Dinosaur Wars

Chapter twenty - Adrift

They battled the storm for two days in the little boat after Ajax sank. No one could sleep in the frantic fury of the storm. They were jolted and heaved by the waves, soaked by the water crashing over the side, bitten at by the sharp wind. Besides, Masters would not let them rest. He pilotted the boat with a ferocity equal to the storm itself. And the men obeyed him as if he, too, were a force of nature. He ordered them to bail the water that slopped over the sides and into the vessel, and made up the shifts of men at the oars. When exhaustion overcame the rowers, he would swap them out. All the time, he aimed the boat over the advancing sea so that they faced the giant, threatening waves head on.

The only one exempt from the arduous tasks was Addison. He drifted in and out of consciousness despite the smash of waves, the cold, the constant wet. Masters guessed that the boiler room blast that had sprayed Addison with splinters of wood and shards of metal was the least of his ills. He had been crushed by the giant animal's head – the damage was internal, with little that could be done as they fought the elements. And little that could be done without the skill of a surgeon and a hospital. They had lain him near the stern of the boat, where there was the least movement, propping his head with the canvas cover that was stretched over the top of the boat when it wasn't in use, and his body with satchels and coats.

Night was worst during the storm. The rising waves seemed alive with rage, malevolent, personally seeking the life of every man on the boat. They could barely see what they were doing. Only the white of the cresting waves, the pale foam and spray gave some light and defined their movements.

On the morning of the second day the storm had begun to subside. The waves were no longer mountainous and cresting, but smoothed into rolling hills. By midday, the crisis was over. One by one, the men bent down to the hull of the boat and succumbed to sleep. Masters too, his eyes drooping, bowed his head and slipped into unconsciousness.

Eleven men survived the shipwreck: Pat Farrell, Sven Petersen, Boyd Raker, James Addison, Anthony Masters, Luc Girard, Miguel Ruiz. Bob Garson, one of the crew of Ajax, Stanley Fletcher, an engineer who had devised the huge trolleys the dinosaurs had ridden on, Bud Tomlinson, a carpenter, and Teeker Mitchum, another seaman, had also survived.

*****

Masters opened his eyes to the bright day. From where he was crouching in the stern, he could see Stanley Fletcher, the only other crew member awake, with a canteen held up to his lips, guzzling so fast that water spilled down the sides of his cheeks.

Masters launched himself up on his feet and staggered as fast as he could to Fletcher in the middle of boat. He snatched the canteen.

"What the ...? Fletcher said in astonishment. "That's mine!"

"Water is precious."

"My canteen, my water."

"We were in the middle of the Gulf when we abandoned ship, Fletcher. How far we've been blown out to sea, we don't know. And we don't know how long we're going to be here."

Fletcher grabbed for the canteen. Masters stepped back, still holding it.

The ruckus had roused the rest of the crew.

"To hell with this," Fletcher said. "Who made you captain?"

"I did. I led this expedition and I'll run this boat."

"You led us into a nightmare! Nearly the whole party down the gullet of those beasts and at the bottom of the ocean!"

"And I got us off that ship and into this boat. If you want to stay in it, stand down."