Invasion USA 3 - The Battle for Survival (54 page)

“Sounds like a great idea, thank you,” responded Admiral Stroud. “I’ll get my engineers to work out something to help the war effort.” He smiled. “They sure don’t have much equipment to work on right now and I need hundreds of projects to get my men focused and help them stop worrying about family and future. We have a hundred engineers working on our local nuclear power station here in southern Virginia, 17 miles north of Newport News, and we were wondering what we could use the electricity for. I know of a dozen places around here where they had just installed electric power points for these new vehicles last year; I’ll get my men to visit the places and move them onto base. Any chance of getting an F-14 Tomcat on electric power?” he joked. ”We have 24 of the early Tomcats which were retired in 2001. They are being stripped of all modernized equipment and we are searching our storage facilities for their old parts. To date we haven’t found where they are located, because naturally, the computers are down. We have over twelve acres of storage warehouse space here at Oceana and another several warehouses at Naval Station Norfolk, where we are going. We have found some very interesting stuff, though and will have a dozen or more helicopters operational in a month, as well as several old DC-3 transporters and two 1976 Lockheed Orion Hurricane Hunters; not much use for fighting wars, but I’m sure the Hurricane Hunters will be valuable in hurricane season.”

They reached the Navy yard and sailed through the gate. Preston noted that there was an air strip in the Navy yard itself and wondered why they had flown into Oceana. He assumed that Admiral Stroud was in charge of Oceana and Admiral Rogers, who was at sea, was based at the shipyard itself.

Within ten minutes they saw Mo’s ship tied up in a small harbor and away from any navy vessels. To Preston, it certainly looked like there was something not right with Mo’s vessel. The masts were too short for such a large vessel. He didn’t know much about ships, but the view of her just looked sort of odd.

Inside, the ship was very roomy and comfortable. Preston could see why Mo wanted to keep it. No expense had been spared on the interior and a family could quite happily live aboard a floating vessel of this size. Clint was wheeled aboard and his wheelchair stowed. It wouldn’t work aboard ship. Clint felt that he would get used to the moving ocean and thought that it might even help him with stability.

The ship’s interior was as they had left it nearly a month earlier. Any food remaining was in the still-working freezer and the girls had unpacked the refrigerators of any food that would go bad before they had left.

There was rice, lots of it, and enough frozen fish to get them to Cape Hatteras. Electrical power from an outside military generator on the quay next to the ship was keeping the vessel live with power and nothing had been moved, or taken from the ship.

Mo checked the gun room, as he called it, and the weapon storage areas. He had used much of the ammo during the fight with the pirates, but he still had enough for another fight if need be.

Admiral Stroud told them that they would be escorted out of Willoughby Bay by an old pilot boat they had got working again.

“It’s not difficult, we are right on the Atlantic and I’ve left naval information for you if you need to contact us and/or return here Mr. Wang. If you want to try to catch some fish for dinner, the Gulf Stream is around 50 miles east of here and it closes with Hatteras as it goes south. The Gulf Stream is only 25 to 30 miles off Ocracoke, 150 miles south of us and then you can go straight in on a westerly course from there. Your diesel tanks are full. I also had a captain check out your navigation maps and instruments, Mr. Wang; you certainly have enough working equipment to pinpoint your location and destination. And, if you decide you want to give her to anybody, or if you don’t need her any time soon, let me be the first in line.”

Mo thanked the admiral and he left with his group of aids walking behind him. A small pilot boat whistled at them from the harbor entrance and the girls got ready to throw the lines while Mo started the smaller engine. Marie had taught him how to maneuver a ship of this size away from the concrete wharf which could easily damage her. Beatrice let go of the aft ropes and Mo gently eased on gentle reverse power turning the rudder to use it, and the forward ropes to slowly swing the vessel away from the quay, its aft section pointing away from the concrete. Once the ship was at a descent angle he shifted her to inch forward to slacken the ropes, allowed Marie to jump aboard, and he then inched it in reverse, away from the hard quay.

There wasn’t much room, but Marie climbed into the bridge to check on his progress.

“Good job so far, Mo. You still have 30-odd feet behind you, but your angle is right to bring her around and head for the entrance. Just stay at this speed, there is very little wind to put you off your course, so this one is easy.”

Preston was impressed with the bridge’s sailing abilities. He stood in the bridge, Clint holding onto him to prevent a fall, and watched the slow movement out of the harbor and towards open water.

The breeze from the north did hit them once they waved at the pilot boat twenty minutes later and they headed out into the ocean. It wasn’t more than ten to fifteen miles an hour, slightly chilly, and Mo started the larger engines, turned off the small one and their speed increased as they headed out to the Gulf Stream. It would take the eighty-foot Cutter three hours to get out there.

How much fuel does she carry?” asked Preston. Marie had disappeared to get the fishing rods ready. There was enough time to setup rods as they cruised towards the warmer fishing waters.

“We still don’t really know, as I’ve never filled the tanks, but Marie believes that we carry a lot, enough for about 40 hours of fast cruising,” Mo replied, now happy that he had his baby back.

“And what is fast cruise?” asked Preston.

“What we are doing right now,” replied Mo. “At high cruise we are at 16 knots. Marie needed to keep up with the Frigates when they found us in Florida, and she averaged 18 knots with them complaining how slow we were. At one time I got her up to 21 knots at full power for three hours and the fuel in one tank lost a third in that short time. The Colombian Navy had diesel fuel on board and filled our tanks twice while we sailed up here.”

Three hours later the lines went into the water, the depth gauge showed a massive undersea drop-off, the wind stilled, and a faint warming breeze was felt from the south. Beatrice, at the helm, turned southwards, using the small motor to trawl at five knots.

Marie was the first to hear her line spin out just before dusk and everybody ran out to see what monster she was pulling from the deep. It was a pretty small shark, about five feet long, and as she expertly negotiated its release, they went back to figuring out what to drink to toast the sunset.

The second hit was on the same rod, just as the sun was about to drop into the watery horizon. Marie had a glass of chilled white wine in her hand which she handed to Mo, and swung herself into the single fishing chair, while Preston and Mo reeled in their lines so as not to get them tangled. Then the fight began.

As she hit the fish, now at least a quarter of a mile behind the boat, the sharp pull nearly dragged her over and into the water. Preston and Mo grabbed her and she hung on and finally managed to get seated and move her legs onto the bow wall to help her fight the fish.

“I hope it’s not another bloody shark!” stated Marie, fighting the bending rod to keep it upright. “It’s not that big; I’ve felt bigger than this one before.”

For an hour she strained to work the fish closer and closer to the boat. The sun was gone and lights were switched on over the bow area so that everybody could see the battle. Clint and Little Beth were transfixed at the fight this poor fish was putting up. Neither had been to sea before and this was a totally new experience to them.

Finally they saw a vivid blue shape majestically rise out of the water a couple of hundred feet behind the boat.

“Yippee!” shouted Marie. “A blue marlin and a small one from what I saw, about six to seven feet. My husband caught one which was eleven feet, and it took him three hours to bring it in. This is my first one.”

“It looks really mean,” shouted Little Beth “it’s not going to sword fight us is it?”

“That’s a lot of fish!” added Clint, as excited as Marie. Mo grabbed two gaffs and handed one to Preston.

They waited until Marie brought the tired fish alongside and they both gaffed the fish, one on either end and struggled to bring the writhing creature over the railing. Mo expertly took a second straight and sharp-tipped wooden pole from the several underneath the rear wall of the bow and sunk it into the brain of the fish. After a few seconds it stopped moving.

“Seven feet ten inches,” stated Mo measuring the fish with the same pole which had measuring marks etched on it. “It must weigh about 300 pounds. A young one, but the steaks will be very tasty.

He pulled out a knife and a saw from another compartment and began gutting and cleaning the fish. Mo was the expert for this operation, and everyone gave him room. Little Beth, looking ill, had her face tilted to the heavens with her eyes closed; she must have been saying a silent prayer for the fish.

Within 30 minutes, Mo had decent-sized steaks cut with the saw and they began lifting the head and tail over the side.

“Mind the sharks,” he warned as bits and pieces went into the water. “I had a pretty close encounter with a big fellow on the way to America.”

With buckets of sea water they cleaned the rear deck space of blood and meat and Clint looked over the side searching for the sharks which never made an appearance.

They ate well that night: marlin steaks, rice and canned vegetables and spices Mo had purchased in Honduras. The entire group ate less than a third of the meat harvested from the fish, and the rest was squeezed into the freezers. There was not much room left.

The trip had been planned for three days and they spent the second day lazing in the warm sun, swimming off the side of the boat. Preston caught his fish during late afternoon; it was a three-foot dolphinfish and would be great eating. There was no room in the freezers for anymore and Mo gutted the fish and tied it to the railing.

Mo caught another dolphinfish, slightly larger than Preston’s, the following morning an hour before he planned to turn westwards towards Ocracoke, now 26 miles away and directly off their starboard bow.

The boat turned slowly, the lines again out behind them, when Preston’s rod screamed as its reel line spun out, and the other two lines were pulled out of the way. This time it was Preston who was nearly pulled overboard as he hit the “halt” catch and stopped the line spinning out. It took every muscle in his body to hold the fish. His legs, braced on the rear wall of the bow, strained and his blood vessels swelled as the fish fought to continue its forward and downward movement.

Realizing that something was hindering its movement, the fish shot to the surface, which gave Preston a quick breather, and as the fish launched out of the water, its head and sword held high, everyone together shouted, “It’s another blue marlin!”

“And bigger than mine,” added Marie. “Good luck, Preston, I hope you are fit enough. She looks all of ten feet.”

For two solid hours Preston worked hard to pull in the fish. It rose majestically three times and twice dived so hard Marie suggested Preston let it go for a couple of seconds before halting its movement. The fish, tired, made one last rise out of the water, Marie showed Preston how to pull the rod up so that the fish belly-flopped onto its side instead of gracefully entering the blue water and diving deep.

It still took another hour to get it to the side where all four adults had to hold onto it with four gaffs and struggled to lift it over the side.

“Nine feet eleven inches!” stated Mo excitedly. Let’s call it ten feet and about 500 pounds, I bet. Now you see why I would like to live and fish around here; I will never starve.

This time Preston helped Mo gut and clean the last two fish as Beatrice headed the ship towards the coastline. Barbara was to pick them up before dark in the Pilatus at the Ocracoke airfield.

They had the three fish tied to the railing as they slowly entered the quiet and empty harbor of the town of Ocracoke two hours later. They slowed to a crawl and kept within the markers of the narrow deep water inlet allowing them to enter the Pamlico Sound, the only route to the harbor. It was only twenty feet deeper than the vessel itself.

It was just after one and the place seemed deserted. Since ferries had often used the harbor to load and unload vehicles, the walls were strong and high.

Preston suggested an empty wharf deep inside the small port and big enough for the Cutter to side up to it. Marie, the most experienced person on the bridge, took over and slowly maneuvered the ship towards its new berth. Mo, Beatrice and Preston jumped out to handle lines and the ship was tied up tightly. Large black tires kept the ship from touching the thick wooden decking, and Marie closed down the small engine.

Preston looked around. There was no one to be seen until he noticed movement a few hundred feet along the wharf, and a single old man with a scraggly beard appeared. Preston beckoned him to come forward.

Carefully the old man walked towards the ship and seemed to feel better when he saw that a couple of the crew were female.

“You can’t tie up there, that’s a private dock. Belongs to a fellow from Charlotte,” stated the man.

“When was the fellow last here?” Preston asked the man.

“About a year back,” the man replied. “He is sailing the Indian Ocean and is expected back sometime this year. He’s a navy admiral and is in charge of one of our big navy fleets. He was supposed to be somewhere in the Indian Ocean aboard an aircraft carrier. That’s his house, the second one in the converted warehouse right next to where you are standing.”

Preston looked at the building. He could see that improvements had turned the building into nice accommodations on the second floor about ten feet above where he was standing.