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Off the northeast coast of Florida, 15 April, 0445
Christian Mayfield drew himself another mug of coffee from the battered pot secured to the back bulkhead of the pilothouse. The Rosie III, Mayfield's shrimpboat, was running east at six knots towards the inboard edge of the Gulf Stream, passing through line squalls every fifteen minutes or so, and her bluff bows thumping into a short swell. The tine pilothouse was completely dark except for the greenish glow from inside the radar display cone, and the red glow from the engine instruments and the compass. He had the Rosie on the Iron Mike, as the autopilot was called in the trade. One deck below, his two crewmen were asleep in the truncated cabin above the engineroom. He would roust them out when they reached the Stream and began seining. Outside the night was warm and wet; visibility was two miles except in the line squalls when it went down to nothing. Humid gusts of wind blew in through the doors on either side of the pilothouse.
Mayfield reached inside the small wooden cabinet next to the plotting table and pulled out a bottle of Jim beam. He was a large, florid-faced man in his mid-sixties, with the beefy build and mannerisms of a midwest farmer, although he had been fishing for decades. He added two dollops of whiskey to the coffee and restowed the bottle in the cabinet. Suitably fortified he climbed back into the captain's chair behind and to the right of helm console and squinted out through the rain-swept windows, but there was nothing to see. One clacking wiper made a feeble effort to keep the window clear, but the accumulating salt smear from seawater was winning its battle with the rain squalls. Mayfield scanned the instruments, paying close attention to engine temperature. He had the nets out astern, dragging them shallow in his wake to wet tension the rigging. The mouth of the seine was still gathered shut, of course, because six knots was too fast for seining. It was somewhat dangerous to cruise with the nets out; they could lose the whole rig if the mouth happened to pop open. Mayfield made a practice of deploying the nets on the way out from Mayport. It saved time once on the fishing grounds, or if he unexpectedly encountered evidence of a feeding school.
He scanned the relative wind dials: the wind was broad on the starboard bow at sixteen knots. Means we got beam wind coming out of these squalls, he thought. To confirm this, he swung around in the chair, punched a button, and looked aft through the window in the back of the pilothouse. At the very stern, a small, bright white light came on that illuminated the towing hawser, a tough, plow steel one and three quarter inch tow cable. The cable veered out to the boat's starboard quarter in the cone of light, confirming his appraisal that the boat was being set to port by the wind. Down below, at a depth of 150 feet, the long, closed bag of steel and nylon netting was trailing the boat at six knots, but offset to starboard.
Mayfield turned the light off and faced forward, sipping his coffee, lulled by the warm whiskey and the steady drone of the diesel two decks below. Not a bad life, he thought. Don't have to commute, don't have to sit in an office all day, listening to a bunch of gabbling women, or work for some tight assed `manager'. Get to witness the glory of sunrise at sea most every day. He would never admit to such thoughts out loud; he made a point of bitching about every aspect of the fishing trade. But secretly, he wanted to do nothing else until the day he died.
He shifted in his chair to compensate for a slight heel to starboard on the boat. He glanced into the radar, and saw two blips about eight miles ahead, with the fuzzy line of a rain squall between the Rosie III and the other boats. He sat back in his chair, and suddenly heard the engine begin to strain, the throaty roar of the diesel changing tone as it came under a sudden load. He sensed a change in the boat's motion, almost a deceleration. He frowned and leaned forward to look at the engine dials, and saw the jacket temperature climbing slightly. What the fuck, he thought. Then the engine really started to lug down, as the governor poured on the fuel in response to an increasing demand for power from iron Mike. The autopilot had sensed speed dropping off and was trying to compensate.
Mayfield gathered himself to get out of his chair to check the tow wire, when the boat suddenly heeled over sharply to starboard even as the bow jerked to port. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the helm spinning to starboard, as the autopilot tried for a right turn to get back on course. Frightened now, and aware that the problem somehow involved the nets, Mayfield struggled to get out of his chair as the Rosie III, at full power now, heeled even more. From below decks Mayfield dimly heard a thump and a shout from one of the crew, but he himself was plastered by the boat's heeling moment into the side of the chair as it swiveled to keep him upright. He yelled as his coffee mug spilled its hot contents into his lap. Try as he might, he could not reach the control console to disengage the autopilot. He sensed that the hull of the boat was banging sideways into the swell. Something big let go below decks, and he heard the galley drawers crash open and dumped their contents. In the next instant the boat went all the way over on her beam ends to starboard, the engine howling out of control as the screw came momentarily out of the water. A wall of warm seawater flooded into the pilothouse through the
open doors. The engine made a strangling noise, and then shut off as the engineroom flooded out. Mayfield thought he heard someone yelling as the boat capsized, but then a second wall of seawater swirled him finally out of his chair and turned him upside down in the pilothouse, banging him against the steering console. Stone sober and frantically holding his breath, he flailed to get out of the pilothouse, flapping his arms and legs in the maelstrom, colliding with several hard objects, until he suddenly burst to the surface, gasping and spitting salt water, his eyes stinging and his ears roaring. He paddled in a circle for a moment, trying to regain control over his pounding heart and pumping lungs. He could not see. He shook his head several times to get the water out of his eyes before realizing they were squeezed shut. He opened them in time to see the bows of the Rosie III being pulled backwards and down in a boiling froth of loose deck gear, a life ring, two potato crates and other topside gear that had not been tied down dancing in the roiling water.
And then it became very quiet, until about twenty feet away his first mate, Jack Corrie, popped up out of the water like a tethered buoy suddenly released from far below. Jack subsided into a fluttering swirl of his own, inhaling deep gulps of air and hacking out the substantial piece of the Atlantic ocean he had tried to swallow.
"Jack," yelled Mayfield. "Over here!"
He tried to wave, but the act of raising his arm drove his head back under. It was starting to rain, fat drops pattering audibly on the dark sea. He lost sight of Jack, but heard him calling from within the curtain of rain. He started to swim in Jack's direction, alternating yells with a few breaststrokes, until he collided with one of Rosie's life rings which smacked him in the lower lip, bringing tears to his eyes momentarily and the salt taste of blood in his mouth. He grabbed for the ring before it got away in the darkness. Jack appeared then, dog paddling a five foot long plank, the bridge-wing name board, with its brass letters spelling out Rosie III glinting in the pre-dawn darkness. It had hung by two brass hooks on the bull rail, and being wood, had floated free.
"What the hell happened?!" Jack spluttered, crawling up on the flat face of the name board to get some buoyancy under him. He was wearing only his skivvies, which clung now in ridiculous, wet folds.
"I don't fucking know," Mayfield replied. "One minute we're cruising along on the Iron Mike, the next minute I'm in the fucking water. Any sign of Buddy?"
Jack shook his head, turning his face up into the rain to wash the stinging salt water. In a flare of lightning, Mayfield saw that Jack's face was a mess, with one eye swelling and his forehead cut, the blood running in a black line down his cheek. The rain was really coming down now, slashing the surface of the sea in sheets. More lightning flickered above them.
"He was in the bunkroom, same's me," Jack said. "I woke up outa my rack and banging' off the bulkhead, and then the water came in like a fucking toilet flush; next thing I know, I'm in the water and there's no Rosie. I don't know, man. What the fuck we gonna do, Cap?"
Mayfield shook his head to clear the pounding rain out of his face, but it was no use. Jack was close to panic. Fortunately, the rain was cooler than the ocean temperature, which was a Godsend. Guy in the water had a chance if the water wasn't too cold. With Jack, there, bleeding into the sea, well. That was another problem altogether, if the sharks got a whiff. The fucking boat had gone down backwards, not sinking, but making actual sternway. He remembered that one clear point of reference in the twenty seconds it had taken for Rosie to capsize.
He pulled out a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and ripped it in half. He stuck one arm through the life- ring and whipped a quick square knot into it.
"Lean forward," he ordered. "I gotta cove up that cut on your head."
"What cut," Jack said, his hand going up to his head, pulling away, covered in black blood.
"Oh, shit," he murmured.
Jack brought his plank closer and bent his head down, almost into the water, while Mayfield tied the makeshift bandage on. The handkerchief was soaking wet, of course, but it might slow down the bleeding. Jack, a fisherman, did not have to be told why slowing down the bleeding was important just now.
Mayfield rearranged his arm and pushed the light button on his watch. An hour before dawn. The boat had gone down making sternway. He was sure of it. He tried not to think about Jack's bleeding head and the sharks.
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