Mingle knew there was no point in arguing. Her beloved Brat would sail the Imp flat out until the wind died. There was no arguing with the excitement of the voyage. But a lull would be nice she thought as she stepped below to eye the debris on the floor of the main cabin. Nothing serious, mind you. But lots of little things: cushions, a few cassette tapes, the rug had rearranged themselves on the low side of the boat.
She straightened some of the flotsam and eyed the stove, swinging on its gimbals. She wanted a cup of coffee badly but there was little chance that the pot would stay on that swinging stove. Instead she grabbed a cold drink from the icebox and lay on the bunk on the low side of the boat. It cocooned her and she felt safe. She was low in the center of the vessel, the area where there was the least amount of motion. She cradled the drink can while she adjusted her foul weather pants and turned on the light behind her head. She picked up a book that nestled in a locker to her right and settled down to make the best of it. Half an hour later she was drifting off to sleep, the book slipping down to her chest.
Brat gripped the wheel tightly, holding the vessel on its course to the South. His left foot was jammed for support in the lowest point of the cockpit. His arms fairly ached from holding the Imp?s nose up to the very edge of the wind. He looked at the mainsail, then at the jib, the biggest sail on the boat. That was too big for this blow, he told himself. He had reefed the mainsail an hour after dawn. But that jib was just too much canvas for this wind.
He clicked the autopilot to "on" and waited for its power ram arm to grab hold of the steering rudder post. With this much wind the pilot was stressed. But he needed its help while he reduced the jib. He released the jib sheet and felt the boat immediately slow down as the pressure on the sail evaporated. He grabbed the line to the furling gear for the jib and wrapped it around the secondary winch to his left. He cranked in on the winch, reducing the surface of the jib exposed to the weather by 20 percent, then 30 percent. That felt better. The heel of the vessel now was at 20 degrees. She no longer felt like a charging stallion. Now she scampered across the lumpy seas. Not perfectly comfortable, mind you. That could never happen with the seas that were rising and falling some 12 to 15 feet. Nonetheless he felt more in control of the Imp even though he thoroughly resented the loss of two knots of speed.
Now the autopilot was happier at its task. The boat was better balanced and the pilot didn?t have to fight unnatural forces.
Brat climbed over the cockpit seats. He ducked through the bimini top supports and moved forward to inspect the jib. The angry sea, cobalt blue, white-flecked bucked and tossed its head, a living, breathing thing that seemed unhappy with its lot.
Brat eyed the nastiness, calculating their arrival in the Virgin Islands at this speed: five more days plus four hours with luck.
The Imp sliced through the waves, rising to meet them, occasionally punching into them when their rhythm lost its sequence by a second. There was something hypnotic in the movement. The deck streamed with salt water and spray occasionally rose 15 feet and soaked the lower portion of the jib.
He reached for the shrouds on the leeward side of the mast. They were slack and gave by four inches. Twelve feet away, the windward shrouds were violin tight as they took the strain of thousands of pounds of pressure on the mast.
A wicked wave, 20 feet from trough to peak, broke on the Imp's starboard bow. The effect was immediate and disastrous. The vessel lurched to port. Brat reached for the slack shrouds and in the nano-second that his cold wet fingers wrapped around the steel wire, the wave lifted the boat and moved it 18 inches to port. The wire wasn't there as his fingers closed around air. His body, moved at the same moment as the boat but in a slightly different direction because of his height and weight, moved left and forward to counteract the buffeting of the wave. His left foot went down on the deck from the cabin top. But that step never found a deck. Overboard. He was turning in his somersault. Life was moving slowly now. He felt the shroud bang his right shoulder as he catapulted into the angry Atlantic.
The shock of the moment suspended him. The images that ricocheted through him: The water seemed warmer than it looked; he was in the Gulf Stream; the boat's name was visible on her stern as she galloped away from him; Mingle. Oh. God, Mingle. He screamed and knew he was calling into the wind. She would hear nothing but the wind and the swish, swish, swish of water running along the hull.
The boat held its perfect course, the autopilot mindlessly doing its job without complaint or warning.
Brat treaded water watching the boat slip quickly - oh, so quickly - away from him. He could no longer see the hull. The sail appeared over the waves but even that was diminishing as the distance increased to 250 yards, now 500 yards, now a half mile.
Five minutes in the water and now he was alone. The waves slapped him, raised him and lowered him. The temperature of the water was in the low 70s and he assessed his predicament. No life vest, no food, no light, no protection from fish or sun. Mmmm. Not the best of conditions to guarantee survival. Mingle might come topsides, find emptiness and turn back 180 degrees to retrace her course. If that happened in the next half hour there was a fair chance of his connecting with her if... if she brought the Imp around exactly 180 degrees...if she retraced the course without
Brat floated in the water. He knew it was pointless to try swimming....to where? He raced back and forth through the permutations for survival but no answers were apparent.
He saw their fins, then their heads and tails as they rolled through the waves. They circled him, almost warily. Sharks, he though. No, wait, sharks don?t move that way. There was that playful, almost joyful bucking and rolling. Dolphins. He could hear their chip-chip-squeals of signaling and sonar beeps as they communicated with each other and as they measured him. They were about 10 feet from him, circling, criss-crossing in front and behind him. Two of them. About seven or eight feet long. He called out to them. "Come to me. Come to me. We have work to do." He felt a wild mixture of elation, fear, desperation. The larger of the two nudged his left elbow, sending its sonar waves into the joint. He remembered the incredible day he spent at Flipper's School in the Florida Keys, years back, swimming with the dolphins there. They had a fascination with human joints, something they lacked. They loved to nudge and measure human shoulders, knees, elbows looking at the bones and their sockets.
Now he let them nuzzle him, encouraging them with soft cooing sounds. He wondered if there might be the remotest possibility that these mammals would be capable to delivering him back to his 45-foot sailing vessel. And he prayed aloud that such a possibility might become a reality.
The smaller dolphin now came up under his extended right arm. It stopped when its dorsal fin connected with his hand. He held the fin and the dolphin slipped away from him. But it came back in five seconds and offered its fin to him again.
"I need you to take a heading of 175 degrees," he said, smiling at the insanity of the situation. "One hundred and seventy five degrees, please," he said again. The dolphin pulled him along with ease. Brat eyed the pale circle of sun through the cirrus clouds. "Damned if we're not heading almost south," he said aloud. The dolphin dipped into the waves and he couldn't hold on. But the larger of the pair now came up to him and allowed him to hang on. Off they went at four knots. Brat kicked his boots off since they created enormous drag. The dolphin picked up speed now with his smaller mate surging ahead and returning every few minutes.
Brat was pulled along, sometimes just under the water and he gasped for breath. He was in awe of the power of the dolphin. When the mammal speeded up too much his hand could not stay locked on the dorsal fin. He felt it slide over the fin and then he was floundering in the water again. The dolphin looped around, coming up behind him and slowly nudging back under his arm, gently positioning the fin near the swimmer's outstretched hand.
At the crest of a wave, Brat glimpsed a patch of white sail. It disappeared quickly but minutes later he saw it again, this time closer. The Imp now was 200 yards ahead of them. He shouted for Mingle and the dolphin dived deep into the ocean. He was left sputtering for breath and clearing the salt water from his nose and eyes. The smaller dolphin came up to his back and pushed gently. He held onto the fin again and they took off for the boat. Closer, closer, closer. The hull was visible now. Now the name on the stern. Now he could see the chainplates supporting the shrouds on the side of the boat. Mingle was not topsides yet. He quietly hung on, not wanting to scare off the mammals as they pulled him along.
As they drew ahead of the vessel he shouted, "Mingle. Mingle. Help me. Help me."
She popped her head up the companionway, looking sleepy-eyed one moment and terror stricken the next.
"Brat? Brat. Where are you?" She pivoted her head to see if he was on the foredeck. "Brat. Where the hell are you? Brat?"
"Sweetheart, get a line over the side. I'm down here," he shouted to her. The dolphin maintained speed so he was on the lee side of the vessel, just eight feet from the bow.
Mingle found him, her mouth agape as she saw the dolphin pulling effortlessly to keep alongside the Imp. She released the main sheet and the jib sheet and the boat slowed immediately. The dolphin slowed to correspond. Brat shouted again for a line to be thrown to him. Mingle cleated the mainsheet and threw him the remaining 40 feet of line. He let go of his hold on the dolphin?s dorsal fin and grabbed for the knotted end of the mainsheet. He was swept immediately to the stern of the Imp and grabbed for the handholds to the swim platform built into her stern. He was weakening now. Hands were wrinkled and his core heat was diminished. His lips were blue but the adrenaline still pumped wildly through his chilled limbs.
A final pull and his hip rose above the swim platform. He let go and found his sodden foul weather pants streaming gallons of sea water through the legs. Now he felt the coldness within him. His body involuntarily began to shake. Great convulsions shook him and he vomited the salt water he'd ingested.
Mingle was at his side. The two dolphins circled the boat, watching the two humans with all-knowing eyes.