We Float Upon a Painted Sea (31 page)

Bull stiffened suddenly, and tipped his head as though listening out for something. Curiously, he held his index finger up as a warning to Andrew not to utter a word, and then from outside came a distinctive thump on the hull. It startled both men and pierced the testosterone filled atmosphere like a hot pin pricking a balloon. The silence returned. Both men remained still and stared anxiously at each other. Then the muffled sounds of something flapping around on the deck outside echoed around the cabin in all directions. Bull thought back to the time on the raft when the sharks and then the pod of whales had come to investigate them, and then he remembered reading a news article about African pirates hijacking boats in the Atlantic.

The gap between them narrowed. Their belligerent affectation had subsided and then hastened to a panicking embrace. Andrew gripped Bull’s fur coat tightly. His face had contorted with the thought of an unexplained terror boarding the vessel and investigating potential ways into the cabin. He looked towards the hatch and wondered if it had been locked. Bull clasped his mouth with a shaking hand, the other snatched at Andrew’s anorak like a child holding a comfort blanket. From the corner of his eye Andrew saw a shadow skirt past the porthole but from a sitting angle it was too difficult to be sure. He stabbed a hasty look at Bull’s face, white and crippled with torment. He wished he could recall his harsh words. He knew they had only been borne out of pettiness and anger. He wanted to apologise by telling him that he was glad to have rescued him and was proud to be his crewmate, despite their differences, but time seemed to freeze.

Three loud thumps on the hatch door sounded and then the handle rattled violently. Finally, they heard the unmistakeable sound of human voices, subdued at first but distinctly human and speaking English in familiar accents. The intense moment of panic evaporated. Andrew and Bull let go of each other as if repulsed by their brief intimate moment. They moved towards the entrance hatch and engaged the locking mechanism. As the door opened a bearded face appeared, blocking out the daylight. He looked surprised at first as he peered around and noticed only two survivors.

“Hello, anyone else onboard?” Andrew stepped forward like a pompous foreign ambassador. He stated,

“My name is Andrew Ulysses Douglas Holmes. Who might you be?” The man looked at Andrew and smiled. He said,

“I’m Robert McIntyre,” he pointed behind his shoulder and then said, “and this is Ty Kurt.” Andrew appeared confused and said,

“Are you the rescue party?

“We are here to help and if you don’t mind ask you a few questions. Could I start by asking how many crew members are onboard?” Andrew turned to Bull and said, “Look, I’m not getting any sense out of the man, do you want to try?”

Bull, his spirits soaring as it dawned on him that he was going to live through his nightmare after all, stepped forward and glancing up at his rescuer said, “It’s just who you see standing in front of you, I’m afraid.” There was a pause and then Bull said, “Can I ask you a question? Are you the Coast Guard?” McIntyre smiled and then said,

“That’s me. Now, would you like to tell me, who the fuck are you?”

“Faerrleah O’Connell. I was on my way to St Kilda…”

“Faerrleah? The Mancunian lad? Fuck me senseless, we thought you were dead! We’ll need to get you oot this tub and clean you up, before meeting the Captain?”

“The Captain? Don’t you mean the Commandant?”

“No laddy, not the Commandant. Captain
Waxy
Gravy Jnr. He’ll want to know what happened to his other ship, the Flower Child.” Bull’s eyes were drawn towards the GM logo on his rescuers survival suit. He said,

“Aren’t you taking us back to land? Back to the Coast Guard base?” Bull looked McIntyre up and down. He said,

“Me and a couple of the lads have had a difference of opinion with our employers. We’ve gone AWOL.”

“You’ve deserted? You stickin it to the man?”

“Aye, we’ve had enough of their shite. We came under fire from a military vessel as we approached Eilean Mor, looking for survivors.”

“Why were the Navy shooting at a Coast Guard boat?”

“I didn’t say it was the Navy, but it was a military vessel. They warned us not to approach, but we said fuck em!”

“Did you find any survivors from our ferry, the Andrea Starlight?”

“Aye, we picked up a few hundred, but that was outside the MoDs exclusion zone. The Captain of the GM vessel the RV Mother Earth will explain everything else to you and maybe you can help him with his lost ship.”

“Why would we know anything about that?”

“You’re in her lifeboat. They lost contact with her several days ago but continued to search. We were hoping for some surviving members of the crew. Not to worry, we will find them.”

“So where are we if you don’t mind my asking?”

“When you showed up on our radar, you were heading away from the Hebrides and out to open sea, but for the last twelve hours you’ve been going round in circles.”

“How did you know the vessel that showed up on your radar was your lifeboat?”

“You must have activated the tracking device. But enough questions, let us get you onboard the Mother Earth and oot of this strange clothing young man. There is a peculiar smell like a dead monkey coming from inside the cabin.”

Bull wanted to turn to Andrew and laugh at the irony of the situation but instead, tears driven by relief welled up in his eyes. His mind was also full of more questions than answers. He picked up Malcolm’s leather satchel by the buckle. The rusted lock gave way and the contents slipped out onto the floor. Bull stooped down to pick up the items and noticed that everything from the satchel was concealed in a heavy duty polythene container, with the exception of an old Tilley hat, a handkerchief, a pair of round metal spectacles and a photograph of a young girl. Bull studied the image, his eyes wide with curiosity. He could have sworn that the girl was Saffron, only much younger. He stuffed everything back inside the leather satchel apart from the photograph and then followed Andrew along a gangplank from the lifeboat and onto McIntyre’s cutter. He took his seat and gazed at the vessel which had been their home for the last few days. On the side of the boat was an inscription they hadn’t noticed before: “The Flower Child.”

Chapter 22: Saffron

Saffron needed to meditate. Her mind was still in a state of confusion and she had no idea what time of day or even what day of the week it was. It wasn’t the first time she had witnessed violence, but it was the first time she had seriously feared for her life. She had wanted to be brave and make a determined stand at the Arctic oil rig, but when the Russian security guards opened fire, she dropped her banner and climbed into the ship’s life boat to cower. When she came out she found out that one of the crew had been shot in the leg and several others had been arrested and taken into custody.

The GM catamaran had easily outrun the lumbering Russian warship, but it had been with great relief that they reached Norwegian waters and the port of Hammerfest. They had moored at the floating dock for two days and after taking on fresh supplies and making repairs the ship headed for the Shetland Islands. On entering open seas, they encounter another ship, not a warship but it was flying a Russian ensign. The ship followed and this time it kept pace with the GM ship. They cancelled the planned stop in Lerwick harbour and continued to St Kilda, the Russians following them into British waters.

High up in the superstructure of the ship, Saffron watched the guillemots flying in an erratic formation, their little bat like bodies jostling for position only a few metres above the surface of the sea. They are a good omen on our journey to the St Kilda, despite the Russian ship, she thought. For a time, a pod of bottlenose dolphins also appeared to be escorting them, but as it drew close to the Butt of Lewis they changed direction. Word had spread around the ship that a Royal Navy warship was spotted close to the Finnan Islands and was boarding all vessels in the area.

The catamaran turned south and towards the Isle of Skye, hugging the coastline with the Russian ship following in her trail. Saffron studied the columnar basalt cliffs stacked like the stone pipes of some giant organ and shrouded by vortexes of grey spinning clouds. On the shore below the crushing rocks manifested in Saffron’s eyes like ancient statues, molded from the molten entrails of mother earth and sculpted by the motion of the chilling sea. This was a land steeped in nature’s historic violence, she thought, such gothic beauty and bleakness. Saffron felt a sense of foreboding wash over her, interlaced with the traumatic events of the past few days. Moreover, she had lost her Peruvian knitted alpaca hat to the ferocious wind and her face was numb with cold.

They slipped under the Skye Bridge and made for the sound of Sleat. Sandwiched between the Cullin Hills and the Island of Rum, they plotted a course towards Harris and then to St Kilda. As they approached the island, above the roar of the wind Saffron could hear the abrasive throaty call of nesting gannets and the softer trill of the petrels marooned on the island by the storm force winds. That evening they dropped anchor in Loch Ghlinne on Hirta, the largest island of St Kilda. A carnival atmosphere broke out around the decks. Crew members hugged and kissed each other until the Russian ship was spotted on the horizon. They congregated on the foredeck.  It was customary at this point for the Captain to address his crew of
eco-warriors
from the Bridge. Normally, he would provide them with a morale lifting speech, but on this occasion he remained in the Conn.

Saffron stood on the platform above the pilot house. She had been staring at the Russian ship, but then became distracted by the golden the shoreline, strewn with kelp and boulders. First Mate, Fredrick Van Blauvelt stroked his ginger beard and stepped forward from the Bridge. He informed everyone that the Captain was having difficulty contacting the other GM vessel. He told them that they had to rely on their VHF radio as the satellite communication system was inoperable, but as things stood they were on their own for the time being. He reassured them that the Russian ship had illegally entered British waters and would soon be challenged by the Royal Navy, but so far they had not responded to their own transmissions.

The crew whispered amongst themselves until Fredrick Van Blauvelt raised his hands as a reassuring gesture.

“As soon as the Captain contacts the sister ship we will decide on a rendezvous site and…” Fredrick Van Blauvelt stopped, his face frozen. A low pitched, subterranean growl sounded deep in the bowels of the earth and rumbled on like a muffled groan, reverberating around the bay like a tumbling roll of decaying thunder. A sudden gasp and then a deathly quiet descended upon the ships crew, paralyzing them with fear. Saffron gripped the guard rail and continued her gaze towards the shoreline where a precipitous ebb tide was drawing back the ocean to reveal the sea floor. She felt a wooziness in her head. The iron structure of the old ship amplified the bellowing sound from underneath, making her feel as if she was being repeatedly punched in the gut. Time slowed to a grinding halt and everyone held their breath, the silence, only broken by the occasional whimpers of alarm that jolted forth from the frightened crew. Then a sea stack close to the nearby island of Boreray crashed and fell into the ocean. In Loch Ghlinne the sea quivered like milk being brought to a rolling boil. The boat shivered as though brought alive by the energy of the crew’s fear. Frightened screams filled the air.

Many of the crew held each other in a terrified embrace, but some, like the Boson’s mate remained calm. He sat cross legged, took out his tobacco tin and began to roll a cigarette. The rumbling noise faded but was superseded by an unearthly sucking sound emanating from the water. Suddenly, the ship was dragged backwards. The island appeared to spread like outstretched groping fingers running towards the ship. Saffron was overcome with the unsettling feeling that she was waiting for an inevitable outcome, helpless like a fly caught in a spider’s web. Then she was overcome by an urge to take flight from the ship. The sea retreated from the island at an alarming rate and the ship groaned as its hull grated against and then settled on the exposed rocks, only the anchor bringing it to a halt. Many crew members were cast down on the deck. The Quarter Master lost his grip on the guard rail and fell from the ship onto the rocks below. He screamed in pain.

A state of open panic descended around the ship. People stumbled around in no particular direction, like ants when their nest is exposed to the sunlight. Saffron climbed down to the foredeck and attempted to persuade some of the crew to follow her off the ship. She felt like a little girl trying to catch the attention of a preoccupied adult by jumping up and down and pulling on their arms, but realizing that her attempts to arouse some interest in her anxieties were failing. She untied one of the bow lines and threw it overboard. With some agility, she abseiled down the hull of the ship, burning her hands on the rope as she went. Finally, her boots touched the exposed seabed. She stumbled and fell on the kelp covered rocks, but finally she made it to her feet and ran towards the beach.

She ploughed her way through the sand but made better headway when she felt the grass verges under her feet. She did not stop running until she made the higher ground of the island. Saffron stopped to catch her breath and look back at the ship. A chill of ice ran the length of her spine when she noticed the monstrous wave surging up out in the ocean, gathering height and velocity, as it propagated towards the shallows of the island. She screamed and then took one final look at the ship that had been her home for a small but significant part of her life. She turned her head and ran.

Saffron was born in a VW campervan a few miles outside the city of Mumbai, near the meeting place of two of Hinduism's holy rivers, the Ganges and Yamuna. This was the same place where the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi were scattered and where Saffron believed was her spiritual home. She was a
child of the earth
even though the passport she travelled with would state otherwise. She believed that nationalism only drove a wedge between people. She would take pride that she had an unconventional upbringing: her parents had both dropped out of university to join a ménage of new age travellers, taking off to Tibet on a Buddhist pilgrimage.

When her parents returned to Scotland they picked up their studies again, but both found it hard to adjust to normal life after their travels. When Saffron’s father was offered a scholarship to conduct his doctorate at the University of Southern California he took the opportunity but within four years he was back on home soil and working as a lecturer of Maritime Studies at Aberdeen University. The Burke family all moved to Aberdeen when Saffron was seven years old to start a new school, but within a year Saffron and her mother were back in Glasgow. The following year her father had taken a new job at the National Oceanography Centre in London.

As Saffron grew older she would get the occasional letter, Christmas present and birthday card from her father, but an invite to come and visit or to meet with her failed to materialise. This precipitated her mother to ostracise him from Saffron’s life altogether and she vowed she would, under no circumstances, speak to her father again. Saffron’s mother married a financial expert who worked in Glasgow and Saffron took her stepfather’s name of Wilton. She protested at first but as she grew older she forgot about her father, Professor Earl Burke.

Her step-father became the focus of everything she hated about a society obsessed by wealth, stature and vanity, but he treated her like his own child and put her churlishness down to what he called, “natural teenage rebellion.” Mr Wilton believed this streak would be driven out of her after a few years at the St Columbia’s Boarding School for girls. Her step-father’s attempts to
normalise
the young Saffron had the opposite effect, and as each semester came and went she became more radicalised in terms of politics and her views on society.

The manner in which she dressed was a constant source of amusement to him. One summer she returned home for the holidays dressed in a tartan mini skirt, ripped tights and black knee length army boots. Her step-father stood in the doorway of their Kelvinside home and looking at her with a critical eye, he asked,

“Have you been earning extra pocket money working as an extra on that new zombie movie they’ve been shooting at the Necropolis?” Saffron stared at him with a look of contempt etched across her face. She brushed by him, dropped her bag on the floor and said,

“Yeah, if you like Alasdair. If that’s the best you can do?”

Her step-father, not to be outdone, followed her down the hallway to continue their altercation. He was now joined by her mother who skidded to a halt and gasped, retracting her hands up to her mouth in surprise when she recognised her daughter under the heavy dark eye makeup, black lipstick and dreadlocks.

“Did you steal those boots off Frankenstein’s monster?” laughed her step-father. Without looking back, Saffron extended a fist with one erect middle finger. Saffron’s mother was now holding onto her husbands arm. She said,

“Don’t Alasdair, you’re only providing her with an axe to grind. I’ll go and talk with her later, when she’s calmer.” He shouted after her,

“Why don’t you just screw some bolts into your neck and be done with it, Saffron?”

When she was home Saffron would spend most of her time brooding in her room playing with her cat. Willow provided her with the only sense of connection she had with her parent’s house. She would spend hours grooming and stoking her whilst all the time talking to her in both human and feline voices. Her parents had become more anxious about her pensive moods and need for solitude. They talked about psychologists and whether she was taking drugs but although Saffron had experimented with drugs, she had found little benefit in them.

Later, at university she became involved in a protest organised by
Greenpeace
who stopped a coal train and emptied the coal onto the tracks as a protest against the environmental impact of a new batch of coal fired power stations. Saffron was arrested and released without charge, much to Alasdair’s annoyance. “A good stint in prison will sort the girl out,” he said only half seriously. Three years later she graduated. She then took a year out to retrace her parents footsteps by travelling to India and Thailand and when she returned back home she appeared more content and settled, but not in the manner her step-father had hoped for.