The train eased to a halt about 5 miles outside of the port near Gdansk. Don Blanco heaved the seized window open and looked from the unmoving train, the railway tracks appeared to lead to then disappear at a long flat grey vista that Signor Blanco assumed was the sea. Growing impatient with the unscheduled stop the Don unlocked the train door and stepped out onto the tracks. His companions followed as they started to walk along the train line past the empty fields that months ago must have been full of an abundance of wheat or corn. Mr Sempleton lagged behind desperately struggling with the pile of board games he insisted on bringing, whilst complaining about the abrupt curtailment of the scrabble game, victory unfairly torn from his grasp. The Don unable to bare the whingeing of the Englishman a moment longer walked back toward him and held out his hands as if offering to help with the transportation of the board games.
“Oh why thank you Signor Blanco” said a surprised looking Mr Sempleton piling the games into the arms of the Don. The thank you was however a short lived one as the English detective looked on aghast as Don Blanco with an almighty hurl sent the collection of games spinning and twisting high into the sky, before they crashed and spilt out over the trampled and frozen remains of the field’s long dead crops.
Mr Sempleton felt a furious anger swell up inside him, his mother had sent him those board games to play with after he had told her about his new friends and their proposed train trip. She would be appalled that they were now lying in some frozen nameless part of northern Poland.
Mr Sempleton marched on behind his four companions, silently simmering with rage. The grey horizon started to come into focus before disappearing as the men were enveloped in a shroud of mist and hard salty rain. By the time they exited the cloak of mist the five travellers found themselves at the edge of a jetty that was being buffeted by waves. Gilberto’s velvet slippers were soaked through and had turned from a vivid purple to a dull mud colour and squelched with each giant footstep he took. Don Blanco’s cigar was so sodden that no matter how hard he tried to relight it, the wet tobacco would not catch fire; he abandoned the futile attempts and dropped it into a puddle. Suarez looked down to see the plaster cast covering his broken leg disintegrate and dissolve in front of his eyes as the sodium filled rain hammered against it. Muffled cries came from the frothing waters below the jetty and in the distance no more than a hundred yards from the spit of land that protruded out into the sea to the west was a ship. It was slowly fighting its way through the Baltic swell, seeing this Suarez started to run towards it.
Don Blanco made his way along the jetty trying to locate where the muffled cries had come from; he stopped at the sight of a burst leather football that lay ripped and wheezing for life at his feet and then looked out over the waves that were gathering energy before taking another charge at the rusting jetty. Again from under the screams of the wind came the cries of a small child, there about 100 yards away were the flailing arms of young Michal, the child was frantically thrashing amid the thunderous waves, his arms barely above the water, life slowly starting slip from him. Without a second thought the Don threw his cashmere jacket on the wet ground and dove head first into the torrent of churning grey water.
Gonzalo (a youth swimming champion in Rio Grandé) was in these same freezing waters, puffing as he fought his way through the ten foot high swell towards the unconscious figure of the harbour master, whose body was being thrown up and down in the sea, as if it was no more than a balsa light piece of driftwood.
Mr Sempleton and Suarez were making their way towards the spit of land and the escaping ship. Suarez had abandoned his crutches; his plaster cast had now entirely melted away and he ignored the searing pain in his leg as he sprinted along the beach so fast that Mr Sempleton, holding onto his prized deerstalker could barely keep pace.
Don Blanco cut through the water with his powerful arms and reached the boy not a moment too soon. Little Michal could not fight any longer, his eyes had started to close and his aching arms went rigid as he started to sink under the water, when he felt a strong grip on his arm. Whatever had grabbed him lifted him high out of the water and onto its back. The boy now delirious and barely breathing looked down in amazement as he rode on the back of the giant walrus that took him back to the safety of the shore. The huge mammal deposited the coughing child onto the black sands of the beach; it was only then that the boy realised the bushy moustache of his saviour was that of not a walrus but a fierce looking foreign man.
The man with the face of fire, took of the blue silk scarf that was around his thick neck and wrapped it around the shivering body of little Michal and headed back to the waves to help Gonzalo haul the body of the boy’s unconscious grandfather up and onto the seaweed littered beach.
Suarez had reached the slither of land surrounded on all sides by the ominous waves first. The spray from the water stung his eyes and the Uruguayan rubbed them, slowly his blurred vision came into focus. There no more than two football fields’ distance from where he stood was the black ship. He could see the huge emblem of a pink hippopotamus on the vessels stern each time it rose up above a wave. On the deck stood five men whose faces he could not clearly make out. Then he saw the eyes! The unmistakeable eyes of his dearest friend Torado staring back at him full of fear; yet at the same time sadness. They burned into Suarez all he could see now were those eyes, the ship, the sea the beach all faded from view leaving nothing apart from the huge eyes of his oldest friend. Suarez yelled out “TORado” but the noise of the fierce Baltic and the ships engine quickly drowned him out. He ran into the sea desperate to reach the ship and his friend but was beaten back by the angry waves. Suarez tried once more but this time was held back by Mr Sempleton who had finally managed to catch up. He held on tight to Suarez whose leg was now bleeding profusely and gently lowered the screaming Uruguayan striker to the ground, comforting his new friend as Suarez knees sunk into the sand and the player wailed a lament that was carried by the winds to the black ship and the ears of Torado, who started to cry when he heard the beautiful voice of his best friend.
