Rocky Island (4 page)

“I think I broke something,” he groaned.

“First aid kit is in the office,” Toby said. “Come and I’ll show you, Luke. While you’re there, you can report the crash on the satellite phone. Ed, why don’t you put the boots and sox in the oven and turn the heat on low to help them dry. Here’s some bath towels to dry off with.”

Back in the bathroom, Toby warmed up the water. He didn’t want to make it too hot. Allison was still in shock, but she was beginning to take in her surroundings and understand what had happened. The kettle, emitting a good amount of steam, would help considerably. When Toby left again for a few moments, he met Luke who said that an air force rescue helicopter was being diverted from the search and would be at Rocky Island in about twenty-five minutes. It would take them to Yarmouth where Terry and Allison could get medical attention.

Luke made coffee while Ed attended to Terry and Toby looked after Allison. Nobody talked much. All four were battling some degree of shock.

By the time the big air force helicopter arrived, Toby had Allison warm and dry, dressed in warm clothes and walking around. Terry was in considerable pain, his arm in a sling. He had swallowed some pain pills, but they weren’t doing much good. Everyone except Toby boarded the Air Force helicopter as soon as it arrived and they departed for Yarmouth.

Toby talked by phone to the Transport Department supervisor who told him that a Navy diving vessel would arrive the next day with a crash investigator on board and they would attempt to raise the now sunken helicopter and recover the two bodies of the fishermen still aboard. He had no idea how long the job would take. He asked Toby whether he wanted to have a relief lighthouse keeper so he could be with his wife. Toby thanked him and replied that he would wait to see whether Allison was going to remain in hospital. If she was not, she would be going to her mother and he would just as soon stay on the job. He asked to have his father, waiting at the Department of Transport hangar in Yarmouth notified of the crash and call him after Allison was examined at the hospital.

Then he sat down and quietly drank a cup of coffee before going down to turn on the light. He was late in doing that task, but for once, he didn’t care. His father called about eight o’clock and told him that Allison was going to be kept overnight for observation at the hospital in Yarmouth, and probably released next day. He would drive her home to Barrington Passage. Luke and Ed, he said, had been released from hospital already and Terry had been admitted with a broken shoulder and left forearm.

“You want some company out there, son? I’d be glad to come and stay with you.”

“Thanks Dad. I appreciate that. I’d really rather you stayed close to Allie and keep me posted on how she’s doing. Her mother is going to be needing help and I don’t know how much her sister can or will do.”

Toby didn’t sleep much that night, his first night away from Allison since their marriage. The picture of the helicopter crashing into the cold water and the frightening moments before Allison was safely in the Zodiac kept replaying through his mind. He also thought about her father and the other fishermen and wondered about their ordeal before they died. All together, he was glad when dawn finally came and he could get up and do something useful. He was neither sleepy nor tired at the moment, still too pumped with adrenaline.

Allison phoned from her mother’s home about suppertime later in the day. “Hi Toby darling. I’m glad you didn’t come. This place would drive you crazy. Mom and Marie are impossible. There won’t be a funeral because the bodies are still in the helicopter, and after they are removed, there will have to be an autopsy. We’ll have a memorial service Thursday and I’ll be coming back on Friday.”

“I’m glad. I miss you. What’s the problem with your mother and Marie—as if I couldn’t guess?”

“I can’t really talk about it from here. But confusion reigns. ’Nuff said?”

“Yeah, I get the picture. They can’t make up their minds and you are trying to bring order out of chaos. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay, physically, at least. Mentally, I’m having some difficulty with the circumstances of Dad’s death. Did you know he and Bruce Nickerson—that was the other victim—had been shot?”

“No! You’re kidding! Shot? And Bruce, too?”

“True. A policeman was here this morning to talk about it and that really threw Mom and Marie into spasms.”

“I can believe that. Who found that out?”

“Luke and Ed knew. They discovered it when they picked Dad and Bruce out of the water, but they didn’t want to talk about it to us until the police were notified.”

“What a mess for you to have to walk into after your ordeal in the crash.”

“I’m okay, really, dear. Don’t worry about me. But there’s something else. There was a third man on
The Smitty II
. Harvard Meadowcroft had sailed with them and he’s listed officially as missing, presumed drowned.”

There was a short pause. Toby couldn’t decide what to say and Allison had obviously told all she knew. She broke the silence. “I miss you more than I can tell, Toby dear one. Thank you so much for your knowing what to do for me after the crash. You are wonderful. See you Friday. Love you dearly. Bye for now.”

“Love you too, Allie. Take good care of you.”

The Navy diving boat had arrived late the next afternoon and would begin work first thing in the morning. Because of the reefs surrounding Rocky Island, the ship anchored about a quarter mile off shore. Toby had gone out in the Zodiac to see what he could do to help. The Captain of the vessel, a three-striper, had welcomed him on board, thanking him for his offer. He told Toby that they didn’t believe they would need him; but he asked if he would stay close to home so they could call on him if they found later that they did indeed need him.

Next morning, when Toby had completed his tour of the island, the Navy Zodiac was just delivering two divers to the site. During the day, in various dives, they attached flotation bags to the downed helicopter and the craft partly floated to the surface, still on its side and filled with water. The divers managed to get the two bodies, still in body bags, out of the helicopter and transferred to the navy ship. Next day they planned to tow the chopper to the ship and raise it up, then take it to Halifax for examination.

The crash investigator who had travelled with the ship came on shore to talk to Toby. The two spent about three hours together, Toby giving his story and the investigator asking questions. The result was an official statement from Toby, telling what he saw and heard and how the rescue of the crew and Allison was performed.

The investigator was impressed with the detail of Toby’s report and asked whether he would take part in any further investigation or hearing which might be required. Toby agreed without hesitation.

On Thursday, the diving ship found that the steel cables were not long enough to reach from the downed helicopter to the ship. The Captain sent a message to Toby asking whether his Zodiac could join the ship’s similar craft to help tow the now floating and temporarily anchored helicopter out toward the ship until the cables could be secured to the ship’s winches. Toby was happy to be asked. The cables were finally connected to the two small inflatables and the slow towing job got underway by late morning. The towing job, slow and carefully managed, was completed by mid afternoon. After that, the wrecked chopper was hoisted on board the ship and it immediately set course for Halifax.

Next afternoon, the replacement Transport Department helicopter arrived with Allison and a policeman on board. Luke Hepburn was again the pilot with a new co-pilot, and Ed Harrison was also back on the job as crewman. After Toby and Allison had hugged and kissed for a couple of minutes, Ed called out, “When you two love birds want to take a break, I could use a hand unloading this stuff.”

“Yeah, yeah, spoil sport, I’m coming.” Toby gave his wife another long kiss and turned to lend a hand unloading boxes of food and supplies. Included was a new suitcase, which Toby expected was full of new clothes to replace those lost in the crash. Last to be unloaded were three forty-five gallon drums of diesel fuel for the engine that powered the generator. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer got into the act and helped with the unloading also.

The police visit was a short one. He really just wanted to see the remains of
The Smitty II
. After he had had a good look and taken some pictures, he asked if Toby had any way of transporting the wreckage to the helicopter. The lighthouse keeper scratched his head and thought for a couple of minutes, and had to admit that he had nothing large enough to do that. Ed Harrison and Luke, who had accompanied them, provided the solution.

“Ed,” said Luke, “if I hover overhead, can you rig a sling to hoist the thing up into the cargo hold?”

“Don’t see why not. But I’ll have to rig the sling first and then Toby can hook it on when I lower the cable.”

The job required about two hours before Ed was satisfied. The crew boarded the chopper with the RCMP officer and flew across the island to the site of the wreckage. Ed lowered a cable and Toby attached it, then stood well back while the wreckage, swinging as it went, was slowly hoisted up to the cargo bay of the helicopter. Ed and the policeman maneuvered it inside, and the helicopter flew off toward Yarmouth. Toby and Allison stood in the late afternoon on the dreary October afternoon and watched it go.

Over supper, Allison told Toby about the behavior of her mother and sister that had so upset her. “They weren’t so much mourning Dad as they were feeling sorry for themselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was a ‘What’s going to happen to us?’ problem that they wanted to be solved right away. Dad left plenty of insurance and investment for Mom, more than enough for the rest of her life. The insurance man was there when I arrived. But Mom wanted more, and Marie was upset that there was nothing in the will for her or her children. Everything went to Mom. Marie wanted me to be upset also, but I told her that what Dad had planned was his business and Mom’s and not ours. She got mad and hardly spoke to me the rest of the time.

“As for the planning of the memorial service, Bruce’s widow and parents were involved, because they felt it should be a joint service, and Mom and Marie didn’t want that. Reverend Campbell had a real hard time getting everybody on the same page.”

“How did the service go?”

“It was a beautiful service, and Toby—there must have been more than two hundred people there. They held it in the school gym because the church wouldn’t hold all the people.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Nobody got to say good bye to either Dad or Bruce; there were no bodies, and that was very sad for me. I just can’t understand. Who would shoot them? And in the back of the head? How could that happen?”

Toby comforted her as best he could. He had no more idea of the how’s and why’s of the situation than Allison did. The whole thing didn’t make sense. Being lost in the vicious storm was understandable if very unlikely for Aubrey Smith to have had happen to him, but that obviously was not the cause of the deaths of the two men, and where was the third member of the crew? Had he done the shooting? If so how had he escaped? And what motive could there have been anyway?

After one last check of the light, the couple went to bed. Toby had done the laundry and cleaning and put things to right after the accident and the tromping around of the visitors. The bed was freshly made up, and once under the covers, the passion that had been held in for a week unleashed itself in their love-making.

Life was not back to normal, but Toby felt that the path was opening.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Liberian-registered ship, the
Helen of Troy
that had been caught in the storm off Rocky Island had been taken into Halifax under tow. The ship was a small freighter of about six thousand tons, originally destined to the St. Lawrence River port of Montreal until its engines had failed in the fight to overcome the incredibly heavy seas. The cargo was mixed freight from Venezuela, Barbados, Honduras and a couple of other Caribbean stops, not an unusual cargo for that destination. Customs Inspectors were nonetheless curious. They did a thorough inspection of the entire ship, but found nothing they could use to sustain suspicions of unusual activities. The crew were mostly Filipinos and Chinese with a Greek Captain and two Greek Mates.

The circumstance that had really aroused the customs agents’ curiosity was an empty space that could have been occupied by three small-sized containers. The Captain explained the discrepancy by saying that there had been three containers there but they had been filled with sugar and that those containers had broken open in the storm, so they had been tossed overboard before the tug had arrived to take the vessel under tow. Customs Inspectors could not prove otherwise, although they saw no evidence of spilled sugar. That too had brought a ready explanation from the Captain: he had simply had the crew clean up the mess. Again, although the story was suspicious, there was nothing to prove it untrue.

A second circumstance that created questions was the ship’s proximity to shore before the storm. The Captain insisted that the storm was responsible for the way the ship was blown onto a westerly course, a reasonable explanation since the strong wind was from the east. There was no way to prove that his story was wrong. Storms and vessels caught in them do strange things and those not involved cannot explain them, but eyebrows were raised and the thorough search by customs officials could not find anything out of order. All they could do was red flag the
Helen of Troy
for future voyages to and from Canadian waters.

The ship remained at Halifax for ten days before the engines were finally repaired and it was able to put to sea again to head for its original destination. When it had docked at Montreal, a visitor came on board while the cargo was being unloaded and he and the Captain, Georgio Houlas, had a conversation in the Captain’s less than tidy cabin. The Captain, a short, chunky individual, dressed in jeans, a dark high-necked sweater and a dirty peaked cap that might once have indicated a ship’s officer, sat comfortably in the chair beside his desk and waved his visitor to a dilapidated couch against the bulkhead. He accepted a cigar from the visitor and both lit up.