New Homeport Island (19 page)

out, Michael said, “This is just more sea water.” and they moved
 further down the path toward us.  
Captain Artimus emerged from a shadow near the pentagon
 and called out, “Listen up. We’ve got some things that have to
 get done. Someone here will be successful in starting a campfire.
You’ve all had a good rest since our swim, and we have to get
 things going, so speak amongst yourselves and find me a team
 that can focus on getting us a camp fire.” The crowd looked
 around and there in the moonlight it was still easy enough to tell
 who was alert with their wits about them and who lay
 unconscious or was stumbling around with no sense of where
 they were.
The captain went around asking for other volunteers, he
 needed the pentagon fortified. Artimus said, “The walls have to
 go up. It may seem like trivial work, but when everyone notices
 me seeing an outrageous display of anger or resentment they
 expect me to respond. And when I don’t it establishes that
 behavior as legitimate conduct. Despite our situation I am still
 your captain and I have seen evidence of that throughout our
 time here, what was pointed out earlier regarding the fate of our
 ship, has not detracted from my social station. I will say I myself
 find the unsettling, get my walls built and I will continue to be
 what you expect me to be and are just plain demanding I be with
 your conduct.”  
Chief Brosuer said, “You heard the captain, I think we will
 overlook the outbursts we heard earlier, but in one case it was
 true enough. She is a female…a girl, and some of you just by
 your upbringing should absolutely know how to start a campfire.
Pull yourselves together!”
Captain Artimus stepped to the side of chief Brosuer and
 quietly asked, “What did I just say…?” Chief Brosuer replied,

“We’re getting that team together sir.” Artimus replied, “I said I
 was still the captain, I do the talking around here and you just
 follow my instructions.”  Brosuer retorted, “Am I not still a
 chief sir?” Artimus performed a calm down hand gesture and
 said, “Yes your still a chief.” Brosuer interjected, “Then I should
 do what chief’s do, even now as I am nearly speaking over
 you…this is what chiefs do.” Artimus sighed and said, “You
 don’t understand the pressure I am actually under, many of these
 sailors are still very much young men and women, and they
 expect that I would just have the answer.” Brosuer responded,
“As do I sir.” Artimus felt an argument coming on so he looked
 behind himself rubbed his chin as though he were in deep
 contemplation and replied, “That’s why I need you to play your
 part chief…just your part, let me worry about the rest because I
 have people for that too.” and he strolled back to his lean-to in
 the pentagon.
ET1 Sherri Specklavia looked over at the chiefs she was
 sitting with further east down the beach and said, “Okay, he’s
 taking this pentagon analogy way too far.” Senior Chief Fuay
 replied, “Maybe if we build him his walls he’ll just stay in
 there.” then he got up and started pulling the loose brush out of
 the brush line. Tim brock and Tammi Melad noticed their chief
 working at gathering materials for the walls and started pulling
 loose branches and such themselves. Tim said, “I feel like a
 beaver trying to build a dam.” Tom Norrie was just behind him
 gathering materials himself and replied, “Damn good thing.”
Mr. Lees sat huffing at the horizon, EM3 Huble called over to
 him, “stop crying.” But he wasn’t crying he was having trouble
 breathing and collapsed. Bruce Deck was nearby and saw this
 with a chuckle he walked up and asked, “Are you alright.” and
 even in the moonlight Bruce could tell the answer was ‘no’ On

an impulse not wanting to watch his friends heart fail from
 dehydration he walked away at a hurried pace as if running
 away from the emotional swell that was over coming him. As he
 fled he tripped over the vase buried in the sand and heard a
 sloshing sound. He looked into it but only saw darkness, but he
 smelled water he reached in and was startled by the reed which
 he then pulled out; noticing it was wet he sniffed at the reed and
 tasted the water. Realizing it was fresh water he sucked the reed
 and realized it was very much like a straw he sucked some water
 through it and swallowed, then suck some more into it and used
 his finger to block the end and lifted it out and blocked that end
 as well and ran it over to Roger Lees and by removing his finger
 from the ends he released the contents of the reed into Lees
 mouth. Roger gasped and contorted as the water went down and
 he gasped out “more, more.” Bruce hauled Roger over to the
 vase and he sipped through the straw, pausing briefly to ask, “Is
 this all we have?” Bruce replied, “I don’t even know where this
 came from I tripped over it.”  Roger replied, “I just need a little
 more…I’ll leave some, I think Mormus died.”  
 Bruce rushed over to Mormus and he was snoring, so
Bruce walked back, and checked for the level of the water by
 reaching in. His fingers went down about an inch and a half, but
 the vase was fairly narrow and that was likely only a couple of
 cups. Roger said, “How much more is there?” Bruce replied,
“Maybe two cups…you aren’t going to die are you?” Roger
 replied, “No…I think it was just something in my throat and my
 heart was palpitating. Roger laid there on his back while Bruce
 ran triage on dehydration victims, despite the week on the water
 no one was too near death. Bruce figured it was likely the cold
 that kept them from dehydration all that time, but now it was hot
 dry land. As Bruce walked around in the moon light, selecting

people to get some water a cloud passed over the moon and it
 became pitch black so he sat down nearly completely blind and
 waited. After about two minutes Bruce yelled out as loud as he
 could, “Who ever brought us the water, we need light too!”
 Usually the noise from over there only became a low
 roar and I couldn’t make it out unless I was all the way over by
 the ridge but that I heard. I glanced over in that direction and
Jennifer and Michael stepped through the brush. Michael looked
 at me sitting there winding plant fibers and said, “Do you have
 fire Lyon” I replied, “Ya…I’ll take them a torch.” Jennifer
 asked, “Where’d the water come from?” I replied, “I made a
 boiler; Gruble, Williams, Hackel, and Elper are gathering the
 materials to make three more, their getting the clay now.”
Michael asked, “What’s that for?” pointing at the half made
 string. I responded, “Fishing net. You guys take this over and
I’ll get them a torch”
    As I got up the stiffness in my legs slowed me down
 and I stumbled a little to the boiler, Michael said, “You’re not
 drunk are you?” I responded, “I wish.” I grabbed a piece of
 wood and lite it in the boiler and checked the vase, it was full
 enough to carry over so I placed one of the deep cups to catch
 the rest of the water and placed a palm over it to ensure no loss
 of any steam. Michael and Jennifer sat down and did what they
 saw me doing, winding white silky plant fiber into a string, and I
 carried another vase and a torch over to the landing.
 Hackel and Elper were carrying clay bricks down to
 the trench while Williams and Gruble were making them. Elper
 asked, “Where’d you guys come from?” Michael responded,
“We found the water.” Elper responded, “Okay, Okay” as he
 nodded his head in disapproval as though his plans had been
 destroyed. Hackel and Elper finished the new lattice and placed

the bricks on it just as Williams and Gruble came down with the
 bottome bowl. Williams said, “We finished the bowl.” Hackel
 blurted out, “down drop it, there are things you might not see in
 the dark.” Williams laughed and said, “No we saw you peeing
 up there.” Gruble added, “You aren’t that black Mitch.” and
 they laughed as Mitch sucked air through his teeth with his
 tongue making a reverse hissing sound.
 I came up over the ridge and found a struggling dog
 pile near the vase, with the other vase in one hand and a fairly
 well fashioned torch on the other I stood there. They all stopped
 their fighting and froze while looking at me. My face lite by a
 full flickering flame, they were stunned. Atrisia took a one
 kneed position like a high school wrestler and reached back to
 her hip, then gestured with a stop hand motion and said, “Don’t
 you move…don’t you fucking move a muscle.” and she kept
 repeating it. I knew she wasn’t armed but had no idea what her
 mental state was, so I slowly walked out and set down the vase
 and stabilized it with a mound of sand around it. I looked
 through the stunned crowd and recognized EN2 John Hefen I
 said, “Hefen…and only Hefen, come take this torch.” John
 walked up and took the torch and asked, “Now what?” I replied,
“start a camp fire but don’t overdo it, you don’t need a bonfire.”
 and I backed out and again Atrisia started repeating, “Don’t
 fucking move…No, Don’t fucking move.”
 And I backed out of there disgusted. Heading back to
 the boiler, I pushed through the brush and realized the line
 between the good and the lazy had just turned into a battle front.
The Captain tried to follow me yelling, “Do you want them to
 turn cannibal!!?” I yelled back, “We’re just now making the
 fishing net! They are all delirious, just keep them contained!”
GSM 1Matt Hidale had followed the captain and yelled at me,

“Fuck you!” The captain tried to calm him and usher him back
 to the landing. Matt and Tom Norrie were both there feeling
 betrayed, they had worked with me, they were immediate
 supervisors and I was the one that broke away and started
 making the water…they were now dependent on my efforts
 being successful, which as an E-4 front line supervisor there was
 really nothing new about that, the labor belonged to the E-4 and
 below, delegation started at E-5 and at E-6 they were basically
 foreman.
 Once I got back Michael and Jennifer looked at me,
 and with a laugh Jennifer asked me, “How’d that go?” I looked
 at Michael and replied, “They can’t be trusted until they are feed
 and rehydrated.” Michael replied, “Why do you think we came
 over here…” I went over and saw the trench fire was lite and the
 bricks and lower half were being burnt. Hackel said, “The other
 two are getting the top half and vases made. How we lookin?” I
 said, “Looks good, it’s going bad over there though. We’ll need
 a log and a spear to go with the fishing net and we’re going to
 need food soon, they were ready to attack and Artimus yelled
 out asking me ‘if I wanted them to go cannibal’.” Mitch and
Mike were stunned. I added, “Well, I’m off to find something
 that floats…”  
 At the landing being in the moon light after nearly a
 week on the ocean floating on their backs, their vision was fairly
 uninhibited. They sat around the fire they had set near the vase
 and at their pentagon as well, the captain paced around the
 perimeter of the pentagon and the other survivors either slept or
 huddled up with each other seeking reassurance. The captain
 was anxious, Lyon had responded to his objection with, ‘we’re
 making a fishing net now.’ the captain understood now he was
 in denial he couldn’t produce any rhetoric about how rescue was

coming soon because he himself wouldn’t accept the lies. Those
 that were capable of creating fire and using it to distill water had
 set their own course of action that seemed to be based on the
 premise ‘no rescue is coming’; they had proved their intellect by
 starting to thrive, his intellect however was called into question
 by his lack of ability to thrive. He had to regain himself, the
 walls for his pentagon were incomplete and come morning he
 would reestablish himself as the leader by setting those wall in
 place.
 It was likely four o’clock in the morning when all the
 sailors at the landing fell asleep, all huddled together. The
 temperature seemed to change rapidly, but then I was a southern
California and had plenty of time on the beach under my belt
 and I was very accustom to that it seemed only in summer did
 the temperature stay somewhat predictable. Dave Artimus the
 one time captain slept near the fire at the center of his pentagon,
 he had fallen asleep sitting and watching the fire with other
 survivors he had a trust of from their former jobs he had
 slumped over and rested his head on the shoulder of Mess
 specialist Robert Wildly  and in his sleep had been dreaming of
 his wife, so he placed his arms around MS3 Wildly and slept in
 comfort.
 The fire in the trench with us at the boiler site was
 burning hardening more clay components and the fire in the
 firebox still burned as well boiling the water of to steam which
 traveled down the neck of the spout and condensed to fresh
 water which the dripped and occasionally poured down into a
 vase. We gave way to sleep as well Tommi and Jennifer slept
 back to back, Michael, Mitch, and Mike slept in a triangle
 formation and I slept at Tommi and Jennifer’s feet.

 In my sleep my eyes had opened during a dream and I
 heard music, I watched the moon sail through the sky as though
 it were the sea. The stars formed constellations with lines
 connecting the dots. And choirs sung of island paradises and
 civilizations lost. There was the smell of cinnamon in the air,
 and colorful leaves and flowers drifted on the breeze. The
 moonlight shown on the surface of the sea like a road to a
 happier past, and as I stepped upon that road the seas rose up
 and swallowed me and I drifted down into purple shadows and a
 ringing in my ears. I woke up gasping for breath, confused and
 panicked. I sat up and saw the fire still burned in the firebox and
 the trench fire still had a glow, there was dirt on my throat and
 dirt on Jennifer’s feet, I figured she must have kicked me in the
 neck, and having three younger sisters it didn’t surprise me at all
 so I rolled over and went back to sleep.
 Jennifer began to toss and turn as she dreamt of a giant
 sea turtle crashing through the waves moaning like a whale, she
 stood in a small Indonesian village with young girls. She was
 dressed in a sarong, with a red and white floral print that
 included in its design a decorative bridge silhouette. The young
 girls watched the wave crashing up and around the tortoiseshell
 their village had been built upon and where they had lived since
 the great wave took their ancestors homes away. As Jennifer
 looked at the well in the center of the village and wondered how
 a well could possibly be there, the girls began a hypnotizing
 dance, the beads around the ankles shook like a rattle and a
 string of Chinese coins around their wastes jingled like
 tambourines. The young Indonesian girls wore the long hair up
 with a twist and a comb pressed in to hold their hair towered
 atop their heads. Some wore light blue veils a crossed their faces
 and they spun as the danced and angled the heels and ankles as