GOLD is a story of the Sea and those who sail upon it by
J.J. Brannigan
Chapter 1
At midnight Mickey Hutchings had begun her turn at the helm of Caliban, their twenty-two year old sailing ketch. Now she moved her wrist in the dim red light of the compass binacle until she could see her watch. Time—five minutes past two o’clock (she was to remember this later). Her husband David was sacked out below, sleeping restlessly and only too glad to be off-watch. Mickey remained sitting in the pilot seat, shivering, not from the cold, but from the damp which rose off the sea in a great miasmic white cloud. The next two hours would pass slowly with nothing but her own thoughts for company. A moonless night at sea was always a little sinister, Mickey thought (not for the first time) tended to exaggerate the lonliness of being trapped in the small cockpit of a sailboat. She would say—‘trapped’ (pejorative) unlike her mate, who entered his element when he stepped aboard Caliban. She looked about her at the dark surround, straining her eyes toward an invisible far horizon where sea met sky. Even known objects close at hand (she reached out and touched the cold steel of the genoa winch) felt strange and somehow foreign. The autopilot clicked, the steering wheel then moved a little to port as the course corrected. It was an illusion, wasn’t it, to think you were in charge, when you were so patently a powerless passenger. Not difficult either to imagine the fears of early sailors falling off the edge of the world.
She had done everything which should be done and then dutifully entered the log. Wind had dropped as was presently nil, sails were furled, engine barely ticking over as they moved slowly forward at three and a half knots. Perhaps she should make the last log entry of her watch now, get done with it, and not wait until later. She definitely should make herself another cup of coffee. But she stayed unmoving, arms wrapped around herself, struggling to keep warm.
Little white waves, created as the bow sliced through the still black water, moved away before disappearing in the gloom. Mickey watched them, transfixed. This and the sound of the dark sea washing by the boat was hypnotic. She didn’t think she was particularly tired but after a while her head began to droop, lower, lower until she fell asleep. Caliban, the old yacht, moved forward through the night, autonomous, alert to its own needs.
How long until she snapped to attention, thirty minutes, an hour?—jumping into consciousness from a long long way off, a leap away from Death itself or so it always seemed (not as bad as falling, another rotten way of waking up) but almost. Delinquent of her! She would certainly not mention this little lapse to David. Mickey prided herself on being ‘the Compleat Sailor.’ in every way.
She heard a sound in the water, a sort of choppy splash, not a motor, more like something swimming, perhaps a big fish. She craned her head over the side, looked back but could see nothing. She moved toward the stern where the dinghy hung on its davits and heard the sound again, a man’s voice.
"Aiuto—Help!" so faint as to be almost inaudible.
Without a doubt there was a man in the water somewhere behind Caliban. He had called out to her and he would have to be picked up.
Mickey stared into the black opacity of the sea and tried to gather her wits. Bloody Hell! What was the drill for picking up a floating man? She had thought about it a thousand times without ever thinking she might actually have to do it.
That day had begun like any other day spent at sea. Which was not to say that a day at sea even resembled a day on land. Far from it. First of all, there was the constant action of the boat as it rode forward—and sideways. Mickey lay in her bunk and watched the play of sunlight on the transom, actively taking her mental and physical temperature, deciding whether she was feeling seasick or not. She wasn’t. What made it unusual, all of her senses seemed gyroscopically contained. With every motion, there came a counter motion. Even sleep had been composed of the tiny little adjustments the body made to the unceasing action of the hull as it reponded to wave movement. Then there were the sounds—slap, trickle, splash, plop, not noisy, but incessant. You never had to ask where you were. You KNEW—on a sailboat.
She stayed in her bunk a little longer than necessary, felt her hand grip and ungrip, her foot stretch and relax. Would she ever get used to it? Noises in the cockpit told her that David was up and about and she heard the squeak of the winch as it released sheet, then she felt the jerk and leap forward as the boat responded to more sail (always a Hell of a lot better than motoring for sensitive souls. It took her at least two weeks to be able to sleep through the heavy throb of the diesel engine, so near, so impossible to ignore).
Not today, no sound at all but the smooth flow of water swishing past the hull—they were sailing, the weather still fine as it had been the day before. She reached up and with her finger pushed back a small piece of lining which had come unglued from the cabin roof. Caliban was a little shabby, needed a lot of work and she should really get moving on these picayune things David was too busy to do.
Mickey slipped out of her lightweight sleeping bag, gave one yell to David to tell him she was up, went into the head to pee and brush her teeth. When she came out, heavenly smells of bacon and eggs were wafting out of the galley.
"Here’s your sea-sick pill," said her consort, handing her some fruit juice. "This is only our second day out of port. You’d better stick with them untill you get your sea legs."
"Believe it or not, I think I already have my sea legs, I’m starved," said Mickey. It was hard not to envy David who never got sea sick, in fact thrived in Force elevens when even the Dover Ferry never left port (as he never stopped telling her).
Caliban, Nicholson 38, sturdy and reliable English motor-sailor with American registration, after that promising start to the day with healthy breezes, eventually settled down to sitting dead in the water, making a stiff immobile black shadow which barely flickered in the flat sea. The engine throbbed away, boat cutting a swathe clear as a jet trail through the sluggish, turgid liquid. It was also stiflingly hot and the cockpit stayed deserted. The husband and wife crew attended to boat chores, but every once and awhile one of them stuck a nose up to give a quick glance at the unchanging water, undefined horizon.
One of those days when the entire Tyrrhenian between Rome and Sardinia, appeared not as an ocean or sea, but more a placid treacherous lake. A bronzy glare burned the eyes and sun glasses didn’t help much. When Mickey held the sextant to her eye during the noon sight, it had been almost painful to trap ‘old Sol’ high in the sky and bring him down to the invisible horizon. She always felt a glow of pride when she did this, making her feel akin to all the sailors before her who had braced their legs against the movement of the ship, in good weather and in bad—squinting hard into the eyepiece of the moving sextant, holding their breath at the very last second when the two celestial images become one. Very precisely, at that exact moment she clicked the stopwatch, read the angle, noted the correct time with her own watch (which she had correlated that morning) then down to the chart table for final calculations. Easy the meridian sight, anybody could do it, so much more organic than all those new fangled navigation machines which had a way of packing in just when you needed them. Mickey had always hated mechanical objects, anything which stood between her and Nature, a broad abstraction which encompassed sea and sky, dolphins, pelicans, and even cataclysmic storms. And because it was not something you plugged in, she did not view the sextant as a machine. Not David, he adored anything mechanical, the more inexplicable and electronic—the better.
So given sea conditions and non-existent wind, there had been lots of time to relax and do odd jobs, read—everything but sail. It was even calm enough to give a coat of varnish to the cabin locker doors, a task which was impossible with any sea running at all. Mickey took out her paint brushes and did a careful touch-up she had been putting off since last year. Fair haired and light blue eyed, she knew it wasn’t a good idea to take too much sun the first day and she was happy to stay below. A faint zephyr barely whispered through the main hatch, not enough to cool anything down (but welcome all the same). Every minute or so she wiped perspiration out of her eyes. Finally she cleaned her brushes and sat on the wide berth in the main cabin with her Walkman and earphones. When she wasn’t navigating she trying to teach herself Italian, and spent most of the day talking to herself. "Quanto costa questo sacco di carbone?"—"troppo!" "Ho solamente dieci lire in tasca." (were they ever going to need a sack of coal?)
Bored, standing in the cockpit, listening to the monotonous chug of the diesel, then glancing at the battery state meter, David impulsively decided to change the fan belt on his engine which was not moving the alternator fast enough. The thing was probably getting a little torn and ragged. So when had he done it last—could it have been two years ago? Good Lord how time flies! Now where did he keep the spare? A difficult business it was changing the fan belt underway, with very little space to work in. He called Mickey who came up to take the wheel, hold the boat steady, keep just a little way going while he lay outstretched on the cabin sole on his stomach, tools spread all around him. At the very end he slipped on the new belt, levered out the alternator and checked the tension. Perfect! The battery charge immediately picked up to 35 amps when he switched the engine back on, very satisfying! Yes, he did need full power for the annoying phone call he had promised to make and which he had postponed all day.
He looked up at his wife, standing firmly at the wheel, jiggling it one way and another as she kept some movement going. Mickey still thought this was a cruise just like any other. Oh Jeezus little did she know what he had stacked below! David dabbed the sweat on his brow with a greasy cloth, and tried to resist getting another beer. If he kept up the way he was going, what had begun as an ample supply would disappear in a week.
"That should do it," he said. Mickey nodded and handed him a tissue and he dabbed at the grease. "I have something I have to do on the radio. Afterwards I think I’m going to have a swim, want to join me?"
"No way, water’s far too deep here."
David smiled sardonically, went below for a time, reappearing to switch off the engine, drop sails and finally attach the little swim ladder. Caliban dutifully paused, going neither forward or backward, waiting. Mickey was staring at the beer which had miraculously appeared in his hand and tried not to look disapproving—how many today, five? six?
David stripped himsefl naked, went aft to tie a long line to the stern. Very important for safety reasons to have a fail-safe way of rejoining the boat if anything untoward were to happen (people had vanished at sea for a lot less).
"Hot!" said David. "Hold this while I take my swim," handing her the can, and was quickly over the side. He swam around the boat three times and pulled himself up the swim ladder. Mickey thrust the beer back into his hand.
"You seem confident, take a shark for example," said Mickey. "How do you know one of them weren’t just waiting to take a little pre-lunch nip?"
David smiled condescendingly. "Myth and legend. Sharks aren’t dangerous unless you’re carrying food or dripping blood, and never at midday. At midday they bask and sleep."
"Oh yeah," said Mickey, "they told you that? I prefer to take my swims close to shore. I like to be able to touch ground. Oceans scare the Hell out of me."
But David had retreated to the stern and was coiling the long aft line. Soon the motor was chugging away and they were aiming toward Sardinia again.
This cruise was already different, thought Mickey to herself, very unlike vacations in the past. After the long boring job of changing the fan belt, when David had gone below, she had heard him trying to make a ship to shore telephone call, of course having the usual difficulty in getting the marine operator (Italians love to talk during the three minute radio silence one is supposed to observe on the half hour and hour, and they blabbed the rest of the time as well until nobody else could get a word in). When his call was finally put through, first there had been a lot of low grunting, then he flew off the handle completely and started to swear. When she stuck her head below to eavesdrop he had turned his back on her and spoken again, but much more quietly before slamming down the phone.
"If there’s one thing I hate," he said, "it’s having to repeat the same damn thing over and over again. Why don’t people listen the first time?"
"What kind of damn things?" from Mickey, vaguely curious but not too interested. Her nose had begun to redden and if she wasn’t careful she would soon develop an ugly water blister. But he had not bothered to answer her question and was clumping about on deck raising sail again. Mickey sighed and went below to the head to smear on some more sun lotion.
At the same time she was trying not to remember the previous summer without longing. Then—instead of playing with the engine during a dead summer calm, he had given her a long lustful look before stripping off his trunks, and did the same for her, all very very slowly. They had made love right out on deck, the one place where it was flat and cleats didn’t bore into the center of your back, giggling, laughing, and keeping one eye peeled for any traffic on the water or glint from binoculars.
But not this year. Two nights ago when she had joined him at the marina after being separated for a whole week, he doing boat maintenance in Italy while she wound up things in London—that had to be the very end! You would think he could get his act together but no, he kissed her and just when things were going well, his head crashed into a cabin light. At which point he gave a immense sigh and rolled onto his stomach.
"Goddam! This bloody bloody boat! I feel like a fakir making love on a bed of nails. One of these days we’ll buy something with a real double bed."
"You’ve never complained before," but Mickey was not deceived. David’s failure, perhaps that word was a little strong, his lack of—of alacrity, was only caused by the fact that he had worked too hard, tried to do too much in too little time. "No sweat," Mickey had said to her husband. She was a realist and was perfectly prepared to wait for a more opportune occasion. That was then. What about now?
David did not return to the cockpit but got another beer out of the ice chest. Mickey groaned, so very unlike her husband who was usually abstemious at sea when the good sailor kept his wits about him. He told her to keep speed to five knots, motor sailing as necessary and now sat pensively at the chart table, tapping a pencil against his teeth, not looking at the instruments but into space. A worrying little tic worked the corner of his mouth.
Time passed and Mickey finally put away her Italian learning tapes. At the wheel, alone, sitting in the comfortable pilot seat but sheltered by the canopy from the late afternoon sun, she had searched the horizon. No other sail boat in sight as far as the eye could see, though an enormous motor cruiser with the clear markings of the Italian navy had just steamed by them, so close she had to grab the wheel and the wash made David, below in the galley, grip his beer mug and curse impotently. A man in white with gold stripes on his uniform, stood on the deck of the Italian corvette and surveyed them closely with binoculars, sweeping back and forth, focussing on the boat name and the American flag which flew on top of the mast. A big surge from the powerful engines and the boat shot away towards Sardinia.
"What was that?" asked her husband.
"A big cruiser, nothing to concern you," she said. "Go back to your boozing." (Not telling him, that had been the first mistake).
Out with the sextant again—six o’clock and the last sun sight of the day made a pretty vertical slash on the chart, fitted the noon meridian shot perfectly, now take off distance run, right on target!—this with a cheap plastic sextant. When she bragged to David, he just patted her head as if he expected nothing less. She then hinted that if he felt the least bit unsure of her fixes they could always turn the direction finder on the Olbia airport beacon to double check, at which point he said
"No, you’re doing just fine," and then more enigmatically, "I’m not definitely certain where I want to go but I do want to know the exact moment you see any sign of land."
(‘I’ not ‘we’) Mickey noticed, very unlike David who always took her into his confidence and consulted her on everything, making sure that her boat training was fully comprehensive—without loopholes. At which point he went over to the compass and looked at the chart under the cockpit canopy.
"Stay exactly on this course. Please! don’t budge from it."
Mickey looked down. They were heading, not for a port or harbour but for a little indentation on the north side of a high island called Tavolara, a few miles off the coast of Sardinia. "There’s nothing there," said Mickey. "Why go? Tavolara is like—nowhere."
"Don’t argue, for once just do it," said David, an unaccustomed sharpness in his voice. Mickey drew back at once, offended.
And so the afternoon drew to a close, not too different from the many days they had spent together at sea. Of course they were used to the problems long trips created for husband and wife crews. Privacy? Virtually non-existent. Out of sight of land days passed without incident and sometimes Mickey found herself finishing a sentence which she may or may not have started an hour before. No matter. David would be tuned to his own internal clock which certainly ran on a different frequency from hers. He was a maintenance freak and structured his time toward bringing Caliban close to a mythical idea of perfection (but which existed only inside his head). Often, wrench in hand he would stop what he was doing, look at her, near tragedy written on his face.
Had they sprung a leak? Were they sinking? "Tell me, tell me!" Mickey would drop her book, her paintbrush, the wooden spoon. ready to run for a life jacket.
"The forward battery is losing its charge, and only one year old!" He would slap his forehead with two hands,
"Oh that, I thought it was something serious."
"It is serious, woman. Do you know what we paid for that battery last year, was it Cannes?"
"No, Cavallaire, they clipped you, at least that’s what you said then."
"Ah yes, Cavallaire where we had the seafood platters."
"You got sick, ate too many mussels."
"Mmm yes, but wasn’t it worth it?
Conversations at sea were like that.
Mickey eventually made dinner, a curry with some shrimp out of a can, glad to discover that she had turned out the whole meal without feeling the least touch of nausea. Things were looking up for her—but not David, no conversation during the meal, a complete silence from her taciturn husband. And when she asked him what the trouble was he actually pretended not to hear. Very irritating! At that point they divided up the night watches without their normal friendly chit-chat.
When Mickey came on at midnight David disappeared towards his bunk, head and shoulders lowered, dejection emanating from every movement he made. Mickey considered herself an expert in interpreting body language, and her annoyance increased—not annoyance, rage! Good God! He was about to ruin their much longed for once a year vacation if she allowed him. And then she made the second mistake.
She was aware, as she stood on deck, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand, that she would have to be especially alert during this, the midnight watch. It was the second night after leaving port at Fiumicino, the outlet of the Tiber river outside of Rome, and if her celestial navigation was on target, they should soon be able to pick up some lights, break the Sardinian coast sometime before dawn.
The chart of Tavolara was in front of her with a little cross in a tiny anchorage on the north east side. For the tenth time that day, it occurred to her that Tavolara was nowhere, no place, zero! The obvious question had to be—why go there? All day David had stubbornly refused to give any reason whatsoever for the mysterious destination.
Mickey took the chart and unhesitatingly erased David’s penciled course and drew a new one—directly to Porto Cervo, using a dead-reckoning position established by taking the distance run since the last sextant fix, and adding it to the compass course. She would tell David about the change when it was too late to go back on the old one. "Like it or lump it," she muttered. Porto Cervo on the Costa Smeralda, that resort so beloved by the haut monde, jet set in general—that was somewhere.
Once more she had proved to herself that she was quite capable of ignoring her husband’s last little aside about holding course. And why not? It was her vacation too. Not that she didn’t love anchorages (they had their good points) but Mickey loved life on the quay, in port, where they always met new people, ate in restaurants, found washing machines and had all the conveniences of good shopping. It had to be said that David hated marinas for the same reasons. Mickey smiled with satisfaction and left the chart table to stand at the wheel. She was feeling better after the coffee, though the effects never lasted very long.
Looking out at the dark limitless sea, she forgot her earlier frustrations, could not still a quick lurch of happiness. A faint breeze rippled her hair. The old Nicholson 38’ ketch had begun to sing his melancholy three tone tune to himself. Mickey smiled at the strange sound. Uncanny! Of course there was a perfectly logical reason for the music but it still gave her a feeling of mystery and awe. The main boom had a funny little slit in it near the mast; and when the wind was in the right direction—Caliban sang. For another inexplicable reason the boat was a ‘he’—wicked sprite of the Tempest and tonight he was really humming along. Her eyes soon accustomed themselves to the dark, the compass glowed red in its binnacle and they were right on the new course, Good!
She went down to the head and heard David call out.
"Everything alright? Are you keeping the course, see anything yet?"
"Yes, yes, NO. I am having a pee. Everthing’s fine. There was the course change to mention, which just might make him furious. Plenty of time for that, why disturb his sleep? In Sardinia the next morning they would sit in a cafe on the quay and drink Cappucino, and maybe the sour David would finally cheer up.
She pumped out the toilet bowl and saw that the incoming water was full of green luminescence, tiny sea creatures born of the warmth of summer. They glowed inside the bowl—beautiful! Mickey smiled, thinking that there would probably be a few flying fish lying on the deck by morning, that’s how warm and pleasant it was. She gave the head an extra pump and went topside and took another look around, this time the whole 360’ panorama.
Now wide awake, she wasn’t surprised to see the loom of a light forward but quite distant, and took the stopwatch out of her pocket and timed it, two flashes, ten seconds apart. By the hand bearing compass it bore 210’ to port. Must be the lighthouse on Tavolara. Then another light, Capo Figari, clear and readable, southwest and not too far off. From there the comfort and safety of Porto Cervo was not more than a few hours away. There seemed to be a whole barrage of lights bobbing up and down, about, three miles on the starboard beam. A fishing fleet judging by the flashing array but nothing to worry about; in fact, it bore out her calculations.
They were nearing Sardinia, the voyage was almost over. Astern another large red and green dead in the water, probably part of the same fishing group though it did seem big and awfully close. Yes, they must be nearing a coast. That afternoon a small brown sparrow had alighted on top of the liferaft and quizzically looked at her. He had marched confidently around the deck before flying off directly West towards the big island. She went below to look at the chart and fill in the brand new log book purchased for the season.
Mickey enjoyed writing in the log and even took the books home to read during the winter when it was gloomy and cold in London. She took up her pen and happily described the four porpoise she had seen after lunch, their wonderful dance under the bow wave as they toyed with the boat, first on one side, then the other—so sleek and black, untamed and healthy. Then they were gone as quickly as they had come. Mickey sighed. How long they could survive in the polluted Mediterranean was anybody’s guess. Last year she had seen a swordfish leap, quivering, standing high on his tail before slowly falling back into the sea. And the year before they had come upon a large sea turtle moving heavily through calm waters. They too had once been common and now they were a rarity. David usually became annoyed when he read her poetic vagaries in the log, said it was unprofessional. So what, the boat was in her name and she would write anything she damn pleased.
Now for business. ‘Course by compass 305’ Log reading 91.60.3, wind 10 mph southerly, sometimes dropping to 5. (It was back to the afternoon’s doldrums, the pleasant balmy south-easterly had vanished) Barometer 1010 and steady. She looked proudly at her sextant reading of afternoon, Latitude 41’ 11" N—Longitude 10’ 37" East. Right on target, not bad for a beginner! The last notation, boat speed only 3 � mph, derived from the little propeller, dangling in the water from its tube in the forecastle, so often attracting disgusting floating sheets of plastic as well as condoms and other unmentionables. "Uh Oh!" speed had suddenly gone down to two knots, (not acceptable) and something would have to be done about it. ‘Action stations!’ and she switched off the goose head light above the chart table.
Mickey poked her head above the transom for a look-see. It was almost two a.m. and thinking carefully, she realized that there was a considerable decrease in visibility, now not even five miles. The light she had seen so clearly was barely noticeable on the port beam and humidity was now dense, hugging the water like a filmy white shroud.
What were her options? With the wind practically nil the sails had begun to flap. Better to lower them entirely and just stay put for awhile, perhaps motoring forward at about two knots and keeping a good watch at the same time. Somewhere to the stern she heard the sound of a large engine— was it related to the big lights glimpsed behind? When she got around to it she would give a couple bursts on the fog horn.
Face it, she was beginning to feel queasy. Mickey groaned to herself knowing that she would do anything not to bounce and bob about in the water. Despite her ‘gung ho’ navigating skills she sometimes, in fact often, got sea sick which is why she took up that arcane science in the first place—to get her mind off of her stomach. In the galley again she bravely made herself a peanut butter sandwich, good solid stuff and debated whether to wake David a little early.
No, absolutely not! She was definitely capable of taking the sails down herself. The Genoa was easy to roll up and she would lower the mainsail and put a few ties on it before turning on the engine. But when she started the noisy diesel, David would unquestionably roll out of his bunk yelling—"What the Hell’s going on?," and he would not be grateful for his extra twenty minutes sleep.
Unlike David who had sailed large and small yachts all his life and was almost too relaxed, Mickey was a beginner at sailing. She also knew she was a worry wart and took nothing for granted, going over plodding picayune details again and again, irritating him to the point of distraction. She was quite aware that her niggling attention to the minutia of sailing, was based on a very real terror of the sea. Fear (that’s what it was), moving back and forth like the swinging compass, sometimes causing the adrenalin to flow, making her so alert and jumpy that sleep was beyond her; but more often, a fearful cold sweat crawled down her neck and dripped into her collar, making her movements sluggish, leaden, a trek through thick syrup.
What both attracted and repelled Mickey—was the very foreigness of the sea, its vast oceans both filled and empty, packed with alien animals, weird plants, more swarming fecund life than all the dry areas of the planet, and never, even remotely to be conceived of as a hospitable place for the humans who could only sail upon its mysterious surface. The sea could turn on you in an hour, whip up waves which made Caliban leap and dance about like a matchstick, Mickey spilling out her guts wherever she happened to be standing.
So when she really thought about it, there was no point, was there, in fighting a dread (though she would call it a reverence) which was wholly rational? At its worst she believed that her fear—made her a better sailor.
Mickey wound up the Genoa slowly, remembering to pay out the Jib line with her other hand. Of course she forgot to turn off the autopilot so the boat began to circle in the water and the boom immediately swung around, almost banging her on the head (a beginner’s trick!) With the wheel released, Caliban came into the breeze gently. Now for the mainsail. Still within the safety of the cockpit, she remembered to let go the main sheet first before the potentially dangerous trip out on the deck. She climbed forward gingerly, reached the mast and looked up at the American flag on the little pole at the very top, her flag, her boat, (David was English). There it swayed high above her in the dark sky, pointing at the whirling stars which glittered far above the surface fog. She felt both wonderful and dizzy at the same time, and for a short while clung to the mast itself—so still, the night around her was cottoned quiet. There wasn’t even the sound of water washing along the hull. The big light swung its powerful ray every five seconds only now it was on the starboard beam as they lay dead in the water, a blurred milky glow and no longer crystal clear. It was impossible to judge its distance off. She would definitely have to take a running fix on it when they got going again, and this from a difficult angle, if she could see it at all! She unwound the halliard and the big sail slid down easily and she quickly put a few ties on it, carefully maintaining her balance.
Though the sea couldn’t have been calmer, as usual she was apprehensive, and inched her way back to the cockpit, holding on tightly to cleats and stays. It wouldn’t do to fall in during the middle of the night while David was sleeping. When she reached safety, Mickey breathed a sigh of relief. Done!
At which point she had fallen so disastrously and untypically asleep, awakening when she heard the deep voice of the man in the water—calling out to her…
press button to proceed to chapter II
