High Seas Series: The Wilson O'Toole

The Wilson was anchored out in the harbor and the small boats were running far into the night, bringing damaged children ashore. Local fathers were horrified at what they saw, many ran down to the landing to assist the wounded children in getting out of the boats and the men carried them to the O'Toole House Infirmary.

Anger was running at a feverish pace among the boys and the ship crews, their last voyage to the Central American coast had them returning with all four ships fully loaded with rescued children.

The ships' crews were sleeping on the decks in order to free up their own bunks for injured children. It wasn't just the bunks, nor was it just the injuries, it was the combination and the numbers of the children that had upset them. Where once, they might have felt a little sympathy for those they killed, even that was gone now. No sympathy, No quarter would ever be given again.

Many of the crew members had been at this for twenty and more years, and this was the worse they had ever seen, by far.

Now, the rumor of cannibalism was seeping out, among them and the crew members were beyond angry. They were seething mad! Such an act was totally unknown in the modern world that they all lived in, cannibalism had been put down hundreds of years earlier and, now, it was again raising its ugly head!

Members of the crews, especially the deck hands, were checking out firearms from the Armory and seeking time at the range to hone their marksmanship. More than a few from the Engine Rooms were joining them. It was 'Go who first noticed what was happening, not that he disapproved, but he was concerned enough to let Captain Pat know about what was going on.

Pat did not know how to respond, on one hand, he was happy that the ships' crews were taking an aggressive stance against these slavers, but he recognized there was the potential for an international incident.

He solved the problem by joining the men at the target range. Not that he needed marksmanship training, he was a crack shot and his Father, Captain Wil O'Toole had always told him that one shot should equal one hit! He would sit with the men as they practiced and spoke of responsibility and being careful about who was being targeted.

Boats McKee had arranged for the use of the target range and he attended every training session. He chuckled as he said to Pat, "Cap'n, sir, "These here men ain't lookin' ta' kill people, theys just lookin' to keep kids off'n the dinner plate."

Pat shivered as he thought about what could happen to kids and swore he would do all in his power to put those creeps out of business, permanently!

It was not long until the ships were ready to head out again and all the children were eager to go, even the ones who were still recovering from their own ordeals.

Again, Andy ran the lottery to fill all the available spots, the only ones who could not go were those who were still recovering and those who had gotten to go the last time. That still left over a thousand young men and women who were thirteen or older and were eagerly holding onto their lottery ticket, waiting for the drawing.

Like the first voyage, the boys and girls lottery were held separately and the number of tickets issued were in the same proportion as the population at O'Toole House.

On the day of the drawing, the boys were drawn first, as they were the most numerous.

By the end of the drawing, there were lots of disappointed faces, but Pat had an idea for that. He announced that there would be a News Service started up, where information received by the radio operators would be printed up and posted all over the island and contacts would be made on the other islands and also on the mainland, where news was to be disseminated. Those not winning a slot on one of the ships and all those under the age of thirteen were eligible.

The girls would write the stories and the boys would generate the contacts to receive them. It would turn out to be a much bigger project than anyone imagined and would become a worldwide news service in a dozen local languages.

Before Pat could get back from the upcoming voyage, there would be a bank of computers connected to SkyNet for getting the news out to the world and RESCUE NEWS SERVICE would become recognized the world over!

Its President, Mr. Andrew Causey, would become a world-famous speaker and be in constant demand. The service would have thirty photographers on staff and well as a bank of translators, all of whom were those who had been rescued by the O'Tooles. Before six months was out, television would be added and a small newsroom would be built out at The Prince Tahulie Welcome Center.

Sailing day finally arrived and the ships were loaded with supplies as well as boys and girls as members of the crews. Two additional medical doctors and a psychologist had been added to the hospital staff of the Wilson O'Toole.

When the announcement was made that the O'Tooles were looking for additional medical staff, one doctor from the mainland hopped on an airplane in less than an hour after the news was released. Jerry McCormick had been a boy who had been rescued early on by the Mary Joyce and he would have walked on water to be at the head of the line of applicants.

As it was, Jerry was the first to arrive and to be personally hired by Patrick Wilson O'Toole. Jerry had been rescued while Pat was still on board the Mary Joyce with his own father, Captain Wilson James O'Toole. The two men hugged each other for a long time, and there was no question that Pat was going to hire him!

Jerry would become Chief of Rescue Surgical Services on the O'Toole Ships and would head up the Surgery Service on board the Wilson O'Toole directly. He would report direct to Dr. Pedro Robbins, who was now Chief of Medical Services for all the O'Toole Facilities.

Gerald McCormick, MD, PhD was appointed to head up The Rescue Medical Service almost immediately upon his arrival in Lihue. He and Pat had talked far into the night and Pat was so impressed with his long time ago friend, that he gave Jerry a free hand in developing a Mobile Medical Service.

The first thing Jerry did was to upgrade the medical services on the Patrick and the Joseph and to provide for a Pediatric Surgeon on both ships. On the Wilson, he added a small Psychiatric Ward with a Child Psychiatrist and a male Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.

The nurse had worked for Jerry before when both had been at Baltimore Memorial Hospital, so he had an idea just what he was in for. He knew that Jerry was a "Hell on Wheels, kind of guy, so he figured he was going to need a pair of roller skates! The Psychiatrist, Dr. William Dale, was fresh out of his internship, but he came highly recommended. Both he and the Nurse, Gordon Fellows had worked together before and, only Jerry and Patrick knew they were a committed couple.

As sailing day approached, there was a frantic pace being set on the Wilson, the Hospital needed to bring the service up to the standards that Jerry McCormick demanded. He was NOT going bring any patient back to Lihue still needing surgery or other care.

They did not have a Dentist or dental facilities yet, but that was next on Jerry's list.

The last equipment to come on board was a mystery, nobody could understand why there was a small gasoline powered utility vehicle, equipped with pontoons and a propeller sitting on the after hatch cover. Jerry had enlisted the assistance of the ship's Chief Engineer, 'Go Wilson O'Toole, to modify the small vehicle.

Slowly, they saw the little truck change, it was painted green and white with a huge red cross painted on the top and sides of the body. The little truck was four-wheel drive and was equipped with lug tires for use in mud and loose sand.

There was no question in anyone's mind by that time, that Doctor Jerry had himself an ambulance! They knew it for sure when they spotted a siren and a red light being installed on the roof of the truck's cab.

At last, they sailed on the morning tide, Everyone on the island knew that the O'Toole Fleet was headed back to Central America. The Rescue News Service had flyers printed up and distributed all over town and the state and local news services were beginning to carry their by-line.

The winds were contrary and the Mary Joyce was making hard sailing of it against the wind. This slowed them down considerably, but there was no help for it, Pat had important plans for the sailing ship.

They planned to start their operations at the small islands offshore from Nayarit, Mexico. The islands were inhabited, however they had an unsavory reputation. There were four islands in a chain and one smaller island between the chain and the coast of mainland Mexico.

It took them two weeks to make the voyage, the crew on the Mary Joyce had fought contrary winds the entire trip. They looked forward to a resting period, where they only needed to catch slavers!

The small fleet arrived at, the northernmost island, Isla San Juanico, in the dead of the night. They spotted several campfires and a few lights of the island. Their charts said that there were no permanent settlements on Isla Juanico and Señor Ferguson told them that it was the fishing season and there would be semi-permanent fishing camps there.

Pat had the larger ships hang out just over the horizon from the island and sent the Mary Joyce to scout out whatever was happening on the island. The Mary Joyce struggled through the winds to arrive off the east shore of the island.

There was a protected bay and Captain Min Tangimora could see several medium sized fishing boats pulled up on the beach, but he was disturbed about the four fast boats also pulled up on the beach. The cigarette boats were not suitable for fishing and he saw nobody on the beach or working on the fishing boats. He radioed back to the Wilson on their encrypted channel that he was going to look more closely as soon as it got dark.

Min steered the ship around the island in a complete circuit and did not see any further signs of human habitation, other than the boats.

As soon as dusk started dropping over the island, he steered closer to the shore as he watched the fathometer giving course corrections to the helmsman. Tension was like a tight wire on the Mary Joyce as they had all been in these waters before and had not liked them the first time they had been there.

From the east side of the island, they could see several large campfires, but there were no lights on the beach nor anywhere near the collection of boats. Min ordered the Motor Whale Boat (MWB) put in the water and told the Cox'n to keep the engine as slow as possible.

Six sailors and three teen boys clambered down the rope ladder and sat on the seats of the MWB. The Boat Captain, Marty O'lani, ordered the engine started and they made their way quietly towards the beach. As soon as the bow of the MWB grated on the sand, Marty ordered the engine shut down and they pulled the boat up on the beach by hand.

They coasted onto the beach in silence and pulled their boat up so it would not float away. The Cox'n stayed with the boat and the rest of them went first to check out the piled bales near the fast boats, that Min had seen.

One of the older teens had been trained as a First Aid Man and he carried a medical backpack and two pistols. All the rest of the party was armed with pistols and 40 mm machine guns. Billy Caine, the First Aid Man was proud as a peacock at having been chosen for the job and he had been studying night and day to make sure he knew what to do and when to do it.

Min had spotted bales that looked like drugs to him. Marty O'lani also served as Third Mate on the Mary Joyce and was a native of Kauai. He came from a long line of Lihue Fishermen and was well liked by all who came in contact with him and, further, the men and boys all trusted him.

Marty quickly determined that the bales were highly compressed blocks of marijuana. He radioed back to Min that the bales were, in fact, as he suspected, marijuana. The outboard motors on the fast boats were stone cold, so they had been there for a while. Marty smashed the porcelain part of the plugs on the four cylinder outboard motors. They would be unable to start those motors without changing the plugs out.

They also cut the rigging on the sails of the fishing boats. It would take hours to repair the rigging on the twenty-two foot fishing boats. As soon as the sabotage was complete, Marty led his men inland, towards the campfire they could see, leaving the Cox'n to guards the boats.

The men moved silently and slowly towards the fires. They could hear men speaking Spanish and then, suddenly, there was a scream of a boy or young teen, clearly terrified. That settled the matter and the party unlimbered their machine guns and jacked a cartridge into their pistols. They started at a faster pace towards the camp fires.

Their pistols were .38 caliber police specials and they were loaded with hollow point bullets, sometimes called "Manwreckers"! They were guaranteed to stop a charging wild bull in its tracks, with a hole big enough to stick one's arm through.

They burst out into a clearing with their machine guns firing in full automatic. What they saw so enraged them, they forgot about the word, "Mercy"!

There was a dozen young teens and boys tied back to back and they all showed fresh blood on their bodies! By the time all of the party had entered the clearing, only two of the ten men remained alive and they were going nowhere as the machine gun slugs had shattered both their legs!

Billy Caine, the first aid man, was a young near adult teen of nineteen and he ignored the pleas of the wounded men and went, first, to the bloody teens. He had always been fascinated with knives and he had a Bowie knife that was sharp enough to shave with, had he any facial hair to shave, which he did not yet have.

He sliced the ropes from the captive boys like a hot knife going through butter and, before they could even scream, he was applying bandages and compresses to their wounds.

Billy had been rescued years earlier and he had purposely worked and trained himself to be a caregiver on a rescue party. He had even heckled some of the Spanish-speaking boys at O'Toole House to teach him Spanish. His language skills were far from perfect, but the teen boys he was treating all understood what he was saying and he could understand them and their needs.

They heard someone attempting to start one of the fast boats, Marty snickered and sent a crewman and a teen to "take care of them". Shortly, they heard three shots and several screams.

The two came back at a leisurely walk and the crewman said, "Remind me to not make Cal mad at me, he shot and killed three men with a single shot each! Theys was trying to stab him with cane knives, but theys never even got close!"

They patched up the captives as best they could in the dark before leading them back to their boats, leaving the several wounded smugglers for someone else to care for.

When they arrived back at the beach, they found that the Cox'n had spent his time smashing additional holes in the fishing boats and fast boats, they would not be usable without a great deal of labor and parts from the mainland.

The captives were reluctant to get in the boat, Billy used his basic Spanish to speak with the captives, telling them that they were free now and that they would be taken out to their ship where there was a real doctor and a real hospital. He promised them that he would stay with them and would answer any questions they had as best he could, but they needed to get off Isla San Juanico before any more slavers showed up.

An older teen responded, "NO, NO, señor está canibales!" The teen then broke down and told them the cannibals had already eaten his younger brother!

Tempers were reaching the breaking point, so Marty hurried them all into the boat, he feared the whole situation was a nuclear blast just waiting to happen and he didn't want to be sitting at ground zero! He was anxious to speak with Bill Dale, the Psychologist so that he could help the teens and any others who were having psychological problems. He didn't feel all that good himself!

The winds were favorable and the MWB made good time going back to the ship. Marty told Captain Min about the incident and Min got on the handheld immediately to Pat. The radio waves were going nuclear between the two men.

They made arrangements to rendezvous and to deliver all the rescued teens, especially young Jose Santiago, who needed help with his mental agony over his brother being eaten by cannibals. The young man's story seeped out, all over the ship, there wasn't a man on the Mary Joyce who would not just sit beside the young man and let him cry on their shoulder. Somehow, the story made it to the RESCUE NEWS SERVICE and, within twenty four hours, the story had gone nuclear, worldwide!

They set up a meeting point over the horizon from the island group so that the wounded teens could all be transferred and cared for in the hospital. This cannibal business was something their crew members were not prepared to handle! Nor were they able to contain their anger!

After the transfer, they continued their search of the islands found them devoid of all human life, except for Isla Madre Maria, which had a small village and an emergency airplane landing strip.

They decided to check out tiny Isla Maria Isabella while they were there. Another small island, Maria Isabellita, was between the island group and the Mexican Coast.

It was hardly more than a few acres of rocks sticking up out of the water with very little vegetation. There was one protected anchorage at the south end of the tiny island, however, there was no fresh water anywhere among the rocks of the island.

They discovered several wrecked fast boats on the beach of the shallow bay, but a search of the island found no trace of anyone, even though the wrecked boats seemed to be recent.

Pat made the decision to continue down the coast, bypassing the tourist area of Puerto Vallarta. They hit the coastline at Playa Peñita to continue their search.

The group of ships moved slowly, searching the coastline for the telltale campfires at night or spotting fast boats pulled up on the beach during the day.

Near the village of Piño Suarez, they spotted a group of figures on the beach being chased by men with guns. Pat watched with the binoculars and saw that the men chasing, what appeared to be young boys and they were not soldiers or policemen.

He sent all their MWBs, which had been lowered to the rail earlier that morning, racing on to the beach. All the MWB crews were armed and Doctor Jerry was along for the ride this time.

This was the first time Jerry had been with a working crew since he had been rescued himself many years earlier. He felt a sudden thrill as they went racing for the shore and he pulled out the pistol he had been issued and made sure the chamber was loaded and the safety was on.

As they approached the shoreline, he hefted his medical pack on his back and stood beside Boat Captain Paul Anders, who also had been rescued by the O'Tooles years earlier. They were both of an age and made a good team.

As the boat ground on the beach sand, both men leaped over the cowling and raced up the beach, to where they had seen the activity. Three boat crews were right on their heels.

They topped a dune and saw a group of men holding guns of twelve teenagers, who were spread eagle on the sand, face down. When the men saw the Rescue Team, they began shooting at them, the men on the Rescue Team were better shots, only two of the men survived and that was just barely, both of the wounded slavers were rapidly bleeding out.

When it was all over, despite the tears running down Jerry's face, there was a smile also as he remarked to Paul, "Payback is a bitch, isn't it?" Paul Anders chuckled and replied, "It sure is, Doc, it sure is!"

The teens they rescued had numerous cuts and wounds on them. One older teen shouted, "I am an American, my name is Gil Johansen!" Paul was on the boy in a flash asking him how he came to be here.

Gil snuffed his tears back and replied, "We was camping in the Jaguar Preserve, taking pictures of the animals and hoping to get a shot of a jaguar. These men came in the middle of the night and shot all the adults, my Mom and Stepdad are dead, I saw them die! That little blonde boy over there is my younger brother, Allan!"

He motioned to the boy he pointed out and the boy came running, clinging to his older brother as he sobbed. Gil held his brother and calmed him down so they could tell their story to the men who had saved them.

The rest of the boys were all Mexicans and they insisted their parents had sold them to these men as slaves! Jerry was on the handheld, frantically relaying to Pat what was taking place. Even before he signed off, he saw three MWBs headed for shore, throwing spray and a wake indicating they were coming "flat out"!

The boats skidded up on the beach, their steel keel plates screeching in protest as they crunched on the loose sand. Pat himself was in the lead boat and Docs Bill and Dale along with Nurse Gordon Fellows was beside him.

Despite his handicap, Pat was running up the beach, where he saw Jerry standing. Bill and Gordon were on his heels, had Pat stopped suddenly, they all would have piled up on the sand.

They got the teens patched up a bit and both Bill and Gordon were speaking Spanish to them, trying to calm them down. Pat made the decision not to contact the Mexican Authorities just yet, he wanted to know more about the men who had captured the teens. He saw Gil Johansen as an educated observer and hoped Gil could enlighten them about what was going on.

It took quite some talking to convince the Mexican teens that they were safe now and nothing bad would happen to them. Gil, however, had heard about the O'Tooles from news reports and he knew what they did. That he had been rescued by one of the O'Tooles himself and that Pat was the son of Captain Wilson James O'Toole, he thought that Pat could walk on water!

Gil had never gotten along well with his stepfather and he looked at Pat with shining eyes as he whispered to his little brother, "Bro, these are the famous O'Tooles, the ones we read about who were saving kids in Portland, remember, we saw the news articles before we moved to San Antonio after Mom married that creep?"

Allen snuggled deeper into his big brother's arms and whispered, "Yeah, lets us stay with them, now that Mom is dead, our stepdad's brothers are all creeps and bullies anyway." Allen continued, "'an the youngest one, Roger, he hurted me."

Gil stared at his brother and asked, "WHERE DID HE HURT YOU?" The small boy pointed to his bottom and Gil lost it! He ran with Allen to talk with the Doctor.

He told Doc Jerry what he had just learned and Jerry put his arms around both boys, telling them that he and Doctor Bill would check Allen out completely as soon as they got back to the Wilson O'Toole. Neither boy knew that Doctor Bill was a Child Psychologist.

As soon as they got all the boys reasonably cleaned up, they all climbed into the boats and heading back to The Wilson. Both the Johansen Brothers' eyes got big when they saw the same ship that made headlines in the Portland Times, its picture had been on the front page of the newspaper and was posted in the historical section of their school library!

Gil made up his mind right there that he and Allen were gonna stay with these folks, forever, and do whatever it took to make it happen!

Their voyage down the remainder of Mexico was uneventful, they traveled slowly, letting the Mary Joyce do the sniffing and spotting. The winds were poor and the Mary Joyce was forced to use her engine the whole distance, so, before they came to Guatemala, the Joseph swung around and refueled the Mary Joyce.

They had plenty of fuel on the Joseph and the cargo tanks of the Wilson were also full.

They were just south of Monterrico when a large group of fast boats were spotted heading toward the coast at high speed. Only the Mary Joyce was near the coast, the larger vessels were hanging out at sea, over the horizon. It was unlikely they had even seen the Mary Joyce as there was considerable haze and the lookout on the Mary Joyce had just barely spotted the fast boats.

It was not until the lookout had located them that the Navigator was able to pick them out of the sea return on the radar screen.

The charts showed a dirt road that headed inland from where the fast boats beached. Even if they had been met with cars or trucks, there was no way the men who went ashore could return before the next day. There was nothing else in the area except the end of that road.

Pat and Min put their heads together and came up with an ambush plan. They waited until dark before closing on the shoreline and sending in the MWB's.

Min led the away team this time and he found only a small amount of packaged drugs sitting on the beach beside the boats. They captured the two security guards who had been left to guard the boats, Min figured they needed to try out the virgin brig on the Wilson. The two would be its very first customers.

They smashed all but one of the fast boats, which they loaded up with the wrapped packages that appeared to be cocaine. They sent one of the MWB's back with the two prisoners and it returned with additional men and three teens, all armed to the teeth.

They made camp, expecting the men from the fast boats would return early the next day. Shortly after daylight, they heard the sound of gnashing gears as heavily laden trucks came over the last rise before the beach.

Min and his men were waiting for them, three of the men threw up their hands and surrendered as soon as they saw the machine guns pointing at them, the remainder of the men died when they tried to run.

When they lifted the canvas covers off the truck beds, they found stacked packages of more bricks of cocaine in three of the four trucks. In the fourth truck, they discovered six boys and three girls all trussed up and gagged. With visions of his own youth shimmering in his head, Min jumped up and slit the ropes on the children.

It was immediately evident that the young girls and the two youngest boys had all been raped, repeatedly and brutally. Min screamed for the Docs, his hands were shaking, either in anger or in shame that he had not checked that truck first!

The couple of bandits who had surrendered were very quiet, fearing to call attention to themselves. The men were so angry, they were sputtering and their faces were glowing bright red, had those who had surrendered made any movement at all, they would have all died in that same instant!

The two Docs and the male Nurse worked until nearly dark that evening, repairing damaged children, some were hardly more than babies! Their little bodies were so torn from brutal rape that the Docs feared they would never be the same again, physically or mentally.

They feared for their own sanity and only their own anger drove them on to complete their tasks. Some of them would never be the same again either!

Under the cover of darkness, they ferried the injured children out to the Wilson, which had come inshore to receive them. Min held his Brother, Pat, and cried for the children and for himself before he returned to the Mary Joyce, a sober and changed man.

The Rescue Fleet continued down the coast, they had made plans to anchor at Rio Amayo in El Salvador and Pat and Señor Ferguson planned to go up to San Salvador to meet with members of the National Assembly of El Salvador.

They hoped it would make a pleasant interlude for the rescued children and the crew members. The beaches along that part of the coast were relatively undeveloped and the children could play on the beaches undisturbed. They would, however, be strongly guarded as they were taking no chances that they could be recaptured!

Pat and Min spent three days, along with Señor Ferguson in discussions with the El Salvador government. Pat got the distinct impression that some of the bureaucrats were working for the drug smugglers and slavers. Later, Rodolfo Ferguson said the same thing had occurred to him.

They finally got permission to "work" the El Salvador coast and several of the assemblymen demanded they be notified of when and where the rescue operations were going to take place. Pat agreed, but he and Min decided that no actual area or time would be given to them.

Pat knew a rat when he smelled one!

It was with relief that he and Min headed back to the coast. Pat had two "new" sons he was working with and he had come to love both brothers Johansen and he planned to ask them to join his family as soon as he got back to his home on the Wilson O'Toole.

So the saga continues, in all the years since Pat was a small boy on his Father's ship, not much had changed. The same evil still existed in the world and the O'Tooles were still doing all they could to rescue the stolen children. Maybe they could never completely eradicate those who harmed children, but they were all damned sure they could make a hole in their ranks.