Chapter 10: Under A Black Umbrella

By Allen Frost


George watched the world from under a black umbrella. Its broken spokes stuck out and the wind blew the ripped waterproof cloth like petals. It was raining but Wervers was determined to keep the film rolling, setting up the next shot as soon as one was done. George had trouble with the frantic pace, instead he looked away from them, over the edge of the dock to see weeds and kelp floating in the deep green water. A patch of small fish ebbed among the piers. Rain drilled holes on the surface.
Sam was trying to fit sitting in a low rowboat tied to the dock getting wet. The camera was close to him, framing him against the vast pour of the sea. It was a cheat shot, to make him look like he had rowed a mile from shore.
“Action!” Wervers cried.
Carefully, Sam stood up. He was holding a torpedo across his arms. He turned with it and pointed the silver prop towards a target…pressed a button near his hand.
That was all supposed to happen.
Then Sam almost lost his balance as the propeller end of the torpedo whirled alive. It bucked from him like a swordfish trying to escape capture. He caught sharp blades and dropped the torpedo overboard as he clamped his hand over his wound.
“Cut!”
In the doomed quiet that followed, rain popped on the dock around the film crew. They all watched the torpedo leaving its traveling wake of bubbles out to sea. Sam stood in the middle of the small rowboat while a stream of paint-red blood cut down his white Imperial uniform.
“Ohhhh boooyyy…” drawled Wervers. Everyone else realized where the torpedo was going too…the collective sigh sounded like summer thunder five miles away.
The lightship was a sitting duck at the mouth of the harbor. For over twenty years the Harry S. Keeler had been anchored there, blinking its light in the dark and sounding a foghorn when there was nothing to see.
Wervers cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to bring it back…”
Nobody could answer.
“Or press self destruct?”
The torpedo was out of sight into the gentle waves. The Harry S. Keeler was celebrating its last moments of floatation.
“I guess we better get it on film anyway…” Wervers decided. “We can sell it to the newsreels if we’re lucky.”
After twenty seconds of falling rain, there was the explosion. It threw a spray of water high above the flames of the burst open vessel. It didn’t have time for a last whistle or S.O.S, it rolled over and sank quickly, leaving a swarm of burning wreckage and an ugly cloud of black lurking smoke in the background.
In the foreground, Sam got out of the rowboat unsteadily, as comical as a clown stepping over the side of a bathtub, except for the blood that ran off his elbow. “George,” he said. “I lost a finger.”