Archive for April 29, 2013
DISASTER AT SEA
This is a sample of the destruction leading up to the ultimate event.
Chapter Ten
Joe Sparks had drawn night duty on the bridge of the Clementine. He enjoyed the solitude of the darkened bridge, the tropical breeze soft and gentle and the total lack of passengers. Joe was not a ‘people person’ and the fact that the ship carried passengers in addition to cargo irritated him to no end. He knew Captain Roberts, a good man and captain of the Clementine. Joe had served with him on other vessels and he was a man to be trusted. Roberts knew the ocean, was a good sailor and a fair boss. When Joe heard Roberts was commanding the Clementine, he signed up. This was Joe’s first voyage on the ship, and when he arrived dockside, he couldn’t believe the line of civilians filing aboard. His love of working with Roberts was greater than his distaste for the passengers. He immediately signed up for night bridge duty.
The ship basically sailed itself. All Joe needed to do was monitor the course and make sure the autopilot was doing its job. Other than that, along with handling the occasional minor malfunction, Joe spent most of his time drinking coffee and reading. The only other person on the bridge was the radar operator. His presence in these waters was just to fulfill regulations. There were no landmasses for hundreds of miles and they were sailing far from the well-traveled shipping lanes of the Pacific.
Not prepared to see anything on his scope, he was surprised to pick up a reading a few miles away. “Joe, I don’t understand it, I’ve got a reading ten miles off the starboard bow. It appears to be land but there shouldn’t be any land out there.” Just as the radar operator began to speak, Joe noticed a glow on the ocean’s surface in the same direction.
“I’d better call the captain on this one.
* * * *
On deck, George and Emily strolled along the starboard side of the ship. With dinner finished, they decided to walk for a while on deck before retiring for the night. Emily gave George’s hand a squeeze. “I know how much you wanted a home near the ocean. I also know what a sacrifice it was to see that the girls were educated. I’m proud of our girls and I’m proud of what you’ve done for them.”
George held Emily’s hand and was about to respond when he noticed a light off in the distance. “That’s strange. I thought we weren’t near any land. That’s too bright to be another ship.”
At the same time George was pointing out the unusual glow to Emily, Captain Roberts entered the bridge and joined Sparks. The freighter’s course had taken it to within a few miles of the new volcano. Roberts was about to reach for the binoculars when the glow went dim. No one on board the Clementine knew they had but moments to live.
On deck George too saw the glow go faint. He was holding Emily’s hand and about to tell her, “I love you”, but the words never came.
The cone of the volcano exploded with a deafening roar. A massive wall of ash and super-heated gases bore down on the Clementine. A fraction of a second after the sound of the explosion reached the Clementine; she was engulfed in the deadly cloud. Anything on deck that was combustible burst into flame – deckchairs, lifeboats and human flesh were incinerated. Debris broke the windows of the bridge, and then everything and everyone on the bridge were consumed in a holocaust. Those below deck survived a second or two longer, but soon the Clementine was transformed into a floating funeral pyre. The inferno reached the ship’s fuel tanks and the Clementine was no more.
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