The 'Sound' of the Rainbow (standard:mystery, 1967 words)
Author: KShaw	Updated: Aug 19 2005	Views/Reads: 3437/2353	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I began it as an investigation, talking to the men who worked with him, drank with him, even those, who, for one reason or another, disliked him, making notes, hoping to get a fix on the way it happened.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

I'd been friends with Frank since our early school days together. He was
a big sod, even then, and didn't seem to stop growing. Social skills 
were never his forte; he was undeniably illiterate, smelled like a 
dried lobster, and was my hero. I opened the car door and sank back 
into its warmth, sipped coffee, and rested my head. 

Frank became reclusive after losing most of his right arm to the
screaming insanity of a Russian whale woman. The mad cow came at him 
with a flensing knife, severing his right arm in a single swipe. Frank 
stood rigid for what seemed like an eternity staring down at his arm 
lying on the deck, blood spouting from just above his elbow. Then in a 
sudden fit of rage, he grabbed the woman by her hair and dragged her 
screaming and kicking to the side of the ‘factory' ship, where with one 
gasp of super human effort he flung her over the side. She may have 
lived a minute or two in the frozen waters of the Bering Sea, no more. 
The effort and the enormous loss of blood downed him. Christian, a 
six-foot-seven inch Norwegian, picked Frank up, hoisting him over his 
shoulder, while ‘Blackie', appropriately nicknamed, looped a safety 
line around them both, then waved the helicopter away screaming to get 
them ‘the hell off the ship.' Almost immediately the two men were 
dragged sideways and upward into the fierce night sky. 

I remember looking toward the upper decks, hearing twenty or thirty more
women screaming obscenities. I had the presence of mind to collect 
Frank's arm, which I tucked into the belt of my immersion suit before 
the second helicopter, hovering aft of the factory vessel, swept in and 
hoisted me off the deck to the jubilant jeers of the Russian crew. 
Frank survived. His right arm did not. 

Roused by a ‘tap...tap...' of knuckles on the car window, I heard a
voice. “Ticket, please.” I must have been remembering while half 
asleep. All I could see were the black buttons of a ‘donkey' jacket 
covering an ample stomach. Over this he wore a reflective orange bib 
bearing the words ‘Caledonian MacBrayne'. I fumbled stupidly in my 
pocket for the ticket. “Beautiful morning,” I said, finally remembering 
I'd put the ticket in the glove box. 

“Aye, t'is that,” he replied, cheerily. 

I handed him the ticket. He tore off a section and moved smartly away. I
must have dozed heavily, not hearing the ferry dock or any sound of the 
fifteen or twenty cars that had lined up behind me. I thanked God it 
wasn't an August morning.  I could have been sitting in a line of sixty 
or seventy vehicles, most of them towing caravans. 

Another man, rotund, a little untidy, signalled me forward in the manner
of a London ‘bobby' at a busy road junction. I started the car, 
crunched first gear, and rolled toward him. He pointed both index 
fingers directly at his feet, leaving me in no doubt where I was to 
stop, then offered up the flats of his hands and walked away. The 
clattering of metal grates startled several gulls into flight. Vehicles 
were already disembarking under the bow of the ferry.  How quickly four 
years have passed, I reminisced. Waiting for the ferry master to signal 
me aboard I had the feeling it was just last week. 

A smarter, more professional looking chap held up an oversized ‘table
tennis bat' with the word ‘slow' written on it. His left arm, bent at 
the elbow, beckoned me forward. I inched closer.  With a curious, 
almost ‘action man' like swing of his arm he directed me to the right, 
across the iron grated-bridge where I entered into the bowels of the 
ferry. Thoughts of childhood adventures immediately returned, being 
Jonah, swallowed into the belly of a whale. Three more men, also 
wearing orange bibs, beckoned me deeper. The sounds I thought forgotten 
came hurtling back: the yells of the men calling out, the piston 
powered doors, the dragging chains, and the pungent smell of exhaust 
fumes spoke to me like old friends. 

Waiting at the stern, a primly dressed young woman wearing a black
jacket, a black ‘pencil' skirt, a crisp white blouse and a company 
crested tie directed me as though marshalling a jet fighter across the 
deck of an aircraft carrier. I made a left ‘U' turn to come down the 
starboard side, back toward the bow section. A woman, older, inched me 
forward before she, too, faced up the flats of her palms. Cars were 
still filing aboard down the port side as I halted at the appointed 
place. 

“Turn off your engine, please,” she said, “take anything you might need,
as this deck is off limits during the crossing.” 

I grabbed my tired-looking, threadbare coat, and hopped smartly out,
making hastily for the closest exit to climb the stairs to the upper 
decks. I pushed through the rubber doors and found a place to lean 
against the ships rails, staring out toward Mull and wondering what 
could have happened to Frank. Twenty minutes later the ferry slipped 
silently from the harbour and ploughed across the Firth of Lorn, toward 
Mull. 

Half an hour later the port of Craignure, with Duart Castle off to the
left, thirteenth century home of the Chief of the ‘Maclean' family, 
stirred up the old feelings of ‘coming home'. It's a magical entrance 
to secret places, ‘for here, if legends be told, is where giants walk, 
witches fall, faery-folk and ancient battles fill the landscape.' 
That's what Frank always told me. 

The skipper, well practised, stood outside the wheel-deck over-lording
the nudging of the steel leviathan alongside the pier, which he 
achieved with immaculate precision. 

I was already heading down to the car deck. Being first to disembark the
ferry is like gaining ‘pole position' on grand prix race day. The one 
road south is single lane. Meaning one is obligated to pull over every 
couple of hundred yards, especially during the summer months, allowing 
oncoming traffic to pass. A lot of tourists, content to observe the 
beauty of the island, don't understand that ‘lay-bys' are there to let 
locals pass who happen to be heading in the same direction; those of us 
with more pressing commitments, such as pub opening hours. 

‘Bless me, Lord, for I am grateful', I muttered, as the deck foreman
pointed to me to lead off, holding his left arm across a different lane 
of cars. I certainly wasn't going to hold anyone up. I gave him an 
appreciative nod and drove across the massive iron grates, onto the 
pier itself, then, on reaching the road, observing neither the pub nor 
the Post Office had changed in appearance, turned north and headed up 
the ‘Sound of Mull'. Way to my right, at the far end of Loch Linnhe, 
stood the old man, ‘Ben Nevis', majestic in the clearing, sharp winter 
light. 

Frank would say, coming off a three week fishing trip, ‘...every time I
see a rainbow over these Hebridian waters, I feel like she's come 
home.' 

Looking across the waters of the ‘Sound' I saw no rainbow. 


Tweet