Seaworthy Page 16

  Next in the Canadians’ routine was the interrogation of my crew. Individually, my guys were asked to sit at the galley table and answer questions. I had already advised them to cooperate fully and to tell the truth, as we had no reason to do anything but. I can only assume that we all had the same story. One at a time, the men came to the bridge to report that they’d been questioned and to assure me that we were going to be fine. When the officers returned to the bridge, the crew went below to wait at the galley table and speculate about how much longer it would be before we were released and allowed to finish hauling our gear. Steve made a call on the satellite phone. Steve made another call. When he hung up from the second call, he said, “You’re not going to like this.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I am placing you under arrest and seizing the vessel. I have been instructed to escort you to St. John’s, Newfoundland.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Legal Affairs

  The Seahawk’s small wheelhouse was a tangle of legs that sprawled from folding chairs as the three men snored, heads back and arms crossed over uniformed chests that heaved in total discord. The authorities, who had been quick to tell me they’d been on their way home after two weeks of offshore duty when diverted to the scene of my transgression, slept soundly with the comfort of the two-hundred-foot Cygnus as a chaperone. I was surprised to be allowed to drive the boat after having been placed under arrest. (Goes to show what I know.) The exalted feeling I had reveled in while hauling gear—the epitome of being real and in the moment, here and now—was gone as if it had never existed. I now sat in the captain’s chair and experienced the most bizarre, most surrealistic out-of-body experience. Some part of me was drifting dreamlike in a flood tide of confusion and emotion, while the rest of me went through the mechanics of captaining my boat. I was oddly juxtaposed between maintaining command while in custody of what I regarded as an unknown, yet greater, authority.

  The officials had agreed to allow us to haul what remained of our gear. And we did so at daylight, landing another half-dozen fish, which we were allowed to take. When a bitter end came aboard with a mile and a half to go, I knew that a search for the missing piece would be hopeless, with no functioning beeper to toll us in. I made a halfhearted attempt to track the stray gear down and finally gave up, knowing that this was a needle in a watery haystack. Besides, I had bigger problems to deal with. We were 240 miles from St. John’s, Newfoundland. So I figured I had at least thirty hours to chat with Steve, Terry, and Dimitri, once they woke from their naps, about what would happen to me when we hit shore.

  Archie sneaked up the stairs and tipped an imaginary cup to his lips, asking if I wanted coffee. I shook my head and stuck out my lower lip in an exaggerated pout, indicating my mood, which had blossomed into full-blown sadness from the sprouts of disbelief of the night before. Arch nodded and pulled a camera from his breast pocket. We glanced at the Canadians’ arsenal, which they had piled haphazardly on the chart table, and then looked at each other. Arch shook his head, then scowled at me for even having the thought. It would have been a really cool picture, but I let it go and went back to being sad and staring at the horizon while feeling the chill of the shadow cast by the Cygnus, which remained close by on our starboard aft quarter.

  The situation was so foreign to my experience that I didn’t know how to act. I covered my awkwardness by concentrating on the familiar. I focused on the weather and navigation and planned a new fishing attack. When in doubt, go to what you know. I asked Archie about the amount of damage the sharks had done to our leaders. He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Then, as if humoring the crazy lady, he agreed to check with Hiltz and Timmy. I listened intently to the SSB radio for positions and fish reports from the boats working to the east and formed a strategy for squeezing into the lineup. When Archie reported a loss of three hundred leaders, I ordered the crew to begin rebuilding. “But, Linny, you’re under arrest,” Arch said, as if trying to wake me from a dream. I insisted that I didn’t care where we were going and that we really needed to work on the gear. “The boat has been seized. We’re going to Newfoundland.” Arch spoke softly and kindly, as if I didn’t quite understand my situation and he was trying to explain without upsetting me.

  “Arch, get the crew on the gear. If you don’t, I will.”

  “I’m on it.” And away he went, looking a lot like a spanked puppy. I just couldn’t have the crew thinking we were done. I had my doubts, but they needn’t know. The only part of my world that was real and tangible was my command of my boat and crew. I would hold on to those with clenched fists. If I let go, everything would meld into the blur of the unknown and scary.

  One at a time, the arresting officers shook themselves awake and stretched the stiffness from backs and knees with groans of pain. They were polite and courteous, as if paying a social visit on board, nothing at all like I’d assumed they would be. In spite of my present status—under arrest and in custody—they paid me the respect due to any captain. There were many transmissions in all directions on radios and satellite phones between the Seahawk, the Cygnus, Jim Budi, and someone I guessed to be the real boss and the one calling the shots, for whom I came to develop a strong dislike. The nameless authority was ordering the underlings to do what they actually seemed uncomfortable doing and was a great target for my silent but growing feelings of fear and anger. From my support system came assurance that the problem was being handled and that I would be released and free to return to the fishing grounds before we closed in on St. John’s. This was countered by my Canadian custodians, who relayed a skepticism that undermined the power of each encouraging update from Jim Budi. The struggle shoreside went back and forth, and intensity grew palpable in the frequent snippets shared.

  There was no privacy in any conversation. I heard all “they” said. And they heard all that I said. I’m sure we deduced quite accurately the tone and content of the talk of higher-ups on each side of the equation. It became increasingly clear that I had landed in the middle of an International Incident, and that although I was the unintentional instigator, I had become a pawn. Whatever had transpired in the crossing of the boundary was now insignificant. Principles overshadowed reality. Now the arresting officers and I sat on the sidelines and became spectators. A strange bonding took place. Like characters in stories of prisoners and their captors, we were forming a real and sympathetic rapport.

  The Canadian men took turns going back to the Cygnus for meals, for showers, and to sleep in real bunks. The orange inflatable kissed the side of our hull with each changing of the guard every six hours. When Terry returned to duty refreshed and clean-shaven, he confided that the ship’s cook was a fan of my books and asked if I would be willing to sign copies he carried aboard. Terry was a bit embarrassed to ask, and I was a little shy about being asked under the circumstances. But I proudly scrawled my name across the title pages of three books, which Terry tucked away in his travel bag. The next time Terry went on leave, he returned with hot muffins for the crew and me. And later, when Steve stepped back aboard after his break from the tedious Seahawk watch, he delivered a large platter of fried chicken.

  The Canadians carted all their own stores aboard the Seahawk and kept them on my chart table. I normally flipped out when a crew member placed food or drink in my workspace. But this was different. Even when a carton of fruit juice fell over and spilled sticky syrup that wicked under the glass and soaked my navigational chart, I wiped it up with a wad of paper towels and told my new friends not to worry about it. The Canadian men were quick to share food with us, not that we didn’t have enough of our own. But theirs was more interesting. (“Interesting” should not be confused with “tasty.”) When my crew and I complimented the extraordinary hardtack biscuits, even a single one of which, I was convinced, could be gnawed for days in a life raft, an entire case came aboard. The biscuits were a challenge for teeth and jaws but were a good source of entertainment in a weird sort of way. “No, dear. Don’t crunch it like
that. You’ll surely destroy your dentals. Moisten a small bit, then chew” was the advice. I had always found patience with food a difficulty, so I didn’t consume the stuff as intended. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. I much preferred hearing the crunch and feeling the sharp edges cut gums to the passive swallowing of mush. Eating hardtack was real. I might not have been in control of my immediate destiny, but no one could tell me how to eat.

  The Seahawk’s owner, Malcolm MacLean himself, weighed in with strong words that bolstered my resolve. “The bond money required for your release is in place with the Canadian authorities. I have hired an attorney to represent us. You should be released and free to go fishing within the hour.” This was a huge relief, as we still had several hours remaining in steaming to St. John’s. That time would be better spent traveling in a different direction, one that would put us in the vicinity of the U.S. sword fleet. I waited for my company to receive the call from shore to set me free. It didn’t come. They were ordered to remain aboard and deliver me to the government dock, where I would be met by customs, immigration, and fisheries. I waited for someone to have a change of heart or for them to come to their senses. Every mile that passed under our hull diluted my hope of bypassing what was sure to be a scene at the dock.

  I spent some time getting to know my Canadian escorts. I learned about their families and hobbies. These were nice men doing their country proud with professionalism. There was absolutely no antagonism, no good cop/bad cop ploys. These are men I would have as friends. There was no talk of guilt or of breaking laws. These men, it seemed to me, believed me and regarded me as innocent of everything other than perhaps being a victim of circumstance. One of the men would have liked to go to court with me, he said, but he had a doctor’s appointment. Two of the men talked about their upcoming retirement plans. One of them sang. His soft voice filled the wheelhouse with cozy, lilting Newfy sea chanteys. When he sang a ballad about the hardships of life at sea and harsh treatment by superiors, I felt as transparent as the gal in “Killing Me Softly.”

  My men were nothing less than stellar. They acted as the perfect hosts to our Canadian guardians, frequently offering refreshments from the galley and asking what they could do to help or to make the uniformed men more comfortable. They all engaged in conversation about topics ranging from fishing and hunting and cooking to politics. The Canadian men joined my crew at the galley table, where they shared laughs and coffee, leaving me alone in the wheelhouse for several joyous minutes at a time. When my crew came topside, they did so to reassure me. Arch was as protective as my father is, and the others acted like brothers. That night, when we were close enough to the dock to see the number of official vehicles and various armed uniforms there to catch our lines on the inside of a guarded gate and under large floodlights, my men vowed not to leave my side—no matter what. If anything happened to me, it would happen to us all. As we secured to the dock, my men and I shared looks and nods that were dramatic and emotional. The pervasive mood was one that I could only characterize as “They’ll never take us alive.” We were in this together. This cohesion, in my experience, had been seen only in times of peril brought on by heavy weather and when survival depended on it. We were no longer five individual beings, we were a single unit.

  As the last line was made fast to a cleat at midship, the crowd milling about in the yellow light became still. I knocked the engine out of gear and hit the kill switch. The sound of the diesel winding down and into silence was accompanied by my helpless feeling of spiraling down the drain. The contented validity of the physical act of landing the boat had turned to the uneasy release of grip on my command and my personal reality. The hard and straight edges of my world had become fuzzy and indistinct. Authorities and officers seemed to float on and off the boat. Clipboards thick with forms were shuffled, read, and signed. Among the many poker faces reflected in badges were three smiles—on the faces of Jim Budi and the O’Briens, whom I remembered as our Canadian agents from years past.

  My crew had been cleared by customs and immigration. Their temporary visas allowed them to remain in Canada for ten days. That hit home. Ten days? I’d been dreaming that I would turn the boat around tomorrow after clearing up this confused and mistaken mess. My crew was given permission to leave the boat. I was ordered to remain aboard and was introduced to the man and woman who would stand guard over me until the next morning at eight, when they would deliver me to the police station to be processed. The crowd disassembled, leaving me in the wheelhouse looking out the window at my guards, who looked back at me. There was no moment of raising a hand and simply explaining what had happened. Maybe tomorrow.

  I had nothing to do other than try to sleep. My crew had all tucked in, with plans to accompany me through whatever was to come. I lay awake, staring at the overhead, which was too close for my eyesight to make sense of, and wondered what would become of all this. The situation was impossible! I still couldn’t imagine where I had gone wrong. Yet, as was the gospel to my mind, the captain is ultimately responsible for everything aboard the ship. I had taken my eyes off the road. I should have paid more attention to the wheelhouse and left the deck to my crew. Had I miscalculated when I did the drift test? The Canadians were sure making a big deal out of a little aberration of tide. Why hadn’t they arrested Mother Nature? Total bewilderment was eased ever so slightly by the hope that tomorrow would offer an opportunity for me to talk sense to someone.

  A smudged sun crept hesitantly from a woolly darkness. The daylight was as fuzzy as my head. I showered in cold water, hoping to clear my mind of the snarl that clogged the routes along which sanity traveled. Even black coffee lacked something. When the time came to leave, my crew was not welcome to ride in the large black SUV that delivered me to the St. John’s lockup. It would be better if they remained aboard and got to the bottom of the steering problem. At least that’s what I said, with no conviction. As I gazed out the car window, a faded tapestry of the city of St. John’s rolled by in muted color and sound. We came to a stop. I was led from the vehicle to the back entrance of my destination, where garbage cans and loading docks crowded. One of my escorts pressed buttons on a phone and seemed to talk in code. Two new badges and holstered guns appeared and took possession of me. We wove our way through a labyrinth of corridors and stairwells until a door opened revealing a brightly lit room where the processing took place.

  And that’s how I landed in jail.

  The sound of the cell door slamming closed was a wake-up call of startling magnitude. The cold-shower head clearing and black-coffee caffeine pumping hadn’t cleared the fog, but in one moment reality came flying to the surface as the outside world was shut away. With neither nautical miles gone or to go, nor number of fish to tally, I had no way to mark time. My only method of measurement was the beating of my own pulse. As that got wearisome, I gave up the count at what I figured was close to three hours.

  My attorney eventually joined me in my cell and explained that we would soon go before the judge. He left, and I waited. After what seemed an eternity of practicing what I would say to the judge, I was handcuffed and taken from my cell by two female police officers. (The fact that I’m referring to the space as “my cell” is the only indication of how long I was actually detained—long enough to assume ownership.) The women were nice, I thought, to ask whether I preferred to be cuffed behind my back or in front of my waist, although “nice” was an adjective that could be relative. With no hesitation to hint at inexperience, I chose behind my back. Click, click, and it was done.

  Just like in the movies, I was led with an officer on each side, all of us seemingly connected at our elbows, through long, dark hallways. It was unnervingly quiet but for the echoes from our foot-steps, until we approached a gathering of people who hushed as we squeezed through. Some of them aimed cameras topped with stingingly bright lights at my face, making it difficult to see. I searched the crowd through squinted eyes and was overwhelmed with relief when I caught a glimpse of Archie. Brief eye con
tact supplied a more solid connection than any spliced line could. I knew that Archie was there, and he saw that I was okay. Nothing else mattered. He had ignored my order to remain aboard the Seahawk—and not a day has passed when I haven’t been thankful for that.

  My hands were freed from the cuffs before I entered the courtroom. I was shown a seat in front of a full audience and sat facing the judge. My attorney was there, as well as another man in a suit and tie who I knew must be the prosecutor. Some legal mumbo jumbo spoken in a Newfoundland brogue that I heard but did not comprehend was followed by the judge’s asking me if I understood the charges. I hesitated. The judge clearly stated the charges as (1) illegal entry into Canadian fishing zone and (2) illegal fishing in Canadian fishing zone. “Yes, I understand the charges” was all I got out before the judge dismissed me from his courtroom. I didn’t even get a chance to say “But—” before I was cuffed and whisked away to my cell to wait for the proper paperwork to be completed so that I could be released. The judge had given permission for my attorney to represent me at arraignment, which was just about the extent of what transpired.

  I was furious. But time spent alone in my cell covered the pot and saw the boil reduce to a simmer. I couldn’t believe I had just experienced my anticipated “day in court.” It was all over without any opportunity to defend, deny, explain, or throw myself on the mercy of the institution. I didn’t know what an arraignment was, nor did I care. I just wanted to jump aboard the Shithawk and get back to business. Wasting time fed more pissed-offness to my already pissed-off self. But all I could do was sit and stew in my own juices, as they say. I wished I had a cellmate to bitch to. I paced the floor.