Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye Page A

fact, he went so far as to summon them to the pilothouse.
    “I’ll tell you what,” Olaf continued, “the look on the faces of those kids said as much as anything about the shape we were in. We’d been at it for years, right? Jan and myself and Joe? But these kids were just starting out, just finishing their first season. It was the first big blow any of them had seen. When Jan told them to put on their life vests and they took turns looking out the window into that wildness, Jesus, you’d’ve thought he was sending them right to hell.”
    “But he didn’t send them, did he?”
    “Goddamn,” Olaf said. “I sure as hell didn’t want him to. I thought it was a suicide mission.”
    “But you had to cross it.”
    “I did, later. But it was different when he asked me to go because I expected to. I was used to those responsibilities. These boys just wanted to go to bed. As it turned out, not sending them cost them any chance they might have had.” Here his voice trailed off again. Noah could practically see the parade of crewmates passing through his father’s memory.
    “Anyway, Danny finally called, and Jan lit into him like I’d never seen. ‘Goddamnit, Oppvaskkum, I almost sent two boys across thatdeck. Do you have any idea how dangerous that would have been? Do you realize ignoring calls from the captain—even in emergency situations, especially in emergency situations—is unacceptable if not outright insubordinate? We’re fighting a monster up here and you don’t have the time to heed my calls?’ ” Olaf was doing his best impression of a man with a much deeper voice than his own.
    “But he was trying to contain the leak. It wasn’t his fault,” Noah said.
    “You’re right, it wasn’t his fault that the line was leaking, but I can’t imagine what kind of trouble they were in—or how fast that trouble must have found them—to justify not responding to the bridge. We’re talking about one of the cardinal rules here.”
    “So even if a guy’s up to his ankles in diesel in a place as combustible as that, it’s more important that he pick up the phone right away than figure out how to stop the leak?”
    “The point is that by not picking up the phone, he jeopardized the whole order of things. Because he didn’t pick up the phone, two guys were about to be sent out into that storm. Because he didn’t answer the phone, the guy in charge of the ship was paralyzed, see?”
    The line of reasoning was so familiar to Noah that he almost laughed. How many times had his father used the same hierarchical theory to make Noah paint the garage or shovel the sidewalk at their old house on High Street? “Aren’t there exceptions to the cardinal rules?” Noah asked.
    “I’ve never seen one,” Olaf said. “And I’ve seen a lot.”
    That was familiar, too, his father slapping down the trump card of experience.
    “What did Danny finally say that made Jan send you across the deck?”
    “Danny knew right away how serious the problem was. As far as I could tell—and I never knew for certain—the main fuel line had ruptured near the tank, which was in the forward half of the engine room where the coal bunker had been the season before. The leak was serious enough that the entire engine-room crew, including the porters and steward, were busy trying to clean it. It had to have happened so goddamn fast—gotten out of hand so goddamn fast—that there was no chance to even sound an alarm.
    “When Danny finally got around to calling the wheelhouse, there was no question about what kind of shape we were in. I only heard one side of the conversation, but there wasn’t much doubt about our dire straits. Jan decided in an instant that we’d have to seek shelter, and his last words to Danny sent a hot chill up my back: ‘Double-lash anything that could cause a spark, and keep a couple of those boys at the ready with fire extinguishers, we’re going to come about.’
    “Now, how’d you like to hear