Under a Tell-Tale Sky: Disruption - Book 1 (14 page)

Chapter Ten

M/V
Pecos Trader

Starboard Bridge Wing

Wilmington Container Terminal

Day 11, 2:00 p.m.

Hughes paced the bridge wing and stared down at the main deck, where his crewmen and their new Coast Guard shipmates swarmed over the containers, securing them for sea under the watchful eye of Georgia Howell. Despite his nervousness, he had to suppress a smile when he saw Polak approaching her, arms waving. The chief cook was known for his excitability, and ‘getting Polak spun up’ was a favorite pastime among the unlicensed crew. Hughes heard a footstep on the deck behind him and turned to find Matt Kinsey standing there, a sympathetic look on his face.

“Nervous, Cap?” he asked.

Hughes sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “As a whore in church,” he admitted. “I’ve practically memorized the damn chart, but I don’t mind telling you I’m terrified. I never thought I’d make my debut as a harbor pilot taking a fully loaded tanker downstream with no tugs and a following current. I’m beginning to wonder if this is such a good idea.”

“Well, at least you’re timing the tide right. Besides,” Kinsey said, “it’s either this or stay here, right?”

Hughes nodded and was about to reply when his radio squawked.

“Mate to bridge. Over,” came Georgia Howell’s voice over the radio.

“Bridge, go ahead, Georgia,” Hughes replied.

“Captain, Polak says one of the twenties he had marked didn’t get loaded aboard—”

“What the hell is he talking about? He supervised the stuffing of those containers himself,” Hughes demanded, and then belatedly added, “Over.”

“This was a twenty he found on the inventory that didn’t need re-stuffing,” Georgia replied, “but I guess the terminal guys got overwhelmed and didn’t bring it to the dock. He wants to hold up until we can get—”

“Absolutely not,” Hughes said. “We have to leave here within the hour to hit the Battery Island turn at full flood tide, and it’s going to be hairy enough at that. Nothing is important enough to delay that, so tell Polak to suck it up and figure something out. He’s got eight containers full of extra food. Over.”

Hughes turned back and looked over the wind dodger as he spoke, gazing down to where Polak was standing in front of Georgia Howell, arms waving. He saw the mate raise the microphone to her mouth again.

“Uh, Captain,” said Howell, “Polak says it’s not food. Over.”

“Okay, what’s so critical we can’t live without it?”

“Uh, toilet paper,” came the reply.

Hughes cursed under his breath. He heard a strangling sound behind him and turned to see Kinsey struggling unsuccessfully to keep from laughing. He snarled into his radio.

“You tell Polak to get his ass ashore and organize getting that container alongside. This vessel is leaving the dock in forty-five minutes and not one minute later, container or no container. Is that clear? Over.”

“Yes sir,” Howell replied, and Hughes saw her speak to Polak, who then raced for the gangway.

“Toilet paper!” Hughes muttered as he resumed pacing the bridge wing.

M/V
Pecos Trader

Bridge

Wilmington Container Terminal

Day 11, 2:40 p.m.

“You okay down there, Dan?” Hughes asked into the telephone.

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Gowan replied, adding after a short pause, “Don’t worry Jordan, you can do this.”

“Your lips to God’s ear, friend,” Hughes said. “Should be any time now.”

Hughes hung up and turned as Levi Jenkins and the other three departing crewmen came through the stairwell door. He smiled and nodded.

“Looks like this is it, folks,” Hughes said. “I’m sorry to lose you all, but I understand your decisions, and wish you all good luck and Godspeed getting back to your families.”

“Same to you, Captain,” Levi said, extending his hand.

Hughes shook first Levi’s hand, then Bill Wiggins, the departing second engineer’s. He turned to Singletary, but before he extended his hand, the man gave him a curt nod and Hughes didn’t press it. When he turned to Shyla Texiera, she brushed his hand aside and took him off guard by folding him in a fierce hug before stepping back, her eyes glistening.

“Captain, if it wasn’t for my folks—”

He held up a hand to stop her. “We know that, Tex. We’re going to miss you, but no one faults you for leaving.” He included them all with his glance. “Any of you. Family comes first.”

Levi pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, Captain, but here are radio frequencies I’ll be monitoring and the days and times I’ll be listening if you ever want to establish contact. I’d like to keep in touch if we can.”

“As would I, Levi,” Hughes said and slipped the paper into his pocket.

The group stood quietly for a few moments until Hughes broke the awkward silence.

He smiled sadly. “Well, folks, all ashore that’s going ashore. Otherwise you’ll be taking a trip downriver.”

With more murmured goodbyes, the group turned for the stairwell door, and when the last one was through it, Hughes took a brief moment to compose himself and then moved forward to gaze out the wide wheelhouse windows as the last container dropped into place on deck under the watchful eye of the mate. He called her on his radio and saw her raise her own mike to her mouth.

“Bridge, this is the mate. Over.”

“Georgia,” Hughes said, “our departing folks are headed ashore. Please take the gangway in as soon as they’re off. Leave the Coasties to secure the last container and gangway, and have our deck gang turn to fore and aft. I want you and Boats on the bow during transit and both anchors backed out ready to drop if necessary. Attend to that first and let me know when you’re done, please. Then stand by to single up lines on my order. Over.”

“Understood, Captain,” she replied, looking back up at the bridge window. “I’ll let you know when we’re ready. Mate out.”

Hughes nodded, and he saw her head bob in an answering nod far below.

“Just a suggestion, but you might want to have her rig the pilot ladder on the offshore side,” said a voice behind him.

He whirled to see Kinsey standing there grinning.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Kinsey’s grin widened and he jerked his head toward the port bridge wing and started that way, a confused Hughes on his heels. When they got to the bridge wing, Kinsey pointed downstream to where one of the smaller Coast Guard patrol boats was approaching at top speed, with three people aboard.

“So? Who are those people?” Hughes asked.

“Well, two of them are Coasties,” Kinsey said, “but the third, well, the third is Captain Randall Ewing, retired Wilmington harbor pilot and fishing buddy of my good friend Chief Butler. Mike convinced him, via some inducement that shall remain confidential, to come out of retirement for one last transit.”

“What? Why the hell didn’t you tell me, Goddamn it!” Hughes demanded. “I’ve been sweating bullets here.”

“Because Mike didn’t even know if Captain Ewing was still at his house on the river, and we couldn’t spare the guys to go look until this morning.” Kinsey paused. “We’ve been sort of busy if you’ll recall?”

Hughes nodded, unable to speak.

“Anyway, we didn’t even want to mention the possibility until we were sure it was going to happen, as we figured you were pretty stressed as it was, and it might really screw with your head if you thought you might get a pilot and then found out it wasn’t happening at the last minute. Mike called me about ten minutes ago and said they were headed upriver.” Kinsey grinned again. “So like I said, we better get the pilot ladder rigged.”

“Kinsey, I could kiss you!” Hughes said.

The Coastie took a step back. “I’d just as soon you didn’t, if it’s all the same to you.”

M/V
Pecos Trader

Cape Fear River—Southbound

Day 11, 5:00 p.m.

Captain Randall Ewing glanced ahead to starboard, squinting in the bright sunlight at a substantial concrete wharf along the western riverbank.

“That’s the northern wharf of the Military Ocean Terminal,” he said, nodding toward the riverbank, “and this is where things start getting a bit tricky. The channel narrows from six hundred to four hundred feet soon, and the current picks up quite a bit, even on the incoming tide.”

Hughes only nodded, a tight-lipped frown on his face.

Randall Ewing’s eyes never left the river, but a slight smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“You can relax at least a little, Captain Hughes,” Ewing said. “This isn’t my first transit, or even my first transit without tugs. I’ll get you to the sea buoy all right.”

“Sorry. Is it that obvious?”

Ewing chuckled. “You’re as nervous as a nine-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and I suspect your fingerprints are probably permanently pressed into that rail.”

Hughes laughed, the tension easing a bit. “Well, I’d be a hell of a lot more nervous if you hadn’t turned up, I can tell you that. I’ll bet you didn’t figure you’d be coming out of retirement like this.”

Ewing shrugged, eyes still on the river. “Didn’t figure on coming out of retirement at all. I’ve got a nice place along the river and I was happy as a clam—until the power went out, anyway.”

“What are you going to do now?” Hughes asked.

“Survive, I guess,” Ewing responded. “We don’t have it too bad, at least compared to most folks. I’ve got a nice place on the river, up in a little cove, actually, secluded like. Our two kids and grandkids made it there, so at least the immediate family’s okay, and that’s a blessing. We’re on a well and have a septic system, and there’s also an older well on the place with a hand pump. I kept it as a curiosity, really—our kids and then our grandkids liked to pump the handle and watch the water come out. Damn glad I got it now. My wife’s always been into gardening and canning, so we’re pretty well stocked up for a while.” He smiled. “And it looks like we’ll be eating a lot of fish.

“And as far as power goes,” he continued, “I got a small generator after the last hurricane scare, and the Coasties”—he nodded to starboard where the Coast Guard patrol boat was moving along with the ship—”are hooking me up with some of those solar panels of theirs. That was my pilotage fee for getting you out of here.”

“Cheap at several times the price,” Hughes said.

Ewing grinned. “Glad you feel that way, because I’m looking for a little contribution from you too. How about a case of coffee? We can’t grow that.”

“Done,” Hughes said.

Conversation lapsed as they both studied the river ahead, the silence broken only by occasional helm orders from Ewing. Then the pilot walked out to the bridge wing to study the bank a bit more intently and returned to the wheelhouse.

“Okay,” Ewing said, “it’s going to get a bit hairier from this point on. In half an hour we’ll be going into Battery Island Turn, which means a ninety-five-degree turn to port, and I have to keep enough speed on her to maintain steerage way or the current will set us hard into the bank.”

Half an hour later, Matt Kinsey stepped on to the bridge to find Fort Caswell to starboard as
Pecos Trader
cleared the channel, her bow pointed toward the open sea.

“Thank God,” he heard Hughes say as Captain Ewing nodded in obvious agreement.

Kinsey looked toward the open sea and his mouth dropped open. Spread out in the nearby anchorage were a dozen ships of various sizes and types. “Damn, would you look at that,” he said.

“Make’s sense,” Ewing said. “The port’s been closed, what, eleven days now. It was unusually empty when the blackout hit, but there had to be inbound traffic, and here it is.”

“Tanker outbound, tanker outbound,” the radio squawked, “do you have a pilot aboard? This is the container vessel
Maersk Tangier
. We urgently require a pilot—”

“Tanker outbound, tanker outbound, any pilot aboard tanker outbound. This is the container vessel
Hanjin Wilmington
,” broke in a Korean-accented voice. “We at anchor and I claim priority—”

“US Coast Guard vessel with outbound tanker,” said a Greek-accented voice, “this is the bulk carrier
Sabrina
, inbound with thirty thousand metric tons of wheat. I have a fuel emergency with less than twenty-four hours of fuel remaining. I must proceed to berth or have a bunker barge immediately.”

The chaotic calls increased as more of the ships at anchor spotted the outbound tanker and pressed their claims for attention. Hughes reached over to turn down the volume on the VHF radio, then shook his head in amazement.

Wheels turned in Kinsey’s head.

“What do you think about that?” Hughes asked.

“I think,” Kinsey said, turning toward Ewing, “Captain Ewing here just started the first successful ‘post blackout’ small business, and Chief Butler and Major Hunnicutt just got several shiploads full of early Christmas presents. We just have to sort out what’s waiting out here and pass the word back so they can tell Captain Ewing here what they want first, and where. You okay with that Captain Ewing?”

The old pilot shrugged. “I don’t know what’s in the containers, but I see another tanker and also at least two bulkers, and they’re likely full of grain. I can’t see leaving stuff out here that might feed or otherwise help people. It’ll take a few days, ‘cause we can only do daylight transits, but with the Coasties help, I can likely find at least a couple of other pilots. We can probably get all this stuff inside in a week or so.” He paused. “Thing is, I expect at least a few more ships will show up, especially northbound grain cargoes from South America, as they’re normally two weeks or more in transit.”