Richard Herman
The Trojan Sea
For Sheila,
who made all this possible
Epigraph
To be vanquished and yet not surrender, that is victory.
The world continues to offer glittering prizes to those who have stout hearts and sharp swords.
If he can’t fly a good jet — and he hasn’t the heart of a hunter — he’ll never be a fighter pilot.
Prologue
Jane Ryan huddled under the dodger as the sailboat met the eight-foot swell head-on. It was almost 6:00 A.M., and she was cold and sleepy as she neared the end of her four-hour watch. Temptress took the swell easily. Jane loved the forty-two-foot boat with its cutter rig, classic lines, and strong hull. In many ways it was her alter ego, a seagoing version of what she was: sturdy, totally reliable, a little too broad of beam, and handsome in an old-fashioned way. No one would ever call Jane Ryan slim or beautiful. But perceptive people did look at her twice. Just like Temptress.
But she had a problem. Mike Stuart, the boat’s owner, had worked hard, taken all the required classes, and been certified by the U.S. Sailing Association for offshore passage-making. As a final touch he had hired her to be his instructor for a test in the real thing on a six-week cruise in the Caribbean. But something was not quite right. She moved the problem to a back burner. They could talk about it in Miami, another three or four days away. Automatically, she checked the barometer at the navigation station just inside the cabin. It was falling rapidly. Strange, she thought. The forecast twenty-four hours ago had called for good weather with the possibility of a tropical storm well to the south of them. She shook away the cobwebs of sleep as the eastern horizon glowed with the first golden red of sunrise. Mike Stuart climbed out of the companionway to take the next watch. She squeezed past him and stood on the ladder. “Coffee?” she called.
“Super,” Stuart said, his voice raised against the wind.
She disappeared into the cabin as Temptress slammed into a wave and shuddered. “Update weather,” she mumbled to herself. She braced herself against the roll of the boat, lit the stove, and within a few minutes handed Stuart a mug of steaming coffee. “Breakfast?”
“How do you do it?” Stuart asked, taking a welcome sip. “I could never cook in all this motion.”
“Practice,” Jane answered. She was given to one-or two-word communications, and she considered anything more than four blabbering. She studied Stuart for a moment. Forty-one years old and five feet eleven inches tall, he was remarkable mainly for his red hair and bright green eyes. Too bad about the glasses, she thought. His eyes are his best feature. She ducked back into the galley, still thinking about him. After cruising on Temptress for over a month in tropical climates, she had come to enjoy his dry humor and gentle manner. An image of them in bed with her responding to his tender touch played in her mind. Where did that come from? She was being a blabbermouth and hit her mental delete key to obliterate the image. But it wouldn’t go away.
Stuart stuck his head inside the companionway. “Jane, the wind’s starting to kick up. Should we furl the jib and take a reef in the mainsail? Maybe fly the staysail?”
“I’ll help,” she replied. If it were her watch, she’d have done it by herself, without asking. Why was she coddling him? Deep down she knew the answer. Mike Stuart was truly one of the good guys, and there was something about him she wanted to mother and protect. Or was it caress and cuddle? She couldn’t make up her mind. She slipped into her life vest and harness.
Stuart had already furled the jib on its roller reefing and turned Temptress into the wind, all simple tasks. He was clipped onto a tether and ready to go forward to reef the main while she stayed in the cockpit. They were a well-practiced team, and within minutes they’d shortened the big sail down to its first reef. Stuart worked his way aft, tidying up the lines and the reefing tie-downs.
Now there was enough light for her to study the sky. She didn’t like what she saw. “Mike, head north.”
“North is Cuba. That’s never-never land.” He grinned at her, and she felt her heart do a little flip-flop. “I can never, never go there. Never.” Stuart was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force with a security clearance that forbade his even thinking about going to certain places. Cuba was high on that list.
“Big storm to the south. North is away.”
“Right. Any port.” Another thought came to him. “Isn’t this too early in the season for a hurricane?”
“Tell the hurricane that.” She climbed down the companionway and sat at the navigation station. Her hands darted over the single-sideband radio as she hunted for an open frequency. Twelve minutes later she had a current picture of the weather and for the first time in her sailing career she was deeply worried. She laid in a course to Cienfuegos in Cuba and its sheltered harbor before joining Stuart in the cockpit. She gave him the new compass heading, and he dialed it into the autopilot. “That tropical storm southeast of us,” she told him, “has turned into the granddaddy of hurricanes. Caught everyone by surprise.”
“The weather gurus blow it big time,” he quipped dryly. “That’s what comes from never looking out the window before they make up a forecast. How bad is it?”
She shook her head. “It’s gone all the way — a category five. That means winds greater than a hundred and fifty-five miles per hour.”
“Ouch. How big will the waves get?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“I’ll try not to.” He gave her his lopsided grin. “Are we in deep doodoo?”
“Not yet. By going north, we should outrun the worst part.”
“Can the boat take it?”
“Oh, yeah,” she replied.
Again the wry grin. “But can we?” He started the diesel engine to charge the batteries and make sure it was running properly.
Four hours later they took the second reef in the mainsail and reduced the staysail to half. By noon, they had taken the third and final reef in the main. Just before she finished her noon-to-four watch, Jane furled the main and flew a fourth of the staysail, relying on the diesel for power. Stuart took over then, and she went down below to secure the cabin, stow all loose objects, and rig lee straps on the settee for sleeping. Then she fixed their last hot meal and forced Stuart to eat it. Finally, she prepared a large thermos of hot soup and tied the thermos in the sink. With the galley cleaned up and all the drawers pinned closed, she lay down on the settee to rest.
She was sound asleep when a rogue wave knocked Temptress down, laying the boat flat on its port side. The lee straps saved her from tumbling about and injuring herself. “Come on,” she coaxed. Slowly Temptress righted herself, and Jane felt the boat stabilize as Stuart restarted the engine. But it wouldn’t catch. Rather than drain the batteries, he gave up. “Good boy,” she said. She donned her life vest and harness and went topside. It was dark, and Stuart was at the helm, guiding Temptress down the backside of a huge wave.
“No damage up here,” he called. “How’s down below?”