NaNo '17 Part 8

Latest update from Dean;

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 – Dean –

Dean was back on the bridge.

‘Hello again, Dean,’ the captain rumbled. ‘Changed the numbers already, have they? I didn’t think the Met Office were quite that efficient.’

Dean hesitated. He was sure there was nothing to worry about, but he felt that, by telling someone else, he was making sure. Or absolving himself of all responsibility, his dad would probably have said. Well, Dean thought hotly, he was never responsible in the first place. Simply hearing about a thing didn’t make it his fault. But that sort of logic held no water with his father. Nor with his stepmother, come to that. She wasn’t half as bad as he had imagined she might be, coming in and replacing his dead mother, but perhaps that was down to the way his father had become more insufferable with the passing years.

The emotion must have shown on his face because the captain’s kindly face grew concerned. ‘Something the matter, lad?’

‘I was just listening to the… to the radio…’ he began, unsure if this was going to trigger a reprimand.

‘That is why you’re here, Dean,’ the captain reminded him gently. ‘Go on.’

‘They were saying there was an earthquake, or something? Up in Hull, I think. Or, off the coast. I was wondering, s-should we be worried?’

‘Worried?’ the captain echoed. ‘Earthquakes in this part of the world are very rare, Dean, and very tame affairs.’

‘Okay, captain.’

‘Trust me,’ the captain said, with a wink. ‘I know you’re worried about a surge, but I doubt we’ll see so much as a bit of swell. To make the sort of thing you’re worried about, we’d have felt it. The whole continent would have felt it.’

‘Thanks, captain,’ Dean said, and he turned to go.

‘We’ll be docking a little late today, though,’ the captain added. ‘We’re down on quota. Need to sail north a little ways and have another look before we call it day.’

‘Okay.’

Dean decided against returning to the cabin this time. He wandered to the bow and stood like Kate Winslet on the prow, though he did not raise his arms. The rest of the crew were in the main lounge, adjacent to the cabin he usually occupied, and he felt up here was as far away from first mate Carson as he could get at present. The salt spray was biting, but his face was so cold he barely noticed. His mind was still on the unhappy memories that had surfaced on the bridge. He didn’t try to think back too hard about his mother’s death, partly because, ever since becoming a teenager, his father had torn him to shreds whenever he had shown any ounce of sensitivity. Despite only being in his mid-forties, his father might well have been born in middle of the last century. And then there was Caroline – she made a point of him not calling her mum. Too weird, she said. It was just like her, trying to be a friend, when all he needed was a parent; his dad had long since abdicated that position in Dean’s mind. He was fuming, now, knocking the scab off the wound. Thinking about home always made him grit his teeth, but he found himself grinding them now, and took a sharp intake of breath.

He saw their course change, pull away from the forest of wind turbines and slowly head north. He knew better than to ask the captain how long this would take, but he had arranged to meet friends this afternoon, and really didn’t want to turn up stinking like the boat.

Some of the trawler men appeared shortly after, and began scrubbing the deck and tending to the winch. Dean kept out of their way. He wasn’t sure they were going to dredge up very much more today, regardless, but the captain liked a tidy ship. She was called the Blackwater Star – the captain said it was partly a home port thing, partly a Bowie thing, and also a Game of Thrones thing – and looked like all the other trawlers Dean had seen in the harbour, except that this one was still working. They started to slow, then halt. Dean wondered whether this was far north enough? Then, the engines throbbed: they were beginning to turn.

The sneering voice of the first mate broke the silence. ‘Oi, comms wanker.’ Dean turned slowly, warily. ‘Captain wants to see you. Again. For some reason. Don’t know why he’d bother, if you ask me.’

‘Right,’ Dean answered, though he wished to say ‘Yeah, well the captain did ask to see me, so you’ll just have to get over it and yourself, won’t you!’ He set off, fully expecting to be intercepted again, but Carson let him pass without hindrance this time. Dean kept half an eye on the sea as he turned into the bridge. The captain looked up from a map.

‘Dean, lad, thanks for coming,’ he remarked. ‘It’s about what you were saying.’

‘Yes, captain?’

‘So, I looked back through the catch today, and we’ve got a load of tiddlers. Juveniles. We’re not supposed to be catching these.’ Dean wasn’t sure what the captain was getting at. ‘But we’ve had no recent warnings of overfishing. We shouldn’t be pulling up the little’uns in this kind of quantity.’

‘I don’t understand, captain,’ Dean offered.

‘Neither do I, Dean,’ the captain agreed. ‘But then you come and let me know about earthquakes, so I went down to have a listen. There’s tremors been reported all the way down the east coast.’ Dean’s eyes went wide. ‘Now, I’m thinking that the cod have a better sense of this sort of thing than we do, and they’ve gone elsewhere. Just like we’re going to go elsewhere.’

‘Where?’ Dean wondered, and he was surprised to hear his voice was almost a whisper.

‘Back to port, Dean,’ the captain said. ‘Be a good lad and get down to signal we’re heading home.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He was halfway to the hatch when he heard shouting, then the warning siren rang. He flattened himself against one of the risers, as three trawler men pounded past towards the bridge. He turned and started out to sea and had to double take to make sure he was really seeing correctly. The sea in the north was bulging, growing taller, like they were sailing towards a solitary tall hill, except massive and stretching all the way across the horizon. And they weren’t sailing north, Dean reminded himself, they were sailing away!

And still it grew.

The cry went up as more saw the wave. ‘Tsunami!’

‘Don’t be mad.’

‘No, look! It’s there!’

‘What the fuck…?!’

‘Lad!’ the captain appeared in the bridge door, his face chalk white. ‘With me, now.’ Dean obeyed, following closely as they moved from lifeboat to lifeboat.

‘Would… wouldn’t it be safest to stay on the ship, captain?’ Dean ventured. They were loosening the straps holding each of the four life boats to the deck.

‘Just putting them on standby, lad,’ the captain assured him, though he did not sound completely certain. Dean chanced a glance up; the wave was obviously getting closer, and Dean found his hands trembling on the ratchets. The captain seemed to understand. ‘Dean, I want you to know we’re going to steer into it,’ he said. Dean nodded, voice having deserted him now. ‘The deck will lift, but we’re going to have everyone up here. You’ve got your lifejacket on, I see. It’s the thing that will save you if this doesn’t work.’

‘I might not work?’ Dean blurted, fear now overtaking him.

The captain nodded grimly. ‘It’s a possibility. Now, if you end up in the water, don’t take deep breaths. Get clear, and try to float. You understand me?’

‘I understand.’

The cry came from the prow. They stood and stared as the raging sea bore down upon them.