Operation Manhunt Page 10

  “Jonathan?” Geraldine whispered. “Are you awake, Jonathan?”

  “Yes.” They lay on their stomachs, in a row, Jonathan at the end, then Geraldine, then Brian O’Connor, then Benny the steward, then Aristotle the dog, then Phyllis Malthus, and then Strohm at the other end. They clung, with cramped fingers and toes, pressed their bodies against the damp wood, leaned one way when the raft drifted up the side of a crest, leaned the other way when their wooden home descended once more into the trough. The movement was constant, and hypnotic; it spread a blanket of misery across the cold and the cramp and the hunger and the thirst, and the lurking fear. But it did not permit sleep, except for an occasional doze which ended in a jerk.

  “Aristotle’s asleep,” Geraldine whispered. “Jonathan? How long have we been floating like this?”

  The dial of his watch was luminous. “A long time,” he said. “But it’ll be dawn quite soon.”

  “Boy, I’ve never been quite so anxious to see a sunrise.”

  Jonathan gazed at the water, regularly visible as it danced in front of him, the crests dissolving into phosphorescence to send brilliant bubbles racing into the air. He wondered if every bubble contained plankton. Something to look up when he got home. If he got home. But it occurred to him that this was the first time a wave had broken for some time. “Captain,” he called. “Don’t you think the sea has gone down a bit?”

  “It’s eased right off, Mr. Anders,” Strohm said. “And the wind has died, too. But I’m not sure that’s a good thing. The swell is big enough to mean trouble, and if we get rain some time in the next couple of hours, we’ll know that storm is pretty close.”

  “Oh, boy, I’m stiff,” Geraldine said gloomily. “And cold. Do you really think it’s going to rain, Captain Strohm?”

  “It’s an even bet, Miss O’Connor.”

  “But we have been drifting all night, haven’t we?” Brian O’Connor asked. “In which direction, do you think, Captain?”

  “The current sets northwest,” Strohm said.

  “Which is toward the islands, isn’t it?” Geraldine asked.

  “Oh, yes. We should see them, lined up in front of us, when the sun rises. Trouble is, there’s no guaranteeing anybody on them will see us. We’re very low in the water. We could drift right by, or get smashed up on some reef. It isn’t as if anyone will be out looking for us.”

  “Don’t you think somebody must have seen the flames from the schooner, or picked my message up?” Jonathan asked. “We weren’t all that far off.”

  “Far enough to be just a glow in the sky, Mr. Anders. And with the weather getting worse, who’s going to risk putting out to investigate?”

  “What about that plane we heard?” Geraldine suggested hopefully. “Perhaps they saw us.”

  “Not with all that low cloud about, Miss O’Connor,” Strohm pointed out. “I don’t want to be pessimistic, but there’s a time in life when you just have to look facts in the face.”

  “I’m starving,” Phyllis Malthus complained. “I’d like to look a good steak in the face. And poor Aristotle is so thirsty. He’s panting away. He’s going to have a heart attack. I just know he is.”

  “Well, you tell him not to get excited,” Benny said. “Not when he’s lying next to me, anyway.”

  “Ssssh!” Geraldine said. “Listen!”

  The noise crept across the waves, a low hum, breaking into a distinct chatter as it came closer.

  “An engine,” Brian O’Connor said. “A ship.”

  “A ship!” Phyllis Malthus sat up, causing the raft to rock dangerously. “Do you hear that, Aristotle, my pet? We’re going to be rescued.”

  “Be quiet,” Jonathan snapped. “That’s a small boat.”

  “Mr. Anders is right, Mrs. Malthus,” Strohm said. “And what would a small boat be doing out here before dawn, with a storm brewing? You can bet your last cent it won’t be fishing.”

  “You mean it could be the launch, Captain?” Benny asked.

  “It has to be the launch, Benny. They’ll have watched us trying to get off the ship, and be wanting to make sure we don’t survive.”

  “You think they’ve been hunting us all night? They took a bit of a risk, didn’t they?”

  “Not really, Mr. Anders. Byrne knows these waters as well as anyone. He’ll figure the storm is still several hours away from us, and he’ll also know he’d take a much bigger risk in approaching the islands in the dark. My guess is they’ve been drifting all night, waiting for some light, and figuring that if we have managed to stay with the raft, it’d be keeping pace with them.”

  “Jimmy waited around to look for me,” Phyllis Malthus said. “I knew he would. He’s not really a bad man, you know. He just lost his head, back there in the fire. He often does that.”

  “I’d say that any man who can sit all night in an open boat, waiting for light, when there’s a hurricane on its way, must be a pretty cool customer,” Brian O’Connor remarked.

  But Malthus had certainly appeared to panic on board ship, Jonathan remembered. He had thought that odd at the time. He had the strangest feeling that there was something going on he did not understand.

  “Oh, rubbish. You just don’t understand him. He’s only a child at heart. Cooee!” Phyllis Malthus shrieked. “Jimmieee! I’m over here.”

  “Be quiet, woman,” Strohm snapped.

  “But if he’s looking for me.…”

  “And if he finds you it’s curtains for the rest of us. Now you just keep your mouth shut and lie down.”

  “You can’t speak to me like that, Strohm. I’ll have you fired. I’ll.…”

  “You be quiet, Mrs. Malthus,” Benny remarked without raising his voice. “Or we’ll let you swim to dear Jimmy. You and your blessed dog.”

  “Why, of all the.…”

  “Better do as he says, Mrs. Malthus,” Brian O’Connor recommended.

  “Sssh!” Geraldine said. “Listen!”

  They listened—to the sea lapping at the raft, to the cry of a gull, to the distant whine of the wind, to a roaring noise even farther in the distance. But of the engine there was no sound.

  “They’ve cut the motor again,” Strohm said. “They must have heard your shout, Mrs. Malthus. Not a sound, now. And if that Peke so much as whimpers, over he goes.”

  Phyllis Malthus bundled Aristotle into her arms. They lay absolutely still, six silent forms on the tossing raft, rising and falling on the big swell, waiting. In the east the darkness was beginning to fade, revealing a tinge of superb crimson.

  “What happens at dawn?” Jonathan whispered.

  “We hope, Mr. Anders,” Strohm said. “Thank heaven for the swell. There’s just a chance they could miss us altogether.”

  “What’s that other sound?” Geraldine asked.

  “Surf, Miss O’Connor.”

  Still they waited, and in a few minutes the engine started again, chattering, much closer now. Then it faded once more, and suddenly stopped altogether.

  “Think they’ve gone?” Brian O’Connor asked.

  “Not a chance,” Strohm said. “No, they can hear the surf as well as we can, and they’re waiting for the light.”

  “If only we had paddles or something,” Geraldine said, “but to lie here, waiting to be shot, one after the other. That was a six gun he had, you know. One bullet for each of us.”

  “Oh, Geraldine, you are being absolutely ridiculous,” Phyllis Malthus said. “Jimmy isn’t like that. Really, shooting people.”

  “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Malthus, we won’t put it to the test,” Benny said.

  “I am going to have you fired, Benny,” she remarked. “As soon as we get ashore.”

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Malthus,” he said. “I resign. As of last night.”

  They watched the dawn, spreading from the east. They saw the waves first, gray, monstrous, no longer breaking, but surging to the west in a swell which from trough to crest measured not less than twelve feet. The raft slipped downward, seemed
about to be buried under the weight of water on either side, and then surged gently up the following slope.

  “Oh, boy,” Geraldine said. “Have we been doing this all night?”

  “Look there,” Brian O’Connor said.

  They rose on the next crest, hung there for a moment, and saw the lifeboat, perhaps three hundred yards away and also, coincidentally, on the top of a swell; the heads of the seven men were silhouetted against the dawn sky.

  “Think they saw us?” Benny asked.

  “Not that time, or they’d be on their way over,” Strohm said.

  “What’re the odds on that happening again?” Jonathan asked.

  “Too high,” Strohm replied. “Sooner or later they have to spot us.”

  Aristotle uttered a single bark, which ended in a yelp as Benny cuffed his head.

  “That was quite uncalled for,” Phyllis Malthus said.

  “Look,” Geraldine cried. “Oh, look! Isn’t it marvelous?”

  “Sssh, my dear,” said her father.

  But they all looked toward the western horizon, just starting to take shape. To the south were mountainous peaks, and to the north were more mountainous peaks, at this distance no more than gray masses rising out of the ocean. But due west, separated from the others by stretches of open water, were more mountains, and these were close enough to be seen as covered in dense green verdure.

  “That just has to be Dominica,” Jonathan said.

  “That’s right, Mr. Anders,” Strohm said. “Not the easiest place to get ashore. And when you’re ashore, not the easiest place to find help.”

  Aristotle barked, again and again.

  “Will you shut that dog up?” Strohm demanded.

  “But look at that,” Phyllis Malthus wailed. “Ugh! What a horrible thing.”

  The fin, high in the water, triangular, dark gray in color, cut through the waves like the periscope of a submarine, no more than twenty feet away from the raft, circling.

  “Oh, boy,” Geraldine said. “Do you think he’s been there all night, Jonathan?”

  “I’d say it’s an even bet.”

  From behind them the engine of the lifeboat once more spluttered into life.

  CHAPTER 6

  Jonathan gazed at the land. Now he could see the surf at the base of the cliffs, and the cliffs themselves could not be more than two miles off.

  Two miles from safety, presuming they could get ashore in one piece. Two miles from people, presuming there were any watchers on this part of the island. He tried to remember what he could about Dominica. Mountains, certainly. Morne Diablotin was nearly five thousand feet high, lost in the clouds. Morne Trois Pitons was not much lower, and Mount Watt, which was the one he was looking at, he figured, was over four thousand. And forests. Dominica was the most thickly forested of all the Caribbean islands, as it was reputed to be the wettest, with an average yearly rainfall of some three hundred inches.

  Like all the Windwards, Dominica was basically volcanic. More to the point, down to quite recently it had been by far the most primitive of the larger islands, the huge forests and the lack of roads confining people to the southwestern and northern corners. Now there was a motorway through the jungle from Roseau, the capital, to Hampstead in the north, where there was an airfield. And other roads were branching out in all directions. But to the best of his recollection, the southeastern half of the island, which they were now approaching, remained the least populated.

  The raft lay in a deep trough, for the moment sheltered from the sight of the lifeboat. But the shark’s fin continued to circle at a distance of not more than twenty feet.

  “If that dog utters one more peep, Mrs. Malthus,” Benny said. “Our friendly fish gets his breakfast.”

  “Oh, you utterly horrible man,” Phyllis Malthus complained. “You just have to be quiet, Aristotle, my darling. You come here and lie underneath Mama and go back to sleep.”

  Aristotle whimpered.

  “He’s so hungry, you see,” Mrs. Malthus explained to the captain.

  “So is the shark,” Benny reminded her.

  Geraldine’s fingers, cold and cramped, closed over Jonathan’s, tight on the deck slats.

  “Look over there,” he said, as encouragingly as he could.

  The wind had dropped to almost a calm, but the clouds floated lower, tremendous, black, threatening. The rain storm was moving in front of the hurricane, like an advance guard, and the huge swell remained to remind them of the seas that were on their way, but the rain was their only hope.

  The raft floated up the side of a wave, to discover the lifeboat not fifty yards away, waiting, its engine idling. “There she is, Mr. Malthus,” Byrne shouted, his voice reaching them quite clearly.

  They heard the clank of the gears and the boat surged toward them, white water bubbling away from the stern. Malthus made his way forward, his revolver in his hand.

  “Yoohoo!” Phyllis Malthus shouted, rising to her knees once again. “Jimmieee! Don’t shoot, you silly man. It’s me, Phyllis.”

  Malthus fired. The bullet struck the raft immediately in front of his wife, throwing up a cloud of splinters. She gave a startled exclamation and dropped Aristotle as she fell backward. Strohm and Benny each grabbed, just in time to stop her tumbling over the side, while Brian O’Connor seized the terrified dog before it in turn disappeared. The shark promptly dived under the raft, and the fin broke the surface on the far side.

  “Oh, my,” Phyllis Malthus cried. “The man’s gone mad. He’s shooting at me!”

  “He means to shoot at us all,” Strohm shouted. “Lie flat.”

  The lifeboat fell away, circled them at a distance, while Malthus and Byrne argued.

  “Seems to me, Doctor, that you may have been psychoanalyzing the wrong man,” Jonathan said.

  “He’s not going to waste any more bullets,” Benny said.

  “It was stupid of him to waste that one,” Strohm said. “Bodies drifting ashore with bullet holes in them need explaining, as I think Byrne is telling him now, and the sharks may not get all of us. No, I think their best plan is to capsize us, see how we get on with our friend, and knock any survivors on the head.”

  “Oh, boy,” Geraldine said. “Oh, boy. Do you think we should pray?”

  “It could help,” Jonathan agreed, and watched the clouds, dipping lower, seemingly attempting to lie on the surface of the waves. The sun had dwindled to the faintest of red glows on the eastern horizon; the island had turned from the brilliant green of a few minutes before to a dull gray, resembling nothing so much as an immense shark’s fin itself. He was letting his imagination run away with him. And now, of all the times in his life, was the moment for coolness. He wondered how Craufurd, with his emphasis on the nonviolent nature of the department’s work, would recommend dealing with this problem.

  “Here they come again,” Strohm said. “Now, everybody, just hold on as hard as you can. They must go for Mr. Anders and me first.”

  The launch surged toward them slowly, rising to the top of the next swell, disappearing for a moment, and then bobbing into sight once more. Byrne knelt in the bows, an oar in his hands. He was flanked by Pete and another man, each also holding an oar.

  “They mean to tip us out, all right,” Benny said. “We can’t just lie here and be knocked off, one by one, Captain.”

  “Just hold on,” Strohm said. “If you attempt to sit up you’ll be that much more of a target.”

  The raft slid down the side of a trough. The lifeboat hung above them, seeming about to drop on them and crush them. “Sorry, gents,” Byrne called out. “But it’s you or us.”

  He jabbed at Jonathan, and Jonathan rolled away from the questing blade. Geraldine threw both arms around his waist to hold him, and Brian O’Connor put one arm over Geraldine’s back to pin her to the raft. The oar thudded into the slats, and the raft tossed and heaved, but the lifeboat was sheering off, and coming back around in a tight circle.

  “You have a go,” Byrne suggested t
o Pete.

  The sailor nodded, held his oar like a harpoon, leaned well out of the boat and jabbed at Strohm’s head. The oar struck the raft, and the captain reacted violently and with tremendous speed, rising to his knees, seizing the oar between his huge hands and whipping it sideways. Pete gave a cry of dismay, fell against the gunwale and tumbled right out of the boat.

  “Jerusalem!” Strohm exclaimed, falling to the deck again, hands scrabbling at the slats.

  Pete had regained the surface, spluttering and slapping the water, but already some feet away from the lifeboat, and drifting astern.

  “Help me, Mr. Byrne, man!” he screamed.

  Jonathan looked around, but the fin, which had been cruising astern of them, had disappeared.

  “Quickly, Harman!” Byrne shouted, and the lifeboat attempted another tight circle, rising on a crest and disappearing from view behind the shouting sailor.

  Pete screamed again, an unearthly sound, but he was out of sight in the next trough.

  “Oh, no,” Geraldine sobbed, releasing Jonathan and burying her head in her arm. “Oh, why?”

  “That’s what they were going to do to us,” Jonathan said.

  “That’s what they still mean to do to us,” Brian O’Connor said.

  A sizzling drop of water stung Jonathan’s face. He looked up as a brilliant flash of lightning burst across the sky, striking the sea not a hundred yards away with a sound like a giant muleteer cracking his whip. The clap of thunder was instantaneous, so close it knocked the sense from their minds and the breath from their bodies.

  Jonathan blinked, discovered his eyes had been open all the time, although he had been quite blind for a moment. He felt as if he were being stoned to death. The raindrops, each the size of a fingernail, struck the deck of the raft with loud thuds.

  “Oh, my,” Phyllis Malthus cried. “Oh, what a thing. Oh, poor Aristotle. Come to Mama, pet.”