Aleutian Light By Andy Thomas In the North Pacific sit the Aleutians, running in a semicircle from the tip of the Alaskan peninsula in a looping, westerly direction to a place called Adak and beyond. Adak is said by some to be a secret U.S. naval base today. The islands poke up from the harsh dark waters of the Northern Pacific ocean, like the fingertips of the cryogenic forms of some frozen race of giants reaching from ancient watery tombs to the surface which is nearly out of reach for eternity. Yet the imaginary giants do manage to poke their fingertips through the chilly surface; appearing to we humans as but dozens if not literally hundreds of islands in a chain where most if not all are no more than a hundred and fifty to three hundred feet above sea level at their peaks, and where the typical shape of such an island is simply that of an inactive volcano or sharply conical, snow-capped mountaintop jutting from the ocean; or a fingertip of the gods. Perhaps in truth the shape of them as a whole indicates the chain is the edge of some inhumanly gigantic volcanic or plate rift reaching from the very depths of the dark ocean floor and stretching upward until they finally poke out into the sea air above those majestic and misty Northern waters. On land there the ravens live, in places like Dutch Harbor. Duke sat in a bar there in Dutch that winter day - the Elbow Room, the 3rd toughest bar in the world - and marveled at his own inner machismo for having stepped off of the fisher processor ship, onto land, and finally through the doorway of the place. Even as Duke sat and drank the fish still swam at sea; those majestic black cod in all of their strange empathetic glory. Duke pondered for that moment, even in the company of rambunctious shipmates, the strange empathy he’d once felt toward the fish while examining a freshly caught bin of them sprawling in a collective death dance while drowning out of their element and watching their brethren taken one by one by the fish cutting man and dispatched before suffocation by first beheading then disembowlment. How Duke had stumbled that one day upon his empathy for the fish and how he’d picked one up and said a prayer to whatever ultimate invisible authority may have resided over that sullen winter milieu and which may have appreciated such a heartfelt word of thanks on the part of Duke for the bounty of nature’s harvest; how Duke had come to that particular moment in time, he didn’t know. He’d never doubted his sanity though, even with the downside of his smug mystical self-righteousness, but of course he was unaware of any such attitudes on his part in any event. To be fair, there is probably something to be said for blessing one’s food, either at harvest or at eating, but better yet both. Certainly nature’s bounty that day and others had been incredible and the quality of their fresh-frozen black cod was second to none. As Duke sat in the bar with those same intoxicated shipmates, the ocean continued to flow, to move in its tides in sync with that mysterious lady, the moon. The halibut, that excellent source of white meat, still swam somewhat deep. The black cod traveled in schools with the ability to swim straight up or straight down, for when a catch of black cod is brought up from two hundred feet down or so, and a halibut was accidentally in one of the pots, the halibut will invariably have its internal organs exploded from within, as well as its eyes popped out, because of the vast change in pressure wrought by the quick ascension of the pots. By contrast the black cod will look none the worse for wear; somehow the internals of the dark, mysterious, and beautiful fish allow it to change depths without regard to water pressure, as perhaps painfully experienced by halibut and various rockfish, among others. Where the others are quite dead, the black cod are very much alive when speedily brought to the surface in pots from the ocean depths. The black cod is truly the prize fish of those northern waters, at least from an evolutionary standpoint. The meat is oily but some say fish oil is excellent for one’s diet. Fish certainly is the most enjoyable and succulent of meats, once one is weaned from pork, and even fowl, and of course beef; and the oil of the black cod but makes it rich. Fish is the best meat there is. Black cod in any event are beautiful, and the fresh product produced by Duke’s ship was prized in the Japanese markets. The Japanese love their fresh frozen black cod, and they love their cod fresh. The Intrepid - Duke’s ship - produced just such a product. The ship and its crew fished and processed everything on their own. The Intrepid and her sister ship the Czarinov plied those dark waters and fished largely out of the sight of any other human life, for the only life visible against the stark backdrop of those jutting mountaintops and the cold, dark water aside from the fish were the scavenger birds who would hover behind the fisher processor and eat augured fish heads and entrails. Most large fishing operations involve small fishing boats which take product to a large processor. The small boats fish and the large ones process. The Intrepid did both, thus the black cod was flash frozen within literally a half hour of being caught. Such product was in high demand in Japan. There was another type of operation, the one that went for the pollack on the ocean floor. Those giant fisher processors used mammoth hoses to suck the ocean floor of its literal “biomass,” comprised often of millions of such pollack. The catch is ultimately used in the artificial crab or surimi you see in the stores. Such meat would actually be good if it didn’t have that terrible red dye in it. They take a great product and ruin it with red dye which serves no other purpose than to make it look like crab meat, and to put an extremely slightly bad taste into the mouths of the sensitive eaters, like the bitterness of the red dye once used in pistachio shells. The Intrepid and its sister ship the Czarinov were the biggest black cod operators in those areas. The smaller fishing boats - the ones dependent upon the large processing ships - were using long lines, or literally thousands of hooks at intervals down long fishing lines. The Intrepid and Czarinov used pots and caught a lot more fish. Long lining was not as effective. The small long liners had to deliver their fish to the larger processing boats, and this could sometimes take a day or two. Fishing with long, hook-laden lines was also much more hazardous to the crewmen than using pots. In any event the Intrepid and Czarinov had everyone else beat from a quality standpoint. Sometimes Duke and a crewmate or two would sit during off hours on the back deck of the ship, and fire a pellet gun one of them had, at the scavenger birds all around the craft. “Tagging” sea pigeons seemed to be a release from the insanity one would catch after being at sea for a number of weeks and knowing nothing but the unending, sometimes nearly violent undulations of the powerful waters below. Indeed, there had been some severe storms there in the time Duke had already spent in those waters. A crewmate, Duke’s cabin mate from his neighborhood back home who’d boarded the Intrepid months before, told Duke that the storm in November of 1985 had been the worst in years. Duke had seen something similar but less powerful in March of 1986. Certainly floating on the ocean in cramped quarters with 25 men and no women, or later one woman (the cook’s wife) had been tough. Several weeks of unending waves, of rolling, of pitching, sometimes even somewhat yawing, takes its toll on one emotionally. The physical hardship was real; among various and sundry other realities there were just two shower stalls for 20 or so crewmen. In any event to that point the cigarette laden, overtime ridden stint on the ship about the frozen wastes had been good for Duke, for riding those Aleutian waves and working those long hours under such bizarre and strenuous conditions was the grand adventure. Any moment spent on the back deck during a rare quiet time - not “hunting” scavenger birds but just sitting and cogitating - perhaps before sleep in exhaustion after a twelve hour shift, riding the waves while perhaps watching a yellow-orange Aleutian sunset and possibly puffing a strong camel cigarette from the ship’s stores and contemplating the island chain’s landscape in the scope of those Western skies where ultimately one would find Japan were one to continue to the West for awhile; these were Duke’s most pleasant moments aboard the Intrepid. There was no brawl in the Elbow room that Winter evening, and Duke and his crewmates eventually headed drunkenly back through the primitive and snowy streets of Dutch, to the Intrepid, which was set to once again leave port early the next morning. Duke and his buddies, Ken and Todd went to the galley for a late night snack, and to see if any of the other crew were hanging out in there, watching videotapes or something. In the galley Todd realized he’d had way too much to drink, and the otherwise jovial, freckle-faced kid from Washington’s Olympic peninsula excused himself to head back out onto the dock where he puked repeatedly over the side of the ship and into the cold night air. Todd stood about 6’3” and probably weighed about 240 pounds. He remarked to Duke that he’d been a member of a state championship B-8 high school football team once. Ken and Duke watched some video as they made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the galley. A couple of the other crew members were in the galley then too, smoking up a storm as most of the crew members of that ship were so wont to do. James, another jovial man of large stature with dark red hair, a tad darker than Todd’s, seemed to be enjoying himself as he puffed on a Marlboro and drank a beer. Only in port was alcohol allowed on the vessel by the ship’s captain. James called out to Duke, “say Duke, how the hell you doin’? It sure is great to spend some time without the floor constantly moving…” “That’s for fucking sure,” Duke replied as he sat down at another table across the medium-sized room and watched the video. Ken finished making his sandwich and took a seat at the same table. Lights from the other ships in the harbor twinkled in through the galley’s portholes. Ray sat in the corner fuming. Ray was like that when drunk. Duke didn’t like Ray’s “vibes” when Ray had been drinking heavily; and heavily was about the only kind of drinking Ray was known to do. From what Ken had told him, Ray was simply hornary when drunk; apparently Ray had previously been in some tiffs with other crew members, but only during the times in Dutch when the alcohol had been readily available. At sea Ray was a likable fellow, for without alcohol he was a friendly personality. He was the best fishhead cutter there was. Once, Ray had challenged two of the other processor fishhead cutters to a contest, and he’d almost produced more fish for gutting than the other two guys combined. Ray had a saying, and that was, “hard work is hard work.” Ray was from the south, probably Tennessee. His brother Rich had as well traveled north to those barren wastes and was also a crew member. Rich was also a southern gentleman, but without Ray’s intolerable nature when drunk. Both were twins, and both had southern, “Rolly Fingers-type” mustaches with shoulder-length curly hair and medium builds. Then and there Rich was off in his shared cabin in the upper deck. Ray sat and fumed at a table in the galley by himself, mumbling something incoherent and then stumbling out of the galley in a seeming fit of rage. Duke really liked Ray but not when Ray was drunk. Duke was glad to see Ray exit the galley as he finished his sandwich. James continued to talk. “So do you think we’ll catch a lot of fish this time out? We sure caught a helluva lot on that last trip.” He was right. Earlier that day the crew had offloaded a full cargo of fresh-frozen, premium black cod. General Seafoods, or GenSea, would sell it to the Japanese market. Ken spoke up as he finished his sandwich. Duke had already lit a cigarette and seemed to be pondering James’ question. “Hell,” Ken said, “it was a shitty fall season but things really have picked up this Winter. I think we’ll continue to kick ass.” Ken, the red-haired tall and skinny kid from Seattle, looked at Duke and asked him what he thought. Duke puffed on a Pall Mall (they were stale but free from the ship’s stores) then answered. “It should be a fucking ‘nother great trip out. I predict another 10,000 cases this time.” “So what are you going to do with your money when we go home?” James asked Duke. “Are you going to spend it all on pussy?” “Spend it on pussy?!” Ken interjected and laughed. “I think I’ll try getting pussy without paying for it.” Just then a pair of nice female breasts appeared on the television screen from the videotape, and Ken remarked, “Those are excellent mammary proturbulences.” “Jesus fucking Christ Ken, you certainly have a way with women, don’t you?” said Duke. “Indeed I do. You know what though? I think it is about fucking time you found a girlfriend, when we get back. I figure if you play your cards right, no woman can resist you.” Duke had indeed been unlucky at love, all his life. Ken knew of Duke’s sordid past with the Raven Girl and the suicide attempt. Ken actually felt sorry for Duke in a way. James piped in, “Ken, those are great titties all right. Have either of you guys ever had a threesome with two women?” “What is it like?” asked Duke. “It only happened to me once, and the girls weren’t very enthusiastic, so it wasn’t that great.” “I’ve never had that.” “Say guys, it’s time to hit the sack. I’m fairly wasted and don’t want to be hung over when we leave in the morning.” Ken stood up and sauntered out of the galley, a cigarette hanging from his lips. Then Todd stumbled back in, apparently somewhat relieved by his puking session out on the dock. He spat, “Jesus Christ that Ray is an idiot when he gets drunk." There were some apparent scratch marks on his face. “Ray came out of the portal onto the front deck and started getting belligerent with me. Obviously I’m fucking drunk off my ass. He took a swipe at me, and like a wuss scratched me, then ran off into town, fuming like a can of turpentine.” Duke and James just shook their heads. “Well, I’m off to sleep myself,” said Duke. With that he picked himself up and walked in his half-stupor to the stairs resembling something more like a ladder reaching to the upper deck where all of the crew quarters were. He climbed them and went quietly to his cabin. Once inside, he again marvelled at how the walls of the room had been completely plastered in erotic photographs of women. The “fuck books” as the skipper’s mate called them were one of the chief sources of amusement for those isolated seafarers. Ken, Duke’s cabin mate and perhaps perhaps as well an expert troublemaker, had come up with the wonderful idea for the wallpaper. Duke, no angel himself had easily assented and the result was a visual feast of the female form in various stages of undress which would greet any visitor to that cramped room. With only Duke and Ken in the cabin, it was less crowded than it had been when Duke had shared it with two other guys who’d since rotated out. During that rotation Ken had moved from another cabin into Duke’s. There the two high school buddies had hatched their wallpaper scheme. There Duke had watched as Ray and Ken had secretly made “grape jack” out of a large container of frozen concentrate grape juice over a period of several weeks at sea. Ken had decided that, all in all the grape jack wasn’t too good. It had apparently given him a raspy throat. Ray had certainly partaken. Ken wondered if the two of them, Ray and Ken would have been fired if the captain had known about that little stash. Duke certainly never touched the stuff. “So what the fuck is up, dude?” Ken grinned and said to Duke as Duke entered the cabin. Ken puffed on yet another Marlboro in the dim light, his face visible only in the small lamp turned on behind him. Duke flicked on the overhead fluorescent lights in the room. “Hell, I guess we’ll be underway before either of us wakes up. How long until we’re fishin’, do you figure?” “We’ll probably be fishing by this time tomorrow night. Imagine that; once again knee deep in fucking fish. Ah, this is the life, isn’t it?” “Sure. I suppose the fucking money will be worth it once we get home and get paid.” “Yeah. I’m gonna buy some little sports car, like an MG. Maybe I’ll trick it out.” “I’m going to buy a new, kick-ass guitar.” Duke thought of his love for guitar, and how the acoustic he’d brought on board the ship had held up so well. Duke went through his locker and fished out his diary, then switched off the overheads and hopped into his upper bunk. There were four bunks in the room. On Duke’s side he slept in the upper one and used the lower for storage; on Ken’s side the opposite was done; Ken slept on the lower while using the upper for storage. Each of them had two of the four lockers in the room as well; the veritable lap of luxury with regard to fishing boats. In any case, once in his bunk, there Duke wrote a drunken entry after switching on the little lamp over his pillow: “Sometimes it gets so cold up here, compared to what I’m used to back home. We offloaded over 10,000 cases this morning, which means about another $3500 for me. After the offloading and before we went out drinking, Ken and another friend and I climbed to the top of the hill overlooking the town of Dutch Harbor. There were actual bomb craters left up there from the Japanese diversionary attack just before the Battle of Midway in World War II. Among the bomb holes were the old fortifications still remaining up there. These are imposing pillboxes with the gun mounts still intact. There is a large plywood covering over a gaping hole in the top of the hill. I couldn’t figure out what that was so I asked a bartender at the hotel when we were there later. He said that the thing was a giant ammunition elevator; that the hole with the plywood over it went clear to the bottom of the sizable hill, and the trucks once drove through a tunnel in the side of the hill at the bottom, in order to deliver ammo and other supplies to the elevator. To give anyone who might someday read this the proper impression, ‘hill’ is probably the wrong word to describe where the fortifications sit. It is too steep to drive a vehicle up it. We had a difficult time getting up it ourselves in the snow.” Surprised at his sudden burst of cogency amidst his drunkenness, Duke put the diary under his mattress and turned to his side, where he produced another cigarette, this time a Camel, from somewhere nearby. Ken was fast asleep and Duke enjoyed the cigarette in the dimly lit silence of the room and its erotica-plastered walls. The drapes in front of his bunk were closed and he imagined Ken’s were as well. When Duke awoke the next morning, the Intrepid was leaving the dock. As he lie there and attempted to go back to sleep, he could tell that the ship had soon left the harbor and was on the open sea. The familiar rolling began and Duke managed to doze off for another hour or so in an attempt to alleviate his slight hangover. When he awoke once again, he was greeted by the smell of one of Ken’s Marlboros as he himself rolled over and pulled back the curtain covering his bunk. “So how do you feel?” Ken asked. “Oh.. I’m all right” Duke replied as he fumbled around, found, and then lit up a Camel. I think Todd is probably the one really hurting this morning, or maybe Ray. Ray’s always getting too wasted. I hope he got back. Todd said he headed into town in a huff late last night.” “Ray always makes it back. You sure do want to stay away from him though when he’s had anything to drink. He’s probably an alky.” “Yeah, I figured as much. What about either of us? Are we fucking alkies?” “Well, I will say that I love to drink and I love to encourage others to do so as well,” Ken looked up at Duke with a huge grin on his cigarette-stained teeth. Duke realized that Ken was certainly a troublemaker. Ken finished his smoke first, and got up and got dressed, then went to the lower deck and the galley for some grub. Breakfast was being served. Duke finished his cigarette in silence, alone in the cabin, and went to the galley moments later, following the tell-tale smells of eggs and pancakes. In the smoke-laden galley many of the crew were eating heartily away, while those who’d already finished eating lit up. There was good cheer and profanity, for the two seem to go well together in that environment. Some of them talked about the amount of fish they might catch. The first mate sat and bantered with a couple of the other processor crewmates about their new “fuck books” they’d picked up while in Dutch. The captain, a tall slender man with brown eyes and thinning short hair, steered the vessel Westward toward an area which had just been opened by the State for fishing. He was thinking of another 12,000 cases or so as he went. After breakfast there was nothing to do but to wait for the fishing to begin, sometime that afternoon or evening. After the first mate Goldman, a short, balding round man almost always full of good cheer and banter, left the galley and the crew began to thin out, Duke and Ken were ordered to clean the windows of the helm. To do that, they had to climb to the top of the ship. Once there, Duke would hold Ken’s legs to the roof while Ken would stretch over the front and sponge and squeegee the windows. It was dangerous work and the fact that they were both slightly hung over didn’t help matters any. After an hour of that the windows were done and they’d both earned brownie points from the captain. Any work outside of the fishing was “free” because they were paid by the case, and cleaning windows had nothing to do with cases of fish, at least in Duke’s mind. After a couple of games of chess back in the galley with a subdued Ray, it was lunchtime. The fishermen crewmates were already letting out pots from the bow deck. Upon finishing his tuna fish sandwich and couple of cigarettes, Duke once again went to his cabin and took a nap. He knew it would soon be very busy. Since they were short-handed they were about to try a 12-6 program where it would be 12 hours on and 6 hours off in rotating shifts for all of the processor crewmates. Duke dozed off as the ship continued to roll, and he could hear the hydraulics from the front of the ship kicking in; "damned hydraulics;" could hardly sleep when they were on. The ship’s engines were also fairly loud. When he awoke late that afternoon, the fish were already coming in. It was time for his shift. Since he’d been promoted to lead processor, Duke would be handling the sugar dipping of the fish and their insertion into the flash freezers. Ray was on the same shift. When Duke came out of the dressing corridor with his raingear and textured rubber gloves, Ray had already cut several dozen of the fish. The smell of the fish was everywhere. Other processors were lining up with their spoons and beginning to gut the fish. The fish that Ray cut would be shunted down a stainless steel causeway, into the hands of the other, “spooning” processors who were waiting along a line. Overhead, a pipe through which sea water flowed fed their spoons through tubes. The spoons were connected to those water tubes and themselves of hollow stainless steel handles, and for each spoon the water flowed through its tube onto the spoon surface itself. The flowing water allowed the processors to more easily disembowel the fish without harming the meat. Duke’s personal spoon, in the days he’d been a “spooner,” had been very effective. He’d taken the care to grind it to sharpness regularly, using the grinder in the below, “engineering” deck. As usual, the hydraulic sound was unnerving. The constant whine of them had caused more than one crewmate to become a little loopy on occasion, so pervasive was its penetrating, whining sound. The person nearest to the hydraulics sound was the sorter, who came after the spooners, and worked next to a wall from which the sound emanated. The sorter would eye the fish out by weight, and throw them into bins. When a bin would fill, he would open it, and all of the fish would flow down and around the stainless steel causeways and to the weigher. Since he'd been promoted, Duke was no longer a spooner, but rather the weigher. He would take the various bins of fish as they were released by the sorter, and put them into galvanized bins and then into the flash freezers. A fishing crewmate came through the portal to the bow and said, “whewhew boyz! Is this a fucking catch or what! There’s plenty more where them came from!” Duke looked over and could see that fish were literally flooding through the opening from the deck to Roy and James, the other cutter of the moment. The fisherman in question was Steve, a decent man of olive complexion with dark eyes and dark curly hair about 6’ tall with a sort of stocky to roundish build. Steve headed toward the galley singing his favorite song, “I’m an asshole, everyone’s an asshole, we’re all just assholes…” or something like that. Duke had a great respect for the fishermen on board, for they were the ones out on the deck in all kinds of weather, and they had to deal with hundreds of feet of line and the pots. The pots were about 7 feet tall and 30 inches square. Any slip-up in their work could cost one of the fishermen life or limb. Duke figured it would be a very busy shift in any case. He would certainly be working most of the 12 hours, with a break for dinner and later, midnight meal. Amidst the deluge of fish, Duke managed to make it through to midnight and the shift change. At midnight meal there was a buzz in the galley as the talk of the apparent motherlode of fish they’d found. Duke had noticed that some very large fish had come his way during the shift. Some of the fish had to have been forty pounds before cleaning. The processors were swamped. The kid Chuck was looking fairly haggard after the same shift, there in the galley. He was pale and looked nauseous. He was slight, with blue eyes and straight brown hair. He looked sort of like a momma’s boy sitting there sickly. He’d been one of the ones with seasickness. Duke had never had that misfortune. Chuck would compound his problem with the sickness by refusing to take a “patch” behind his ear which would have alleviated the symptoms, for he was a Christian Scientist. After another cigarette and some bantering with the jovial James, Duke headed up to his cabin for what sleep he could get. It was already approaching 1 a.m. Ken was already dozed out in his bunk, having been on the same shift as Duke, but having skipped midnight meal and gone straight to sleep. Duke decided to step out on the stern deck for one last smoke and a relaxing moment in the night air alone. There on the back deck the sea pigeons and arctic terns were seen feasting on the augured fishheads and guts which poured from the ship into the water. Among them were a couple of majestic cranes which Duke could make out in the dimly lit night. As he puffed on his smoke, he turned his eyes to the island chain not more than a mile or two away. Even in the near darkness, Duke could have sworn he saw some strange light coming from an island perhaps out on the edge of the horizon. It was a dim green light but it was unmistakable. Duke figured he would ask the captain about it sometime later, perhaps if the Intrepid were to meander off in that direction as they fished further. Duke really didn’t think there should have been any kind of green light coming from what he thought to be a nondescript, uninhabited island. At 5:30 a.m. Duke was awakened by the foreman, a guy named Mitch who stood about Duke’s height, and sported blonde hair and blue eyes. Behind his back the other crewmates would refer to Mitch as “pretty boy” which Mitch once overheard and did not like. Mitch had actually arrived on about the same day as Duke, and the two of them had made their first trip to sea at the same time. Even Duke’s inner thoughts had once been echoed by Mitch as they’d been dressing prior to one of their early processing sessions. There in the passageway leading to the processing room they’d dressed on a fairly nasty day, donning the raingear, rubber boots, and gloves which would allow them to work where everything was wet with sea water. There on that day the ship had rolled port to starboard and back again, making it difficult even to put the gear on. Duke had been thinking, “jesus christ I’m getting sick of this already,” and Mitch voiced those same sentiments, using different words only a moment later. Obviously the rolling of the craft was a hardship on all of the crewmates. Duke pulled himself out of bed, and was glad that at least his spooning days were behind him, so the tendonitis in his spooning arm would finally have time to heal. Now Duke was the weigher. The job was gruelling, but in a different way. The job of “lead” simply entailed more responsibilities than the job of regular, lowly processor once had. In any event even without the thought of spooning fish, Duke was weary. The entire job had made him so. He knew though that he could make it through for another month or two. It was mid-March and he only needed to make it through until early June before he could fly home and once again frequent his haunts back in Seattle. For a few hours they filled the last of the blast freezers, then it was time to empty the one they’d filled the day before. This was known as “casing up.” During case-up, Duke’s job was to run the strapping machine below deck as the cases made their way from the freezer above, down a series of rollers and through the strapping machine to the cargo hold below. James and Ray were back in the cargo hold. Above, a team of processors removed the pans from the freezer and dipped the frozen blocks in a sugar solution and coated them in plastic, then boxed them and sent them down a chute to Duke. To Duke it was always spooky being below deck, surrounded by bales of unfolded cardboard boxes in his relatively warm area around the strapping machine. Through a portal and toward the fore of the ship was the compartment holding the ship’s stores of food. From that compartement forward, the lower deck was completely lined by cooling pipes. In the frontmost lower compartement, the cargo hold, in the bow part of the ship underneath the fishing deck, the pipes were covered in frost. Duke would catch the unstrapped boxes as they came down a chute, then he would strap them with plastic using a strapping machine, and after that he would shunt them down a series of rollers where James and Roy would stack them in the hold. These were the first boxes of what Duke and the rest of them hoped would eventually be a full load, somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 cases. After case-up there were more fish to process. Again Duke and the others worked a full 12-hour shift, with only meal breaks. It was 6 p.m. when their shift ended, and they would be back on at midnight. This time Duke was too tired to eat. He went straight for his bunk, and without even a cigarette he was fast asleep in his bunk before Ken returned after having had dinner. Ken smoked a quick cigarette and retired himself. When they awoke, there were no fish to process. Somehow the fish were gone. There were blast freezers to empty and case up, but the pots were coming up strangely empty. The disappointed crew worked wearily on deck and would only shake their heads every time a new string of pots was checked, all of them empty. They had never seen completely empty pots. Captain Smith pondered the situation. How could the fishing have gotten so bad so quickly? He’d never seen Black Cod behave like this. Even his fish finder was showing nothing. He’d noticed the green light from the nearby island some hours before and even then it had affected him somehow. Even he wasn’t aware of it, nor was his first mate, nor were any of the crew members, most of whom saw little of him as he was in the steering cabin and only came down to the galley for meals. The lean, greying Captain Smith whisked a strong, calloused hand through his thinning hair. He turned the ship once again to face the strange emerald glow. Somehow he thought they must launch a skiff and a team must be sent ashore to investigate, for it was then that the ship’s systems began to go somewhat haywire. First of all they lost radio contact with anyone else. Only static was coming over the airwaves. The engines were also behaving sluggishly, something the Captain had pointed out to one of the engineers a few hours before, but which the engineer had failed to remedy. The engineer and his assistant were stumped. To that point none of the other crew members aside from the first mate were aware of the problem. They’d not experienced the sluggishness in the engines, and things had sounded fine to them. It was in the middle of that night that the hydraulics began to malfunction. The fishermen and the processors all knew something strange was up. They’d left lines in the water, lines they couldn’t retrieve without getting the hydraulics working, and prior to that the pots had suddenly come up empty. A strange silence settled in over the ship as they realized they might be in danger. The majority of the crew were still unaware of the radio problems. In the meantime the captain had turned on the ship’s emergency beacon as they’d lost their main engines and had only the bow thrusters to keep them at mercy from the island shores. A meeting was called in the galley. There the crew was assembled; all of the fishermen, the two engineers, the processors, the cook and his wife, and the Captain and the first mate. The crew was subdued in the smoky room. Duke puffed on a Camel. The Captain told them of their problems, and of the fact that he had switched on the emergency beacon. The news that they’d lost all radio contact was met with sullen whispers. Aside from that, by then everyone knew of the engine problems, the hydraulics problems, and the strange and sudden disappearance of the fish, as if every living thing in the area had left. Todd mentioned to the rest of them in a moment of general silence that he’d also noticed that there were no birds following them around any more. Indeed they seemed to be the only living beings in the area. What could have frightened all of the other creatures off? The first mate Goldman, a short, balding man with some gout in his hands, asked for volunteers to go ashore onto the island where the strange light was coming from. It was certainly calm enough for them to leave, but darkness had set in and they would have to wait for first light. It was decided that five of them would go. Duke, Ken, and James would go with Goldman and one of the fishermen, Ross. Ross was a tall cowpoke from Montana with reddish hair and freckles. Ross was slightly shorter than Ken, and of about the same slight build, perhaps a little heavier because of the nature of his back-breaking work as a deck hand. By first light the weather was calm so they lowered the skiff into the water. The five of them donned life jackets and climbed down into the bouncing, 16-foot aluminum craft. The first mate carried a 12-gauge pump shotgun. The others carried cameras and flashlights, as well as some small amount of food should they be away for more than a few hours. They all knew though that they must get back to the ship before any foul weather should arise, but the small aluminum boat could not ply those waters during any but the calmest of days. They left then after a very late breakfast, and hoped that upon their return, the radio, the hydraulics, and the main engines might be restored. At least they still had their bow thrusters, for whatever odd reason. The signal from their beacon had apparently not been effective as there were no other ships in sight. With grim determination the five crewmates headed over the rippling ocean in the skiff. Somehow that strange green light, so easily visible in the darkness which had lifted earlier, was still visible, pulsing over the horizon of the wasteland. The island’s name was supposedly Hatcher’s Island, named after the explorer who’d “discovered” it in the last century. James yelled over the sound of the outboard, “you think there were any japs out here during the war?” to no one in particular. He was greeted by a “na” from Ken and Duke while the others looked on. After twenty minutes or a half hour, they found themselves manuevering the boat ashore on Hatcher’s desolate piece of frozen rock. In stepping from the craft and dragging it ashore, then standing and stretching as they gathered their cargo from the grounded boat, all of them sensed a strange, creeping energy emanating from the place. Even the boat’s motor had sputtered but finally made it ashore. The green glow was in the air around them. It were as though the air was filled with some sort of “dye” or something; it wasn’t “clear” but an “emerald-filtered” color; as though the very air about the place were itself but an emerald-hued filter. James pretended to be jovial although to a man they were frightened. “This sure is fucking weird. What do you guys think?” Goldman gathered the others around and said, “Listen, I don’t know what the hell is going on here but I intend to find out. I will lead with the shotgun. Let’s climb to the center of the island. James, you take up the rear and the rest of you file in, in between us. I want us all to make it back.” The five of them, like specks on a giant cone sticking out of the ocean, began climbing the “mountain” to the center peak of the island. It wasn’t so steep that they couldn’t make it without some effort. After a couple of minutes, as the slope got somewhat steeper, Goldman slung the shotgun over his shoulder in order that his gloved, numbing hands might be able to help him in his ascent. The five of them were hunched over, crawling through the snow up the side of the mountain. Duke looked back and the skiff had disappeared around a turn behind them, down at the beach. Hatcher’s hellhole probably extended to about 200 feet above sea level, and they were already at 100 or so feet when Goldman called for a short rest. There the smokers lit up cigarettes; only Goldman among them didn’t smoke. The emerald glow was becoming like a soup. Duke could have sworn that visibility was by then only a few feet or so; it were as if everything was cloaked in that strange, swirling green, ethereal blanket. Goldman tried to be funny. “Jesus, you guys sure smoke up a storm don’t you?” “It’s the only thing that helps me keep my fucking sanity,” Duke shot back with a wry grin. The others nodded in assent. After a few minutes, during which a couple of them took photographs and Goldman futily tried to use a hand-held radio to raise the Intrepid, they started upward again, again falling to their hands and knees in an effort to negotiate the steepening slope and its frozen covering. They weren’t in great danger but by the same token there was no joy in grasping, hand over fist, for the next toehold beneath the snow, in an effort to reach the pinnacle. After another twenty minutes or so, they all stood on a ridgeline at the top of the island, and could see both the Northern Pacific on their one hand, and the Bering Sea on the other, past the other islands in the chain. They could see the Intrepid, fairly still and off in the distance on the Pacific side. Where they stood, visibility had improved a great deal, and the green glow was not concentrated there. Goldman used a small mirror to signal the ship, and received some signals back from the captain. They’d both worked out that a small signal mirror would be the method they’d use since their radios were out. The five of them looked around as four of them smoked again. Almost at once, they all spotted an opening through the green haze below. The opening was a dark area in the snow, perhaps fifty yards up the ridge and another ten yards down the opposite side of the hill, away from the Intrepid and toward the Bering Sea. The strange emerald light seemed very thick there. After the smokes and some quick bites to eat, the team headed single file along the ridge until they were standing above the opening. The fear in the air was palpable. It struck them almost at once in the form of a biting wind which kicked up just then. They could see the water below on the Pacific side beginning to lose its calm, and there were now clouds visible in the West, even through the emerald soup. Goldman gave them a little pep talk. “Listen guys. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I intend to find out. There is nothing to be afraid of,” he said as he reached for the shotgun from over his shoulder then chambered a round with a solid ratcheting of the pump. Ross was pale but appeared steadfast through the hood which covered his head. They headed downward those few feet toward the opening below. There they stood on a ledge looking down into a passageway. Duke hadn’t noticed it up to that point, but from where they were standing there was something strange emanating from the very rocks themselves, and to an even greater extent, from the opening in front of them. Duke could actually “see” a few hundred feet down the steep passageway, where there it appeared to end or to turn. The emerald glow was actually helping them to see through the darkness of the cave. Goldman motioned to them, and led the way as Duke and Ken followed, then Ross and once again James in the rear. Indeed once inside the opening it seemed the emerald glow served to light their way. None of them even bothered to break out flashlights. The passageway was made of smooth stone, almost as if it were of unearthly construction. The floor was actually a descending staircase. It appeared all of the rock inside there were some sort of limestone. Duke thought of how he’d secretly hoped to find some Japanese artifacts and indeed, as they approached that bend in the steep staircase Goldman came across the skeleton of a Japanese soldier. Duke whispered excitedly, “It’s a dead Japanese soldier. See the rifle?” It wasn’t the uniform that gave the figure on the floor away, for the uniform had long-since deteriorated; rather, it was the sight of an old Japanese rifle that told the tale. Aside from the rifle, only a ring on the man’s finger and the remains of leather harnesses were left. The five explorers gathered around the skeleton, and at that moment the winds began howling around the opening behind them. Goldman thrust his head around the corner, and found the door. He motioned to all of them, and whispered to James to watch the cave opening above. The rest of them examined what appeared to be some sort of ancient door. It had glyphs upon it which were at once alien and unsettling. The strange symbols were so unearthly and inhuman that they actually caused queasiness in those who looked upon them now. Goldman reached for one of the slightly raised glyphs, and brushed it with his fingers. The strange door began to move, swinging open and revealing a large, underground room. A strange whirring came from within the cavern, although it appeared empty save for some strange sculpted objects which sat in the middle of the floor. The emerald light was at its brightest here, yet it was transparent, unlike some of the more opaque varieties they’d climbed through outside. Four of them entered the room and James was ordered to stand watch at the door, looking up to the opening where the wind was howling without letup by now. In the large room, aside from the sculptures of various and indecipherable shapes in the center, were maps on the walls. Goldman stepped up to one of the walls and examined one of the maps. It was an old U.S. military map from the Second World War! “What in god’s name?…” Just then another door opened at the opposite end of the room from where they’d entered. Two very strange beings emerged from the emerald dimness. They stood about seven feet tall each, and walked upright as if they were large humans. In their faces though showed anything but humanity, for theirs were hideous. Ross and Ken swung and looked at the beasts, the two of them being closest to the newly discovered door at that moment. One of the amphibian giants towered and thrust itself toward Ross, but Goldman swung and dashed across the room to meet him, unloading a round of 00 Buck at fairly close range. The beast stumbled and went for Goldman, as did its companion. Ken and Ross ran to behind Goldman. Duke dashed out the door and grabbed the rifle off of the skeleton. He tried to work the bolt but the thing was so corroded it would be of no use. James was standing there with a look of terror on his face, for he’d heard the slithering sounds of the monsters, and had turned in time to see Duke fumbling about the skeleton at their feet, outside that large chamber. James hollered, “Watch the fuck out Duke, I’m goin’ into action.” James reached inside his coat and drew a Springfield Colt .45 with a 7-round clip. As James went to enter the room, Ken and Ross were darting from the opening. Another shotgun blast came from inside the room, alongside the wailing of Goldman as if he’d been hurt. James made it past the others and into the chamber. There he saw one of the beasts tearing at one of Goldman’s arms. The other beast was already on the floor in its death throes. The shotgun had been very effective. James raised the Colt and hoped to hell he wouldn’t hit Goldman, but he saw no other way. As the monster continued to molest Goldman, and Goldman’s shotgun fell harmlessly to the floor, James unloaded several rounds into the confused alien attacker. The beast fell to death in its own cry of anguish, letting Goldman go as it went. Goldman was a mess. His arm was badly hurt. James took over and yelled, “Get your asses in here. Goldy’s hit. Motherfuckers, get in here and help out.” It was almost a plea more than a command, for these weren’t military men, and they didn’t really have a leader, for Goldman was nursing a twisted bleeding limb which moments before had been his right arm. Ross knew something about first aid and produced a kit from his small day pack. He proceeded to apply a tourniquet to Goldman’s arm in order to stop the bleeding. “Motherfuck. What in god’s name was that? These things are hideous. What in the hell is going on here?” Goldman was approaching delerium. Duke spoke up, “Goldy, do you think we should get the hell out of here?” Goldman paused for just a moment, wincing in his terrible pain, and said, “Ross, take the shotgun. Ken, you and Duke run over there and see if that doorway these hellspawn came from leads anywhere you can tell. We can’t leave just yet though. This is too weird for us to simply turn tail and run.” James spoke up. “What do you propose Goldy? What are these things anyway?” Goldman pointed his healthy arm at a filing cabinet tucked far across the room, away from any area any of them had explored. “There was something strange going on here during the war. Obviously, our bizarre greeters were somehow involved with the U.S. government. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that all of the problems we’ve had with the Intrepid… they come from here. Ken, Duke, do you see anything?” Duke called back across the cavern, “There’s nothing here Goldy. It looks like a room full of empty bunks with no other exit. Jesus christ it stinks in here.” With that they could all hear Ken puking at the terrible odor which must have come from the old bunk room. “Get your asses back over here then.” Ken and Duke went back to stand with the others, as Goldman had ordered. “Ross, take a pot shot at one of those sculptures in the center of the room.” Goldman pointed at the bizarre shapes with his healthy arm. Ross raised the gun after ratcheting another round into the chamber, and fired into the center of the bizarre, almost ebbing shapes. The apparent alien apparatus was fragile indeed, at least judging by the effects of the shot, for at that moment the emerald glow around them began to ebb, while the strange shapes in the center of the cavern burst into a hot white flame. Each of the men had to look away to avoid being blinded. James was in the corner digging through the file cabinet by now. He was seeing papers with all kinds of what might as well have been Greek, for he couldn’t make out any of the terms. It was full of cryptic words like, “challengers,” “undersea base,” “weather control,” “xentian fields,” and other strange words. Some of the papers were apparent blueprints for various unearthly apparatus James had certainly never seen prior to that. “What the…” James muttered to himself as the shotgun went off once again. Despite the blinding bright light of the fire, Ross fired a second shot at the apparatus, shielding his eyes and guessing at the target. After another shot into the weird shapes, the emerald glow in the air dissipated entirely, and the fire began to rage, growing in heat and intensity. The men would have to leave immediately to avoid being suffocated by the flames, if not burnt to death by the quickly rising heat in the room. Ken and Duke led Goldman out through the door, while Ross and James joined them. A couple of them had managed to produce flashlights by then, as they scurried up the passageway, Goldman grunting and groaning in the pain. They looked up to the opening. The fire below had apparently spread, and they renewed their efforts to get clear of the passageway, heading upward once again. Ross led with the shotgun while Ken and Duke helped Goldman along. James brought up the rear. By then the five of them were moving more quickly up the passage, even in the dimly lit darkness, than they’d moved in first going down it. They reached the ledge outside the opening, and the storm which had been brewing not a half an hour before was nowhere to be seen. There were no longer clouds in the west, and the sea was calm again. From behind them though the heat threatened anew to engulf them. As they helped Goldman back up to the ridge, they could see that the Pacific side was also calm. Duke looked back down at the opening, just in time to see a huge white flame burst sideways from the side of the mountain. After a second or two the thing died, leaving a smoking, charred opening in its wake. Duke thought he could actually see the sheen of melted rock around the edges of the opening. It appeared everything else was back to normal. The experience had left all of them feeling sick, and they only wanted to get Goldman back to the skiff and onto the Intrepid where he could be given some better medical attention. Goldman was still conscious, despite the ghastly wounds and their hastily assembled triage. He produced the portable radio and was successful in contacting the ship. All ship systems were restored. The Captain was waiting for their return so they could go and get the pots they’d left out when the other systems had failed. They struggled and scrambled down the mountainside, reaching the skiff on the beach just before high tide was about to steal it. Goldman was pale by then but at least they had made it to there. Captain Smith had raised them on the radio again and had reported that a chopper was on the way out in order to airlift Goldman back to a hospital on the mainland. The five explorers jumped into the skiff and Ross piloted it back to the ship. Once on board the Intrepid, moments later a chopper landed on the top of the ship. Goldman was taken to care back in Anchorage. Captain Smith notified the others of the landing party that he wanted to speak to them immediately. In the wheelhouse the Captain spoke to the four of them. “So what in the hell was it, guys, or is it a coincidence that everything went back to normal the second that the emerald light died? What in the hell was that?” Ross spoke up. “Captain, it was the strangest thing. I’m not even sure I can describe it. It’s almost as if the government is engaging in these experiments, or at least they were during the war. What we saw up there was left from the war.” Ross kneeded his fingers and his toes in their socks (he’d since taken his boots off), for all of them had gone numb in their extremities from the exposure suffered during the jaunt. “I’m just glad we got off there before someone lost a limb.. I mean.” “I know what you mean, Ross,” uttered the Captain. You know, Goldman and I had heard rumors of some strange happenings up hereabouts during the war, but you know how those are. Neither of us had ever believed them.” Duke spoke up. “Jesus christ, it was something I’ll certainly never forget. Do you mind if I go to my bunk and get some sleep?” “I don’t see why not,” the Captain replied. “You can join your regular shifts once you’ve had some rest. I’ll send someone to wake you up. Until then by all means, sleep.” Duke and Ken caught a restless sleep in their bunks, while Goldman had his arm operated on and saved by the crack surgeons at the hospital. Ross also retired to his bunk. James made his way back to his cabin, and was simply glad that no one had hassled him about the .45. Of course it was perhaps odd that he was carrying a pistol on board, but on the other hand it may have saved five lives and even the very ship itself that afternoon. Perhaps that was why no one was hassling him over it. The Captain may not have even known, seeing as how Goldman had not had a chance to say anything before he’d been taken away. In any case it wasn’t the gun which occupied James’ mind at that moment. It was the tattered manila folder he’d grabbed from the filing cabinet, along with some strange small trinkets, all of which he’d stuffed into his daypack. In the confusion of those events no one had seen James grab the materials. He dumped the contents out on his bunk and crawled into it with them and examined everything closely. His cabin mate was on a work shift as the fish were already coming in again. With the hydraulics working the pots which had been left out for so long were finally retrieved, and they were once again brimming with fish. Duke awoke before anyone was sent to get he and Ken. While puffing a Camel Duke wrote in his diary: “We had the strangest adventure today. We went to one of the islands because the ship lost all of its systems, save for the bow thrusters. Why were the bow thrusters unaffected? Perhaps they weren’t at all electrically operated. It was the strangest thing. There was some sort of ‘field’ out there and my guess is that it was causing the problems. Suffice it to say we uncovered something terrible on the island and destroyed it. Somehow I don’t think any of us were to ever set foot on that place. This is the last time or place where I shall ever mention this again. The thought of the implications of it all sends me reeling.” Duke finished the cigarette to hear Ken stirring, then one of the other processors knocked on the cabin door and opened it. “Ok slackers… time to get your asses in gear… there’s fish here!” It was Chuck. Somehow Ken and Duke were both soothed by the presence of the naive kid with the sea-sickness. In any event it was time to process fish again. Andy Thomas 1997