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5
Chris muttered obscenities under his breath as he listened to the skipper issue yet another order, this time on the best way to inflate the friggin’ dinghy. Never one for D.I.Y or household chores, Chris was not only struggling to make the dinghy rise, he was also making himself look stupid in the process.
Eventually, watching with hands in pockets, face suitably flushed Chris watched the increasingly frustrated skipper throw the fully inflated dinghy attached only by a thin rope to the Damocles into the chilly waters of the Atlantic.
The skipper, moving with a speed belying his age swiftly threw a rope ladder over the side and picked up his rifle before promptly falling flat on his face, twitching wildly, his arms flailing like a jacknifed truck full of bricks.
Tears welling in his eyes and fear gripping his heart, Chris ran to the side of the grizzled sea-dog and looked down at his face whiter than the snows of Hoth, with foam bubbling at the corners of his jagged mouth. He watched as the skipper mouth silent words and saw his fumbling hands reach inside his coat…
Chris grabbed the skippers hand and found a small, round mother of pearl box within.
Upon opening the container; Chris was surprised to see hundreds of small round pellets. Still not having a clue as to how to save the skipper, he felt the skippers knotted hand reach into the box and take a pill and place it reverently underneath the nicotine stained tongue of the irascible old man.
Minutes of soul shaking, concern riddled time passed, and as it did so Chris watched the skipper slowly, agonisingly return to something approaching normality. Eventually though, even time catches up with most ardent attempts at avoidance and so the skipper slowly, gingerly sat up.
Looking less like a hardened veteran, and much more like the lonely old man that he truly was, the skipper turned to face Chris and spoke.
“Son; that was an angina attack, have you ever left that landlubbing, city dwelling cocoon of yours?”……
Chris, both embarrassed and concerned replied, “I’m…sorry skipper, I just froze”.
Smiling, his somewhat less than handsome face transformed into something approaching just homely laughingly said “ Son, don’t you ever stand behind me with a loaded gun, now get me up before I get piles off the f***ing deck”.
And so the two spectrums of life experiences climbed into the dinghy, swirling eddies lifting and caressing the would be heroes as they rose and fell, safe for now in the hands of nature’s greatest cleanser.
If only the wind had not been blowing inland, and if only the strange bedfellows had been listening harder they may have heard the sounds of a fierce battle for survival taking place less than two miles away.
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