Today’s excerpt is from Dog
Pound, Book #3 of the nine-book Janitors Series. Steve and Murgatroyd have to abandon ship. Enjoy and have a great day.
m.j.
When
he had closed to about half the distance between the two boats, the fire on the
Freedom Express ate its way through to the engine room. Soon the fuel tank erupted and the Freedom
Express exploded into pieces.
Steve
realized there was no way anyone could have lived through that explosion, but
he reasoned that someone might have jumped overboard. Therefore, he continued to steer toward the
blazing remains of the boat. However
well-intentioned Steve was, he wasn’t rewarded for his concern for his fellow
human beings. As he drew near the site
of the explosion, the first in a series of nearly impossible—and almost
unbelievable—events occurred as the main mast from the Freedom Express
slammed into the hull of the Dog Pound and punched a hole in her nearly
two feet below the water line.
Steve
was thrown to his knees by the force of the impact. He managed to get himself back on his feet,
then wondered what damage might have been done to his boat. Water was pouring into the engine room, and
in short order Steve realized he had a problem.
The engine died. With no power,
he realized he was in real trouble.
He also realized there was no need to continue to steer the boat because
he was totally at the mercy of the sea.
Just
as he had that thought, the small hand-held fire extinguisher in the bridge
broke loose from its brackets and started bouncing around like a ping-pong
ball. After smashing into the boat’s
radio, it slammed into Steve’s shoulder and bounced off his head. Stunned, he fell to the deck just as a large
wave plowed into him. But for his safety
line, he would have been washed overboard.
The
cold water did snap him fully conscious, however, and he crawled away from the
bridge until he reached the end of the safety line. After resetting it, he again realized the Dog
Pound without power was no match for the violent sea.
That
thought in mind, he headed for the engine room.
One look told him all he needed to know.
With no wasted motions, he wrestled the large life raft he kept aboard
over to the side of the boat, made sure the safety line he used was securely
tightened to both the raft and a cog on the boat, then tossed the raft over the
side as he pulled the release mechanism that caused the raft to inflate, even
as it fell to the sea. Struggling
against the rolling deck, Steve commenced to load the raft with as much as he
could.
His actions
were swift—as swift as safety allowed—and sure, while at the same time careful
and well thought out, being sure to keep the safety line attached, except in
those brief moments when he was affixing it to another bracket. There was no panic in his hurried movements,
and absolutely no thought was given to what had caused his dilemma. His boat was sinking, why didn’t matter.
If
someone had told him that the hole in the Dog Pound had been caused
because he had been attempting to rescue two awful human beings like Oscar and
Henry, he more than likely would have said something like, “So what? It was the right thing to do.”
Nor
did he have any thoughts along the line of “Why me?” That simply wasn’t in his make-up. When he lost his wife, he never once had said
or thought about his loss. His
concern had been for her loss of life, a life she had thoroughly
enjoyed. While he missed her terribly, she
had suffered the real loss.
While
Steve had great sympathy for survivors who lost loved ones, he never thought to
put himself in that category—because of his feelings about Polly’s loss. That part of his character had probably been
ingrained in him by an uncle who had lost an arm in an accident. That uncle had come out of the hospital and
found a job a one-armed man could do.
He’d never looked back, never mentioned his loss…simply learned how to
do things with one arm. In many regards,
that was the persona of Steve Bettencourt.
With no thought about the how or why of his
situation, Steve diligently kept at his task.
All the food he put into the raft was of the canned variety—except
Murgatroyd’s big bag of dog food. The
loading process went rather smoothly after Steve got the hang of it. He would simply wait for the boat to roll
toward the raft—which would then be nearly level with the boat—and easily place
the particular item he had at that time into the raft. The raft was outfitted with a tarpaulin-type
cover, which Steve unzipped—with great difficulty—each time he wanted to put
more into the raft. That way he was able
to keep the raft from filling with too much water and avoided having a sloshing
mess when he finally got into it. After
he put a small toolbox into the raft, Steve felt he had as much as he needed and
decided it was time to abandon ship.
While
he had been loading the raft, he noticed that the Dog Pound was getting
lower and lower in the water as it filled up.
His last act was to go get Murgatroyd.
She wasn’t a happy dog as he picked her up and carried her out into the
rainy night. She had little choice but
to go along as Steve had her firmly under his arm.
He
timed the next wave perfectly and stepped into the raft, quickly set Murgatroyd
down, undid the line holding the raft to the boat, and, with heavy heart, waved
goodbye to his boat as the two vessels soon parted. When he was sure he was well clear of the
boat, he zipped the raft cover closed above him and settled in to ride out the
storm.
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