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Chapter 21: “Good Deed Doers”

  “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” Matthew 25:40

  The first few days of their voyage were sunny ones, as they sailed north along the coast. It was downright hot, which is unusual because they say large bodies of water are supposed to moderate the climate. But I guess nobody told the sun that. The sailors were sweatin’ a lot and playfully shaking their fists at the mirage-blue sky.

  When the Admiral had said that they were sailing for ‘Parts Unknown’, Luke had pictured a trip westward into the great wide open, searching for new lands and loads of mystery, not a tame cruise up a settled coast. The Admiral had meant, however, that they didn’t know quite what parts they were sailing for because they intended to play it by ear, being guided by the winds, the currents, and of course the ever-changing rumors of riches. Luke was mildly disappointed of course, but Bert was rather impressed by the Admiral, an unhindered and unpredictable individual after his own heart: Gotta have the freedom, but cha gotta make the money too.80

  In any case, the journey up the coast was somewhat tiring and demoralizing for the previously fired-up crew, because the hot sun takes a lot out of you, including their appetites, leaving them with less energy later in the day. (Shoulda brought some of those Mini-wheats, Bert reflected.) It might have been quite a pleasant, scenic cruise, except they didn’t have time to sit back and enjoy the scenery, because the Admiral had ‘em all working like crazy--as Jack always made sure to get his money’s worth. It was a skeleton crew, too, which added to their workload: there were about eighteen or twenty men all told, which is quite a few but not so many for a medium-sized oceangoing vessel. Besides, there would probably be a few fewer by the end of the voyage, since sailors have a tendency to fall overboard and drown at times, especially in wild, dramatic epics like this one.81

  The TrogDogJonah was charting a course up the coast on this particular day because the Admiral, Jack, had heard rumors that the peoples who lived north of New Owen Sound might have furs to trade, and furs are quite valuable (especially if you are an animal.) So north they had flown, the trade winds at their back.

  It was mid-afternoon when they encountered the coastal locals. The boys were fatigued from working at sailing the ship all day, (sailing is harder than it looks--Luke could tell that just by looking), and they were getting kind of tired of the whole aquatic business. Yeah, it was still the first week out, but they hadn’t got their second wind yet, so to speak.

  A tall, skinny, strong native youth named Wal-ter! hailed them from the shore, and the Admiral knew they had arrived. They cast anchor and moored in the mouth of the Ukwaffenah River, and the Admiral ordered his crew to load a longboat full of special, secret boxes from the cargo hold. Finally, some mere muscle work for Luke to put his back into! Then the Admiral selected a handful of trusted associates, including Robespierre the Harpoonist, to accompany him to land. About an hour later, the trading party rowed back to the ship, laughing and singing and joking around, with the boxes gone, replaced apparently by bundles of furs.

  “Gosh, what are you guys so happy about?” Luke innocently asked, as he helped them unload. Robespierre laughed. “Ha! Two things! First of all the joke’s on yous guys, because you had to eat lemons and potatoes and fish here on the ship while we got treated to a steak dinner and wine by our good-natured hosts. Second of all, the joke’s on them. Because we ripped them off!”

  “Ooh, that wasn’t very nice,” Luke commented, in a bleeding heart, sensitive-to-ggoppression way. “Why, what did you trade them?”

  “Jewelry, of course,” the Admiral bragged. Luke was puzzled, because that just didn’t seem like such a shrewd deal, until the Admiral explained, “Fake jewelry.”

  “Isn’t that fraud?” Luke reproved them.

  Jack grinned to congratulate himself, and winked conspiratorially. “But they don’t know that, and by the time they find out they’re fakes we’ll be long gone,” he explained, as Chains raised the anchor and they sailed on. Then he amended the terminology, amused with himself, “Not fraud--good business!”

  Sure enough, the fur-traders didn’t discover the bait-and-switch until some time later, when The TrogDogJonah was leagues away. Coincidentally, this was about the same time that the Admiral and his not-altogether-scrupulous-but-hey-that’s-free-market-economics-baby traders discovered that they themselves had received cleverly-crafted-yet-not-worth-much artificial furs! So who is the joke on really? Maybe it’s on all of us. Except Bert--he had taken advantage of the Admiral’s departure and had caught forty-four winks.82

  Saddened by having played even a tangential role in the rip-off, Luke resolved to keep a closer eye on these fellas.83

  Not long after putting to sea again, the lookout up in the Crow’s Nest gave them a holler that he had spotted another ship. There was a frenzy of activity as the crew turned their ship to intercept the other. Luke was pleased to finally be able to help sail the ship--he had learned that it wasn’t necessary to learn all the lingo at once, for when they wanted his help the other sailors were helpful enough to put it in his terms: Hey, hold this rope; Guy, help me turn this wheel; Dude, pull my finger; and so forth. To his credit, Luke had only fallen for that last gag a couple of times. “You cat-chon quick, bruzzer,” Ensign Edwards had complimented.

  In any case, Luke was so focused on putting his muscles into the job and making up for his earlier inactivity, that it wasn’t until they were almost upon the other ship, a small and unassuming vessel called the Hat Sass, that Luke noticed that swords were being drawn. One was offered to him but he declined, refusing to participate any more in what promised to be theft and violence. The first mate who had offered looked a little surprised--he had heard that Huns were so warlike--but there was no time to argue, and several sailors needed to stay and steer their own ship anyway.

  About a dozen raiders, swords drawn, leapt onto the deck of the Hat Sass as soon as the ships came together with a bump. The small crew of that vessel was unprepared for the well-timed and well-executed attack, and even the few who had weapons quickly relinquished them when they saw that they were overpowered. Faced with the old dilemma “Your money or your lives!”, the men of the Hat Sass quietly made the right choice. Some of the raiders secured the prisoners, while others searched the hold and brought up everything that looked valuable: money and treasure, spices and pottery, hides and metals, and even the tastiest items from their victims’ larder: cheese and sugar and such.

  “So this is piracy?” Luke asked when the boarding party returned, still startled to see it take place in real life.

  “Just good business,” the Admiral repeated his favorite euphemism.

  “Yeah it’s piracy, so what?” Bert admitted more candidly after the Admiral had moved away.

  “Stealing is wrong,” Luke admonished. Though he had learned this rather late in life himself, he was still surprised that Bert didn’t know it by now.

  “Except it wasn’t technically stealing. Coz we captured their crew, and then took their treasure as a ransom. Piracy on the high seas is considered an act of war, and as you know: All’s fair in love and war,” Bert rebutted.

  Luke had trouble wading through the moral semantics of that line of argument, so he responded intuitively, “That still doesn’t make it right.”

  Bert felt a little guilty, coz he had been enjoying all the swashbucklin’ fun and storybook stuff, but now that Luke accused him, Bert realized someone could have gotten hurt, and certainly some feelings had been hurt at least! He pictured all those sad sailors on the Hat Sass feeling a sense of loss and disappointment, coming home to their children emptyhanded. So he defended himself instead with a timely cliché: “Possession is nine tenths of the law. Which means it’s our stuff anyway. How can you steal your own stuff?”

  “So what about the other tenth?” Luke asked, determined to pin Bert down. He was feeling guilty himself for having let the assault go off without a word, as he
now remembered a button one of his R.A’s had worn at the dorm at Iowa State: ‘Silence is the Voice of Complicity’. True, more good would have come had he said something before the event, but maybe some advantage could still be salvaged? Also, it was hard to address the whole crew with his concerns, but if you can’t talk about things with your close friends, who can you talk to?

  But Bert slipped out of that charge too, stating nobly, “The other tenth we give to God: Tithe your 10%, after all.”

  Luke was ap-palled! He couldn’t put his finger on the exact Bible reference offhand, but it sure seemed like a pretty shady thing to do. Luke pointed this out, and this time Bert felt a lot guilty: “K, so maybe I promise no more piracy, no more bad guy.” Luke liked that idea, but still neither of them felt completely absolved, until Bert added another promise: “And the next time you see us making a mistake, point it out ahead of time, and I’ll help you prevent it.”

  “Agreed,” Luke agreed.

  Several hours later and farther north, on a misty evening under overcast skies, they got their chance, as Luke discovered the darker nature of the venture he had naively joined.

  The boys were taking a break, and hanging around lazily on deck: Luke strumming his guitar; Bert playing euchre (the favorite card game of heroes, legends and archetypes) with Chains, Morel and Aussie Joe; Che the Cook whittling a toothpick from a block of driftwood; Robespierre polishing his harpoon...you get the idea. Suddenly a small, mousy sailor named Gonzales gave a shout, from where he was sitting up above them in the Crowsnest, spyglass in hand. “Whales Ahoy!” he cried84.

  Jack quickly and excitedly appeared from below-decks, half-dressed and hastily slipping on his platform shoes. He started barking fevered orders to his crew, as they prepared to go a-whalin’. Within moments, the crew had all the sails unfurled, and The TrogDogJonah was in hot pursuit of the kindly, unsuspecting whales, with Robespierre the Harpoonist perched menacingly in the bow.

  Luke was kinda stunned, because he hadn’t realized this mission was mainly going to be about whaling. Some fishing, yes. A little exploring, of course. Some trading, even better. Even the fraud and piracy hadn’t killed anyone. But this? Now Luke had a genuine moral crisis on his hands, because he vaguely remembered an issue from his college days, and how a devastatingly beautiful Portuguese maiden named Liz Leal, with a strong jaw and strong opinions, had convinced him to get on the bandwagon in a movement to Save the Whales! (That had been a really popular college cause, in those days, among all those innocent Iowa whale-lovers.) Luke really hadn’t thought about it too much since, but now that the matter was at hand, he searched his conscience and decided that he still felt the same way. And although he wasn’t in the most desirable position to stand up for what he believed, this time good ol’ boy Luke stood up anyway. He walked up behind the Admiral, who was standing by Robespierre in the bow, eagerly watching the chase, and Luke stated calmly, “Save the Whales.” The Admiral didn’t react, so Luke repeated himself, more loudly: “Save the Whales!”

  Admiral Jack turned around, and asked sternly, “Excuse me? Did you say what I think you said?” Jack sounded none too pleased. Luke set his chiseled jaw, smiled proudly and nodded slowly. The Admiral growled an I’ll-deal-with-you-later type unhappy growl, and turned back to focus on the chase.

  Luke realized that his protests weren’t getting the job done, so, ever the man of action, he sprang to the bow and shouted at the top of his voice, “Hey Whales: Duck!”

  The whales looked back over their shoulders to see what the commotion was all about. Then, seeing the dangerous harpoonist and the glint of his steel weapon and his steely eyes, the whales decided that Luke’s advice was Not Bad, and with a wave of their giant flukes to thank Luke, down under the water they slowly dove, never to be seen again by the crew of The TrogDogJonah.

  The crew was shocked by this strange and nefarious turn of events. They all wanted to know why Luke had gone and done that. But they didn’t ask him to explain, because anger outweighs curiosity. So first they started coming after him, with Robespierre growling and leading the charge. Luke stood his ground fearlessly, because as we all know, a Hun with a good left hook is more than a match for a Frenchman with a harpoon. Sure enough, Luke dodged Roby’s hateful thrust and smoked his foe with a tap in the ear, which sent him sprawling to the deck. The First Mate lunged in next, but Luke received him with a powerful two-handed thrust to the chest, which flung him backwards and stopped the others in their tracks. But the First Mate heroically snapped his fingers and motioned for his assistants to continue the battle. There was a brief pause, and the surrounding ring of sailors began to constrict once more.

  This time, it was friend Bert who stopped their advance, stepping up like a renegade to Luke‘s rescue, Canadian fists at the ready. He decimated the First Mate’s First Assistant with a machine-gun rapid combination from his Kronk-trained arsenal: Ba-da-da-Pow. Two others leapt at him, but Bert quickly felled the first with a simple clothesline and chest-stomp, and the other with a vague flurry of head, hands, elbows and knees that onlookers remembered only as ‘a rush of ruthlessness followed by a slow trickle of blood’. Then he stood over the bodies, laughing and beckoning. This last gesture is what drew the sailors up short. While Luke’s secret ferocity had startled them, they were absolutely baffled by Bert--not only raising his fists before fifteen men, a hero or a madman, but fearless enough to laugh, and beckon, and taunt. No one wanted to be the next one in and the next one decked, and besides, it wasn’t their fight anyway they realized, as they heard the Admiral’s screechy voice.

  “This is Mutiny!” he cried, to egg on his men. “Get them!”

  The crew seemed skeptical. A two-man mutiny? Unusual. A moment of thought was needed, the First Mate’s Second Assistant Third Class85 decided, especially since he was next in line to step up! After pondering quickly, he came up with a way to pawn off his thankless task. It didn’t necessarily come from the Maritime Code, but he knew he had heard it somewhere... “Darers go first?”

  Admiral Jack was rattled by this unexpected turning of tables, and while the rest of the crew looked to see what his reaction would be, he decided it was now a good time to instead apply his Admiral’s skills of wisdom, discretion and diplomacy, and ask questions first, la la la. “Okay, Luke, so why did you scare the whales away like that?”

  “Save the Whales,” Luke repeated. Then he elaborated, “Whales are an endangered species. Therefore we shouldn’t oughta go killin’ ’em off.”

  The rest of the crew looked sympathetic, but a big, curly-haired, earring-wearing swimmer named Scott expressed their concern: “Yeah, but that’s how we make our livin’. If we don’t catch some whales, how will we support ourselves?”

  Luke pondered and remembered, “Fishing is an honorable profession! We could catch fish instead of whales.” Someone wanted to know why that was so much better, ethically speaking. Luke thought it over, and realizing that there was no pure animal rights argument that would necessarily distinguish between a fish and a whale, he fell back on pragmatism, and the consoling cliché, “There’s plenty of fish in the sea?” The crew thought that sounded like a reasonable explanation for a justifiable compromise, and they agreed to focus most of their hunting and gathering efforts on catching fish, from that day forward.

  Nevertheless, the Admiral was still sorta sore at Luke for usurping his authority, and he gave Luke a lot of dirty jobs later to make up for it. But Luke, ever the team player, realized that it was worth the sacrifice, if his own suffering could help the lot of all those poor unfortunate whales. What a kind, compassionate guy, eh? Kind of like Aquaman, minus the Funky or-ange suit.

  The Admiral ordered the crew back to work, figuring maybe they would forget his inglorious moment of trepidation sooner if they didn’t get to stand around gossiping about it! As the crowd dispersed, Luke and Bert leaned back against the rail for a short minute, catching their breath after their victory. Bert grinned and slowly breathed the proud wo
rd that seemed to sum up their poise and power, their bravado and brawn, their righteousness and resolve: “Cruuui-zer-weights!” Luke had to smile too, adding an answering “Wocka.”

  Seeing that look, Bert seized on it: “So? How do you feel? Pretty good? Maybe that’s what you needed to make your life complete: Do good for others! Save the day! Stand up for a cause! Do the right thing! Ya think?” He seemed hopeful, that he might have helped Luke find his niche.

  Luke did feel kind of good; he was glad he had been able to help the whales. But, he still didn’t feel complete. Maybe they had done a good thing, but maybe it was only a small part of a bigger Good. He thought about it and tried to put it into words: “I want to do the right thing. True. But can there be a ‘right thing’, if there is no Right and Wrong? And can those exist without a God who judges? So maybe this is only a sign, to help lead us to God...”

  “Maybe everything is,” Bert said shortly, and went back to work. Luke wondered a little sadly whether he had somehow upset his friend with his thoughts, or whether Bert had just felt the evil eye of the Admiral beating down on him.

  Feeling that frosty glare himself all of a sudden, Luke looked around quickly, for a rope to hold, a wheel to turn, or a finger to pull...