We Float Upon a Painted Sea (26 page)

In due course, Andrew managed to get within touching distance of the lifeboat. Another flash of lightning ripped across the sky, then the unequivocal roar of thunder. Bull’s eyes were open and startled.

“Have you the strength to hold onto this warp?” shouted Andrew. Bull nodded his head wearily. Andrew hauled himself aboard the lifeboat and located the windlass. He jumped back into the sea and tied the rope round Bull’s chest and then returned to the deck of the lifeboat. He cranked the handle of the windlass and was able to drag Bull’s body up and over the gunnels. Andrew untied him and then pushed him through the hatch door.

Bull fell unceremoniously onto the cold solid floor and Andrew stood on the deck, gazing out to sea. The raft had vanished. He returned inside and turned the locker to secure the hatch door. He limped to the wheelhouse, believing if he could start the engine, he might be able to locate the life raft and save Malcolm. The ignition turned over but the engine was dead. Bull lay on his back and in-between deep breaths he asked,

“What about Malcolm?” His voice was faint and laced with remorse.

“If you want to go back and get him, be my guest,” replied Andrew.

By midnight, the storm faded. Bull hauled himself up from the floor and joined Andrew on one of the side benches. They sat in silence, staring through a porthole, into the darkness. Sea water drained from Bull’s hair, congregated with his tears and as one, ran like tributaries down his harrowed face.

Chapter 19: Time to reflect

Bull was swathed in a foil emergency blanket. He thought of Malcolm. He lamented not knowing his surname or practically anything about him, apart from his occupation as a waiter onboard the Andrea Starlight. He wondered if he had a family back home, a wife or a partner. Curiously, his passing felt like the death of a friend he never truly got to know. Despite them sharing no words they had been brought together by a wretched fate, and although his wounds may have proved fatal, thought Bull, he held himself accountable for abandoning a helpless man. On seeing the lifeboat, he hadn’t considered Malcolm’s welfare, he had only thought of saving his own life.

Andrew sat in silence looking out a porthole, gathering his own feelings. He called to mind the episodes where he had twice offered him up as a human sacrifice to the sea in order to save his own life. He quelled the urge to submit to despondency and decided that any staid observance should be conducted after they had been rescued. This was not the time for grieving, he thought. As Andrew dampened the fires of guilt, Bull’s mourning was stoked by it. Andrew broke the silence first.

“I know you’re feeling bad right now but this is not the time to apportion blame. That time will come during the inquest, when we get to shore.” Bull unfastened his nose from the porthole. He turned his head and offered Andrew a sorrowful expression.

“Inquest?” A lump emerged in Bull’s throat.

“There’s always an inquest. I wouldn’t worry. It’s a formality. There’s no need to blame yourself.”

“I do blame myself though. A mental fog must have descended upon me. Seeing the lifeboat in-between the waves, the darkness, fear, my heart beginning to race, falling forward, and then…”

“Your pitiable attempt at swimming towards the boat?”

Bull fell silent. He could feel Andrew watch him. The realisation that his actions had jeopardised Andrew’s life had finally sunk in. He felt pathetic. He thought of himself like an over excitable puppy dog, let off the leash and bounding off towards the cliff edge. If it hadn’t been for Andrew coming back for him, he would have certainly perished. After they had boarded the lifeboat, Bull had shivered violently but there had been emergency blankets and chemical heat pads onboard. Andrew wrapped him up then attended to himself. He had saved Bull’s life.

Bull analysed every emotion. Was it selfishness, irrationality, the instinct to survive or unadulterated cowardice? Or a combination of them all, he thought. He challenged the morals he believed he once carried and held dear. In the end he concluded that no one is entirely sure how they would react when such a desperate situation is forced upon them. Bull said,

“I suppose his suffering is at an end now.” Andrew sat trembling under his foil blanket. He grunted,

“And at least you stayed with him until the last moment, as you said you would.” Bull wondered if Andrew was, in some twisted way, enjoying the moment and revelling in his torment.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” sniffed Bull, “you saved my life and I owe you one, so I’ll forgive your attempts at schadenfreude. The only consolation is that he was unconscious and he would have been unaware of his own death. That must count for something. He might even have been dead already.”

Bull staggered to the bench and sat beside Andrew. He stared lugubriously through the porthole. For most of the time all he could see was the reflection of his own face in the glass window, and then the lightning would flash on the horizon and supplant the pitch blackness to provide a fleeting glimpse of the monstrous sea. He began to mumble,

“I’m sorry that I nearly got you killed. I’m sorry I acted so recklessly.” Andrew opened a flask of water from the emergency ration box. He took a drink and then passed it to Bull.  Andrew said,

“He’s gone now and there’s nothing we can do about it and who knows, with our weight out of the raft, he might even make it. I didn’t see the raft sink, did you? He might even get picked up before we do, and we’ll see him again. He won’t know us but we will know him and we can tell him what a delight it was to have him onboard.”

Andrew attempted a wry laugh but it got stuck in his larynx and escaped as a grunting noise. Bull clasped his hands as if in prayer and stared at his bleached white feet. His long dishevelled hair fell forward and clung to his face.

“In the meantime,” said Andrew, “we need to figure out how we’re going to get out this damn sea and get our feet onto some dry land. If we look at the positives, we now stand a better chance out of the raft and in a thirty foot rigid vessel.” Andrew brought his boot down on the hull as if to test the sturdiness of the boat and then he surveyed the interior. “And I’m sorry to say, without the encumbrance of a dying man.”

Bull’s eyes flashed for a second. He had noticed that his flip-flops
were not on his feet. Bull fumbled around the floor on his hands and knees, fretfully searching the floor like a blood hound. Andrew looked on bemused. He said,

“What are you doing man, have you gone mad?”

“No, I’m looking for your sense of compassion, have you seen it, you might have left it around here somewhere or possibly you weren’t even born with one.”

“I don’t quite follow you.”

Bull sighed. “If you must know, I’m looking for my flip-flops. Have you seen them?”

“Your sandals? I threw them away. They were dragging you back in the sea, when I was hauling you towards the lifeboat.”

Bull sat up and put his head in his hands. He sighed and pulled his foil blanket closer around himself.

“I’m up to here with this. I’ve lost everything. That was the last thing I owned in the world. I know it wasn’t much but they were mine and not some hand-me-downs from a frustrated old spinster’s suitcase.” Andrew looked at the woollen tights, fur coat and bobble hat drying on the bench.

“You’re still alive man. That’s all that counts. You’re not the only one who has lost something. Many of my personal artefacts went down with the Andrea Starlight. Some only had sentimental value but other items, I actually need and more important than plastic sandals.”

“I know it sounds ridiculous but I feel naked and vulnerable without a pair of boots or at least something on my feet. It wasn’t so bad on the raft because we spent all of our time sitting on our backsides, but in here I’m proper feeling it.”

“Perhaps you should have taken Malcolm’s shoes when you were back on the raft. They would have been no use to him anyway.”

“You’re totally amoral Sherlock, do you know that?” Bull stared at his bare feet and then added,

“He was a size seven and I’m a size twelve anyway.”

They sat in silence until finally exhaustion and then sleep took them.

The storm had passed the following day, but the wind was still strong and the lifeboat rocked violently on the sea. Andrew and Bull looked around the inside of the vessel, inspecting every compartment and cubby hole. Andrew entered the wheelhouse and sat on the pilot’s seat. It was raised up inside a viewing turret and afforded him a decent view of the flat sea. He tried to fire up the engine. A high pitched whining noise came forth from under the boat, and then the motor went dead. Bull concerned himself with a box, concealed under the far side bench. He opened it and found a number of Datrex food ration bars. He ripped the foiled packaging with his teeth and then greedily forced the whole bar into his mouth. Bull ignored the pain from his chapped lips and chewed lovingly, emitting absurd moaning noises as the food dissolved in his mouth. On hearing Bull’s satisfying groans, Andrew jumped down from the pilot’s seat and raised his hands in alarm.

“What are you doing man? I know you’re hungry but we don’t know how long we’ll need to make the food last.” Bull sulked for a while, feeling like a hungry child caught with his sticky fingers in the family cookie jar. He wiped the crumbs from his mouth and put the food bars back into the survival box.

Together they entered the wheelhouse and once more, Andrew tried to start the motor. After several attempts he gave the ignition housing a swift slap with the palm of his hand and said,

“I tried starting it last night. I think the engine has given up the ghost. We’re not much better off than we were before. We’re still drifting aimlessly.” Bull cast off his foil blanket. He said,

“Hang on a moment,” he said looking above his head and finding a light switch, “now we can see what we’re doing. This is a good sign. The battery hasn’t gone flat.” Bull located a tool box underneath the pilot seat and dropped down into the engine room. Later, he returned with an oil pump, examining it under the cabin light. He adjusted it with a screwdriver. Andrew watched with fascination. He grunted,

“You do know what you’re doing there, don’t you?”

“I should do, it’s my job to know a thing or two about gas propulsion engines.”

Bull disappeared down into the engine housing again. When he returned, his hands were covered in black grease and he had a grin cast across his face. He turned the ignition and the engine burst into life. Andrew’s face came alive. The sound of the engine filled him with a feeling of familiarity and hope. Bull said,

“The engine looks sound. I checked the hydrostatic interlocking unit and the crank shaft and there doesn’t appear to be any problems. I would imagine the propeller must have been damaged and the engine stalled. It’s a common occurrence.” “You never told me you were a mechanic.” Bull turned the engine off.

“I’m not, I’m an engineer. Mechanics are the ones who do all the hard work. Computational fluid dynamics is my thing, these days.”

“So we can travel?”

“Once we sort out the propeller we can put the engine in gear and there’s practically a full tank, so why not? We need to inspect the external communications systems but I’m exhausted at the moment and still getting used to using my legs again.”

“It can wait. You’re right. It’s not worth taking the risk.”

Bull slid down from the turret and followed Andrew back to the main cabin. They sat on the centre bench. Bull said,

“Do you miss her? Andrew looked confused. He replied,

“Who?”

“Your wife. I noticed you had a wedding ring on, back when I first got on the inflatable. I presumed that you must be married.” Andrew looked down at his left hand. He realized that he had lost his wedding ring. He felt Bull watching him. He held up his hand and examined his finger where his wedding ring once rested. He said,

“We are separated. She lives in Barcelona with my two children.” Andrew considered the loss of his ring being symbolic of his failed marriage. He watched the white indentations on his finger and accepted that the marks would fade in time. He remembered losing it in the sea while rescuing Bull. He sat in silence. Bull took out an emergency blanket from the survival box and passed it to Andrew. Bull packed a corner of the cabin with lifejackets and both men settled down for a sleep.

When Andrew woke it was dark. He scalded himself for sleeping so long. He waited for signs of first light, cursing his wrist watch for stopping on the day the Andrea Starlight sunk. Finally, he got to his feet and rubbed some heat back into his stiff muscles. He opened the escape hatch and went up on deck, praying the morning would deliver some signs of hope. The world was monochrome. A parapet of pearl grey fog surrounded the boat. The sea was inanimate, reflecting a greyscale sky. He climbed up on the top of the boat and inspected the communications antennae. He returned to the cabin, slamming the escape hatch door behind him. Bull woke and rubbing the sleep from his eyes said,