Jun Do woke in the dark. He rose on his arms to sit on his bunk, silent, listening—for what? The frost of his breath was something he could feel occupying the space before him. There was just enough light to see water sheen on the floor as it shifted with the movement of the ship. Fish oil that seeped through the bulkhead seams, normally a black gloss down the rivets, was stiff and milk-colored with the cold. Of the shadows in his small room, Jun Do had the impression that one of them was a person, perfectly still, hardly breathing. For a while, he held his breath, too.
Near dawn, Jun Do woke again. He heard a faint hissing sound. He turned in his sleep toward the hull, so that he could imagine through the steel the open water at its darkest just before sunrise. He put his forehead to the metal, listening, and through his skin, he felt the thump of something nudging the side of the ship.
Up top, the wind clipped cold across the deck. It made Jun Do squint. The pilothouse was empty. Then Jun Do saw a mass off the stern, something sprawling and gray-yellow in the waves. He stared at it a moment before it made sense, before he understood it was the life raft from the Russian jetliner. Where it was tethered to the ship, several tins of food were stacked. Jun Do kneeled and held the rope in disbelief.
The Second Mate popped his head from the raft to grab the last tins.
“Aak,” he said at the sight of Jun Do. He took a deep breath, composed himself. “Hand me those tins,” he said.
Jun Do passed them down. “I saw a man defect once,” he told the Second Mate. “And I saw what happened to him after he was brought back.”
“You want in, you’re in,” the Second Mate said. “No one will find us. The current is southerly here. No one’s going to bring us back.”
“What about your wife?”
“She’s made up her mind, and nothing’s going to change it,” he said. “Now hand me the rope.”
“What about the Captain, the rest of us?”
The Second Mate reached up and untied the rope himself. He pushed off. Floating free, he said, “We’re the ones at the bottom of the ocean. You helped me see that.”
In the morning, the light was flat and bright and when the crew went on deck to do their laundry, they found the Second Mate gone. They stood next to the empty locker, trying to scan the horizon, but the light off the wavecaps was like looking into a thousand mirrors. The Captain had the Machinist inventory the cabin, but in the end little was missing but the raft. As to the Second Mate’s course, the Pilot shrugged and pointed east, toward the sun. So they stood there, looking and not looking at what had come to pass.
“His poor wife,” the Machinist said.
“They’ll send her to a camp for sure,” the First Mate said.
“They could send us all away,” the Machinist said. “Our wives, our kids.”
“Look,” Jun Do said. “We’ll say he fell overboard. A rogue wave came and washed him away.”
The Captain had been silent until now. “On our first trip with a life raft?”
“We’ll say the wave washed the raft overboard.” Jun Do pointed at the nets and buoys. “We’ll throw that stuff over, too.”
The Captain pulled off his hat and his shirt, and these he tossed aside and he didn’t look where they landed. He sat down in the middle of the deck and put his head in his hands. It was only then that real fear seemed to inhabit the men. “I can’t live like that again,” he said. “I haven’t got another four years to give.”
The Pilot said, “It wasn’t a rogue wave, but the wake from a South Korean container vessel. They nearly swamped us.”
The First Mate said, “Let’s run her aground near Wonsan and swim for it. Then, you know, the Second Mate just didn’t make it. We’ll make for a beach filled with retirees, and there will be plenty of witnesses.”
“There are no retirees,” the Captain said. “It’s just what they tell you to keep you going.”
Jun Do said, “We could go looking for him.”
“Suit yourself,” the Captain said.
Jun Do shielded his eyes and looked again upon the waves. “Do you think he can survive out there? Do you think he can make it?”
The First Mate joined him. “His poor fucking wife.”
“Without either the raft or the man, we’re screwed,” the Captain said. “With both gone, they’ll never believe us.” There were fish scales on the deck, dry and flashing in the light. The Captain ran a couple around with a finger. “If the Junma goes down, and we go down with her,” he said, “the mates’ wives get pensions, the Machinist’s wife gets a pension, the Pilot’s wife gets a pension. They all live.”
“They live with replacement husbands,” the First Mate said. “What about my kids and some stranger raising them?”
“They live,” the Captain said. “They stay out of the camps.”
“The Americans were mad,” Jun Do said. “They came back and they took him.”
“What’s that?” the Captain asked. He shielded his eyes and looked up at Jun Do.
“They wanted revenge,” he said. “And they came back to get the guy that had outfought them. They boarded us again, and they kidnapped the Second Mate.”
The Captain lay back on the deck in a strange position. He looked as if he’d fallen from the rigging and was in that moment where you don’t move, where you’re only trying to assess if anything’s broken. He said, “If Pyongyang really thinks a citizen has been kidnapped by the Americans, they’ll never let up. They’ll ride it forever, and eventually the truth will come to light. Plus, there’s no proof the Americans came back—the only thing that saved us last time was those idiots fooling with the radio.”
From his pocket, Jun Do produced the card that Jervis had left him, embossed with the seal of the U.S. Navy. He gave it to the Captain. “Maybe the Americans wanted Pyongyang to know exactly who had come and kicked some ass. In fact, it was the exact same guys—we all got a good look at them. We could tell almost the same story.”
The Machinist said, “We were longlining when the Americans came aboard. They caught us by surprise. They grabbed the Second Mate and mocked him for a while, and then they threw him to the sharks.”
“Yeah,” the First Mate said. “We threw the raft down to him, but the sharks tore it up with their teeth.”
“Yeah,” the Pilot said. “The Americans just stood there with their guns, laughing while our comrade died.”
The Captain studied the card. He reached for a hand, and they helped him up. There was that wild light in his eyes. “And then one of us,” he said, “without regard for his own safety, jumped into the shark-filled sea to save the Second Mate. This crewman suffered ferocious bite wounds, but he didn’t care because he only thought about saving the Second Mate, a hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. But it was too late—half eaten, the Second Mate slipped below the waves. His last words were of praise for the Dear Leader, and it was only in the nick of time that we pulled the other crew member, bleeding and half dead, back aboard the Junma.”
Things suddenly got quiet.
The Captain told the Machinist to start the winch. “We’ll need a fresh shark,” he said.
The Captain came to Jun Do and cupped the back of his neck, pulling him close in a tender way until they were almost forehead to forehead. No one had ever done that to Jun Do before, and it felt like there was no one else in the world. The Captain said, “It’s not just because you’re the one who put all the stupid ideas in the Second Mate’s head. Or that you’re the one with the actress tattooed on your chest instead of a real woman, at home depending on you. It’s not because you’re the one who’s had military training in pain. It’s because no one ever taught you about family and sacrifice and doing whatever it takes to protect your own.”
The Captain’s eyes were open and calm and so close to Jun Do’s that it felt they were communicating in some pure, wordless way. The hand on the back of his neck was solid, and Jun Do found himself nodding.
The Captain said, “You never had anyone to guide you, but I’m here, and I’m telling you this is the right thing to do. These people are your family, and I know you’d do anything for them. All that’s left is the proof.”
The shark had been hanging on the line all night and was stupid with death. When it came out of the water, its eyes were white, and on deck, it opened and closed its mouth less as if trying to take in oxygen than as if trying to expel whatever was slowly killing it.
The Captain told the Pilot to get a firm grip on Jun Do’s arm, but no, Jun Do said, he would hold it out himself. The Mate and Machinist hefted the shark, which was not quite two meters, tip to tail.
Jun Do took a deep breath and turned to the Captain. “Sharks and guns and revenge,” he said. “I know I thought it up, but this isn’t a story that anyone could really believe.”
“You’re right,” the Captain said. “But it’s a story they can use.”