Top of The Edge - Beach Conflict

As they brought their horses to a halt neither Cherry nor Robyn said a word. They just listened. Finally, after a good 10 minutes or so, Cherry said, "I don't hear anything now, but the sound of the surf."

"Neither do I", Robyn replied. "I don't have a good feeling about any of this Cherry."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. First, I see some strange light out over the surf and now we're both hearing some guy yelling at someone. We need to get back to camp."

When he was within a couple a hundred meters of the shore, Chlodwig Fenstemacher retrieved his flashlight with a red lens from his coat pocket. Even if red light couldn't be seen as well as white light from a distance, he knew that the more he flashed it, the more likely it was that someone other than his intended recipient would see it as well. He flashed one long flash followed by two short flashes and four more long, which as intended, corresponded with nothing in Morse code. He waited for 15 seconds and repeated the flashes. He looked out into the darkness beyond the shoreline hoping to see a particular sequence of red flashes in response, but he saw nothing. After the fifth attempt, he decided it was too risky to continue the exercise and put the flashlight back into his coat pocket. The current was pushing him hard to the south, and he was certain that if he didn't fight to stay on course, he would be making landfall way off from his proposed target. which meant this could be an exceptionally long night trying to meet up with his contacts.

As Cherry and Robyn galloped Ranger and Blue up to the campsite area, they saw Maryanne walking down at the water's edge and rode down to meet her.

"Y'all are back early." Maryanne said as the two approached her on horseback.

Robyn immediately asked, "Did you see anything out over the surf tonight?"

"See anything? You're joking right? It's overcast, there is no moon light to speak of and there is a dense fog starting to roll in."

"It would have been about 10 to 15 minutes ago. Cherry saw a flash of light out over the surf to the North."

"So, what should we do? Should we send up a flare?"

"Not if I'm the only one that saw it." Cherry answered. "We were given explicit instructions to only send up a flare if the siting could be confirmed by two sets of eyes. Since that's not the case, no flare."

"I don't know Cherry... we both heard that man angrily yelling at someone. Couple that with your light sighting, and I think we've got just cause to send one up."

"The two of you heard a man yelling out here, just now, while you were out on patrol. Oh... I don't feel good about this at all." Maryanne said vehemently, shaking her head.

Chlodwig realized that he needed to give himself a break, so he stopped fighting the current for several minutes, all the while heading further and further south and away from where he had planned to make landfall. Finally, he decided that his best bet would be to focus his energy on just getting to shore, regardless of how far off course the surf might take him.

When he finally crossed the breakers, the speed at which the waves propelled his small craft toward the shoreline caught him off-guard. Knowing that he could easily be capsized if the waves turned the raft sideways, he began paddling vigorously in an attempt to keep it straight. He was exhausted and just for a few seconds he allowed his grip on the oar to relax, and to his astonishment and dismay it slipped from his hands. Now he was at the mercy of the waves, and just as he had predicted, he was turned sideways and capsized about 20 meters short of the shore. He had hoped that he might at least be able to touch the bottom with his feet, but no such luck. He was going to have to swim in from here. Being fully dressed wearing a heavy winter coat and high-top boots swimming was nearly impossible. Fortunately, he was able to grab the raft which enabled him to keep his head above water. Now swimming with one arm while holding onto the raft with the other and kicking with his feet which at this point felt like hundred-pound weights, he slowly made his way to the shore.

"Okay, I have to admit, your reasoning is sound," Cherry responded to her two friends. "It's just that if we send up a flare, which will in essence, call in the Calvary to save the day, and they find nothing, we'll be looked at and treated like ditzy damsels in distress.

"You saw the light Cherry, and at that moment you even said to me that you thought it was from an enemy vessel."

Then Maryanne interjected, "And the fact that both of you heard some angry man yelling, that alone is enough for me to want to send a flare up."

Robyn dismounted Blue and doffed her backpack from which she retrieved a cylindrical case. There were three parts to the flare mechanism, the barrel, firing pin, and the projectile.

"Are you going to do it right here", Maryanne asked.

"Yeah, I think this is as good a place as any."

"You're right." Cherry finally capitulated. "But before you ignite that thing let Maryanne and I get Ranger and Blue up to the campsite - we don't want them to get spooked."

As she had been instructed, Robyn put the firing pin into the barrel first and then the projectile, and before she struck the bottom of the barrel against the hard packed sand, she looked around to make sure that Cherry, Maryanne, Blue, and Ranger were clear of the area. Then she knelt, grasping the barrel with both hands and struck the bottom of it hard against the wet packed sand. Suddenly the entire area was illuminated.

As Cherry predicted the ignition and subsequent illumination of the flare caused Ranger and Blue alarm as they jerked their heads about and acted as though they would take to the wind if they could. Fortunately, Cherry and Maryanne held their reigns and kept them calm, at least partially.

"Are you sure you plotted those coordinates correctly?" Ralph asked Louise as they both continued to look out over the surf hoping to see a sequence of red flashes. Louise had been sending their sequence of red flashes for the last 10 to 15 minutes - one long flash followed by one short followed by another long followed by three more short, which also intentionally corresponded to no code with which anyone might be familiar. Then they saw the flare. It was over an area of the beach about a thousand meters or more south of their current location.

"Oh no!" Ralph exclaimed despondently and even a bit panicked. "He's been discovered, we better get out of here." Louise kept her cool and did her best to keep Ralph calm and focused. "You're right Ralph. If that flare was in response to him being sighted, he's probably on the run and doing his best to evade capture. So, we better get out of here and get down there... so we can assist. It's a good thing you're here to see this through Ralph."

"Uh... yeah... we... uh... we need to get moving." Ralph said hesitantly as he continued walking toward the illumination. Louise stopped and turned toward the dunes and said, "We can make better time in the car. I think you'll be able to drive it over the dunes along the same path we took to walk out here.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. You wait here, I'll get the car."

Maryanne grabbed Cherry's arm and pointed to the beach. "Cherry Look!" There was a man coming up out of the water pulling a raft behind. Robyn was facing the other direction and was not aware of his presence.

"You wait here Maryanne, and go ahead and send up another flare. This is now an all-out emergency."

Cherry ran at top speed toward Robyn who was still oblivious to the presence of the man walking up behind her, who was now only about 30 meters away. As she drew closer, Robyn could hear her yelling. When she turned to see what she was yelling about she suddenly caught a peripheral glimpse of the approaching man, and consequently dropped everything and took off running toward Cherry.

Chlodwig Fenstemacher, alias Billy Cook, was exhausted. Yet he knew that somehow, he needed to eliminate the threat posed by these two girls on the beach. Their neutralization was paramount. He thought to himself, "There's no way I'll be able to successfully chase them down and do what needs to be done before their reinforcements arrive." So instead, using his most southerly accent, he dropped to his knees and hollered out, "Please help, help me!"