Story Summary: People are always saying "Why couldn't the Professor a) fix the hole in the boat, or b) build a boat?" Well, he couldn't fix the hole because the Minnow was completely destroyed in 'Goodbye Island'. He did build several rafts, although most of them sunk or got eaten by sharks and you wouldn't trust a raft to get you across the South Pacific. He did build a 'huts boat', but that was in the first Rescue movie and I'm not counting that.
So this is just a little ficlet, my take on why he never built a boat.
All characters belong to Sherwood Schwartz.
RIP Russell Johnson, and thank you for being the Professor.
Dreamboat
Giant waves tower like skyscrapers above him, some of them so high it's a struggle to see the tops. Water spatters into his face, rich with the taste of salt. The boat dips and rises, fighting against the swells, a mere speck upon the raging ocean.
He makes his way around the vessel, holding tightly to the rails. Suddenly the boat lurches upwards, causing him to lose his foothold. He skids sideways and almost shoots under the rail. Muttering a salty curse under his breath, he grips the rail tighter, wrapping his arms around it to pull himself upright. Gulls wheel in the slate gray sky, circling the little vessel on the lookout for scraps. He doesn't know whether to find their presence comforting or a nuisance- it's not as if the little devils can do anything to help.
He's soaked to the bone and colder than ice, which he finds strange, seeing as they're in the tropics. The fury of the sea has caught him off guard- even the storm that shipwrecked them wasn't as bad as this. He squints into the spray and clenches his jaw. The storm won't give him a single break, it's as though Nature has decided to make his life hell. More salt water dashes into his face and he feels like crying- something he hasn't done in a long time.
He pulls himself along, hand over hand. His muscles are sore with the effort of keeping him on his feet. He makes it to the cabin and wrenches the hatch open, giving an almighty roar as it tears itself out of his hands and slams back hard against the bulkhead. Frightened eyes peer up at him from the gloom below and he throws himself through the whipping wind and down the steps, using all the strength he has to pull the dripping hatch closed behind him.
He grabs onto the nearest bamboo handhold to steady himself and surveys the motley group huddled in the cabin. All but the Skipper and Gilligan are green with nausea- the stench that assails his nostrils tells him that they've been vomiting for the duration of their trip. Mr. Howell and Ginger have passed out in their bunks, Mrs. Howell is clinging to Gilligan's arm, and the Skipper has a hold of Mary Ann, who is tucked in under his arms like a frightened mouse.
"It's worse than I thought," he mutters, as much to himself as to them. "We had no way of knowing the storm would be this bad."
"Professor, the boat's leaking," says Mary Ann in a tiny, frightened voice.
His ears prick up at that.
"No," he rasps. "That can't be!"
"But it is," she replies. "Look."
Mary Ann points at the floor and he follows with his eyes. She's right- water is seeping in, and seeping in fast. Before he has time to say anything, the boat climbs to the crest of an unseen wave and plummets down the other side like a hellish rollercoaster ride. He falls forward and slams into Mary Ann and the Skipper and Mrs. Howell falls backwards with a plaintive cry, pulling Gilligan over onto his back. Ginger comes crashing out of her bunk and Mr. Howell's head hits the top of the cabin, rendering him even more unconscious than he already is.
"This is crazy," the Skipper shouts. "We should never have attempted this journey. Never!"
"But we had to do something," Mary Ann pipes up from the bottom of the pile of bodies. "We've been stranded for almost ten years with no sign of rescue!"
"Mary Ann is right," Mrs. Howell nods, accidentally elbowing Gilligan in the face as she struggles to sit up. "I don't know how much longer I could have stayed on that ghastly island!"
He stares at the water which is rapidly filling up the cabin, bubbling into every corner. His heart sinks and his mind whirls- he ought to have known better. He DID know better- he had been against this all along. But they'd pressured him and pressured him- build a boat! Build a boat! Build a boat! You can make everything else, so build us a boat!
And now look what was happening. The boat was sinking, and he didn't have the heart to tell them.
"We'll be fine," he says, staring helplessly at Ginger's sprawled form. "If we just stay calm."
"We ARE staying calm!" the Skipper yells, not at all calmly.
"Professor," says Gilligan, struggling with his skinny arms against Mrs. Howell's death grip, "this is a better boat than the Minnow was. I know we'll be okay."
He smiles at Gilligan, at the wide, hopeful grin on the boy's face. Something in Gilligan's eyes tells him that the boy knows they won't make it. The boat is a jerry-rigged heap of junk and they both know it. But Gilligan was never one for losing hope- even while sitting in half a foot of rapidly rising water.
Another wave slams against the vessel, this time accompanied by an ominous splintering sound. Mrs. Howell screams as a wall of ocean breaches the hull and forces its way into the cabin like an unwelcome gatecrasher. The boat lists to one side and Mary Ann and Gilligan collide like bowling pins, their slight bodies disappearing under the water. Mr. Howell rolls out of his bunk and lands on top of his darling Lovey, silencing her. The Skipper's curses are drowned, literally, by the ocean brutally forcing its way into his mouth and nose. The little boat is breaking up, no match for the fierce onslaught of Mother Nature at her angriest.
His heart lurches into his mouth- he realises there's no time left. He elbows debris out of the way as though it were made of matchsticks as he wades through waist high water to reach the prone body of Ginger Grant. It's almost impossible to keep his balance now- he careens around like a silver ball in an arcade game until finally he reaches her. As he braces himself against the heaving bulkhead and stoops against the rising water to gather her into his arms, his salt filled eyes flicker over her face for the last time. He ignores the weight of the Skipper falling against him. He ignores Mrs. Howell's hat floating past, the blue hat with the yellow flower that she loved. He strokes Ginger's ivory cheek with shaking fingertips, reminiscing about the time he saw her in a movie once. She had been lustrous and proud, a statuesque Amazon of a woman who filled the screen and looked out at him with burning emerald eyes. But now, because of him, she lay cold and almost lifeless, her red siren's hair darkened into tangled, straggling rat tails, her ravishing green eyes forever closed, never to look at him again.
He presses his lips gently against the pale skin of her elegant swan's neck and water streams from his face onto hers. If she moves in his arms it's only because of the force of the water buffeting them from all angles.
He pulls her head into the crook of his neck and rocks her gently like a baby. Forgive me, Ginger, he whispers. I never meant for 'The Ginger Grant Story' to end this way.
The boat gives another violent lurch and finally it capsizes, unable to withstand the onslaught any longer. Bamboo poles crack and splinter, vine ropes disintegrate. With a deathly moan and a hideous, bone jarring shudder the hull of the tiny boat finally implodes and an angry torrent of water crashes through, invading their space, claiming the boat as its own, seeking out every nook and cranny and filling it without mercy. Screams fill what's left of the air as the castaways are torn from each other by the force of the water. His arms snap like twigs as Ginger is forcibly wrenched out of his embrace and the last thing he sees is a flash of red and an expression of anguish as Gilligan hurtles past his face and then is gone.
The broken boat with its precious cargo goes spiralling down into the crushing depths and he wakes up in an icy sweat, gasping. He sits up in bed, eyes wide and glassy, pulling roughly at the collar of his polka dot pajamas, struggling for breath. Another ghastly nightmare. When in God's name will they end?
He sits on the edge of his cot with his head in his hands, reorienting himself. Then he gets up, pads across the Supply Hut in his bare feet and pours himself a hefty slug of Mr. Howell's finest brandy. Tipping back his head, he swallows the fiery liquid in a single gulp. It scorches its way down his oesophagus, smouldering like a burning ember in the empty pit of his stomach. He presses his fingers into his sternum and grimaces. This is a great way to get heartburn, he mutters to himself. You ought to know better, Roy Hinkley.
Blinking back tears, he stands at the window and watches the moon. It's a quiet night, a fine night for stargazing. He wishes he had a telescope. Not one he's fashioned out of bamboo and broken mirror- a real telescope, finely calibrated. He feels like getting lost in the cosmos, counting the rings of Saturn, observing the great eye of Jupiter. Anything to take his mind off those nightmares.
The moon blurs and he drags his knuckles over his eyes, grinding them in. Damn brandy, he sighs. I'm not even a drinker.
He listens to the swish, swish, swish of distant waves breaking gently on the shore. The sound ought to soothe him but right now it's the last thing he wants to hear. He knows all too well how a gentle swish can so easily become a menacing roar. He was never a seafaring man, but the Skipper's countless tales of life on the ocean waves had seeped into his subconscious over the years, creating all of the horrible images that now came out to assault him in his dreams. The mind is a terrible thing...
He closes the shutter on the moon and drags himself back to bed. I'm not a boat builder, he says quietly, over and over again. I'm not a boat builder. It's more than my life's worth to risk building something that won't even get us half way to Hawaii, let alone home. I'm not going to risk it. I'm not going to risk the lives of my friends. I don't care how many times you ask me- I'm not a boat builder, and I am not going to build a boat.
He hugs his pillow and rolls over to face the wall, staring into the gloom with wide awake eyes and the aftertaste of alcohol in his mouth. He waits patiently for the pang of guilt that always follows the nightmare. Because he knows it's not just about whether he can build a boat or not. He's had too many of these nightmares to know it's not just as simple as that. There's something else. Someone else. Someone whose presence on the island has been making his lonely life that much more bearable since almost the day they were shipwrecked. Someone with red siren's hair and burning emerald eyes, someone whose lifeless face stares up at him just before his dream boat falls apart and drags them all to their watery graves. The guilt surfaces, and with it a pang of redemption. Because by not building a boat, he's saving them- and he's saving her, and by saving her, he saves himself.
The Ginger Grant Story is not going to have an unhappy ending. Not if I can help it.
And with that, he pushes his face into the pillow and lets the tears fall.