Bon Bon Voyage (31 page)

Frankly, no matter what I'd said to the captain in order to get aboard, this was not work to which I was accustomed. My university labs were clean and filled with equipment that had been purchased rather than slapped together on the spur of the moment to meet unexpected needs. My students spoke at least some version of English. And, for the most part, I expected to work regular hours in clothes that were not soaked and stained with various unpleasant substances. I just hoped that my wife would appreciate these efforts on her behalf. I may have missed Mother's Day, but my intentions had been good.

Just as I was about to give the next set of instructions to my motley team of workers, a sailor popped into the area and informed me that the captain wished to confer immediately. After a skeptical look at my clothes, the man repeated, with reluctance, the word
immediately.
So I went as I was.

“Well, the shit's hit the fan,” said Captain Wickendon when his new toxicology expert appeared on the bridge, causing several officers to back away from the smell.

“It certainly has,” I agreed. “We've found it in several of your—”

“Not talking about the pollution problem,” the captain interrupted, as if all that work was no longer of any interest. “What I need to know is if we can leave port.”

“When?” I asked.

“The sooner the better. It seems that we've got an international incident on our hands. Someone on the
Bountiful Feast
shot down a Moroccan military helicopter and took the two pilots prisoner. We have it on satellite photos, and a passing Moroccan fishing boat radioed home that the Americans had—well, you get the idea. We've been detailed to steam out there immediately. Chances are that Morocco is sending a ship as well, or at least a flyover. They've already protested to our state department. So can we sail? I don't care if we trail pollution from here to wherever. We do have coordinates for the cruise ship. I just have to know that we're seaworthy.”

“Hmmm,” I said in my best professorial manner and with every intention of accompanying the ship. “If we put the Canary Islanders ashore immediately, I think I can direct your crew in the last of the reassembly while you make ready to put out to sea. A half hour to do what has to be done, and it should be safe to leave. As for pollution, the problem may well be solved, but only tests while under way will determine that.”

“In other words, you've got to stay aboard,” said the captain, eyeing me narrowly.

“No, not if you can wait. Three or four hours might do it.”

“Lieutenant Hodgkins, clear off the guys from the island. You want to explain it to them, Professor Blue?”

“As best I can,” I replied. “My Spanish may be inadequate to the situation.”

“Hodgkins will translate.”

“But captain—”

“Let me guess. You don't speak Spanish, either. Don't we have a galley seaman who does?”

I returned to the chaos below deck and ushered the Canarians off the ship while multiple translations went on. I couldn't be sure what they thought was happening. Evidently, the harbormaster kept asking if Spain was at war with the United States and was assured that definitely it was not Spain, but possibly Morocco. They were as anxious to leave as I was to see them go. I wanted the destroyer under way before the captain changed his mind about the necessity of keeping a toxicologist aboard. Also, I did want to run tests to see if I actually fixed their problem. If so, it would make an amusing article for
Chemical and Engineering News.

Once I got the cleanup under way and could no longer see the harbor of Tenerife in the distance, I took two sailors from the cleanup crew to help with testing of the ship's wake and borrowed clean clothes from the lieutenant. I did not want to greet Carolyn looking like a plumber who had spent hours cleaning out a cesspool. She might refuse to get anywhere near me.

48

We were having our delayed Mother's Day feast as a mid-afternoon meal, which would be served as soon as the chef could produce it. Staggering crewmembers were reappearing at their posts, groggy but helpful. The lifeboat drill ordered by the captain had been performed while we were awaiting the feast, leaving us time to shower and dress up in our best clothes. Luz looked absolutely gorgeous in her boutique dress, and she wasn't even a mother. I was presentable by comparison, but certainly not gorgeous, and Vera was really grumpy.

The noisy events of the night had awakened her repeatedly. She had no interest whatever in our daring exploits, and she warned me that if I attempted to have the stewards and the spa and gym attendants arrested for mutiny, I would become persona non grata in her eyes.
When have I ever been anything else?
I thought bitterly. I had every intention of telling Jason every single thing she'd done to me. Never, never would I go on another vacation with my mother-in-law.

In fact, I didn't even sit with her at dinner. Barney did, faithful man that he was, but Luz, Beau, Owen, and I sat at the captain's table, guests of honor for our counterattack against evil. If he'd had medals on hand, I'm sure Captain Marbella would have pinned them to our chests.

The avocado soup was superb, especially after Demetrios appeared and took the first bowl to prove that it was safe to eat. We all laughed heartily and applauded him. I must admit that I was very relieved to see him swallow spoonfuls and down a glass of the champagne with the soup. And the spicy shrimp pasta that followed was very tasty accompanied by a lovely white wine. But the lamb! Oh, the lamb. Little chops, separated from the racks, pink inside, perfectly glazed outside with lovely lamb gravy inching into the ratatouille. What an absolutely perfect combination paired with a fine, bold red wine.

All through the meal, toasts were drunk to those of us who had participated in the countermutiny, while those who hadn't looked glum. We were a rowdy group—happy, relieved, a bit tipsy, replying to toasts with speeches of our own. I said that this meal made the wait and staying up all night to round up the hijackers well worth it. Owen said he had never expected to get such an exciting book out of this cruise, and we should all look for ourselves on his pages. Luz said she'd discovered that cruising was more fun than she'd expected, and never having gotten to shoot down a helicopter, she was glad she'd come along. Beau said he hoped his medical license wouldn't be suspended for all the undoctorlike things he'd done, but he felt that protecting the lives of the many passengers at risk would excuse him. Barney said sailing on the
Bountiful Feast
was almost as much fun as submarining. Vera didn't say anything because she wasn't asked. But I did, at the end of dinner, get up to explain that I had two double chocolate raspberry mousses in front of me, not because I was any longer binging on desserts as an anti-stress measure, but because I wanted to give one to my sweet steward, Herkule Pipa, who had been so much help in assisting us to retake the ship and who was being taken on as an apprentice chef by Demetrios Kostas el Greco, our own famous executive chef on the
Bountiful Feast.
Herkule was led forward, weeping emotionally, to be presented with his dessert and a modified version of a chef 's hat.

That's when the explosion occurred. One chandelier and pieces of the ceiling of the Grand Salon at the other end fell down, fortunately not on those of us who took back the ship.

The captain jumped up and began issuing orders to us and over a telephone, and we were all herded to the emergency stairways and forced to rush to the lifeboat floor. We couldn't go to our rooms for the abominable foam life jackets, but life jackets from the boats and railings were forced into our hands as the boats were swung out, over, and down to deck level. It was terrifying. We had to climb into them as they wobbled over the ocean, while being ordered by shouting crewmembers to blow up our life jackets once the boats hit the water.

I just clung to my seat, closed my eyes, and prayed. Owen was beside me and shouted, “Maybe it's not too bad. There was only the one explosion.”

“So what?” I shouted back. “We won't be able to get back on the
Bountiful Feast
again.” The lifeboat slapped into the water, and he suggested that I put on the flimsy little jacket. I was too scared to let go of the seat, so Owen tried to pull my jacket away from me. Naturally, I panicked and pulled back.

“Let go, Carolyn,” he ordered, and draped it over my head, completely obscuring my vision of what was happening. For all I knew, the lifeboat was now going down, and the
Bountiful Feast
, as well.

“There,” said Owen. “Now, can you fasten the side straps while I get my own jacket on?”

“No,” I said. I'd had enough—a horrible night, no sleep, and my lovely dinner sloshing around in my tummy as the miserable little lifeboat, crowded with enough people to sink it, pitched back and forth. “They're all still locked in the brig, aren't they?” I demanded anxiously. “They aren't going to appear at the rail and start shooting at us, are they?”

“No way,” said Owen.

“I hope they drown,” I muttered, craning my neck to look for the straps that would keep my lifejacket from washing away in the sea should I be pitched overboard. And how was I to blow up the life jacket? I was so frightened I couldn't get a full breath of air.

“Me too,” said Owen supportively. “They probably will drown.”

I could hear someone shrieking in another boat that the explosion had been right where her cabin was. “All of our data will be destroyed, Kev,” she screamed.

“Holy crap,” said Luz, who was in our boat. “If she's right, there goes the only decent wardrobe I ever owned.”

Oh my. I had to feel sorry for Luz. She'd looked so amazing in those clothes. I glanced up at the
Bountiful Feast
, looming beside us, and could see the captain standing bravely at the railing directing the lowering of more lifeboats. That fine man was going down with the ship. “Owen, maybe he could jump, and we could pull him in with us.”

“Who?” Owen asked. He was fastening his own straps.

“And what happened to Herkule? He probably didn't even get to taste his mousse. And now he'll drown.”

“Actually, love,” said Owen, as he started fastening my straps, “the ship doesn't seem to be sinking. Maybe we jumped a bit too early.”

“Wouldn't you know?” I muttered. “Here I am, wet, terrified, bobbing around in a stupid rubber boat, and it wasn't even necessary.”

“Oh, my God,” cried Frieda from a lifeboat on the other side of ours. “Look at that huge gray boat. It's heading right for us. It's probably the Moroccan navy coming to blow us out of the water.”

“Don't panic, love,” said Owen and shoved a tube into my mouth. “Now blow. Just in case.”

I did. If Morocco was going to sink our lifeboats, I couldn't afford to panic and drown because I hadn't inflated my life jacket.

“That's the USS
Fallwell.
It's an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer,” said Barney knowledgeably. People stopped talking to hear what he had to say. “Look at that, Vera. It has two gas turbines and two shafts. Does thirty knots or more.”

“Is it coming to rescue us, Barney?” I called. “Maybe we should wave at it, if you're sure it's one of ours.”