Chapter Twenty-four

THEY WERE FLYING a white flag. As soon as I saw it I remembered Reggie’s warning about pirates. But surely not everyone flying a white flag was a pirate? And yet I had to admit, I had a bad feeling about this one.

It was a wooden sailboat about thirty feet long, and had a rubber dinghy in tow with an outboard motor. I followed Reggie’s advice and took a careful look at the boat through the binoculars, checking for any visible signs of damage. There were none. There hadn’t been a storm. For all the time I had been in the Mediterranean it had been like sailing on a lake.

I had picked them up on radar first and was now peering at them from a mile away. It was doubtful they had seen us. I submerged to periscope level and motored closer. About a tenth of a mile away I had a pretty good look at them through the periscope. A man came out of the cabin and looked at something in a box. He was not distressed. He was kind of rough looking. But Reggie was rough looking, and he certainly wasn’t a pirate. Then another man came out. He looked pretty much the same. Neither man appeared to be in trouble in any way. I had to wonder why they were in distress. Nobody was bailing. There was enough wind to sail. Surely if someone were sick or injured these two could sail for help. They also had the dinghy with the outboard motor, unless it was out of gas. Hmmm. It just didn’t look right. And then I saw something that disturbed me. One of the men hit the other. And the other man didn’t respond. He was afraid. Now I knew there was something wrong. The angry man started yelling at the timid man, and then a third man came out of the cabin, and he was even angrier than the second man. Now there were three men on deck, none of whom looked much like a sailor. I decided not to come to their assistance, which wasn’t easy. When you were on the sea, you wanted to believe that anyone would stop and help you when you were in trouble. But my gut feeling was strong, and I was going to listen to it.

So, I sailed away and resurfaced. Reggie had also advised that I contact the authorities if I suspected there were pirates in the area. But I wasn’t sure who to call. We were in the Sea of Crete now, in Greek waters, but weren’t within the twelve-mile zone of any island. I decided to contact Ziegfried and ask his advice.

Ziegfried wasn’t answering. Then I realized, he was probably already on his way over. I made myself a cup of tea and thought about it. Probably I should try to contact the authorities in Crete. I could identify myself as a Canadian sailor, without mentioning the sub, and describe everything else just as I had seen it.

I was about to make the call when I heard the radar beep. Another vessel was approaching the distressed sailboat from the other direction. We were now four miles away. The approaching vessel was five miles on the other side. Perhaps the stranded sailboat had called the authorities after all. Perhaps I had gotten it all wrong. On the other hand, what if the approaching vessel was an innocent sailboat coming to help and was going to be attacked by the pirates and its crew savagely killed? Yikes!

The approaching vessel wasn’t very fast. That meant it probably wasn’t the authorities. It must have been a sailboat. I had to go back.

The sailboat came in a straight line towards the distressed boat. They must have been using radar. I came in submerged, so that no one would know we were there, then rose to periscope level. The sailboat appeared. She was flying the Swedish flag — blue with a yellow cross. She was about the same size as the other boat and there were two people on deck, an older man and woman. They sailed closer, closer, closer … with the man on the bow trying to get a good look at the distressed boat. Suddenly, he yelled back to the woman who was at the helm, and she turned the wheel and brought their boat around. He had seen something he didn’t like. The three men came running out of the cabin and two of them jumped into the dinghy, with machine guns! They were going to chase the other sailboat, which was now trying to get away!

The motorized dinghy wasn’t very fast but it was only a matter of time before it would catch up to the fleeing sailboat. I surfaced so that the portal was just a foot above water, cranked up the engine and went after the dinghy. I didn’t know what to do but had to do something. Then, I got an idea. I climbed inside and grabbed one of the pellet rifles and the last pack of pellets. The men in the dinghy were so focused on catching the sailboat I hoped they wouldn’t turn around and see me chasing them. All they would have seen anyway would be my head sticking out of the portal and the waves caused by the movement of the sub. What I hoped to do was fire the whole packet of pellets into the rubber dinghy, and maybe it would sink.

As soon as I was within range I started shooting. They couldn’t hear the pellet rifle and never turned around. But I couldn’t tell if I was hitting the dinghy or not. I just aimed as well as I could and kept pumping and shooting the gun. If they had ever turned around I would have slammed the hatch shut and dived. But they never did.

When all the pellets were gone, I submerged to periscope level again and continued the chase. The dinghy had almost caught the sailboat. I could see the men with machine guns laughing as the terrified couple tried to sail away, and then … the dinghy started to slow down. It was deflating! It was going to sink! In a minute we were almost alongside the dinghy, just fifty feet away. But the pirates were scrambling around too much, trying to find out why they were sinking, to notice the periscope. I saw the couple in the sailboat reach for two lifebuoys. They were thinking of something I had failed to consider — maybe the pirates couldn’t swim.

Well, one could, and one couldn’t. One of the two men started to swim back towards their own sailboat, which was slowly motoring to catch up. But he left his partner behind to fend for himself. The Swedish couple managed to throw a lifebuoy to him, and as soon as he grabbed it they let go of the rope. They wisely decided not to pull him to their own sailboat.

The pirate swimming back tried pathetically to keep his machine gun. He swam with one arm and held the gun above water with the other. But he soon grew tired and the gun slipped into the water. Then he wrapped it around his neck and tried to swim with two arms. Finally, he just let it sink. The other pirate clung to the lifebuoy with a look of panic. I hoped he would hold on. I didn’t want him to drown, but I didn’t want to rescue him either. I decided to stay and wait until the other pirates had rescued him. The other sailboat didn’t. As they sailed away, they waved at the periscope! They had seen me!

When the two pirates picked up their mate, he immediately pointed to the periscope. He had spotted us too! The other two grabbed more machine guns and started firing at us! I flicked the dive switch and we went down, but not before I heard bullets bouncing off the hull. I wasn’t afraid. I knew the bullets would lose their power as soon as they hit the water. From inside the sub, the bullets sounded like the tapping of a toy drum. Still, there was something very disturbing about being shot at. It made me angry. I was angry that they would turn the sea into such a dangerous place. I wasn’t going to let them get away with it.