Broken webs

The deliberate rearranging of the sheet woke me from a dreamless sleep. Wearily, I focused my eyes on the nurse who nodded curtly at a figure barely sitting in the chair next to my cot. I turned my head slowly and shock stabbed through my useless body. The young man moved forward and apologized for waking me, initially speaking in poor French, but switching quickly to unaccented English

‘You knew my parents’ he said softly.

Pain wracked my body.

‘How?’ I whispered.

‘There was a plane crash three years ago’ he spoke flatly. Henri’s son had his same slow deliberate speech and very definitely his deep set green eyes.

‘I came to ask if you could tell me anymore about your dives on the Savannah, maybe a detail that they missed – I don’t know’ his voice faltered ‘Maybe you saw a chart or something – Dad, always thought there was more?’ His shoulders shrugged Henri’s shrug.

He said something else, but I had already catapulted back to the evening she came up the gangway. That was the day my life changed forever. I turned my head to get a better look at this man. I owed Sarah and Henri this overdue apology.

‘We had tied the Citrine up against a small jetty in Marseilles harbor, just to the right of the navy ships. We had more survey to complete but had come in early as Henri wanted to refuel and get more water. A trip ashore was always welcome. Your mother must have been waiting for us. She was a beauty. Long dark hair and that confidence beautiful people sometimes have’ I could see Henri was captivated from the first glance. He did a funny double take and tried to pretend he hadn’t, and he blushed slightly. I smiled with the memory. Ah Henri, my dear old friend.

‘She did not have time for pleasantries. She offered $20,000 to help her find the Savannah and dive on her. We’d heard about the sinking some months previously and knew about the collision reported too late and the bodies drifting ashore. Our task would be to search for the yacht and recover something from it. That item, she would tell us once we’d found the wreck. Henri and I agreed immediately and without consultation. We’d worked together for over twelve years since I bought the Citrine and started marine survey. Excitement lit his eyes and I felt a familiar buzz. There was a few caveats – she would sail with us and we had to sign a non-disclosure. The usual.

‘A week later we found ourselves leaving port and heading westward. We all shared jobs, but I was the designated hydrographic surveyor, Henri our Master, Etienne the geophysicist, Moobi our engineer and of course, Sarah.

‘We found the Savannah towards the end of our second week out. Etienne had spotted a debris trail in the side scan sonar data and we went to investigate. The remains were in twenty five meters of water and in two sections. Diving was set for the following morning’ I allowed myself a dramatic pause in my story. What came next, I have been ashamed of since.

‘Spirits were high on our ship that night. We anchored near the Savannah and Sarah offered to do the cooking. She was not a good cook and her pasta was overdone, but Henri opened some good Bordeaux and we recounted anecdotes of our times together surveying the seabed. Laughter and our sense of anticipation abundant. When pressed as to what we were looking for, Sarah shook her head smiling. She had already said she would not tell us until the morning’. I paused, tired from the effort of talking.

Over the second week Henri and Sarah began to laugh together and become quite tactile. I had ached for her to lightly touch my wrist and catch my eyes with laughter, but she did not appear to notice me at all. Henri was totally absorbed by her. That evening I surreptitiously watched their gentle courtship in the reflection on my diving knife and saw Sarah slip her arm around Henri and give him the briefest of hugs, promising a lifetime. In turn he bent his head to hers and grazed her dark hair with his beard.

I could not sleep the night before the dives. The sea was unnaturally smooth, and I missed the calming rocking. Frustrated, I gave up and decided to watch the first rays of the dawn, relieving Etienne early from his turn at the watch. Yesterday’s coffee as bitter as my thoughts.

In hindsight, and I had plenty time to brood, Sarah would not have entertained me anyway, I was older - too much older, recently estranged and I wore my baggage like a badge. Sitting on the deck in the silence of the oily sea and dim light, I cursed my advancing age, the irretrievable years in an erosive marriage and the loss of my joy. In truth, I regretted myself.

‘At dawn Sarah gathered us in the wheelhouse for the scheduled briefing. The easy laughter I’d observed had been replaced by the serious young woman we met in Marseilles. Unsmiling she outlined our task. We were to search for a small black notebook. It would probably, she said, be held closed by a rubber band. To prevent damage, we were not to open it, but bring it directly to the surface, nothing else should be disturbed. Henri and Etienne would dive first, they would investigate the southern bow section of the Savannah. Moobi and I would dive second and concentrate on the northern section. We planned two dives for each team. Sarah did not dive. I heard her confess to Henri that she could not swim at all, and she disliked the sea – it brought too much death.

‘Henri and Etienne came back empty handed. We studied their sketches of the bow section and they fell to discussing where they would investigate next as Moobi and I made ready. We finned along the seabed towards the stern section. It lay on the starboard side and at first sight appeared intact until we swam around the bridge and saw the jagged gaping wound of the collision and bisection.

‘Switching on our torches we entered the Bridge. Still in their fixings was a replica of the survey equipment we had installed above on the Citrine. The Savannah had been searching for something on the seabed for sure – Sarah neglected to say that.

‘The reports of the collision stated it had been at night. I tried to imagine what it would have been like and thought of a container ship with a stuck rudder crashing into the Citrine at night bisecting her. Perhaps the crew awake had dived in the water before impact then surfaced and shouted desperately to each other before perishing from exhaustion or did they saw a final dawn. The newspapers said the bodies had been in the sea at least five days before they washed ashore. All onboard were accounted for. Our search proved fruitless and we returned to the Citrine with a plan to return to the wreck in five hours’. My voice trailed off.

I’d felt relief getting into the water for the second time and away from the afternoon heat. We slipped down the line and as we started off to the stern section galley, I felt a tap on my shoulder, Moobi was having trouble with his demand valve and it had started to free flow. He signaled to abort the dive, but I was too entranced with the hunt. I countered I would continue. Moobi winked, and gave me an OK signal; the team were used to me diving alone. The unspoken agreement was that I would stick to the planned time.

The galley was quick to find although upended on its side, my fins disturbed some paperbacks and they swam around in the weak eddies before settling back on the bulkhead. I got to work and opened drawers, checking with my hands for anything resembling a black notebook. The search took over twenty minutes. I still had time, I pulled myself along the passageway to the first doorway. A two-man cabin outlined in my light. I got the feeling the cabin has been unoccupied at the time of the sinking. No personal items rolled about or caught my light. They were all carefully stowed in the deep drawers under the bunk. I tried not to disrupt this carefully folded clothing as I searched. Nothing.

Disheartened, I checked my time with my torch. The beam fell on a man’s work boot, partially hidden by the heavily hanging bunk curtains. A rolled woolen sock was stuck in the top of the boot. On impulse I pulled the sock out and searched inside. My hand felt a small rectangular object. I retrieved it with excitement. Its edges were curled and battered, and the leather showed deep creases around the elastic band. I thought how happy Sarah would be when I passed it over to her and how for once, I might be the hero of the moment. Then I remembered her touch on Henri’s arm and a surge of what I now know to be jealousy filled me. Pulling off the elastic band, I opened the notebook randomly. A small fragment of tissue-thin paper floated out. I grabbed it but it peeled into three sections. I scrabbled after the fragments and managed to catch them. They started to disintegrate as I held them, and a series of numbers began to dissolve in my torch beam. On impulse, I copied them onto my right arm with my biro and then let the pieces go. Replacing the elastic band across the middle of the notebook, I backed out of the cabin and retraced my path into the half-ship. Time was up.

On the return to port, Sarah remained ensconced in her cabin. She left the ship immediately on tying up and with tight lips bid us farewell. Clearly the expedition had been a failure. Not unexpectedly, Henri announced he was taking a break and would not continue as Master for the remainder of the summer. It was clear he was going to wherever Sarah was. I didn’t try and stop him. He paused on the jetty and looked at me. For a moment he made to return onto the ship. I turned my back.

The Marseillais tattooist was silent and taciturn as he traced blue ink into the hastily scribbled numbers into my arm. They were only partially scabbed over when the accident happened three days later.

I must had dozed off, as I felt a small shake of my shoulder. The young man sat forward, and unmistakable eyes bored into my soul urging me to continue. ‘Did you find anything else? I need to know. My mother was trying to find her family…’ His voice trailed off as the door opened and the nurse walked in.

She surveyed the scene with a disdain. ‘He cannot speak’ She said brusquely ‘He was too badly damaged in the accident. Sometimes we believe he thinks he can talk’ She shrugged.

‘I can talk’ I yelled at the nurse. She ignored my cries and rearranged by arms, straightening them out over the sheet like a child.

He stood up. I saw the same disappointment I had seen in Sarah’s face as she left the ship. I blinked and moved my gaze towards my right arm. By a flash of intuition, he understood. Nodding, he drew a pen from his jacket he pulled up his sleeve and copied the numbers onto his arm then silently left the room.

Exhausted, I drifted and returned to the deck of the Citrine, the still Mediterranean pungent from a day of sun and a zephyr breeze caressed the water. The deck was warm beneath my back. The hatch opened and Henri appeared, smiling with two beers in his hands.