firing his pistol at the same place of the hull where a jagged hole grew.
I couldn’t take my eyes away. The cabin cruiser started leaning slightly to the right side, then more. It slowed and abruptly shut the engines off. We sailed away, and I reached for the binoculars. The boat already tilted farther to one side. It was almost ready to roll over and sink. People were in the water swimming for shore. The movement of our boat changed again. The engine stopped.
I ran up the four steps and found the mail sail had been extended. We were flying over the water. Steve had shut the motor down because we didn’t need it.
Steve was leaning over the side, almost his whole body lying on the side of the hull, on what should have been the steep sides of the boat but with it leaning, the sides were almost horizontal. He was looking at where we’d been hit. Sue had hold of his ankles. He called out, “Not too bad,” he decided. “A little patchwork and we’ll be fine, even if it looks ugly. The bilge pumps will handle it.”
“That’s all the damage we took?” I asked.
He rushed into the cabin with me at his heels. In the storeroom, he located a can of plastic patch repair and pried the top off. He squeezed a tube of clear liquid into it and stirred. Outside again, he ordered me to keep the boat on course and Sue held his ankles again. He scooped a palm-full of goop and slapped it on the hull, then repeated the process three more times.
He washed his hands while standing on the wooden step on the stern and it occurred to me how easily I could push him off and sail onward. I shouted, “Won’t the water wash that stuff off?”
“It’s made for patching fiberglass, even underwater.”
That made me feel better.
“We need to inspect the entire boat.” He said and started on his own. I didn’t know what to look for but pretended. I found a hole in the jib. He declared it was ripstop material so nothing to worry about for now. He didn’t mention when we should worry.
When we returned to the steering compartment again, Steve told me it was called the helm or cockpit. More of the damn sailor-talk. A steering wheel is a steering wheel. He had adjusted the sails and we were moving quickly. He said, “Sue, get on that radio and warn other boats.”
“I don’t know how. Nobody answered last time.”
“Take the wheel, Cap. Just keep her on this course.”
I took it and he showed Sue how to change channels and how to talk on the marine radio. “Warn them about the blockade at Fort Casey, the shooting and taking all boats.”
“What’s the right way to say it?” she asked.
“Just say it your way, Over and over. Every channel. People will ask questions. Try to answer but tell them people from the blockade chased us and tried to sink us. Do not under any circumstances tell them where we’re going.”
“Because they might try to go there too?” she asked.
“No. This is like talking on a community phone. Ten, twenty, or a hundred boats may hear you. Some of them will be those behind us. Good people. However, I expect the blockade to send at least one more boat after us when they find we sank that one, and the one they will send will be better armed and maybe have a steel hull.”
“Oh.” She started talking into the microphones, first one, then the other, one held in each fist.
I heard a person on a boat respond and ask her a few questions. She answered, but I was too busy to listen. They would heed our warnings or face the blockade. Their choice.
Steve returned to me, took the helm and said, “Listen, I’ve done a quick inventory and we’re in trouble.”
“Why?”
“We need ammunition and better guns that have range and power. Our propane is low and there’s not an extra tank on board. Our fuel is okay, and we’ll conserve it by using the sails. We also need bottled water and more food.”
“We have cases of water and there is dried food in containers.”
“I saw that. The problem is that you’re thinking about getting away and not thinking long term, Cap. Is that water and food we have on board going to last through spring?”
I turned the wheel slightly. His lecture and criticism were unwelcome when we should be celebrating a victory and our close call. More than one close call. We might have sailed directly into their trap, unaware if not for him.
My mood settled as his words sank in, and he had the wisdom to allow me to remain within myself as he went to check on Sue. When he returned, I apologized. “Tell me what we need to do.”
“About an hour from here, there’s a small settlement I spotted a couple of days ago. Five isolated houses in a cluster on the waterfront. I went ashore there, just long enough to make sure there were no people. It’s out of the way and in those houses will be things we need.”
“Going ashore is dangerous.”
“So is starving or swimming. We took a few rounds in the hull and the pumps are barely keeping up.”
I must have looked confused. He pointed to the rear of the boat. Water was shooting out like a garden hose with plenty of pressure. “Is that coming from inside our boat?”
“Yup.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Hope the batteries are fully charged. They’re going to need all the power they have with two pumps like that going full bore.”
“Two?” I asked dumbly.
He pointed to the other side, where another stream of water shot out in the opposite direction.
“We’re sinking?”
“The patches I made are holding, but there are other holes, probably on the other side of the hull where I couldn’t reach.” He nodded and pointed to a small jut of land off to our right. “Head for there.”
“Then what?”
He held up packets of thick, pink viscous liquid. “More emergency patches from your storeroom. We’ll break the seal between the chemicals, it’ll heat up, and glop the stuff on the hull. It’ll harden quickly, even in the water.”
I kept the boat on the course he’d indicated while he ran back inside and returned with two lifejackets. I said, “The holes are underwater? Right now?”
“That’s why we’re sinking,” he said with a hollow laugh.
“How are we going to apply the patches?”
“We’re going swimming,” he said as if it was the funniest thing he’d heard in days—and perhaps it was.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When we reached the little sheltered jut of land, I went forward and set the anchor while Steve slipped over the side. I had my lifejacket on and ran back to follow him into the water. Sue was wearing one too, although we were only a few hundred feet from shore, and she was not going in with us to make repairs.
The water was cold. So cold my fingers refused to bend, and my legs had difficulty kicking. I held the packets of repair patches while Steve squeezed the material inside the tubes back and forth to mix them. This time, he wore rubber gloves and poured the thick, yellow concoction into his palm and his hand went underwater, where his other hand had located a bullet hole.
We moved forward a foot, and his probing hand found another. We repeated the procedure six times. Then, we both inspected the waterline and below, feeling the smooth hull while trying to find another hole. The accumulated growth on the hull was limited due to the reddish paint, Steve explained. In checking a second time, he was not satisfied with one patch we’d made and placed another over the top of it.