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Tommaso looked again at his watch. He only had about an hour before daybreak. He was rowing parallel to the shoreline. “This is a long beach very wide, with nowhere to hide the boat.” He felt uneasy. “How isolated is this beach?”
He made his decision turning the bow out to sea while hoisting up the mast. He snapped the tiller in place before raising the sail. Morning offshore winds were light—warm, not cold.
That was a good sign. Tommaso’s father told him in the past. “You do not want to be caught in the mistral winds blowing down from the Alps through the Rhone Valley. They can kick up dangerous high seas along the coastal areas of Southern France.”
With that thought in mind, he estimated he was somewhere between Marseille and Montpellier France. He only hoped that he was low enough in the water, making him less visible. But he needed to be further away from shore.
He checked his water supply. He discovered a fresh rainwater pool in a rock basin, back at the inlet filling the canteen. Thank god, Katherine insisted on taking theirs. Katherine told him he would not want to drink from the containers they offered in some areas.
His food was crevette grise, a brown shrimp, a gift from the large German E-boats. Shrimp hide in the shallow water under the sand near the shore. The heavy prop wash from the E-boats tossed an ample supply up onto the rocks. Tommaso packed what he could into a small bucket that was on board. He attached the canteen back onto his knapsack and pushed everything under the tarp.
The sky was starting to brighten. Tommaso could just make out the shadows of the shoreline behind him. He checked his watch; a half-hour before sunrise, the wave swells were increasing, adding to his invisibility.
Tommaso was dozing when the sharp pull on the tiller woke him. He was sliding down a wave, out of sight. He had been trying to stay awake to scan the horizon every time he crested over a wave top, but the lack of sleep with the warm sun was adding to his drowsiness.
He was sitting in his underwear in the heat with part of a tarp pulled over his shoulders; for protection from the sun.
He rubbed his eyes as he crested again. Tommaso thought he saw something on the horizon. Suddenly, he became very alert as he topped the next wave. He stood up, holding onto the mast to see better. It was a boat further out to sea, running parallel to his course but faster. He could see the gun outline mounted on the bow but couldn’t see the flag.
He sat down, quickly changing his tack toward shore. “Maybe they haven’t spotted me. I need to get close to shore. I can slide over the side using the boat to block my swim to shore, risky, but it’s all I have.” He checked his watch; Sunset was an hour away.
Tommaso was as close to shore as he could get. He tacked once again, running parallel with the other boat. “He hasn’t changed course; why?”
During the next crest, he saw the answer. A peninsula lay ahead. He would have to change his tack further out to sea, which would lead him right to them. “Damn, he must have seen me?”
He locked the tiller down with a short line. Grabbed his knapsack with the attached medical bag, tying them to a floorboard, then attached another rope to the stern, tying the loose end to the tarp he was using for shelter from the sun. When his boat plunged down into the trough of the next wave, he went over the side, holding on to the trap to make sure his small flotilla was working. Wrapping his arms around his belongings, he let go, kicking toward shore. “The tarp should work as a sea anchor, giving me time to get away.”
The cold current was stronger than he estimated. “Maybe this was not such a good idea; my god, this water is cold, keep kicking. Don’t think about it.” Tommaso could see a small beach to his left below, a crevasse in the rocks. “I have little choice. Any port in a storm, kick harder, old boy.” Luckily a wave surge pushed him closer. He put his foot down to check the depth, relieved when it touched the bottom. Half crawling, balancing himself with his free hand, he pulled his raft up onto the beach. He was shaking from the cold. Tommaso crawled further up the beach to a rock cropping leaning back against the stone wall warmed from the day’s sun. “Oh, that feels good; I need to dry off fast.”
Digging into his knapsack, he pulled out a shirt, rubbing himself dry as he tried to see down the shoreline but needed to stand up. The small inlet blocked his view. He put the wet shirt on, still trembling as he stood pulling on his trousers. He could see the larger gunboat in the distance but couldn’t catch sight of his unmanned sailboat.
He was tying his boots when he heard the exploding sounds of a powerful gun. He stood slowly, peering over the rocks. In the mist, two men stood at the bow gun. Closer to shore, he could see the top of the sail bobbing up and down. “It must have been a warning shot.” Suddenly, shots started again in rapid succession. He watched as pieces of the sailboat flew.
It was not a warning shot—it was insane target practice. The gunfire stopped; one man was pointing at the shore, slapping the other man on the back before their boat drifted further behind the peninsula out of his view.
He looked up at the crevice above him. “I needed to climb this cliff. What if they send a shore party to investigate the wreckage?”
Tommaso’s thoughts were spinning with solutions when part of a rope fell across his back.
“Senior, the rope, we will pull you up, prisa, prisa, before they return!”
Tommaso didn’t have to be told twice. He shouldered his knapsack with his medical bag attached, quickly wrapped the rope around his waist, and gave two tugs.
He shot up through the crevice, greeted at the top by an old man with three horses. A young girl quickly untied the rope attached to her saddle. The man was undoing the rope from His waist, “You are Senior Tommaso?”
Tommaso nodded yes.
“Can you ride?” Tommaso nodded yes again. “Take this one, prisa, prisa,” the small girl led the horse to him.
With the man in the lead, the young girl behind, they rode inland into the shadows of the forest.