My Boy Blue

Day of False Alarms

Chappo looked out over the water, a nice strong southerly was blowing and it had pushed the throngs of people off the beach. He chuckled as tourists fought with umbrellas and tried to run and catch their beach towels before they landed in the next city over. Beardy and Quiggers were commentating on the great sport they had dubbed as Umbrella Wrestling, there were no bodyboards in the surf for them to comment on. Azza and Hoppo were chatting in the corner, something about one of the new trainees. Chappo was just happy it was quiet, he had spent the morning yelling at tourists to get out of the rip.

'Serves them right,' he couldn't help but think. They wouldn't listen to him when he told them to get out of the water, now they had no choice. It wasn't the right attitude he knew that, but you can only say the same thing so many times before you go mental.

The phone in the tower rang, Chappo, being the closest, grabbed it before it could ring a second time.

"Bondi lifeguards this is Chris."

The four other occupants of the tower waited anxiously. With the dark sky coming in, a serious rescue was only a matter of time. Whenever things were about to get quiet on Bondi, mother nature had a way of intervening.

"Shit," Chappo said, all the color draining from his face.

Hoppo at this point was more than concerned, "Do we need to launch the jet ski?"

Beardy was already out of his chair, standing near the stairs in case he had to run down. Hman and Deano had come into the tower as the rain started to fall. All of the people were out of the water. Even most of the surfers, it wasn't really that fun to surf if lightning was on its way.

Chappo shook his head at Hoppo. He sunk back in his chair running his hand through his hair, anything to kind of ground himself, give himself something to hold on to as the person on the other end of the phone continued talking.

"Alright mate, uuuhh yeah, yeah," Chappo sighed.

The tower was deadly silent, all of the lifeguards were poised, ready to move.

"I know, I know, it's shit," Chappo continued, "I'll uh, I'm headed there now, yeah, I'll be there for sure. Yeah... Whatever you need mate. Yeah, we'll see you."

Chappo hung up the phone and stared at it as if wishing it would un-ring and the day would go back to normal.

"Chappo-" Hoppo started.

"It was uh," Chappo's voice cracked, he tried to get a hold of his emotions, "Tommy Ryan just died."

To everyone in the tower, it felt like a punch in the gut.

"You serious?" Deano asked gently, not questioning Chappo, just in disbelief that someone like Tommy was suddenly gone.

All the guys liked Tommy. He was a lifeguard at Bondi for four years now. Always such a happy and eager person. Hman took a deep breath trying to absorb the news. Even the old sea dog loved him. He would play his jazz, and Tommy would sing loudly and very out of key any tune he recognized until Hman was laughing like a maniac. H looked over at Chappo who held his head in his hands. The news would fall exceptionally hard on him. Tommy and Chappo were best mates in school, and extremely close on the force. It was like tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum the two of them.

Hoppo was silent, this was a blow to the team for sure.

"I have to go tell Katie," Chappo said looking towards the head lifeguard with tears in his eyes, "I have to -- I can't"