TLA-Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Charlie was constantly moving during the next few weeks. This was no time to rest. He knew that it was only a matter of time before “the others” came looking for the two they had buried. Or maybe they would never come. In either case it was pretty obvious though that they were not the only survivors left on the continent and sooner or later they would encounter others who may be better armed and more dangerous than the two Tuareg. One thing about Charlie, he was a “good boy scout” and “always prepared.”.

The routine of the household become fairly predictable. Charlie and the boy got up early to go hunting. Along the way Charlie taught the boy some English. He knew most of the objects in the forest after just a few weeks. The boy was still trying to grasp the concept of a “past tense”. Everything to him was in the present. Charlie did not even venture to try “future tense”. He left that for later.

After breakfast Charlie and the boy would go out to the hide and work on Charlie’s next project. It was a boat large enough to carry the three of them somewhere else in case they didn’t have time to deploy the balloon. Or if by some chance they did not have favorable weather to fly. Better to take their chances on the sea than in the air during a storm.

Charlie actually had two boats in mind. The first was a hasty canoe with a small mast and a sail attached. It had a single outrigger for additional balance. Charlie planned to take the boy out fishing when the time was right. For now they spent the afternoons finding good trees, cutting them down and splitting them into planks and other lumber.

Ali learned to use the tools quickly. He was very bright and the two of them had a lot of fun working on the various parts of the boats. All along Charlie taught the boy maritime vocabulary. Words like mast, rudder, and sail became second nature to him.

During this time the evenings were filled with laughter back at the hut. Charlie would listen as the boy tried to explain to his mother all of the things they had done over the course of the day. After a while Fatima would just nod and smile. It was clear that she had no idea what the boy was talking about but she seemed happy that he was learning new things.

As they boy became better at English he began to make inquiries about Charlie’s past. Where had he come from? How did he get here? Where were his people? Charlie kept his explanations simple. The less the boy knew the better. He told the boy he came from across the ocean but that his boat had been damaged in a storm. He dared not tell him about the balloon at this point. Too much information too soon could spell disaster.

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Charlie interactions with Fatima became more intimate as he taught her words like “love” and “sweet”. He knew she had a story to tell and someday he would hear it. His Arabic was improving and soon the household was full of bilingual talk. Sometimes even within the same sentence or phrase they would shift to an English word from Arabic.

Fatima seemed happy. He world often hear her singing to herself as she did the “women’s work” around the house like getting water, cooking or cleaning. She also became adept at sewing once he showed her the sewing kit and brought her some materials to work with from the hide.

When he left her in the morning to go hunt with the boy he would kiss her gently on the cheek. “Maasalaama Zaughetti” He would say to her. The she would smile and look away shyly. The boy would already be running towards the forest. Charlie would chase him and yell at him for not being “tactical”. It was a word he taught him by demonstration.

One morning while going over the crest of the cliff by the waterfall he spotted an antelope grazing near the water. He told the boy to be still and to watch.

He moved slowly in a crouch always keeping lower than the animal could see. Then when he was about 15 feet away he took out his pistol and shot it in the head. It was a clean kill. “One shot one kill,” he chuckled to himself.

The boy came running when he heard the shot. He stood looking down at the animal. It was an adolescent that must have strayed from the herd, it was unusual to find antelope in this area, but it happened to be the dry season so it was possible they were coming towards the river for water.

Charlie figured the antelope weighed about fifty pounds or so. That would serve them well for a while. Charlie pulled out the knife his father had given him and handed it to the boy.

His eyes widened as he realized what he was about to do. Charlie had killed a few animals with the boy and had always performed the Halal blessing. Charlie, while still largely agnostic was starting to believe in something. He wasn’t sure yet what it was, but he knew he had been delivered from certain death on more than one occasion. He respected the faith of his new “family” and while he wasn’t a full-fledged participant yet he was moving that direction and definitely wanted to be a good role model for the boy.

Ali stood above the dead animal and said “Allah, Akbar” and sliced its throat. It was then lifted up by Charlie grabbing its hind legs and tied to a tree to bleed out. Charlie showed him the way he had snuck up on the young buck and killed it. Ali nodded and started practicing being “tactical”. Charlie told him to more this way whenever they left the house unless he told him otherwise.

Charlie knew another raiding party would come. He just didn’t know when. He could feel it in his bones. He had learned to depend on his instincts while in Vietnam. They had never let him down and now they were being awakened again after a long slumber.

The next lesson for the boy was target practice. He had to learn how to use a gun and quick. Their very survival may depend on it.

Charlie set up some coconuts at different distances down the beach. The boy has curious when they stopped working on the boat early one day.

Ali sat patiently under a tree watching as Charlie set up the targets. He called the boy when he was finished and handed him a rifle. It was the one he had been using with the collapsible stock. He shortened it for the boy and explained what he wanted him to do.

The boy fired one shot; low at one of the 50 meter targets. Charlie then adjusted the sights and gave it back to the boy who was smiling from ear to ear. He tried again and this time split one of the coconuts into a thousand pieces as it shattered on impact of the boy’s shot.

“Good eh?” he said to Charlie looking for approval. “That’s fine boy, you did good.” Charlie pointed at the next set of targets at 75 yards. There were three coconuts on the sand. “Fire,” Charlie said calmly. The first target exploded. “Again,” he said and the second one exploded. The third shot missed low.  “Try again,” Charlie said patting him on the shoulder. The next shot split the coconut and it shattered.

Ali stood up and hugged Charlie around the waist. He had set the rifle on the sand and was squeezing him hard. “Abhi I love you. Please do not ever leave us.” Charlie hugged him back and looked at the sky. He said a little prayer of thanks right there and then. He thought of how his relationship with his own son had been. Charlie had been hard on him and not around much. He was overly critical of him and they were very distant from one another until after the boy’s mother had died. They finally made the peace. But Charlie had missed out on so much with him. He was determined to take full advantage of this second chance.

“I’m very proud of you Ali.” He said. Although the boy didn’t quite understand the words he knew the meaning. He hugged him back and said “you did good Ali, you did good.” They spent the rest of the afternoon finishing the small boat. In the morning they would be off together. As a reward for his hard work and marksmanship he gave Ali one of the rifles and told him he could carry it whenever they were away from the house.

When they arrived back at the hut that evening Fatima had dinner on the fire. They sat in the hut and Ali told his mother about the adventures of the day. He said they were going in the boat tomorrow and Fatima gave him a frightful look and told him to go to the other room.

She looked up at Charlie eyes on fire and started yelling at him in Arabic. Charlie only got part of it, but the message was clear. She didn’t want the boy to go in the boat and she was afraid to lose him like is father? Ali came running out of the room and hugged Charlie by the waist. “Abhi tell her we come back. She fear we no come back. Charlie knew he would get the details later, but for now it was enough to know that her man, the boy’s father and owner of the third bowl had been taken by the sea. He left in a boat of some kind and never returned.

After about an hour of reassurances he convinced Fatima that they were just going fishing, or as Ali put it “hunting for fish”.

They hadn’t had much luck in the river fishing, and the threat of the crocodiles made it too dangerous to fish from shore. Charlie knew there had to be lots of fish out there in the sea. Adding a fishing trip on two to their hunting expeditions should add to their protein intake with less effort than hunting.

The following day Charlie and the boy set out on their first fishing expedition. Fatima had sewed a nice sail for them out of canvas Charlie brought back from the gondola. The dimensions of the triangle shaped sail were 15x25 with sleeves for the ropes and boom. When Charlie gave her the drawing she had been quite excited.   He brought her some fabric from his stash of emergency canvas and he was aware that he didn’t have much more to spare and still keep some for patching the canopy if necessary. Of course, like most engineers he always planned for the worst case scenario and doubled everything when planning for needs of any system. There was still enough for the two sails he planned to have on the larger boat and a few yards for any minor repairs of the canopy.

Charlie took out the small life vest for the boy and put it on him. It was one of the inflatable types so it was very lightweight. He had packed three of them just in case one failed he would still have two spares. He donned one himself that it was unlikely that the boy could rescue him if something happened and he fell into the water.

Charlie attached the last pieces of parachute cord to the mast and sail and told the boy to help him pull the craft to the water’s edge. The hardest part of the exercise was to get the boat past the surf line. There were two hand- carved paddles made from a light wood in the bottom of the boat. He and the boy had practiced the maneuver a couple of times. It was a challenge because the boy had no experience at all with water or boats. To train the boy Charlie sat him down on the sand and had him paddle sand. Ali found the whole exercise quite amusing. He flashed his big smile and his deep brown eyes twinkled with joy as he practiced his new maneuver with his new toy.

As Charlie watched the boy playing in the sand with the paddle he remembered that look of joy when he brought his son a remote controlled airplane for his birthday when he was about Ali’s age.

The boy had played with it so long that the batteries from the remote had died while the biplane was still in the air. The plane was a small 3 foot replica of a Sopwith Camel complete with paint from one of the RAF squadrons in WWI. It crashed when it ran out of fuel somewhere in the distant treeline. For a moment his son had achieved that sense of wonder that comes from discovery. Ali had that look almost daily as he learned new tasks and incorporated them into his memory. This next task, if successful would be one of the most memorable of his life.

Charlie had a momentary flash of fear as he and the boy pushed the sturdy eight foot long craft into the ocean. The mast was down and wrapped with cord and tied tight to the beam. Charlie had carved out the hull of the craft from a large tree that fell in the forest not far from the worksite. It had taken several days with fire, the ax he brought with him and some of the chisels he had brought in the tool kit to make room for two people and some gear. He had carved a tight-fitting space in the bottom of the boat near dead center for the base of the mast. There were two holes carved out on the sides for the outrigger. The sail could move freely around the mast as the boom was rotated from side. The outrigger could be used on either side depending on the wind direction. The craft was only made to be used along the shore so any chance that it might capsize could be followed by a swim to shore. Now they would see how their work and Charlie’s design fared in the Atlantic.

Ali jumped into the front of the boat as they crested the first set of waves. He began to paddle as Charlie to his last few steps pushing the boat through the surf. So far the waves were no more than three feet. Charlie jumped in and started paddling from the back on the right side of the boat. Ali paddled left and did a good job of it. The lessons back on the beach had paid off. Before long the two of them were past the shore break and moving towards the sets of larger waves directly in front of them. They had to time it perfectly to make it through before the wave crested or they might capsize and lose the boat on its maiden voyage.

“Now’s our chance,” Charlie said, more for his own benefit than Ali’s. the boy was already paddling as fast as he could and contributing to his share of the effort. Charlie dug down and paddled for all he was worth. They pushed through a large six foot wave just as it crested. Both of them got some sea water and spray in their faces but continued to paddle. The next wave was about nine feet tall and coming fast. Charlie knew they would be in trouble if they timed it wrong. They coasted safely over the swell as they made it far enough out that none of the waves were cresting anymore.

Ali was laughing as he paddled. It was clear that he had never done anything so fun for him in all of his life. Charlie remembered sailing on a lake with his grandson. He was sad for a moment, and then the laughter of Ali became infectious. Here they were an old man and a boy in his early teens feeling the same joy of nature in the raw.

Charlie told Ali to stop paddling so they could deploy the sail. There was about a ten to fifteen mile per hour off shore breeze. If they could get the mast up they should have plenty of power to carry them wherever they wanted to go today for fishing. This maneuver had been practiced as well. One thing about Charlie was that he was well prepared. Planning, practice and more practice led to good execution. The mast and the sail went up almost effortlessly.

Charlie tied off the halyard and the two guide lines on the end of the boom. His sail design resembled the old Dhou designs of the Indian Ocean. He had ridden in one once while visiting East Africa. The boom swung freely around the mast so it could receive full wind from any direction. Right now the wind was at their back. As it filled the sail Charlie could feel the boat lurch forward.  “Paddles in,” he said in his best maritime voice. Ali turned and smiled at him sharing his excitement at moving forward through the water quickly enough to generate a wake.

Charlie suddenly realized that this was probably the first vehicle of any kind that the boy had ever ridden on. The sail was full and the boat picked up speed rapidly. The trees near the shoreline became like small sticks on the horizon behind them. The Atlantic was many colors of blue and grey. There were puffy clouds in the sky and at times they passed under shadows. Charlie could still se the red white and blue of the American Flag he had placed between two trees to have a reference point to return to. Charlie had stuck the flag in the gondola at the last minute thinking he might become nostalgic one day and put it up. It was unmistakable set against the green and brown backdrop of the jungle.

He let the wind out of the sail and set about teaching Ali the finer points of fishing. He had two portable telescoping poles and a small tackle box with lures and some old salmon eggs. They had packed some raw crocodile meat with them for bait Charlie showed Ali how the rod and reel worked on the beach and he became quite good at casting and reeling in. They fished for about an hour with no luck using the salmon eggs. They turned out to be too old to be effective. He switched over to some of the crocodile meat and they each caught a red snapper within minutes. Ali was so excited that the nearly lost his rod. Luckily Charlie had rigged a safety rope and when the rod went overboard they were able to retrieve it.

“A fish, a fish, I have on Abhi,” Ali had shouted as he stood in the boat and dropped the rod after nearly falling into the water. Charlie made his way to the front of the boat laughing and grabbed the rod out of the water. He started reeling in and then gave it back to the boy who was crouching down at the bow of the boat. As he brought the fish aboard it was clearly the greatest accomplishment of his life.

Charlie said,” Good job! I am proud of you boy.” He put the fish along with the one he had landed in a black plastic bag he had brought from the gondola. Then Charlie gave Ali a gift, just like his father had given him on his first fishing trip. It was one of the Swiss Army knives with a carrying case and a belt Charlie had made out of croc skin. It tied together with laces so he could continue to wear it as he got older. Ali looked at the knife and hugged his father.

They sailed upwind for a short time as it shifted to an onshore breeze. Charlie showed the boy how to tack and they tried to shakedown the boat properly. It was remarkably smooth as it cut through the waves. Charlie had designed the rudder to be operated with just one hand. He threw out a lure with his free hand and the speed of the boat pulled it along at a good pace for trolling. It wasn’t long before he had a big hit on the line and the pole bent to capacity. Charlie let the rope go holding the sail letting the wind escape and slowing the boat. He released the tiller and the boat naturally turned slightly as it stopped moving forward. Ali turned and shouted “Abhi, Abhi you get big fish!”

It was easy to tell by the poles’ curve and Charlie’s effort bringing him in that it was much larger than the other two they had caught earlier. As Charlie reeled him closer suddenly the fish jumped. It was a large swordfish of some kind. Charlie figured it for a Marlin but he wasn’t sure. It was small for a Marlin. He guessed about forty or fifty pounds. But the line was only fifty pound test so that would mean playing him until he got tired.

After nearly an hour Charlie got him to the side of the boat. He told Ali to bring him the paddle and had him hit the fish in the head. Ali hit the fish with all of his strength. The fish stopped moving and Charlie pulled it into the boat. He prayed over it as he slit the head and severed it.  “Allah Akbar,” he said. Ali bowed his head smiling and repeated the words.

They arrived back at the American Flag just as the sun began setting over the sea behind them. They pulled the boat up the beach and into the treeline covering it and stowing the sail inside.

Charlie carried the fish in the plastic bag. He had cut the head completely off when they reached the shore and threw it into the sea. All told they had about seventy-five or eight pounds of fish to take home. He grabbed a few salt sticks he had stuck in the sea to collect salt. Tonight he would show they boy and his mother how to salt and dry meat.

When they arrived home Fatima was cooking some kind of stew. Charlie gave her the bag with the fish inside and she looked inside smiling with satisfaction.

“You good hunter,” she said practicing her English.

“Yes Ali and I are two big fish hunters.” Charlie said as he smiled and kissed her gently on the cheek.

He and the boy sat on the stools and started to talk about what to do next. They could hear Fatima singing as she cut the fish into small pieces and added it to the stew.

This pattern of life continued for the next few months except when it rained once or twice per week.  Usually they would go hunting or fishing in the morning and work on the big boat in the afternoons. For this project they needed two large trees. They had to be significantly bigger than the one they had used for the first boat. They searched long and hard for the right trees. Finally, about four miles down from their camp they found two nearly identical trees about four feet wide and thirty feet long. Charlie and Ali felled them together, stripped them of their branches and then started the burning process.

The next boat was going to be a catamaran with enough room for a small shelter on the deck and storage in each of the pontoons. It was to have a large square sail and two smaller jib sails on the front of each pontoon.

The project was going well. Each day he and the boy would hike to the workplace and stay until almost sundown. Their fishing and hunting was confined to once or twice per week as the boat project progressed. They did just enough fishing to keep their stock in good supply. They moved the flag to their new location and finally after two months or so of work the boat was nearly finished.

It was approximately twenty five feet long and the mast was thirty five feet tall. The sails were made from the remaining extra canvas. If it was ever necessary to leave in the balloon the sails could be stowed easily in the sleeping area for spare canvas.

Charlie and Ali had worked hard together to build the boat. Ali was becoming a fine young man. The boat was finished but seemed to be lacking something. Ali suggested painting it with some color and words in Arabic and English. Charlie agreed and they began preparing paint with Fatima’s help. They prepared a green, a red from some berries Fatima collected, and a black. They started decorating the boat with stripes and a camouflage pattern Charlie knew from his days in the Navy. If the sail was down the craft would be nearly undetectable form the horizon. Charlie knew this might be a life saver if they ever ran into other boats that were hostile and had to hide from them. The sail was painted with the same pattern as the hull and cabin.

They decided to give it a name. “Peace” and “Salaam” in Arabic were written on both pontoons. When it was ready to sail Fatima came  along for the maiden voyage. They had packed some lunch and plenty of water just in case there was a problem and they got stranded somewhere.

The smaller boat was tied down on the deck next to the simple shelter and beneath the sail. It required all three of them to pull the boat the one hundred yards to the water. Charlie had designed skids made of palm branches to ease sliding it gently down the slope. When it reached the water’s edge it became light and buoyant.

They all hopped aboard as the boat crested through the first small set of waves at the shore. Fatima had been very nervous at first but simply looked up and said, “Bismallah” and settled down on the bench seat in the middle of the deck. As she sat down in the hand carved seat next to the cabin she smiled and said, “We go!”  Her smile grew wide and lit up her beautiful face. It had been many years since she had been on a boat.  Her last trip by sea had been when she had been carrying Ali. She had run away with the man she loved after her family had refused to let her marry him. He had saved his money and had worked hard as a fisherman but his type of work was not acceptable to her family. Even thought they had been friends since childhood and her mother had shopped at his father’s fish stand in the market of their village all of her life, they were of an unacceptable tribe and class. Fatima had been promised to a distant relative from a prestigious town up north. Her life there would have been one of leisure and wealth. But she had decided instead to run away with her man and to raise the child. She had made the decision before she knew she was with child. It would have been and easier decision had she known she was pregnant. The consequences for such a predicament were very serious. Her family would at the very least disown her and she would be forced to raise the child herself with the scorn of the village and her tribe following her and the child for the rest of their lives. There were a few women in that circumstance that she had known about growing up. Most of them were prostitutes who had no other source of income to feed themselves and their child. Their children were doomed to be outcasts and usually forced to leave the village when they were adults because nobody in the village would marry them.  Her husband had taken her to a nearby town with all he had saved for a “bride price.” The Imam married them not knowing that she had run away from her family and the village. They told him she was an orphan so one of the village elders spoke for her.

The ceremony had barely been completed when her uncle, the male guardian of her and her sisters since her father died, arrived unexpectedly and tried to stop it. Seeing it was too late, he gave them his blessing on the condition that they never returned to the village. This would allow him to save face with the family and the village and avoid his having to kill them both for the shame they brought on his people.

They took one of his father’s boats and headed west then north following the coastline until they were far from any known villages or people. It had taken them ten days to reach the location where they decided to make their lives.

It had been difficult at first trying to help him build the house. He was young and strong working from sunrise to sundown. They were very much in love in those days. She would pick wild flowers and bring them to him as he had his break for a mid-day meal. For her those days had been like paradise.

Every morning and every night they prayed together thanking Allah for blessing them with a marriage of love and the food they ate each day. Fatima had seen each of her sisters married of and they had seemed happy at the time. She was jealous of them being married ahead of her since she was the oldest, but when she saw them in recent years they seemed unhappy. They all had children and nice homes in good places but they each had told her to marry for love. Not directly, of course, but just the way they looked and acted made her determined not to ever have an arranged marriage. Her attitude and demeanor towards anyone who approached her encouraged by her family had always been polite but unmistakably distant.

Then there was that one day at the market when she had gone with her mother to purchase several fish for a family gathering. He had come into the market carrying a large swordfish over his shoulder. His light skin glistened in the sun beneath his thin white tunic. He was wearing a small cap on his head and his facial hair was neatly trimmed. He smiled at Fatima and her mother and greeted them with the traditional, “Salaam Alekum.” They both smiled back. Fatima said, “Walekum Salaam,” and met his eyes for just an instant before dropping them down appropriately.

Their first meeting had been simple and innocent enough. Her mother had not picked up on the electricity that had passed in that first momentary glance. For just the blink of an eye their eyes had met and they connected on a very basic level. Fatima felt her body stir in a way she had never felt before.

“What was it,” she thought to herself as the boat carried them smoothly through the waves. “Was it his beautiful smile? His kind eyes? His delicate light-brown skin? Or was it his strong shoulders and arms? She had instantly longed to touch that skin and to feel it touching her.

After that day she had made every excuse possible to do the shopping. Fish was not an everyday item in their household but she could pass the fish stand every day if she did the shopping for her mother. Fatima’s mother was quite happy for the help and yet something told her there was more than benevolence to her eighteen year old daughter’s actions when she had never volunteered for anything before. Either she was maturing and becoming more caring about others or she was up to something. She had been a good child, smart in school and helpful with her younger brothers and sisters. But she had never shown any real interest in the market until just recently. Her mother guessed correctly that she was looking for a husband. This was welcome because her family had begun to ask a lot of questions about Fatima and why she was still, at the ripe old age of eighteen, living in the house with her family.

Her mother always made up a believable story when someone inquired about her for marriage. It was important not to allow people to think she was “damaged goods” or she might never get married. Or worse than that, time and desperation might force the family to marry her to an unsuitable candidate that would bring shame upon her and the family.

So her mother had let her daughter shop for the food each day hoping that her beauty would soon attract an appropriate husband. Fatima started buying fish on a regular basis. One time he had asked her if she had ever been in a boat. She said she hadn’t and against her better judgment had agreed to meet him and go for a ride. When she came to where the boat was parked along the shore he was tending the nets next to it. He had his shirt off and his back to her.

She could see his strong back muscles straining as he lifted and rolled up each net. She stopped for a minute and took a deep breath. She could feel her heart racing and became nervous that someone would know what she was thinking and feeling. She looked around and knew she should not be here. If her family found out about this she would be severely punished with a beating.

As he bent down to pick up another net she noticed the outline of his strong legs against the fabric of the thin white cotton trousers he was wearing. She smiled as she saw him turn and the outline of his muscular rear came into view. “Nice” she had said to herself. She had never really given much attention to the male anatomy. Not that she hadn’t thought about certain things, but she’d never really studied a man’s body before. She knew about all of the different parts a man had. She had seen her brothers when they were little and had bathed them as part of helping out around the house. But she hadn’t thought much about it at the time. Once or twice she had overheard her sisters and aunts talking about their men and the relations they had with them but it was always followed by discussions of childbirth and the pain of it. This had impressed her much more than any fleeting discussion of men and women enjoying each other.

When he turned and saw her looking at him he dropped the net and quickly donned his shirt. He greeted her with a smile and brought her over to the boat. He gave her a perfunctory tour of the boat and how all of the parts worked. It had a small square sail on a long pole at the front and a V shaped hull with several paddles inside. Usually, three men, he and his two brothers would go out and fish with the nets until the boat was full or the daylight was gone.

He asked her if she would like to ride in it sometime. She said yes and then she smiled and walked away. He had said she would make his boat beautiful because she was so pretty. She smiled and walked away feeling light as a feather. She turned once and looked back. He waved and she waved back. That had been their beginning and it still made her smile to think about it today.