It Wasn't The Bullet (22) “Phew, sorry, just can’t believe I slept so well. I do need to take a piss though.” “Yes, we should rest for half an hour. Samantha has been driving non-stop, and would surely have need of relief herself.” “You could say that.” Samantha replied sounding a little desperate. “Well, we are perhaps an hour away from our destination in this country. I seem to recall a small establishment somewhere on this road where we could satisfy both hunger and nature.” A further twenty minutes passed, much to Charlie’s chagrin, but at the sign that said ‘Roscoff, thirty kilometres’ a road side restaurant came into view. The neon sign suggested it was still open and they pulled of the road and into the small car park. Once inside, bladders empty, they sat down to a surprisingly good meal. Then, leaving a healthy tip to the painted classic French waitress, they walked around outside to remove the kinks from their cramped muscles and then resumed their journey to Roscoff. The road was cocooned with a coal tar night; Samantha was starting to feel the strain of her long drive. They drove through the narrow cobblestone streets of the outer village, the headlights picking grey stone of the medieval buildings. Simon indicated a small laneway for Samantha to turn onto. There were unexpected bends and curves that tested her reflexes. Simon did his best to give her advanced warning of the more wicked turns, but his memory was not perfect. Eventually the car reached the crest of a slight incline and the landscape changed into the unmistakable tapestry of an ocean at night. “Pull over when you find a safe spot.” said Simon, “I need to speak to you both when I have your full attention.” Samantha’s pulse increased as she wondered what was going to be spoken. She found or imagined she found a safe parking place, because all around was so dark she could only see what the headlights fell upon. “Now my comrades in arms, I feel compelled to brief you on the next part of our mission. I have always felt it imperative that everyone involved in a plan should know everything about the plan. I shall try to make sure that you are as informed as I.” “Now that’s a good fucking idea.” announced Charlie. “I’m glad you approve,” retorted Simon rather dryly. “First a little housekeeping. In the course of the next hours you will have occasion to see a number of people that are in my employ. Please do not approach them or attempt to voice your gratitude. These individuals rely on anonymity to survive, and I wish to keep it that way. I have your assent.” He stopped speaking, and in the darkened car Samantha and Charlie could sense he was waiting for a verbal conformation they had understood. They both did just that, and Simon was satisfied enough with the two soft yeses to continue, “We are also going to embark in an extremely hazardous crossing of the busiest shipping lanes in Northern Europe. We are going to bisect the English Channel rather like a badger navigating the perils of Hyde Park corner in rush hour. Having said this I am confident we will negotiate these perils successfully. I think that Samantha should sleep until we find it necessary to call on her help us with look out duties. Charles, I would like you to scan the channel for ships bearing down on our position. The craft we have is powerful and, with a slight sprinkling of luck, should avoid any potentially life-threatening collisions. Now, I do not know exactly where we are to come ashore in Great Britain. This will be revealed to all of us when my associate in Blighty has received the relevant information regarding the British Customs patrol areas this night. I am sure I have revealed my penchant for gadgets to you. We will be using an American invention developed for the United States Air Force for use in their fairly recent war in South East Asia. It is basically a transponder that was planted deep in enemy territory to guide air strikes into known Viet Cong strongholds. However, we are going to use it to guide us to a safe haven.” “You mean use it sideways?” “Simply put Charles, yes. We should be getting on. I have calculated it will take us six hours or so to cross the water. It will be infinitely harder to land at dawn. I feel like being a little cavalier and proposing a toast. All for one and…” “One for all” all three voices joined together for the end of the quotation. Samantha started the engine and pulled back out onto the road. Simon was concentrating hard to recall the exact road that led to the dock where their boat moored. Samantha took a left turn and slammed on the brakes as the jetty appeared suddenly before her. “Let’s go”, Charlie said excitedly. They exited the car; Charlie collected all the bags whilst Simon strode purposefully toward the powerboat that sat in shadow at the dock. Samantha could just make out three figures move forward to greet him. The four of them remained huddled together for what could be described as a brief meeting. One of the shadows left the group and set a course for the car where Charlie and herself were waiting. “Come on, let’s go.” Charlie whispered loudly. Their paths crossed and neither Samantha nor Charlie looked anywhere but straight ahead. As they reached the craft, the other two shadows melted away into the night. Simon clambered onto the deck and reached over for the bags. After depositing the bags on the wooden floor, his hands went out to assist Samantha and then he left to go presumably the wheelhouse. They heard a car door slam and the engine start, and finally the crunch of rubber tyres on gravel as the vehicle made it’s way back from whence it came. “This could be a bit exciting, eh, Sam?” She could feel herself grinning in the blackness, “Fucking right!” “I overheard your conversation with Simon. If we survive this, we’ll make some plans. OK?” “Yes, Charlie.” “You’d better go below and get a little sleep. I’ll go and see if Simon needs a hand.” Charlie walked forward to a ladder he thought would end in the captains’ cabin. Samantha felt warm inside despite the cool air drifting in from the ocean as she made her way to a door that would take her to the cabin area. There was a sudden high-pitched whine and then a low guttural roar as the engines spun into life. She caught a shadow out of the corner of her vision and saw a man untying the ropes that were securing the boat, she then saw the arc of one tie line as it fell onto the deck and then shortly after another coil slithered on board. The engines gained momentum and the world she was standing on moved away from the shore. She took one last glance at the dark outline of France and slipped through the doorway into the cabin below. The boat moved sideways and up and down as it picked up speed. Samantha was deposited onto a small couch when she lost balance. She stared at the ceiling and her eyes began to close. Samantha lost control of the car and it started to skid, then lost it’s traction and began to roll over and over until, she woke up to see Charlie standing over her preparing to shake her awake again “Fucking hell! That was some sleep you were having.” “You can talk! How long have we been at sea? “About four and a half hours. Simon picked up his signal; we’re heading to somewhere close to Hastings in East Sussex. I need your help to spot shipping. It’s pretty busy out there. There’s some coffee on the stove in the galley.” Samantha looked completely bemused. “Oh, it’s through that door right there.” He said pointing to a small opening at the far end of the cabin. “Put this jacket on when you come up on deck. There are some binoculars in one of the pockets.” With that he was gone. She poured herself a drink, and took it with her outside. The waves looked menacing and threw salt water onto her face as she tried to pick out Charlie or Simon. She caught a green and blue hue emanating from a small room about five feet above the deck. She moved toward it and then climbed the short ladder until she was looking at Simons back hunched over the helm of the boat. Each side of him were dials, gauges and flashing blips and bits. He sensed a presence behind him and swivelled round sharply. When he recognised it was Samantha, he grinned and shouted above the noise of the engines and sea, “Ahoy there shipmate! We’re doing splendidly. Shouldn’t be too much longer. Managed to miss most of the larger vessels. Nearly got rather badly pranged by a bloody ferry, terrible driver whoever he was. Probably bloody French! Ha-ha.” She could see he was in his element. Near death experiences and the achieving the almost impossible were his life force. “I rather think Charlie needs a bit of a hand spotting the traffic. Bloody stuffs’ coming from all angles now, I think we’re in some kind of nautical crossroads. Just trundle up that little ladder to your left and lie down on the roof of this cabin. Hold on for dear life though, don’t want to lose you. Bloody difficult to turn round and pick you up! Away with you my dear. Give the roof a bloody great bang if you see a ship, they come up on you rather suddenly.” The boat crashed into a big crest and dove into the water until, with a massive jerk, released its hull from the clutches of Trident. “Remember, bloody great big wallop on the roof.” He turned and went back to his steering and dials. Samantha was surprised at the amount of effort it took her to climb onto the roof. She had to jettison her coffee and use both hands. When she finally heaved her self over the edge she was met with a buffeting headwind, which threatened to hurl her back down onto the deck. She crawled onto the roof and with a tremendous final exertion managed to hook her feet into some small rails that traversed the structure. Her hands were suddenly freezing and she realised that her body was soaked to the skin despite the heavy coat she was wearing. She manipulated the small binoculars out of the left hand pocket and began to survey the surrounding waters. So intense had been her concentration she had failed to see Charlie hanging on for dear life less than ten feet away from her. “Told you it would be exciting!” he hollered to her as his words were snatched away by the wind. “Just keep scanning the horizon from your...” his instructions were cut off by a stray wave that broke over the top of them. She could hear him coughing, “Just look from your 12 o’clock to your 5 o’clock.” He had to pause again as the wind this time whipped up a bucket of razor sharp water into their faces. “If you see a big fucking ship shout bloody loudly, just..”, again his words were clipped off in mid sentence by the flailing sea, “then point to where you see the fucking thing. Keep an eye out on my side for a sec, I …..” the wind gusted and tried to pluck them both off their perch. “I’m going to try and light a fucking cigarette.” Charlie finally managed to get out. She suddenly felt overwhelmed, until she realised for all Charlie’s exploits, he had probably never done this before. She resolved to do her best and look out for big fucking ships, and give a great big bloody wallop on the roof and shout bloody loudly if she saw one. Charlie, quite amazingly, got his Marlboro to light until a wash of seawater extinguished it. She heard him curse loud and clear over the howling and screeching of nature’s soundtrack. Her eyes moved backwards and forwards over her allotted territory. Sometimes she thought she saw the silhouette of ship, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Then on one of her scans she saw lights, a massive ship was bearing down on them. Terrified, she could not believe how massive this thing was, she banged on the roof with all her might and twisted her head to see behind her. Simons head popped up, she screamed with all her might’ “My 2 o’clock. 2 o’clock” while she shouted she gesticulated wildly in that direction. She thought she heard him yell. “Hold on chaps!”, but couldn’t be sure until she heard the boat shudder as the engines revved to maximum and the roof slanted at a crazy angle as the boat turned sharply away from the monstrous vision to her right. All her muscles were pleading for relief as she fought to keep her body wedged in the tracks. She glanced over at Charlie, it was worse for him, centrifugal force was pulling him over. Now the boat felt like it was going to capsize, she imagined Simon fighting with all his might to keep the boat from going over, impossibly she thought she heard the engines change in pitch as more was asked of them. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the boat began to right itself. The massive ship was no longer on a collision course with them. The hull returned to shaking in a ‘normal’ way. Charlie was stretched out, she could see his body heaving as he tried to replenish his oxygen. He turned his head and she could swear he winked at her. She stuck her tongue out and they both started laughing. Another hour passed, the sea calmed somewhat and Samantha fought against the cold and weariness to concentrate on her task. She had let her imagination wander to what would have happened if Simon had not been able to change course enough to miss the liner. She felt thrilled and a little terrified that she had had a genuine near death experience. Suddenly through her binoculars she was sure that she could make out landfall. Then, to her horror, saw that dawn was beginning to break. She could see Charlie begin to be bathed in a faint amber glow. Simon must have climbed the ladder, because she was a little startled when he said, “Ok chaps, jump down, get dry. I can handle the rest of this.” His head disappeared as Samantha turned to see the voice. She was so stiff that Charlie clambered over to her and tenderly moved her backward towards the steps. She negotiated the stepladder gingerly, and landed on the deck. Back inside the cabin and away from the wind and sea spray, Charlie and Samantha were shivering. Charlie started to remove all his clothes and urged Samantha to do the same. He found a couple of towels in one of the upper lockers and tossed one to Samantha. “We must get dry and warm. I think we’re close to hypothermia.”, Charlie was having trouble speaking normally, and Samantha felt like there was a deep fog swirling around her mind. “Don’t rub too harshly, physical activity is bad. Just get dry.” As he was saying these instructions he rummaged through the other cabinets and threw all the clothes he found into the centre of the cabin. Samantha did as she was told, “Put the clothes on Sam. We must get our core temperatures up to normal. As many as you can, we must get layers.” Samantha pulled on the clothes, and felt like the Michelin man, but after a few minutes, she could feel her body warming from the inside. The colour in Charlie’s face was also returning to its natural hue. Charlie went to the galley and came back into the cabin holding two cups of steaming coffee. “We probably shouldn’t drink this because of the caffeine, but I don’t have time for kettles. Drink up.” The coffee tasted bitter after sitting on the stove for so long, but it did the trick and Samantha realised that she was hot with the layers of clothes. “Can I take some of these smelly clothes off now? I’m starting to sweat.” “Yeah, we should be fine now.” Charlie responded. Dressed now in dry, clean clothes they went back on deck to see what was going on. “Everything alright Simon?” Charlie shouted up. Simon raised his hand and gestured for them to climb the ladder and cram into the wheelhouse together. Once they were there, Simon gave them an update on their situation. “As you can see, I rather underestimated the time of our crossing. Which leaves us on a rather sticky wicket. I have a lock on our intended landing area, but the morning is upon us, and soon I fear, so will the general public. I am optimistic that we will be contacted shortly by my associate on the shore.” Then, as if by design, the radio spluttered into life. “Seabreeze, Seabreeze, this coast guard hotel one-niner. Please respond with your destination and number of passengers. Over.” Samantha gasped, and saw the lines in Charlie’s face tense. Simon said, “Marvellous,” and reached for the hand microphone. “Hotel one-niner. This is Seabreeze On course for Hastings mariner, two passengers. Over” “Seabreeze. Continue on your present bearing for a further ten minutes and prepare to take on Customs officers. Over” “Hotel one-niner. Understood, will await your arrival. Over” Simon confirmed that he had heard the transmission and then faced Samantha and Charlie. “There is no need to worry, the voice you heard was one of my associates. He was actually using a bona fide customs wavelength.” Samantha was startled when Charlie snapped back, “How did he know when and where, Simon?”
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