Lost Republic Page 7

  Chapter 8

  Wet from the waist down, Julie pushed her hair out of her face and gazed at the stricken ship. Leaning way over, with smoke and steam leaking from every vent and port, the Carleton looked like a set from a disaster movie.

  “Doesn’t look so bad from here,” said Linh quietly. Julie almost laughed.

  Some children tried to head up the beach, exploring until their mothers called them back. They made them sit down on the sand facing the ship. Surprisingly, they all did as they were told.

  Linh looked up and down the wide band of sand. It was a remarkably empty beach. No driftwood. No drying strands of seaweed. No salty scrub growing out of the sand above the high tide mark. Linh rubbed the toe of her shoe into the sand.

  No shells. Not even broken bits of shells. The sand under her toe was as clean and pure as if it had been sifted and washed.

  The second lifeboat beached, and the passengers spilled out. Leigh found Julie and gave her a huge hug.

  “Let go!” she groaned. “People are watching!”

  “You’re all right!”

  “I was until you cracked my rib.”

  The rowers in the second boat called Leigh to join for a return trip to the ship. He kissed Julie on the forehead and told her not to go anywhere.

  “Where is there to go?” she said. “The Hotel Bermuda Triangle?”

  When Eleanor’s boat reached shore, she wondered if Emile would leap into the surf and help her to dry land, but he didn’t. He stood at the bow, eyeing the green water with distaste. Tired of waiting, Eleanor pushed past him and swung a leg over the side.

  “Are you afraid to get wet?”

  He peered down his nose at the foaming waves lapping around the boat.

  “I don’t like the sea,” Emile said.

  “Then you picked a damn funny way to travel!”

  Eleanor slid off the gunwale into the surf. The landing, even in squishy sand, made her burned arm throb. More than disappointed, she slogged ashore alone.

  Going back and forth, the lifeboats and inflated raft ferried most of the Carleton’s people ashore. At last, the only ones left on board were the officers: Captain Viega, Purser Brock, Engineer Pascal, Signals Officer Señales, and the bridge crew.

  Two boats bobbed below the battered ship. The lifeboat lines hanging down were a convenient, if strenuous, way to climb down. Braced against the slant of the ship, the officers debated who should leave now and who would be last.

  “I don’t believe this,” Jenny said, waiting below. “Come on! Hurry!”

  Señales took hold of a rope. In the boat beneath her, Leigh held tight to the other end to make it easier for her to climb down. She descended slowly. Señales was not as fit as the young sailors who had come down before.

  “You’re doing fine!” Leigh called. “Hurry!”

  As he said this, the water began to boil around the Carleton’s hull. Leigh knew what this meant: air was escaping from the ship. She was sinking for sure.

  Instead of the Carleton slowly submerging in the roiling sea, something far stranger happened. The sea began climbing the red steel hull, clinging to it like viscous oil or gelatin. It did the same to Leigh’s lifeboat. Jenny’s boat, a few meters away, was not affected.

  Everyone in the lifeboats screamed for the officers to jump for their lives. Señales halted her descent halfway to the boat when she saw the sea rising. She stared, eyes wide, as the unnaturally thick water flowed up the sides of Leigh’s lifeboat. Leigh and his companions grabbed their oars and tried to free themselves from the grip of the green water. Señales’ rope fell into the sea. The viscous water began climbing it.

  Jenny’s boat glided in. They threw a line to Leigh’s boat, and eight oars flailing, they pulled free of the clinging trap. By now, the water had risen half the height of the Carleton’s hull. It flowed upward over Signals Officer Señales. She kicked and screamed, but there was nothing any of them could do. In seconds, she was cocooned in a translucent mass of shimmering green water.

  The weight of the water pulled the ship over. Leigh saw the masts and smokestack come whistling down. They rowed for their lives. Facing backward as they were, the rowers in both boats clearly saw the Carleton’s officers flung over the rail into the sea. Only Captain Viega kept his grip on a davit. In the next awful moment, the ship rolled over on its starboard side. When the superstructure hit the sea, the strange, clinging water instantly turned into plain water again. A massive wave caused by the impact of the superstructure heaved the lifeboats away. In the boats, they could do nothing but hold on for their lives.

  From the beach, the passengers and crew saw the Carleton roll over. A shout went up from all their throats, but the ship went down in a rush of boiling, frothing water. Then it was gone. Nothing remained on the surface but a great whirlpool as long as the ship. When it died out, there was nothing left but two forlorn lifeboats floating free, without any hand on the rudder or oars in the water.

  The sailors dragged their raft into the surf, ready to search for survivors. Before they cleared the beach, a new shout went up. The lifeboats had recovered and were coming in.

  Jenny’s boat scraped land first. Men and women, passengers and crew, grabbed the gunwales and dragged the boat onto the beach. Everyone in the lifeboat was utterly stunned by the sudden loss of the Carleton and all the officers.

  “Should we go back?” asked Mrs. Ellis. Her chair was not floating, but resting on the sand.

  “There’s no reason,” Jenny gasped. Her arms burned from the frantic rowing. “They all went down.”

  Leigh’s boat was also hauled up on the beach. No one said anything. There was nothing to say.

  Minutes passed. The sea calmed, and half an hour later by Emile’s Patek Philippe wristwatch, there was no sign anything had ever happened. Crying for the lost ones and their own fate went on a lot longer.

  The chief steward was the senior surviving member of the crew. For the first time, Linh learned his name—Bernardi. At his direction, the boat and raft were drawn up beyond the high-tide line. He made an inventory of supplies. The list wasn’t impressive.

  “We have water for all for twenty days,” he announced. “Food for fifteen.” Some of the emergency supplies had been contaminated by seawater.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said one of the American navy men. “This isn’t a desert isle, and we’re not named Gilligan.”

  “I am,” said one of the Irish footballers.

  A few laughed. Linh didn’t understand what was funny.

  “What I mean is,” said the American, a petty officer named Clarke, “we’re not marooned. This is Ireland, isn’t it? If we go inland, we’ll find help.”

  “Doesn’t look like any part of Ireland I know,” Gilligan said. “How ’bout you lads? Is this Eire?” The footballers all agreed—they were not on the Ould Sod.

  Where were they? There weren’t many choices—Canada? They hadn’t sailed far enough to reach Newfoundland. Iceland? Iceland was mountainous, volcanic, and rocky. There were no mountains to be seen.

  “Wherever we are, there’s bound to be people around,” Clarke said. “Let’s go find them.”

  It occurred to France that the Carleton had been stuck offshore almost two days, and no one onshore had noticed. They saw no other boats, no planes, helicopters, or airships. Aside from the single torch they saw that night on the beach, there had been no sign of life here.

  Mr. Bernardi insisted on making a head count. No one had a working PDD to check the passenger or crew list, but by checking and rechecking with everyone on the beach, it became clear all the passengers had survived, and all the crew except the captain, chief engineer, purser, signals officer, crewman Ramundo, and the three bridge officers.

  Talk went on about this option or that plan, and nobody moved off the beach. The weather was mild, but they had no protection from th
e elements. France grew impatient with all the talking and talking. When the sun was almost overhead, he jumped to his feet and started inland. Mr. Bernardi called after him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

  “To find something!” France called back through cupped hands.

  “What?”

  “Anything!”

  Leigh and Julie Morrison, Hans Bachmann, and four sailors followed him. France waited for them to catch up. They quickly decided to divide the unknown territory ahead into sections. Two people would explore each section. They agreed to strike inland for half an hour and then return to the beach.

  “How long’s half an hour?” asked Julie. None of their electronics, including watches, worked. Emile’s watch, being mechanical, was the only working timepiece they had.

  “Estimate,” France said tersely.

  The Carleton sailors paired up. Two went west, toward one headland. Their comrades took the next area, northwest. France wanted to head straight in, north. Hans offered to go with him.

  “Hey,” Julie said, “What about me?”

  “Go with your brother,” said France.

  “I always have to go with him.” She looked to Hans. “Can I go with you?”

  He looked as though someone had just dropped one of the Queen Mary plates. “Ah, I do not mind, but—”

  Leigh grabbed Julie’s hand and dragged her away to the southwest. She protested all the way to the line of scattered pines that bordered the beach. Even after brother and sister disappeared among the trees, France and Hans could hear Julie’s voice still complaining.

  At last France said, “Let’s go.”

  They climbed the gentle sandy slope up to the tree line. Hans noticed the sand continued, though there were boulders dotted here and there. Wiry grass and some sort of thorny vines sprouted around the rocks, leaving the space between the pines open, an easy walk. Hans paused to examine a car-size boulder half-buried in the sand.

  France asked him what he was doing.

  “The kind of rock this is could tell us where we are,” Hans said. Volcanic rock might mean they were near Iceland, if not actually on it. Eroded sedimentary rock could mean they were on a continental landmass, like Ireland.

  He pulled aside an armful of vines. The stone beneath was milky colored, fairly smooth on top but with deeply notched sides. Hans frowned. He got out his pocketknife and scratched the boulder a few times.

  “What is it?” France asked.

  “It’s not right.”

  “Why? What is it?”

  Hans folded his knife and tucked it away. “Looks like marble.”

  He didn’t bother to explain what was wrong with a marble boulder, and France did not ask. Frankly, he didn’t care. It could have been papier-mâché. All he wanted was to find help.

  They walked along, close at first, but gradually drawing farther apart in order to cover more ground. The first mile or so was quite desolate. They stirred up a few common shorebirds, and a cloud of black flies swarmed Hans, but that was all the life they found.

  The trees got taller the farther they went. Pines, cedars, and balsams were all they saw. France called a halt to answer nature. He stepped behind a pine. While there, he got the distinct feeling he was being stared at.

  “Hans,” he called. “Where are you?”

  “About ten feet behind you . . .”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Same thing as you.”

  France turned his head suddenly. There was nothing there, but for the briefest instant, he thought there was—something that darted away between the trees. It wasn’t low and animal shaped. It was upright and two-legged.

  He zipped his fly and ran wide around the pine, trying to cut off whoever had been spying on him. He made a complete circle, returning to where he started just as Hans walked up, squirting sanitizer from a tiny squeeze bottle on his hands.

  “Want some?”

  “Did you see him?”

  Hans’s hands stopped rubbing. “Who?”

  France turned in a slow circle. “Someone was watching me,” he said in a low voice.

  “What did he look like?”

  “I didn’t see clearly.”

  Hans went to the tree France claimed the spy had passed behind. He squatted in the stiff grass, studying the ground.

  “I don’t see any footprints.” Their own shoes left plain marks in the sandy soil. France’s path was clear, but there was no sign anyone else had walked here, ever.

  I am seeing things, France thought. He said nothing more about it.

  They walked on. Even though it wasn’t hot, both boys were thirsty. France had set out so suddenly he’d forgotten to take a bottle of water along. When they saw a low embankment ahead, France and Hans assumed it was a stream. They hurried forward, pushing through brush and thorns. Hans had an easier path and reached the bank first. He halted atop it, staring down at what he saw.

  France twisted through the brush and saw it, too. A road.

  It wasn’t much of a road, just a sandy dirt path with a strip of brown grass growing down the center. It curved away to the west and east, completely empty.

  Hans jumped down and ran a hand over the trail.

  “No tire tracks,” he said. “There are some ruts made by hard, narrow wheels.” He stood, dusting his hands. “Bicycles, I guess.”

  “Roads lead somewhere,” France replied. “Let’s tell the others. We can follow the road wherever it takes us.”

  They started back the way they came. Hans, who was taller than France by a couple inches, pulled ahead.

  “I wonder what the others have found?”

  “I hope an Orangina stand,” France muttered.

  “Make it Coke, and I’m there!”

  They argued good-naturedly about the virtues of their favorite drinks a while. Then a high, far-off scream cut off all thoughts of a nice cold soda.

  Chapter 9

  Leigh and Julie had the sun at their backs as they wended their way through the sparse upland forest. Sea breezes had twisted many of the trees and made little drifts of brown sand on the seaward side of the trunks. Julie bitched a long time about being dragged off with her brother. Why did he have to throw his weight around? She would have been fine with the German guy.

  “I did him a favor,” Leigh said. “Now he owes me one.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Figure it out!”

  Stomping along, arguing, they were the loudest things around. They had left behind the soft sound of the surf. A mile from the beach, the air was still. Though it wasn’t hot, Leigh began to sweat.

  “Stay where I can see you,” he told Julie. She was leaning against a boulder, scratching her ankle where mosquitoes had bitten her.

  “You can see me,” she countered. “What’s the big worry?”

  Leigh surveyed the way ahead. All he could see were pines, sand, and blue sky. Anything could be out there—or anyone.

  Sweat formed a drop on the end of his nose. It fell.

  “Let’s go back,” Julie said. “Bugs are eating me up. Unless there’s a guy peddling samosas and mango lassi nearby, I’m ready to go back to the beach.”

  Leigh was ready, too, but he didn’t want to seem too eager. “A little farther,” he said.

  Julie grimaced and followed.

  The woods ended not a hundred yards on. A low wall made of loose rubble stood there, separating the pine barren from a large, open meadow. Seeing it, Leigh smiled. He paused with one foot resting on the wall. Muttering about malaria, yellow fever, and West Nile virus, Julie caught up with him.

  “What?”

  He held out a hand. “It’s a meadow!”

  “Big effin’ deal.”

  She sat down on the wall. A lizard covered with electric blue
scales scampered into a dark crack in the wall to avoid her.

  “Don’t you get it? Meadows mean cows, or sheep, or something. And that means people.”

  “There’re some people over there.”

  Leigh stepped back. He spotted who Julie meant: topping a low hill in the meadow came a group of men. They carried long poles. Sunlight glinted off their heads.

  Metal helmets? They must be soldiers.

  A cold sensation spread over Leigh’s sweaty frame. He took another step back.

  “Stand up,” he said quietly.

  “Why? We came here to find help, didn’t we?”

  Julie stood up, waving a hand over her head. “Hey!” she shouted. “Over here!”

  Leigh dragged her hand down. She tore free of his grip, using the worst language she knew.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded.

  “They’ve seen us!”

  “Wasn’t that the idea?”

  Leigh backed up more steps. “There’s something not right about this.” They looked like they were definitely wearing shiny metal helmets. Julie shrugged. Maybe they were a rescue party, looking for people from the lost Carleton?

  The men stopped, pointed at Julie and Leigh, and then broke into a trot. They held onto those long poles, resting on their shoulders. It made no sense. Why run carrying a big pole?

  “We gotta go—now!” Leigh said. Julie stared at the oncoming men and did not argue at all. She turned and ran, leaving her brother flat-footed.

  They tore through the brush and pines, shielding their faces with their arms as they ran. They heard voices—loud, coarse voices—on the right and left and knew their unknown pursuers were trying to surround them. Leigh quickly lost any sense of direction in the sameness of the pinewoods. He tried to keep within a step or two of Julie, but she veered off to her right, and he had to follow.

  “Wait!” he called, not too loudly. “We’ve got to stay together!”

  Too late. Julie ran right into the arms of a band of six men. In addition to steel pot helmets, they wore metal breastplates and heavy, quilted trousers. The poles were not just sticks. At the end of each was a wickedly pointed, leaf-shaped head.