book one in the offshore energyhunter series deep
TRANSCRIPT
DEEPDEEPINTO THEINTO THE
PASTPASTRoger B. Hooper
Book One in the Offshore EnergyHunter Series
This book is a work of fiction. All the characters in this book, with the excep-tion of Roger Blaze Hooper, April Hooper, Matthew Hooper, GrandmotherIna, and Beverly Susan Whitehead, are fictitious, and any resemblance toactual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Names, characters,incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are notmeant to be real. Nothing is intended or should be interpreted as representingthe views of any United States or Mexican government agency.
DEEP INTO THE PASTpublished by Hooper Group Publishing
© 2020 Revised By Roger B. Hooper
International Standard Book Number0-929956-12
ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDNo part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted, in any form or by any means; electronic, mechanical, photo-
copying, recording, or otherwise, without the expressed written permissionof Roger B. Hooper.
For additional copies, comments or information:Roger B. Hooper
Hooper [email protected]
Chapter 1
August, 1942Gulf of Mexico, USA
Up periscope,” Captain Hans Geist ordered. “It is 23:00hours. We are near the rendezvous point.”
It had been an uneventful 14-day trip from France to theGulf of Mexico aboard the hot and crowded German U-boat.The crew of U-Geist, U-boats were sometimes referred to bytheir captain’s last name, had traveled submerged during theday, surfacing only at night. They avoided the normal shippinglanes in the Atlantic and arrived in the Gulf undetected.
During his previous two missions into the Gulf of Mexico,Captain Geist had an easy time sinking more than a dozen U.S.merchant ships. Sinking ships was not the mission of this voy-age, it had a special purpose…a very unique mission that couldquite possibly change the outcome of World War II.
“Go to their bunks and tell Wiltz and Reinhardt we are near.I will search the surface for our contact,” Captain Hans said. Hereached for the periscope in the center of the U-boat’s conningtower.
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German Unterseeboot Headquarters Lorient, France
Hans Geist, a handsome twenty-six year old German U-boatcaptain, stood at attention in front of Admiral Donitz’s hugeornate desk. He was wearing his dress uniform; a blue double-breasted coat, white captain’s cap and a large black cross pulledtightly around his neck. On the wall behind Donitz’s desk was alarge painting of Hitler flanked on either side by Nazi Flags.
After the Germans had overrun and occupied France,Admiral Karl Donitz, Hitler’s Unterseeboot commander, con-structed a massive German U-boat complex in Lorient, Franceon the Bay of Biscay.
On Donitz’s dark mahogany desk were recent photos takenof the inside of his U-boat fortress showing seven U-boatsdocked under cover of more than four meters of reinforced con-crete. Captain Geist noticed his U-boat was the third one fromthe left in the top photo.
“Geist, I have called you to my office at this late hourbecause I have just talked with the Fuhrer,” Admiral Donitz said.
Captain Hans was anxious to get back to sea and eagerly lis-tened. He removed his cap, nervously smoothed his hair andnearly crushed his cap as he put it under his arm.
“Hitler told me to select you for a mission of great impor-tance. You are his youngest Knight Cross recipient and he isproud of your service. He spoke about your success of sinkingmore than two dozen U.S. merchant vessels on your previouspatrols in the United States Gulf of Mexico.’’
Donitz leaned up in his chair, put his arms on his desk andlooked at Geist with a stern glare. “Geist, I reminded the Führerof your free spirited attitude, how you don’t always follow myorders, but the Führer insisted on selecting you. He thinks youare the best man for this job. You know the Gulf of Mexico bet-ter than any other U-boat captain.”
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Admiral Donitz leaned back in his leather chair and contin-ued to stare directly at Geist. “Hitler has learned from Germaninformants in America about a newly developed high octanerefining process the Americans call fluid catalytic cracking.According to our sources, this process is revolutionizingAmerica’s petroleum industry.”
Admiral Donitz reached back and picked up a bottle of winefrom the cabinet behind his desk. He slowly poured himself aglass. “We desperately need this new technology to keepGoering’s Luftwaffe flying and to keep Germany’s control ofEurope.”
Suddenly, a side door of the room opened and two menwalked toward Geist.
Donitz continued, “Geist, you are to navigate your U-boatacross the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico with these two menonboard.”
Geist looked over at the two, and noticed they both woresmall pins upon their collars, inscribed, “See no evil, hear noevil, speak no evil.”
“These men are Abwehr spies,” Geist thought. Geist knewthat Abwehr was headed by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, whosejob was to supply international intelligence to Hitler andGerman High Command, at any cost. He had heard rumors ofthe brutality of Abwehr tactics.
“This is Herbert Wiltz and Erich Reinhardt. Reinhardt waseducated as a petroleum engineer and Wiltz is a highly trainedGerman SS officer,” Donitz added.
The two men nodded, not saying a word. Donitz continued to give Geist his instructions. “You are to
meet a German contact in a small fishing boat off the coast ofsouth Louisiana in America. These two men will travel to aBaton Rouge, Louisiana oil refinery and secretly copy the newrefining design. After dropping them off, you are to take yourboat far into the Gulf to avoid detection. In seven days you are
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to return to the rendezvous point and pick up the two men.” “Ja wohl,” Geist replied. It sounded to him like a simple and
boring mission, and he also thought of how this mission wouldcause him to fall behind his fellow U-boat captains in the num-ber of enemy ships he had sent to the ocean’s bottom. “I ambeing asked to do nothing,” he said to himself.
One of the men spoke up, “Geist, I am Wiltz and this isReinhardt. We will travel to the American refinery where thefirst commercial fluid catalytic cracker has been built. We bothspeak fluent English and will be carrying American identifica-tion papers, U.S. currency and wearing American clothing.”
Reinhardt added, “Our plan is to obtain temporary construc-tion jobs at the refinery and to secretly copy the new refiningprocess design. We will return to the rendezvous off theLouisiana coast after seven days. A local fisherman, WillOssherman, is a German sympathizer living near the coast. Hewill assist us.”
“Remember, Geist,” said Donitz, “ in seven days you are toreturn to pick up the men at the assigned time and location offthe coast. Geist, this is a direct order from Hitler.”
Donitz picked up a small black leather case from his deskand handed it to Geist. “Geist, here are the complete plans forOperation Gehen Gulf, study the maps and instructions careful-ly. Then destroy them.” Donitz raised his voice and glared stern-ly into Geist’s eyes. “It is your duty to assist our operatives ingetting America’s new refining process at all cost.”
“The cat cracking petroleum refining process first went on-line at the American oil refinery on May 25, of this year and hasallowed the U.S. petroleum industry to dramatically increase itsoutput of high-octane aviation fuel,” Reinhardt explained in bor-ing engineering terms. “The process also produces the raw mate-rials for synthetic rubber. This synthetic rubber has greatlyhelped the U.S. war effort, because the war against the Japanesein the Pacific has cut off the U.S. supply of natural rubber from
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the Far East. You see Geist, the new refining process is allowingthe Allies to build more powerful aircraft engines and faster air-craft that are putting Hitler’s Luftwaffe at a severe disadvan-tage.”
Captain Geist unbuttoned his coat and put the black leathercase with the plans inside. He continued to stand at attention, notsaying a word.
“I have a crew preparing your U-boat in the pens.Everything will be ready for you in the morning,” Donitz said,standing up behind his desk. “As you can see Geist, OperationGehen Gulf is of the utmost importance. Without this new refin-ing process, Germany cannot survive.”
Donitz walked around to the front of his desk and stooddirectly in front of his young Captain.
“And one more thing, Geist. Everyone is aware of your suc-cess in sinking enemy ships. Your record is one of the highest ofany of my U-boat captains. Only Otto Kretschmer and WolfgangLuth have sunk more ships and tonnage than you.”
Geist smiled confidently. His attitude had grown more arro-gant with each enemy ship he destroyed.
Donitz took one step closer, now just a few inches awayfrom Geist. In a whisper that was almost a hiss he said, “Geist,that is not your mission this time. Do not attack any ships. Youmust return with these two men and the plans!”
“Ja wohl, Herr Admiral Donitz,” Captain Geist replied.“Heil Hitler.” He took one step backwards, raised his hand highand clicked his heels in a German salute.
Admiral Donitz raised his hand to his waist. “Heil Hitler.” Wiltz and Reinhardt did not move.
After leaving Admiral Donitz’s office, Captain Geistreturned to Hotel Maison Blanche near downtown Lorient. Heand Anna, his bride of three months, had been staying there forthe past week while he was in port.
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Hans met Anna at a dance in Leipzig and they fell instantlyin love. They were married in a small ceremony several weeksafter they met, but Hans had been away at sea for most of thethree months since the wedding. Anna had arrived by train inLorient the previous week from Germany to spend two weekswith Hans.
“Hello, my darling Anna,” Hans said, entering his hotel suitearound 10:00 p.m. The attractive young couple embraced andkissed as Hans kicked the door shut with his foot.
Anna was a lovely 22-year-old blond-haired blue-eyedGerman girl. Her hair was in pigtails and she was dressed in along sheer nightgown. She had been patiently waiting for Hansto return since 6:00 p.m.
“Unfortunately, Anna, I have some bad news,” Hans said. Heremoved his officer’s coat and cap and tossed them onto thesofa.
“Oh Hans, don’t tell me you have to go back to sea,” Annasaid. She hugged him tightly, not wanting him to ever leave.
“Yes my precious Anna, I was chosen to captain a specialmission.”
“But you were supposed to stay two weeks with me.”Hans released himself from Anna’s tight grasp, and pulled
the leather case from his coat pocket that was lying on the sofa. “Here are the plans and maps. I must read them and commit
them to memory tonight,” he said. “But Hans you promised you were going spend all of your
time with me.”“But Anna, I was chosen by Hitler himself. I must study
these plans tonight.”Anna slowly sat down on the large, velvet sofa and began to
cry. “You care more about this war than me!” she screamed. Hans marched into the bedroom to review his mission. Anna had something very important to tell him, but she
knew his career as a U-boat captain was more important to him
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than spending time with her. Anna lay down on the sofa in theouter room, covered herself with a blanket and slowly cried her-self to sleep.
On the bed in the adjacent room, Hans carefully reviewedthe plans that were contained in the black leather case. Thepapers gave strict orders not to attack any U.S. or British shipsfor fear of his U-boat being delayed, or even worse. The missionspecifically ordered him to drop off the two men, pick them upwith the cracking process plans, and return to the U-boat pens inLorient, France...nothing else.
Around midnight Anna awoke from where she had beensleeping on the sofa and walked into the bedroom. Hans waslying on the bed in his undergarments still studying the maps.
“Hans, I have something important I must tell you,” she said,reluctantly lying down on the bed next to him.
Hans folded the maps and papers and returned them to theleather case. He placed the leather case on the edge of the bedand rolled over toward Anna. He reached out, hugged, and thenkissed her.
“I’m sorry. What would you like to tell me, my darling?”“Hans,” she paused and took a deep breath. “I went to the
military hospital today while you were at headquarters, andwell... we are going to have a baby,” she announced softly. Shelooked Hans directly in his eyes to watch his response.
Hans smiled brightly and hugged her even tighter.“That’s wonderful,” he responded, his eyes glistening. “I
have always wanted a large family. That’s great news, darling.” They kissed passionately again. Hans whispered I love you
in her ear, being truly delighted. Aside from his military ambi-tions, he enjoyed growing up in his large family in Leipzig andnow looked forward to starting a family with Anna.
Hans reached over and turned out the lamp next to the bed.He quickly forgot about his mission as they fell asleep in eachother’s arms.
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As the sun rose the next morning, Hans arose, quietly show-ered, shaved and put on his uniform. Anna awoke as Hans waslooking in the bedroom mirror, proudly adjusting his U-boatcaptain’s cap.
“Well, good morning, my dearest Anna.”“Hans, must you go this time? Why can’t you stay here with
me? Why don’t you get a desk job so you can be home with meand our baby?”
“You know I have always dreamed about being a U-boatcaptain, Anna. The Fuhrer assures us the war will be over soon,so we can be together then.” Hans tried to comfort Anna, as hesat on the edge of the bed to be close to her.
Anna sat up and hugged her handsome, young captain, hop-ing somehow she could prevent him from leaving.
“Hans, promise me you will be careful. I don’t want yourchild to be without a father,” she said as tears began to roll downher face.
“Anna, please don’t cry. Everything will be all right. I canhandle anything those weak Americans have to offer.”
“Hans, I have this photo for you.” She leaned over andpicked up a small black and white photo from the nightstandnext to the bed. “It is a photo of me when we first met at thedance in Leipzig. Remember?”
“Yes, I do remember, my lovely Anna.”“Your friend took it.” She replied handing him the photo.
“Put it somewhere where you will always see it.”“I will put it here in my cap.” He removed his captain’s cap
and put the photo under the clear lining inside. “I love you Hans,” Anna cried. “Please be careful, for me
and our baby.”“I will look at it often and think about you…and our new
child. I will be back in about four weeks.” He leaned over andkissed her one last time. “I love you, Anna.” He stood up andlooked inside his cap one last time before leaving.
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On board the U-Geist off the coast of Louisiana
Captain Geist stared inside his captain’s cap at the photo ofAnna. He replaced the cap on his head backwards so the cap’sshiny black bill would not be in his way as he looked into theperiscope. Since leaving on this mission, every time Hanslooked into the periscope he would perform the ritual of remov-ing his cap, looking at Anna’s photo and then reversing the capon his head.
“Our contact should be right above us,” Captain Hans said.He leaned into the periscope and peered carefully through theeyepiece into the moonlit night above. He turned the periscopeto the west. “There is one boat there…it is flashing a red light…three long flashes… two short. That’s our signal!”
He made a slow 360-degree rotation of the periscope. “I donot see any other boats. Prepare to surface quickly.” He loweredthe periscope and held on tightly as the U-Geist angled rapidlytoward the water’s surface.
As the U-boat quickly released the last amount of sea waterfrom its ballast tanks, it popped to the surface of the Gulf ofMexico about ten miles south of Grand Isle, Louisiana.Lieutenant Bruno Richter, second in command, climbed up thedamp iron ladder in a corner of the control room to the top hatchleading up to the top deck. He turned the handle on the hatch torelease it, pushed the hatch forcefully and climbed up into thedark night.
Lieutenant Richter retrieved his flashlight from his coatpocket and signaled the only vessel in sight. Three long flashesfollowed by two short ones. That signal, along with the ren-dezvous location had been previously transmitted via shortwaveradio, and relayed to Abwehr command.
The small fishing boat swiftly approached and pulled upnext to the U-boat.
“Send up the men,” Richter said into the intercom tube on
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the top deck bridge.Wiltz and Reinhardt, dressed in American overalls, climbed
hurriedly up the ladder onto the top deck and walked over to theedge of the slick iron decking.
Will Ossherman had piloted his 80-foot snapper boat downfrom his home on Bayou Lafourche and arrived at the predeter-mined rendezvous point only a few minutes earlier.
Ossherman had come to America from the northern coast ofGermany in 1937 and settled in south Louisiana. He sent for hiswife in Germany in 1939, but she was not allowed to immigrateinto the U.S. due to the fear of an upcoming war with Germany.This angered Ossherman to the point that any allegiances he hadto his new land, the United States, had all but vanished. Throughother disheartened Germans in America, Ossherman made con-tacts with Nazi intelligence in Germany and had been providingvital information to the patrolling U-boats in the Gulf ofMexico. He had set up communications via a shortwave radiotransmitter hidden in his house twenty miles up the bayou.
As Ossherman approached, Lieutenant Richter cupped hishands around his mouth and shouted, “Hello fisherman, catch-ing any sharks tonight?”
“Yes, I have caught two.” The correct code words had been exchanged and everything
was going as planned. Captain Hans climbed up the ladder and stood on the top
deck next to Wiltz and Reinhardt, scanning the horizon for anysigns of enemy ships. Wiltz unrolled a rope ladder and beganclimbing down to the old wooden fishing boat below.
“Remember Geist, there are no records of our top-secretmission. If anything happens to you or us, no one will ever knowour fate. We will simply be listed as missing in action, locationunknown,” Wiltz said. “And there is to be no radio communica-tions for fear of jeopardizing the mission.
“Just get the refining design!” Captain Hans replied. “Good
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luck. We will meet you back here in seven days at 23:00 hours.”“See you in seven days,” Wiltz replied.“We will have those plans!” Reinhardt responded in disgust.
He didn’t appreciate a lowly U-boat captain giving orders tohim, an Abwehr officer.
The two men climbed down to the rear deck of the smallfishing vessel. In the forward cabin, Ossherman waved good-by,started his engine and slowly pulled away.
Captain Hans and Lieutenant Richter quickly climbed backdown the hatch to the U-boat’s control room, closing and sealingthe hatch as they went.
“Prepare to dive,” Captain Hans ordered, watching the smallfishing boat through the periscope as it turned to the north, thendisappeared into the darkness of the gulf. “Set course for 25.4North Latitude, 93.0 West Longitude. We will maintain our posi-tion there until it is time to return to retrieve these men.”
“Good to see you,” Ossherman greeted the two men. “How’severything in the fatherland?”
“Good, good, the war is going well on all fronts. And it willbe even better when we get what we came for,” Wiltz said,reaching out to shake Ossherman’s hand. “My name is HerbertWiltz.”
“I’m Erich Reinhardt, heil Hitler.” He raised his hand in aquick German salute.
“Heil Hitler,” Ossherman replied. “It will be a short trip tomy dock up the bayou. I will drive you up to Baton Rougetonight.”
“Have you made all the necessary arrangements?” Wiltzinquired.
“I have secured a room for you in a boarding house near therefinery. I have extra work clothes and food in my car.”
“Well, done,” Wiltz said, reaching into his pocket and
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pulling out an envelope. “The Führer is most appreciative ofyour loyalty. Here is the 1000 U.S. dollars that was promised.”
“Thank you,” Ossherman replied. He opened the envelopeand kissed the bundled bills.
“There is also something extra for you,” Wiltz added.Ossherman looked in the envelope again. By the moonlight
he could make out a hand written letter. “It’s from my wife!” heexclaimed.
“Yes, I thought you may wish to hear from her,” Wiltz said.“She is doing well and sends her love.”
“Thank you, thank you.” Ossherman repeated. “I will read itwhen there is more light.”
Wiltz and Reinhardt lay down in the bottom of the boat andcovered themselves with a tarp. The trip to Ossherman’s homeup the bayou took about one hour.
“I will tie up here. Stay down until I check to see if anyoneis watching us,” Ossherman ordered calmly, while tying up tothe wooden dock on the edge of the bayou.
Across Highway 1, Ossherman had rented a small woodframe house. Most of the time Ossherman made just enoughmoney to pay his rent, but had managed to save enough to buyan old worn-out 1931 Model A sedan.
Ossherman walked up the bank and looked carefully for anylights coming down the highway. It was 1:00 a.m., so everythingwas quiet down on the bayou.
“OK men, it is clear,” he whispered. “Walk quickly to my carand lay down in the back seat.”
The trip up Highway 1 to Baton Rouge was a long andbumpy one, lasting nearly four hours. As they rode over theMississippi River Bridge, the men began to smell the odor ofchemicals in the air.
Ossherman turned right onto Scenic Highway and droveseveral miles past car dealerships, banks and service stations. He
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turned left onto Weller Street and went several blocks beforestopping at an old run-down boarding house. The sun was com-ing up, so he parked in an isolated area behind the old two storyframe house.
“We are here, get out now,” Ossherman leaned over the frontseat and told the two. “There is a room available for you here,just check in under the names on your American IDs. Latertoday, go over one at a time to the construction office at thesouth gate of the refinery and tell them you’re looking for a con-struction job. There is a big shortage of good workers due to thewar. They should hire you immediately. The rest is up to you toget the new refining design.”
“Where should we meet you next week?” Reinhardt asked.“I will return in seven days and meet you here,” Ossherman
replied. “I will drive you back to my boat and then take you tothe rendezvous point in the Gulf. Good luck.”
Reinhardt and Wiltz grabbed several bags of food and cloth-ing from the trunk and disappeared through the rear door of theboarding house.
Ossherman drove his old black Ford back over theMississippi River Bridge and turned south on Highway 1 towardhis home down on the bayou.
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Chapter 2
Over the next day and half, the submerged U-Geist jour-neyed to an isolated location about 275 miles southwest of therendezvous point, to an area in the Gulf of Mexico far from allknown U.S. shipping lanes.
“Up periscope,” Captain Hans ordered. He reached up withhis left hand and removed his cap. He looked at the picture of hiswife inside and replaced it on his head backwards. He lookedinto the eyepiece. “I don’t see anything on the surface. Thereshouldn’t be any ships within one hundred kilometers of us. Weneed to charge our batteries and get some fresh air.”
He leaned up and spoke into the microphone in the conningtower. “Prepare to surface.”
The U-Geist made a slow rise to the calm water on the sur-face of the Gulf. It would be a long, boring time just sitting andwaiting to return. There was little to do except play cards, listento the onboard record player, or sleep. German U-boats, like allsubs, were crowded and hot. It would be even hotter during thelong dog days of the summer of 1942.
The U-Geist was a German IXC class U-boat, 252 feet long,22 feet wide and carried a crew of 58 men. There was no showeronboard and the entire crew shared one toilet. There was little
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fresh water for washing and with no hot water for shaving, mostof the men onboard had grown beards. The pungent odor of per-spiration and diesel fuel filled the air.
The U-Geist’s armament included 4 bow torpedo tubes, 2stern torpedo tubes and a midship storage compartment that nor-mally contained 16 additional torpedoes. Because of its specialmission, the U-Geist did not load the 16 extra torpedoes. Donitzthought the sub would be faster without the extra weight.
Located behind the bridge on the top deck was the “winter-garten,” where a 105 mm anti-aircraft gun and two 20 mm gunswere mounted. When U-boats were on the surface, their crewsused the deck-mounted guns for attacking aircraft and merchantvessels.
Every three days German U-boats were required to surfacefor four hours to recharge their lead-acid batteries used forunderwater power. Onboard diesel engines were utilized topower the charging generators, but these diesel engines neededair to operate, and could only be used when the U-boats were onthe surface.
“There shouldn’t be any enemy ships anywhere around us.Gruber, you take the first watch on the bridge,” Captain Hansordered.
“Aye, Aye, Capitan Geist,” he anxiously replied with asalute.
“Everyone else stay below for a while until we are sure it issafe,” Captain Hans said. “Then everyone can go on deck andhave a swim.”
Karl Gruber was an inexperienced seventeen-year-old sailorfrom Hamburg, Germany. He was the first sailor Captain Hanshad seen in the control room and he thought it would be an easyassignment for him.
Gruber hurriedly climbed up the ladder to the top hatch,released it and pushed it outward onto the top deck. He took a
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deep breath of clean Gulf air and scrambled onto the bridge. “Take the helm, Richter. I’ll be in my cabin if you need me,”
Captain Hans said. He made his way down the small center pas-sageway to his officer’s quarters. Upon entering his small pri-vate room, he sat down on the edge of his bunk, removed his caponce again, and looked at the photo of his wife Anna inside. Thishad become a pleasant habit for him.
He began to think about the night he placed the photo there,the last night he saw her before he left on this mission. Hethought about wanting to be with her during the birth of theirfirst child. “I wonder what my son will look like. Of course ournew child will be a boy. I can’t wait to go home. Perhaps I willask Admiral Donitz for a desk job when I return, like Anna wish-es.”
Up on the top deck, Gruber was scanning the horizonthrough his binoculars for any enemy ships or aircraft. TheAugust sun blazed overhead, beating down on Gruber’s paleskin. In his youthful excitement, Gruber had forgotten his shirtand sailor’s cap below deck, so he stood clothed only in swimtrunks. German U-boat sailors were not accustomed to the hot,humid, tropical weather.
For about fifteen minutes Gruber eagerly searched the hori-zon. He knew the U-boat batteries would take hours to rechargeand he couldn’t wait to jump into the water to cool off.
Gruber did not even see a bird in the sky. The night beforehe and his shipmates had stayed up until 3:00 a.m. playing cardsin the rear torpedo compartment. Now his eyes were becomingincreasingly heavy.
Gruber blinked. He blinked again, then again. His eyelidsslid slowly over his eyes. He laid his head on the handrail aroundthe bridge and within seconds he was fast asleep.
While Gruber dreamed of being home in Germany drinkingbeer with his friends, fifteen minutes passed aboard the U-Geist.
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CLANK! The sleeping Gruber was awakened by the loud noise. He
had dropped the binoculars he had been holding in his hand. Hereached down, retrieved the binoculars, rubbed his eyes andmade a quick sweep of the horizon. Suddenly, as if appearingout of nowhere, a large ship appeared on the distant horizon.
“Come in control room! Come in control room! There is alarge ship approaching from the west,” he blurted into the inter-com tube on the bridge.
“Get down here right away, sailor,” Captain Hans ordered,having walked back into the control room only minutes earlier.
Gruber ran over to the top hatch and slid down the ladderinto the control room below, closing and sealing the hatch on hisway down.
“Gruber, do you think they saw us?” Captain Hans askedwith a worried look.
“I don’t know.”“What type of ship is it?”“I don’t know.”“What were you doing up there sleeping?” Captain Hans
demanded in an angry voice.“No sir, Herr Capitan.”“Up periscope,” Captain Hans ordered.The angry captain grabbed the periscope, took off his cap,
very quickly looked inside and reversed it on his head. Hepeered through the eyepiece, twisting it immediately to the westto locate the vessel.
“It is there.” Using the markings on the eyepiece, he evalu-ated the size and distance of the approaching ship. “It looks likea very large American tanker, maybe more than 175 meters inlength. It is sitting low in the water, so it must have a full load.I cannot tell if they have seen us yet.”
Captain Hans knew he was under strict orders not to attackany enemy ship, but he couldn’t resist such a large target. His
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contest with the other German U-boat captains to sink the great-est tonnage of enemy ships made this huge tanker irresistible.
“They may have seen us. I don’t see any U.S. Navy escortvessels. We must sink it!”
“But Captain, We are under strict orders not to attack,”Lieutenant Richter said.
“We have no other choice. We must sink it! It may have seenus.” Captain Hans replied with as much sincerity in his voice ashe could muster. “We do not have time to submerge, it’s passingright in front of us. It will be like shooting ducks on the Rhine.”
“Battle stations, battle stations,” Lieutenant Richter reluc-tantly ordered, leaning into the intercom tube mounted on theside of the control room.
Aaooga. Aaooga.The battle station alarm sounded throughout the U-Geist.
Instantly, fifty-eight hot, bored German sailors sprang from theirbeds and ran to their assigned attack positions. Trying to staycool, most of the crew had been lying in their bunks dressed onlyin their undergarments. No one aboard had expected to see anyaction during this mission, so this attack would be a welcomerelief to the boredom.
“Come in forward torpedo room,” Captain Hans yelled intothe intercom.
“This is Junkus, Capitan Hans,” Otto Junkus replied fromthe forward torpedo compartment.
“Load all four torpedo tubes and prepare them to fire.”“Ja wohl, Herr Capitan,” Junkus replied in an excited voice.As Junkus and his crew mates loaded the four torpedoes into
the forward tubes, he wrote on the last one, “Berlin or Bust.”Junkus was an experienced torpedoman, having served in WorldWar I on U-21. After loading all four torpedoes, he reached upand turned the handles opening the equalizing valves on all tor-pedo tubes.
Over the sub’s intercom everyone aboard could hear the cap-
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tain’s voice, “Range 3500 meters, speed 10 knots. Set the torpe-does for maximum speed. Standby forward torpedo room….”
Captain Hans looked carefully into the periscope at the largeAmerican tanker. “Torpedo One, FIRE!” He waited 15 seconds.“Torpedo Two, FIRE!”
Two Type G7 electrically powered German torpedoes con-taining 1000 pounds of explosives were launched from the for-ward tubes and headed straight toward the unsuspectingAmerican tanker ship.
“Capitan, torpedoes running,” Junkus proudly announcedover the intercom.
Through the periscope, Captain Hans watched as the torpe-does sped straight and true while Lieutenant Richter focused onhis watch, counting off the seconds to impact. Everyone aboardthe U-Geist waited in silence.
Aboard the tanker ship Texas Pride, Captain Pat Corbettlooked carefully out on the blue-green Gulf water from hisship’s bridge. The bearded captain and his crew were enjoyingthe smooth trip across the Gulf in calm seas.
The 55-year-old Corbett joined the merchant marines whenthe war started and had been captain of the 523-foot oil tankerTexas Pride for more than two years. Corbett was a shrimp boatcaptain before the war and wanted to do his part to help the wareffort. He was too old to enlist in the military, but the merchantmarines were happy to accept an experienced sailor to helpdeliver supplies to the U.S. fighting troops around the world.Corbett soon learned that the merchant marines had one of thehighest casualty rates of any service and his job was much moredangerous than he first expected.
Corbett had been lucky so far. During the past year, U-boatcaptains had so much success in sinking American merchantships in the Gulf, and along the Atlantic coast that the Germanscalled it “The Happy Time.”
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The previous week Captain Corbett and his crew of fifty-onehad sailed up the Mississippi River and taken a load of 150,000barrels of high-octane aviation fuel from the giant oil refinery inBaton Rouge. Corbett hugged the coastline as he sailed toCorpus Christi, Texas, to get 10,000 barrels of motor oil.Captain Corbett and his Texas Pride were now headed to thePanama Canal and on to deliver the supplies to a U.S. airbase onthe island of Bora Bora in the South Pacific.
Because of his stop in Corpus Christi, Captain Corbett plot-ted a new and unusual course across the Gulf of Mexico, aroundthe Yucatan and on through the Canal.
Captain Corbett stood on his bridge and searched the seathrough his binoculars. Suddenly he spotted the wakes of thetwo torpedoes heading straight toward his ship.
“Torpedoes off port bow! Torpedoes off port bow!” CaptainCorbett pointed in the direction of the oncoming torpedoes.“Prepare to….”
At that moment, a huge explosion occurred midship, justbelow the waterline and a giant fireball flared more than 400 feetinto the air. The sound was deafening and everyone on boardwas knocked from their feet. Thick black smoke quickly filledthe air.
Over the ship’s loudspeakers, Captain Corbett’s faint voicecould be heard, “Abandon ship, abandon ship, and may Godbless us all.”
Immediately, the men still alive rushed toward the lifeboats.Captain Corbett stayed on the bridge, refusing to give up hisship. He watched the burning inferno, not believing his eyes.
Within seconds, the second German torpedo slammed intothe Texas Pride’s rear storage tank containing the aviation fuel.The second fireball exploded carrying men and metal to morethan 500 feet into the air.
The combination of both torpedoes hitting the engine com-partment and the rear fuel storage compartment caused cata-
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strophic damage to the tanker. The highly volatile aviation fuelignited immediately and the resulting explosions caused thehuge tanker to split into thousands of pieces of red hot metal.
The crew members who were not killed during the explo-sions were thrown into the water amid the burning aviation fuel.The fuel was floating on top of the water, creating an inferno noone could survive. Within five minutes of the two torpedoesstriking the 523-foot Texas Pride, there was no sign of the vesselor survivors anywhere to be seen.
“It’s a direct hit! It must have contained fuel oil. Good work,men,” Captain Hans proudly announced. He watched the attackthrough the periscope, calculating the value of this tanker in hiscontest with other U-boat captains.
Everyone in the U-boat celebrated. Geist didn’t say anotherword, but continued to look into the periscope at the aftermath.
‘NO! Where did that come from?” Captain Hans uttered tohimself. “There is a U.S. patrol boat! I didn’t see it before. Itmust have been on the other side of the large tanker. It has spot-ted us! It’s coming after us! This is not good.”
Hans’ entire career flashed before his eyes. He had beengiven explicit orders not to attack any enemy ships. Now his per-sonal pride may have jeopardized the entire success of the mis-sion.
“Dive! Dive! Dive! An American patrol boat is coming righttoward us,” Captain Hans ordered into the intercom. “Right fullrudder.”
Aaooga, Aaooga, Aaooga. The alarm rang throughout the U-Geist. The entire crew ran
the length of the U-boat to the forward compartment, hoping toadd more weight, causing it to dive even quicker.
The approaching U.S. patrol boat was the PT 8, the fastestboat in the U.S. Navy, with a top speed of over 55 miles per
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hour. It was an experimental model with a unique design thathad been specially built as an all-aluminum prototype by theNavy’s Philadelphia Shipyard. Because of the shortage of alu-minum during the war, all other PT boats were constructed ofmahogany and plywood.
Until recently the PT 8 had been used primarily for trainingat the U.S. Navy’s PT boat training center at Melville, RhodeIsland. Several months before, this one-of-a-kind boat had beensent down to New Orleans to escort merchant ships through theGulf. It was of little use for training since its design and engineswere different from production model PT boats.
One week ago, the New Orleans port commander had giventhe PT 8 its first Gulf assignment, escorting the Texas Pride toCorpus Christi and on to the Panama Canal. The PT boat’syoung, inexperienced, 21 year-old skipper was Lieutenant JacobMartin. He nor his crew of 14 men had ever been in combat.This was Martin’s first assignment, having just graduated fromthe PT training school at Melville. He ferried the PT 8 down toNew Orleans, along the way practicing many of the maneuversthe instructors had taught him.
Lieutenant Martin watched helplessly as the Texas Prideexploded in a fireball and disappeared before his eyes. At themoment of the first explosion he realized he had failed in hisduty of protecting the Texas Pride, but he was now determinedto get revenge on whoever had sunk the tanker. He immediatelybegan searching the area through his binoculars for any sign ofa German U-boat.
“I see a U-boat diving 2000 yards off port bow,” CaptainMartin screamed, pointing to the submerging U-Geist on theopposite side of the fire. “Engine room, I need full power on allthree engines. Man your battle stations men. Let’s go get ‘em.”
Fourteen men nervously scrambled to put on their helmetsand life jackets and ran to their assigned attack positionsonboard the speeding PT 8. Martin quickly guided the PT 8
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around the burning fuel on the water.“Get all the depth charges ready. Set them for 100 feet
depth,” Captain Martin ordered. He knew the U-boat wouldhave little time to dive any deeper before he reached its position.
“Depth charges ready, Skipper,” Gunner’s Mate Sam Westyelled from the rear of the ultra-fast patrol boat.
“I see it. It’s diving quickly, Skipper,” shouted Ray Tyler,who was manning the forward gun. He spotted the diving suband began firing his 40mm cannon.
“Get ready to release the depth charges when I tell youSam,” Lieutenant Martin shouted over the loud engines and gun-fire. “We can’t let those cowards get away.”
West was holding on for dear life on the stern of the boat. Itwas his job to adjust the handle on the end of the depth chargesthat caused them to explode at the desired water depth. When thecharges reached the set water depth, a hydrostatic firing mecha-nism would detonate the explosives under the water, hopefullynext to the hull of the U-boat.
“Release the depth charges, NOW!!” Lieutenant Martinordered West, as the PT 8 passed over the bubbling water wherethe U-Geist submerged.
West pulled the release lever on the depth charge rack andone by one, four 28 inch long by 18 inch diameter barrels filledwith 300 pounds of TNT rolled off the rack on the stern of theboat and into the water.
“They’re away skipper. Get us out of here!” West yelled.Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!As each depth charge reached 100 feet below the surface it
exploded violently, sending a huge surge of water high into theair. Four times a huge underwater explosion caused a plume ofwater to rise more than 200 feet into the air.
It was a guessing game by Lieutenant Martin of the correctunderwater location and depth of the enemy sub. He trained formonths at Melville, graduating close to the top of his class, but
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this was his first live action. “I’m not finished with them yet. We’ll come back around
and hit ‘em again,” Lieutenant Martin yelled. “Sam, set the nextround of depth charges for 150 feet.”
“Aye, Aye, skipper.” Lieutenant Martin turned the agile PT 8 and made another
run toward the submerged U-boat. He knew now that only alucky hit by the depth charges would do any damage.
“Fire all of them, NOW!” Lieutenant Martin ordered, as thePT 8 sped by one more time. Four more depth charges rolled offthe rack and exploded behind the patrol boat. Once again fourlarge plumes of water roared skyward.
“I think we got them,” Sam said, who had crawled back tothe bridge to keep from falling off the bouncing, rear deck.“Look at that huge oil slick on the water, Skipper.”
“I don’t think so. It’s probably a decoy. They may havereleased some bilge oil to fool us. I’m not going to wait aroundand see. We need to search for any survivors,” Lieutenant Martinsaid, turning the PT 8 toward the burning, black smoke thatdarkened the sky.
Under the water, the U-Geist had tried to crash dive to a safedepth. Suddenly, the first depth charge exploded near its bow.Within seconds three more charges detonated perilously closemidship, causing the lights on board to flash and leaks to start inthe control room. The entire crew in the U-boat was holding onto anything in sight, being uncontrollably jolted with everyexplosion.
“Dive to 150 meters, right full rudder. Heading one, three,zero degrees,” Captain Hans ordered.
Abruptly the depth charges stopped. Everything was quiet.“I think they have left. Give me a damage report,” Captain
Hans whispered into the intercom.“Everything in the forward torpedo room is alright,” Junkus
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reported.“No damage here in the engine room, capitan,” replied the
chief mechanic in the rear engine compartment.“We have a few leaks, sir, but nothing major,” Lieutenant
Richter said, looking around in the control room.Suddenly a second round of depth charges began to explode
near the center of the U-Geist. “They’re making another pass, everyone prepare,” Captain
Hans ordered, holding on tightly to the periscope tube. Everyonein the control room looked upward as if to watch the depthcharges falling on their heads.
The second, then a third depth charge exploded dangerouslyclose to the U-Geist’s midsection. The entire crew in the controlroom was knocked forcefully to the wet steel floor. The lastdepth charge exploded only 10 feet away from the hull creatinga crack on the U-boat’s outer skin, directly outside the controlroom’s center bulkhead. Sparks flew from electrical equipmentas water leaked onto the wiring in the battery compartment.Lights popped, metal creaked and injured men moaned through-out the U-Geist.
Captain Hans got up slowly, now standing in water up to hisknees. He could see Lieutenant Richter floating face down,blood flowing from a severe cut on his head. His blood coloredthe water around him.
Captain Hans could see the crack in the gray steel bulkheadof the control room getting bigger with every second thatpassed. With the severity of damage in this critical location, heknew there was little hope for the U-boat’s survival.
Captain Hans watched as water began to seep slowly into thecontrol room from the crack in the hull. The water began to flowsteadily, until finally, water began to gush in. He reluctantlypicked up the U-Geist’s intercom. “This is your captain speak-ing. Keep trying to stop all the leaks. Tighten all the hatches anddoors. Do what you can.” He hesitated, then said, “It has been
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the greatest privilege to have been your captain. ” Captain Hans Geist took off his cap and gazed lovingly at
the picture inside. “Forgive me, Anna.”All lights aboard the sub went dark and there was silence.
The catastrophic crack continued to widen until the U-Geist splitinto two separate pieces. The two halves of the damaged U-boatrapidly filled with the warm Gulf water and floated gently to thebottom of the sea. There was no time for escape.
“What’s our position?” Captain Martin asked. “We need toget a reading.”
“That’s not possible sir,” Radioman Howard Patrick replied.“The sexton was damaged during the attack.”
“Well, radio command center of the sinking of the TexasPride and warn them of a U-boat patrolling in this area.”
“Aye, Aye, Sir,” Buxton replied, sliding down the hatch tothe radio room below.
Despite all the efforts of the PT 8, they were not able tolocate a single person from within the fire that blazed for hourson the water’s surface. The entire crew of the Texas Pride waslost.
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Chapter 3
Present DayHouston, Texas
The sky above Houston, Texas was a deep blue, not a cloudin the sky. I looked down from 3,000 feet, seeing a large silverdome about ten miles to the north. I keyed the red microphonebutton on my cyclic, “Hobby Houston, this is six, zero, niner,echo hotel. Request permission to land at the Reliant Centerwest landing area. Come back.”
“This is Hobby. You are cleared to land, Six, zero, niner,echo hotel,” the controller replied in a deep Texas drawl.
I slowly dropped the nose of the helicopter and lowered thecollective. My old army surplus Huey helicopter rattled loudly.“Houston, this is six, zero, niner, on final to land.”
“Six, zero, niner, we have you on radar,” the controllerreplied. “Welcome to Houston.”
I circled my Vietnam-era helicopter, affectionally named Mr.Huey, around the large Houston Reliant Center parking lot,slowly lowered the collective and landed gracefully on the tem-porary heliport in the west parking lot across Kirby Street fromthe new Houston Texans’ football stadium. I turned Mr. Hueytoward Kirby, hovered over and set down next to several execu-tive helicopters parked on the side of the landing area.
I thought I would arrive late, but because of a little tailwind,
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I had made exceptional time. I reached over to the empty co-pilot’s seat and grabbed my new baseball cap embroidered witha red, white and blue EnergyHunter logo. I exited from thepilot’s door, swept back my thinning hair and put the cap on myhead.
I noticed a corporate helicopter pilot standing near a brightlycolored red and white Sikorsky 76 helicopter as I tried to get Mr.Huey’s pilot-side door to stay shut. I stretched a bunji cordaround the handle to keep the door closed.
The neatly dressed pilot commented, “Excuse me sir, areyou sure that thing will start again when you are ready to leave?”
I looked at him and grumbled. “Yes sir, this fine helicopterhas been through several wars, if it wasn’t any good it wouldn’tbe here now.”
“Mind if I take a look inside?” “Sure, go ahead.”“I haven’t touched one of these old Huey’s since 1969 in
Vietnam,” he said. “Good luck flying it.” “I have a meeting to attend inside, see you in a couple of
hours,” I replied, starting my walk over to the new ReliantConvention Center.
It was Monday, the first day of the annual OffshoreTechnology Conference and I noticed even at this early time ofthe day the parking lot was almost full. I walked to the conven-tion center slowly so I could collect my thoughts after my noisyflight.
I glanced up at the large banner hanging on the front of thehuge convention center building: Welcome to the OffshoreTechnology Conference and Trade Show…Deep into the Future.This year’s event was focusing on new technologies used tosearch for gas and oil in the deep ocean waters around the world.
I had been to OTC many times before, and I knew inside thehuge convention center would be aisle after aisle of displayscontaining the latest advances from oil service and supply com-
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panies like Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Weatherford. I knewthat the larger companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollarson huge trade show extravaganzas trying to attract the attentionof worldwide buyers walking the long aisles. I thought: Thisyear, my humble appearance and special announcement wouldshock even the huge billion dollar companies.
As I walked across the parking lot I noticed oil industryexecutives, engineers, and service and equipment buyers all hur-rying inside. Because of the upsurge of interest in deepwaterdrilling and exploration, this year’s Offshore TechnologyConference was expected to be one of the biggest ever.
I arrived at the front of the convention center with a clearmind and started walking toward the row of glass doors leadinginto the lobby.
“Hello there. My name is William Benjamin Kensington,”said a chubby young man dressed in a tie-dyed t-shirt, shorts andsandals. He appeared to be about twenty-one years old and waswearing a red FSU cap.
“Help save the deep blue sea,” he said before handing me aflyer.
I glanced down at it, but had more important things on mymind. I noticed several other sloppily dressed young people onthe sidewalk who were also passing out the same flyer. Itappeared they were futilely attempting to hold an anti-offshoreoil drilling protest.
“What are you young people representing?” I asked, whilecontinuing my walk toward the building.
“We are here from Florida trying to stop the offshore oilindustry from harming the environment,” the protester repliedwhile continuing to hand out flyers to everyone.
“I personally think the oil industry and the environment cancoexist without any problems,” I responded. “I think if you lookat all the facts, you would realize this.”
A young skinny girl wearing a red halter-top walked up and
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stuck her sign in my face. “STOP OFFSHORE OILDRILLING,” she shouted.
I realized these misguided young people were trying toaggravate everyone entering the oil show. I was determined tobe nice to them. Most of the other show attendees simply pushedthe flyer away.
“Young lady, how are you doing this morning?” I asked in apleasant voice while gently pushing her sign to the side.
“Stop offshore drilling, stop offshore drilling,” she contin-ued to shout. She was determined to make a fool of herself andwas doing a good job at it.
“Miss.” “My name is Sally!”“I really think there are better ways to get your point across
than shouting out here on the steps of this show. You are nevergoing to convince any of these people to stop drilling offshore.It’s their livelihood,” I said calmly. “And I can assure you noneof them agree with you.
“That’s for sure. We are leaving here shortly to drive downto Galveston. We heard about this new oil drilling rig that plansto drill in the Gulf. We plan to get a boat and try to stop it,” shesaid, while putting her hand on her hip and making a face at me.
“Is that right?” I said with a grin. “Well be careful out therein the Gulf. You never know what might happen.”
“America doesn’t need to drill for oil offshore. We just needto conserve better and use alternative energy,” she continued toshout.
“You’re correct, we need to conserve fuel,” I agreed, turningto the boy in the red cap.
“I’m glad you agree with us on that point,” the chubby pro-tester replied.
“By the way, how did you people travel here from Florida?”I asked.
“We drove over in my father’s 32-foot motor home,”
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William Benjamin Kensington replied. I reached into my back pocket, pulled three $20 bills out of
my wallet and handed them to him. “Well, here’s $60.00. Fill upyour motor home with gas on me. See you later.”
I don’t know if he got it or not. As I walked into the packed convention center lobby, I
glanced at the signs hanging from the ceiling and located theclosest registration desk. I walked through the crowd andapproached a lady sitting at the desk labeled: Speakers.
“Hello ma’am, my name is Hooper.” “Yes Mr. Hooper, they’re waiting on you upstairs. Here’s
your badge. Use that escalator and follow the signs to the mainauditorium on the second level,” she said, handing me my namebadge. “Good luck Mr. Hooper”.
I nervously grinned and said, “Thank you.”I rode the escalator upstairs and entered the large auditorium
through a side door. Inside all I could see was a mass of people.All the seats were occupied and there were people standing inthe aisles. More than 1,000 people, including news reporters, oilindustry executives, engineers and scientists, were anxiouslywaiting to hear one man speak…and that man was me.
I made my way over to the stage where I noticed a singlesign on the podium that read, Roger Blaze Hooper, OffshoreEnergyHunter.
I knew I must be in the right place or was I?
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Chapter 4
Good morning Kevin,” I said, walking onto the raised stageat the front of the auditorium.
“Good morning Mr. Hooper, you are right on time,” heacknowledged with a relieved smile.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, could you give this DVD toyour audio-visual guy and tell him to cue it up on the overheadvideo projector during my presentation? I’ll signal him when tobegin playing it.”
“No problem, I’ll take care of it.” Kevin Macky, OTC’s media director, had been waiting for
me to arrive so he could begin this much anticipated and publi-cized news conference. I had spoken with him several monthsago about scheduling the news conference and he had graciouslytaken care of adding it to the show’s schedule.
As I stood at the corner of the stage and looked across thepacked auditorium, I noticed everyone was dressed in suits andties, so I felt a little uncomfortable in my usual outfit of bluejeans, polo shirt, baseball cap and tennis shoes.
I was thinking, why do I always have to march to the beat ofa different drummer? There are billions of dollars at stake hereand I am wearing tennis shoes and blue jeans. I decided I’d bet-
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ter take off my cap, so I took it off and put it on a table next tothe stage.
I was promptly brought back into the moment as my eyesfocused on the crossed legs of a very attractive lady sitting onthe front row of the auditorium. She appeared to be in her thir-ties, with curly black hair, large brown eyes and long shapelylegs.
I particularly noticed her black dress. It reminded me of thedress I bought for my wife, Jenni, at Neiman Marcus in Dallason our fifteenth wedding anniversary.
Jenni died of cancer two years, three months and eight daysago. Since her death, I had devoted every waking moment onaccomplishing the impossible, the very thing I was here to talkabout.
Kevin looked down at his watch, walked up to the podiumand began, “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attentionplease.” He paused a minute as the audience quieted. “I wouldlike to thank all of you for coming this morning. As you knowthe Offshore Technology Conference is the world’s foremostconference and tradeshow for showcasing the latest drilling,exploration, production and environmental protection equip-ment and services. I am proud to say this year we expect morethan 50,000 oil men and women from around the world to behere in Houston to see the very latest in gas and oil technology.”
Kevin looked to the rear of the room as more people weretrying to enter.
He continued, “During the 33-year history of OTC we haveannounced many revolutionary new oil industry technologies,such as COGNAC in 1982, at the time the world’s deepest andheaviest bottom-founded steel drilling and production platform.In the late 80’s, we announced Placid’s floating production sys-tem for deepwater, including the completion of a well in 2,300feet of water, and more recently Shell introduced the MensaSubsea Development System located in 5,300 feet of water,
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which shattered two major offshore world records and employed25 technological firsts.”
I was standing on the edge of the stage nervously looking outinto the audience. I was thinking, What have I gotten myself intothis time? All these people are here to to listen to me speak. Willthey all think I’m crazy?
Kevin added, “Even with all those milestones, this isundoubtedly the largest media event we have ever held. I knowall of you are anxious to hear Mr. Hooper explain in more detailthe limited information that has leaked to the press over the pastfew months.”
I glanced down at the pretty lady reporter on the front row.She was furiously taking notes, but glanced up at me. I gave hera very nervous and shy smile. She didn’t smile, but lookeddown and began writing again. I thought: That’s the story of mylife.
Kevin continued, “Some of you may be familiar with Mr.Hooper through his Go Gulf Magazine, but for those who don’tknow him, here is a brief review of his background. Mr. Hooperbegan his career in the oil industry more than 20 years ago, aftergraduating from college with a psychology degree. His first jobin the industry was as an offshore welder’s helper. Withinmonths he got on with a major production company, and subse-quently worked in many areas of the offshore oil industry in theGulf of Mexico. During the past thirteen years he has owned asmall company that produces offshore oilfield equipment, andfour years ago began publishing Go Gulf Magazine. Mr. Hooperis a hands-on guy, with an unusual ability not only to conceptu-ally solve problems, but also the ability to create the solutionswith his own hands. His latest, and by far his greatest, endeavoris what he is here today to introduce to the world…Ladies andgentlemen, I present to you roustabout turned journalist turnedOffshore EnergyHunter, Roger Blaze Hooper,”
The applause was short and somewhat less than what I was
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expecting. I was thinking, This is not looking good. I walked up to the podium, looked out into the audience, and
took a deep breath.“Good morning everyone. Thank you for coming. Up to now
I have been very reluctant to divulge any information about thisproject because I didn’t want any of you to Johnny Rush myplans. Now that I have completed the construction and am onlyfive days from being on location in the Gulf of Mexico, I canfinally tell the world what I am attempting. And after my pres-entation today I hope you will not think I have fallen out of thederrick on my head one too many times.”
I heard laughter from the audience and thought maybe Ishould relax and speak to the audience in my usual simple man-ner, rather than trying to impress them with technical engineer-ing jargon.
I looked down at the podium and took another quick breath.I nodded to the audio-visual guy to begin the video. “Ladies andgentlemen, I present to you the Offshore EnergyHunter.”
Immediately the lights in the auditorium dimmed as the largevideo screen mounted on the wall behind the podium projecteda red, white and blue semi-submersible rig moving majesticallyacross the water. Music from 2001: A Space Odyssey began toplay loudly as a 3-D Offshore EnergyHunter logo rotated in themiddle of the screen.
I turned sideways to watch the video and leaned closer to themicrophone. “I present to you the Offshore EnergyHunter, theworld’s first FPDSO, that’s the world’s first Floating,Production, Drilling, Storage and Off-loading vessel. The com-bination drilling rig and production semi-submersible you seehere will allow for drilling and production to occur anywhere inthe world.”
“The Offshore EnergyHunter is 350 feet in length, 300 feetin width, and 150 feet high and was constructed using a surplussemi-submersible drilling rig I obtained and retrofitted with the
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latest, drilling and production equipment available. Most of the
equipment has never been used in the field and my EnergyHunter will
serve as an initial testbed. The vessel is equipped with the latestdynamic positioning equipment and the unique vessel will notbe required to connect to any underwater pipeline. Shuttletankers will be used to transport oil and specially constructedtankers with onboard compressors and storage tanks will be usedto transport gas back to land. The semisubmersible’s six pon-toons will serve as oil storage tanks controlled by a computer-ized ballast system. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a pipedream. This video was taken yesterday as the OffshoreEnergyHunter entered the Gulf of Mexico from the Galvestonshipyard where final outfitting has just been completed.”
I took a quick sip of water from the glass on the podium. “During the past few months, I am proud to say, we passed
all inspections and certifications by the American Bureau ofShipping, Lloyds of London, the United States Coast Guard andthe Minerals Management Service. On Friday of this week wewill be rigging up on location to drill our first well in the Gulfof Mexico.”
I was hoping the experts in the audience would be impressedwith what they were seeing and hearing, but I knew this was atough crowd. The oil industry is the most volatile industry onearth with fortunes made and lost as the price of oil fluctuates atthe drop of a hat. In the past few years, there had been mergerafter merger of oil companies, drilling companies and all therelated service and supply companies to try to ease the oil priceswings on the stock values in the industry.
It really didn’t matter to me what they thought. I was com-mitted to this project and it was way too late to turn back now.
“Now many of you may ask how can I use this FPDSO in theGulf of Mexico when the U.S. Minerals Management Servicehas only recently approved the use of FPSO’s in U.S. waters?After all it takes at least a year for the approval process to be
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completed. Well, that’s a good question,” I replied, reachingdown to get another sip of water.
I turned around toward the video screen. The video was nowshowing a map of the Gulf of Mexico, with a big red arrowpointing to an area about 275 miles southeast of Galveston,Texas. The name on the map read: POZO GRANDE.
“If you remember several years ago there was this so-calledno-man’s land in the Gulf of Mexico called the Western Gap. Itwas an area of more than 5,000 square miles located outsideboth U.S. and Mexico’s 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone. In2000, the U.S. signed a treaty with Mexico dividing the WesternGap between the two countries, allowing each country to devel-op the resources on their side.”
I took a laser pointer out of my hip pocket and pointed to thearea on the map. “I have named my prospect here, POZOGRANDE. It lies in a never before discovered deepwatercanyon about 50 miles south of the Sigsby Escarpment. MyPOZO GRANDE prospect is a previously unexplored area of theGulf, located approximately 250 miles due south of theLouisiana coast and about 275 miles southeast ofGalveston....and it’s in Mexican waters. That’s right, my POZOGRANDE prospect is in Mexican waters.”
I turned and looked at the audience to judge their reaction. Itwas apparent that many were now becoming more interested inwhat I was saying.
“I am also announcing today I have discovered a super-giantoil field at this location, which, if we are successful in drillingand producing, I project will have the largest reserves ever dis-covered in North America at more than 20 Billion BOE.”
Twenty billion barrels of oil equivalent of undergroundreserves would be one of the largest oil reserves on Earth. Ipaused to let everything sink in.
“Because this area has been a no-man’s land for many years,no one has ever done any seismic surveys. I found out about this
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deepwater canyon while doing a story for my Go Gulf Magazineon the Alvin submarine which had been exploring nearby. Ilearned that the area showed the same geological characteristicsas the Crazy Horse, err...Thunder Horse prospect near the mouthof the Mississippi River. As you know, the Thunder Horse proj-ect currently has the largest reserves ever discovered in the Gulfat only 1 Billion BOE.”
Now I was getting their attention.“When I realized the potential of the site, I approached a new
upstart 4-D seismic company, and they agreed to do the surveyfor a percentage of the action.”
I knew I was giving a lot of information to the audience, butall of this was vital to my presentation. These were the leadingexperts in the oil industry, so even though they may not think Iwould be successful, I knew at least they would understand myconcept.
I continued, “The country of Mexico is a net exporter of oilbut an importer of natural gas. With the assistance of thePresident and Vice President of the United States, I approachedMexico’s President and oil minister with my proposal. My com-pany would design, build and finance the entire project to devel-op the POZO GRANDE field in exchange for all the crude oilwe could recover; and in return, Pemex would get a royal-in-kind payment of all the natural gas we can recover. Mexico’sstate owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos...Pemex, surpris-ingly agreed to allow us to develop the field.”
I looked directly into the audience and added, “Quite franklyI think Mexico’s officials agreed only because they didn’t thinkI could pull it off. But during the past two years, on a very lim-ited budget I might add, I have worked tirelessly designing andbuilding the Offshore EnergyHunter. I required everyone whoworked on the project to sign a confidentiality agreement. Forthe most part none of you in the audience knew exactly what Iwas building or the discovery of the super-giant oil field in the
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Gulf.”I looked out into the audience, cleared my throat and said
sarcastically, “There is only one little problem with the POZOGRANDE field...it’s in 15,000 feet of water.”
I heard commotion and laughter from the audience. Ithought: They must really think I am crazy now. The currentworld water depth drilling record is less than 10,000 feet, and Iwas attempting to drill a well in 15,000 feet of water! It lookedlike people in the audience were on the verge of laughing meright out the door.
The video ended as a helicopter-mounted camera made a360-degree aerial shot of the Offshore EnergyHunter, with mestanding on the heliport.
The lights came back on in the room resulting in scatteredapplause, but most of the people in the audience were sittingspeechless in their seats. Nothing of this magnitude had everbeen attempted. I had a feeling that most of the experts in theroom thought my plans were absurd and I would fail miserably.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, you may think that I am crazy. Youmay think I have worked a little too long without a hardhat, butthis is my plan. And I am sticking to it.”
I reached down and took another sip of water, casuallyglancing over the top of the glass at the lady reporter on the frontrow. I placed the glass back on the podium and nervously lookedback up at the audience.
“I hope you now have a better understanding of my grandplan. I even hope a few of you can see the impossible dream ofmaking the United States totally oil independent for many yearscould be possible with the Offshore EnergyHunter and the 20billion barrel POZO GRANDE prospect. I am sure there will bemany unexpected problems that will occur during drilling andinitial production. No one has ever attempted to drill at this greatwater depth. Let me finish by saying that my small group ofinvestors and I won’t be satisfied until we have spudded the very
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last well possible in the reservoir. I will not give up!” I pushed my glasses back up on my nose, “I have bet my
humble reputation on drilling and producing gas and oil from thePOZO GRANDE prospect in 15,000 feet of water.” I paused forabout 15 seconds as I looked into the audience. “I don’t intendto come up with a dry hole…Thanks for listening to me today.”
I stepped back from the podium and crossed my arms. Iheard only sporadic applause, but no one left the room. Most ofthe audience just sat there, stunned.
I slowly stepped back up to the microphone, “I will nowanswer a few questions. I am leaving here to fly directly out tothe EnergyHunter. We plan to be on location and rigging up todrill the first appraisal well at the end of the week.”
I saw a reporter on the second row who looked very anxiousto ask a question, so I pointed toward him. “Yes sir, may I haveyour question?”
The reporter stood up, “Mr. Hooper, what I have seen heretoday is an amazing idea, but how in heaven’s name do youexpect to drill in 15,000 feet of water? That’s 5,000 feet morethan the current water depth record. That cannot be done.”
I grinned. “Well, sir. Everyone is entitled to their own incor-rect opinion.”
A few people in the audience appreciated my dry humor andlaughed, but most were staring at me with a confused look.
“I will be successful. I have utilized the services of some ofthe most creative minds in the industry and we will be using themost advanced equipment available. Most of which have neverbeen used before.”
“What type of equipment?” the reporter inquired.“We have formed strategic alliances with many companies
to use their latest technologies, such as composite risers, dualgradient drilling techniques, and a new casing drilling technolo-gy that uses conventional casing to drill instead of drill pipe.”
A man in a wrinkled brown suit stood up on the front row,
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and asked in a distinctive British accent, “Sir, exactly what geo-logical surveys have you done and what do they indicate? Howdo you plan to get the natural gas back to land since no pipelinecan be constructed in that depth of water?”
“As part of our deal with Pemex, we plan to recover the largeamount of natural gas our 4D/4C surveys have shown to bethere. Pemex’s geologists have worked with us and agree withour findings and the potential of the reserves. This could turn outto be one of the largest discoveries ever made, anywhere onEarth. And for the second part of your question, we have devel-oped the equipment to compress the natural gas and offload it tospecial shuttle ships that have high-pressure storage tanks. Sixlarge turbine compressors are installed on the EnergyHunter. Wehave contracted with several shuttle tankers and barge compa-nies that can handle our oil production and they will bring itback to the coast of Louisiana and Texas. Pemex’s natural gasshuttle tankers will take the compressed natural gas to a process-ing facility near the Bay of Campeche.”
I saw a young engineer standing in the outside aisle with hishand partly raised. I pointed to him.
“Mr. Hooper, how did you put all the production equipmenton your decks? There isn’t enough room, is there?
“I knew some of you experts would catch that. While we dohave some production equipment on the lower decks, we alsoplan to utilize a newly developed subsea separation and injectionsystem. This modular system uses cyclonic technology to sepa-rate water from oil and gas on the sea floor. The water is rein-jected and is never brought to the surface. This subsea equip-ment will allow us to minimize the separation equipment neededonboard. When completely operational, we will be capable ofprocessing up to 500,000 barrels of oil per day.”
I looked down at my watch and casually glanced at the ladyreporter on the front row who was crossing her legs.
“I have time for one more question. Yes ma’am, here on the
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front row. Do you have a question?”I noticed she had been sitting quietly taking notes during the
entire news conference, but seemed to have a puzzled look onher face. I could see her nametag read, Beverly SusanWhitehead, Texas Nurses Magazine.
She nervously asked, “Are there any ladies working on yourEnergyHunter?”
Everyone in the room, which was mostly filled with men,burst into laughter.
I didn’t laugh. This lady was too good looking to laugh ather question.
“Thank you for your question. Matter of fact, ladies haveplayed an important part of the design and construction of theOffshore EnergyHunter. My lead design engineer is Mrs. JerriBabbet, of Pentagon Engineering here in Houston. Thanks forasking that important question.”
She smiled and resumed writing on her notepad.“I would like to end by saying I appreciate all of you coming
today. If any of you would like a complete description of theEnergyHunter, pick up the latest edition of Go Gulf Magazine.You can find it in the show’s lobby at the publication table. I amalso inviting you to attend the LAGCOE oil show in Lafayettein October. I have already scheduled a news conference there tospeak about our successes. I hope to see you there.”
I looked out into the audience one last time while I adjustedmy glasses.
The news conference turned out to be tougher than I expect-ed. Boy was I relieved to finally have finished, but I don’t thinkI convinced anyone that I would be able to pull this off.
I knew I was attempting what most people in the energyindustry thought was beyond the limits of technology, but some-how I had managed to get this far and I wasn’t about to throw inthe towel now. I had designed and built the EnergyHunter on avery limited budget. I had invested my last dollar in the project
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and if I wasn’t successful, I would be paying for it the rest of mylife. Now all I had to do was go out and prove to everyone in theindustry the impossible could be done.
Kevin approached from the left of the stage and announcedinto the microphone, “Mr. Hooper has really amazed us thistime, hasn’t he? Thank you for coming.”
Slowly everyone got up, still bewildered over my presenta-tion. I could hear people muttering to each other, it would beimpossible to drill in 15,000 feet of water and the oil wouldnever reach the surface and I had lost my mind.
I didn’t want to defend my brainchild any further, so I turnedto look for a rear exit to make a fast escape.
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Chapter 5
As I walked out an exit door at the rear of the auditoriumstage, I reached back to the table next to the stage to pick up mycap. At the same time I couldn’t help taking one last glance atthe pretty reporter in the black dress. I noticed she was now sit-ting alone on the front row still writing notes. I turned backaround and reluctantly walked over to her.
“Hello, my name is Hooper. I hope I didn’t embarrass youearlier.”
“Oh, no you didn’t,” she replied graciously, standing up toshake my hand. “Hello, my name is Beverly Susan Whitehead.”
She was tall, about five foot ten and had a slender build. Manthis is some good looking lady!
“You know, sometimes it is a relief to have someone ask anon-technical question,” I said, trying to make small talk. “Mrs.Whitehead, how long have you been covering the oil industry?”
“It’s Miss Whitehead, and please call me Beverly. I am areporter for Texas Nurses Magazine. This is my first assignmentcovering this sort of thing,” she said.
I unconsciously continued to shake her hand. “Most of our stories are about nurses’ activities and interests
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in Texas, not your typical oilfield stuff you know,” she added.For some reason this lady intrigued me and I just couldn’t
keep my eyes off her. For the first time since Jenni had died, Ifound interest in having a personal conversation with a memberof the opposite sex.
“My editor thought it may be a good idea to write a storyabout opportunities of women nurses in oil industry for our mag-azine, Mr. Hooper. We thought nurses could be a valuable asseton offshore rigs.”
“Please call me Blaze, and it is a pleasure to meet you. Itlooks like your editor has made a good choice to do this story.”
I immediately thought, Now that didn’t make any sense.Even though I had never been very successful with women, Iwas somehow hoping to learn more about this very attractivelady in the black dress.
“From your question earlier, I would assume you don’t knowmuch about the oil industry?”
“No, I’ve never even seen an offshore rig or even flown in ahelicopter, but I learn very quickly and love challenges.”
It looked like I was on a good track, so I had to think quicklyto come up with a way to continue the conversation. I could notlet this opportunity get away.
“I have an idea, Miss Whitehead. Why don’t you come off-shore to the EnergyHunter and do a story? It would make a greatarticle for your magazine. We have several ladies on our drillingand production crews coming out later in the week. Maybe youcould talk with them for your story.”
“Mr. Hooper, that sounds interesting. I would love to do it.When would you like to do this story?”
“Well, I am leaving right now to fly out. Mr. Huey is in theparking lot. Why don’t you come now? This would be an idealtime to give you a tour of the EnergyHunter because the drillingand production crews are not flying out until we get on loca-tion.”
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“I don’t know if my editor will agree with the idea. I reallydon’t know much about what I would be looking at, but I doknow oil comes from the ground,” she said with a smile.
“Well, I can see I will need to spend a lot of time with youexplaining exactly how it all works. This will be a great oppor-tunity for you to learn about the offshore oil business.”
I was getting a very positive vibe from Miss Whitehead, andshe seemed to be responsive to my suggestions about the storyidea. I noticed several other people walking toward us, so I puton my cap and turned toward the rear exit door, as if I was readyto leave.
“Mr. Hooper, let me call my office and talk to my boss aboutthis. I would love to go. Like I said, I love challenges. Can yougive me about 15 minutes to contact Mr. Delaune in Dallas?”
“That’s fine. I need to stop by my Go Gulf Magazine boothout on the floor. I will wait for you there. It’s booth 519. Youcan’t miss it. It has half of a helicopter in it.”
“See you in 15 minutes,” she said as she hurried off towardthe hallway outside.
Maybe it was worth coming to this news conference after all.If nothing else, maybe I would have something exciting to dowhile the EnergyHunter made its slow voyage to the POZOGRANDE prospect.
I left the auditorium through the back stage door and walkeddown a rear stairway to the first floor lobby. I hurried throughthe lobby and out to the show floor. I looked up at the bannersabove the aisles, trying to locate booth 519.
I made my way through the crowded aisles to the Go Gulfbooth. As usual, the GoGulf 1 helicopter simulator was drawinga large crowd of onlookers.
Brad French, my simulator flight team captain, was standingnext to the helicopter instructing an engineer on the finer pointsof the controls when I walked up.
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“Hello Brad, how is everything going with the booth?”“Great, Mr. Hooper. David and I had a safe trip over from
Baton Rouge on Saturday and the booth set-up went well. Joangave us a good booth location this year.”
“Brad, you have done a good job keeping everything run-ning during the past year while I was in Texas building theEnergyHunter. I appreciate your hard work because the maga-zine has helped tremendously with making deals for theEnergyHunter. I was able to trade many ads for credit on equip-ment and supplies.”
“I hope it pays off.” “Well, we may all be looking for a new job if anything hap-
pens that we didn’t plan for.”“Mr. Hooper, I have been around you long enough to know
you will be successful, no matter what happens.”“Thanks for your confidence, Brad. From the response of the
news conference, I think everyone in this building thinks I havebrain damage.”
Another group of people crowded around to watch as theengineer got into the helicopter.
“Brad, has anyone landed the simulator yet?” I asked, walk-ing up to the front of the helicopter.
“No, not yet. But you know some of the exhibitors will trytwo or three times during the week and finally get it.”
“What’s the objective of this simulator?” the engineer asked,grabbing the helicopter’s controls.
“Don’t crash, that’s all,” I replied with a grin.“I have flown in helicopters for years as a passenger going
offshore, I think I can do this,” the engineer responded in a con-fident voice.
“Okay, then. But it’s much harder than it looks,” Brad said,showing the engineer how to operate the controls. “The lever onthe right is the collective and controls lift, the joystick or cyclicin front here controls the direction of the nose of the helicopter.
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Do you have all that?”“Sure,” the engineer said, now with a concerned look on his
once-confident face. “Watch the screen in front and try to land the helicopter on
any one of those offshore rigs you see.”“Hey, this is pretty neat,” he said, pulling up the collective
with his left hand and lifting off.Miss Whitehead approached the booth through the crowd
and tapped me on the shoulder as I was adjusting the sound onthe amplifier under the simulator’s nose section. Everyone couldnow hear the distinctive ‘whap, whap, whap’ sound of the heli-copter.
“Mr. Hooper, I called my Dallas office and talked to myboss, Mr. Delaune, about your EnergyHunter thing and yourplans to drill in 150 feet of water offshore. It all sounded veryintriguing to him,” she said in a very excited voice
“Miss Whitehead, I am glad you are showing so much enthu-siasm about the oil business, we need more ladies in the oilfieldlike you. But it’s 15,000 feet of water... excuse me for interrupt-ing, please continue.”
“He gave his approval for the story, but he is most concernedabout my safety.”
“Let me assure you that I am very concerned about yoursafety, as well as the safety of everyone who works for me.Safety is always my number one priority.”
“And I do not know anything about the oil industry,” shereminded me.
“That’s OK, I’ll teach you everything I know about the off-shore gas and oil industry,” I said with a grin. “Do you think youcan handle the flight offshore and stay offshore for a few days?”
“Yes, yes.” “Then let’s go. I think everything is under control here in the
booth.” I saw the engineer lose control and crash the helicopter on
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the screen. I looked at him and commented, “That’s not good.” The engineer got out of the simulator, shook his head and
didn’t say a word after realizing it was much harder than itlooked.
Miss Whitehead and I walked down the long aisle and outinto the lobby, arriving at the front convention center entrance,where several shuttle vans were parked.
“Could I stop by my car in the parking lot and pick up a cou-ple of suitcases? I drove down from Dallas early this morningand I haven’t checked into a hotel yet. I have some clothes andmy things still in my car,” Miss Whitehead asked.
“Sure, we have to go across the parking lot to get to Mr.Huey. Don’t worry, we have plenty of coveralls and steel-toeboots for guests and special rooms for ladies onboard theEnergyHunter.”
“Sir, can you take us over to the heliport across Kirby?” Iasked the young man standing next to one of the vans.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, sliding open the side door.Miss Whitehead and I got in the van, sitting next to each
other in the middle seat. The shuttle crossed the parking lot,stopping along the way to pick up Miss Whitehead’s two suit-cases from the back seat of her bright yellow VW Beetle.
As we rode to the heliport, several times, Miss Whiteheadnoticed me looking at her. She just smiled.
I thought: Man, you’re such a geek, don’t stare at this lady.I instructed the driver to the big open area of the parking lot
where Mr. Huey was parked at the end of the row of bright andshiny new helicopters. “Excuse me driver, pull up right here.”
I helped Miss Whitehead from the van and she walkedtoward a brand new, parked Bell 427 helicopter.
“Miss Whitehead, uh...this is our ride here,” I said pointingto my tired old army surplus helicopter.
The driver retrieved Miss Whitehead’s bags from the rear ofthe van and brought them over. I thanked him and gave him a
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twenty.“Beverly Susan Whitehead,” I said, opening the left, front
door slowly while holding on to the hinges so it wouldn’t falloff.
“Yes, sir.”“You sit up here in front in the co-pilots seat,” I said, point-
ing to the left front seat that contained several holes in the fab-ric.”
“Where is the pilot Mr. Huey?” she asked, looking around,trying to locate anyone resembling a pilot.
“The helicopter is Mr. Huey and I am the pilot,” I respondedwith a grin.
She looked worried as I helped her climb up into the left seatof the cockpit.
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Chapter 6
Miss Whitehead, buckle up and put on the headphones, sowe can talk to each other.”
“Okay, but like I told you earlier, I have never flown in a hel-icopter before.”
“Well, think of this as a Suburban that happens to take offand fly.
“I have never ridden in a Suburban either.”“There are dual controls in the aircraft, so don’t touch any
thing, like the cyclic between your legs or the collective on yourleft side or the rudders on the floor.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t touch anything.” “I’ll do the flying, if that’s alright with you,” I said. “You
just enjoy the trip.”“Why can’t I sit in the back?”“I thought you may get a better view of things up here, and
besides, I would like to talk to you during the flight.”I leaned over and helped Miss Whitehead buckle her seat
belt and pulled it tight across the waist of her black dress. I thensat down in the right hand pilot’s seat, buckled up and put on myheadset. I carefully looked out all the windows and wentthrough the start-up procedure.
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“Hobby Houston Tower this is six zero niner, echo hotel,request permission to take off,” I said into the headset mic as Ikeyed the radio.
“Six zero niner, echo hotel this is Hobby, you are cleared totake off.”
“That’s a roger.”I lifted about two feet off the ground and carefully taxied the
aircraft to the center of the temporary heliport in the parking lot.“Okay, Miss Whitehead, we are about to take off. Are you
okay?” I said into the headset mic.“Sure, Mr. Hooper.” I saw her reach down and grab both sides of the seat frame
tightly as I gently lifted the helicopter off the concrete and head-ed south toward Galveston
“First we are going to fly down to the Galveston Airport. It’sclose to lunchtime, so we can walk over to Moody Gardens forlunch. After lunch I’ve scheduled a meeting with the director ofthe Lone Star Air Museum. I am doing a story in Go GulfMagazine about their World War II B-17 bomber. I don’t knowwhy, but I have always had a great interest in World War II his-tory.”
“I fancy old antiques, myself,” Miss Whitehead commented,looking directly at me.
About an hour later we approached Galveston, “ScholesGalveston, this is six, zero, niner, echo, hotel. Request permis-sion to land.”
“Echo, hotel, you are cleared for landing on runway oneseven.”
I made my approach and landed Mr. Huey near the north endof the runway. I slowly hovered over to an old hanger buildingnear the Flight Museum, and shut down.
“Why don’t we walk over to Moody Gardens and get somelunch?” I suggested to Miss Whitehead, helping her climb down
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from the aircraft. “I ate there many times while I was workingon the EnergyHunter here in Galveston. The food is excellentand I don’t have to meet with the flight museum people untilabout 1:30.”
“Yes sir, whatever you suggest.”
After a pleasant lunch we walked back to the Lone StarFlight Museum, located in several large hanger buildings next toGalveston’s airport. Scholes Field was built and used duringWorld War II as a training center and some of the old originalhanger buildings can still be seen scattered around the small air-field.
“Good afternoon, Sarah” I said as we entered the gift shop atthe entrance to the flight museum. “How’s everything goingtoday?
“Hello, Mr. Hooper, Mr. Stovall is expecting you,” Sarah,the volunteer working behind the counter replied. “Go on intothe museum and out the rear hanger door. They have the B-17outside.”
Miss Whitehead and I walked into the large museum areawhere more than 30 vintage aircraft were on display. We strolledaround the museum for a few minutes admiring the vintage air-planes, finally making our way to the rear of the building wherea B-17 was parked. Several museum technicians were busy fuel-ing the plane and making preflight checks.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Stovall. That’s one pretty airplane,” Isaid, walking up to an older gentleman dressed in a World WarII flight suit.
“Hello, Hoop, how you doing today?” Mr. Stovall asked,then looked over at Miss Whitehead. “And who is this prettylady?”
“I’m Beverly Whitehead.” “Are you a pilot?”
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“Oh, heavens no,” she said, smiling. “I’m only along for theride offshore with Mr. Hooper.”
“Well, welcome to the Lone Star Flight Museum,” he said.“You know Hoop helped us restore this plane back to its originalcondition. When he would get tired of working on hisEnergyHunter down on the other end of the island, he wouldcome down here and give us a hand. I think it was a good changeof pace for him.”
The B-17’s four propellers shined brightly in the afternoonsun. Mr. Stovall grabbed Miss Whitehead’s hand and led heraround the aircraft, proudly presenting its virtues.
“The B-17 airplane was one of the greatest American war-planes of the Second World War.” Mr. Stovall began. “It’s pri-mary mission during the war was to fly from airfields in Englandand bomb Germany into submission.
“How many of these airplanes are still flying?”“Of 12,731 B-17s built, only a few are still flying today.”“That’s amazing,” she acknowledged, reaching up and gen-
tly touching the propeller.Mr. Stovall continued to point out some unique design fea-
tures of the airplane. “Hoop, we are just about ready to take her up for its first test
flight, would you and Miss Whitehead like to go?” “Sure,” I replied. “Would you like to go up Miss
Whitehead?”“Well, I’m not sure.”“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Mr. Stovall added.“Well, ok,” she said reluctantly.“Hoop, you sit in the cockpit with me,” Mr. Stovall instruct-
ed. “Miss Whitehead you can sit in the nose with the navigator.”
I picked up the hand mic and called to the tower. “This isHooper, in the Lone Star Air Museum’s B-17, request permis-sion to take off on runway one seven. Come back.”
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“This is the Galveston Tower, you are cleared for take off,”blared in my headphones. “And Hooper, please be careful withthat airplane.”
I taxied out to the end of runway #19 and lined up the B-17on the centerline. I took a deep breath, pushed all four throttlesforward to apply full power, then released the brakes. The forceof those four 1200 horsepower radial engines pushed me back inmy seat like no other airplane had ever done. Within seconds,the aircraft had reached 70 mph. I gently eased back on the yokeand the front wheel began to lift off the ground. Then, at 90 mph,I pulled back on the yoke a little farther and the Flying Fortresswas airborne. I couldn’t believe it, I was actually flying a B-17bomber.
I keyed the mic, “Miss Whitehead are you alright downthere?”
“Yes, but please be careful.”I turned to the left out over the Gulf and headed east along
the coast. This had to be one of the greatest thrills of my life. AsI leveled off at 2000 feet, I noticed the World War II submarineand destroyer escort ship displayed at the park on the east end ofGalveston Island.
For an instant, I had dreams of making a dive attack on thesub. Scenes from the movie Twelve O’clock High flashed in myhead.
“Colonel Stovall, let’s attack that U-boat dead ahead.”“Calm down Hoop, that’s an American sub. They’re on our
side. Just hold her level and watch your airspeed.”After about fifteen minutes of sightseeing, I decided to circle
back to the airfield before I spotted any more enemy ships. Isurely didn’t want to risk any damage to this priceless airplane.
I made my approach and landed with only a slight bounce.When I reached the taxiway, I opened the cockpit window andtaxied slowly over to the museum hanger, waving like a kid ateveryone along the way. I stopped short of the museum’s hanger
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and shutdown the engines. All thirty employees of the museumwere lined up outside watching and waiting for our safe return.Or was it the airplane’s safe return?
Everyone applauded as we exited the airplane. They wereprobably not applauding my flight, but because I had notcrashed this irreplaceable piece of aviation history.
“You did a fine job,” Mr. Stovall, said while shaking myhand.
“Mr. Hooper, your hands are shaking,” Miss Whiteheadobserved as she walked up. She grabbed my hands and rubbedthem.
“That had to be one of the most exciting things I have everdone,” I said. “The aircraft has unbelievable power, it’s a thrillto fly her.”
“We are glad you enjoyed it, and had a safe trip,” the leadmechanic grumbled, as he walked past me to inspect the B-17for any sign of damage.
“Mr. Stovall, this truly has been a remarkable day for me.This morning, when I was in Houston, the entire oil industrythought I was crazy for building the EnergyHunter and attempt-ing to drill for oil in 15,000 feet of water. And this afternoon Iflew a real B-17.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed the flight,” Mr. Stovall replied.“Hey, everyone, I plan to write a story about this adventure
in our next issue of Go Gulf Magazine,” I said, shaking every-one’s hand. “Miss Whitehead and I have to leave now to fly outto the EnergyHunter. Thanks again.”
Miss Whitehead and I took off in Mr. Huey about 4:00 p.m.from Scholes Field and headed east over Galveston Island.
“Look there, Miss Whitehead, there are several drilling rigsin Port of Galveston.
“Yes, I see them.”“Do you see the gray drilling rig that has those legs sticking
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up in the air? That’s the Ocean Star Offshore Rig Museum. Thattype of rig is towed onto location offshore, then the legs arejacked down into the water until they sink into the ocean’s bot-tom. They continue to jack until the deck area is 100 or so feetabove the water level. They drill the wells and when completedthey retract the legs until the deck is floating again. Then theymove to the next job location.”
“Can you go onboard the Rig Museum?”“Yes, and they have set up a lot of interactive exhibits that
explain all about the offshore oil industry.”“What about that type of rig there?” Miss Whitehead asked,
pointing to a semi-submersible rig in dry dock. “Well, that’s another type of drilling rig called a semi-sub-
mersible. It doesn’t have any legs to jack up and down, butinstead it floats on those very large pontoons. A semi-sub-mersible rig is towed to its drilling location, then the pontoonsare flooded in order to lower the rig in the water to stabilize it.Anchors are put out to hold the rig over its correct drilling posi-tion.”
“Well, I’m learning something about oil rigs already,” shesaid with a big smile.
I turned southeast and set course to the EnergyHunter. Thesun was shining brightly and the water below gleamed its usualgreenish-blue. We could see a few people along the beach sun-bathing and fishing.
After we had flown several miles offshore, Miss Whiteheadnoticed several offshore platforms in the water.
“What type of drilling rigs are those?”“Those are not drilling rigs. It’s common for people to get all
this confused. Those are production platforms and there aremore than 3500 of them scattered across the Gulf. They areinstalled with legs permanently sunk 300 feet into the sea floor.They produce gas and oil from wells that the rigs drill.Remember a drilling rig doesn’t actually produce gas or oil, it
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only drills the wells so the production platform can flow the gasor oil out of the ground.”
“But how do they get all the gas and oil to land?”“There are thousand of miles of pipelines interconnecting all
the platforms in the Gulf. They are all resting on the Gulf’s floor,so you can’t see them.”
“What about the deepwater stuff you were talking about thismorning in the news conference?”
“Well, deepwater is considered anything more than 1000feet of water. Here is another twist, most deepwater platformsare floating platforms. The water is too deep to sink legs all theway to the bottom. In the past few years engineers have come upwith several new platform designs to allow the production plat-form to float and use anchors to keep them in position.”
“Sort of like those semi-submersible drilling rigs,” she said.“Yes, now you’re getting it.”“What’s the deepest water an oil platform or drilling rig is in
now?”“As of today, it’s the ExxonMobil Hoover production plat-
form in 4800 feet of water. And as of today, the deepest water awell has ever been drilled is in 9727 feet of water.
“What do you mean as of today?”“Well very soon, there will be another drilling and produc-
tion water depth record set.”“What type of vessel can do that?” “Look down there,” I said, pointing to the water below.Out of the front window of the helicopter we could see the
EnergyHunter sailing majestically on the calm Gulf waters.
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Chapter 7
There she is,” I proudly announced to Miss Whitehead overthe intercom, as I circled around the EnergyHunter. “You arelooking at the most amazing piece of oilfield equipment everbuilt. And in only five days we will begin drilling and producingin the largest gas and oil field ever discovered in NorthAmerica.”
“Mr. Hooper, you sound like a proud father,” she replied.As I completed the approach to the heliport, I pointed out
many innovative features of the EnergyHunter that were onlyvisible from the air.
“See the dual drilling derricks. The EnergyHunter wasdesigned for dual activity operations. Each drilling system con-tains separate drawworks, top drives and pipe handling systems.Each 75 foot by 75 foot drill floor has its own full-size rotarytable. This will allow us to drill on one drilling system and runequipment, like subsea equipment on the other. The dual activitywill allow us to save money and time.”
“Mr. Hooper, I’m not sure if I got all of that,” she said,glancing over at me with a confused look.
“I will teach you all about it,” I eagerly replied with a smile.“Tighten your seatbelt, I am preparing to land.”
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Aboard the EnergyHunter, a skeleton crew of six men waswaiting for me to arrive. The small crew came aboard the rigwhile she was in the fabrication shipyard in Galveston and weresailing her to the POZO GRANDE prospect.
I maneuvered Mr. Huey over the heliport and lowered thecollective, gently settling onto the center of the large AmericanFlag painted on the heliport.
“Don’t get out yet. I have to let Mr. Huey’s turbine enginecool down for about five minutes before I shut down. Just sitthere, relax, and admire the view,” I said while I looked over atMiss Whitehead. She was looking out the opposite window anddidn’t notice me admiring her.
“How high are we above the water?” She nervously lookedout the left side window at the water below.
“Miss Whitehead, here we are sitting on the EnergyHunter. Iwould like to say I have amazed all the experts by being able toconstruct this complex vessel in only two years time, and now Iwill amaze everyone again by drilling and producing gas and oilin 15,000 feet of water. I hope you learn something during yourstay and can write an interesting story for your readers.”
“Mr. Hooper, that sure is a lot of water.”I don’t think she heard a word that I just said!We were far out of sight of land with no platforms, rigs or
even fishing boats anywhere around and all she could see formiles around was water.
“That’s exactly what everyone says the first time they comeoffshore. Don’t worry, you’ll get use to it. There’s Brother-in-law standing on the steps.”
“Who?”“Brother-in-law. He’s the EnergyHunter’s captain.”I pointed to a large bearded man wearing bright yellow
EnergyHunter company overalls, with a red, plaid shirt under-neath. His skin was weathered from years of working on thewater.
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“I met Brother-in-law more than 20 years ago and consid-ered him to be one of the most experienced men in the offshoredrilling business. While the EnergyHunter is under power, heserves as the captain, and once we are on location, he’s mydrilling superintendent. He worked with me in the design andconstruction of the EnergyHunter and knows her better thananyone, except me of course. He’s from Hattiesburg,Mississippi.”
After Mr. Huey’s turbine engine cooled, I shut down andexited quickly.
“Good to see you, Boss. How’d it go at OTC?” Brother-in-law asked, shaking my hand.
“They think we’re all crazy. No petroleum engineer alivethinks we can pull this off. Same old story we have heard fromthe start.”
“Who’s the babe?” he asked, looking at Miss Whiteheadthrough the passenger door window.
“She’s a reporter for Texas Nurses Magazine. She was at theOTC news conference.
“Never heard of that magazine.”“Well, man, I really didn’t think you would be a subscriber,
but can’t you see she’s a good looker?” We both looked at herstruggling to unbuckle her seat belt. “Besides, we need all thegood publicity we can get. I invited her out to do a story.”
Brother-in-law walked over and helped Miss Whiteheadunbuckle and climb down from her seat.
“Howdy, ma’am. Welcome aboard the OffshoreEnergyHunter,” Brother-in-law billowed in a rough countrydrawl. “The galley hand will get your bags. Follow me down-stairs to the TV room. It’s our policy to show new arrivals oursafety video first thing. Be sure to hold on the handrails withboth hands and watch your step as we walk down the stairs,” heinstructed loudly. He guided Miss Whitehead toward the stair-way opening on the side the heliport.
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The EnergyHunter was rocking gently and she stumbled andfell as she followed Brother-in-law across the steel heliportdeck.
“Be careful Miss Whitehead. It may take a little while foryou to get your sea legs,” Brother-in-law said, reaching downand helping her up. “Are you alright?”
“Please, call me Beverly,” she said with an embarrassedlook. “I’m fine, only a little embarrassed.”
“You know, out here everyone is called by their initials orsome sort of nick name. What would you like to be called? B.S.?Or, well, you’re having trouble getting used to walking, so howabout Sea Legs?” he laughed.
“I really would prefer to be called Beverly.”
As Brother-in-law and Miss Whitehead made the trip downthe stairs, I assisted the galleyhand in opening Mr. Huey’s cargohatch. The galley hand was a tall, thin, well-groomed, blackteenager wearing a Texas A&M t-shirt.
“Do I know you? You sure don’t look like a galleyhand,” Iasked him as we unloaded Miss Whitehead’s suitcases.
“We have never met sir. My name is CC, Jr. You workedwith my father, CC, Sr, early in your offshore career. He has fol-lowed your success and tells everyone he taught you everythingyou know,” the galleyhand replied with a big grin.
“Really? That’s great. Haven’t seen CC in years.” “He retired a few years ago, but still works as a consultant.
We live in Katy, Texas.”“How’s he doing since he retired?” “He fishes a lot now. You know he was promoted pretty high
with the company, but always was held back because he didn’tfinish high school. He’s always encouraged me to get a goodeducation.”
“That’s good. You know, a teacher is a terrible thing towaste.”
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“Sir?”“Your father really knew how to work people. I used to say
he was the best black man I ever worked for, but then I realizedthat wasn’t right. He was the best man I ever worked for, period.Tell him I said hello and he is welcome at my new house in thecountry anytime.”
“Yes sir, I will.”“What are you doing out here working as a galley hand?
They do all the dirty work in the galley and quarters.”“I just graduated from high school and I plan to start Texas
A&M in the fall in petroleum engineering. I thought this wouldbe a great learning experience.”
“Well, you have come to the right place. I am proud to sayyou are standing on the most advanced piece of oilfield equip-ment ever built.”
I couldn’t stop bragging about the EnergyHunter. Now all Ihad to do was strike oil.
“I want to be an Offshore EnergyHunter, just like you.”“That’s good, Aggie” I smiled, “Your dad helped me 25
years ago when I started my career, so let me know if I can helpyou this summer.
“Thanks.”“And when you graduate, contact me. I can always use a
good engineer. You don’t care if I call you Aggie do you?”“No sir, everyone else out here has called me Aggie, or
worse. Since we left the shipyard in Galveston, I have heardevery Aggie joke there is.”
“Don’t worry, in a few years after you graduate with yourengineering degree, they will call you by another name.”
“What’s that?” “Boss!” I replied with a grin. Aggie helped me attach the four hold-down straps from the
helicopter to some deck rings to prevent Mr. Huey from slidingoff the heliport.
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“You know when I first started working offshore as awelder’s helper, I worked with an old welder who was 70 yearsold. He couldn’t read or write and he was one of the orneriest oldguys you would ever want to meet. I worked with him for sixmonths before he ever called me by my name.”
“Why did you work with him for so long?”“I don’t know. I was young and didn’t know much about the
oilfield. Just too stupid to know any better, I guess.”“Looks like you learned pretty well over the years,” Aggie
replied. “Talking about names, Mr. Hooper, my Dad said you used to
go by the name of Roger. Where did you come up with the nameBlaze?”
We continued to talk as we carried the suitcases down sever-al flights of stairs to the first floor galley.
“Well, son it’s a long story. Let’s get a soda pop down in thegalley and I’ll tell you all about it. What type of football teamare the Aggies going to have this year?”
“I’m not sure, what about LSU?”“I think they will do pretty good,” I replied as I opened the
heavy steel door leading into the galley.We walked into the galley, located on the bottom floor of the
five story main quarters building. Preacher Jack, the vessel’smaintenance superintendent, and Cowboy, the rig welder, wereat a table eating a mid-afternoon snack of donuts, cake, cookiesand ice cream. Blue, the cook, was standing behind the stainlesssteel serving counter.
“Hello, cook. What’s for supper?” I greeted Blue who wasstirring a pot of mashed potatoes.
Blue, a short chubby Cajun from down on the bayou,answered back in a heavy Cajun accent, “I knew you werecomin’, Hoop, so I’m cookin’ ya fav’rite, T-bone steak.”
“Great, Blue, but it isn’t Saturday night. You may be break-ing a law if you cook steaks on a Monday.”
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“I got especial permission from da MMS,” he said with alaugh. “How you like you steak cook?”
“Now Blue, how long have you known me?...You know Idon’t eat red meat.”
Surprised, Aggie turned and glanced at me with a puzzledlook.
“Cook it until it’s good and brown,” I replied with a grin.“Hey, Blue, I’m going to tell your galleyhand how I got the
name Blaze.”“Man, I done heard dat story a million time,” Blue said as he
added some file’ to a pot of gumbo on the stove.I put my hand on Preacher Jack’s shoulder, “Hey guys,
what’s up?”“We are cruising until we reach the drill site, everything is
under control,” Preacher Jack said. “The six power thrusters youinstalled run like a top.”
Preacher Jack, a short, balding man in his late forties, wasone of the best mechanics in the Gulf. He was called Preacherbecause on his days off he held church services at the camp-grounds around Toledo Bend, a big fishing area on the border ofTexas and Louisiana.
“You’re doing all the preventive maintenance. Not boiler-housing anything, are you?” I said, slapping him on the back. “Iexpect this thing to stay running for a good twenty years.”
“Hey boss, I saw a good-looking gal come down from theheliport with Brother-in-law…who is she?” Cowboy asked in aquiet voice.
Cowboy was a welder extraordinaire and a very colorfulcharacter. He lived in a rural community near Vidor, Texas, andhis wife, number six, had just left him.
“Now, Cowboy, trust me she’s not your type,” I said.“If she’s breathin’, she’s Cowboy’s type,” Blue yelled from
the kitchen behind the serving counter.“Cowboy, we need to make a good impression. Try to act
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right,” Preacher Jack muttered.“Ok,” Cowboy said. Preacher Jack and Cowboy got up and
replaced the snack tray onto the serving counter. Preacher Jackgrabbed his hard hat off the rack on the wall. Cowboy followed,grabbing his official welder’s hardhat, a polka dot cloth welder’scap.
“Sit down here and let me tell you a real offshore story,” Isaid, grabbing Aggie on the shoulder.
We both sat down at one of the many eating tables in thelarge galley. “You see, several years ago I went to Saudi Arabiato do a story for Go Gulf Magazine about the largest oil well firein history. This fire was on a huge well out in the middle of thedesert and was burning up millions of dollars of oil. Firefightingcrews from all over the world had tried to put it out, but with nosuccess. I had read about research being done at a U.S. univer-sity involving a new technique that used a specially constructedcone that could snuff out a well fire. All the companies at the firesite had tried every modern technique known to the industry,without any success. The Arabian oil minister himself promisedto give $1 million dollars to anyone who could put out the fire.”
I got up and walked over to the galley soda pop fountainmachine and got another Coke. I noticed Blue listening frombehind the counter.
“Well, I decided to try the new cone snuffing technique onthe well myself. I had this cone fabricated locally and welded itonto a 20 foot long beam. All this I welded onto the front of anold tractor. My plan was to drive up to the burning well andsnuff out the flame. The experts all laughed when I told themwhat I was about to try.”
I sat back down across the table from Aggie, who was listen-ing attentively.
“Everyone watched as I hopped on the tractor, revved up theengine to full speed and popped the clutch. The first thing I
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knew, I had driven completely across the burning well and cameto a stop about 100 yards on the other side. I looked back and thefire was out. I don’t know how it went out. It just was out. ThankGod. The experts couldn’t believe it. Even I couldn’t believe it.”
“That’s an amazing story sir.”“And you see, ever since then, everyone has called me
Blaze.”“Did you get the $1 million dollars?” “Yea, I did.”“What did you spend it on?”“Well, the first thing I did was get the brakes fixed on that
old tractor.”Blue burst into loud laughter.Aggie just sat there, not knowing if he should believe me or
not.“Hey, Blue, it sure is good to be out here and laugh a little,
instead of being around all those critics I spoke to this morning,”I said.
Aggie and I got up from the table and walked toward thekitchen area.
“You know what dey alway say, dat laughter is da best med-icine,” Blue said.
“Yea Blue, I guess that’s why they sell comic books in drugsstores, huh,” I replied with my usual grin.
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Chapter 8
You see, Miss Whitehead, the offshore oil industry is veryconcerned with safety and protectin’ the environment,” Brother-in-law informed Miss Whitehead while she sat in one of theoversized, leather recliners in the EnergyHunter’s TV room.
The large room, with dark blue carpeting on the walls and alarge big screen TV mounted on the end wall, was located on thefirst floor of the quarters building next to the galley. There werethree large leather sofas and half a dozen leather recliners facingthe TV. Mounted in large frames on the two sidewalls wereposters of Go Gulf Magazine photos.
“We require all our new hands to watch this introductoryvideo before they’re allowed work for us,” Brother-in-law said,walking to the front of the room. “But first I have to tell youabout my last coon hunting trip.”
Miss Whitehead listened patiently as Brother-in-law went onand on about going coon hunting on his last days off. Brother-in-law talked much like the late-great Mississippi comedian,Jerry Clower. He could both entertain and educate an audiencewith his down-home country humor.
When he finished the story, he walked to the front of theroom and put the safety DVD in the player. “Now sit back, relax
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and enjoy the movie.”The twenty minute video showed an introduction to offshore
life, safe work practices and evacuation procedures. It had beenproduced by Go Gulf Magazine and was educational and enter-taining. Brother-in-law had seen the video dozens of times anddozed off in one of the comfortable recliners.
When the video had finished, Miss Whitehead looked overat him asleep and shouted, “Excuse me, please!”
“Ahh... Ahh, Miss Whitehead!” Brother-in-law woke upsuddenly and jumped up from his recliner. “Well... did you payattention, Miss Whitehead? Forgot to tell you earlier that yougonna be tested. All hands that fail the test have to swim back toland.”
“I beg your pardon.” Miss Whitehead looked startled. “Just pullin’ your pretty little leg, darlin’,” Brother-in-law
responded with a big smile. “You have any questions you wannaask?”
Miss Whitehead, somewhat intimidated by Brother-in-law’sloud, overbearing manner, wasn’t sure what to make of him. Shehad been taking notes during the video and was trying to learnas much as she could for her magazine story, but she didn’t havemuch interest in why the coon and the hound dog were fightingup in a tree.
“Yes, Mr. Brother-in-law, do you think Mr. Hooper can real-ly do all he is saying? It seemed most of the experts at OTC hada hard time believing his grand plan will be successful.”
“Let me tell you, ma’am. I’ve known that man for more thantwenty years. Seen him do some amazin’ things. I wouldn’t behere today if I didn’t think he could pull this off. Took earlyretirement when a larger company bought out the company Iwas working for two years ago. You know I could be coonhuntin’ right now, but instead I want to help Blaze prove allthose engineers wrong. And I have a stake in the profits.”
“Oh, yes. What may that be?”
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“See everyone on board has a stake in the profits. We’re allworkin’ for free and only get paid if we strike oil. So, we all gotto make this work.”
“I didn’t know that. Sounds pretty risky to me.”“Well... not any more risky than coon huntin’ at night with
my drunk cousin from Eastabuchy, Mississippi.”Miss Whitehead gave a polite smile.“T-boy Johnston, our computer and dynamic positionin’
expert, has one of the biggest financial stakes of all. He’s one ofthe wisest stock market investors you will ever want to meet.Durin’ the past twenty years, while he worked for one of themajors, he built up quite an investment... what they call it?
“Portfolio?”“Yeah, portfolio. He retired three years ago and when Blaze
approached him about his plans for the Offshore EnergyHunterproject, he put together an investment group, that…well, with-out him, couldn’t of built the EnergyHunter.
“That’s very interesting,” she commented, continuing to takenotes. “Where did Mr. Johnston meet Mr. Hooper?”
“Roomed together when they first started workin’ offshore,”he said, “and when Blaze first started plannin’ this project heapproached him for financial advice. Blaze even sold his bighouse in Baton Rouge and bought an old run-down house out inthe marsh near Gueydan. He’s invested everything he owns andhas made special deals with every supplier in Texas andLouisiana to get the EnergyHunter built.”
“Where on earth is Gueydan?”“Oh...” Brother-in-law laughed. “It’s Gueydan, you pro-
nounce it Gay daw. It’s about due north of here between Perryand Lake Arthur. It’s the duck capital of the world.”
“Does Mr. Hooper hunt a lot?”“Nope, he don’t even own a gun. Poor guy.”“Everyone calls you Brother-in-law. Are you Mr. Hooper’s
brother-in-law?”
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“No Ma’am, not related to him. In fact, I ain’t anybody’sbrother-in-law.”
“How did you get your name?” “You see, when I first started in the oilfield I moved up the
ladder so fast, like I had a rocket strapped on my back. Everyonethought I had to be the brother-in-law of somebody in the office.So they all started to call me brother-in-law. It just stuck.”
Miss Whitehead was beginning to realize that Brother-in-law’s bite was not as bad as his bark.
“Miss Whitehead, I think it’s time to take a tour of theEnergyHunter. We got new Offshore EnergyHunter companycoveralls, steel-toe boots, safety glasses, and a hardhat on yourbunk in your room.”
“Where is that?” she said as she struggled to get up from heroversized recliner.
Brother-in-law reached out and pulled her quickly to herfeet. She reached down, quickly trying to keep her dress down.
“Follow me to the ladies quarters here on the first floor,”Brother-in-law said as they walked out into the first floor hall-way. “Now on the first floor we have the galley, TV room, ladiesrooms and the control room.” He pointed in the direction of eachroom.
“And on the second floor we have four 2-man rooms withprivate baths for all the big shots, like the drilling and produc-tion superintendents and engineers. Across the hallway aretwelve 4-man rooms. All our sleeping rooms have bunk beds,personal lockers, and a TV. The men have a common bathroomand shower located on the end of the long hall.”
“Where do you and Mr. Hooper stay?”“Well ma’am we have our own room there on the second
floor with private butlers.” “Really?” “Naw, jist kidding ma’am.”“On the third floor we have sixteen 4-man rooms, one com-
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mon bathroom and shower and an exercise room.”“Sounds like a small hotel.”“Yea, your right. I’ve lived in much worse places than this.
We tried to make it as good as we can out here.”
Miss Whitehead and Brother-in-law walked down the hall-way to the door marked Private, Ladies Only. “Here is yourroom,” Brother-in-law said. “Don’t worry, we are used to havin’women offshore. No men are allowed past this door.”
Miss Whitehead pushed the door open and looked inside.Brother-in-law continued, “we have two separate bedrooms
down here, and each room has four beds and separate baths.” “How many ladies are on your crew?”“Just a couple,” he said. “There’s not a lot of you ladies
working offshore, but they do many of the same jobs guys do.Come on outside to the escape capsule when you finish gettin’dressed. It’s just outside that exit door.” Brother-in-law pointedto the door on the end of the hall.
“Thanks, Mr. Brother-in-law. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”“One more thing ma’am. “What’s that?”“Call me Brother-in-law. Mr. Brother-in-law is my daddy,”
he said, laughing all the way back down the hall to the galley.
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Chapter 9
Brother-in-law strolled into the galley where I was sittingwatching CNN on the galley TV. He walked over and picked uptwo donuts from the snack tray.
“Miss Whitehead is gettin’ into her work clothes now. Gunnameet us at the capsule,” he said, taking a big bite of one of thedonuts.
“Good, let’s go outside and wait on her,” I said. We grabbed our hardhats off the rack and walked outside to
the two large orange escape capsules mounted over the edge ofthe top deck beside the first floor walkway.
About ten minutes later Miss Whitehead emerged from theside door of the quarters and walked toward us. She was nowwearing a pair of bright yellow EnergyHunter coveralls, safetyglasses, heavy steel-toed boots and a white hard hat. This outfitwas a huge contrast to the pretty black dress she was wearingearlier. She was carrying a yellow tally book in her left hand.
“Hello, gentlemen. I found this little Offshore EnergyHunternotebook on the bunk. I guess it is alright to use it.”
“It’s called a tally book,” I said. “Yes, please fill it up withinformation and carry it in your back pocket for reference.”
She smiled and adjusted her hard hat.
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“Gonna make a good offshore hand out of you yet,” Brother-in-law added.
Brother-in-law then began his patented escape capsule lec-ture. “These 54 man enclosed life-saving vessels are designed tosafely evacuate personnel from a rig or platform if there is a dis-aster onboard. These enclosed fiberglass boats are equipped withan internal diesel engine, food, water and emergency radios.”
“Excuse me Brother-in-law,” Miss Whitehead interrupted.“Shouldn’t it be 54 men or women.”
“Oww!... Okay. That’s 54 persons,” Brother-in-law smiled. I could tell Miss Whitehead was a lot tougher than she let on
to be. Maybe it was the hardhat and steel toe boots. Brother-in-law continued, “Miss Whitehead, there are four
of these orange escape capsules. Two at each end of the topdeck. You need to learn their locations. If there should be anemergency, -- which is highly unlikely -- you will need to reportto the closest capsule. If you are in the quarters, report to thishere capsule as soon as possible. One of our experienced crewmembers will instruct you when you get here.”
Beverly was writing furiously in her tally book, while look-ing back and forth at Brother-in-law and me.
“Before you get in a capsule, open one of these life vestboxes here next to the capsules and put on a life vest. On eachdeck there are more than enough of these life vests for everyoneaboard. Don’t fight over them.”
I looked over at Miss Whitehead and added my two cents, “Iremember the time when two young roustabouts both tried to getinto the same life vest during an emergency. One put his arm inone armhole and the other put his arm in the other armhole. Theywere fighting with each other, each trying to put on that samelife vest. And there were 20 more vests in the box right next tothem.”
“What happens if you have more people onboard than thecapacity of the escape capsules?” Miss Whitehead asked.
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“That’s a good question.” Brother-in-law stroked his beard.“Don’t be afraid to ask me about anythin’.”
“We have nothing to hide from you or anyone,” I added. “Wedo everything possible to keep our men and women safe and theenvironment clean.”
Brother-in-law opened the small door to the capsule andshowed Miss Whitehead inside. “There are government regula-tions which stop us from havin’ too many people on board. Wecarefully keep count of the people comin’ onboard, who is here,and who has left. We always keep the total onboard less than thecapacity of the capsules. We keep a very close eye on this.”
“These new id badges we give to everyone onboard are morethan nametags; they contain a small computer chip that monitorsyour every location. At anytime, we can look at our security sys-tem monitor in our main control room and determine whereeveryone on the vessel is located. If you fall overboard an alarmwill sound automatically and the computer will indicate yourposition in the water.”
I reached into my pocket and handed her an id badge I hadmade inside earlier with her name on it.
“Wear this around your neck at all times. It could save yourlife.” I said. “I’ll tell you what, Brother-in-law, I’ll take MissWhitehead for a tour. You’d better relieve T-boy in the bridge.”
“That’s right. See you guys, ah...people at dinner.” Brother-in-law slapped me on the back and walked inside.
For the next hour, I showed Miss Whitehead around theEnergyHunter. She seemed very interested in all aspects of off-shore life and almost filled up her tally book with notes.
We ended our tour back in the first floor galley. Blue wastossing the T-bone steaks on the iron griddle on the big, blackstove in his kitchen.
“Miss Whitehead, you have the honor of being first in thechow line tonight,” I said. I handed her a tray and silverware and
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she slid it along the rails on the serving line. “Pretty lady, how you would want you steak cooked?” Blue
asked when he saw Miss Whitehead across the counter.“No, thank you sir. I’ll only eat some of the vegetables
tonight,” she said with a pleasant smile.“You a vegetarian, cher?” Blue asked in a disappointed
voice.“No, I’m just not very hungry tonight,” she replied. She
reached on the counter and retrieved a bowl of salad. “It alllooks good. You really eat well offshore, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I done tryin’ to keep dem full up. Dat’s one ofda benefit offshore work,” Blue said, placing another pan offrench fries on the serving line.
Aggie was washing pots in back of the kitchen and over-heard the conversation. He walked over to Blue and asked qui-etly, “Blue, why are you so concerned about the lady being avegetarian? What’s wrong with that?”
“Dere nothin’ wrong with dat, but I once work on dis plat-form with dis guy who was so-called vegetarian. A fruitcake hewas. All he would done eat was beans, rice, and dem salads. Hedone cause me lot of misery, he did him. I couldn’t put no sea-soning meat in da vegetables, like pork-beans. Jist trouble hewas. Most of dem other men didn’t like work with him, ….hehad that bad gas. You done know what I mean?”
Aggie grinned and nodded.“Everybody always dun told him all he need was da good
pork chop to make him normal.”“What ever happened to him?”“One week he jist done start actin’ normal. No one could fig-
ure what did happen, until late one night, da night operatorcaught him in my kitchen cookin’ a hamburger. After dat, hedone turn to be pretty good hand, but since dat time I done beenreal nervous ‘bout havin’ vegetarian onboard.”
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Chapter 10
It’s 5:00 a.m., time to get up. Time to go to work here atClub Paradise,” Aggie announced, going from bedroom to bed-room. “It’s 5:00 a.m. Time to get up.” He turned on the light ineach room, and everyone slowly climbed out of their bunks tostart the day.
Like all offshore cooks and galleyhands, Blue and Aggiestarted their workdays around 4:00 a.m while most drilling andproduction crews work twelve hour shifts beginning at 6:00 a.m.and ending at 6:00 p.m.
At 5:00 a.m. sharp, each day one of Aggie’s duties was to goto each room, turn on the overhead light and make some smartremark about getting up and going to work.
Aggie had learned well.Aggie walked downstairs after making sure the entire crew
was awake. He also awakened Miss Whitehead by knocking onthe ladies’ room door. Afterwards he returned to the kitchen andbegan washing the dirty pots and pans Blue had used preparingbreakfast.
One by one, Preacher Jack, Brother-in-law and Cowboyslowly stumbled to the galley and lined up in front of the servingline. T-boy was still on the bridge making sure the EnergyHunter
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stayed on course during the night.The galley television was tuned to GoGulfTV, which was
broadcasting the morning news and weather geared toward theenergy industry. The news anchor, Kelly Long, a young, attrac-tive blonde, was giving the latest weather forecast for the Gulfof Mexico.
“Sunny and warm, with seas 1-2 feet and a light chop nearthe coast. And there are no hurricanes in the tropics. Looks likea great day to drill a well in the Gulf,” Kelly announced with apretty smile.
“Dat good-lookin’ young blond should get you weldin’ rodshot dis mornin’,” Blue said to Cowboy, who was limping notice-ably as he made his way to the end of the serving line.
“Yea man, I may need to go in soon, I’m beginning to getchannel fever,” Cowboy complained.
“What you did mean, you jist got here two day ago,” Bluelaughed.
Blue walked over to Aggie and leaned in close, “Did I tellyou ‘bout Cowboy? He’s ‘nother handpicked employee, evendoe he be loud and crude some times, he can build and weld any-thing Blaze done come up with. Cowboy tinks he’s da real lady’sman. He really like to pass a good time. Believe it or not, hedone been married six times and he only 33 year old.”
“Did he get his limp from riding bulls?” Aggie asked.“Well, sort of. He used to be one of dem fool who sit at da
poker table in da rodeo arena while them bull try to get him. Thelast man get up from da table win $500.00. Cowboy sat at dattable little too long one time. He said he need the money to buywife number six a bigger weddin’ ring. Now she done left himwhen he come home with dat hurt leg.”
“Sounds like all those wives were just after his money, huh.” “Cowboy really liked them buddies offshore. He sometime
stay offshore for two or three month straight to make dat bigcheck. But when he go in for seven day, he come back da next
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week flat broke. Either he done spend his money at all dem barson his way home, or one of his wife done took it.”
“He must be crazy or something.”“No, he’s jist a welder.” Blue handed Aggie another dirty pot
and continued, “Several year ago Cowboy done went home towife number four after three month offshore. Late at night, afterstoppin’ at bars in Houma, Morgan City, Lafayette andBeaumont, he pull to his driveway were he done set-up a brandnew double wide for his new wife. He park his big 4x4 Ford, andstumble up da step in front his door. He done try to put his housekey in da door, but couldn’t find da lock. He rub is eyes and looka little closer only to see da front door was not dere. He donelook a bit closer and discover his entire new double wide wasdone gone. He look around careful, tinkin’ maybe he pull into dawrong driveway. He found dis note attach to da concrete step.Dat was the only ting dere.”
“What did the note say?”“It said, ‘Hello, Cowboy. I done got tired of waitin’ on you
to come home from offshore. I don’t tink our marriage goin’ towork out, so I have move. My lawyer will contact you. P.S. I beback for dem steps’.”
Aggie chuckled and looked over at Cowboy. “That’s prettyfunny isn’t it, Blue?”
Cowboy walked up to the dirty dish counter in the corner ofthe galley and shouted over to Blue. “Hey, Blue, last week off Iwent out with a Playboy bunny.”
Cowboy pulled a two-year-old Playboy magazine from hisrear pocket. “Here, here’s a picture of her. I met her in a newstrip bar in Houston. We had a great time. I think I’m in love.”
“Sure,” Blue agreed. “You have dem dates with da bestlookin’ women money can buy.”
“Hey, man. That hurts.”Preacher Jack walked up with his dirty plate and glass. “Look like you a little lighter in you pant,” Blue commented.
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“You on sum diet?” “Yea, I am Blue. I read about this new diet plan in the back
of the Enquirer. All I have to do is send them $20.00 per week.”Preacher Jack raked his plate into the 5-gallon scrap bucket onthe floor in front of the dirty dish counter.
“What you done got for $20.00?”“Nothing. The instructions said that was $20.00 less per
week I have to spend on food,” Preacher Jack answered with abig laugh. He walked out the door behind Cowboy chastisinghim for having that Playboy in his back pocket.
“Hey, Aggie. You need to take dat slop bucket out them doorand pour it to dat Gulf Gulp,” Blue instructed Aggie, pointing tothe bucket on the floor where everyone raked food scraps fromtheir plates after eating.
“What are you talking about Blue?” Aggie replied. “What onearth is a Gulf Gulp? That’s not like one of those skyhooksCowboy had me looking for yesterday, is it?
“May no.”“Yesterday I learned my lesson the hard way,” Aggie com-
plained, walking over to where Blue was standing. “I askedeveryone onboard where the skyhook was. They each told me tolook on a different deck. I must have gone up and down thestairs a hundred times.”
“No, no Aggie, a Gulf Gulp da real ting. Come here, I showyou how dat ting work,” Blue said. “I know da man who doneinvented dat.”
“Oh, yes. Who’s that?”“He inside dat office over dere, Blaze Hooper. His company
built dose for more dan 12 year and dey on every rig I done everwork on.”
Blue and Aggie walked out the side galley door onto thesteel grating deck surrounding the building. They headed over toa round stainless steel device sitting next to the outside handrail.
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“All you to do is push da start button dere on da side, openda lid and pour dat bucket of slop in dere. Da Gulf Gulp willgrind up ‘bout anyting you done put in it. It work good too. Theground-up food den goes down to da water to feed dem fishdown dere.”
“Why can’t I pour the bucket over the side, the fish will stilleat it, won’t they?”
“Yea, dat’s da way everybody used to do dat. But a law pass,I tink sometime around 1989 dat require us to grind it up. I tinkit to do with plastic pollution on big ship or something. All Iknow dat, meself, is dere a $25,000 day fine if you dump it downto water without first puttin’ in dat Gulf Gulp.”
“I sure don’t have $25,000.”“When you done through grindin’ da food, use this hose pipe
and rinse everyting down, clean and nice.”Aggie looked at the garden hose beside the unit and nodded.“Many year ago when I start out on nother rig and I would
go out to the Gulf Gulp and watch the water. I done seen all typeof ting in da water. One time I saw da biggest fish me ever didsee down dere. Its head was out da water and it was a drinkin’some of da water drainin’ down from da Gulf Gulp. I mean disfish was big. It mouth open and it stretch from one side of itbody to da other.”
Blue held up both arms from his side and stretched them outas far as he could reach.
“What kind was it?” “I didn’t know, me. So I pick-up da intercom and told every-
one to come see dis ting. Da whole rig shutdown and da crewcame over to da handrail and look down at dat fish. It just staythere, lettin’ da water drip to it mouth. Somebody said it was awhale shark. Man, dat fish were big. It could have easily swal-low a whole me.”
“What else have you seen?”“I seen school of dolphin, flyin’ fish, barracuda, jelly fish,
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and dem dere marlin. Cowboy said he saw mermaids, but datafter he done worked out here for four or three month straight.”
“That’s very interesting stuff you have seen.”“Yea, there’s no tellin what you gunna see.” Blue turned to
return inside. “Come on inside when you done finish dat andpass a mop over the kitchen.”
Cowboy walked out of the galley door and chipped in,“What’s that you’re saying about me?”
“Oh, nothin’,” Blue replied, “just tellin Aggie some dem off-shore story.” Blue returned to the kitchen.
“Aggie, I have a plumb bunch of offshore stories I can tellyou,” Cowboy said, leaning on the top rail of the handrail.
Aggie looked at him and nodded his head.“One day I was out looking over the handrail and I saw this
gigantic bomber aircraft approaching from the south. I froze,man,” Cowboy stood in rigid position, like he was frozen. “Iwasn’t sure if it was ours. I thought we were being attacked orsomething. I finally made out the American Air Force emblem.I learned later they were B-52s from Barksdale Air Force Basenear Shreveport. They do flight training over the Gulf. Thosegiant planes were flying low and slow. It looked like they werebarely moving.” Cowboy made a flying motion with his arms. “Ikeep looking for one of those Stealth bombers, but I guess theyare invisible, huh?”
Aggie couldn’t tell if he was joking or Cowboy reallythought that.
“I have seen other aircraft, too. Back in the 1980s I wouldsee these old cargo aircraft flying about 200 feet above thewater. They all were flying to the north from the south. I haven’tseen as many in the past ten years. You know what they werecarrying, don’t you?”
“No sir,” Aggie said, pouring the food scraps into Gulf Gulp.“Well, from time to time I would see large bails of marijuana
floating around in the Gulf only to learn an unidentified plane
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had run out of gas and crashed nearby. That didn’t happen veryoften though. The DEA and Coast Guard have stepped up patrolsin recent years,” Cowboy added. “Well, I guess I better do a littlework today.” He walked off toward his welding area.
As Aggie finished grinding all the food scraps, Preacher Jackwalked by on his way down to the engine room.
“Hey my son, what you doing out here?” Preacher Jackasked.
“Well sir, I have been trying to finish up grinding this bucketof food, but everyone keeps coming by telling me their offshorestories.”
“You know, that’s all part of working offshore, so get used toit,” Preacher Jack said. “Back in ‘95 I was working on a plat-form near Grand Isle when I came out by their Gulf Gulp. Ilooked down in the water and saw this exhausted man in a smallcanoe. I couldn’t believe my eyes. We were the only platform formiles. The guy in the canoe was about to die from heat exhaus-tion. I immediately got on the PA and called for the medic. Someof the roustabouts ran down the stairs to the dolphin deck to helpthe poor guy.”
“How did you get him up from the water?”“The crane operator dropped the personnel basket down and
we brought him and the canoe up to the top deck. This guy hadbeen canoeing for more than a week. He was trying to canoefrom Mexico to New Orleans and I guess the heat finally got tohim.”
“Was he alright?”“He was lucky we were there or he would have died from
heat stroke. The medic gave him fluids and we called for a medflight from the beach.”
“That’s a very unique story, sir,” Aggie replied.“I can tell you there’s no telling what you may see out here
in the Gulf. After this summer I am sure you will have manyinteresting offshore stories yourself. Well, I better go hit a lick
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before lunch. See you later.”“Yes, Preacher Jack, sir,” Aggie answered politely.
All the storytellers finally left and Aggie finished his workby washing down the Gulf Gulp with the hose pipe.
For a few minutes he just stood and gazed out across thecalm, bluish-green water.
He noticed a small boat approaching from the direction ofland. He watched as the speedy, little boat circled theEnergyHunter several times and stopped directly under where hewas standing. One of the people aboard threw a line out and tiedonto a cleat on one of the EnergyHunter’s large pontoons. A bigsign taped on the front deck of the little, white boat read: SAVETHE DEEP BLUE GULF.
Aggie looked down over the handrail and counted a total ofsix people aboard. He could see them clearly, but they could notsee him watching them. He could see that the boat was a 29 footBoston Whaler with two 190 hp outboards. He and his father hadbeen out fishing in the Gulf many times in a similar type of boat.
Aggie then watched as the people on the boat opened a largeice chest, getting out what appeared to be sandwiches and beer.
The small boat followed along side the slow movingEnergyHunter for about fifteen minutes while the group ate.When everyone had finished eating, Aggie watched as a skinny,long-haired girl in a red halter-top threw all their plastic bagsand beer cans over the side of their boat into the water.
A chubby guy wearing a FSU cap then picked up a bullhornand announced up toward the EnergyHunter, “Save the deepblue Gulf. Stop or we will take action.”
Aggie thought: There is no way that tiny little boat can stopthe huge EnergyHunter.
Aggie then watched as the skinny girl picked up what lookedlike a large pistol, promptly took aim and fired directly towardwhere he was standing on the front of the EnergyHunter.
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Aggie immediately ducked down behind the Gulf Gulp.Blam!... Blam!... Blam!He put his hands over his hardhat and crouched even lower.
He stayed down on the deck for what seemed like hours, but inreality, it was only about five minutes.
He carefully raised up, looked over the edge of the handrail,and saw three big blue paint spots on the large OffshoreEnergyHunter company sign hanging on the side of top deck.
Aggie crawled on his hands and knees on the hard, steelgrating over to the intercom mounted about 20 feet away. Hereached up and grabbed the handset, “Hello, hello... Is thisworking? Someone better get out here, there are people on a lit-tle white boat shooting at us.”
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Chapter 11
Brother-in-law, T-boy and I were sitting in the bridge con-trol room when I heard Aggie call. I leaned forward and grabbedthe PA handset on the wall.
“Go ahead, Aggie.”“Yes, sir. Mr. Hooper. This is Aggie. There’s a little boat
down here. I think it’s trying to stop us by firing paintballs.”“Yes, Aggie. We picked them up a long time ago and we
have been watching them from the bridge.”“What should we do sir?”“Nothing, we have slowed down to a crawl. I don’t want to
run over them. Come on back into the quarters. We’re hopingthey will just go away when they get hot and tired.”
I turned to T-boy. “That looks like the same group of misfitsI ran into at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houstonyesterday,” I said in a frustrated voice. “I’m afraid it’s going totake more fire power than a paintball gun to stop us. I hope theydon’t hurt themselves playing around down there.”
“Hey, Blaze. You better take a look at this,” Brother-in-lawsaid, looking at the video monitor pointed toward the boat. “Ithink one of their outboards is on fire.”
Immediately, I stood up and looked closely at the monitor.
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“Yea, sure does. That’s not good.”Brother-in-law zoomed the camera a little closer in on the
burning engine. “It looks like it’s gettin’ bigger, Blaze.”I grabbed the PA. “Now hear this, all hands to the port bow.
There is a boat on fire below us.”“Brother-in-law, I’ll get in the crane. You hook up the per-
sonnel basket. Grab our bullhorn and tell them we will help.”We grabbed our hardhats and ran toward the exit.“T-boy, see if you can stop us quick enough so we can get
those poor people off.”“Yes, sir,” T-boy acknowledged.I ran outside and climbed the ladder into the crane mounted
on the edge of the top deck. Brother-in-law headed for thehandrail directly above the boat.
“Just stay onboard, we’ll drop down our personnel basket topick you up,” Brother-in-law instructed them over his bullhorn.
I pressed the hydraulic starter button on the floor of the craneand it started up on the first try. I was thankful it was a brandnew crane. I pulled back the boom lever and the 40 foot boombegan to rise up off its cradle. I glanced out of the crane windowdown at the little boat. It was still tied up to our pontoon, but theflames were continuing to rise from one of their outboards.
Preacher Jack and Cowboy ran up the stairs and were watch-ing over the handrail next to Brother-in-law. Down on the bowof the burning boat, the six people were jumping up and down,screaming for help.
I boomed over to our personnel basket, and Cowboy hookedit onto the crane’s ball hook. I pulled the boom winch handle toraise the rope basket to an outstretched position. I saw PreacherJack, wearing a flotation work vest and carrying a fire extin-guisher, jump and stand on the iron ring on the edge of the bas-ket as it lifted off the deck. He stood up on the outer ring andheld on to the rope netting as I swung the personnel basket slow-ly over the edge of the top deck, not wanting to cause the basket
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to swing wildly out of control like a pendulum.I pushed the boom winch handle forward, which lowered the
basket down toward the bow of the blazing boat. The boommounted video camera showed everything clearly on the moni-tor inside the crane’s cabin as I carefully lowered the basket tothe bow of the boat.
Suddenly, when the personnel basket reached about two feetabove the burning boat’s bow, all six people jumped into thecenter of the basket and laid down on top of each other. What arethose kids doing, I said to myself. They don’t have enough senseto get out of the rain.
I held the basket there just long enough for Preacher Jack tohop off onto their boat. I pulled back on the boom winch controllever and lifted the six wayward sailors slowly up toward the topdeck.
I could see Jack putting out the flames on the left outboardengine and signalling that everything was okay.
I gently lowered the basket full of misfits to the top deck ofthe EnergyHunter and watched them unpile from the center ofthe basket.
Brother-in-law and Cowboy were about to fall down laugh-ing so hard, while Miss Whitehead was standing to the side tak-ing pictures of all the excitement.
I then lowered the basket back down and retrieved thePreacherman. The fire was only minor and he had quickly extin-guished it. I put the crane boom back into the cradle and hoppeddown to the deck.
“Well hello, William Benjamin Kensington and Miss Sally.Looks like we meet again,” I said, walking over to where every-one was standing. “Are any of you injured?”
“Hey, you’re that man who spoke to us outside of...”“Yeah, that was me. Are ya’ll okay?” “We’re ok, just a little frightened,” Sally, the skinny girl in
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the red halter top confessed.“Looks like you’re a lot frightened,” Cowboy laughed.“You people really didn’t think you were going to stop the
mighty Energyhunter, did you,” I asked. “And besides, like Itold you in Houston, the oil industry and the environmentalistmust learn to co-exist.”
“I must say, I really appreciate you rescuing us,” Williamsaid, “no telling what might have happened down there. None ofus knew what to do.”
“Over the years, the oil industry has rescued lots of fisher-men and pleasure boaters,” Brother-in-law added. “But this ismy first time to rescue the enemy.”
Preacher Jack walked up to where we were standing. “Ilooked at your fire and it looks to me that only one outboard wasdamaged. I will get my tools and go back down to check every-thing out. You probably will be able to return to the beach withthe one good engine without any problem.”
“I’ll tell you what, why don’t you all come into the galleyand relax awhile,” I suggested. “I will take everyone on a tourand show you exactly how we do things in the oil industry. Onceyou understand our side better, maybe you will have a differentopinion of us.”
“We’ve never actually been on a rig,” one member of theirgroup confessed. I glanced over at Brother-in-law and grimaced.
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Chapter 12
Well, Brother-in-law I’ll be back in three days. You shouldbe on location preparing to rig up for our first well. The drillingcrew will be arriving also, so have everything ready for them,”I said, unlatching the last of the hold-down straps securing Mr.Huey to the heliport.
Brother-in-law rolled up the straps and put them in the bag-gage compartment. “No problem, Blaze. Get some R & R.”
“Yeah, I need to spend some time with my family,” I said,stepping in the pilot’s door. “See you later.”
I started the old, but dependable Mr. Huey, checked myinstruments and lifted up about two feet off the heliport. I slowlyturned into the wind, raised the collective, tilted the nose downand then headed north toward the coast of Louisiana and mynew home in Gueydan.
During my many years of working in the Gulf, I had passedover the marshy coast of Louisiana many times, but I was espe-cially excited about going home to my family this time. For thepast two years I had worked non-stop designing and building theEnergyHunter. I had reluctantly spent weeks, even months at atime away from my family in Baton Rouge. I actually lived on
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the rig while it was being modified at the shipyard in Galveston.My two children were the pride of my life, and the time
away from them had been tough on everyone. It was truly ablessing, that after my wife Jenni passed two years ago, mymother had agreed to move in with us and help with the kids.
The death of their mother and my time away from home hadnot been a pleasant experience for Matthew and April, so abouta month ago we decided a change of scenery would be good foreveryone. I sold our house in the suburbs of Baton Rouge to payoff the balance remaining from the rented dock space where theEnergyHunter was being built. About the same time through agovernment auction, I purchased an old rundown hunting lodgenear the small town of Gueydan, Louisiana, near the coast of theGulf.
Matthew, my 12-year-old son, had always wanted to havehorses and we now had ample land to let them roam. April, my18-year-old daughter, planned to major in interior design whenshe enrolled at Louisiana State University in the fall. The oldlodge could serve as a blank canvas for her artistic vision. All-in-all, we thought a country home would be relaxing for every-one and allow me to spend much more time with them.
Additionally, Gueydan was close to Intracoastal City, wherewe would have our crew changes and it was almost due north ofthe POZO GRANDE project.
The old lodge, which hadn’t been used in years, came with100 acres of mostly wooded lowlands. The property was ownedby the government and had been used as a duck hunting campby high ranking members of the military since World War II.
The old two-story structure had been built ornately in the1940s, but had been neglected in recent years. It needed a lot ofwork, but everyone agreed this would be a great family project.I hoped to spend a lot of time here with April, Matthew and mymother to make up for all the time I had been away during thepast couple of years.
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From the air I could see the entire property. It backed up tothe Intracoastal Canal, about 25 miles inland from the Gulf ofMexico. I could see the small concrete dock and the old cinderblock boat house on the bank next to the canal.
On both sides of the long narrow property were rice fieldsthat extended as far as the eye could see. The lodge was abouthalf a mile off the main road hidden among many large wateroaks. There was an old shell road leading from the house abouta mile back to the boathouse and dock. From my high vantagepoint, I could see a well maintained chain-link fence that pro-tected the property from trespassers over the years.
I was only allowed a quick inspection of the lodge beforebidding on the property. The main building had not been used inmany years, but the metal roof didn’t leak and the solid cypressconstruction was still sound. It looked much worse than it actu-ally was. I guess that’s why I was able to buy it at such a lowprice. Most of the people at the auction thought I was insane tohave bid as high as I did, but the lodge did have a lot of poten-tial.
After I landed and shutdown Mr. Huey, I saw Matthew andApril running out to greet me.
“Daddy, Daddy, you’re home” Matthew shouted.“Yep, I’m home. Kids, this is the only way to travel. How’s
our new home doing?” I asked, hugging both of them at thesame time. I was really happy to be with them and was lookingforward to living out in the country away from hassles of thecity.
“Daddy, I sure hope you are home long enough to work onthe Mustang,” April said, as we started to walk to the back porchof our new home. “I think it needs a brake job or something. It’snot stopping as quickly as it should.”
Last month I bought April a classic red 64 ½ Mustang as ahigh school graduation present. She and I had done a few minorrepairs together and I thought it would be good for her to get a
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little grease under her fingernails. “I hope you are home long enough to go fishing,” Matthew
added. “Daddy, can we go fishing tomorrow? I found an oldwooden canoe under the house.”
Matthew ran ahead and climbed under the cluttered backporch of the lodge. Among the old boards, he pulled out the oldwooden canoe he had found earlier.
“Son, that’s not a canoe. It’s a genuine Cajun pirogue. We’rein south Louisiana now and you need to learn the language.”
“Okay, Daddy, but can we go fishing in it tomorrow?”“Eee! What is it?” April squealed. She instantly ran up the
steps onto the porch.“It’s a giant rat!” Matthew replied.“No, it’s just a nutria.” I laughed. “They’re all over south
Louisiana. They came from South America in the 1930’s. Nowthey’re eating up all the marsh grass. Better get used to seeingthem.”
“That’s the ugliest animal I have ever seen,” April said asshe sat down next to Grandmother Ina in one of the large whiterockers on the back porch.
“Hello mama, have my kids been good?” I said, leaning overand kissing her on the cheek.
My mother, 83 years old and still in great health, had alwaysbeen very energetic, having raised five children and taughtschool for 30 years. My father died about five years ago andsince then mother had been living alone, so moving in with ushad been great for her and us.
“You know Matthew and April are wonderful children. Theynever give me a bit of trouble,” Grandmother Ina replied with abig smile while rocking gently in the large cypress rocking chair.“Could you look at the stove in the old kitchen, it’s not workingright.”
“Yes, mother,” I said.“I’m cooking ragondin stew for supper.”
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“Boy that sounds good.”“I hope you’re home long enough to work on this old house.
It has been neglected for years and needs a lot of work,”Grandmother Ina added.
I sat down in a rocker next to April. “Yes, but remembereveryone, we’re going to take a one day vacation over to NewOrleans tomorrow.” I glanced up at the peeling paint. “Its greatto be here in our new home, but it does look like we have a lotof work to do, huh?”
Even though I had hired a construction crew the previousweek to clean up and repair some things, the old house lookedas if it would be a major undertaking.
“Daddy, have you ever renovated an old house like thisbefore?” April asked.
“No, I haven’t. But most of the things I do, I have never donebefore. That hasn’t stopped me in the past.”
The next morning Grandma Ina, April, Matthew and Iloaded into our Ford F-150 extended cab for the drive to NewOrleans. I thought a day trip would be relaxing for everyoneafter they worked hard moving everything from Baton Rougeduring the past week.
About fifteen minutes into the trip, Matthew asked, “Daddy,how much longer?”
“Bout an ‘our, son,” I replied with an unusual country accentI had picked up working around Brother-in-law. This travel rit-ual took place in twenty minute intervals during our entire two-hour trip.
“Can’t understand why the traffic is always backed up inNew Orleans. No matter what time of the day, it’s alwaysjammed up on I-10,” I complained, driving into the outskirts ofthe city.
“You have been spoiled traveling in that old helicopter. Noone else in the world commutes to work like that,” Grandmother
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Ina replied with a smile.“Where are you taking us first, Daddy, to the mall?” April
asked from the back seat.“No, April, we’re going to the D-Day Museum. Your
Grandmother and I would like to see it and it will be a good his-tory lesson for you and Matthew.”
“Daddy, what’s D-Day?” Matthew asked with genuinecuriosity in his voice.
“Son, D-Day was June 6, 1944. The day during World WarII that the Allies, that’s us, sailed thousands of ships fromEngland and landed 300,000 men and millions of tons of equip-ment on shore in France. This was the beginning of the end ofHitler’s and the Nazi’s control of Europe.”
“Daddy, who’s Hitler?” Matthew asked.“Well, he was one of the cruelest men in history. He tried to
conquer Europe during the 1940’s. He killed millions of inno-cent men, women and children.”
“Was he worse than Osama Bin Laden?”“Let’s say both of them will spend their eternity in the
hottest part of hell.”“Now Blaze, watch your language,” Grandmother Ina insist-
ed.The traffic to the D-Day Museum finally eased up as we
approached the arts and warehouse district of downtown NewOrleans where the museum was located. We parked onMagazine Street and walked across Andrew Higgins Drivetoward the big glass front of the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion.
A museum volunteer greeted us at the door, “The NationalD-Day Museum opened June 6, 2000 with the assistance ofStephen Ambrose, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and others. Themuseum consists of a renovated four-story, 19th century ware-house and this adjacent open-air pavilion. The 16,000-square-foot warehouse housing the photo and exhibit gallery is dividedinto four interactive exhibits mixing displays, artifacts, docu-
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ments and photographs from June 6, 1944. Be sure to stop byour gift shop and the theater showing our D-Day documentary.”
“Daddy, look at those airplanes hanging from the ceiling,”Matthew said, pointing up as we walked through the mainentrance doors and over to the ticket counter.
“Yes, one of them is a British Spitfire,” I said. “What’s theother one?”
“Uhh... that looks like an Avenger”.“Well, I guess all those World War II history books I gave
you have finally paid off.”Inside the pavilion, hundreds of people were strolling around
the building examining the military displays. We walked over tothe Higgins boat prominently displayed in the front of theexhibits.
“Look at this Higgins boat,” I said as I read the sign in frontof the display. “It says Andrew Higgins hired more than 30,000workers in his plant here in New Orleans to build more than20,000 of these landing craft during the war.”
“Daddy is this plywood on the sides? Couldn’t a bullet goright through that?” April asked, tapping the side of the boat.
“Yes,” said an old soldier standing next to the exhibitdressed in his World War II Army uniform. “But if it were notfor these landing craft, D-Day could have never taken place. Mr.Higgins and his Higgins boats may have saved the war for us.”
“Thanks for the information, sir. Did you fight on D-Day?”I asked.
“Yes sir. I did. I was with the 8th Army. We landed at OmahaBeach. We lost a lot of good men on that beach. I thank Godeach day that I made it through.”
“Thank you for doing that for America,” I said, reaching outand shaking his hand. “It’s because of men like you that we areable to enjoy freedom today. Thank you. Do you work here?”
“No sir, I’m visiting here from California, I have wanted tocome see this museum ever since it opened several years ago,”
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the old soldier continued. “I figured I had better get over herebefore it was too late.”
“My father was stationed at the Pentagon during the war,” Itold him, just trying to make small talk. “My dad was blind inone eye and they wouldn’t let him in combat. He volunteeredseveral times to go to the Pacific, but they gave him a desk jobin Washington instead.”
“We all do what we can. I’m sure your father was a goodman.” The old soldier smiled and nodded as we walked to thenext exhibit. “Have a nice day.”
“Oh Daddy, you may be interested in this. It shows all theships that were sunk in the Gulf of Mexico by German U-boatsduring the war,” April said, pulling at my hand. We walked overto a small display next to the back wall.
A dozen old photos were in a glass case showing German U-boats and U.S. merchant ships, along with war records of the U-boat attacks in the Gulf of Mexico.
April read the plaque above the case. “Even though battleswere raging in Europe and the Pacific, the war reached closer tothe American shores than most citizens realized. In 1942German U-boats began crossing the Atlantic and were decimat-ing the American merchant shipping fleet supplying Americanforces overseas. German U-boats were patrolling freely alongthe Eastern seaboard and entered the Gulf of Mexico. U-boattorpedoes sank dozens of U.S. merchant ships in the Gulf ofMexico area ranging from Corpus Christi to Tampa. At anytimeduring the early years of the war, there were as many as a dozenGerman submarines prowling the Gulf of Mexico.”
Grandmother Ina said softly, “Children, did you know myfather was on one of those merchant ships in the Gulf sunk by aGerman U-boat?” She walked over and put her arms aroundApril and Matthew.
This is a story Grandmother Ina didn’t like to talk about, butshe continued. “His ship was torpedoed in 1942 by a German U-
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boat somewhere way out in the Gulf. Neither he, his men, northe tanker were ever found.”
April leaned over the case and looked a little closer at theexhibit. “It says here that many U.S. tankers and cargo shipswere sunk in the Gulf during the war, but only one German U-boat, the U-166, was reported by the Germans to have been sunkby the U.S.”
“Yes, April, I wrote about U-166 in Go Gulf Magazine,remember? An oil company surveying for an underwaterpipeline found U-166 south of the Mississippi River outlet. Theydidn’t disturb it and moved the route of pipeline around thearea,” I said.
“Oh, that’s right. It was considered a war grave and it’sagainst the law to disturb it,” April replied. “I remember proof-reading the story for you.”
“I think my dad would have been proud of all this,”Grandmother Ina went on. “You know, children, war is not agood thing for either side, but sometimes it is necessary to pro-tect our freedom. I think you may have realized that in the pastseveral years with all the terrorist problems. Maybe one day theworld will learn to get along.”
“Grandmother, I wonder if the U-boat they found is the onethat killed your Dad?” Matthew innocently asked.
“I really don’t think so, Matthew,” Grandmother Ina saidwith a tear in her eye.
“Let’s move on,” I said. I grabbed my mother’s and chil-dren’s hands and led them toward another exhibit.
“Let’s go in the gift shop,” April suggested.We walked over to the gift shop and then spent another sev-
eral hours touring the upstairs exhibits and watching the docu-mentary D-Day film in the museum’s theater.
Walking back to the truck, April asked, “Daddy, can we godown Magazine Street and look at the antique stores? I need a
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few things to decorate my new room.”“April, that reminds me. Did I ever tell you about the five
levels of collecting?” “No, Daddy, let’s hear them,” April rolled her eyes and
moaned.“Okay, April. There are five basic levels of collecting. First
you have estate sales, then antique stores,…third is flea mar-kets…fourth is garage sales…and then last is the city dump.” Ilaughed and added, “You know it is all relative to how muchmoney you have.”
“That’s real funny Daddy,” April snickered. “Where do wefit in?”
“It all depends.”“Depends on what?”“The price of oil,” I said, unlocking the truck. “Some years
we are able to collect at estate sales, other years we are lookingat the city dump.”
“That’s real cute Daddy,” April replied, “where do we fit intoday?”
“Well, if there are any problems with the EnergyHunter... Doyou know if Gueydan has a city dump?”
After a full day of visiting the D-Day Museum, theRiverwalk Mall and several dozen antique stores, we headedback to Gueydan.
As we were leaving New Orleans, Matthew asked, “Daddywhy are you interested in all this World War II stuff?”
“That’s a good question Matthew. I really don’t know.Maybe it’s because when I was growing up I would go with myDaddy to a big Army surplus center in Baton Rouge and helphim dig through these huge warehouses packed with militaryjunk. We would bring all kinds of good stuff back to the smallschool were he was principal. We called the place the ‘junk-yard’. We would get all types of army surplus stuff for the
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school, sports equipment, musical instruments, tools, well youname it. Sometimes we would find army helmets, pup tents,walkie-talkies, just like a lot of those things you saw at themuseum. Your Paw-paw Pete would let us play with the stuffduring the summer.”
“Where is all that good stuff now?” Matthew asked.“I guess it all got thrown away or given away over the years.
I sure wish we still had some of those army things, we coulddonate them to this museum.”
“Do you want me to tell you more about what I did when Iwas a little boy?” I asked as we were driving throughThibodaux.
“Not really,” April grumbled. “Daddy, we have heard mostof those stories a hundred times.”
“Did I ever tell you about the time I was a little boy and Iwas riding on the bumper of Paw-paw’s truck and fell out on myhead?”
“Yes, many times,” April replied.“Well, I’ll tell you again.”“I asked your Grandmother if I could ride on the back
bumper on the gravel road in front of our house. I got out andstood on the rear bumper while Grandmother Ina drove onhome. Well, I had one of my many great brainstorms. I wouldjump off the moving truck and try to run behind. Kinda likeSuperman, you know.”
“How fast was Grandmother going?” April giggled.“I don’t know, but it was too fast for me to keep up. That’s
for sure. I fell, but managed to grab hold of the bumper. Thetruck drug me down the gravel road for about a quarter of amile.”
“Why didn’t you let go?”“Well, after awhile I did finally think of that. My knees were
all cut up and I cut my head when it hit the road.”“Grandmother Ina, did that really happen?” April asked.
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“Yes, it did. When I got home, I looked back and saw yourfather lying in the road. He did manage to get up and run homecrying. He’s lucky he didn’t get hurt worse,” Grandmotheradded.
I continued to ramble on with a new story. “Did I ever tellyou about the time when your Aunt Becky pushed me out theback of the truck?”
“I was around 12 years old when I was riding in the back ofthe same truck with your Aunt Becky, who was about 15 at thetime. She had invited several of her cute girl friends to comehome with her after school. We were all riding in the bed of thetruck. I was a skinny, geeky-looking boy with glasses and didn’thave much luck with girls... until I met your mother, of course.Becky’s friends wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
“Just get back to the story, Daddy,” April insisted.“Well, Grandmother Ina was driving your Paw-paw Pete’s
old International pick-up truck and had stopped at the cross-roads. I told Becky and her friends I could reach down over thetailgate and touch the bumper. The next thing I know, whenmomma started to go, Becky pushed me out over the tailgate. Ifell in the middle of the crossroads, and landed right on myhead.”
“What did you do next?” Matthew asked.“Well luckily, I have a hard head and just jumped up and ran
after the truck as Becky and her friends screamed. I hopped backinto the truck and acted like nothing happened.”
“That’s not the way I remember it, Blaze,” my mother inter-rupted. “I remember you fell out because you were showing offand had leaned out too far. And after you fell out, you got upscreaming and crying loudly. Becky and her friends had to helpyou back into the truck.”
“You fell on your head a lot didn’t you Daddy?” April noted.“Yes, I did. You know, some people in the oil industry think
I may have fallen on my head too many times and that it caused
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a lot of damage. Most experts don’t think the EnergyHunter willever produce any gas or oil in 15,000 feet of water and that Ihave lost my mind for attempting it.”
“You’ll show them Daddy,” Matthew said proudly. “I’ll helpyou.”
“I’ll help too, Daddy,” April added, “but don’t ask me to gooffshore.”
About an hour later as we approached Highway 14 nearAbbeville, I noticed April and Matthew were asleep on the backseat. I turned to my mother and asked quietly, “Momma, do youthink I fell on my head too many times, too? You know I am get-ting real nervous about the EnergyHunter.”
“Blaze, don’t let all those critics get to you,” she comforted.“You have always been able to achieve everything you set yourmind to. You just have been working too hard. Ever since Jennidied you have worked non-stop. You need to get out more, andmeet some new people. It’s time for you to get on with yourlife.”
“Thanks, momma. All this hasn’t been easy,” I looked overat her wrinkled face and realized that her life hadn’t been easyeither. “Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t make my life so hard.”
“That’s just the way you are.” She grabbed my hand andrubbed it, like she had done for 45 years.
We arrived home about 10:00 p.m. As Matthew and I werewalking up to the house, he turned to me and said, “Daddy, I hada good time today. I hope you will be able to spend more timewith us.”
“I plan to son.” “You know Daddy, I have been thinking.”“What’s that Matthew?”“Today, D-Day should mean Daddy-Day.”I grabbed and hugged him tightly. “I love you son. Now go
on up to bed and we’ll go fishing tomorrow.”
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Chapter 13
The next morning Matthew, April and I loaded the oldwooden pirogue, packed with fishing gear, into an old hay trailerhitched to an old Ford tractor that the construction crew left onthe property. After a little tinkering, we were able to get the trac-tor started and headed down the shell road toward the docklocated on the Intracoastal Canal about a mile behind the house.
“Are y’all excited about going fishing?” I yelled back toMatthew and April who were standing on the front end of thetrailer leaning against the high wooden railing.
“Yes sir, Daddy. We haven’t been fishing in years,” Matthewcalled back with a big smile. “The last time we went I rememberthe only thing mom caught was a tree.”
I looked at April shaking her head. She wasn’t excited aboutputting the slimy worms on her hooks. When we reached thelarge gate surrounding the property, I stopped and unlocked it.This was the first opportunity we had to investigate this area.
Matthew read the signs on the fence, “Warning. GovernmentProperty. No trespassing. Violators will be prosecuted.”
“Daddy, what do all those signs mean?” April asked. “Ithought we owned everything now?”
“We do,” I replied. “We’ll have to take all those signs down.
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They’re all along the fence around the property.”“It doesn’t look like anyone has been down here in years,”
Matthew added. “Looks like a good fishing spot though.”Matthew and I unloaded the old wooden pirogue from the
trailer and carried it down to the concrete pier while April stoodaround and looked for snakes and more nutria rats. I knew fish-ing was not her first choice for the daily family outing. She real-ly missed shopping in the malls with her mother.
Matthew pushed the pirogue down the concrete boat launchbehind what appeared to be an old boathouse. It splashed intothe canal, but quickly began to fill up with water.
“That’s not good,” Matthew said turning and looking at me. He and I watched as water seeped into the wooden pirogue.
It sank within seconds.“That’s enough fishing, let’s go home,” April suggested,
walking over to where we were standing.“I guess that pirogue was too old to use,” I said, patting
Matthew on the shoulder. “Maybe Grandmother could make a flower bed out of it,”
April added.“After we get settled, we’ll get a good fishing boat. Then we
can go fishing out in the Gulf,” I said. “There are plenty of boatshops between here and Houston, so once I get everything upand running offshore we’ll go boat shopping.”
I walked out onto the concrete pier and jumped up and downto make sure everything was safe. The government had sparedno expense in building everything on the property to last forev-er.
“Let’s fish from this pier a little while,” I said walking backto the bank. “Matthew, you fish from that side of the pier andApril and I will fish from this side.” I pointed April to the leftside. “April, I’ll help you bait your hook and we’ll showMatthew how to catch some fish.”
After about fifteen minutes, Matthew had caught six nice
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size crappie, while April and I hadn’t even gotten a bite. “Hey Matthew, why don’t we fish on your side for a while,”
April said while walking to the other side of the dock. I followed and she and I both threw our lines in the water on
Matthew’s side of the pier. April gently bumped Matthew out ofthe way and started fishing where he was standing. She immedi-ately got a bite and pulled a large one-pound crappie onto thedock.
“Look Daddy, I finally caught a fish!” she screamed inamazement.
“Hey, you’re stealing all my fish,” Matthew complained.“Hey Matthew, you know the same thing happened to me
when I was about your age.” “Oh no, Daddy. Not another when I was a little boy story,”
April groaned. “I thought we heard all of them last night on theway home from New Orleans.”
“When I was about ten years old, I went fishing with myfather and grandfather - that’s your Paw-paw Pete and GreatPaw-paw Pat.”
“We know, we know,” Matthew said, trying to get his fishingspot back from April.
“We went out on Chicot Lake in a small flat bottom boat. Iwas fishing on one side of the boat and they were both fishingon the other side. After about thirty minutes I had caught about10 brim, but they hadn’t caught anything. My dad asked if hecould try fishing on my side of the boat, but before I could sayanything, they both had put their lines out on my side of theboat. After that there wasn’t room to even get my line into thewater. I just gave up and stopped fishing. They both had a goodlaugh about it and said they had ‘Johnny-Rushed’ me. Even tothis day, I don’t know exactly what it means. But when someonetries to move in on my territory, I now call it a Johnny-Rush.”
“Hey, that’s exactly what April is trying to do with me.”Matthew complained. “April, you’re Johnny-Rushing me.”
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We continued to fish from the pier for about an hour, catch-ing about 30 nice size crappie.
“Daddy, it’s getting hot out here. I think we have enoughfish,” April pleaded. “Can we go home now?”
“Well, ok. We can fry these for lunch along with someshrimp, hushpuppies and fries,” I said.
“Daddy, I really miss the way momma used to cook that forus,” Matthew said in a sad tone.
“I do too,” April added. “I wish she could be here out in thecountry with us.”
“You know kids, we all miss your mother, but she told usbefore she died we should move on with our lives. She was astrong lady and really would be disappointed if we didn’t moveon and try to do our best with the life we have,” I said trying tocomfort them. “She’s watching us now you know.”
Matthew and April both glanced up into the clear blue sum-mer sky.
As we loaded the fishing gear and ice chest of fish into thetrailer, I noticed Matthew looking over at the old cinder blockboat house on the bank about 50 feet from the water’s edge.
“Let’s go over and look inside that old boat house,” Matthewsaid, pointing toward the building. “I wonder if anything’sinside.”
“Looks like a ghost house to me. Probably has alligatorsinside,” April said, sitting down on the ice chest. “I’ll stay hereand guard my fish.”
“Let’s go over and see if we can look in,” I said, slappingMatthew on his behind.
The long narrow boathouse was solidly constructed of over-sized cinder blocks and had two large rusty steel doors on thewater’s end of the building. It also had several large faded NoTrespassing signs attached to its side and a concrete ramp lead-ing down to the water.
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Weeds and vines had grown up over the roof and it lookedlike no one had tried to get into the building for many years.Matthew and I made our way through the weeds and treesaround to the back side of the building.
“Daddy, look at the small window up there.” “I’ll lift you up and you can look inside,” I said. “Watch out
for spiders and snakes.” “And alligators,” Matthew added.“What do you see?” I asked, lifting Matthew on my shoul-
ders while he pulled himself up to the small window. “I see some kind of boat, it’s got guns or something on it. It’s
dark in there and I can’t see much,” Matthew said with greatenthusiasm.
The trip to the D-Day museum yesterday had peaked hisinterest in old military stuff, but I really didn’t think there couldbe a boat with guns in there.
“Let me see,” I said, pushing over an old oil drum and hop-ping on top. I peered through the dirty glass window into thedark warehouse. There was just enough light shining in to showthe outline of a boat’s hull. “That’s some kind of boat alright. It’sprobably an old offshore workboat or shrimp boat.”
I hopped down and we walked around to the water end of thebuilding.
“Maybe we could bust the locks on those large steel doors,”I said. “This is our property now, so I guess this building andeverything inside it belongs to us.”
Matthew yelled over to April, who was sitting on the rear ofthe trailer looking at her prized fish in the ice chest. “Hey April,look around on the tractor and bring us a prybar.”
“What’s it look like?” April asked.“Never mind April, I’ll come get it,” Matthew replied impa-
tiently.Matthew and April located an old prybar in a large toolbox
on the trailer.
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“What do you think is in there?” April asked as they returnedwith the pry bar.
“I saw something that looked like a giant crawfish,”Matthew kidded. “We got the prybar to kill it.”
“What’s in there Daddy?” April asked again, handing meone end of the six foot prybar.
It took all three of us to pull on the end of the prybar to breakthe three large rusty locks on the doors. We grabbed and pulledon one of the huge doors until it was open just enough tosqueeze inside. I stood next to the door, Matthew stood behindme and April stood behind Matthew. We all slowly leaned overand nervously looked inside.
“You go in first,” April told Matthew.“Not me, you go in first,” Matthew told April.“Okay, calm down, I’ll go in first. Hand me the prybar,” I
said, reaching to get the prybar from Matthew.“Look at that,” I said, pulling the door wider to let in more
light.“What is that thing?” April asked. “Matthew, you were right. This looks like a PT boat used
during World War II,” I said. “See, it says PT 8 right there on theside. And it still has its guns mounted on the top deck.”
“I told you,” Matthew said. “But what’s it doing in here?”“I don’t know,” I replied, looking down at the concrete floor
for snakes. “But it looks to be in great shape. Everything is coat-ed in cosmoline.”
“What’s cosmoline?” April asked. I pushed several rusty barrels out of our way as we walked a
little closer to the boat.“It’s the stuff they used during WWII to coat parts to keep
them from rusting.”“Do you see any alligators?” April asked carefully looking
around on the dirty floor.“Do you think it will run?” Matthew asked. “This would
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make a great offshore fishing boat. Now we won’t have to buyone.”
“Yeah, we could just shoot the fish and not have to bait thehook with those messy worms,” April laughed.
“Let’s get one of those barrels from the corner of the ware-house and climb up on the deck,” I said. “It looks like this boatwas winched up the boat ramp into this building and put up onblocks many years ago.”
I rolled a heavy barrel closer to the boat, climbed onto it andstepped over onto the deck of the boat. “Look at this. It still hasall its guns and everything is in great condition,” I said in amaze-ment.
“Daddy, can we work on this boat and try to put it in thewater?” Matthew pleaded, climbing onto the barrel to get a bet-ter view.
“Hey, this boat looks like one of those boats we saw in thepictures yesterday at the D-day Museum,” April said.
“I’ll tell you what. Let’s go back home, clean the fish forlunch, then we can come back and look at this a little closer,” Isaid. “We’ll come back with some tools and see if we can get theengines started. This looks like a great family project. Doesn’t itkids?”
“Just what we need, another family project. I think I’ll stayhome and help Grandmother,” April grumbled.
We walked back through the weeds to the tractor and headedback to the house. On the way home, April sat on the back of thehay trailer holding the ice chest, while Matthew rode with me onthe tractor, talking excitedly about our discovery.
After cleaning the fish, I fired up the outdoor grill and put onan iron pot full of cooking oil. I began frying the nice crappie wehad caught that morning. Through the back window I could seeApril and Grandmother Ina in the kitchen cooking hushpuppiesand french fries.
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“Daddy, Daddy, I looked up PT boats in the military booksyou gave me and they said the PT-8 was built by the Navy in1940!” Matthew shouted as he ran down the back porch steps.“It was some sort of experimental model made out of all alu-minum.”
“Did it say what happened to it?”“It said no one knows where it is. It disappeared after the war
and there are no more records about it.”“Well, looks like we made a major discovery, huh?” I removed a batch of fish and placed them on paper towels
to drain.“What else did you learn?”“Well, it’s 80 feet long and has three V-12 engines and it has
a top speed of more than 50 knots.” Matthew said, grabbing apiece of fish and eating it. “But, what is a knot?”
“Fifty knots is equal to about 58 miles per hour. Boy, that’sfast,” I replied, taking a sip of my soda pop.
“It said they built over 300 PT boats during World War II andthere are only a few left. They had torpedoes, anti-aircraft guns,depth charges and carried a crew of 14 men. But, it said thatmost PT boats were made out of wood due to the shortage of alu-minum during the war.”
I picked up more fish, battered them and dropped them intothe grease.
“You know, President Kennedy was a PT boat captain duringthe war.”
“President who?” “Oh, that’s right, you’re only twelve years old. President
Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. He was a PT boat captain inthe South Pacific and a Japanese destroyer rammed his boat. Heand his crew were stranded on a deserted island for days untilthey were rescued.”
Matthew and I continued to talk about our great find whilethe fish finished cooking.
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“Go tell Grandmother and April the fish are ready.”As we sat down to eat, Grandmother asked, “Blaze what are
you boys going to do with that old boat if you do get it running?”“I don’t know, but it’ll be fun to work on,” I replied.“Don’t you think you have enough on your mind?”
Grandmother warned. “Don’t you take Matthew out in that oldPT boat, it’s not safe.”
“Daddy, why do you think that boat is still there?”“I’m not sure. When they sold me the property, I guess no
one from the government bothered to look in that old boat shed.”“Can we keep it Daddy?” Matthew asked.“We’re going to work on it and try to get it running, no mat-
ter what....You know I like a good challenge.”“Whose turn is it to say the blessing?” April interrupted.
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Chapter 14
After lunch Matthew and I loaded up the tractor and trailerwith tools and plenty of WD-40, to clean off the cosmoline, andheaded back to the PT boat. We also took along a generator,lights and a 55 gallon drum of jet fuel we got from the storagetank I had delivered to the property last week for refueling Mr.Huey.
We were both excited about cleaning the PT boat, getting itrunning, and using it for deep sea fishing. When we arrived atthe boathouse, we set up the generator and strung a set of over-head floodlights in the building.
“Those lights really help us see what we have. The first thingwe need to do is go below deck and check out the engines,” Isaid.
We grabbed our flashlights, opened the engine compartmenthatch and slid down the ladder. Down below we discoveredeverything had been coated with a thick layer of cosmoline.
“It looks like someone was really trying to preserve thisboat. I don’t think we will have much problem getting it run-ning.” I walked around shining the flashlight on the three hugeengines. “Look at those engines. I used to work on V-12 gener-ator engines when I was a mechanic offshore. I have never met
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an engine that I couldn’t start.”“Yeah right, Daddy,” Matthew replied in a sarcastic voice.“We’ll be able to pull the boat down the concrete ramp into
the canal with the tractor once we get everything back in shape.”
We worked all afternoon cleaning the boat. We cleaned thecarbs, drained and cleaned the fuel tank, and hand pumped the55 gallons of fuel into the boat’s fuel tank.
“Matthew, go up on the top deck and push the start buttonlike I showed you earlier. I’ll stay down here and watch forleaks. Climb up there and let’s give it a whirl.” I looked over atMatthew and gave him a thumbs up. “Let’s see what happens.”
“Aye, Aye, Daddy.” Matthew saluted.Matthew climbed up the ladder to the top deck and walked
over to the bridge. He put on an old Army helmet he found downbelow and looked through the binoculars he found hanging onthe throttle control arm.
“Full speed ahead. Man your battle stations. Enemy sub offthe port, stern, bow, or whatever.... It’s over there men.” I couldhear Matthew pretending to fight a battle during World War II.
“Okay, Matthew start ‘er up,” I yelled from the engine com-partment.
“What,...Okay,” Matthew said. He reached down and pushedthe start button.
Whaaa, Whaa, Whaa. Engine number one turned over easily,but didn’t start.
“Try it one more time. I think it’s about to fire off.”Whaa, Whaa, Brooom, Brooommmmmmmmm. The number
one engine started and ran smoothly. The old engine roared as Iclimbed up the ladder. I poked my head up out of the hatch andsaw Matthew doing a small celebration dance. A large cloud ofblack smoke had come out of the exhaust and the smell of fumesfilled the air.
“Yeah, boy. That smells great, doesn’t it?” I said. “There’s
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nothing like the smell of sweet engine exhaust to a mechanic.Let’s try to start engine number two and three.”
With a little work we got all three engines running smoothly.Whoever had preserved the boat knew what they were doing.
“That’s good. Shut everything down, we don’t want theengines to overheat without any cooling water,” I instructedMatthew, who by this time appeared to be having wild dreamsof fighting the war on a PT boat in the South Pacific and some-day being President of the United States.
“Daddy, you can do anything.”“I hope you are right, Matthew, because in a few days my
entire career will be on the line.”“I know you can find oil with the EnergyHunter,” Matthew
said, giving me a much needed hug.“Thanks, Matthew, let’s see if we can use the tractor to pull
the boat down the boat ramp into the water. We can go down toIntracoastal City and get more fuel from one of the fuel docksthere.”
We attached the tractor winch to the rear of the PT boat andslowly winched it toward the water. After about an hour of hardwork, we got the PT 8 down into the Intracoastal Canal. Thesteel rollers under the boat were badly rusted, but lasted longenough to roll the boat into the water before they completely dis-integrated.
We started up all three engines, checked to make sure theywere getting cooling water and had good oil pressure, then head-ed down the canal.
“Matthew, about 10 miles east is the small, offshore oilfieldtown of Intracoastal City,” I said. “Well, it really isn’t an officialtown, but its more of a collection of heliports and boat docksused by the offshore oil industry. Some people call it ICT, andit’s located at the intersection of the Intercoastal Waterway andVermilion Bay, a large bay that opens up into the Gulf.”
As we approached the area around Intercoastal City, we
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could see helicopters flying crews to and from the offshore plat-forms and rigs.
“Today is crew change day for most of the workers,Matthew. People drive down to the heliports from all over thecountry. I used to know a man who flew from his home inCalifornia to New Orleans. He would rent a car and drive herefrom the airport.”
“That a pretty good commute, huh?” Matthew asked. “Yes, son. And that guy did it every 14 days for more than
five years. I think he finally moved to Houston.”“Daddy, look at that place,” Matthew said, pointing to an old
bait shop. On the side of the old weathered cypress building was a
faded sign that read: Don’s Bait Shop. Smaller hand paintedsigns nailed on the posts of the porch read: Fresh Shrimp, HotCracklins and Boudin, and Worms for Sale. There were severalantique looking gas pumps next to a long wooden pier that pro-truded out into the water. On the waterside porch were severalold Cajuns siting on an old church pew. They were wearing oldfaded overalls, white rubber boots and were drinking Jax beer.
“What dat is?” the short bearded Cajun yelled out when hesaw us approaching their dock. He stood up, leaned forwardwith his hands on his knees and stared at us.
I slowed the PT boat as we approached, but underestimatedmy speed and ran right into the side of their old wooden dock.
The impact knocked Matthew off his seat onto the deck.“Where you going, Daddy?” Matthew asked, slowly pickinghimself up from the floor and adjusting his army helmet. “Goodthing I had this safety helmet on.”
The two, old Cajuns were rolling on the floor of the porchlaughing so hard.
“What kind of boat dat is?” one of the men yelled with a biglaugh. “Use dose machine guns to shoot dem ducks?”
“Good afternoon, men,” I replied, as if nothing had hap-
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pened. “I’ll pay for the dock.”“Ooo, wee, dat sum kind of duck huntin’ boat. You look like
dat man who done bought Fort Mallard. You dat oil driller dattink he can drill in 15,000 feet of water. Dat’s impossible,nobody can do dat.”
“Yes, sir that’s me alright,” I said.“Saw somethin’ ‘bout you on Channel 10 ‘bout two or three
day ago. Them was talkin’ ‘bout da oil show dere in Houston.Said you done move down to Gueydan. Dat’s you alright, I rec-ognize you on TV.”
“Glad to meet you, sir. I’ll take a pound of cracklins andabout 3 pounds of boudin,” I said. “What did you call our place,Fort Mallard?”
“Ya, dat what folk ‘round here call it,” the old bearded Cajunreplied. “Old folk always call it Fort Mallard, cause demGenerals hunt dem mallard duck round dere, but dey stop goin’dere 40 or 30 year ago.”
We talked for a while and later went down to the heliport onthe Intracoastal Canal that I had contracted for the EnergyHuntercrew changes and filled up the PT 8 with jet fuel.
After we had filled up on fuel, cracklins, boudin, and locallore, Matthew and I started our trip back home. As we werearriving back at our dock, I watched Matthew untie an old rottentarp covering four barrels that were lying on a rack on the rearof the PT-8. He leaned over the top barrel and wiped the cosmo-line from its side. He read the military stenciling on the barrelsand yelled up at me.
“Hey Daddy, what’s TNT?”I stared at him with wide eyes.“TNT!...Matthew, get away from there! Those are highly
explosive depth charges. They were used to sink submarinesduring the war. Those barrels of TNT roll into the water on topof an enemy sub and a big explosion blows a hole in it.”
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“Whoa, Daddy, that’s not good.” He carefully slid downfrom the top of the barrels and then ran all the way to the frontof the boat.
“Looks like those are some left-over depth charges the PTboat used during the war.” I very carefully maneuvered the PT 8next to the dock and shut down all three engines. “Matthew, Ihadn’t noticed them under the tarp before.”
“Are they gonna blow up?” Matthew yelled from the bow.“I don’t think so, but we’d better leave this boat alone until
I can get someone to safely remove them.” I tossed the bow ropedown toward the dock. “Tomorrow I’ll call an expert to comeand get all these explosives.”
Matthew jumped down onto the dock and grabbed the ropeand tied it to a post on the dock.
“We’ll secure the boat to the dock and leave it alone fornow.”
“That sounds good to me. Let’s go home.”“Don’t tell your Grandmother or April about all this,” I said
as we walked back to the tractor. “I’ll just tell them not to come down here because we saw a
big alligator, or something.” I looked over at Matthew and winked. “And promise me you
won’t come down here either.”“Don’t worry about me, Daddy.”
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Chapter 15
And what are you boys going to do today?” GrandmotherIna asked as Matthew and I sat down at the kitchen table to eatbreakfast.
“Well, I thought we would do a little more work on the PTboat. I’m going to call someone to come give us a hand cleaningit up.”
“Here are your waffles, boys.” Grandmother Ina said, hand-ing us two big plates of waffles.
“I have to go back to the EnergyHunter tomorrow, so we aregoing to play sailor one more day,” I said as I poured Steen’scane syrup on my waffles. “This afternoon we’ll work on April’sMustang.”
“What are you and April going to do?” I asked.“When April gets up, we’re going into Abbeville to look for
some things to decorate the house,” Grandmother Ina said as shesat down. “And I think we’ll eat at Black’s for lunch.”
I heard the phone ring in the other room. I took a quick bite,then walked into the living room to answer it.
“Hello, Hooper’s residence,” I said with a mouth full of waf-fles and syrup.
“Hello, Blaze, how y’all doing?” Brother-in-law blurted out
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over the phone.“Okay, man. We’re just eating breakfast. What’s up?” “Well, it looks like we are having a little problem getting the
EnergyHunter into position out here. “What’s the problem? Everything was going so smoothly
when I left.”“You see, we arrived at the drillin’ location without any
problem. That dynamic positionin’ system parked this baby righton the money.”
“So what’s the problem?”“We stayed on the correct co-ordinates about two minutes,
then we suddenly shifted about 500 yards to the north.”“You mean the EnergyHunter moved to a new position?”“No, I mean it shifted like it was shot from a double-barrel
shotgun! It knocked us to the floor.”“How could that have happened?”“I don’t know. We carefully checked everything and then
manually positioned back to the correct co-ordinates again.”“Yeah, and?”“The same cotton-pickin’ thing happened again. Only this
time it was 500 yards to the east.”“This’s not good,” I said. I smiled and gave a little wave to
April who was walking down the stairs in her robe.“T-boy and I have checked everythin’. Can’t find anythin’
wrong with the equipment.”“Have you double checked everything?”“Yes! T-boy has been sitting at the dynamic positioning con-
sole checking the systems since five o’clock this morning, tryingto figure out the problem. The first time he used the computersystem to position and the second time he maneuvered using themanual joystick control. Both times we were in position forabout two minutes before we shifted.”
“Put T-boy on the phone.” “Yea, Blaze,” T-boy replied.
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“T-boy, have you checked to make sure you’re getting cor-rect GPS signals from all three satellites?”
“Yes, we are getting a good signal from all three. For someunknown reason, we cannot seem to stabilize. Every time Imoved into position at the correct coordinates, the vessel shifted.It keeps violently shifting 500 yards in any direction.”
“What’s your wave height?”“It’s dead calm out here with winds from the south at only
five miles per hour. This thing is designed to hold steady in aForce 5 hurricane. I know the weather or current isn’t movingus.”
“Have you checked the thrusters?”“Preacher Jack said everything in the propulsion system
indicates normal.”“I hate to say it, Blaze, but we need your help with this one.”“Okay, I’ll be there in about two hours,” I replied. “Hey, ahh,
by the way, how’s Miss Whitehead?”“She’s doing just fine. The last time I saw her she said she
was going up to get some sun and do some writing up on the hel-iport while we tried to find a position. I told her we’re not goingto move until you get here.”
“I’m on my way,” I replied, hanging up the phone.I walked back into the kitchen and took one last bite of my
waffles. Matthew, Grandmother Ina and a sleepy-eyed Aprilwere all sitting at the table.
“Hey, everyone, I have to go out to the EnergyHunter for awhile, but I hope to be back soon.”
“How soon Daddy?” April asked, rubbing her eyes. “Youpromised to work on the Mustang this afternoon.”
“I know I did April. I’ll try to be back as soon as I can, but Ireally have to leave right now,” I said. “I love you. And asGeneral MacArthur said when he left the Phillipines, I shallreturn.”
“You’ve been watching too many war movies, Daddy,” April
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giggled. Grandmother Ina just rolled her eyes while Matthewgave me a quick salute.
I hugged everyone before walking down the steps and out toMr. Huey parked in the pasture behind the barn.
At about ten o’clock, I landed on the EnergyHunter’s heli-port. For the first time in many years I had a bad vibe about whatwas going on. I have always trusted my vibes. They have keptme out of trouble many times, and this vibe didn’t feel good.
I shut down Mr. Huey and strapped my old tired helicoptersecurely to the heliport. I hurried down the stairway toward theEnergyHunter’s control room.
I saw Miss Whitehead walking toward me in the hallway bythe galley. “Hello, Miss Whitehead,” I said, noticing how attrac-tive she looked in her yellow EnergyHunter jumpsuit.
“Good morning, Mr. Hooper. You’re back early, aren’t you?”“Yes, Miss Whitehead. I hope your stay on the
EnergyHunter has been a pleasant one so far.” “It has been like a Caribbean cruise, until this morning.”“Well, you will have to excuse me, I have to solve this little
problem.”I walked into the control room where Brother-in-law and T-
boy were sitting, both with very worried expressions on theirface. They had a big stake in making the EnergyHunter a suc-cess. The EnergyHunter had performed superbly during sea tri-als and we had passed all the inspections from every major reg-ulatory agency with flying colors. This was the first major prob-lem we had encountered.
“Hello, men. What seems to be the problem?” Brother-in-law answered in his typical country accent, “Well
Boss, we arrived on location early this mornin’ and everythin’was goin’ great. We put the location coordinates into the dynam-ic positioning computer and the vessel moved exactly to thosecoordinates. We thought everythin’ was okay, but several min-
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utes later we felt a huge jolt and movement, like someone hadcold-cocked us from behind. The next thing I know we are 500yards north of the correct position.”
“Blaze, it just doesn’t make any sense,” T-boy said, shakinghis head.
“We checked the GPS system and it indicated that, yup, wehad moved about 500 yards north. I don’t know how we moved,we just moved,” Brother-in-law said disgustedly, removing hiscap and scratching his head.
“Don’t panic yet, men,” I cautioned. “There has to be somesensible explanation.”
“It’s like maybe a hurricane or something forced us off posi-tion. It makes no sense to me, I have never seen anything likethis happen before,” T-boy added in frustration.
“This is a state-of-the-art Class 3 differential global position-ing system. I had the manufacturer install two extra gyroscopicmotion sensors, and triple redundant wind, current and wavesensors. All that expensive equipment and the eight thrusters aredesigned to hold our position within six inches, even in 125 milean hour wind and 12-foot waves,” I explained.
I walked over to the GPS console and sat down. Brother-in-law and T-boy stood behind me and watched.
“Where’s the preacherman?” I asked.“He’s down in the engine control room,” T-boy answered.“Preacher Jack, pick up,” I called over the intercom.“This is Jack, come back. Is that you, Blaze?”“Yes, hello Preacherman.”“Glad you’re back, we’re having trouble solving this one.”“That’s why I’m here. Jack, we’re going to try to position
again. This time, when I tell you, completely shut down powerto all eight thrusters. I want to see what happens.”
“Okay Blaze,” Preacher Jack replied over the intercom.“Just stand by,” I said calmly.“I’ll wait on your signal,” he said.
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I turned to T-boy and Brother-in-law and said, “I’ll tell youwhat, I’m going to position manually one more time. You watchthe GPS signal and ship’s sensors on the monitors and let meknow what they do once I am over the drill site.”
I leaned up in the DPS control chair and grabbed the blackjoystick control with my right hand. By moving the joystick Islowly guided the ship into the correct position. I read the head-ing and position coordinates on the main positioning displaymonitor.
“Okay, guys, we are now at 25.4 North Latitude, 93.0 WestLongitude. We’re in the correct position.”
A little graphic image of the EnergyHunter on the computerscreen had stopped precisely at the intersection of 25.4 Northlatitude and 93.0 West longitude.
“Okay, preacherman, we’re in position. Cut all power to allthe thrusters. There is no way we can move now.”
Over the speaker in the room, I heard Jack reply, “Yes, sir, Ijust pulled the manual disconnect and have cut all power. Blaze,I’m watching the thruster’s rpm drop on the monitors.”
I waited about 30 seconds then leaned up to the small boommic mounted on top of the monitor, “Preacherman, how’s it looknow?”
“Blaze, all eight thrusters show zero rpm.”“Well, it looks like everything is holding in position now,”
Brother-in-law said. He watched the position monitor over myshoulder. “Boss, you just have the touch.”
“All the sensors are reading normal and we have a strongsignal from three different satellites,” T-boy added. “Maybethere was a malfunction with the thrusters before.”
Suddenly, the EnergyHunter started to shake violently andwithin 30 seconds the 1200 ton semi-submersible had shifted500 yards to the southwest.
T-boy and Brother-in-law held on to the back of my chair tokeep from being thrown to the floor.
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“Preacher, Preacher, what happened down there?” Brother-in-law yelled into the microphone.
“I’m telling you the thrusters did not turn. I was watchingthe readouts the entire time. I’m telling you it is still showingzero rpm on all eight thrusters. They didn’t turn,” he yelled overthe intercom.
“T-boy what’s our position now?” I asked.“About 500 yards from where we were a minute ago.”“This is definitely not good,” I said angrily, slapping the
table. I stood up and looked out the window of the control room.“We’re going to do a visual inspection of the thrusters with theAUV. They have to be turning. They’re the only thing that canmove us. Did the AUV guy show up yesterday?”
“Yes sir, he arrived late yesterday. He’s been trying to hookup his equipment in the AUV building since this morning,”Brother-in-law answered.
“Why don’t we do a visual inspection of the pontoons andthrusters while we try to position one more time?” I said.
Brother-in-law groaned, “Blaze, the EnergyHunter can’ttake much more of this.”
“You’re right, but we have to figure this out soon. Thedrilling crew will be here in two days,” I replied.
I put on my hard hat and walked toward the exit door. I couldtell Brother-in-law and T-boy were beginning to get very nerv-ous.
“Don’t worry guys. There has to be a good reason for allthis.”
“I hope you’re right,” Brother-in-law replied. “My futuredepends on it.”
“Yeah, mine too,” T-boy added. “We have to figure out theproblem soon, or we’ll be thrown completely off schedule.”
“I’m going down to the AUV building. I’ll call you whenwe’re ready. We’ll try it one more time.”
I hurriedly walked down two flight of stairs and headed
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toward the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle building. Theportable AUV control center was a self-contained portable steelbuilding that was secured to the third level deck near the stern ofthe EnergyHunter.
As I walked toward the building, I noticed the underwaterrobot was secured in its launch/retrieval basket which was sus-pended over the side of the handrail outside the blue building.
A small, blond-haired man in his early thirties was adjustingthe winch attached to the basket. He looked up and said, “Hello,sir. You must be Mr. Roger Blaze Hooper. I recognize you fromyour pictures I have seen.
“Yes, hello,” I said. “What type of equipment do you havehere?”
“This AUV is a state-of-the-art unmanned 18 foot long by 3foot diameter underwater robot operated by remote control,without wires or cables connected to it. My untethered AUV isequipped with a sensitive underwater video camera, multibeamswath high-resolution bathymetry and imagery, chirp side-scansonar and GPS navigational equipment, and this latest designeven has a small grasping arm.”
“Ok, you’ve sold me,” I said, shaking his hand. “Nice tomeet you.”
“I’m Hank. It’s a pleasure to be here working on theEnergyHunter,” he replied with a European accent. He waswearing bright red and black overalls with an IZANCO logo onthe pocket.
“Do you have everything in working order?” I asked, look-ing over the handrail at the AUV. “Your AUV sure looks like alittle submarine, doesn’t it?”
Hank nodded, “It is the most advanced underwater vehicle inexistence. I have a Ph.D. in underwater engineering and havebeen working with my father on this new AUV design for morethan five years. This will be the deepest water in which it hasever operated.”
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“Great, let’s see what it can do.”“Everything is ready. I have finished uncrating everything
and connecting the computers. Come inside the building and wecan launch it.” He pulled the door latch and opened the heavydoor of the steel building.
“Sorry for the mess, but your EnergyHunter seems to bemoving around a lot this morning. Is it always this rough?”
“No, we are having a little problem holding our correct posi-tion. We need to use your AUV to watch the thrusters mountedunder the hull.”
Hank turned on the master switch of the AUV computer sys-tem and a row of six monitors lit up on the control panel locatedinside the small front room of the building. A large 50 inch plas-ma screen monitor mounted on the wall above the smaller mon-itors showed an image of the side of the EnergyHunter from theAUV’s video camera.
“Everything is working. Look, there is a view from the cam-era. The AUV is still in the launching and retrieval cradle locat-ed outside the building.”
“Okay, Hank, what we need to do is to lower the AUV underthe pontoons and make a close-up visual inspection of thethrusters. T-boy and Brother-in-law, up in the bridge, are goingto position over our drill site.”
“No problem sir,” Hank said, beginning to lower the AUVlaunch cradle to the water. Once the AUV became completelysubmerged, Hank applied power and gently guided the AUV outof the cradle with the joystick mounted on the arm of his controlroom chair.
“Look at the big monitor, Mr. Hooper, it will give you acomplete underwater view of everything.”
“Get me a wide view of as many of the thrusters as you canget in one shot.”
“Yes, sir. I will use my powerful Halon lights so you can seebetter.”
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“That’s it. Right there. I can see the forward four thrusters.Be ready to spin the AUV around to look at the rear four when Itell you.”
“Yes, sir.”I picked up the intercom next to Hank’s desk, “T-boy. Go
ahead. Try to position to the correct coordinates.”“Okay, Blaze, I read you loud and clear,” T-boy replied from
the bridge. “I’m moving the EnergyHunter into position now.”“Once you get there, Jack, cut all power to the thrusters and
then signal me,” I spoke over the intercom. “I heard you loud and clear,” Preacher Jack replied.I carefully watched the thrusters begin to turn and slowly
move the EnergyHunter into position.After about fifteen minutes, T-boy responded over the inter-
com, “Okay Blaze, we’re in position.”“Preacherman, cut all power to the thrusters,” I ordered.“Okay, all power to all eight thrusters has been cut. The
thrusters should not be turning,” Preacher replied.I closely watched the video monitor as the 48-inch ducted
propellers mounted under the pontoons slowly spun to a stop.Hank maneuvered the AUV around to view each of the eightthrusters mounted under the pontoons.
“T-boy, none of the propellers in the thrusters are turning,” Iannounced over the intercom.
As soon as I spoke, the EnergyHunter began to shake wildly,rapidly shifting us 500 yards off of the drill site, this time to thenortheast.
“Come in bridge,” I spoke nervously over the intercom.“What happened?”
“I’m telling you Blaze, that’s what has happened everytime,” T-boy replied with fear in his voice.
“Brother-in-law, what do you think,” I asked.“You got me, Hoop.” He answered on the intercom. “There
is no way in heck this ship can move without the thrusters turn-
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ing. I’ve never seen anything like it.” “Maybe we’re in the Bermuda Triangle,” Cowboy boomed
over the intercom.
I turned to Hank and vented, “This is the most mysteriousthing I have ever encountered. There is no reason this shouldhappen. I tell you what, since you have the AUV in the water,why don’t we do a visual inspection all the way to the bottom ofthe Gulf over the drillsite?”
“What good would that do? It will take hours,” Hank spokein a defiant manner.
“I don’t know, let’s just do it.” Things were not looking good and I didn’t need questioning
from some young AUV hand.“We have tried everything else. I would like to see what it
looks like down there anyway. If all else fails, we can approachthe problem from the opposite direction,” I said as I walkedtoward the door.
“But it’s going to take a while to reach 15,000 feet,” Hankrepeated in a reluctant voice.
“Just do it, man. We are going to put our heads together andtry to determine the cause of the problem. Call me when you getwithin 1,000 feet of the bottom,” I said, slamming the door as Iwalked out.
For the next three hours, in the control room we checked anddouble checked every piece of equipment that had anything todo with positioning the EnergyHunter. We just couldn’t findanything wrong.
About four o’clock Hank called on the intercom, “Mr.Hooper, I’m at 14,000 feet.”
“We’ll be right down,” I replied.Brother-in-law, Cowboy and I scurried down stairs to the
AUV hut. I was hoping that grabbing a glimpse of the ocean
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floor at 15,000 feet might shed some light on our problem. When we walked into the AUV control room the large video
monitor mounted on the wall had only the image of the murkysea.
Hank read from the depth gage, “14,500 feet, 14,600 feet,14,700 feet, 14,800 feet, 14,900 feet,…the sea floor is comingup, sir.”
“I see it,” I said excitedly. “Man that looks pretty.” “Looks like money to me,” Brother-in-law said with a big
grin.“Let’s look around over the drillsite, no telling what we may
find down here,” I suggested.“I hope we find a naked mermaid,” Cowboy added.“Man, that’s all you have on your mind,” Brother-in-law
replied as he hit him behind the head.“Hey, what’s that?” I yelled as a long dark cylindrical object
appeared on the monitor. The room went silent.“What is that?” Brother-in-law asked in a dumfounded
voice. “Looks like a pipeline.”“Can’t be a pipeline, there are no pipelines this far out.
That’s why we built the EnergyHunter. It’s too deep to lay apipeline,” I reminded everyone.
“Looks like a giant mermaid to me,” Cowboy laughed.As all three of us stepped closer to the monitor to get a better
look, I said in amazement, “Looks like a submarine. Get a littlecloser Hank, and switch to your close-up lens.”
Hank maneuvered the AUV to within 50 feet of the objectand changed the video camera to the high definition lens.
“Hey, it is a submarine. But what’s it doing here?” Brother-in-law asked.
“See if you can locate any markings,” I said.“Look, right there. Hold it steady. It looks like the letters
‘U’, and the numbers ‘2’ and ‘1’ and ‘2’. And look, there is a
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German swastika. Careful, Hank, don’t disturb anything. Guys,it’s a German U- Boat.”
“What’s that thing doing here?” Brother-in-law asked again.“That’s a good question, I did a story about the U-166 sev-
eral years ago in Go Gulf. World War II records indicated therewas only one German submarine lost in the Gulf of Mexico. Itwas the U-166 and it has already been found. This can’t be theU-166, it was discovered over by the mouth of the MississippiRiver, 150 miles from here.”
“What do we do now, boss?” Cowboy took off his weldingcap and rubbed his head.
“Hank, whatever you do, don’t disturb it,” I said forcefully,turning to look directly at him.
I noticed that Aggie had entered earlier and had been watch-ing the monitor from the back of the room. He spoke up. “Westudied about war graves in American History class last springin high school. President Clinton passed a law declaring that allunderwater sites were the property of the country the sunkenvessel belonged to originally. If that is a German U-boat, itwould be considered a German war grave, and by internationallaw the site can’t be disturbed.”
“You’re correct Aggie,” I agreed. “Looks like this U-boat issplit in two pieces and each half is about 50 feet apart. We’d bet-ter leave it alone. I will have to contact the authorities in themorning.”
“Maybe the sunken U-boat has something to do with ourposition problem; it is right over the drillsite you know,”Cowboy suggested.
“Come on, Cowboy, how could that happen?” Brother-in-law laughed.
“Alright men, it’s time to eat supper. There is nothing we cando now until we talk to the authorities about the U-boat. We willhave to put everything on hold until morning,” I said.
As we exited the AUV building, I turned to Hank, who had
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been sitting in his control chair the entire time, without saying aword.
“Bring the AUV back up and be very careful,” I said emphat-ically. “Whatever you do, do not disturb that U-boat...or whatev-er it is.”
After a pause, he finally spoke, “Okay…Okay Mr. Hooper.I’m not going to eat anything tonight. See everyone in the morn-ing.”
Everyone left the room and headed up to the galley. Brother-in-law and I made a pass on the second deck to check for anyequipment damage.
“Who is this new AUV guy, what happened to our regularcompany?” I asked.
“We were going to use our regulars, but their equipmentcouldn’t reach 15,000 feet. I decided to hire this new company,IZANCO, out of the North Sea. As soon as the word got out Iwas looking for another company, Hank called me personally.He was very eager to get the job, and he gave me an unbeliev-able price. Hank owns the company. His father started it aboutfifty years ago, but died last year and now Hank’s in charge. Hecame highly recommended,” Brother-in-law informed me.
“I get a bad vibe about him,” I said as we headed back to thegalley.
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Chapter 16
About 20 minutes after everyone had left the AUV building,Hank walked over and locked the building’s entrance door fromthe inside. He returned to his control chair and nervously guidedthe AUV back down toward the sunken German U-boat.
When the mysterious site came back in view he noticed thatthe U-boat had broken into two separate pieces having split apartnear its center control room. He maneuvered the AUV closer tothe opening of the larger section containing the sub’s periscope.He switched on the AUV’s high intensity lights.
“There it is! There it is!” he screamed. He stopped the AUVsuddenly and focused the onboard camera on a small whiteobject on the floor lying next to the periscope tube. He switchedthe AUV camera on maximum zoom and moved within two feetof the object. With the joystick he carefully guided the AUV’sgrasping arm toward the object. He gently pressed the button onthe joystick to activate the arm’s hand, but the AUV’s turbulencecaused the object in the U-boat to float gently away. Hank triedseveral more times until finally he grasped the elusive whiteobject securely with the AUV’s arm. The small white object,undisturbed for more than sixty years, was the captain’s cap.
With the cap firmly in his grasp, Hank carefully began the
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AUV’s long trip back to the surface. All he could do now wassit, watch his monitors and wait. About midnight the AUV final-ly broke the surface and Hank gently guided it into the retrievalbasket suspended from the side of the EnergyHunter. He thenwinched the basket to the rear of the AUV building and pinnedit into the basket support arm.
Hank’s heart was pumping rapidly as he reached into theAUV support basket and manually released the cap from theAUV’s grasp. When he turned the cap over and looked at thepicture inside the clear lining, he began to cry uncontrollably.
Hank carried the dripping cap into the rear half of the AUVbuilding, which contained his personal living space, including abunk, desk and bathroom. Hank placed the cap on several drytowels on his desk and unlocked his upright metal clothing lock-er next to his bunk. In his locker was an assortment of charts andmaps of the Gulf of Mexico, and a surprising collection of WorldWar II Nazi memorabilia. He reached up on the top shelf andtook out a worn and tattered black leather case. He untied thecase and pulled out an old World War II map of the Gulf ofMexico. He unfolded the map on his bunk and stared at it.Marked on the map was a large X at 25.4 North latitude, 94.0West longitude, and the handwritten words, “Wait for 7 Days”.
Hank picked up his satellite phone from the top shelf of themetal locker and dialed an overseas number.
An older lady on the other end answered in German,“Hello.”
“Hello, Grandmother,” Hank replied in German.“Hans, is that you? How are you doing over there?”“I found it! I found it! I found Grandfather’s U-boat.”“Are you sure it is his U-boat?”“Yes Grandmother Anna, I have his Captain’s cap, I
retrieved it with my new underwater equipment. AndGrandmother, it still has your photo inside.”
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“Wonderful Hans, I knew you could do it. After all thoseyears of hard work, I knew you would find your Grandfather’sU-boat. There were no records in the German archives becauseof his top-secret mission. No one knew anything about the mis-sion or what had happened to him or his crew.”
“Yes, Grandmother, those maps and plans you found underthe bed the morning after Grandfather left on his mission werecorrect. It is remarkable that you have kept them hidden for allthose years.”
“I’m very proud of you, this has been your dream ever sinceyou were a small boy when I first told you about yourGrandfather’s unknown fate. Hans, does anyone know aboutthis?”
“Grandmother, everyone onboard knows about finding theU-boat, but they don’t know my connection or that I haveretrieved his cap. Don’t worry, everything is fine. They plan toleave everything alone as a war grave.”
“Well that’s the way it should be. Just keep doing your joband don’t tell anyone about the cap.”
“I’ll bring his cap back to you when I return, GrandmotherAnna. I know you will finally be relieved to know what hap-pened to Grandfather and his U-Geist.”
“Be careful Hans.”“I love you Grandmother Anna.”
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Chapter 17
This is Captain Hans speaking, we had a rough time withthose depth charges. That was a close call with the PT boat. Giveme your damage reports. Let’s clean up this mess and prepare tosurface,” Captain Hans ordered as he looked around at the dam-age in the U-Geist control room.
In the deep murky water, at 15,000 feet below the surface,strange things were happening. The newly discovered U-boatwreckage mysteriously began to take on a new life,...more than60 years after it had been sent to its watery grave at the bottomof the Gulf.
Immediately after Hank retrieved the cap from the sunkenU-boat, the U-Geist’s two separated sections slowly began tomove. Unknown forces were pulling the damaged pieces togeth-er. Inch by inch the two halves of the World War II U-boatmoved closer and closer together, until finally the two separatedhalves were one again.
“Medic,” Lieutenant Richter screamed, grabbing a valvehandle near him and slowly pulling himself off the wet controlroom floor. Feeling pain, he put his hand to his head. He felt
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blood. “Medic,” he yelled again in a desperate tone. Captain Hans rushed over and helped Richter to a small
stool. “Sit here, Richter, we will get you a bandage to stop thebleeding. Medic!”
The U-boat’s medical officer rushed over with a roll ofgauze and began wrapping Richter’s head wound.
“I think I’ll be all right. It’s not that bad,” Lieutenant Richtermuttered, leaning against the inside wall of the U-Geist.
“Give me damage reports,” Captain Hans ordered again intothe intercom.
“We’re pretty shaken up, but it doesn’t look like any perma-nent damage to the electrical power systems,” the chief mechan-ic responded from the engine room. “We should have everythingrunning in about ten minutes.”
“How’s our battery level?” Hans asked. “It’s pretty low, but we have enough power to get to the sur-
face,” the mechanic replied.Torpedoman Junkin’s voice was heard over the intercom,
“Captain, everything is usable in the forward torpedo compart-ment. We have a few leaks, but we should be able to weld themwhen we get on the surface.”
“Attention, crew. We must surface and make repairs,”Captain Hans announced. “We will then return to pick up Wiltzand Reinhardt from our rendezvous point.”
“Captain, our water depth gauge shows we are past 200meters,” an engineer in the control room informed Hans. Hetapped the gauge with his finger, but it didn’t move.
“It must be broken, no U-boat can survive below 200 meters.It would come apart at the seams,” Captain Hans replied.
Slowly the reborn U-Geist began its long trip to the surface.If only they knew exactly how deep they actually were.
About four a.m. Captain Hans ordered, “Hold steady atperiscope depth. Let me see what it looks like on the surface.”
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Out of habit Captain Hans reached up with his left hand tograb his cap, but realized he was not wearing it. “LieutenantRichter, have you seen my cap? Look for it. It must be under thismess somewhere.”
As Hans peered through the periscope to the south he sawnothing but the moonlit Gulf above. He slowly began to turn theperiscope in a 360-degree circle until he spotted an unusual ves-sel floating on the surface, a vessel like he had never seenbefore. He examined the strange object for several minutes with-out saying a word.
“Lieutenant, what do you make of this?” Hans askedRichter, who was now standing next to him.
Lieutenant Richter adjusted the bandage around his head andleaned into the periscope’s eyepiece. It took him several minutesto focus, but finally stepped away and turned to Captain Hanswith a confused look.
“Captain, I don’t know what it is. It’s the most unusual ves-sel I have ever seen. It has large American flags flying from itstwo tall masts in the middle. Do you think it may be a newAmerican secret weapon?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but we’re not taking any chances,” CaptainHans replied. “We blew our cover when we sank the tanker andwere attacked by the PT boat. I am sure the U.S. Navy is nowlooking everywhere in the Gulf of Mexico for us.”
“Come in forward torpedo room,” Hans said into the inter-com.
“Forward torpedo room here, Capitain,” Junkus responded.“Junkus, are our torpedoes damaged?”“Sir, they are very wet, but I think they are still operational.”“How many usable torpedoes do we have?”“Capitan, we have only two remaining.”“Prepare them to fire! Report back when ready.”“Ja wohl, Capitan.”Hans turned to Richter, who was still bewildered at the size
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of the vessel he had seen through the periscope. “Lieutenant, wewill surface and torpedo the large American vessel. I didn’t seeany guns on it and it’s not moving, so it will be like shootingducks on the Rhine.”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Richter again said reluctantly. Heleaned over to the intercom and commanded, “Engine room, sur-face immediately.”
On board the EnergyHunter, Hank could not sleep. Theexcitement of finding his grandfather’s U-boat and retrieving thecap was too much for him to handle. He had stayed up all nightwriting notes about his trek to find his Grandfather’s missing U-boat. He wrote how his Grandmother had told him when he wasonly 10 years old about his grandfather’s disappearance and howshe had found the plans for the mission in the case under theirhotel bed.
Hank wrapped his grandfather’s cap in several dry towelsand placed it in his locker, taking one last look at his grandmoth-er’s water soaked photo inside. He turned and glanced out thewindow on the side of his AUV building. He noticed an unusualshape sitting low in the water about 1500 yards from theEnergyHunter. That’s odd. I didn’t think there were any ships inour area. It must be a fishing vessel.
As he leaned against the small window and looked closer, hesuddenly realized the vessel was not a ship, but looked amazing-ly like…like a submarine. He grabbed the binoculars that werehanging inside his locker and looked carefully at the floatingobject from his window. “This can’t be.” As the unknown vesselturned in the water he could clearly read its markings, U-212.
“This can’t be, this can’t be,” he kept repeating to himself. The mysterious vessel made one last turn and now its bow
was pointing straight toward Hank’s window. Hank watched asfour men climbed up to the U-boat’s bridge on the top deck.Three of the men were wearing only T shirts and shorts, but the
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fourth was dressed in full uniform. He focused his binoculars onthe fully dressed sailor and could tell by the markings on his uni-form he was the captain.
“Oh my God!” Hank screamed loudly. “That’s the captain ofU-Geist! I’m looking directly into the eyes of my grandfather!”
On the U-Geist’s bridge, Captain Hans could see movementin a small window of a building on the lower deck of the hugeAmerican vessel.
“I see someone,” Captain Hans announced lowering hisbinoculars and pointing toward the light. “There, toward thestern, past the tall mast. Look in that small window.”
Captain Hans raised his binoculars and focused carefully. Helooked directly into the eyes of the young man in the window.Little did he know he was looking directly into the eyes of hisgrandson.
“He has seen us,” Captain Hans shouted. He leaned into theship’s intercom on the bridge and yelled to the forward torpedoroom, “Prepare to fire the torpedoes, range 1500 meters. Speed0 knots, set the torpedo for maximum speed.”
Within a minute, Junkus called back to the captain,“Torpedoes ready, capitan.”
“Very good, Junkus…….Fire one! ……..Fire two!” theCaptain ordered.
Both torpedoes left the U-Geist and sped straight toward theunsuspecting EnergyHunter. The first torpedo penetrated thenumber three ballast compartment on the outer starboard pon-toon, leaving a 24-inch diameter hole. But it did not detonate.
“Admiral Donitz is a fool! His new torpedo design is inferi-or. The first torpedo hit, but did not detonate,” Captain Hanscomplained, watching the impact through his binoculars.
Within an instant, the number two torpedo impacted thenumber 10 ballast compartment on the outer starboard pontoonabout 80 feet below the AUV building.
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BOOM!The torpedo detonated on impact and the violent blast ripped
a massive hole in the number 8, 9, 10 and 11 ballast compart-ments.
A fireball bellowed into the sky originating at the water’slevel about 80 feet directly below Hank’s window. TheEnergyHunter shook and vibrated violently and immediatelybegan to list to the starboard.
“The second torpedo exploded, but the vessel must not haveany fuel or ammunition aboard, because there is no fire or sec-ondary explosions,” Captain Hans said turning to the men on thebridge. “The American vessel is listing. It appears we have donemajor damage. It should sink to the bottom like all other ships Ihave attacked.”
The sailors on the bridge cheered as they watched anothersuccessful attack.
“Men, let us not forget our mission. We must not wait hereany longer.”
Captain Hans leaned over and spoke into the intercom tube,“Set a course directly to our rendezvous point off the coast. Wemust stay on the surface to make repairs and recharge our bat-teries as quickly as possible.”
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Chapter 18
Onboard the EnergyHunter Aggie and Blue were up earlyas usual preparing the morning breakfast. Walking into the gal-ley Aggie grabbed a couple of day old donuts from the counterand quickly devoured both.
“Now sha, you are to work for me, you have to do better dandis,” Blue said, pointing to a full bucket of food scraps left overfrom the night before. “I dun tol you to take dis bucket to datGulf Gulp after every meal. Not da nex day.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, I was coming back to do it last night, butthe U-boat discovery got me all excited and I just forgot,” Aggiereplied.
“Well do it now, okay.”“Yes, sir.” Aggie picked up the bucket, walked outside and
over to the Gulf Gulp. He took a deep breath of the clean morning air and looked
out over the handrail. For a few moments he stared out at thesmooth Gulf water. There was a full moon and he could see formiles. He was thinking how quickly he could finish grinding thefood because there would be no one stopping by to tell him anyoffshore stories this early in the morning.
As he looked over to the west, he noticed something rising
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up onto the water’s surface about a half mile away. He squintedfor a closer look. He could see a long dark cylindrical objectmaneuvering in the water. As the strange vessel turned, he couldmake out some writing on the top portion rising from the water.Was that U-212 and a swastika painted on the side?
“What the… Oh no! Oh no! It looks like that German U-boat,” Aggie cried out.
He looked around to see if anyone heard him. “No, I’mdreaming. That can’t happen,” he muttered to himself.
He poured the scrap bucket into the Gulf Gulp and pushedthe start button on the side as if he hadn’t seen anything.
When he finished pouring the bucket, he slowly raised hishead and looked back in the direction of the unknown vessel. Heblinked forcefully several times and tried to focus again. Thistime he could see two underwater wakes headed straight towardthe EnergyHunter. He had seen this many times in the movies.They were torpedoes. And they were headed right for theEnergyHunter!
Aggie dropped his 5-gallon bucket onto the metal gratingand ran inside. Blue was stirring a large bowl of pancake mixnear the stove.
“I saw it, I saw it,” Aggie screamed, running into the galley.He was breathing heavily and couldn’t catch his breath.
“Calm youself down. Get you breath son,” Blue said. “Whatyou don see?”
“I took the scrap bucket out to the Gulf Gulp like you toldme and I saw that U-boat shoot torpedoes at us. What should wedo?”
“Oh, dat was jus a couple of dolphin.”The two men then felt a small shudder in the kitchen. But
within seconds the two were knocked down onto the kitchenfloor by a second much larger jolt that shook the EnergyHunterviolently. Blue hit the floor hard, landing on his right shoulder.Aggie fell on top of him, hitting his head on the side of the stove.
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The EnergyHunter shook uncontrollably while the sound ofa massive explosion interrupted the early morning’s calmness.The sound of falling pipe and screeching metal could be heardcoming from every deck. The roar of four diesel fire pumpsstarting filled the air. The lights flickered.
In the galley, pots and pans flew off shelves and the drinkdispenser was knocked off the ice machine causing syrup tospray everywhere. The snack tray slid off the serving line,spreading cakes and cookies across the floor. In the rear of thekitchen two large plastic buckets of flour fell from the storagecounter, spilling over Aggie and Blue.
The two laid on the floor amid the mess and looked at eachother with fear in their eyes.
“What was that?” Blue asked, grabbing his right shoulder.His heavy Cajun accent was noticeably absent.
“I’m telling you it was the U-boat torpedoing us,” Aggiereplied. “I hear the general quarters alarm. What should we do?”
Both men climbed to their feet kicking the pots and pans outof the way.
Blue was still holding his right shoulder and grimacing inpain.
“Are you alright, Blue?”“Yes, I’ll be okay.”Blue grabbed Aggie with his left hand. “Aggie, remain calm
and don’t run. Go upstairs quickly and make sure everybody isup. Then report to the muster station by the escape capsules. Iwill go down the hall and make sure Miss Beverly is awake.Now hurry.” Blue leaned over grabbing his shoulder again,while holding his right arm to his chest.
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Chapter 19
Aggie, are you alright?” I asked when I saw him runningtoward me in the first floor stairway.
“Yes, sir, but……”“Go to the escape capsule outside the quarters and wait
there,” I ordered. “I’ve already checked upstairs and everyone isawake and headed down.”
“But, Mr. Hooper……..”“Just go son! Someone will be there in a few minutes to tell
you what to do next. Put on your life vest and just stand by thecapsule,” I said, pushing him forcefully out the exit door at thebottom of the stairs.
I met Blue in the hallway as he was headed for the ladiesroom. “What happened, Blue?” I said, noticing he was holdinghis right shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine Blaze. I am going to check on Miss Beverly.”I watched as Blue ran toward the ladies room. “Wake up, Miss Beverly, wake up,” Blue shouted while
pounding on the ladies’ room door. The door opened and MissWhitehead stood there in a long silk nightgown.
“I was awakened by the terrible noise. What’s going onBlue?” she asked nervously.
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I saw Blue take a good look up and down at her in the night-gown.
“Get dressed and hurry. Go to the escape capsule. We aren’tsure what happened. Hurry, Miss Beverly,” he said as he pointedtoward the exit door closest to the escape capsule.
I met T-boy, Preacher Jack and Brother-in-law in front of thegalley. “T-boy, you and Brother-in-law come with me to the con-trol room. Jack, you go start the capsule and get it ready for pos-sible evacuation.”
We ran into the control room where books and manuals hadbeen knocked from every shelf. Overturned chairs and paperswere strewn everywhere.
“Looks like our monitoring system is still up and we havefull power from our generators,” I said as I climbed over over-turned chairs to the safety monitoring panel. “What do you seeover there?”
Brother-in-law and T-boy scrambled to look at every moni-tor and readout in the room. Brother-in-law shoved an over-turned chair out of his way and looked at the row of video mon-itors on the front desk.
“Look here. Our starboard video cameras shows somethingsticking in the side of the starboard pontoon around number 2ballast. O’no man! Look!” Bother-in-law yelled. “There’s ahumongous hole near number 10 ballast tank. But I can’t makeout what caused the damage.”
T-boy added in a worried voice, “There are indications onour fire and safety system that an explosion and fire hasoccurred on that pontoon, but the fire was extinguished by ourdeluge and Halon fire suppression system. There is no fire at themoment indicated anywhere.”
“Well, that is one good thing,” I said checking to make sureall four fire pumps had started. “Brother-in-law, get a close-upwith the starboard cameras.”
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“Blaze, we are listing 20 degrees starboard,” T-boy said,pointing to the large monitor on the dynamic positioning controlpanel. “And it’s increasing!”
“What could have caused this?” Brother-in-law yelled as heleaned in even closer to the center video monitor.
“It doesn’t look like an internal explosion,” I replied.Brother-in-law zoomed in the outboard camera on the
impacted areas. “What’s that sticking in the side there?”We all leaned over and looked closely at the center video
monitor. “I have no idea, it’s too dark to tell,” T-boy responded. “But
Blaze, we’re continuing to take on water in that pontoon.”“OK, OK. I think we better evacuate immediately before the
derricks throw us on over,” I said. “You two get everyone intothe capsule and I’ll call the Coast Guard. Go now! I’ll be rightout.”
They both hurried out of the control room toward the cap-sule. I picked up the emergency radio mounted on the wall in thecontrol room and tuned to channel 16. “Mayday! Mayday!Mayday! This is Hooper, onboard the Offshore EnergyHunter.We are near position 25.4 degrees North, 93.0 degrees West. Wehave experienced explosions due to unknown causes. There arenine persons onboard and we are evacuating via our escape cap-sule. Request immediate assistance. Over.”
“This is United States Coast Guard Station Grand Isle. Wehave received your emergency call and are notifying centralcommand in New Orleans. We will dispatch assistance immedi-ately.”
“OK.”“Sir, are there any injuries?” the Coast Guard dispatcher
asked.“I don’t know.” “Do you have a fire aboard, sir?”“Not at this time, the initial fire has been extinguished.”
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“Is there any environmental impact, sir?”“None that we can determine at this time. But we are listing
more than 20 degrees to starboard, and may capsize.”“Mr. Hooper, we are on our way. Our computer indicates we
have the Cutter Valiant on patrol near you. I will notify her ofyour coordinates. Good luck, sir. Over.”
“Over and out.” I threw down the microphone on the deskand grabbed a flashlight from the holder on the wall. I pulled theemergency shutdown button in the control room and within sec-onds the room went dark. The big red ESD button cut all poweronboard and closed all fuel and safety valves to prevent anyleakage. I took one last look around, said a little prayer, then ranout the exit door toward the capsule.
“We are listing badly. I think we better get off. It may godown,” I said to everyone standing outside the capsule. “Is any-one injured?
Everyone just shook their head no.“Miss Whitehead, are you okay?” I asked.“Yes, only a little shaken up like everyone else,” she replied.I looked at Blue still holding his shoulder and obviously in
pain.“Blue are you going to make it?”“Sure, I’m fine,” he replied with a little smile. “Don’t worry
about me Hoop.” “Is everyone accounted for?” I asked, looking around and
counting heads. “Hank, the new AUV operator is not here,” Brother-in-law
said, double-checking the manifest that listed everyone onboard.“He may be trapped in the AUV building, that’s right abovewhere the explosion occurred.”
“Does anyone know what happened?” I asked nervously.“Blaze, Aggie said he saw what happened. It was the U-boat.
He said it torpedoed us,” Blue said looking over at Aggie, who
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had his head down.“Now, Blue, what kind of story is that?” I glanced at Blue,
then at Aggie with a look of disbelief. “I know everyone isscared,...but what the heck are you talking about?”
“Believe me Mr. Hooper, I saw it. It was the U-boat we sawon the bottom,” Aggie pleaded for someone to believe him. “Isaw it on the surface. I saw a swastika and U-212 on it. I sawtwo torpedoes coming straight toward us! I saw it! I saw it! Youhave to believe me.”
“Okay, okay, just get in the capsule,” I said. “The seas arecalm and everyone will be fine. I’ve called the Coast Guard andthey’re on the way.”
As everyone was climbing into the capsule, I leaned overand whispered to Brother-in-law, “I am going to find Hank. Youtake everyone in the capsule and wait for the Coast Guard topick you up.”
“We’re not gunna leave you here alone,” Brother-in-lawsaid, grabbing my arm tightly.
I raised my elbow to release his grip. “Okay then. Just stayhere while I go to the AUV building and look for Hank. Handme the flashlight and hand radio from the capsule.”
Brother-in-law reached inside the capsule door and grabbeda small flashlight and the radio from the overhead storage com-partment, then handed it to me.
“If I need any help, I will radio back to you, otherwise justget out of here,” I said, turing on the radio to make sure it wasworking. “I can use one of the escape capsules near the AUVbuilding.”
“They may be damaged,” Brother-in-law warned.“I’ll jump if I have to,” I said with a half grin.
I turned and ran down two flights of stairs to the third deck.There was piping rolling loose and bend metal was scatteredeverywhere. The impact had blown several separators loose
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from their skids and damaged the generator room. Luckily, I did-n’t see any fire.
As I made my way along the third deck outer handrail, Ilooked over the side and saw a long cylindrical object stickinginto the side of the starboard pontoon located about 80 feetbelow where I was standing. I thought: it sure looks like anacetylene bottle. Don’t tell me Cowboy has dropped that over theside.
I saw smoke rising from the pontoon and the smell of burn-ing paint was in the air. I looked over the handrail again anddiscovered a second, much larger hole in the same pontoon. Icould see water flooding into the pontoon’s ruptured ballasttanks.
“Man...That’s not good,” I said out loud.As I climbed over pipe and metal toward the rear of the third
deck I saw that the AUV building had been knocked off itsmountings and was leaning to one side. The steel building hadbeen constructed to the latest explosion proof specifications andluckily it didn’t show any obvious outside damage. A spareChristmas tree had fallen over and was now blocking theentrance door of the building.
I picked up a 10 foot joint of 2 inch piping and pried the fall-en Christmas tree away from the door of the hut. I opened thedoor slowly and shined the light inside. All I could see was com-puter equipment scattered in pieces on the floor and Hank’slarge plasma monitor smashed to pieces.
“Hank, Hank, are you in here?” I yelled as I shined the lightaround inside the dark building. “Hank, answer me if you can.”
There was only silence.I carefully climbed over the broken equipment to the back
living quarters. I shined my flashlight around the room andfound Hank motionless on the floor with his metal locker on topof him. I also noticed a small Nazi flag, several maps, and adamp white cap on the floor next to him.
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“Hank, are you alright?” I asked as I knelt down beside him.“Hank, Hank. Talk to me.”
There was no response. I felt for a pulse. It was weak, but hewas still alive. He was bleeding profusely where the edge of thelocker had hit his forehead. I grabbed a towel from the bed andapplied pressure to his wound.
I then removed the radio from my belt. “Brother-in-law,come in.”
“Yeah, Blaze, did you find Hank?” “Yes, he’s unconscious and bleeding from his forehead. His
AUV building took a pretty good hit. I think I’d better get himinto the hospital as soon as I can. I will carry him to the heliportand take him in on Mr. Huey. It may be a little tricky taking offfrom the leaning heliport, but I’m going to try.”
“I’ll come help you,” Brother-in-law responded.“OK, but hurry up. Get everyone else far away to the south
in the capsule and wait for the Coast Guard. This thing could rollover at any moment.”
“Okay, Blaze. I’m on my way.”
I put a pillow under Hank’s head and applied more pressureto his head wound. Within several minutes he regained con-sciousness.
“Hank, can you hear me?”“Where am I? What happened?” Hank muttered.“I’m going to get you to a hospital as soon as I can. Just hang
in there.”Hank’s eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out once
again.“God, please help him.” I prayed in a quiet voice.I glanced down at the things that had fallen out of Hank’s
locker. I thought it was extremely odd that he had all of this Nazimemorabilia and we happened to find a German U-boat.
About 10 minutes passed, when suddenly the door of the
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AUV building swung open. “What in the world are you doing here?” I asked in a very
surprised voice. “It’s too dangerous for you to be here.”“I’m a nurse and I’m here to help this man. Move out of the
way,” Miss Whitehead ordered. She shined her flashlight insidethe damaged control room and climbed over the broken equip-ment into the back bedroom.
“Brother-in-law got me the emergency medical kit from themedic’s room and I convinced him that I was the best person tohelp the injured man.”
“Yes, but...”“Hand me the bandages in the kit,” she demanded, kneeling
down to look at Hank.“Yes, ma’am.” I was not about to argue with this lady now.I picked up the hand radio. “Brother-in-law, come in.”“This is Brother-in-law. I know what you are gunna say
Blaze. But I couldn’t stop her...Come back.”“It’s too late to worry now, just get everyone away from
here.”“We’re in the water and unhooking the winch cable now.
Good luck, Blaze.”“Thanks man.”
I watched as Miss Whitehead carefully examined Hank’s cutforehead, wiped it clean and wrapped it with a fresh bandage tostop the bleeding.
“We need to get him to a hospital as soon as possible. He’sgoing in and out of consciousness. His pulse is weak. Therecould be internal head trauma. Help me get him up and let’scarry him to the heliport,” she said in a demanding authoritativevoice.
“Yes, ma’am.” I picked up Hank and put him cross ways on my shoulders,
thank goodness he was a little guy. We made our way quickly
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over all the scattered equipment and piping and up the longflights of stairs to the heliport.
When we reached the heliport, I opened the passenger doorof Mr. Huey and laid Hank on the aircraft’s rear bench seat. Istrapped him in with some loose seatbelts while Miss Whiteheadclimbed in, kneeled down next to him, and held pressure on hiswound.
From the heliport I could see the bright orange escape cap-sule was floating about a mile away to the south.
“The heliport is leaning pretty good, so hang on. The lift offmay be a little tricky,” I said, as I slammed the rear passengerdoor.
I walked forward, opened the pilot’s door and climbed intothe seat. I hastily went through the start-up procedure and startedthe turbine engine with the aircraft still strapped to the deck. Ithought if I untied them early, the helicopter might slide off theheliport before I could lift off.
“Miss Whitehead, climb up here in the copilot’s seat aminute,” I said as I looked back and saw her kneeling near Hank.“I’m going to hop out and cut the hold-down straps.
“What?”“Climb up between the seats and sit in the copilot’s seat.
Hold onto the cyclic and try to keep Mr. Huey from sliding offthe deck!”
She looked at me as if I was crazy, then deliberately climbedinto the left front seat. “Let’s do it. Just tell me what to do.”
“Hold onto the cyclic. That’s the stick between you legs.Apply a small amount of pressure to keep the aircraft from slid-ing off the heliport.”
“It doesn’t look too hard.”She gently took hold of the cyclic hand grip and moved it
slightly to get the feel of things.“It only takes a small amount of movement... that’s it.” “What about this thing?” she asked, pointing to the collec-
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tive on the left side of her seat.“I have it set, I think it should be alright.”“Just hurry up!” she yelled.“One more thing, Miss Whitehead...”“What’s that?”“Don’t take off without me,” I said with a grin as I jumped
out of the pilot’s door. I quickly ran and cut all four hold-downstraps. As I cut the last strap, the helicopter began to slide towardthe right edge of the heliport.
“Move the cyclic to the left to stop the sliding,” I screamedand motion to Miss Whitehead with my right hand.
I could see fear in her eyes as she tried to control the heli-copter’s movement.
I jumped back into the pilot’s seat and grabbed the cyclic.“Good work.”
I immediately pulled up on the collective to apply full powerand lifted off the heliport. Once I got into the air and leveled off,I looked over at Beverly and smiled. She was was soaked withsweat. The more I got to know this lady the more I liked her. Shewas a lot tougher than she first appeared.
“How long to the hospital?” Beverly asked, trying to dry herforehead with her sleeve.
“I will head directly to Abbeville General, it’s the closest.We should be there in less than two hours. I will radio ahead tolet them know we’re bringing in an injured man.”
“Will the others be alright in the escape capsule?”“Yes, look down there.” I said pointing out Mr. Huey’s right
hand side window. “The escape capsule is performing just as itwas designed to. The men will be safe. The Coast Guard willpick them up. I radioed them earlier and they’re on the way.”
“What will happen to the EnergyHunter?”“I can see the damage better from up here. Looks to me like
there are two holes in the starboard pontoon. If it doesn’t take onany more water, it could stabilize and we can repair the hole. If
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it doesn’t stop taking on water, well, then it could roll over andsink to the bottom.
“Is the EnergyHunter insured?”I shook my head no. “Couldn’t afford insurance. So if it
sinks, well, … I’ll have to solve that problem if it happens. Justthink positive.”
Beverly looked at me and let out a huge sigh, sweat stillpouring down her face. I could tell she was shaken up by thisexperience, but I thought she had managed to keep her compo-sure quite well.
“The safety equipment put out the fire quickly and there isno environmental impact. That should keep the environmentalisthappy.”
“What do you think happened?”“From the way the holes are made, looks to me like some
object hit us. One of the holes still has something in it.”“Aggie swore he saw a U-boat or something,” Beverly said
as she looked at the damaged vessel.“You know the more I think about it, that thing sticking in
the pontoon sure looks like a torpedo. Of course, there is no waythat’s possible.”
“How do you explain what Aggie saw?”“He’s young and inexperienced working offshore, he must
have gotten excited and started to imagine things.”“LOOK! Blaze, look there. Down there on the left! What is
it?” Beverly screamed as she leaned up in her seat and pointedtoward the water.
“What the...” I turned Mr. Huey to the left and lowered myaltitude to 750 feet. “We must be dreaming. It can’t be. Lookslike the U-boat we saw last night on the ocean floor. I’ll circlearound and take another quick look.”
“Don’t waste too much time, Hank needs medical attention.I’d better check on him,” she said. She climbed back to Hankand kneeled over him.
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I hovered just above the long dark gray object floating in thecalm water, trying to make out exactly what it was.
“Sure looks like a U-boat to me. It even has the U-boatmarkings. It looks like there are men on the top deck,” I yelledto Beverly. “But I know it can’t be real. This has to be a dream.”
Suddenly an explosion buffered Mr. Huey near the middle ofthe tail boom. I fought to keep us from crashing into the water.
“It’s no dream. Heck, fire man, they’re shootin’ at us!”Beverly screamed from the back in an unusually heavy Texasaccent. “That there is the real thing!”
Miss Whitehead had always presented an image of beingprim and proper with dainty behavior. Boy was I wrong.
“I guess Aggie was right, this is unbelievable,” I said pullingback quickly on the collective to increase our altitude.
“Let’s get out of here!” Beverly screamed from where shewas kneeling near the back seat.
“I’ll call Belle Chasse Naval Air Station and request air sup-port. They’ll have F-18’s here in 20 minutes.”
“Can’t this thing go any faster?” Beverly yelled kneelingdown on one knee and holding on to Hank.
“The F-18’s will sink that U-boat or whatever it is before itcan do any more damage.”
BOOM! Another explosion occurred near the left passengerdoor. I again fought to keep control of the helicopter.
I turned to see if there was any damage, just as the side doorblew open. It was flapping wildly in the wind. Within secondsthe wind broke it off and it fell into the water below.
“Beverly, are you alright?”“Help... me!” she pleaded. The impact had knocked her to
the floor and she was sliding toward the open doorway.I banked Mr. Huey sharply to prevent her from sliding out
the door, but the explosion had damaged my controls. I was nowfighting to keep Mr. Huey from spinning out of control.
I looked back again and Beverly was now holding on to the
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jagged edge of the door opening with her right hand, trying des-perately not to fall out. Her feet were now dangling outside thedoorway and on top of all that, the U-boat was still firing at us.
“Grab that seatbelt, it’s by your left hand,... on the floor!” Iyelled back to her.
She reached for the loose seatbelt with her free hand. It wastwo inches away from her fingertips.
“I can’t reach it,” she cried. “Help me!”I could see she was loosing her grip and slowly sliding far-
ther out the door. “Hold on, Beverly.”Suddenly Hank turned his head and looked directly at
Beverly slipping away. I could see his eyes were blurry and helooked to be in great pain. He slowly reached out with his leftfoot and kicked the loose seatbelt over toward Beverly’s out-reached hand. He immediately lost consciousness and his headrolled off the side of the small towel pillow.
“Try to grab it again,” I shouted.With all her might, Beverly struggled one last time to reach
the loose seatbelt. “I’ve got it, I’ve got it!”With one mighty effort, she pulled her exhausted body back
inside. She slowly crawled back into the center of the floor. “I’m in. Let’s get out of here!” She screamed as she wrapped
several loose seatbelts around her waist and buckled in securely.“Wow, that was close,” I yelled to her. “I think we’re out of
range of their guns now. I think I’ve got everything back undercontrol now.”
Beverly laid there breathing heavily for a few minutes tryingto catch her breath.
After I was sure that Mr. Huey had not suffered major dam-age, I picked up my cell phone and dialed the number for theBelle Chasse Naval Air Station near New Orleans. I had done astory recently about an offshore driller who was also a F-18 pilot
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in the Naval Reserve, so I had met the commanding officer.“Hello, this is an emergency. This is Blaze Hooper. May I
have Colonel Fred Hathorn’s office please,” I asked the recep-tionist.
“This is Colonel Hathorn, well hello Blaze. Good to hearfrom you again.”
“Colonel, remember when I was doing the story and you toldme that if I ever needed anything, just to call,” I said in a hurriedvoice.
“Yes, you sound concerned.”“You probably aren’t going to believe this, but you’re just
going to have to trust me on this one.”“What’s up?”“You’d better dispatch a couple of your F-18s to sink a hos-
tile German U-boat that has attacked us offshore.“What did you say?”“I said send out two F-18s to sink a hostile German U-boat
that has torpedoed the EnergyHunter and opened fire on my hel-icopter. I’m not kidding and this is no joke, sir. Please, just trustme.”
“OK, Blaze, but you better have a good explanation forthis!”
“Just send out those F-18s and see for your self.”“OK, they’re on the way, I will also send out one of our sub-
hunter aircraft to determine exactly what you are talking about.”“I’ll contact you again after I get an injured man to
Abbeville,” I said.“Good by, sir and good luck.” Colonel Hathorn hung up.
I then called Abbeville General Hospital and asked for theemergency room doctor.
“This is Hooper, flying in from the Offshore EnergyHunter.We have an injured man onboard, with severe head trauma. Heis unconscious. We have stopped the bleeding from his head
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wound. He’s a white male, about 30 years old, 160 pounds.Request doctors to be waiting at your emergency heliport.”
“That’s a roger, Hooper. Our trauma team will meet you onthe heliport.”
“We should arrive in about 1 hour and thirty minutes. Over.”
I looked back at Beverly, who was laying on the floor hold-ing tightly to the rear seat supports. “How’s he doing back therenow?”
“He’s still unconscious,” she replied.“How are you doing?”“I think I’m still unconscious too.” I reached over and tuned the radio to Channel 16. “This is
Hooper, come in Brother-in-law.”“Blaze. Man I’m glad to hear your voice. Are you alright?”“A little shaken, but we’re still flying.”“We saw the U-boat, or whatever it is, firing at you. We
couldn’t tell if you were hit.”“Yeah, we lost the passenger door and almost lost Beverly.”“What happened?”“Let’s just say this lady is one tough offshore hand,” I
replied looking back at Beverly. “Did the U-boat attack yourescape capsule?”
“That’s a negative. That U-boat or whatever it is took offdue north and we headed due south. We can’t even see it now.”
“The Coast Guard Cutter Valiant should be there very soon.Get them to take everyone in to the beach.”
“I think Blue and Aggie may need medical attention. Theyaren’t looking very good,” Brother-in-law said.
“Okay, get the Coast Guard to check them out and get themto a hospital if needed.”
“That’s a roger, Blaze. I think T-Boy, Preacher and I had bet-ter get back onboard the EnergyHunter and try to save her.”
“Don’t worry about the EnergyHunter. It could capsize at
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any time. Whatever will happen will happen,” I said reluctantly.“But...”“Get away from there. We don’t know what’s going on and
it’s still too dangerous to stay around. I call for a couple of F-18sfrom the Naval Station. The United States military will have toget rid of the German U-boat or whatever it is for us.”
“Okay, Blaze, I’ll call the Coast Guard on our capsule radioand find out their ETA. It’s getting hot in here.”
“That’s a roger, Brother-in-law. Stay safe. Over.” I set coursefor Abbeville General Hospital.
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Chapter 20
This is EnergyHunter escape capsule number one callingthe United States Coast Guard, come back,” Brother-in-lawspoke into the emergency radio mounted in the escape capsule.
“Hey man, the Coast Guard better get here soon,” Cowboysaid. “Ole Aggie here is looking pretty pale.”
Everyone inside the little orange capsule looked over atAggie, who was sitting in the rear with his head leaning back onthe top edge of the fiberglass seat. Sweat was rolling down hisforehead and his skin was white as a sheet.
“Better locate the barf bags,” Cowboy laughed, “I think he’sgoing to blow.”
The temperature inside the capsule was approaching 110degrees and the gentle waves were causing the small rescue boatto bob up and down like a cork.
Preacher Jack reached down to the medical kit stowed in theunderseat compartment. “Here Aggie, use this if you need to.”
Aggie wearily leaned forward, grabbed the barf bag andupchucked his breakfast into the small white bag.
“U.S. Coast Guard, this is EnergyHunter escape capsulenumber one. Please come in,” Brother-in-law pleaded over theradio.
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“It’s got to be 150 degrees in here. Let’s open the hatches,”Cowboy suggested.
T-boy reached up and turned on the vent fan in the top of thecapsule. “That should help,” T-boy replied.
“Aggie, are you going to be alright?” Blue asked, grimacingin pain and now unable to move his right arm.
Aggie now had his head between his knees. He nodded hishead yes.
Preacher Jack looked at Blue. “Looks like you may havebroken something in your shoulder, Blue. Did you fall?”
“Yes, I fell in the kitchen when the big explosion occurred.”He rubbed his shoulder with his left hand.
“Hey Blue, what happened to your Cajun accent?” Cowboyasked.
“Oh, that’s just for entertainment purposes,” he said, tryingto smile. “You see, I retired from teaching at Nicholls Stateabout 12 years ago.”
“What did you teach?” T-boy asked.“I have a PhD in English,” Blue replied. “I just work off-
shore to have something to do.”The capsule radio crackled. “This is United States Coast
Guard Cutter Valiant. Come in EnergyHunter escape capsule.” “This is EnergyHunter, go ahead,” Brother-in-law replied,
holding the mic close to his mouth.“Sir, we have you on our radar. We should be at your posi-
tion in approximately 45 minutes,” the radioman responded.“Come back.”
“That’s good news,” Brother-in-law said as he gave athumbs-up to the others in the capsule.
“Sir, is anyone injured?” the radioman onboard the Valiantasked.
“Possibly one shoulder injury and one seasick rookie,”Brother-in-law replied. “The waves are pickin’ up and we’rebobbin’ around pretty good now.”
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“We have a medic onboard that can treat any injuries,” theradioman said.
“That’s an affirmative, we may need to send these two menin on a chopper,” Brother-in-law acknowledged.
“My skipper wants to know what happened. Why did youhave to evacuate?” the Coast Guard radioman asked.
“Well, sir. You’re not going to believe it. I will have wait totell you when we get aboard.”
“Sir, that’s a roger, sir.”
Brother-in-law checked his watch. Thirty minutes hadpassed since the last radio contact with the Coast Guard Cutter.He picked up the radio mic once again. “U.S. Coast GuardCutter Valiant, this is EnergyHunter escape capsule number one,come in.”
“This is U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Valiant. We read you loudand clear. Over”
“How much longer to our position?”“You have just come into our field of vision. We should
arrive in approximately 15 minutes.”“Not a minute too soon,” Preacher Jack said as he too was
becoming seasick.“OK men, when the cutter arrives, T-boy, you get off first
and then Preacher,” Brother-in-law instructed. “I will then handover Blue and Aggie to you. Cowboy, you help me on the cap-sule. And remember, keep your life vest on at all times.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Cowboy replied.“Blue, are you going to be able to jump onto the cutter?” T-
boy asked. “Maybe we should wrap your shoulder and arm.”“That’s a good idea,” Preacher replied. “There is an ace
bandage in the medical kit.”Carefully they wrapped Blue’s shoulder and right arm
against his chest. The pain was increasing and he was was begin-ning to become weak.
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“Thanks, guys,” Blue said while resting his head on somelife vests.
“Aggie, what about you?” Brother-in-law asked. “Yougonna be able to get up?”
Aggie raised up and looked at everyone. He shook his headyes and reached for another barf bag.
“Don’t worry son, we’ll get you off this thing soon.”Brother-in-law said. “I see the cutter now.”
The Coast Guard Valiant pulled up slowly beside the capsuleand two crewman on the back deck tossed over a line. Cowboy,standing in the side doorway, grabbed the rope, pulled the cap-sule next to the side of the cutter and tied it off.
“Okay, come aboard one at a time,” shouted one of the CoastGuard crewman standing on the edge of the cutter. “Be careful.”
One by one the hot sweaty men climbed aboard the cutterfrom the capsule.
The Coast Guard medic took Aggie and Blue inside to exam-ine them.
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Chapter 21
I made my approach to the Abbeville General Hospital andgently landed on their helipad located adjacent to the emergencyroom. Thank goodness there was only minor damage to Mr.Huey.
The trauma team was waiting with a stretcher. As soon as Itouched down, they quickly unloaded Hank through the openingwhere the door used to be.
“He has a severe laceration to his left forehead and he isunconscious,” Beverly told the attendants.
Once everyone was clear, I shut down Mr. Huey and rushedinside. Beverly was sitting in a chair at the nurses’ station.
“Beverly, do you want a physician to examine you?” I asked.“No, I’m fine. Just a little weary.”We sat in the waiting room with our heads down for about
30 minutes without saying a word.
“Are you with the man brought in from offshore?” a man inscrubs asked.
“Uh, yes sir,” I said standing up to shake his hand.“I’m Dr. David Bufkin, the attending physician. Your friend
has had a severe laceration to his forehead and we have sutured
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the contusion. He has regained full consciousness and X-raysshow no permanent damage. It’s a good thing you were able tostop the bleeding promptly.”
“Is he going to be alright?” Beverly asked.“He will need to stay here for a couple of days, but he should
make a full recovery.”“That’s good to hear. Thank you, Dr. Bufkin,” I said
relieved. Beverly turned to me and asked, “What are we going to do
now?” “Well, I think those United States Air Force F-18 fighters
will be able to take care of that renegade U-boat, the only thingwe can do now is wait. I think I’ll fly over to my home fortonight. It’s about twenty minutes west of here. I’ll come backhere to check on Hank in the morning.
“I’ll get a hotel room here in Abbeville,” Beverly suggested.“Nonsense, I insist you come with me. My kids and mother
are there in this big, old, hunting lodge we’re restoring. There’splenty of room.”
“Well, if you insist.”“And besides, I’ll need you to verify the U-boat attack to my
kids. They won’t believe me.”
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Chapter 22
The flight over to Fort Mallard from Abbeville took about20 minutes. I had to fly a little slower because of the missingpassenger door. About noon, we had the make-shift landing padbehind the barn in sight.
“Look, Beverly,” I said pointing toward the ground. “There’sMatthew and April. They must have heard Mr. Huey approach-ing.”
“Looks like they’re excited to see you.” Everyone was waving to us from the back steps.After landing and shutting down, I helped Beverly from the
passenger door opening. It appeared the shell had exploded nearthe door handle and the wind had ripped the door structure offits track.
“April, Matthew, I want you to meet Miss Beverly SusanWhitehead. She’s a reporter, ahh...nurse, and is going to staywith us tonight.”
“Hello, April and Matthew,” Beverly introduced herself aswe began to walk toward the house.
“Hello, Miss Whitehead,” April said.“Hello, Miss Whitehead,” Matthew said.
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“It is a pleasure to meet you, April and Matthew. Blaze talksabout you all the time. I think he’s really proud of you. Andplease call me Beverly.”
“Kids, that’s Miss Beverly,” I added.Matthew looked back at Mr. Huey’s missing door and bullet
holes in the tailboom. “Daddy, what happened to Mr. Huey’sdoor and those holes?”
“Daddy, why are you home? Did you fix the problem on theEnergyHunter?” April asked in an excited voice.
“Well, it’s a long story. Let’s all go inside and I’ll tell you allabout it.”
“It’s not going to be another one of those long tall-tale off-shore stories, is it, Daddy?” April asked with a big smile.
“No, this story will make a lot of sense,” I sighed andgrinned.
We walked up the steps to the back porch whereGrandmother Ina was sitting in her favorite rocking chair.
“Mother, this is Beverly Susan Whitehead. We had a littletrouble on the EnergyHunter, so she’s going to spend the nightwith us.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Beverly,” Grandmother Inasaid, getting up from her rocker and walking over to greet us.
“A pleasure to meet you, too. Your son is quite a man,”Beverly replied.
“Mother, would you mind showing Miss Whitehead whereshe can freshen up?” I asked.
“Son, I would love to show this pretty lady the guest room,”she answered with a big smile. She turned and winked at me aswe all walked inside.
“I’ll find everyone something to eat,” April said, walkingtoward the ice box to locate any leftovers.
“Daddy, what happened on the EnergyHunter?” Matthewasked.
I began to carefully tell April and Matthew about finding the
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sunken U-boat and how it had attacked the EnergyHunter andMr. Huey. I don’t think they believed anything I was tellingthem.
About 10 minutes later, Grandmother Ina and Beverlyreturned to the kitchen. April had warmed some leftover jamba-laya and everyone sat down at the kitchen table to eat.
“Your turn to say the blessing,” Matthew said.“Your turn to say the blessing,” April said.“I’ll say the blessing today,” I interrupted. “After what Miss
Beverly and I have gone through today, I think we have a lot tobe thankful for.”
Everyone bowed their heads and held hands.“Dear God, thanks for this food and helping us survive.
Amen.”“Blaze, are all of your blessings that short?” Beverly asked.“That one was actually a little long,” Matthew replied with a
laugh.Everyone began to eat and I started retelling the unbeliev-
able events of the day. Suddenly I was interrupted by the phone.I walked into the living room to answer it.
“Hello, Hooper’s residence.”“Hello, Blaze, this is Colonel Fred Hathorn, New Orleans
Naval Air Station.”“Yes sir, Colonel. I hope you have good news for me.”“Well, I do have information as per your request for assis-
tance relative to an attack on your offshore rig, the OffshoreEnergyHunter.”
“Great. Have you made contact with the U-boat yet?”“Yes, I sent out two of our best men in F-18s. They made
contact with the vessel within 25 minutes of your initial call thismorning. They located an unidentified vessel above the waterheaded north about 235 miles due south of Grand Isle.”
“That’s good to hear. At least I’m not going crazy.”
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“Hooper, the vessel opened fire with its deck guns, so thetwo F-18s returned fire with four Sidewinder laser-guided mis-siles.”
“Did you sink it?” I asked with great anticipation.“Unfortunately, no, sir. The missiles somehow went com-
pletely through the sub, without inflicting any damage what-so-ever.”
“What do you mean, the missiles didn’t explode on impact?” “That is correct. Not only did they not explode, the vessel
didn’t even show any indications it had been hit.”“That doesn’t make any sense, sir.” I picked up our dog lying
in the old leather chair next to the phone and sat down.“You’re correct, it doesn’t make any sense. Those missiles
have enough firepower to sink a battleship and they wentthrough the U-boat or whatever it is, as if it wasn’t even there.”
“What are you going to do now?” I asked looking back intothe kitchen at everyone having a pleasant conversation.
“Well, sir, we really don’t know. We have set up a task forceand have been evaluating the situation. The two pilots havereturned and we have debriefed them, but they can’t explain iteither.”
“Where is the U-boat now?” “We have our subhunter aircraft at 20,000 feet tracking its
movement. It looks like it is on a direct course toward GrandIsle, Louisiana.”
“Has it attacked any other ships or offshore rigs or plat-forms?”
“We have no reports of the vessel attacking any other off-shore structures or ships.”
“Well, that’s good. What would you suggest I do about myEnergyHunter?”
“Just remain where you are and stay away from the Gulf. Weare cooperating with the U.S. Coast Guard and the MineralsManagement Service and have called for a complete evacuation
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of the Gulf of Mexico.”“You mean I can’t check on my EnergyHunter?”“That’s correct, Hooper. The Gulf is off limits to all civilians
until further notice.”“Goodbye, sir.” I said angrily as I slammed the handset
down on the phone and got up from my chair.I located the TV clicker under the cushions and pressed the
power button. I tuned to Channel 3 in Lafayette.“And this just in. There has been a complete evacuation of
the Gulf of Mexico ordered by the MMS and U.S. Coast Guard.It is not known at this time why this order has been given, butmore than 35,000 men and women who work in the Gulf arenow being flown in to their closest heliports. All pleasure, fish-ing and oil workboats have also been ordered to return to theirnearest port.”
I walked back into the kitchen and sat down without sayinga word.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?” Matthew asked.April looked over at Matthew and shook her head, as if to
tell him to hush.“That was Colonel Hathorn on the phone. He’s Commander
of the Naval Air Station in New Orleans. He said his F-18 jetsshot at the U-boat with everything they had, but their missilesand bullets passed right through the sub and nothing happened.They used the most modern weapons available and they couldn’tstop it.”
“You mean the U-boat was damaged, but didn’t sink?”Beverly asked.
“No, the Colonel said the U-boat didn’t even show any dam-age. The missiles just passed through it like it wasn’t eventhere.”
“Daddy, it must be a ghost ship or something,” April saidwithout looking up.
“Yea Daddy, it’s a U-Ghost,” Matthew added.
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“What?” I asked, looking first at April, then Matthew.“A U-Ghost, Daddy,” Matthew repeated. He casually took
another bite of jambalaya.“Yes, a U-Ghost, like a ghost ship or something,” April
added.“What are we going to do now, Daddy?” Matthew asked.“I don’t know, Matthew,” I said. “The MMS and Coast
Guard have ordered a complete evacuation of the Gulf. No oneknows what to do.”
“That’s not good,” Matthew said.“It appears the most powerful military in the world, using
the most modern weapons ever built, can’t stop a World War IIU-boat,” I said.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and looked down atmy plate.
“I bet our PT boat could stop it. Wasn’t it used during WorldWar II?” Matthew asked with an excited look on his face.
April again looked at Matthew and shook her head.“Son, you may have something there,” I said.“Blaze, don’t tell me you are going out in that old boat you
found down by the canal. You don’t know if that thing will evenmake it to the Gulf from here,” Grandmother Ina replied. “Thatsounds like another one of your crazy ideas. Don’t you thinknow is the time to think like a normal person?”
“I know it’s crazy, but it’s worth a try. It does make sense,doesn’t it?”
I looked over at Beverly who just smiled and raised her eye-brows. I couldn’t tell if she thought I was crazy or a genius.
“I can use some of those World War II depth charges on thePT boat to try to sink the U-boat. I can’t let that old relic U-boatattack anything else,” I said, getting up from the kitchen tablewith a determined look on my face.
“It’s U-Ghost Daddy, a U-Ghost,” Matthew said. He jumpedup to follow me. “I will help you.”
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“No Matthew, I can’t take you out there. You know it’s toodangerous. I don’t know if those old depth charges will evenwork, or they may explode right on the back of the boat.”
“But Daddy, you need my help,” Matthew pleaded.“Matthew, I said NO!”Matthew turned and ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs
to his second floor bedroom. I hated to be so rough on him, butI couldn’t risk him getting hurt. I looked around in some stillpacked boxes in the kitchen for my handheld GPS, finding it inthe box Matthew had marked: Matthew’s fishing stuff, keep out.
With concerned looks on their faces, Beverly, April andGrandmother all got up from the table to try to stop me fromleaving.
“Why don’t you let the authorities handle this?” Beverlypleaded.
“When it comes to the EnergyHunter I am the authority. Ican’t wait around here to see what happens. I’m going to takethe PT boat out and sink the U-boat myself.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of, son,”Grandmother Ina said forcefully. “You don’t know anythingabout driving a PT boat or firing depth charges. You were nevereven in the military.”
“You know, mother, most of the things I have done in mylife, I have never done before. I will just learn as I go. It’s morefun that way.”
“Yes, but this time it could mean life or death. Your life ordeath,” she added.
I could see April was beginning to cry and Beverly had avery frightened look on her face.
“I have to go! I’m not going to sit here and let the Gulf ofMexico gas and oil industry be destroyed. If modern weaponscan’t sink that U-boat, then maybe weapons of the same era willhave some luck.”
I think the three ladies realized it was useless to try to stop
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me. I leaned over and gave my mother a hug and a kiss on thecheek. I gave April a hug and kiss on her cheek. And withoutthinking, I hugged Beverly and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Sheseemed to be a little surprised, but welcomed my show of affec-tion. She gave me a little kiss back.
“Please be careful, I still haven’t finished the story for mymagazine about the EnergyHunter and I want you to help me,”Beverly said, grabbing my hand. “Maybe I can write about allthat has happened with the U-boat.”
“I don’t think it would make a very good story. No onewould believe it,” I said with a big smile. “I’ll be back as soonas I sink the U-Ghost...er U-boat,” I said as I walked toward theback door.
“Be careful, Daddy,” April said with tears in her eyes.“Grandmother, please stop him.”
“April, when your father sets out to do something, just getout of his way. Nothing can stop him now,” Grandmother Inasaid putting her arm around her.
Like a man on a mission, I walked to the tractor parkedbehind the barn. I noticed the old hay trailer was still attached,but didn’t have time to unhitch it. I started the tractor and raceddown the old shell road to the Intercoastal Canal where we hadlast docked the PT 8.
After parking the tractor and trailer next to the dock I raninside the old warehouse to look for a compass and toolbox I hadleft there. The warehouse was still a mess, so it took me a fewminutes to locate the old compass hanging on the side wall. Igrabbed my toolbox I had left by the door and ran down the dockto the PT 8.
As I untied the bow and stern lines I counted only four depthcharge barrels mounted on the launching rack. If those depthcharges exploded now, they would blow me and the boat all theway to Abu Dabi. I didn’t know if any of those depth charges
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were still good, but it was my only choice.I grabbed my satellite phone and called the Naval Air
Station.“May I speak with Colonel Fred Hathorn, please? This is
Hooper with the EnergyHunter.” “I will get him for you sir,” a lady’s voice on the other end
replied.After about a five minute wait Colonel Hathorn came on the
line, “Hello, sorry for the wait, I was just in contact with our subhunter aircraft that is tracking your so-called U-boat.”
“Hello, Colonel Hathorn. Do you have any new informationyou can give me about the U-boat?”
“Nothing we can tell you at this time, we are tracking it andare still in the process of evacuating the Gulf. We don’t want totry anything else and risk any injury or damage to civilians.”
“Do you have the present position of the U-boat?”“Yes, but we are handling it. Why do you need to know?”“Just curious, I don’t want it attacking my EnergyHunter
again.”“Well, it is still on a direct course toward Grand Isle. It’s
traveling on the surface at about 15 knots. Let me assure you,Hooper, we are currently planning a top-level staff meeting todetermine our next move. Don’t worry, I don’t think it willattack your EnergyHunter anytime soon.”
“Thanks for your assistance, Colonel Hathorn.” I pressed thedisconnect button and tossed the phone on the seat.
I started up all three engines one at a time. As large cloudsof blue smoke bellowed from behind the boat I carefully maneu-vered out into the Intercoastal Canal and headed full speedtoward Intracoastal City and Vermilion Bay.
I sped past Don’s Bait Shop, past dozens of Intracoastal Citydocks and heliports and out into Vermillion Bay. I turned southand set course for Southwest Pass. Overhead, I could see dozensof helicopters carrying men and women in from the rigs and
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platforms in the Gulf. It was a sight much like a hurricane evac-uation. This time it was for a reason no one had ever planned for.
I proceeded south across the bay and made it into the Gulfthrough Southwest Pass. I turned east and plotted a course in thedirection of the U-boat’s path. I was making good time. I knewmy top speed of 55 miles per hour was much faster than the U-boat and my plan was to intercept it before it reached the coast.
About an hour had passed after I entered the Gulf when Iheard a loud noise come from below deck. The speeding PT boatwas bouncing over the waves, so I though maybe something hadbroken loose down below. I wasn’t sure what made the loudnoise, but I decided to check it out. The PT 8 had been runninggreat up to this point and I was hoping it was only a minor prob-lem.
I pulled back the throttles and stopped the boat dead in thewater. I climbed down the main hatch and into the forward liv-ing compartment where I had heard the noise. I grabbed a largepipe wrench from the toolbox along the way.
There were eight bunks attached to both inside walls of thePT boat’s forward living compartment. I could see movementunder an old blanket on one of the lower bunks. I slowly andquietly walked over to the bunk and raised my pipe wrench tohit whatever was under the blanket.
I raised my arm and was just about to swing down the heavywrench.
“Daddy, don’t hit me!” Matthew begged, as his head peepedout from under the end of the blanket.
I dropped the wrench onto the floor. “Matthew! You know Iwould never hit you. I didn’t know what was under the blanket.”
I hugged him tightly as he sat up in the bunk. “What in the world are you doing down here? “I wanted to help you, Daddy.” How did you get here?”
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“Before you left home I climbed out my bedroom windowand down the tree next to the house. I ran over to the trailer andhid under the hay. When you went inside the old warehouse, Ijumped out of the trailer and ran down here. I have been hidingdown here all along.”
“Matthew, what am I going to do with you now?” “I can help you get the U-Ghost, Daddy.”“I have to take you back home. It’s too dangerous out here.”“Daddy, please don’t. I can help you sink the U-Ghost.”“No, I’m taking you back! Let’s go back on deck and head
home.”We walked toward the ladder leading up to the top deck
when I noticed an oil leak from the number one engine.“Matthew, I need to fix this leak before we lose all the oil in
the engine. Get me that pipe wrench, I’ll try to tighten this fittingon the oil pump hose.”
“Aye, Aye, sir,” Matthew smiled and saluted. We worked below deck for about twenty minutes to get all
the leaks stopped. The old PT boat was finally showing its age.“Now, let’s go back on deck and turn this boat around and
take you home,” I said. We then climbed up the ladder to the bridge.
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Chapter 23
Captain Hans! Captain Hans! You’re not going to believethis, but the American PT boat is back,” the lookout on the topdeck of the U-Geist blurted over the intercom.
“What are you talking about?” Captain Hans inquired.“Captain, it is back. I see it. There is no one on its deck. It is
dead in the water. I think it may be abandoned.”Captain Hans and Lieutenant Richter quickly climbed up the
ladder and onto the top deck bridge. Lieutenant Richter’s headwas still wrapped, but he was feeling much better.
“Where is it?” Captain Hans asked, grabbing his binoculars.“Over there, sir. To the west about 1 kilometer away. It has
not moved for several minutes and I cannot see anyone ondeck,” the lookout replied.
“The little American boat didn’t sink us the other day, butthey sure gave us a rough time,” Captain Hans replied lookingthrough his binoculars at the PT 8 and gritting his teeth.
“Now it’s our turn for revenge! We are going to torpedo thatlittle American boat right out of the water.”
“Richter, sound general alarm!” Lieutenant Richter leaned over and pushed the general
alarm. The frightening general quarters sound filled the U-Geist
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once again. Immediately the crew rushed to their battle stations.“Come in, forward torpedo room. Junkus, come in!” CaptainHans commanded over the intercom.
“This is Junkus, come in Capitan.”“How many torpedoes do you have left in the forward
tubes?” “None, sir. But there are two in the stern captain,” Junkus
replied.“Stern torpedoman, come in.”“This is Franks, sir. I have two torpedoes waiting on your
order to fire,” Torpedoman Franks replied. He reached up andturned the valves to equalize the stern torpedo tubes.
“Give me left full rudder, turn to heading 150 degrees,”Captain Hans ordered.
The U-Geist made a slow turn to line up the stern torpedoesto its unsuspecting victim. Using the sights on the bridgeCaptain Hans lined up his U-boat torpedoes with the dead-in-the-water PT 8.
“Prepare to fire,” the captain ordered. Range 2000 meters,speed zero. Fire one”...he waited... “fire two.”
“Torpedoes away, Herr capitan,” Franks confirmed the firingover the intercom.
“Captain, we have no more torpedoes,” Lieutenant Richterwhispered.
“Yes, I know. We should have loaded all the extra torpedoesinstead of leaving them in Lorient like we were ordered,”Captain Hans muttered.
“The torpedoes are right on target, Capitan,” one of the look-outs announced.
“Yes, this should be like shooting ducks on the Rhine,”Captain Hans smiled. He continued to look through his binocu-lars.
“Those two torpedoes should blow that little boat all the wayto Berlin,” Lieutenant Richter added as he reached up and felt
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the bandage on his head.All the men on the top deck stood and watched the two
speeding torpedoes took dead aim at the PT 8.“Let’s get below quickly and dive,” Captain Hans ordered.
“If those torpedoes do not hit their mark, I do not want to gothrough another round of depth charges, like before.”
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Chapter 24
Matthew and I climbed back up the ladder to the top deckof PT 8 and walked over to the bridge. It was extremely hotbelow deck, so the fresh air felt good. I grabbed my binocularsand did a quick search of the area.
“Oh, no! Is that the U-boat over there?” I pointed to the eastwhere I could see plain as day the U-boat on the surface of thewater.
“Looks like one to me,” Matthew said, squinting his eyestrying to see. “What are we going to now, Daddy?”
“Well, it’s too late now to take you home. Man-o-man, yourgrandmother is going to kill me.”
“Let’s sink it, Daddy. Battle station, men.” Matthew said ashe grabbed his oversize Army helmet from under the seat andput it on his head. “What’s the battle plan, Daddy?”
“Please Matthew, stay down. We’ll have to out maneuver it.This PT boat is much faster and can turn on a dime.”
“Daddy, look at those dolphins swimming toward us,”Matthew said as he looked over the edge of the railing of thebridge watching two distinctive wakes in the water.
“Matthew, those aren’t dolphins, they’re torpedoes! Hold on,I am giving it full power.”
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“Daddy, look out! The first torpedo is coming right towardus. It’s going to hit us!” Matthew screamed. He grabbed his hel-met with both hands and prepared for the impact.
“Hold on Matthew,” I yelled and then prayed.I applied full power of all three V-12 1600hp engines. The
bow of the PT 8 leapt completely out of the water and I watchedin amazement as the first torpedo passed right under our air-borne bow.
“Matthew, the torpedo passed under our bow. Look over onthis side, there it goes.”
“Daddy, that was too close. This isn’t fun anymore.”I turned and looked back to the left for the second torpedo. I
watched as it passed within inches of our stern. “Matthew, are you okay?” I looked down and saw Matthew
getting up off the deck.“I think I may have broken my arm. I hit it when I fell,”
Matthew said as he stood up and straightened his oversized hel-met on his head. He rubbed his right forearm, which had hit thedeck hard.
I looked back toward the U-boat and could see it rapidly sub-merging about 1500 yards in front of us.
“Oh, you’re alright, let’s go get that U-Ghost. We will usethose old depth charges back there,” I pointed to the rear of thePT 8.
“How do we fire them, Daddy?”“That’s a good question,” I looked at him and raised my eye-
brows. “Okay, you take the wheel. I’ll go take a look. Just keepit straight toward those bubbles. That’s where the U-boat sub-merged.”
“Aye, Aye, Daddy, sir,” He stood up on the seat and pushedthe oversized helmet back so he could see from under it.
I ran back to the depth charge rack mounted to the rear deckof our boat. I located a red lever arm on the rack held in placewith a removable pin.
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“Matthew, I think I’ve got it,” I yelled up to him. “Keepstraight toward the sub, I will release the depth charges. It’s ouronly hope.”
Within seconds we were over the area where the U-boat haddisappeared under the water. The water was still bubbling andthe periscope had just gone out of sight.
“Fire the depth charges, Daddy,” Matthew ordered, lookingback at me with a worried expression.
I immediately pulled the pin and released the lever on therack, but nothing happened.
Matthew looked at me and yelled, “What’s wrong Daddy?”“I don’t know, its not working. The depth charge barrels
aren’t rolling off the rack.”“Kick it or something!” he screamed in frustration.I had thought of that, but was afraid the old depth charges
might explode on the back of the boat. I had no choice. I gavethe lever a hard kick with my foot. Immediately the four depthcharges began to roll off the rack and into the water behind theboat.
“Matthew, keep going straight... And fast. We have to getaway from the underwater explosions.”
As I made my way back to the bridge, I heard the first under-water explosion. I looked back and saw a large plume of waterrising 150 feet into the air. There was another explosion, thenanother, then another. Water was covering us on the boat.
“Get down Matthew.” I tried to cover Matthew with mybody. We both were getting drenched.
Matthew turned and looked at me. “Daddy, do you think wegot the U-boat?
“U-Ghost son,” I grinned. I hugged him not wanting to lethim go. I didn’t want him to know that I was just as scared as hewas. If those four depth charges hadn’t destroyed the U-boat, Iknew we both were in a lot of trouble.
Suddenly, as Matthew and I watched, there was one last
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underwater explosion. This one was much louder and muchmore forceful than the four previous ones.
“Look at that daddy. I think we blew it up.” A huge oil slick quickly covered the top of the water. “I don’t think it had time to dive very deep. The depth
charges may have exploded right on top of it,” I said. “Or we justblew up an underwater oil pipeline.”
“I think we blew that U-boat into a million pieces,” Matthewsaid as we looked closely for any survivors.
“There’s no survivors, son. There’s nothing else we can do.Let’s go home, Matthew.”
“Daddy, I told you that you would need my help.”“You were right son, but you still shouldn’t have hidden
down below. You could have been hurt or even worse.”“That’s what wars are all about,” Matthew said with a grin.“You’ve been watching too many war movies, son.”
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Offshore EnergyHunter Book II
Did Matthew and Blaze really destroy the U-Geist?
Did Brother-in-law, T-Boy, Preacher Jack, Cowboy, Blueand Aggie make it in safely on the Coast Guard cutter?
Did the EnergyHunter find oil at the POZO GRANDE field?
What happens to Miss Whitehead?
Look for Offshore EnergyHunter: Book II
Coming Soon.
Deep into the Past
About the Author
Roger B. Hooper is an offshore roustabout, turned entrepre-neur and author. After six years in college and a psychologydegree, he started in the offshore oil industry as a welder’shelper and worked as a roustabout, crane operator, mechanic,pumper, and just about any other position on an offshore produc-tion platform.
In 1989 he developed his Gulf Gulp and Tuff Gut offshorefood waste disposal unit in his garage which allowed him to starthis company, Hooper Group. His Gulf Gulp and newer Tuff Gutdisposers can be found on oil rigs and platforms around theworld. He sold the food disposer company in 2006.
In 1999 Hooper started Go Gulf Magazine as an avenue toadvertise his products to the offshore oil industry.
Go Gulf Magazine has grown to be the leader in its field.
Who knows, maybe one day fiction will become realitywhen he builds the Offshore EnergyHunter and hunts for oil inthe Gulf.