Chapter 31: Serpent St. Helena
“Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city.” Ecclesiastes 7:19
Other than the things they saw there, the trip to Dragon Isle may have been unnecessary, for almost as soon as they were back to the ship, the miraculous gale they had talked about did blow up, and they began to make good time once again.
The down side was, the rough wind never let up, and the squall soon blew itself up into days and nights of stormy weather: sails stripped, waves constantly crashing, sailors being tossed tumultuously from side to side (pausing in the middle occasionally to batten stuff down) as the ship bobbed like a cork in black water. They kept waiting for the storm to break, but it never did.
Now, after a fruitless mission to Atlantis, long doldrums in the southern seas, and presently more than their share of hard weather, Admiral Jack was not in a very good mood. The Sea and the Skies were pretty angry too, but Jack was better at it.
Never a patient man, Jack’s emotions finally got the better of him, and he did something that his shrewdness and experience should never have allowed. He cursed the angry Sea.
Bert and Luke had enjoyed the privilege of seeing the sensitive side of the Sea, back in Atlantis. But now they, and the whole crew, caught a glimpse of her ruthless side. Seemingly no sooner than the Admiral had waved his fist in anger, Gonzales let out an anguished cry from his position as a lookout. The crew looked up, and they saw him pointing fearfully out into the darkness. Following his horrified stare, they looked out into the brine. There, not seventy yards from the ship, had suddenly surfaced the black and languid coils of a fearsome beast which could only be the dreaded Sea Serpent! Nay, still worse: a Tidal Snake!
The crew froze, paralyzed with fright. There was little time to wonder whether it was Jack’s curse that had brought her, or whether she might have been stirred up by the storm, or (Luke suddenly grew fearful), perhaps like when Bert had killed the Dragon’s boar, maybe they had been poaching her fish all these weeks. Most of the men began instead to say their hasty and long-forgotten prayers. Even dangerous Robespierre the Harpoonist fell to his knees and began to repent of all his acts of viciousness and spite (it was a pretty extensive list.) It may have helped to clear his soul, but unfortunately it didn’t stop the Serpent from approaching their ship! On she came, relentlessly: slowly spinning her huge coils closer and closer to the comparatively small and fragile TrogDogJonah--in a water-churning, stomach-turning, harbor-yearning, long tense moment. In a poor omen, they watched even their erstwhile ship’s-mascot, Jack the Fat Black Rat105, scurry down a rope and into the ocean.
Jack shouted apologies to the Sea, and begged for mercy for his innocent crew. But the Sea is not very merciful, and she doesn’t believe in innocence. And the serpent continued to roll herself closer to the ship, with the same water-roiling, monster-coiling, trousers-soiling inexorable progression.
Just when the beast was right upon them, it disappeared from view, under the waves. There was a rather appropriate moment of silence, as the crew held their breath and sweated fear, waiting to see whether their prayers had prevailed or whether the serpent was only gathering herself to strike.
Silence. Stillness. Emptiness. Watching. Waiting. Someone daring to skitter to the edge. Peering into the Deep. The stirrings of a faint, false hope. Then a few stray bubbles. A dark shadow sliding beneath darker waters. And suddenly a surge of furious motion as the waters opened in an eruption that left the crew gaping and gasping.
The Serpent struck with speed and strength, rearing her head out of the water and diving across the width of the ship, several times, wrapping the poor wooden vessel in her muscular coils. She began to squeeze, and the timbers of The Jonah began to crack and splinter.
In a desperate bid to save his ship and his mates, Jack seized the prostrate Robespierre’s harpoon, and he stabbed the broad body of the beast. It’s answer was fierce and foreseeable: the head reared up again, and razor teeth snapped angrily at the offender, biting off Jack’s right hand and sending him tumbling towards the back of the boat. He shook and screamed and retched, and his crew did likewise.
It was instantly plain that they could not successfully fight the Serpent. Nor, with miles of rough sea around them, could they flee its wrath. That left them with no practical options to save themselves, except, as Luke shouted to his Admiral, remembering his own success with the Dragon, “Maybe we should try to talk to it?”
Bleeding Jack shot back scornfully, “Do you speak SeaMonster?”
“No, Luke admitted. “But I know a little Portuguese!”
He gave it a shot, and as luck would have it, the Sea Serpent did speak Portuguese! The universal language of the sea, after all. (Spoken in every Port.) Within moments, Luke had convinced the beast to relax its grip on their poor poor pitiful ship, and then after several more minutes of whispered conversation, during which the crew watched in dread and wonder, Luke kissed the Serpent on the forehead, petted her neck, and she unwound and slid back into the water, leaving The TrogDogJonah battered but intact.
“What happened?” Jack demanded. That’s what everyone wanted to know.
“We had a nice little chat. Her name was Helena. She was surprised and kinda glad to hear someone speak her language, so that made it easier for me to talk her into letting us live. Actually, she was pretty sweet. She didn’t have anything against us at all until Jack went and stabbed her. She was not very forgiving about that, Admiral. I had to pretend that I was the Captain, and you were the cook, to beg her mercy: I told her that she shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds us.”
Besides having his pride hurt, Jack was incredulous and outraged. “What do you mean she meant no harm! That monster was crushing our ship! We would have all been killed!”
Luke explained calmly, “She didn’t mean to crush our ship. She was only trying to give us a hug! She thought our ship looked awfully lonely out here, so she was trying to be friendly. She’s a very loving individual really.” Jack held up the stump that Che had quickly bandaged. He glared at Luke through the void where his hand had lately been, and he just shook his head, Nuh-No. Luke realized he wouldn’t be able to change the Admiral’s mind about her, but he went ahead and told his tale anyway, for the rest of the sailors. They listened, fascinated.
“She was concerned about us. She said to me: ‘You must be lost...’ Well, Navigator Humphrey always knows where we’re going, so I replied, playfully, in a sing-song voice: ‘We’re not lost! We know the way home!’ She surprised me then. Said she meant me in particular. Told me, ‘He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.’ Sorry, you guys must not have made a very good first impression is all,” Luke apologized to his mates, looking accusingly at the Admiral. “Then she told me this, to help me find my way...” Luke said, and paused. Since the crew had been praying already, he mustered his courage and added, “But I think she would want me to share it with you guys too. ‘When I stopped being a little girl sea-serpent, and it was time to strike out on my own, and make my own migrations, and hunt my own fish, I was at first afraid. But my Nana Monster reassured me with these words, to help me trust my instincts and to find my own course:
No começo, você seguir a Deus. No meio, seguir a Deus. No final, você seguir a Deus. Devo desenhar um mapa para você?’106
Some of the sailors nodded, as though they would remember it.
By the time Luke finished telling about the SeaSerpent, the sky had cleared, the waves had calmed, the wind had dissipated. As though she had taken the storm with her when she left. (“Now how did she do that?” even Luke wondered.) On the horizon, they even could see land! Greece, actually, Navigator Humphrey informed them. There was a cheer.
“There ya go,” Bert told his buddy. “You’ve been looking for God, right? Well rumor is, they’ve got a whole pantheon of ‘em in Greece, so you oughta be able to find at least a couple.”
“One will do.”
The ship soon found the safe harbor the crew had been praying for, and Luke helped unload the TrogDogJonah for the last time. “This is where we spend our winters. Nice, huh? So you guys are on your own now. If you want to catch a ride back, I’ll be putting a crew back together in a few months,” the Admiral informed the new guys.
Luke was a little disappointed to hear about the long layover. Yeah he felt there was something to learn in Greece, but a few months worth? He hoped that this didn’t slow down his mission yet again. Then, restless, he decided to deal with that later--right now he wanted to get to shore and get searchin’.
As the rest of the crew spread out to the local bars, Luke headed inland again, to see what was in store for him.
“Wait for me!” called Bert, as he hurried to tag along. Thinking of that pretty redhead he had seen Luke with in Prince Edward Island, he explained with a shrug, “You always seem to find the good stuff.”
After hiking crooked roads through the Greek hills for several hours, Luke had already decided that it wasn’t all it had been cracked up to be. He was enjoying the thriving countryside, the olive trees, and the pretty ocean blue, but he was also getting tired, and tired of being there. For one thing, everybody they met spoke Greek! No Hun-Language, no English, no Portuguese. In retrospect, Luke realized he shoulda expected that. “But how am I gonna learn from these people if I can’t even understand ‘em?” What had begun with so much hope and promise was starting to let sorrow seep in already.
It was evening now, and scout-brother Luke was steering them towards a big mountain that he saw up ahead, because they were going to need a place to crash soon, and he remembered, Mountains have Caves, and Caves are Great.
When they reached the foot of the mountain, they checked it out and went Wow. It was a big sweet mountain, kind of intimidating and yet pretty pretty. It rose up above the clouds, so Luke had no idea just how high it might go. That made him feel excited and mystified. Better still...a few hundred feet up the mountain, there was a huge and glorious stone structure. “Now that’s what I came to see,” Bert said cheerfully. Luke looked around at the pretty much empty land around the mountain, and wondered what this building was doing there in the middle of nowhere, ‘coz as near as he could tell it looked like it must be a magnificent Hotel complex. Piazzas and patios! Columns and colonnades! Balconies and balustrades! And one spiral, marble minaret that looked like a towering, sparkling cruller.
There was a classy colory path leading up the mountainside to the hotel, made of tumbled semi-precious stones. They went down that road when they came to it. Luke opened the mahogany door with the golden knob, and they stepped into the lobby. It was air-conditioned.
They looked around at all the luxury. It sure was some place. They strolled across the leopardskin rug and talked to the man at the front desk. Not that Luke expected that their meager fisherman’s wages would fix them up in a place like this, but you never know unless you ask. So he asked the man at the desk, “Does anybody here speak English?” The employee didn’t answer, but he seemed to vaguely understand what was wanted, and he went to get the manager.
The manager came, speaking perfect English. He looked like a tough cracker, with a strong jaw and a couple of scars. Luke accurately pegged him as a hockey player. Bert’s calculating eye added the fact that the manager was either Canadian, or the closest thing to it that the pretty planet of Timnalauren had to offer. He welcomed them with a hearty smile, “Welcome to Mount Olympus. I am called Hough.”
The name rang a bell, and Luke realized that oh-yeah, this guy had played in the big leagues, with the Central Silt Rink Rats, the New Owen Sound Platers, and even the Quebec Nordiques! “Wow. You are my idol,” Luke told him. “What are you doing here?”
“You shouldn’t have idols; we’re all just people,” Hough pointed out in response to Luke’s first remark. Then he answered the question: “I came here when I retired, and used my hockey-capital to invest in this hotdoggin’ hotel. I wanted to call it the Hotel Cass, but the name was taken, so I just called her the Hotel Hough instead. Not bad, eh?”
Luke looked around, and admired the waterfall and wishing pool in the lobby, and the crystal chandeliers, and the jade sculptures and the silver-plated mirrory walls which made the room seem larger, brighter, labyrinthine and dreamy. “I’ll say!” Luke agreed. “This place is very luxurious. I think it would be quite a treat to stay here, but I guess I won’t be able to. It must cost a fortune.”
Hough-the-muscular-guy-in-cutoffs-and-a-T-shirt shrugged his hands to say No Worries. “Hey, whatever you can afford. I’m flexible. Especially when it means a chance to help some fellow countrymen,” he stated generously.
“You mean someone who speaks the same language,” Luke corrected. “We’re not exactly from the same country. I’m a Hun...”
“And I’m a hockey player. If that don’t make us brothers-in-arms I don’t know what would.” Hough slid keys across the counter, and politely accepted Luke’s offering of two copper coins, and Bert’s contribution of two pewters.
Luke was grateful for Hough’s generosity, but he was also puzzled, and pointed out, “You’ll never get ahead if you let people stay in this expensive hotel for next to nothing, you know.”
Hough smiled and said that Yeah he knew that but, “I’m not trying to get ahead. ‘Coz I’ve already got one! Right here on top of my thick neck.”
Luke liked this perspective, but still he wondered, “Why then did you build this beauty-full hotel, if not-ta get rich?”
Hough was taken aback, since wasn’t the answer so simple? “Why, I thought I would like being here. And I thought I might like running my own business. And I thought other people might like coming (from far and wide) to visit Mt. Olympus, and staying at this lovely mansion-like hotel complex. And ya know what, son? I was right.”
Luke, ever the idealistic young dreamer, was uplifted. “Wow. A guy who cares not about money, but about enjoying life and helping others do the same. I am impressed.”
Hough was humble. “Heck, what else matters? Make the most of Life. It’s all you’ve got.” (Then he remembered, ‘oh yeah...and millions of dollars in the bank!’ . But he smiled, and kept that part to himself.)
Luke liked that way of summing it up, and he told Hough, “Right on. Yeah, I’m trying to make the most of life too. That’s how I came to be here in Greece--a friend told me that I should look for God, and Bert here told me that there are a lot of gods in Greece.”
Hough was surprised. “Well, if that’s your mission, you are closer than you think. This here mountain is Mount Olympus. Local tradition has it that this is the home of the gods! They say if you risk the journey up this mountain, above the clouds, you may chance to witness the gods themselves. That’s all I can tell you though, coz bein’ a furriner I don’t know too much about local customs, and bein’ a hockey player I don’t know too much about God.” Luke was intrigued nevertheless by the curious possibilities, and he resolved to set off up the mountainside in the morning.
In the meantime, Hough insisted that Bert and Luke should hang out with him and his two fellow anglophone buddies, Gillis the Bartender and Donnelly the Bouncer. They sat around and had a couple beverages. (Counting like a true Canadian, Bert pointed out, with a mug in each hand, that as long as you keep filling up a glass before it gets empty, it technically only counts as one long drink.) As they sipped, they told stories about hockey, fighting, and other assorted lawlessness; and about the other side of the sea; and about Greek girls, and everywhere-else girls. Then once they really got to partying, Gillis broke out his saxophone to go along with Luke’s guitar, while the other guys sang blues tunes, and drinking songs, and sea shanties.
After a while Luke excused himself, insisting that while he was havin’ a ball, he thought maybe he better go to bed--because wouldn’t it be a good idea to get a good night’s sleep before meeting God in the morning?