FROM DOVER TO PLYMOUTH, AND BACK
Chapter 11
By Kiddo
In Loving Memory Of Jonathan Brandis
==
"Don't fix a broken heart. Who really wants to forget?" (Joseph Fiennes)
==
"It is just as it is with the flower. If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers . . .In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night . . . You--only you--will have stars that can laugh! It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh... My star will just be one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens . . . they will all be your friends! And when your sorrow is comforted you will be content that you have known me." Antoine De Saint- Exupery - "The Little Prince"
==
Disclaimer:
I don't have any rights to "seaQuest DSV" or "seaQuest 2032" and I am not making any money with this story.
A big Thank You goes to my wonderfull beta-reader Jackie and Sam, KatKnits00, Pheniox-skye, Refur, Kas and get-it-on65 for their Reviews.
Feedback and reviews are still the only thing I get for writing. So please review.
==================================================================
Eight days later, the seaQuest was floating in the open water. There was no wind; therefore, they couldn't sail. There was not a cloud in the sky and the weather was incredibly warm.
So, the crew of the SeaQuest decided to take a bath in the ocean. They couldn't do much on the ship and sitting around on deck and hoping for wind was also boring. Swimming was much better.
Benjamin Krieg was the first one who took off his shirt and jumped into the water. The others followed his example.
Lucas took a look around, and when he saw Darwin, he also took his shirt off and jumped into the water. While he had been on the seaQuest, the bruises covering the boy's body had paled and weren't visible anymore. The only thing that told that there was anything wrong in the teenager's past were three long, thin scars on his back. The crew decided not to ask him about those.
Darwin swam to Lucas and made circles around him. The crew of the seaQuest knew that the dolphin wasn't dangerous. After all, the animal had saved Lucas' life. But nevertheless, they never let the teenager and the dolphin totally out of their sight.
Lucas held onto his swimming friend's dorsal fin and the dolphin pulled him through the water. The boy laughed and the animal swam faster.
After some time, Darwin stopped next to the first mate, Jonathan Ford, who had watched the whole thing a little mistrustfully. The teenager's smile lit up his whole face. "Do you want to try?"
Jonathan shook his head quickly. "No thanks, I'm too heavy for Darwin, and he doesn't know me." He didn't said anything about the fact that he felt uneasy about the whole thing. He didn't want to look like a coward.
Darwin and the boy shared a few words in their heads. "You are not too heavy, Mr. Ford. This is really an unbelievable feeling. You really have to try this. Or are you afraid?"
Again, the first mate shook his head, almost too quickly. "No." Jonathan was surprised about what Lucas had said. Normally the teenager wasn't that open. He had gotten the impression that the boy was a shy person. And now, Lucas was smiling from one ear to the other and asking him if he was afraid. Was it the presence of the dolphin? The boy appeared as relaxed as never before. Maybe Lucas had started to really trust them and knew that he didn't need to be afraid of the crew. Whatever it was, Ford didn't want to let the boy down. "All right, I will try it."
Lucas smiled. "That's great. Come here, Darwin."
The animal swam next to Ford. The teenager showed Jonathan how to hold onto the dorsal fin without hurting the dolphin.
Carefully, the first mate put his hand on the dorsal fin and held on. The dolphin began to swim slowly, and when he realised that the person he was towing was relaxed and felt safe, he put on speed. But, he didn't swam as fast as he had with Lucas.
Jonathan Ford smiled. The boy had been right, this was a unbelievable feeling. He felt that the dolphin had a calming effect. No, they didn't need to be afraid of Darwin. If the dolphin was with Lucas, the teenager was totally safe.
====================
Early that same evening, the whole crew was sitting on deck and was eating and talking about different things.
The weather was still oppressively hot and it had only cooled down a little bit. Bridger hoped that a thunderstorm wasn't on its way. That wasn't something you wanted to experience at sea.
When the crew was finished eating, Ben Krieg cleaned up with the help of the others and took everything back to the galley. Even though they were done eating, the crew stayed on deck and talked.
Suddenly the weather changed, just like Bridger had feared. The sky on the eastern horizon began to turn dark as coal-black thunderclouds appeared out of nowhere. They grew with frightening speed, seething and rolling across the sky, until they blocked out the remains of the daylight.
The crew of the seaQuest reacted quickly; this wasn't the first thunderstorm that they encountered with the seaQuest. But it was the first for Lucas.
Captain Bridger shouted an order to the boy. "Help Crocker. When the storm starts, stay close to Ford. He will tell you what to do."
Lucas nodded and ran to Crocker. Together, they tied a few of the nets that were hanging from the railing to some higher parts of the ship. But that could only be done in a few places. Kristin Westphalen and Miguel Ortiz tightened ropes from one part of the deck to the other side, as high as they could get them.
Benjamin Krieg fastened the things down in the galley while everyone else fastened things on and below deck.
Lucas looked questioningly at Manilow. "What are the nets and ropes for?"
"The nets keep us from being thrown off the ship if the storm gets too big and the waves crash over the sides. But we can't tighten the nets around the whole ship, because if we started sinking, they would keep us from swimming away and we would drown."
The boy nodded in understanding. "I see."
Crocker pointed at the ropes. "The ropes are to hold onto. If the waves start getting really heavy and the ship starts to rise up and down, you'll be glad for everything you can hold onto." The older man looked at the sky. His experience told him that this would be a very bad storm. He looked at Lucas seriously. "Remember this, always one hand for the boat and one hand for you! All right?"
The teenager just nodded.
The sky was now totally dark and the moon was shining. Jagged clouds drifted across the moon, throwing bizarre shadows over the ship. The ocean started to become more and more restless.
Mountainous dark green waves with white crests and foamy spray crashed with wild thunder against the sides of the seaQuest.
Bridger walked to Lucas and started to talk with the boy. "Lucas, listen closely to me." The blond boy nodded with his head. "When I tell you later that you should go to the galley, you go." The teenager wanted to say something but Nathan didn't give him the chance. "No Lucas, no arguments. I'm the captain of the ship, and what I say will be done. I have to count on my crew, I have to trust them."
Lucas nodded; he would go if Bridger told him to.
Nathan was a bit more relieved. Lucas would immediately do what he said. "Good. I know that you have learned a lot about sailing in the time you've been here and that you are really good at it. And that isn't the problem; the problem is your body weight. When the waves start to crash on deck, you have almost nothing to put against it. When you go in the galley, you stay there and close the door. Put something heavy in front of it so that the waves can't push the door open. When you feel that the storm is beginning to calm down, make some hot coffee. We will all need it later. Okay, that was all I wanted to tell you. You can go to Ford now."
Nathan Bridger's eyes followed the boy for a moment. It wasn't only the body weight of the teenager he was worried about. No, he was worried about Lucas. The captain thought about what Hitchcock had said about the teenager's mother. Cynthia had never told her son that her husband, Lucas' father, had been a sailor. Because she feared that the boy would also want to become a sailor.
Captain Bridger knew Andrew Holt slightly. He had sailed many years ago with him on one short tour. In those days, Bridger hadn't been a captain. Andrew had been young, but he was a very good seaman. And Nathan believed that Lucas had gotten that quality from his father. The boy just had to grow a bit more, put weight on and to develop more strength. But that would all come with age and work.
Captain Bridger thought about the other things that Katherine had said about Lucas' mother. Cynthia, she had said, had lost her husband to the sea and she didn't want to lose her son to the ocean too. Although Cynthia was dead, Bridger swore that he wouldn't let it happen, that her son would not be lost to the sea. He would do everything to keep the teenager safe; the boy wouldn't die in the storm.
Suddenly a streak of lightning illuminated the whole horizon, accompanied by a roll of thunder out of the dark clouds. A shudder ran through Lucas' body. The wind was becoming stronger with every passing second. Sometimes the wind nearly tore the sails to shreds and then in a second, they would slacken.
A thunder crash shook the ocean and a gigantic series of lightning strikes tore up the clouds.
Tim O'Neill was standing at the kolderstock. A rope was tied around his waist, holding him to the kolderstock. He was fighting with the kolderstock like a possessed man to keep the ship on course.
The crew of the seaQuest was fighting hard against the storm. Often they had to hold onto something so that they wouldn't fall down or be swept overboard.
Bridger never let Lucas out of his sight. Nathan observed closely how much strength the boy still had left. As soon as the thunder storm got stronger, or the teenager lost his strength, the captain would send the boy to the galley.
The ocean was in mad rage for quite some time, but suddenly the storm calmed. There were a few windless moments.
Lucas was just ready to let out a breath of relief when the sky was again split with lightning and a thunder crash was heard. Without any warning, the elements came back full force. At the second thunder struck, the waves rose again. The raging storm drove a wall of rain in front of him and smacked a high wave against the port side of the ship.
The storm raged with twice as much power as before. The thunder crashed like cannons, lightning danced over the water, and the wind whipped the rain against the sails and crew. It felt like needle pricks against their skin.
It was like all oceans were meeting at one point, seething, foaming with rage, spray shooting in the air, without any rhythm to the tides or current, a whirl of wild waves.
Under a dark sky the storm shrieked through the rigging and tightened the joints of all sails so that they nearly broke up. Suddenly the ship was capsized by a gigantic big milky white wave.
The wave pulled Lucas legs out from under him and the boy smashed down on his knees. With his hands, he tried as hard as he could to grab onto one of the ropes so that the wave wouldn't take him with it back to the ocean.
The teenager had never expected the ocean to be so wild and cruel, and nowhere was there any protection from the painful wind and rain.
Through the noise of the storm, Captain Bridger tried to shout something to the boy. "Lucas, go in the galley! Go in the galley!"
The wet teenager nodded as a sign that he had heard Bridger and started his way to the galley. He kept making sure that there was something he could hold onto.
Just before Lucas had reached the galley, there was a streak of dazzling lightning and he heard it hit, causing a sharp creaking sound to come from the ship. The blond boy looked around to see were the seaQuest had been hit. But Lucas neither saw the hit nor saw the wood beam that struck him on the head.
"Lucas!"
===============
To Be Continued...
Written 2003 / Translated April 2004
Sorry, I just love writing cliffhangers... :-)
Chapter 11
By Kiddo
In Loving Memory Of Jonathan Brandis
==
"Don't fix a broken heart. Who really wants to forget?" (Joseph Fiennes)
==
"It is just as it is with the flower. If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers . . .In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night . . . You--only you--will have stars that can laugh! It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh... My star will just be one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens . . . they will all be your friends! And when your sorrow is comforted you will be content that you have known me." Antoine De Saint- Exupery - "The Little Prince"
==
Disclaimer:
I don't have any rights to "seaQuest DSV" or "seaQuest 2032" and I am not making any money with this story.
A big Thank You goes to my wonderfull beta-reader Jackie and Sam, KatKnits00, Pheniox-skye, Refur, Kas and get-it-on65 for their Reviews.
Feedback and reviews are still the only thing I get for writing. So please review.
==================================================================
Eight days later, the seaQuest was floating in the open water. There was no wind; therefore, they couldn't sail. There was not a cloud in the sky and the weather was incredibly warm.
So, the crew of the SeaQuest decided to take a bath in the ocean. They couldn't do much on the ship and sitting around on deck and hoping for wind was also boring. Swimming was much better.
Benjamin Krieg was the first one who took off his shirt and jumped into the water. The others followed his example.
Lucas took a look around, and when he saw Darwin, he also took his shirt off and jumped into the water. While he had been on the seaQuest, the bruises covering the boy's body had paled and weren't visible anymore. The only thing that told that there was anything wrong in the teenager's past were three long, thin scars on his back. The crew decided not to ask him about those.
Darwin swam to Lucas and made circles around him. The crew of the seaQuest knew that the dolphin wasn't dangerous. After all, the animal had saved Lucas' life. But nevertheless, they never let the teenager and the dolphin totally out of their sight.
Lucas held onto his swimming friend's dorsal fin and the dolphin pulled him through the water. The boy laughed and the animal swam faster.
After some time, Darwin stopped next to the first mate, Jonathan Ford, who had watched the whole thing a little mistrustfully. The teenager's smile lit up his whole face. "Do you want to try?"
Jonathan shook his head quickly. "No thanks, I'm too heavy for Darwin, and he doesn't know me." He didn't said anything about the fact that he felt uneasy about the whole thing. He didn't want to look like a coward.
Darwin and the boy shared a few words in their heads. "You are not too heavy, Mr. Ford. This is really an unbelievable feeling. You really have to try this. Or are you afraid?"
Again, the first mate shook his head, almost too quickly. "No." Jonathan was surprised about what Lucas had said. Normally the teenager wasn't that open. He had gotten the impression that the boy was a shy person. And now, Lucas was smiling from one ear to the other and asking him if he was afraid. Was it the presence of the dolphin? The boy appeared as relaxed as never before. Maybe Lucas had started to really trust them and knew that he didn't need to be afraid of the crew. Whatever it was, Ford didn't want to let the boy down. "All right, I will try it."
Lucas smiled. "That's great. Come here, Darwin."
The animal swam next to Ford. The teenager showed Jonathan how to hold onto the dorsal fin without hurting the dolphin.
Carefully, the first mate put his hand on the dorsal fin and held on. The dolphin began to swim slowly, and when he realised that the person he was towing was relaxed and felt safe, he put on speed. But, he didn't swam as fast as he had with Lucas.
Jonathan Ford smiled. The boy had been right, this was a unbelievable feeling. He felt that the dolphin had a calming effect. No, they didn't need to be afraid of Darwin. If the dolphin was with Lucas, the teenager was totally safe.
====================
Early that same evening, the whole crew was sitting on deck and was eating and talking about different things.
The weather was still oppressively hot and it had only cooled down a little bit. Bridger hoped that a thunderstorm wasn't on its way. That wasn't something you wanted to experience at sea.
When the crew was finished eating, Ben Krieg cleaned up with the help of the others and took everything back to the galley. Even though they were done eating, the crew stayed on deck and talked.
Suddenly the weather changed, just like Bridger had feared. The sky on the eastern horizon began to turn dark as coal-black thunderclouds appeared out of nowhere. They grew with frightening speed, seething and rolling across the sky, until they blocked out the remains of the daylight.
The crew of the seaQuest reacted quickly; this wasn't the first thunderstorm that they encountered with the seaQuest. But it was the first for Lucas.
Captain Bridger shouted an order to the boy. "Help Crocker. When the storm starts, stay close to Ford. He will tell you what to do."
Lucas nodded and ran to Crocker. Together, they tied a few of the nets that were hanging from the railing to some higher parts of the ship. But that could only be done in a few places. Kristin Westphalen and Miguel Ortiz tightened ropes from one part of the deck to the other side, as high as they could get them.
Benjamin Krieg fastened the things down in the galley while everyone else fastened things on and below deck.
Lucas looked questioningly at Manilow. "What are the nets and ropes for?"
"The nets keep us from being thrown off the ship if the storm gets too big and the waves crash over the sides. But we can't tighten the nets around the whole ship, because if we started sinking, they would keep us from swimming away and we would drown."
The boy nodded in understanding. "I see."
Crocker pointed at the ropes. "The ropes are to hold onto. If the waves start getting really heavy and the ship starts to rise up and down, you'll be glad for everything you can hold onto." The older man looked at the sky. His experience told him that this would be a very bad storm. He looked at Lucas seriously. "Remember this, always one hand for the boat and one hand for you! All right?"
The teenager just nodded.
The sky was now totally dark and the moon was shining. Jagged clouds drifted across the moon, throwing bizarre shadows over the ship. The ocean started to become more and more restless.
Mountainous dark green waves with white crests and foamy spray crashed with wild thunder against the sides of the seaQuest.
Bridger walked to Lucas and started to talk with the boy. "Lucas, listen closely to me." The blond boy nodded with his head. "When I tell you later that you should go to the galley, you go." The teenager wanted to say something but Nathan didn't give him the chance. "No Lucas, no arguments. I'm the captain of the ship, and what I say will be done. I have to count on my crew, I have to trust them."
Lucas nodded; he would go if Bridger told him to.
Nathan was a bit more relieved. Lucas would immediately do what he said. "Good. I know that you have learned a lot about sailing in the time you've been here and that you are really good at it. And that isn't the problem; the problem is your body weight. When the waves start to crash on deck, you have almost nothing to put against it. When you go in the galley, you stay there and close the door. Put something heavy in front of it so that the waves can't push the door open. When you feel that the storm is beginning to calm down, make some hot coffee. We will all need it later. Okay, that was all I wanted to tell you. You can go to Ford now."
Nathan Bridger's eyes followed the boy for a moment. It wasn't only the body weight of the teenager he was worried about. No, he was worried about Lucas. The captain thought about what Hitchcock had said about the teenager's mother. Cynthia had never told her son that her husband, Lucas' father, had been a sailor. Because she feared that the boy would also want to become a sailor.
Captain Bridger knew Andrew Holt slightly. He had sailed many years ago with him on one short tour. In those days, Bridger hadn't been a captain. Andrew had been young, but he was a very good seaman. And Nathan believed that Lucas had gotten that quality from his father. The boy just had to grow a bit more, put weight on and to develop more strength. But that would all come with age and work.
Captain Bridger thought about the other things that Katherine had said about Lucas' mother. Cynthia, she had said, had lost her husband to the sea and she didn't want to lose her son to the ocean too. Although Cynthia was dead, Bridger swore that he wouldn't let it happen, that her son would not be lost to the sea. He would do everything to keep the teenager safe; the boy wouldn't die in the storm.
Suddenly a streak of lightning illuminated the whole horizon, accompanied by a roll of thunder out of the dark clouds. A shudder ran through Lucas' body. The wind was becoming stronger with every passing second. Sometimes the wind nearly tore the sails to shreds and then in a second, they would slacken.
A thunder crash shook the ocean and a gigantic series of lightning strikes tore up the clouds.
Tim O'Neill was standing at the kolderstock. A rope was tied around his waist, holding him to the kolderstock. He was fighting with the kolderstock like a possessed man to keep the ship on course.
The crew of the seaQuest was fighting hard against the storm. Often they had to hold onto something so that they wouldn't fall down or be swept overboard.
Bridger never let Lucas out of his sight. Nathan observed closely how much strength the boy still had left. As soon as the thunder storm got stronger, or the teenager lost his strength, the captain would send the boy to the galley.
The ocean was in mad rage for quite some time, but suddenly the storm calmed. There were a few windless moments.
Lucas was just ready to let out a breath of relief when the sky was again split with lightning and a thunder crash was heard. Without any warning, the elements came back full force. At the second thunder struck, the waves rose again. The raging storm drove a wall of rain in front of him and smacked a high wave against the port side of the ship.
The storm raged with twice as much power as before. The thunder crashed like cannons, lightning danced over the water, and the wind whipped the rain against the sails and crew. It felt like needle pricks against their skin.
It was like all oceans were meeting at one point, seething, foaming with rage, spray shooting in the air, without any rhythm to the tides or current, a whirl of wild waves.
Under a dark sky the storm shrieked through the rigging and tightened the joints of all sails so that they nearly broke up. Suddenly the ship was capsized by a gigantic big milky white wave.
The wave pulled Lucas legs out from under him and the boy smashed down on his knees. With his hands, he tried as hard as he could to grab onto one of the ropes so that the wave wouldn't take him with it back to the ocean.
The teenager had never expected the ocean to be so wild and cruel, and nowhere was there any protection from the painful wind and rain.
Through the noise of the storm, Captain Bridger tried to shout something to the boy. "Lucas, go in the galley! Go in the galley!"
The wet teenager nodded as a sign that he had heard Bridger and started his way to the galley. He kept making sure that there was something he could hold onto.
Just before Lucas had reached the galley, there was a streak of dazzling lightning and he heard it hit, causing a sharp creaking sound to come from the ship. The blond boy looked around to see were the seaQuest had been hit. But Lucas neither saw the hit nor saw the wood beam that struck him on the head.
"Lucas!"
===============
To Be Continued...
Written 2003 / Translated April 2004
Sorry, I just love writing cliffhangers... :-)