They’d been having a bit of trouble since John showed up with his schooner, the Resurgent, or “Rusty” as she was known to her friends.  John liked to tie the schooner up at the resort’s dock when he was there, and most of the time that was no problem.  However when Kari Fletcher’s seaplane arrived, carrying passengers for the resort, she needed the dock.  The WHOLE dock.  In order to get the hull of the seaplane alongside the dock, the port wing extended across the dock like a huge aluminum awning.  The resort needed the seaplane much more than it needed the schooner, although Sylvia Slipsunder, the resort’s owner and manager was quick to admit that her guests enjoyed the option of being able to charter the schooner for a day’s sail; and that those that didn’t go sailing still liked the picturesque look of the tall ship in the lagoon.  A compromise had been reached, of sorts.  Sylvia agreed that John could dock Rusty at the Resort, provided that he extended the dock so that both the ship and the seaplane would fit.  She even agreed to split the cost of the materials.  John, of course, with the help of Rale and Lucas, would do the work. 

John grumbled as he set another piling.  He couldn’t see a thing for all the “blowing” sand and silt, and worked by touch only.  Besides, cats were NEVER meant to be in the water this long…….  The piling he was holding, and guiding had a ring-shaped gizmo around it; compressed air from the compressor on the beach entrained seawater in a number of jets pointed downward along the sides of the piling.  This “blew” out the sand and silt under the piling, letting it settle.  All he had to do was hold the piling in place as it gradually sank into the bottom of the lagoon.  Of course this gizmo only worked where the bottom was soft, but luckily there was enough sand under the lagoon that it would work. 

Rale watched carefully, and when the mark on the piling touched the water he shut off the compressor.  This gave John less than a minute to extract the water/air jet device and surface, as his mask also ran off the compressor.  The lion surfaced with a spash of water, pulling off his mask and swimming over to the edge of the unfinished dock, to haul himself out of the water.  After shaking his mane, trying to get rid of a dozen or so excess pounds of water he suddenly found himself carrying, he grinned at Rale.  “Time for a break; I gotta dry out some.”  Rale grinned and nodded back; “I’ll go see what Mom’s got for lunch.  See you at the Lodge in a bit.”  The lion nodded and stretched out on the end of the dock, laying in the hot bright sun, to try and dry off some.  It wasn’t hard to fall asleep…… 

He awoke what must have been only a short time later, to the sound of an aircraft.  The dock was still wet around him, and he knew he couldn’t have been asleep more than fifteen or twenty minutes.  “Catnap” he grinned, thinking to himself.  Rising, he scanned the skies and easily spotted Kari’s seaplane circling the lagoon, lining up for a landing.  Instinctively he checked the wind (GOOOOOOOOOD smells coming from the Lodge; lunch would be waiting for the guests!), and then checked his schooner, swinging at anchor by the little island of Buck’s Rump.  She was well out of the path Kari would be taking on her final approach.  The LAST thing he wanted was for her to hit one of Rusty’s masts. 

He watched as Kari eased the ancient seaplane down until its bottom kissed the smooth water of the bay, and watched as she taxied into the lagoon.  Rale and Lucas were coming, but he stood by with a mooring rope anyways.  That was common courtesy; if you’re on the dock, you help with any approaching vessel.  It wasn’t long before the seaplane was secure against the dock, its hull rubbing against the rubber fenders he’d put out.  Lucas stage whispered to him; “Captain, put your eyepatch back on, you’ll scare the guests”.  John let out a  grunt to fumble in the pocket of his shorts; “the string was interfering with the seal of the face mask.”  Sylvia came down to greet the guests and the boys collected the baggage, to haul it off towards the lodge.  John smiled as he watched Sylvia greet Kari.  Then the whole congregation moved off towards the lodge and lunch, John struggling to pull a shirt on over his still damp mane. 

John had always had a problem with food; when he was hungry his stomach took over, and almost everything else was ignored till he was satisfied.  Its just not safe to get between a hungry lion and food, and by now, all of the Slipsunders and most of the guests had learned this.  Accordingly, he had gotten his plate of food from the buffet, had already sat down, and was eating when Kari came over to his table with her plate.  “How’s the dock coming” she asked as she sat down opposite him.  John shrugged, struggling to swallow what he had in his mouth so he could talk.  “Not too bad” he said, when he could; “I haven’t hit anything hard enough to stop the water jet gizmo I’m using to sink the pilings.  That means that the individual pilings won’t be as strong and I’ll have to use more of them, but its cheaper than bringing in a barge mounted pile driver.”  Kari just smiled; she had to smile; he looked more than a little funny, with his mane still wet, and sticking out everywhere.  John shrugged, as if dismissing his own appearance.  “You know” he said between mouthfuls, “I knew a guy once who flew a plane like yours, in the war.”  Kari looked up between somewhat more dainty bites of her own meal; “Really?”  John nodded; “of course, I was a cub when he told his story; he was an adult leader in my Scout troop.  It was a long time ago, but I remember it pretty well.” 

John took another bite of food, and around it, rumbled; “He told me that he loved to fly, but that he really didn’t like the idea of getting shot at.”  He grinned ruefully; “now there’s something I can understand completely…… at any rate, he decided the best way to accomplish this was to request assignment to the patrol squadrons.  Most folks were after fighters, or bombers, but he said he wanted to fly the slow, boring amphibians that just searched the ocean for enemy ships.  And he got exactly what he wanted.  He was asigned to flying a ship just like yours.  He got to fly, and as it was most often over empty ocean, no one shot at him.  And then one day, it all went to hell.” 

“He was on his way to the morning briefing, passing the flight line, preparing for yet another gloriously boring flight, when he saw his crew chief doing something under the wing of his aircraft.  In fact there was quite a bustle of activity there.  Walking over he inquired what was going on; the crew chief replied that they were hanging a pair of torpedoes under the wings.  He couldn’t imagine his aircraft a torpedo bomber and hurried on to the briefing to inquire about this.  Sure enough, the squadron commander told him “you’re to search this sector.  If you find anything there, attack it.  Then go pick up a downed pilot at these coordiates.” 

“Returning to his aircraft, the crew chief showed him the big red lever that would drop the torpedoes (yes, that’s the way the story was told to me).  They took off, and headed to their assigned search sector.  After a couple of hours one of the crew spotted a wake and they went down for a closer look.  He had to radio back, saying are you SURE we don’t have anything out here?  The response was that they didn’t and if he saw a ship, quit fooling around and go sink it.  He shrugged and turned his aircraft towards the enemy cruiser they’d spotted.” 

“Now they’d received no instruction in how to launch the torpedoes, no practice, nothing more than “pull that lever to drop the torpedoes”.  The co-pilot was all for just dropping the torpedoes from their cruise altitude and then telling the squadron commander “oops…”  but the pilot took the aircraft down to skim the water, headed for the side of the cruiser.  The enemy in the meantime, had never seen one of the patrol aircraft behave like this.  They actually got rather close before antiaircraft fire started coming their way; even then it was kind of desultory, as if the cruiser was only going through the motions.  After all, everyone knew those aircraft didn’t carry real weapons…..” 

“The co-pilot was getting rather frantic as the cruiser grew larger in their windshield; he kept saying “pull up….. PULL UP!”  but the pilot, not knowing how to make a torpedo run kept saying “No, think we ought to get a little closer….”  Finally he pulled the big red lever and pulled back on the control column, but he’d actually gotten too close; as the seaplane rose over the cruiser, its right wingtip float hit some of the rigging, and was torn off.” 

“As you know, this left them with a real problem; when they went to pick up the downed pilot, they had to land in a circle, to make sure that the left float stayed in the water, and that their right wingtip didn’t fall into the sea without a float to support it.  They had to taxi up to the downed pilot in a circle, and take off in a circle.  But they made it back, with the downed pilot.” 

“Oh, the cruiser?  Both torpedoes hit it, and it sank.  The pilot got the silver star for that one.” 

Finishing his story, the lion took a big gulp of his sweet tea, and rose, to carry his plates towards the kitchen, leaving Kari with a bemused look on her face.  He was back at work on the dock, blowing huge bubbles of air to the surface of the lagoon as he set yet another piling, when Kari’s seaplane departed.  She thought of his story as she made her run, gradually building speed until the hull of the seaplane lifted clear of the water.  As the airplane rose, she held it low, skimming the surface of the water until at the last moment, she pulled back, to soar playfully over the little schooner.