“Zack! Come on boy wake up! Were sinking,” Zack Walton shook his nephew’s shoulder. The boy was also named Zack, so on the boat they got into the habit of calling each other Unc and Zack.

Zack was already half awake: The first few days that he’d listened to the sixteen cylinder EMD diesel hammer away he thought that he’d never be able to sleep. Two weeks later the sudden lack of the familiar background noise had caused him to stir. The auxiliary diesel that supplied electrical power was also dead, and the only light came from the battery lantern that Unc was carrying. He threw the sheet back and bolted out of the bunk, unaware that his skivvies were down around his thighs and that his erection was jutting stiffly up along his hairless belly. He caught his uncle’s glance and quickly turned away and stuffed himself into his jeans and slipped into a tee shirt.

“Hurry up!” His uncle implored, “We’ve got to get in the raft!”

“Okay, I’m awake,” Zack said, following his uncle out into the narrow passageway between the tugboat’s deck house and bulwarks. The fantail was already awash and Zack could feel the stern settle even deeper as he followed his uncle to the foredeck.

His uncle pulled the cord on the white plastic drum, releasing it from the mount on the deck and initiating the inflation of the raft stored inside. Had he not done so it would have happened automatically when the water rose, but by then they would have been swimming.

“Where’s Walt?” Zack was suddenly aware that the other member of the crew was missing.

“He’s dead, Zack. I think it was a heart attack,” Unc said somberly. “He’s still below, and I couldn’t get him up the ladder from the engine room. Come on, help me with the raft.” Working together they managed to push the inflated raft over the side, and had no more than clamored into it when the Mary Carter’s bow slid slowly under the tropical sea as she started her thousand-foot plunge to the floor of the Pacific. “Oh, by the way, Happy Birthday.” Unc said, breaking the silence. Despite the circumstances Zack gave his uncle a weak smile, then settled back to contemplate his misfortune.

Zack had graduated from high school a month ago and was planning on kicking back all summer before starting college, but his mom’s brother Uncle Zack had called and offered the boy a job. Zack was a towboat Captain and the company he worked for had just purchased a boat that was located in Melbourne, Australia. He and a Chief Engineer were going to fly out and pick it up and sail it back to Morgan City, and he offered Zack the position of third engineer. Zack was only seventeen years old and not eligible or qualified to sail on a tug, but he would turn eighteen before they got to Panama and by that time his experience would automatically qualify him for a Coast Guard license. The experienced first mate that was supposed to have joined them in Melbourne had an appendicitis and couldn’t sail, but Uncle Zack had elected to make the trip anyway. It was illegal and improper to sail shorthanded, but the Engineer also held a two-hundred ton Master’s license, and since they weren’t towing anything there wouldn’t be that much to do. They could pick up a Mate at the Panama Canal and be okay by the time they entered U.S. waters.

Zack didn’t particularly care for his namesake; he always thought that his uncle was a little on the strange side, but it did sound like a good way to spend the summer and would also earn him a pretty good piece of change, so he agreed to go along. Walt, the engineer, seemed okay, and even though he kidded Zack about his diminutive size and apparent lack of maturity he did so without malice and seemed to accept him as a member of the crew.

“Just wait until we get to Panama, laddie” Walt said on the long plane ride to Australia, “You’ll be eighteen by then and I’ll take you out and get you drunk and then we’ll go to a whorehouse and you can get your cherry popped, provided we can find some rubbers small enough to fit you.” Zack didn’t even bother defending himself by arguing that his ‘cherry’, as Walt referred to it, had been popped a year ago and that until this trip a month hadn’t passed since then that he hadn’t gotten laid, and that the bag that contained his toothbrush, comb, and unneeded shaving kit also included a dozen Lubricated and Ribbed For Her Pleasure Trojans that fit just fine.

The Mary Carter looked huge compared to the smaller harbor tugs, but at a hundred feet she was small for a trans-oceanic tug and had been used for port-to-port tows around Australia. Most of her interior space was occupied by the huge engine and the many fuel tanks, and even though they could top off the tanks at Brisbane, it was only by maintaining a snail-like eight knot best economy cruising speed that they would have enough fuel for the forty day run to Panama. She normally carried a crew of seven, and had accommodations to suit, with the Captain and Chief Engineer each having a small cabin or stateroom and the rest of the crew housed in a small common berthing compartment. There was only one small head, as the bathroom on a boat is called, and Zack was cautioned not to waste water.

Zack, being alone in the compartment, didn’t feel at all cramped and actually relished the privacy to do as he pleased during the short periods he was allowed to sack out. The bridge had to be manned at all times and Walt and Zack’s uncle had shared the duty to start with, but after a week Zack was competent enough to watch the horizon and radar screen for other traffic while the automatic pilot system steered the boat. The important engine gauges were duplicated on the bridge and were also backed up by alarm bells for improper oil and water pressures and temperatures as well as fire and high water but the engine room still had to be checked frequently, and the Engineer spent most of his free time there doing the required maintenance. Zack helped out there when he could, but it was so noisy there that communication was difficult and he had a hard time figuring out what all was going on. A full crew would have included a cook, but Zack and his uncle and Walt shared the duty or just sort of grazed on the many frozen entrees that stocked the freezer. The little spare time that Zack had was devoted to devouring the huge collection of girlie magazines that had came with the tug, every detail of which was converted by Zack’s fertile mind into fuel for his teenage libido.

The day that Zack had planned on celebrating his eighteenth birthday was spent instead bouncing around on a small life raft some where in the South Pacific. “What Happened?” He asked his uncle.

“Walt had the watch, and when the engine stopped I went down to take a look. Walt was already dead and the water was up over the floor plates. My guess is that the cooler inlet broke or a hull plate sprung apart. There was no way that the pumps could handle that kind of leak.” The uncle replied, averting his eyes to avoid his nephew’s anguished look. “We should be okay,” he continued. “The power went down before I could send off a Mayday, but both of the EPIRBs should be working. You know about those?”

Zack had seen the red device mounted forward of the pilot house and had asked Walt it’s purpose, and learned that it would automatically release and send a radio signal if the boat went under. Special satellites monitored the frequency and could, by triangulation, pinpoint the transmitter’s location. A smaller device was attached to the life raft, and both should now be broadcasting news of their distress. “Yeah,” he answered, “Walt told me about them. Just where are we, anyway?”

“I don’t know for sure,” his uncle lied, “somewhere near the Society Islands would be my guess.” That was another lie; Unc knew exactly where they were, and if there was any doubt he could easily refer to the charts and handheld GPS unit that the raft contained. In fact, just about everything he’d told the boy were lies. He knew exactly how and when the Engineer had died, and he knew precisely why the boat had suddenly sank, and he also knew that the batteries had been removed from both of the EPIRB transmitters. He also knew that his last satellite phone call to company headquarters had included the information that the satellite phone system was giving him problems and would probably fail, and that he might be not be able to talk to them for a week or two when he would be close enough to a relay station to use the single side band radio that the tug also was carried.

The uncle had figured out right away that this class of tug had peepholes installed in the berthing compartment and head through which the captain could monitor his crew for any sign of drug usage or other illegal or deviant activities, and he knew that his nephew jacked off every day, usually right after waking up. He knew that the boy usually masturbating while lying on his back but sometimes stood up and faced the mirror that contained the peephole, and he knew the sweep of the boy’s cock, the hang of his lovely testicles, and every curve of tight little hairless ass.

The first time he had fucked and nutted a boy was in a back alley in Manila years before his nephew had even been conceived, and by the time young Zack was twelve his uncle knew that he’d someday have him too, and he had planned this whole trip with just that in mind. He knew that the trade winds and prevailing currents would eventually take him close to some sparsely inhabited islands where the native cannibals would be particularly grateful for the delivery of a young white eunuch, and that they would reward his generosity by giving him all of the food and water that the raft could carry and an escort to an island from which he could be rescued.

The raft had a tent-like canopy to provide protection from the elements and was designed for eight people, so there was ample room for the two of them to stretch out and get comfortable. Zack dozed in one end while his uncle took inventory of the contents. There were two solar stills to make fresh water, and a supply of concentrated food that would support the two of them for several weeks. There was also a GPS unit, which Unc promptly hid, as well as charts of the Southern oceans.

His immediate attention was focused on the contents of the first aid kit spread out at his feet. Several assorted bandages, a small surgery kit with scalpel and forceps, an assortment of sutures and needles, as well as a tourniquet, disinfectant, and even some multi-spectrum antibiotics. Perfect. It would take at least ten days to reach land, and by that time the boy would be healed from the surgery he was about to undergo. His asshole would take longer to heal from the next ten days of trauma that would be inflicted.

“Wake up Zack,” Unc said for the second time that day.

“Huh?” Zack was still half asleep, but he came to full attention when he saw that his uncle was not only naked, but also stroking his short, fat, cock.

“It’s your birthday, and we’re going to have us a party!”

Author’s note: The descriptions of a seagoing tugboat’s constant noise, engine room, raft, EPIRB, and wheelhouse are all accurate. It is absolutely preposterous to suggest that one would sail on a trans-oceanic voyage with anything less than a full crew. No company would allow it, no insurance carrier would permit it, and master would risk his license to attempt it. However, many t unqualified individuals have sailed as deckhands, cooks, and third engineers.