GOD of a man

“History of mankind may have been written by the courage, valour and foresight of a few brave men or by the collective action of an unsatisfied populace, but one thing that always remains constant is it’s always written with the blood of mankind.”

Chapter Three: All for One and One for None
Dated: 25th February, 2425

Men are so predictably greedy it’s easier to make a man close his eyes than making a woman open her mouth. If the greed is not for money, it can be for power, or if you happen to be living in prehistoric future, just the greed for a better tomorrow at the expense of another man. Men who know this simple trick are the ones who rule over other men.

If anyone could have killed the president in cold blood and still made it look like the best thing ever to have happened to humanity, it was Steve.

“..and the only way left to stop him was to kill him. Being the President doesn’t give him right to kill anyone for a personal grudge,” Steve was presenting his case to the Congress. They had just returned from Frank’s burial in ice at the “Medical School and Hospital” cemetery. His body was to be used later for study by the three students who were studying medicine.

“But why did you have to kill him, you could have chopped his arm?” Charles questioned.

“Chopped his arm and left him to die a painful death? We have no medicines or ointments over here. If it wasn’t for the sake of keeping the knowledge flowing through the generations, we may have as well closed the medical school and hospital,” Robin Sutherland, a senior member of the congress answered for Steve.

“But who’s going to be the next President?” Shiva asked.

“I recommend Joseph Jenkins name gentlemen, primarily cause he is the most experienced of us all and secondarily he is a very intelligent man and as popular as Frank was,” Steve replied.

After a short discussion Charles rose up and announced the decision of the congress to elect Joseph as the next President of Hatsu Saisho.

After a bit of studied over-awe and surprise Joseph accepted the position, gave a quick speech of thanks and reminded the house of the more important situation they had at hand.

“What about Mike and Clara?” Charles asked.

“What about them?” Steve questioned in return and continued, “Mike is going to put his life in danger for our community by joining our team to the ship. What more does a man need to prove his commitment to the welfare of our society?”

That settled the issue once and for all. Any questions left were buried along with Frank.

So the team was finalized and all was set for the odyssey to the drifting ship. Steve was going to lead Mike and Martin, roughly around 5 miles by their own fair guess, in the ice cold waters. Their only hope was the small kayaks they’ve made of penguin skins and bones from various sources, would withstand the ordeal and get them safely aboard the ship, and if nothing worthwhile is found on it, safely back.

The time was running short and every hour wasted was another metre or two added to the distance kayaked. Everybody got on with the job at hand at the earnest. The best of the kayaks were made available for “The Three Musketeers,” as they were now being lovingly touted as. However “All for one and one for all” was definitely not going to be their motto for this trip.

At the shore, Steve gave final instructions to his juniors on the mission, “Once in those waters, remember you are on your own and no one can help you. If your kayak collapses, we won’t even be able to use your bodies for educational purposes. The sea will be your grave. However, if we don’t do the job we have at our hands, we may perhaps loose the only chance of our lifetimes to give ourselves an opportunity to at least improve our lives for a few days or months, even if we are not able to use it to travel in search of a better habitat. So boys, get ready to be the men who made their own destiny and the destiny of entire human race.”

His words were scaringly practical as well as motivating, all at the same time. However, motivated or not but just like Steve, the other two were in a predicament their fate had willed for them. While Mike was caught in a mess of his own indiscretions and Steve had no choice, Martin was the only one who had the heart and soul of an adventurer and was in it truly with the benefit of his community at heart.

After bidding what might be their last goodbyes to their beloved ones “The Three Musketeers” set out on the open sea that lay in front.

“Easy boys, don’t try to out-stretch your muscles and kayaks. You will need both to make it to that ship,” Steve’s maturity cautioned the over enthusiastic young guns, as the huge crowd of 30 odd people gathered at the shore watched and cheered them. Soon they all made up to the nearby ice cliff to have a better view. Joseph stood at the top with the majesty of a President as he was more involved within himself, cherishing every moment of his newly elevated status to the most powerful man on the earth, having forgotten how the one before him lay haplessly headless on the ground less than 12 hours ago. Robin Sutherland had the binoculars in his hands and was more or less giving a running commentary to those present about the progress of the three hopes of humanity as they sailed further away from life and closer to the ship of ghosts.

None of the three had earlier kayaked this far out in sea, or this long in water. Their Kayaks were barely out of experimental stages. However, when men set out on tasks that put their existence at stake it’s neither a time for retrospection nor a time for half-hearted measures. The Three Musketeers truly lived to their names and made earnest progress towards their goal. Each passing minute and decreasing metre raised the hopes of those who braved the chill to watch their new found heroes sail for their future, while Sutherland’s enthusiasm kept mounting along with his pitch, as he provided the live feed of the feets of humanity to the keenly interested populace.

“Martin is still leading the trio. He just doesn’t seem to get tired. Mike is trying to keep up with him while our good old Steve is making up the muster not too far behind,” Sutherland was saying when suddenly he nearly jumped out his skin, his face strained in an instant and his voice came laboured out as a disbelieving shriek, “What the hell?”

Tragedy had stuck in the middle of cold waters. Martin who was leading from the front, keen and enthusiastic to make a difference for his brethren, was sucked into water as if he just stepped into an open manhole in the dark. His kayak collapsed and folded on him like a flower closing it’s petals at the end of the day only in this case, in happened all too quick. Milliseconds may perhaps feel longer than what it took for the bones making up the skeletal structure of his kayak to give away.

“Martin!” loud shrieks escaped from Steve and Mike in unison and at some point along the sea between the land and them, they must have resonated with the ones from those waiting and watching from the shore.

Martin surfaced quickly but his fate had already caught up with him at the wrong time. No one in Hatsu Saisho knew swimming anymore. The waters surrounding their home were too cold for the week human bodies to survive the ordeals of training even for a couple of minutes.

As Martin gasped for breath and as the cold water surrounding his body quickly seeped in through his clothing making his body realize the wide gulf between the strength of human spirit and frailty of human body, he must have realized in an instant, it was his end.

“Help! Steve!” were a couple of feeble but painful shrieks that escaped from his mouth as he fought of the heavily salted ice cold waters entering his mouth and struggled with his hands and feet moving in all directions to help stay afloat, while gravity of mother earth kept pulling him towards the bottom of what was going to be his grave.

“Damn!” was all Steve could muster, while everybody along the coast was running haphazardly in all directions and none knew what to do, but everybody was sure of one thing, Martin’s dead, even before he had actually died.

“Martin!” Mike shrieked again as he kayaked as hard as he could towards his drowning and freezing mate. It was hard to say what would happen first to cause his death. Will the Mother Nature preserve his last moments in a frozen stupor or will he first suffer the pain of cold water entering his lungs freeze each and every alveoli in them while struggling until his last breath to stay above water and then slowly sink to the ocean floor?

“No Mike! Don’t” Steve’s warning voice reverberated on open sea as it echoed between the ship and the coast, but Mike wasn’t listening. He was heading straight and quick to his pal and death.

Steve saw helplessly as Mike approached an already half frozen Martin and grabbed his hand and tried to drag him to the side of his own kayak. In his dying moments, Martin grabbed Mike’s hand in one and put the other one on the body of his kayak. His weight and uncomfortable grasp was the only straw that was needed to break the back of Mike’s camel. His kayak collapsed as Steve watched in disgust and his counterparts on shore watched in horror and agony. It was the end of two young sons of their land in the most gruesome of fashions, right in front of their hapless eyes, and in one of the most tragic ways.

Steve stopped kayaking for a moment as his kayak floated past the two drowning helpless men, one already dead or fainted to die, the other looking at Steve with tears of helplessness in his eyes and about to cry. “Steve!” was the last word that escaped his mouth as he realized his would be fate and knowing well what Steve can and will do. He still cried out to him faintly hoping against his destiny.

Steve turned his head away and cried out loud in disgust, “Damn!” and kayaked vigorously past the two drowning fellas who were once a bright spot in the last surviving human city of Hatsu Saisho. He didn’t turn his head around even once as he knew well enough what was going to happen to them, and he also knew the same could be his fate in less than a few minutes if he doesn’t have better luck. Turning around would still not guarantee his life cause if it was his fate the distance was far enough at both ends of his kayak.

As Steve kayaked away Mike realized his fate, haplessly turned around and looked at his panicking, painful and grieving mates on the shore, made a hapless attempt to push his body towards the shore but it was all beyond his powers. His mouth opened to make one last sound but the voice somehow froze somewhere deep down his throat. Not even a muster was passed as his body and limbs froze and he sank down to the bottom of the sea, to join Martin whose motionless body was already heading down.

There was not even a single eye on the shore that wasn’t filled up with it’s own ocean as men cried louder than many women would have in their lives. Everybody forgot about Steve who was still out there, striving to make a difference, or perhaps save his life. It was hard to say. But the tragedy that had just happened was too much for anyone to fathom. Everybody wanted someone to wake them up from their sleep so they would realize it was all just a bad dream. But life is as cruel as it is beautiful. Some love to live it, some hate to live through it.

What is once started, has to be brought to it’s logical conclusion. Steve’s only objective now was not only to get to that Ship but also to find a way to get back to his home safe from it. This ship had already claimed more than what anyone knew it could offer to humanity, if anything at all it really would. Steve kayaked hard for hours to finally reach the stern of the ship on it's starside.

As Steve approached the ship a chill ran down his spine. The silence that surrounded the ship gave it a ghostly presence in the surroundings and the state of wear it had gave it a ghastly look. But the job at hand was towering his mind now. He had to kayak around the ship of ghosts to see if there is any way of entering the ship and proceed from there. There seemed to be no way to get on the monster as Steve kayaked from it’s stern to bow and turned around to face it’s portside. That’s when he noticed the first bright spot of the day. The ship's heavy anchor chain was hanging down deep in water. Perhaps it’s anchor had been once lowered to stop it or perhaps some human error or mechanical fault led to it’s dropping on it’s own. How far down the water the anchor went, or if it was still attached to the chain Steve couldn’t have known and neither was he interested in finding out. Using all his courage and remainder of strength he climbed up the slippery and heavily worn out chain, well aware that if he slipped, he would die cause there was no way of getting back on to his kayak which had already floated away. So with strength and determination he climbed up the chain and made it to the deck.

On the shore everybody was so aggrieved of the tragedy that had just stuck Hatsu Saisho that they had all but forgotten about Steve and no one looked at him as he waved from the top of the deck. Wasting no time, Steve got down to business. He had still a few hours of light left but he had to find out quickly what could be used to leave and return to the ship. His eyes took their time to adjust to the general darkness that clouded the entire ship’s interior but his unfamiliarity with the ship’s design only made his job tougher than what it would have otherwise been. He struggled through maze of dark and stinking corridors with partial decomposed bodies of humans littering every conceivable space, be it corridors, rooms, halls. There was no way to determine how long the bodies must have been decomposing as one thing was sure, radioactivity mush have wiped out all forms of life in most part of the world, and the only place any micro-organism form could have started to decompose the human flesh and meat, it must have been in the waters surrounding the Antarctic, even if the radioactivity may have receded from some other part of the world.

Unmindful of his hateful surroundings Steve continued on with his search. The faded maps on the walls gave him no help. After an exhausting two hour struggle he finally managed to reach the boat housing. In front of him were two massive structures that looked like boats and there were a couple of small boats that Steve knew must have been motor boats. Along the sides of the room there were massive sealed drums. He tapped on one of them and the dull sound it generated meant they were full of something that hasn’t leaked due to their sealing. The ship was in bad condition and so was most of it’s stuff, but the fact that it was a warship specifically designed to withstand extremes of weather and human activity made everything about it last long enough for Steve to be standing there in pursuit of something valuable for mankind. He tried to move one of the drums but it was too heavy for him alone.

He shifted his concentration to the small motor boat. The boat looked in usable shape and definitely a lot safer than his kayak, but how was he supposed to get it into water and more importantly, make it sail.

He looked around everywhere and was finally able to determine the exiting point from that space but his problem was how to open it. There was no one to guide him and no power to test the various controls he could notice on one of the control panels that was staring at him from one dark corner. He frantically searched the entire place, tried to pull each and every lever he could find till there was only one big lever and five wheels, one of them massive, left that he hadn’t tired so far.

He waited awhile, gathered all his strength and gave the lever a massive push. There was a sound of metal rubbing against metal as if something tried to move, but the lever was still in it’s place just like everything else appeared to be. He looked around and scratched his head trying to figure out what happened where and what needs to be done. Took him a while to figure out there were four other massive blocks of metal boulders holding the launch platform tightly in it’s locked place. Steve used all the theory he was taught in the school at Hatsu Saisho and finally figured out he needs to turn the four wheels connected to the four blocks one by one to move the locking boulders out of their place to unlock the sealing of the platform. Once he had done that he tried the massive lever again. It took all his strength but once he had pulled it back the exit was completely unlocked and the platform hung to the outside as bright light outlined it’s top edge and the two sides. The light was bright enough to make Steve first close and then strain his eyes for a while to readjust to the lighting conditions. The only problem was, the platform had still not flung open into the sea. What now? Perhaps he needed to turn the last wheel left in the room as well.

He tried to rotate the wheel but it had been locked by a metal lever. He had to first pull the lever out to release the lock on the wheel and as he did that, the wheel started to rotate by itself as the weight of the launch platform pulled the platform down. The chain that connected the wheel use to closing the platform was pulled which inturn rotated the wheel at full fury when finally the platform crashed on to the sea surface with a loud thud and a heavy splash of water some of which was thrown inwards and Steve felt a few drops of ice cold water tinkle his cheeks and for a few milliseconds bright light blinded his eyes once again.

As the whole interior was lit up with sunlight, Steve saw all the names and markings that were still decipherable and nearly littered each and every conceivable space on the walls. The red drums were labelled fuel in faint yellow paint. He grabbed a couple of small canisters that he could spot now, put them in the small motor boat and pulled all the remainder of his strength together to slowly drag the boat to the edge of the ship, just where the platform which was now under water, started.

His problems have still not ended. He didn’t know how to operate this machine. Theory, doesn’t matter how brilliantly taught, cannot replace practical experience. He scratched his head in vain trying to figure out how to start the motor, opened a canister with his hunting knife and poured the fuel in it’s tank but how to do it was beyond his brain now which was already tired of all the commotion and intense activity coupled with human tragedy he had seen in the last 24 hours.

He looked around the place, saw a pair of what looked like oars, grabbed them and threw them in the boat, pushed the boat into the sea, and jumped into it. Using all the strength he had left, he powered his way around the stern and waded through the murderous waters towards the shore. The relief of his accomplishment and the thought that he was safe pumped up his confidence enough to provide him that extra push for the home run.

But home wasn’t the same anymore since the events of the afternoon. Everybody had forgotten Steve and was busy moaning the loss of two beloved sons of land. Nobody noticed the tired warrior struggle through the waters for nearly three hours to finally land on shore just as the sun was setting down for another night.

“STEVE!” a shout broke the relentless lamenting of people. Shiva was the first one to notice that Steve had returned with a boat.

“YEAH!” everybody shouted in unison and within the fraction of a second Mike and Martin were forgotten. Everybody rushed to Steve, lifted him in the air and the air was full of victorious chants for Steve. Steve was accorded a hero's welcome which he deserved. He was given bumps in the air, lifted and carried on individual shoulders, and the chanting of his name continued for nearly half an hour. When finally he was allowed to use his own feet on the ground, Joseph walked up to him.

“Did you find anything on this ship?” was a prompt question.

“Plenty to be brought back,” Steve replied with pride of accomplishment.

“What’s the name of the ship?” was the next question.

“HMAS James Martin – The Aussie Pride” Steve replied.

“The Phantom of the South?” Joseph stated rather than asked.