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In Search of
a Soul
By Dannie C Hill
Chapter
1
#
I could hear the soft crunch of
rocky sand beneath my black combat boots and feel the weight
of the pack on my back. I looked over and in the moonlight
could see Moe five feet away and moving with me. Looking ahead
I saw a cluster of dwellings about one hundred yards away. Moe
signaled a stop and moved to my right ear.
He said, “Be
alert. There are five targets but there may be others with
them. We take the five out and then bug out.”
I gave him
thumbs up and we moved out, while lowering my night vision
monocular eyepiece. I double-checked my weapon. It was set on
single-fire and Moe would be set on three-round burst. If we
got into it, this would stagger our reloading. I had three
small M67 round grenades clipped to my vest and a Kay-bar
strapped to my upper left thigh. When we were within thirty
yards of the buildings we clicked on our comm gear but
remained silent.
Suddenly arrows of light streaked out of
the night towards us. There were at least four gunmen using
red tracers. I was behind a small boulder and followed the
trail of fire back to its source. I aimed, heard the spurt of
my silenced weapon and saw an opponent drop. I moved to the
next and could hear Moe’s weapon spurting out three at a time.
The ambush was poorly designed. They must have had some kind
of motion detector but only moments to move into a position.
No planning in this or Moe and I would have been dead or
wounded at once.
Four were down when I heard the distinct
thud of a bullets striking flesh and then heard Moe say in my
earpiece, “I’m hit but still moving.”
As he continued
to fire, I moved closer to the houses and around to the left
to stay out of Moe’s line. There was a stone outcrop near the
wall of one of the houses. I moved between it and the wall,
bounced up for a quick look and saw the last man stooping
under a window. I pulled the pins on two grenades and lobbed
them towards the enemy, then raised my weapon, flicked the
lever to fully automatic and depressed the trigger. There was
a low, long blurb and a tongue of fire and the enemy spouted
blood like a fountain in an Italian piazza. Then the grenades
blew the wall out of the house. I reloaded and listened. Dead
silence.
I
moved along the wall and just as I passed the outcrop a body
fell on me from behind, taking me to the ground and knocking
my weapon from my grip. It was still attached to me by a
lanyard but my hand went to my knife and I pulled, twisted,
blocked a knife stabbing in at me and plunged my blade into
the enemy. I twisted the blade out and rolled over, listening
for anyone else. Over my earpiece Moe said in a strained voice
that he didn’t see anyone moving and we needed to be on our
horse.
I
could hear small breathing coming from my opponent and felt
for movement. The man was very small and his breathing was
high pitched with fear. I pulled out my flashlight and
shielded the beam.
The face of a
child lit up before my eyes. It was a girl, maybe ten years
old. Her startling green eyes stared at me in terror. I
checked her wound and saw there was no hope so I tried to
calm her with words she would understand.
Her green-eyed
stare turned to hate and she whispered in her dialect, “You
killed my father.” She died and her eyes remained wide as they
stared back at me.
I started to lose it but over my earpiece
Moe said, “Dougy, I’m hit pretty bad and I hear a vehicle
coming. We’ve got to get out of here now! Help me, please.”
I broke my
gaze with the child but knew those eyes were burned into my
brain. I moved over to Moe, quickly tied off his upper right
thigh and left shoulder wounds. He was bleeding but I had
staunched the flow and I could now hear the truck approaching.
I lifted him up on my shoulder and moved out. We had six hours
of normal moving to our extract point but with Moe injured it
would take much longer.
It took two days to reach the extract
point and as soon as I knew Moe was safe— the green eyes
consumed my mind… And then there was nothing.
#
The boat moved through the deep, crystal
blue water; its bow leaped as if anticipating a cool drink of
iced lemonade after a long run in the burning noonday sun. I
sat in the cockpit under the shade of the mainsail and a
constant breeze thick with salt. I was cooled by the thin
sheen of perspiration the tropics required for comfort. We
were on a southwesterly heading, going to nowhere in
particular. I had four or five days to contemplate my next
tack. Somewhere about six hundred miles ahead I would have to
choose, but that was at least two more days of idle thought
before I would bring out my dartboard and then another two
days before I would put my plan into effect.
When I say “we”
I include my boat, Tirak, in all my decisions. She — yes, she
was most assuredly a “she” and was my lifeline. She had
ingrained her sleek, boyish figure into me from the start. She
sparkled and moaned like a new- found lover and made me cling
to her like a mate of the soul.
In light to medium winds she would
chitter or clang and speak to me through sensitive zones such
as her wheel and rudder or even a halyard or stay to make her
demands known. In strong winds her standing rigging would sing
to me of her needs or joy or of her demand to redirect my
manipulations. Her halyards and sheets would thrum in ecstasy
or consternation, depending on the mood of her world. Her
demands were simple— “Take care of me or I will leave you and
you will perish without me."
For the past ten years I had traveled
through life’s stream looking with anticipation for the end. I
can’t explain why I had this desire, or perhaps lack of
desire, except to say that I had found no lasting enjoyment
or, to a greater extent, no purpose for my existence.
The past five
years I had been aboard Tirak almost full time, never stopping
in any one place for more than a few months but generally for
only a few weeks. I felt no pity for myself. In fact, I felt
very little. Over the years I had trained my mind to forego
the undulations of life. I had watched others continue down
life’s road, shuffling their feet until forced to lift them a
little higher to pass over a bump. My road now had no bumps or
dips to cause course corrections.
In my solitude I had nothing but time for
review and can’t see where it all started, which leads to the
conclusion that it must have happened at birth. It’s a dismal
thought but solitude had taught me to lay my emotions aside,
except for brief interludes, and keep them packed away in the
recesses of my mind. Ten years ago my emotions were so erratic
they left me with two choices; live or die, with dying being
the preferred of the two. At that time I understood why there
was a suicide hotline.
Because of what faith I had, I couldn’t
choose the easy option but instead began to shut down those
urges that raced through me, good and bad, and chose solitude
as a means to drift rudderless on the stream. The end holds no
fear for me and it would come in its own time. I didn’t have
any pity for myself… It was just the way it was. I did often
look forward to the next step and hoped, maybe beyond hope,
that there would be more.
I had on a few occasions sat down to make a
list of the good and bad of my life, but my pencil never touched
paper in fear of what I would see. I had memories of interesting
men who I would have liked to have called friends but,
as with women, I had an inordinate fear or knowledge that I
would expose my failures to the full light of day and those I
came close to would see through the haze of my facade and turn
their heads to hide their smiles.
With men there was no sexual desire, only
friendship, but I knew it would come down to a contest of
testosterone and I would fail miserably, not knowing when to
turn it off. I was not a big man but from past work and
sailing single-handed I was strong and balanced. One of my
many fears was I would hurt, physically, someone intent in
only playing a game of who had the biggest set. Something in
my past told me to back away from those situations because I
was capable of causing serious harm without thinking of the
consequences. I really didn’t know where that came from
because, as far as I knew, I had never caused that kind of
pain before. It laid there like a golden-eyed wolf deciding if
it was hungry. I had kept it fed on solitude and it was
satisfied.
Another of my fears was a block of five
years of my past that was gone. When I tried to approach it, I
came to a locked steel door. The face of the lock was
imprinted with crossed scimitars and a skull below them. I had
made no attempt to see beyond, afraid of what might be there.
I had learned to curb my curiosity and it no longer disturbed
my thoughts.
I think my final fear was women. I knew
within me at least one held the key to unlock the chains that
bound me. As much as I needed their comfort and touch, I could
never, even growing up, get within a few feet of them without
stumbling over my feet and blurting out something that would
always prove how incapable I was of giving them what they
sought. Women lived in my daydreams, not as toys but as
companions. I knew there was one who would be the answer I
sought but I had no confidence to seek her out or even make
the attempt. Like many people, I sat by the door and waited
for her to knock. I sometimes thought she had come and gone.
Tirak was
the only thing I had been able to put my incomplete soul into
and she took me in without questions and only demanded my love
and care. It was hard for me to believe but she provided me
with soft, warm, silky smooth females in need of solace. On
those rare occasions I was able to lift myself out of the
morass of mediocrity which my life had become and approach my
daydreams. Women make this world go round and the sad part was
that I was not a part of that world.
Tirak also
provided male companionship as well. Often sailors of like
mind but also interesting men from other walks of life were
drawn to her. They too raised me from my level floor with
warmth and friendship that lasted for a few days, until I
slipped our mooring and moved out into the blue.
Of all the
people or things I had clung to in my life, my darling boat
came the closest to satisfying my needs, other than the sexual
drive built into my male genes. Even then she had proven a
wonderful stimulant and forgiving lover by providing for my
needs when in port.
Occasionally, before I even felt the
desire to indulge in the one service my darling couldn’t
provide, I would hear the soft footsteps of a rare flower
tapping along the dock and stop with a sigh. This sweet Rose
or fragrant Jasmine or even beautiful weed would look down the
hatch and softly hail to the man who owned such a beauty. They
were always sure it was a man and not a woman because Tirak
had the aroma and presence of a female that was caressed by
the kind hands of a man. How they knew I was alone or even if
they cared was a mystery between them and Tirak.
When at last I
presented myself topside, I could see my looks, age and style
had only a small part to play in the meeting. My boat seemed
to pick out the one that needed to be touched, held and
comforted, as they would offer the same to me. The mystery was
her secret and all I could do was fulfill my obligations to
her.
Mind you— this wasn’t an everyday
occurrence and often my short stays in one place or another
were met with the near solitude of the sea. When Tirak did
choose a delicate flower for me I was under great obligation
to provide what comfort as I was able.
I am, each and
every time, surprised by this undeserved attention. I cherish
each encounter until the sea beckoned me.
My mindset and
that of most single-handed blue-water sailors was not so much
the desire for solitude but from a fear of others. Of course,
there were a few who set out to prove their manhood or
womanhood by— and I say this with a smile— defeating and
defying the great oceans. I say it with a smile because it
can’t be done. As in a good boat, you were merely allowed
their pleasures for as long as they liked, and like the
evening lilies of this desperate world, their services were
never free.
As I was saying, I had enjoyed the
company of a few women and even spent long, laughing days and
nights in their warm company. It always took me a few days to
get my land-legs and if the lady wished to prowl the
hinterlands of wherever I was, she must wait until my head and
stomach agree to cohabitate under a temporary truce.
At sea the
dashing about or the undulating or even the dead calm was
forever in sync with all my body parts, but stepping on land
or even mooring dashed one of the ingredients of my stability
to the deck and it refused to rise, except in a froth, until I
allowed it several days of rest.
Now, if the lady could wait the allotted
period for my full attention, then life was good for us all.
Tirak had a rare ability to choose almost unerringly the one
person that would give and receive benefits of a temporary
union. Age didn’t seem to play a part in the choice, nor
beauty, but I had yet to be disappointed.
I would like to
tell you that I had an ability to love and did love anyone I
was with. The problem with this ability or incapacity, if you
will, was that it flows just as my need to sail away
ingratiated Tirak’s need to be gone. When at last I felt the
pull of the sea and the needs of my boat I took the woman with
us on a few days of sailing and we anchored in the afternoons
in a secluded bay to say our farewells. Some few who could
draw words from me were often surprised at my ability to
articulate my feelings of life. After we parted I would most
often suffer for a day or two but the sea could carry any of
the castings of my mind into its dark reaches.
I would like to
call it love but in truth it was not love but fulfillment and
desire. I treated each one I had the honor to receive as the
one and only who had captured my attention. I left each one
with some small feeling of regret, on both our parts. I knew
this to be true on my part. My search for true love had
atrophied in the knowledge that I didn’t deserve it and was
frightened of it. I had met one who would have completed my
daydreams, but she was called away. In the arms of a woman I
was not the same being that houses my soul.
Without Tirak, I
would rarely have had the courage to pursue the interaction of
a relationship; once again, not from lack of need but from
fear of intercourse, in which I would be the bumbling fool
with no words to maintain my charade. Tirak brought them to me
but after the first touch, smile and pleasure, I was off and
running, until the fear rose up from the depths of me and
drove me back to sea again and again.
I knew I was not the only male of my
species to live in the clef of depression and seek the clef of
redemption but that alone brought no comfort. We who were the
hunters and gatherers were put asunder by this modern world in
which only mindless words spring forth, or in my case choked,
to impress the objects of our need and success.
I turned off my
mindset, if only for a moment, to check my heading and see to
the needs of my Tirak. We were in a following sea with the
wind astern and I watched the waves come forth to caress her
backside with a smooth firm stroke as they go forth to find
another delicious bottom to entice. The waves, made up of
hundreds of its reflections, sprinkled the sparkling light of
day across the clear, depthless blue as the sun sought its
resting place to the west. The clouds captured and then
released the light and reflections into a spectrum from rose
at their forefront to medium gray at their stern. Their march
did not match the airfoil of the gleaming sails of Tirak and
fell slowly behind. There would be days in which they raced
past and others when they hid completely and the clear azure
sky was the only apex of that day’s canvas.
A thousand miles
from land there was little chance of encounter, but woe to the
sailor that lets the ocean be his protector for she would
abide you but only to her whims. Tirak had radar and the
unsightly ball attached to her spreaders that took the stealth
out of her travels. She wanted to be noticed and painted an
eerie green to the behemoths and even others of her kind. She
neither wanted nor required contact and by putting on a bright
face she kept her solitude safe. Along with the search of my
eyes and feelings as well, we avoided contact.
The sun touched
the horizon and started its capitulation to the night. On this
day, as if to give a final thrust, the green flair popped to
signal surrender. The stars, slowly at first but then with a
mobs reaction, jumped upon the stage to celebrate the
conquest. With weather clear and reports from satellites good,
I did not reduce her sail area but let her drive on in delight
to touches of her lover and slice her way in pursuit of the
horizon.
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