An Extravagant Life by Stuart Woods

Author:Stuart Woods [Woods, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

34

Hard on the Wind

A week out. I was sitting in the cockpit in the late evening, enjoying the view. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, as beautiful at sea as the sky at night. There seem to be at least four times as many stars as on land, and the Milky Way is just that, a great white swath across a black universe. Then I heard a new noise.

Sailing is not as quiet a pastime as many people seem to believe it to be. Every sailboat is accompanied by a constant little concerto of sounds—water sweeping past the hull, halyards flapping against the mast, the leach of a sail shaking in the wind. A new sound means that something, however small, has changed. The sound I heard now was coming not from the boat but from the water. I looked over the starboard rail and saw, lit by its phosphorescent progress through the sea, a torpedo coming straight for the boat.

It is amazing how many thoughts and images can pass through the mind in a second or two. I saw the yacht erupt in the explosion, and myself flying through the air, then I thought, Nonsense, nobody would torpedo a small boat; anyway, I can see that the torpedo is a living thing. It was a great white shark or killer whale. Bill King had been attacked by one in the Southern Ocean, now it was happening to us. I saw the boat, holed and sinking, while we scrambled into the vulnerable life raft and the creature circled the crippled yacht, waiting. Inches from the hull, the great white “shark” veered sharply away from the boat, as if he had ricocheted. I discovered that I had been holding my breath.

The great white shark/torpedo was a dolphin, the first I had ever seen at night. Now I saw that there was a pair. They did their torpedo act again and again, driving at the yacht, then veering away at the last possible second. Since they provided their own lighting in the phosphorescence, I could clearly see their shapes and features, their smooth gray skins. I sat, transfixed, for nearly half an hour as they played their game, having the time of their lives, then they were gone.

We had altered our watch-keeping system now, and we were both well rested. After passing over the continental shelf and leaving the trawler fleets behind, we were in much less danger of collision, being off the most heavily traveled shipping lanes. Now one of us would stay dressed all night, ready to go on deck if necessary but not keeping a constant lookout. One night, when I was on watch, I was dozing lightly in my berth, when I became aware that Bill had awakened and was going on deck. I returned to my doze, thinking he had gone up to pee, but suddenly the yacht tacked. A moment later Bill came below again. “I think I must have developed some sort of ESP in submarines during the war,” he said.

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