Taking the boat

“Hell John, you should have told us that a pretty girl was all it took to get you yakking again.” Lewis grinningly berated his brother, who sheepishly uttered a “Sorry” while keeping his eyes on Druuna’s appetizing form.

“Thank you.” Lewis then told Druuna, on behalf of his brother.
“I’ve done nothing.” Was Druuna’s honest reply, the young woman being quite surprised by her effect on John, almost suspecting that she was the victim of some tasteless practical joke, “But shouldn’t we be getting out of here soon?”
“Yes,” Pamela agreed with Druuna, “let’s take the boat!”
“You know how to use it?” Druuna asked, once more having cause to feel surprised.
“The scientists at out village repaired several old ships,” Lewis informed her, “and I and Pamela served on them from time to time.”
“Served? As what?” Druuna kept up her question, her curiousness about old machinery taking control.
“Fishermen, mostly.” Lewis cryptically responded, and signalled that question time was over by walking aboard the flat-bottomed ship.

The two brothers spent fifteen minutes figuring out how the ship functioned, while Druuna and Pamela spent the time in the front, talking to one another at the same time as they went through the vessel’s cargo.
Primarily, the ship was carrying various round metal containers, most of them either marked with images of food or various animals like cats or dogs.

Prodding open the lid on one of the containers with a black-and-white cat on the front, Druuna found it to be filled with large cartridges, probably meant for a rifle, while the ones baring the image of weird-looking balls of meat swimming in a thick milky brown cream turned out to contain small mechanical parts.

It was Druuna who connected the dots when they found several long metal pipes lined up in a large crate on which the containers had been stored.
“They’re rifles,” Druuna said, “with all the parts needed for assembly in those containers.” Counting the barrels, Druuna guessed that if you added your homemade rifle-butts you’d end up with over a dozen of the weapons, and with a few hundred rounds for each gun.
Just then, the ship’s engine coughed to life and Lewis slowly reversed the vessel out from shore, going backwards for ten yards before manoeuvring it around and starting to travel in a southbound direction.

The journey had lasted for more than an hour, with the coast remaining in sight the hole time, and Druuna had become bored with watching the beach go by on her left and seated herself directly on the ship-bed, her arms resting on her knees.

Pamela, who had showed an interest towards Druuna which the latter woman suspected to go beyond mere friendliness, was now standing by her husband at the wheel, while John had disappeared into the small enclosed area beneath the bridge.