Norwesh: Forst Chapter

Chapter ONE

Wretched weather&;#8230;dusk brought a storm that roared over the
North Sea. The sea was pewter, and the waves fell on the bow of the
shrimp trawler in a rough, white spray. An endless silver-gray shrouded
the horizon and I was happy to have worn my rain poncho. I stood on the
open lookout above the pilothouse, breathing the salty brine of the
ocean and listening to the wind howl, as it whipped the wild waters
into chaos. The weather did not bother me much. Besides, it was fun to
watch the refugees onboard bend over the side to relieve their
stomachs; some went back below with dinner spit-up on their uniforms.
It was not their nature to be out on the mighty deep for more than two
days, for they were landlubbers.

We had little rest during the long month of October 1941, engaged in
furtive attempts of escape through battle-infested waters to reach
Great Britain in the storm. Two days ago, our boat's engine sat damaged
beyond repair. My shrimp trawler was no glamorous showpiece with its
old wooden decks and the motor engine thrown in with many years of
service by its previous owner. I bought the boat old and cheap. I did
not buy it to transport war refugees, so there were not enough bunks to
accommodate more then twenty heads. I made many of the British officers
sleep in the hold of the vessel on sacks of flour; they did not like
it, but the Germans forced a change in my plans with their war against
Norway. I renamed her, "Sea Bastard," thinking it would fit the
troubles of these damnable times.

The British passengers were starting to get on my bad side, when our
engine went kaput. They told me to perform an act of miraculous
reasoning to pull us through. I told them to pluck their own brains out
of their behinds, for I was not the genius type, having dropped out of
Princeton during my second year to go into the Army. As a little boy in
Russia, my mother struck me with a paddle every time I began to read a
book of mathematics for my school. But I could not blame her. In those
days people only thought of the Revolution and how they were going to
bring Bolshevism into the country, so she gave me novels supporting the
cause. Until I moved to America with high expectations, writing became
my only skill and then there was failure, too, if one calls failure a
skill. When I thought I had found my purpose in shrimp catching, the
Germans started their foolish war. They stole men from my trawler to
fight amongst their militias and left me alone to deal with the
transportation of officers from the Royal Kingdom across the Atlantic
for their vendettas in espionage against the Nazis.

Only one man remained from my old crew of shrimp catchers. Standing
behind me on the lookout was a brawny Norwegian, Eric Heggland. He came
to where I stood, a red toy spaniel snug between his left armpit and an
almost-spent bottle of rum held at the neck in his right hand. It was
hard for him to hold the animal due to the rolling of our boat, and the
dog gave a bark as he grabbed a handful of its silken hair.

"You know, Leo," he said in his deep Norwegian accent. "We cannot have
dog here."

"Whose is it?" I asked.

"A British officer's."

"Do you want the mutt?"

"Yes, can I keep it?" He touched the moist black nose of the small
animal just to see if she would snap. The mongrel let out a yelp but
did not bite.

"Let the poor thing down," I said. "Don't you see it's
frightened?"

The trawler lurched to port caught on the wrinkle of a wave and I
grabbed on tightly to the railing, hoping that I would not fall.

The furry body wriggled about in agitation within Eric's hands. The dog
had enough of being held after the unsettling roll, so Eric bent over,
but instead of letting go, he fitted her head with a small white
girlish bonnet. The dog looked silly, her shaggy red ears hidden behind
the straps and the white cloth snug and frilled around her small fuzzy
face. She was the epitome of an old peasant lady with scarlet whiskers.
He released his hold over the dog's long spotted coat, watching her run
about the lookout in play.

"I made a little hat for it, so she can look pretty. Cut up one of them
officer's shirts and made good bonnet for Missy."

"You've been drinking again?" I asked.

"Yes, but no more liquor in stores. We stop to get more."

He was wearing a skipper's black-brimmed naval cap he had stolen from
some officer down below. He threw the empty bottle over the railing
when he saw me look at him.

"Leo! No more drink. Jump out and bring back more."

"Why don't you jump yourself?"

Eric stood tall and muscular in the storm and under the brim of the cap
his blonde hair had the look of burnt wheat. His cheekbones were a
brighter crimson than the rest of his face and were sunken, as if he
had not eaten for weeks.

"I thought about it," he said, scratching his scrawny beard. "But you
better swimmer than I."

"You're drunk as hell and don't know what you want."

"I will throw you over." He wrapped his hands around my waist and tried
to lift me, but my weight of muscle was too much for him.
"Jump over, American! Get us some drink from the Deutsches! "

"Stop, you crazy fool! You'll not have a captain to pilot this
boat."

"Do you not hear it?" He cupped his hand around his ear.

"What?"

"The sea? It say it hate you, for we have no drink." He bent over the
railing to look at the tooth-bow of the pitching boat as it sank into
the bottom of a swell. He laughed. "The sea's even hungry like me!" he
hollered over the howl of the gust, putting his hands around my stomach
again to try to throw me over.

The villagers had a name for Eric; he was their " drunk mountaineer."
In his homeland he was a man who could travel fast and light-footed
hundreds of miles through the hills, nourished only by liquor and the
drive to find more. He had won many contests on skis in Norway, winning
only to get drunk at the parties that followed his victories. What I
saw of him gave me the impression that this love was greater than any
urge he held for life or women. His blood ran with liquor.

I took my hands off the steel railing and turned to him with a wrinkled
grin.

"Eric," I said.

"Yes. What you want?" His voice was high and raspy, his cap soaked from
the sea spray.

"Don't you want beer from the British lassies?"

"No, I want Deutschland beer."

"Deutschland beer?"

"Yes. Only beer."

"Never heard of it."

"Beer made by Deutsches is what is called real beer, the best. No one
else make good beer."

"Uh-hum. Maybe that's good. Saves you getting tipsy all the time. Maybe
it'll clean you up if you try something new&;#8230;something that
isn't that cheap filth you drink in Norway you insist telling me every
day is good."

"Cheap?" He was sitting on the short steel rail of the starboard side,
his legs spread in front of him.

"Uh-hum."

"Filth?"

"Yeah."

"What do you drink, American&;#8230;seawater?"

"No, no, my friend, I have a drink that'll knock your boots off and I
make it with my own ingredients."

"What? Do you have this drink?"

"Yeah. But it'll knock your boots off. I don't think you can handle
it."

"Knock your boots off. Heh, heh. I do not say you talk of me. It will
knock my boots off? Heh, heh."

Eric wore a small waistcoat of blue cotton with large black buttons,
open over his hairy chest. His breast looked like a forest with its
wild curls of golden fluff, and the tips of the strands were wet with
droplets from the sea.

"Aren't you cold?"

"Cold? Hah!"

Then he leaned too far back on the short railing, falling off, and in
mid-flight I grabbed onto his coat flap to catch him.

"Don't let go!"

"I got y'a!"

His body was dangling in the free air, arms flung wide at me trying to
catch my wrists. His chest slammed into the pilothouse and he let out a
monstrous burp, as he screamed, "Please no fall!"

"Enough with that." I laughed and pulled him back up with a sharp jerk
on his collar, but his eyes still kept the wide look of
near-tragedy.

"Whoa! Too close for me. Maybe next time I save you from swim."

"You better."

"And what of this drink, American?"

I gave him a shove in the shoulder. "Let's go have a look at it down in
my cabin."

We leaped over the railing and onto thin steps that led down to
topside. The toy spaniel, still wearing the white bonnet, followed us
until it caught the scent of something in a cranny cut out of a
baseboard under the pilothouse. I walked restlessly to the side of our
vessel and tried to keep my feet steady on the wet planks. I turned and
looked toward the bow. White foam flew in the air from where the boat
made a crash into the bottom of a hungry swell, and some of the
freezing water splashed on my face and shoulders. I was wearing two
wool sweaters under the coat, and the outside was icing my body numb.
Eric did not mind it and had already knelt down to lift up a loose
plank. He threw the board aside, then got up to wait for me above the
opening that led below. I nodded to him to go down the gangway before
me, but he stood there in his drunken stance with his arm hanging
limply in front of him and his leg out to steady the weight of his body
upon the deck.

"Go down, you fool!"

"But I&;#8230;"

"Get down."

He slid on the wet wood and fell backwards into the hole.

"Aw, the bastard!"

He dove with a loud clatter, as his chest and legs smacked against what
sounded like every ladder step, then hit bottom with a loud metal
clang.

"Oh no!"

I ran to the opening, looked down the gangway and found Eric fumbling
back up to his feet, scratching his head to ease the pain.

"Are you all right?"

"Bah, it is nothing."

"Nothing? You just about hit every ladder step with that fall."

"I hit lucky steps."

"Yeah," I said, going down the ladder and replacing the board over the
well after my body was inside.

"I start to dislike this British here."

"Why?"

"They bring trouble."

"So you say now we ditch them?"

"No, let us wait. We wait to tomorrow."

"You know what, Eric?"

"What?"

"I'm starting to hate their guts too, especially them
officers&;#8230;them bringing their manners on the Sea Bastard, my
boat."

"Me too."

"I say throw them overboard."

"Yes, American, throw them to the fishies."

I climbed down the metal rungs quickly until reaching the ground. When
my feet hit the floorboards, I threw down the black hood from my rain
jacket onto a wooden stool. Under the dim light of the single bulb that
hung between the walls, I made strokes with numb fingers through my
blonde hair. A small mirror, strung on a chain hanging on an old crusty
nail, reminded me of how ugly I was amongst all the others. I gazed
into it and saw my weather-beaten face, red and tight with muscle, a
deep scar on my cheek sliced by the edge of a blade in a bar fight. The
still-blue eyes under thick blonde brows gave me the appearance of a
German, yet the sharp droop of my chin revealed more of my true birth
from a poor line of Russian peasants.

The cabin was stuffy with the odor of mothballs, and the wallboards
shone green. Two cots sat in the room, one on each side, and a single
bulb that hung from a steel chain lit the space from overhead. A large
desk was propped near another wooden door at the far corner of the
room, an entryway almost broken on its hinges; it had fallen to the
floor many times, to my dismay, when I went to open it in one of my
tempers.

Eric went up to the two white canvas packs lying heavy on the green
bedspread of his cot. Each rucksack looked to be over thirty pounds,
and there was a rolled-up sleeping bag tied to the top of each one.
Lying next to them were two rifles and two large robust Lanchester
submachine guns, the wood on their dark stocks gleaming under the
light. We had these things for safety reasons. I did not trust anyone,
German or British, and if something was to happen against us, we would
at least be prepared.

Eric shut a pocket flap that hung loose on one of the packs, as the
boat made a sharp roll to starboard. An empty metal magazine slid off
one of the cots and hit the floor. A deep moan sounded from the wood
around me, creaking against the stress of the angry disturbance in the
sea. The Norwegian took hold of a bedpost to keep steady his balance.
One light bulb swung wildly at him, almost claiming a hit to his
forehead.

"Hel'le olje p? oppr?rt hav," he said in his own language, after the
boat tilted back to an even keel. He went to the metal table at the
side of the cot and took out a map from a pile of papers.

"So, of this brew you make?"

"It's over in the sea chest. I'll get it for you."

I flipped open the latches of the black chest under the desk and threw
open the lid. Searching with my hands inside its dark confines, I
brought out a bottle of urine-colored liquid. Eric grabbed it from my
hands and tore open the cork with his teeth.

"Don't trick me. This is no grease or coolant for engine?"

"Now, why would I do such a thing as that?"

He brought the bottle up to his mouth. After taking a big suck on it,
he gave out a small cough.

"Too much?"

"Ack!" Eric cried, his face making a large grimace. "American! You make
good liquor. Can I drink it all for you?"

"Go ahead, you animal. It's all yours."

As he went at the liquor again, the door near the desk creaked open and
a British officer in naval blue uniform came in. He wore a large
brass-buttoned dark coat with black slacks tucked underneath. He was
rubbing his eyes while yawning, unknowing that we were in the room with
him. When he realized he was not alone, he almost fell backwards when
he saw Eric sucking at the bottle. The way the officer stood there at
the corner of the room, the large gold-braided bells of his cuffs rigid
against his sides and the small bald head, his thick black eyebrows
bowing surprised over his eyes, it almost made me want to laugh.

"I thought you ran a good clean ship, Mister Edwards," the officer said
to me, as Eric went around the room in his silly tight waistcoat, the
bottom of his bottle held high in the air and the drink almost
gone.

"Huh?" I said. "My name's not Mister Edwards. I fought in the goddamn
Army to not be called that. It's Sergeant Edwards to you."

"A poor excuse for a ser..."

"Whose boat is this?"

"Why, I was only trying to resolve a problem with morale. Just look at
your friend Eric there. Why do you allow him to just dilly-dally across
your cabin as if he's some drunkard on the streets?"

"What's wrong, sir? Haven't you seen someone drink a bottle of horse
piss?"

"Horse piss!" Eric cried, spitting out a mouthful of booze on the
officer. "You! You give me poison!"

I leaped onto Eric before he got the chance to ready a punch and
pounded his face with my fist. The officer jumped on me trying to pry
me off.

"Poison!" Eric screamed. He got a hardy hold on one of my arms, but I
was able to slam him in the chest with the other.

"Stop Eric, it's not worth it!" He was weak to my jabs and fell to the
floor, bleeding at the mouth. The British officer was unaware that we
were only play-fighting and looked at me aghast.

"Horrible! Do you have any decency whatsoever? You're all pirates, sea
bums, is what you are."

I gave the old British officer a mean look.
Eric lay on the ground swiping his hand over his bloody lip,
laughing.

The officer ran to the ladder well, his baldhead wet with sweat, scared
that he would be next.

"Don't, don't you leave yet."

"I don't wish to be here to witness his death," said the officer.
"You're a loose cannon, Mister Edwards, and I hope for our safety that
you take us to port immediately."

"It's Sergeant Edwards!"

"What a mockery you make as a sergeant. You must've been discharged,"
he said abruptly, the liquor Eric had spat on him dripping from his
chin. "It'd be a bloody mistake to even have you a private in the
British . . ."

"The British runaways?" I cut in. "The runaways that fled from Dunkirk
and let the Krauts come at you from all sides? That's what I think of
your British Army." Slowly the officer fell back against the wall. He
struck the green wood boards with a bang, then looked at me in
fright.

"I don't know what I should do," he said.

"You're an officer. You're supposed to have all the answers."

"I'll report you. I'll report this to the authorities when we reach the
coast."

"Heh, heh. He has big pocket. Look in his pocket," Eric said. He got up
from the floor and almost fell back down, dizzy after a strong roll
from the boat.

"Thieves! I'll give you none of it!" the officer cried, wiping the
spilt liquor off his uniform. "Look there, you stained my coat. It'll
never do. But what do you bloody care? None of you care for anything.
We're as safe with you as we are if this boat were commanded by a
handful of Jerries."

"We're not thieves, sir," I said. "I've stolen nothing, not even a
penny or pound from you filthy Brits. The next time you think of
calling me a Jerry, I'll radio your Royal Highness that you'll be
coming home tied around in anchor cable."

"Mist&;#8230;"

"Ah&;#8230;"

"Mister Ed..."

"Nah-uh."

"Sergeant Edwards, I fear for my safety in your presence."

"Then you, sir, are a sorry excuse for an officer."

This remark made Eric leap with his empty bottle in laughter. He shook
the thing at the officer then slammed it down on the steel desk.

I heard the shuffle of feet above us on the roof. The steps made a loud
creaking on the deck boards. Then came a mumble from one of the members
rumbling about aloft, a shout and then a louder one. I could not hear
it at first, but when I went under the ladder well, it suddenly became
clear to my ears.

"Destroyer! Destroyer off starboard bow!"

"Come on, Eric, we've got company. But you sir, stay down below. It's
safer for you down here."

"Sergeant, I'd rather stay here than be thrown overboard by one of your
awaiting scoundrels."

I reached for the ladder and went up, finding every step with quick
fingers. I did not look my way to the top and hit my head on the roof
plank.

"Ow! Damn roof. This ladder's terrible luck."

"Those lucky steps, Leo," Eric said below me. "Lucky steps."

"Don't say it. You'll send me down off my grip and on you."

"I be smooshed."

It was usually easy to push up the seal, but now I could not lift
it.

"What the?&;#8230;"

"We are stuck?"

"Stuck? The board's welded shut."

I hit the plank with strong slams with my fists, and still it would not
give. Instead, the plank shuddered with the weight of something that
had fallen on it.

"Why wonder. Someone's standing on the damn board."

"Heh, heh. We have fools on the Sea Bastard&;#8230;fools who stand
in wrong place."

"Yeah. I just made the bastard fall. But the fat boy's on the
wood."

I knocked wildly at the board. "Ahoy up there! Get off, you hooligan,
whoever you are. We need to get out!"

The board swung away and was thrown to the side by some stringy officer
with a thin wrinkled face in a British Army uniform. He took hold of my
arm and hoisted me topside.

"Captain, captain," he said quickly. "I'm sorry for standing there. I
took a dreadful fall right here on deck. I feel it was my foul footing,
but I'm so glad you're here. I've just sighted a destroyer out in the
fog. Just look for yourself, there."

"Where is it?"

The officer gave me his binoculars, the bulky kind that people only
brought on long voyages and weighed a lot in a man's hand. I looked
through the glasses at the gray horizon and the mist that hung far out
over the sea. The dank clouds came up close in the lenses. I could see
the black curl of a hungry swell roll over as if to swallow the fog.
For a moment it felt as if I was in the water. An inner sense told me
the destroyer had vanished behind this haze.

"Show me. I don't see anything but a soup."

"Over there at the starboard side." He pointed to where the slice of
our bow went up wet with breakwater thrown after a dip into a
wave.

"I see it!" Eric shouted. "I see ship!"

I jerked the binoculars to gaze over where Eric was hopping and
hollering for me to look. Through the lenses, I saw come out of the fog
a long, dark shadow, a massive steel hull afloat on horrendous seas.
The officer was wrong. We had a battle cruiser five thousand yards out
with a razor bow ripping a path toward our beam. It was hard to see it
in the darkness, but a bright lamp lay left burning on one of the
ship's gun batteries and I could make out its tower like superstructure
looking over the expanses. The superstructure stood tall and formidable
with lines as dark and sinister as those of a knight's steel
helmet

"Christ! We got a cruiser coming right at us. Get me the ship
recognition book!"

"I think them from Deutsches."

"But we got to make sure, don't we? Here have a look." I gave Eric the
binoculars. He bent his head over them to glare through the
lenses.

"So we have trouble on the brew?" the officer asked, his small brown
mustache twitching under the cool air. His long wool frock coat was cut
low to the top of his boots, and his white face looked pale from
seasickness.

"Yeah, get down below. I think we'll have to lose the thing in the
squalls," I said and spat on the deck.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, we'll handle this, but we need you down below. The decks are
going to get a little heavy with the sea, you know&;#8230;and I mean
heavy, if we give her all she's got."

"I wish you good luck, captain, I'll be down below."

"Yeah, sure."

This abrupt answer made the officer pause before going down. It
probably surprised him that I said words of such a careless nature in a
situation asking for a support of action.

"Go below, I tell you. We'll handle this. We'll lose them in this
mess."

"Yes, yes, I'll mind in telling you that I've grown quite sick of this
escapade. I've seen many days on the battlefield, captain. I respect
your courage and hope you get us out of this squabble. I don't want to
end my days on a destroyer full of Jerries. Oh no, that's the last
thing I wish to see." He put a boot on the top ladder step in the
gangway; it slipped and with a scream, he fell headfirst down into the
well.

"A boat from Deutsches!" Eric cried, throwing me the binoculars. "It is
German boat. We must go!"

"I had a feeling," I said.

"We leave now?"

"Yeah, get the lifeboat cut off the lines. We're going to row away from
the Sea Bastard."

"We will drown in such storm."

"Looks as if we don't have a choice."

"I will go and cut," Eric said, sprinting over to the side of the
pilothouse, where a large open catwalk held our lifeboat raised from
the deck on tackles tied off at the end of a standing steel hook. The
gray appendage hung out over the sea, the rod rusty with brown
pockmarks.

"The damn battle cruiser's coming abeam of us," I shouted.

I gave him the binoculars and went over to a small black wooden carton,
cut out from the white metal wall of the pilothouse. I hit the front of
the box with one good slam from my fist, and the corner broke in
splinters. The compact door swung apart. From within a long machete
almost fell to make a stab at my foot, before I took its dark handle
into my grip.

"Reel it down! The boat!" I yelled to him, putting the machete down on
the deck. "Send it into the water."

"Yes, Leo. We drowned bastards, we are."
Eric lunged for the edge of the canvas that lay over the lifeboat and
gave a strong tug. He brought in the whole sheet and made a ball of the
cloth in his arms.

"Get it down! We don't have much time."
Eric started reeling out the rope from the steel pulley. The sheave
gave loud creaks as the strands went through and downward, Eric letting
the slack escape from his fingers. The lifeboat fell smoothly on the
lines, hitting the sea with a quiet splash muffled by the breeze and
the crash of waves.

"Throw this on the boat." I tossed the binoculars to him and he let
them hang around his neck on the carrying strap.
He rode down the rope onto a seat in the lifeboat, then bent over to
prepare things. His face was red and hard in the cold. He took up an
oar. The paddle was long and gray and Eric felt the wood with his
fingers.

"Good here, Leo. Oars good."

"I'm coming on." Something fuzzy brushed against my leg. When I lowered
my gaze, I saw it was our little toy spaniel, wagging its wavy red tail
as it sniffed at my pants with its short nose.

"Missy!" Eric cried. "Bring her down! She come with us."

I lifted her off the ground and held her over the side, my grasp strong
enough around the belly so that she could not squirm out.

"I will catch!" Eric said.

I dropped the dog right above the Norwegian's hands, and he caught her.
The spaniel was startled by her sudden fall and shot out of his hold.
She leaped frantically under a boat seat and remained there in
hiding.

I brought up the machete that lay on the deck and tucked it into my
belt. I took hold of the rope and held the manila close to my chest.
The wind sent up a cry and made passes against the Sea Bastard as the
dark waves below drew stringy white crests.

"I'm coming down," I said to him again.

"Then do, Leo. What you wait, for British to push you?"

I went down the rope with both legs swung around, my arms guiding me
into the lifeboat. When I reached a foot onto a seat, the stern of the
lifeboat rose with the roll of a swell and fell away from me. The loss
of a solid platform caused a tumble that landed me in Eric's lap. I
looked up. The Norwegian with his scrawny chin and laughing eyes was
staring at me, my head pillow his crotch.

"Look," he said. "I gave birth to ugliest man who smell more than he
think."

"Talk about yourself. You're the worst one."

"But smell I do not."

"You smell of everything you drink." Then I got to my feet and sat on
the seat. On the side a whitecap rolled by and brought out a loud
creaking from the wooden keel. A shot of seawater spat at Eric,
drenching his waistcoat and trousers.

"Fordomme!" he shouted, standing up. The cold of the water sent him
into a furious mood. His teeth began to chatter viciously.

"Let's get away from this wreck," I said and caught hold of the rope
that kept us tied to the Sea Bastard. I grabbed the machete from my
belt and sent one good whack into the threads. The line snapped and we
broke away from our moorings.

"We forgot the packs!" Eric cried, scrambling to catch the stray line,
almost falling overboard, as he made a frantic reach.

"Oh Christ!" I said making a grab for his waistcoat. He lost his
balance and went crashing into the shell of our boat. "We can't get
them. The line's already cut."

The head of our lifeboat shot over a wave crest, and we slid down a
wall of dark water to land on but another risen hill of abysmal
blackness. In the hungry turmoil that makes the sea one must understand
the insignificance of a small vessel and a man on such a vast stretch
of continuous chaotic movement and breathing. Our bodies were but one
crumb stuck in the middle of a massive lung exhaling out mountainous
fills of bad water. The North Sea decided we were the sickness and in
its anger, thought only to destroy by drowning us.

"We must row away," Eric said. "Get your oar."

Past another climb over the back of a long swell, we dug our oars into
the sea. The Sea Bastard came near us, a sodden gray hull in the night,
the edge of a wave raising it high above the trough from where our
small lifeboat lay. The trawler made a sickening roll to port, and I
could see the window glass panes of the pilothouse vibrate against a
raining shower of spray thrown by its wild swing into the rough
ocean.

"Hurry, we must get away!" Eric shouted.

"I'm trying," I said, rowing with the strong current, attempting to
further our distance from the Sea Bastard.

A foaming white spilled over our stern and broke against my back. The
water was so cold that it felt like someone had thrown open a bag of
broken glass at my spine. The water soaked through my two sweaters and
wet my skin.

"Damn!" I said. "This damn sea!" My teeth were clicking with the
chatter of Eric's molars. "It's so freezing!"

"Look!" Eric shouted.

I gazed at the Sea Bastard, which had drifted about a hundred yards
away and saw the figure of a man on the deck. From our reach, he looked
only a shadow but I knew it was one of the British passengers. I also
discovered he could see us for he was hollering something that could
not be heard over the howl of the storm. He waved his hands in the air
as if to get our attention.

"Damn!" I shouted. "Damn! Damn!"

"They got our rifles," Eric said.

"Row, that's all we can do," I said and paused to shiver against the
cold. "We can't get close or we're done for."

Suddenly I felt weightless. Our boat was beginning an ascent on another
breaker. The prow raised almost vertical pushing Eric against me. He
wrapped his large arms tight around my waist and his husky body
quivered against mine. We rode the tail of the rolling beast, feeling
the sea push behind the rudder in force to get our boat atop the ridge
of this monstrous uprising. The surging climb threatened to flip our
boat and I could hear a deep roar sing out from the walls of the wave,
a roar nothing less ferocious than that from a lion before it leaps out
at its prey. It threatened of certain death.

END OF CHAPTER ONE....Story continues to 726 more pages.

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