Chapter Twelve

HIS NAME WAS REGGIE. He was from Australia. He lived in his sailboat and sailed it around and around the world. But it took him a very long time. His last trip around the world took nine years. The one before that took twelve. He was married six times — to four different women! He said he’d explain that one after he had a drink. He used to be a wine dealer in Australia, but one day he impulsively sold his business and his house, bought his sailboat and never looked back. The Azores, he said, was one of his favourite places to “dry out.” I didn’t know if he meant dry out from the sea or dry out from drinking.

After I carried Hollie up the portal, shut the hatch and climbed onto the sailboat, Reggie brought out a rope and tire and we tied our vessels together so that the sub’s portal was tucked in tightly beneath the bow of the sailboat, with the tire in between to prevent chafing. The water in the bay was calm.

“Yah, they took a close look at the bay with their helicopters and chased you pretty far out to sea. They’re probably still chasing you.”

“I think they’ve set up a radar net,” I said, and pointed out at the ships on the horizon.

Reggie strained to see.

“Is that what they’re doing out there? Well, you’re a clever bugger, aren’t you? I get the feeling you’ve been through something like this before.”

“I have.”

He grinned.

“Here they are … scanning the water for a toothpick in a haystack, and there you are hiding right beneath my boat like nobody’s business. I’d say that calls for a drink!”

He disappeared into the cabin and returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses. He wiped the glasses with his shirt, filled them with wine and handed one to me. I had never had wine before but figured I’d just sip it to be friendly. Reggie raised his glass in the air.

“Well, here’s to the most impromptu meeting I’ve ever had on the water, and to a brand new friendship!”

We clinked glasses and I took a tiny sip. It tasted like very strong bitter tea without sugar or milk. Why would anyone drink that? Reggie emptied half of his glass in one go.

“So, now, you’re missing your crew. They’ve jumped ship, have they? Well, I have a feeling I know where that seagull of yours is.”

“Really? You do?”

“Yes, I think I do.”

“How? Where?”

“You see that hill over there?”

He pointed to the lights of a little village about a mile away.

“Yes?”

“Well, on the other side of it there is an open dump.”

“Okay … so?”

“Well, at the dump there are a couple of hundred seagulls. I reckon your first mate has gotten himself mixed up in a big seagull party and forgot all about his ship leaving port. Wouldn’t be the first time a sailor got left behind.”

I wondered if he was right. Seaweed certainly liked to mingle with other seagulls whenever we came to shore but had never stayed behind before. The thought of him hanging around a dump didn’t impress me very much.

“Do you think you could tell me how to get there so I can see if he’s there?”

“I’ll do better than that, Captain. I’ll take you there myself.”

So, Reggie, Hollie, and I climbed into a rubber dinghy and rowed to shore. It was still dark. The sun would be up in an hour. I was worried the authorities might spot me and wonder who I was, but Reggie shrugged it off.

“Nah, don’t worry about that. Nobody will be out of bed for hours, and they wouldn’t care anyway.”

Hollie was delighted to be onshore once again and ran around at top speed. I walked beside Reggie at a snail’s pace. Everything about his movements was slow and easy-going. In his unbuttoned shirt, wrinkled skin and worn-out sandals, he had the look of someone who had been on vacation for so long he didn’t know how to do anything else. I would have liked to walk faster but he kept reassuring me that it wasn’t far and that I needn’t worry about the villagers waking up and discovering me. “For all they know,” he said, “you’re just another bozo on the bus.”

We passed the village and climbed the hill. The horizon had turned blue behind us and we were beginning to hear birds. Hollie settled into a trot beside us and kept his nose close to the ground, attentive to every sound and smell. Once in a while I picked up the scent of something foul, as if we were approaching a dead carcass or something. The higher we went, the more frequent those whiffs of bad air became. Hollie seemed to be very interested in them. When we reached the summit, turned to the left and went around a bluff, a powerful rancid smell hit us. Just as Reggie had said, the beautiful hill concealed an open-pit dump, which looked like a small volcanic crater filled with garbage. On the far side, halfway around the rim, was a large flock of seagulls, not yet awakened to the day. The first rays of sun were about to break from the edge of the sea.

Staring at a couple of hundred sleeping seagulls, I had no idea how to find Seaweed. Then, something occurred to me.

“Hollie?”

He looked up eagerly.

“Go find Seaweed!”

I didn’t even have to say it twice. Hollie took off as if it were the most important mission of his life.

“Well, look at that!”

Reggie was impressed. I was proud. Hollie ran around the circumference of the dump, dodging piles of garbage here and there and occasionally jumping over things. As he approached one end of the flock, the birds began to unsettle. Two or three hopped into the air, and then — with a sound like a rushing wind — the whole flock rose. They lifted off the ground like a carpet, and their morning cries pierced the air like sirens. Hollie ran beneath them, barking his little head off. He was in his glory.

I waited for a few minutes, while the seagulls spread out in the sky and began to wind upwards in a spiral. Some headed towards the sea, many just settled back on the ground, and one flew directly towards us.

“Seaweed! You rascal!”

I took a handful of dog biscuits from my pocket, tossed one towards him and one towards Hollie, who was racing back. That was not a good idea! Suddenly, hundreds of seagulls descended upon us and I realized my mistake — you didn’t feed one seagull at a dump! We turned on our heels in a hurry and headed back towards the village.

I was anxious to return to the sub before we were spotted, but Reggie insisted we stop by a certain bakery that would just be opening.

“You can’t beat Portuguese bakeries,” he said, “and the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning!”

He was right. In all my life I never smelled anything so wonderful. We stepped into the bakery in the front of an old house. Loaves of bread and dozens of pastries were stacked on shelves like bundles of gold. I wanted to eat everything! But I didn’t have any Portuguese money. No worries, Reggie said. He bought two loaves of bread and a bag of pastries. The baker already knew Reggie and insisted we take extra pastries for free. When Reggie introduced me, the baker shook my hand and I noticed that his hands smelled good too.

We stuffed out faces on the way back to the boat, then Hollie and I returned to the sub to sleep. Seaweed stayed on the boat with Reggie. They had taken a shine to each other, which was unusual for Seaweed. He probably sensed that Reggie was about as “salty” as a man could be. And Reggie thought that Seaweed was the perfect first mate. As I shut the lights and lay down on my cot I thought how, in a sea-faring life, you sometimes make friends in the strangest ways.