Sabre dancing with the Dead Ch 6
Tokonosu Yacht Club
13:20 April 16, 20xx
Day 2
With the compound cleared of critters, Wolf and Kat climbed down from the Komatsu, and looked around. They hadn't paid too much attention to what was happening around them during the clearing of the critters, other than to note several boats appeared to have people on them, all waving at the truck. Now that they had time, they walked along the breakwater from one end to the other scoping out the situation. There had to be at least 80 to a 100 people on various boats, all of them hollering at them. As they walked along they both waved at the people and Kat called out telling them that they would come over to see them once they got sorted out.
The two returned to the club and entered it, intending to pass through on the way to the dinghy ramp and check out the food supply situation along the way, but some shuffling noises caught their attention and so they quietly started looking around. They came upon a couple of critters who had not been able to find their way out of the building when drawn by the noise of the big diesel engine, and Wolf made short work of them by approaching them quietly and bashing their skulls in with the long wrench handles. That done, they headed to the dinghy ramp, skipping the grocery check, and Wolf was pleased to see Sabre Dances' tender still chained to the dock. He quickly unchained the dink and started up the motor. Kat passed down their limited gear and they motored quickly over to the yacht.
Wolf brought the dink along side, and tied her off. He stood up and climbed up onto the deck, then turned towards Kat and grabbed the gear, then helped her board. Having never been on board she took a moment to run her eyes from bow to stern and back again, turned to Wolf and said "Wolf, she's beautiful. The photos in your blog didn't do her justice at all."
"Yeah Kat, it took forever but it was worth the effort. I'm happy with what I ended up with." Wolf grinned at her, and then took her by the hand, leading her aft to the cockpit where he unlocked the hatch. He turned round and started down the steps into the cabin. Kat started down facing forwards, until he cautioned her to do it his way. The companionway steps were at a very steep angle and it was far too easy to fall that way. He told her that the only time he ever went down facing forward was if he jumped down using the forward edge of the hatch coaming as a hand grip. Even then he'd had a couple of collisions with the steel post at the edge of the galley counter. So she turned about and backed down the steps, incidentally giving Wolf a nice view of her butt.
"Man I didn't realize how much I missed that view." He thought as he watched her come down into the cabin. He stepped farther forward and let her turn and look around. She was standing between the galley and the chart table, facing forward. He tossed the gear onto one of the pilot berths and started to give Kat the nickel tour.
"So here we are. Looking to your left you see the galley, with the stove and oven. Dishes and spices in the over head cupboard, cutlery in the drawer in the aft counter." As he spoke he pointed to the various items.
"We can have hot and cold water at the sink, but it takes a while to heat up the water. On your right, the chart table, electronics and electrical panel, and the cooler is underneath."
She glanced over at the complex of electrical equipment, and then down at the chart still spread on the table. She could see the winding route into Tokonosu harbor laid out, just as Wolf had followed it the day of his arrival.
"Now, stepping forward, the dinette is on you left, and it converts in to a sea going double bunk.
"What do you mean by a "sea going" double bunk?" She asked.
"Well, it's a lot narrower than a standard double. Your double on land is at least 54 inches wide. This one opens up to a bit over 48 inches and has a wall on one side and the dinette table to act as a lee cloth. If you use it at sea, it's harder to fall out of if the boat does the funky chicken. Normally when underway, the off watch crew uses the pilot berths and the single up forward of the main bulkhead. You will notice that outboard of the settee, there's a narrow raised berth, good for one person while under way. That is the pilot berth. That one is just about 26 inches wide at the shoulders and about 18 at the foot end. It also has a lee cloth so you don't end up on your head if she bounces around some." He explained. "On the right side, again, a single settee, and a pilot berth above it. There is a fair bit of stowage space behind the settee. "
"That's it for the main cabin area. If you want to squeak past me, you can look into the forward cabin, which has a fair large single berth on the left and the composting head on the right. There's a small hanging locker and other lockers all about. The chain for the anchor comes down through that hole in the deck and drops into the bin below. There's also a rope locker forward of the forward bulkhead but it is sealed off unless I need to do maintenance there."
Kat tried to squeeze by Wolf, and nearly fell over. As she threw her hand out to the side, she automatically grasped the rail running fore and aft on either side of the cabin, then she noticed the numerous other hand rails. She stood in awe. The photos she'd seen of the gutting were still buried in her memory and this was light years beyond those early day photos. Even the later ones as the interior was being built up again only showed the raw wood paneling, at which point Wolf had finally quit the job and headed out. It didn't show the neatly painted glossy white panels with varnished mahogany trim, charcoal grey cushions, hanging plants in a couple of corners, and pictures on the bulkheads. Somehow he'd even managed to save and put up the set of 3 oil paintings she remembered from his parent's place. They were jammed together very closely but still grabbed her attention as they had the first time she'd ever seen them.
"She turned out beautifully. That's all I can say. I remember the photos you posted of the original layout and the garish interior! The last photos I saw on the blog showed the interior starting to come together but this is elegant." She said.
"Thanks Kat, that means a lot to me. I'm glad you like it. Now let's grab some lunch and we can figure out what the hell we're going to do next. I expect we should go visit the neighbours too and see what they have to say. You need to get into some casual clothes. Head into the forward cabin and rummage around in the locker at the foot of the bunk. There are some shirts, shorts and what not in there. They should do you until we can organize something better. While you do that, I'm going to break out some food and mix us a couple of stiff drinks. I think we could both use it. How about some soup and sandwiches? I picked up some fresh food before I left Yamashiro a couple of days ago."
"That sounds great. Need a hand?" Kat said.
"No, I've got it all under control. Go see if you can find some clothes. IF you want to have a bit of a wash, you can, using the galley sink, or we can hit the club shower rooms later. I'll go up on deck if you want to use the sink."
"Thank you kind Sir, but I think a proper shower would be heaven. Let me find some clothes, eat and then we can go out and meet the neighbours."
With that she disappeared into the forward cabin and started rummaging around in his lockers.
Wolf moved aft and into the galley and pulled out a pot and some soup mix. Pouring water into the pot, he put it onto the propane stove and fired up the burner. While it came to a boil he turned to the chart table and rolled the chart up to one side, then opened up the cooler. Pulling out bread rolls, butter, cheese and some sort of sliced meat, he made up a plate of sandwiches. By that time the water was boiling so he dumped in the soup mix, and put it to simmer. Thinking some garnish would be nice, he opened up a cabinet and pulled out some pickled beets, pickles and some Japanese pickled something or other. (What it was he had no clue, he'd bought it because it looked "interesting". He figured he'd find out soon enough)
A few minutes later Kat appeared in the main cabin, wearing one of his long sleeve white shirts, and a pair of fleece track pants that were not too badly paint stained for Wolf to have tossed them. She paused for a moment to pull on a sweater. The boat was still at ambient temperature around 13C. Wolf was used to it and hadn't noticed. She had put the boots back on, this time with a couple of pairs of work socks.
Wolf said "Lunch is almost ready. How about you open up the table." Pointing to the leaf on the dinette side, he told her to "Lift the folding leaf up on the dinette side and swing out the supports." She worked her way into the dinette and did so. Then she turned aft towards Wolf as he passed her the plate of sandwiches and other stuff. Finally he brought out bowls, spoons and then picked up the pot of soup and brought it around the end of the galley counter to the table.
He sat down, and Kat ladled out some of the soup for both of them, and they fell to, eating like they'd starved for a week. Never had plain sandwiches, soup and pickles tasted as fine as they did now. After finishing the first bowl and a sandwich without speaking, they started talking about what they needed to do to survive.
"I guess the first thing we should do is a meet n greet with the neighbours." Wolf mused.
"Sure, and find out if any one has heard anything new. We should see how they are fixed for food and water too. I guess we will have to do some shopping later, and we will need some help doing that. We need weapons as well. These wrench handles are OK but I'd rather have something designed for the job. I need some cloths too." she said
Yeah, shopping is going to be a treat. The Komatsu will do for transport but we need to be able to get into a store and have people watching our backs and help with the scavenging and loading. At least half a dozen or so should do the trick."
"We need to find a map and a phone book. I'm not that familiar with this area, so knowing where to go for food and cloths is beyond me." Kat noted.
"I expect that we'll find both in the clubhouse. We'll check out the kitchen area too for food and such before we go talk with the other people."
With that, Wolf ate the last bit of his sandwich, stood up and started moving the remains of lunch into the galley sink. The leftover pickles and what not he put into the cabinet, then filled the sink with water and soap.
The dishes were cleaned up in short order and they were set to do the visits to the neighbours. But before Wolf headed up the ladder to the deck he opened up a tool drawer, and pulled out a pair of wire cutters, then turned towards the sealed locker where his guns were under bond. The cutters made fast work of the seal and he lifted the hatch to reveal several weapons. One was a decent if ancient sniper rifle, based on the Swedish M-1896 pattern rifle. He'd bought it back in his college days and fitted it with a half decent Bushnell scope. Voila, poor man's sniper rifle. He'd actually been able to get decent groupings out to about 300 meters and could actually boast about hitting 5 out of 5 on a 12 inch target at 800. His old buddy Neil hadn't believed it even when he'd been there to watch it happen.
The next was a stainless steel Ruger Mini 14, while the 3rd was a Winchester Defender combat shotgun, also made from stainless steel. Last but not least a Soviet SKS rifle. Beside those four was a locked case which he opened up to show a Smith and Wesson Stainless 686, a Star model B, (a colt 45 look alike but in 9mm), a Walther P-38 and a Luger P-08. There were several boxes of .357 magnum loads for the 686, a fair amount of 9mm and about a thousand rounds for the SKS.
He pulled out the 686, and a holster. Then he turned to Kat and asked her if she was still comfortable with guns.
"I haven't had one in my hands for a long time but yeah, I'm still comfortable. I see you still have the Star. I'll take that one." She said as she put out her hand.
"Ok. Here you go." as he handed over the handgun, the magazines and a box of cartridges. Digging about, he pulled out a clip on holster and handed that to her as well. He watched as she loaded the 3 magazines, racked the slide, checked the bore, inserted a mag into the butt of the handgun, released the slide, dropped the hammer and put on the safety. Then she put it into the chip on and hung that from her pants.
He turned back and put a pad lock on the locker, and then said to her "Ok, lets go see the neighbours.