The shotgun was under the coils of rope; no more than two feet beneath my back, but it might just as well have been a hundred miles away.
I looked up at Baiya, saw the rage in his eyes, and tried to move my head further back into the pile of rope, but the fibre was hard and weathered and had lost its spring. The knife edged closer. I jerked my head to the left, my ear feeling as though it was about to be ripped off; but I wasn’t worried about the ear.
The knife twisted sideways, touching my eyelid.
I couldn’t move. The cord around my neck started to tighten as T-shirt took up the tension. I knew that if I didn’t want to be strangled I would have to move up to the point of the knife.
“Where... is... the... key!” Baiya screamed.
Eight
There comes a point where resistance fades and blind terror takes over.
“All right,” I gurgled.
The pressure on the cord slackened; but the knife point stayed at my eye, hooked under a corner of the lid.
“Take the knife ... away,” I gasped.
He moved back. I ran two trembling fingers under the thin cord and stretched it out from the fold of skin around my throat.
“Enough!” he yelled, and I saw T-shirt’s arm begin to move back again.
I massaged the soreness.
“It’s in the fo’c’sle,” I muttered, defeated.
“What?” he shouted.
“The key,” I replied quickly before he could reach over and snatch the cord from his partner. “It’s hidden in the fo’c’sle; where I was sleeping; where you found me.”
He stood and stared at me, silently telling me that if I was lying I would know what to expect.
T-shirt passed the cord to Baiya and he climbed out, taking the end again as soon as he was out on deck. The chipping hammers in the racks were now even further from my grasp.
Baiya followed me up the ladder and took the cord. I went to move along the deck but he yanked me off balance, throwing me sideways into his partner. T-shirt leapt aside, tripping over the lip of the hatch, dropping the diving knife in his haste, but too far away for me to grab at it, and I didn’t even try.
“Steady, my brother,” Baiya said to me in that same derogatory way. “It would be such a great pity to me if you accidentally strangled yourself. It would be very sad if your two friends returned and found that you had committed suicide. Did you have an argument over one of the Fijian girls?”
The low wicked laugh sent chills up my spine. If Rick and Henry found me swinging from one of the booms it would stop the search stone dead. Dead. It was a word I didn’t even want to think about.
I wasn’t the only one scared. T-shirt’s face had turned ashen at those words. He forgot the knife lying on the deck as he too realised what Baiya had decided. This wasn’t what they had planned. A quiet search of the cabin and then out to Wakaya was all that he had bargained for; but this was different. This would be murder. It would be prison or hanging if they were caught.
He turned to Baiya. There were rapid bursts of Hindi from them both; arms waving and hands and fingers pointing at me and at each other, gestures being made; more forceful than words; but Baiya had the upper hand. Baiya held the power; and the end of the cord looped tightly around my neck.
My fate was sealed as T-shirt slowly nodded his head, resigned to follow the other’s decision.
“Ji ha,” he said, and stepped back, shaking his head, almost in tears.
We walked back along the deck towards the saloon, or rather they walked and I staggered; but even though my mind was consumed with an awful feeling of dread, of hopelessness, I clung on, for I had noticed that T-shirt’s hands were still empty, the diving knife somewhere out on the back deck near the lip of the hatch.
They could have the bunch of keys, but it wouldn’t do them any good. They wouldn’t find the map. All they would find was a few hundred dollars in Fijian and Australian money, some traveller’s cheques, and our credit cards; but that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy them. Maybe if I had offered the cash in the beginning they might have taken it and disappeared into the balmy night; but not now.
The chart wasn’t in the safe. It was right where a chart should be on a boat: in the chart drawer. There had been no need to hide it in the safe. There was nothing on it, nothing at all; and besides, the Customs officers had examined the safe. A single chart folded in amongst the ship’s papers and other valuables might have drawn attention to our purpose.
Once he realized that there was no treasure map in the safe Baiya would go berserk. There would be no stopping him; and that knife would inflict pain; but once back down in the storage hold he might relax his guard. T-shirt was already scared, his mind trying not to believe what they were doing; and once back in the storage hold I might be able to get close enough to the racks to snatch up one of the chipping hammers. Baiya would have his eyes glued to the safe; rifling through the contents, searching for the faded piece of parchment that he thought was going to make them both rich. One blow of the chisel point would splinter Baiya’s head, taking him away forever. I wasn’t having that knife-point thrust into my eye-socket again. T-shirt would collapse into a quivering heap as I swung the hammer back again.
It could only happen if T-shirt left the diving knife on the deck; and only if they took me into the hold with them; and only if they didn’t tie me up in the saloon whilst they went down to check; or only if they didn’t hang me first.
There were far too many ifs.
I stepped into the saloon four feet ahead of Baiya, his hand still grasping the rope. Through the starboard windows I could see bright lights beaming out from the Tradewinds’ cocktail lounge, their reflection dancing across the water; and faint in the background, seeming somehow unreal, the sound of a four piece band pounding out island music drifted past on the gentle breeze.
The hands of the brass clock on the wall by the barometer seemed fixed at twenty-five past eleven. Was it really only twenty-five minutes since these two had crept on board; twenty-five minutes that had changed my peaceful life to one of dread? Twenty-five minutes between life and death.
There was a shove against my back as Baiya pushed me across the floor towards the fo’c’sle.
“Hurry up, you bastard!” he snarled. “Stop wasting time!” It was my time I was wasting, every minute counting as never before. “Get the keys!”
I moved across to the top of the ladder and turned to climb down into the fo’c’sle, jerking my head backwards to get more slack in the rope. Baiya twisted the end around his clenched fist four or five times. He wasn’t going to give me the chance of pulling free. He knew that I realized that I was dead, or would be quite soon. He understood my desperation.
And suddenly an idea blossomed. I climbed down to the bottom of the ladder and turned to stare back up at him.
“Get them!” he spat.
I shuffled sideways across the dry sea-grass matting, trying to keep one eye on his black profile as I sidled to the far corner of the fo’c’sle, toward the point of the bow, the rope pulling tight before I reached the bulkhead. I leant over, pointing down to the cupboard under the port bunk.
“They’re in there,” I said, my voice quivering with excitement, my limbs quaking with fear that it might not work, knowing that it was my last and my only chance. “Behind that sliding partition,” I added.
“Hurry up!”
“I can’t reach it,” I said. “You’ll have to let go of the rope... or come down.”
But Baiya was too smart for that trick. The grin came back to his face.
“You white bastards always think you are smarter than us Indians. Here is your rope, dog!”
He leaned through the opening above my head, his left arm held out in front with the rope wrapped around his wrist, ready to snatch it back fast if I tried to throw the noose off my neck. The tightness eased and as I went down on my hands and knees and moved closer to the corner, my hand almost touching the sliding door of the cupboard, I us
ed up the extra slack he had given me.
“I need another foot,” I said.
“You will have it.” The grin was still there.
He leaned forward that extra six inches or so; his right hand still holding the carving knife, but with two fingers latched around the side of the hatchway keeping his balance; the left arm holding the rope stretching down to me as far as he could reach. I looked towards the cupboard, one eye still on Baiya. I saw his head tilt towards his hand, and watched his fingers slowly release their hold on the cord as he went to flick his wrist and give me those few extra turns I needed; but it was the moment I needed, not the rope. I wanted him to keep that.
“Baiya!” I screamed. “You black bastard!”
I saw his fingers go tight on the cord, gripping it hard, not wanting to let me escape; but he was too late. I already had two hands around the cord, grabbing it as far out from my neck as I could reach; and wrenched it back to me with all the vicious fury engendered during those twenty-five minutes.
He came flying down through the hatchway as though shot from a gun; a short sharp scream bursting from his lungs the instant before his head smashed into the scuffed sea-grass matting; meeting the solid steel plate beneath with a sickening thud.
I had pulled so hard on the cord that his left arm was still outstretched as he hit; the knife still firmly clasped in his right hand. Some instinct had stopped him from holding out that hand to cushion the fall, keeping the razor sharpness away from his body. The carving knife had slapped flat against the wooden side of the starboard bunk, and snapped in two. I saw the broken blade go spinning off into a corner of the fo’c’sle as if in slow motion. It was useless to me now.
I had needed that knife.
There was silence.
I looked up to see T-shirt staring down from the saloon at the crumpled form lying at my feet: blood seeping from one eye-socket, and a stain forming in the matting. T-shirt said nothing, his face shocked, stunned at the suddenness, not believing that it had happened; and maybe blaming himself for not leaping forward and grabbing Baiya before he was launched to his death.
And while he stood there, trying to come to terms with Baiya’s violent end, knowing that it was me who should have been dead at the end of this night, I slid two fingers under the noose, careful not to make any sudden moves that might shake him from his dazed state. I lifted the noose over my head, and slid my left foot forward, ready to leap for the ladder and throw myself at him. My toes touched Baiya’s hand, and I felt the broken haft of the carving knife.
T-shirt saw it too, and suddenly became aware that I was still there, and just as suddenly seemed to remember the other knife, the diving knife he had dropped on the back deck near the hatch. There was a curse in his native tongue and he was out through the saloon doorway as I sprang for the ladder.
I knew it was too late when I heard the blade rattle against the steel deck as he picked it up. I came charging round the corner to face him, the knife held out from his chest, the point aimed at my throat, madness on his face as I skidded to a halt on the rough deck.
“Put it down!” I snapped. “Put it down or there’ll be more trouble!”
But fear and hate were ruling now, hate more than fear; the hate driving out all thoughts of consequence.
“Drop it!” I said again.
“Nahee!” The refusal quivered from his lips.
“Don’t be a fool,” I said, stepping back a slow pace. He was too close. “It was an accident. He tripped on the lip of the hatchway. Put the knife away. We can tell the police it was an accident. They’ll believe us.” But he wasn’t having any of it, the eyes staring wildly. “You leave and I’ll take the blame. They needn’t even know you were on board.”
But nothing was going to change the searing heat behind those unblinking eyes, nor the fingers gripping bone-white around the knife handle. I told myself to watch his face, not his hands. The eyes would signal the attack.
There was the merest flicker of an eyelid and I turned and sprinted back along the alleyway. As I leapt the two feet up onto the bow and raced around outside the front of the saloon I could hear his feet slapping the deck behind me. He was more agile than me, but I knew the boat. I was almost up on top of the saloon roof when I heard a thud and a cry of pain as his bare toes kicked into the hatch cowling in the centre of the foredeck. It was enough to slow him down, giving me time to struggle up onto the top of the saloon and then up to the wheelhouse roof, the highest point on the trawler.
I braced myself behind the radar mast, breathing heavily, and waited. My foot touched the boat-hook. The rounded point wouldn’t do much damage, but at least I could fend him off.
I heard him slide up on top of the saloon, and then watched as his fingers curled around the lip of the wheelhouse roof. As his eyes came up to see where I was, I swung the long wooden-handled hook at his head. He ducked and held up his hand to ward off the blow, the hand with the knife. The brass hook caught him just below the wrist. There was a hollow thud and the knife flew past my leg, landing somewhere on the back deck. The boat-hook was twisted from my grip and went toppling over the side into the water.
His head came up once more, saw that I had dropped the boat-hook, and ducked down again. I heard him jump back on to the saloon roof and then down to the foredeck. He was after the diving-knife again. I hadn’t been the only one to hear it hit the back deck; but even if he didn’t know where it had landed, he would remember that there were still two more where he had found the first one.
I wasn’t going to follow him. He had too much of a lead on me and I might go skidding around a corner of the superstructure straight into a razor-sharp serrated blade; so I crept aft across the top of the wheelhouse roof, ducking quietly under the radio-mast stays, reaching the rear edge as he hurtled around the port alleyway beneath me and came to a sudden halt, his head jerking from side to side as he frantically searched for the fallen knife.
I didn’t think about it or line him up, but simply leapt from the wheelhouse roof like the hero out of some cowboy movie. If I had missed it would have been the end of me, for that steel deck is solid; but I didn’t miss. I hit him across the back of the shoulders, knocking the wind from my lungs and sending him reeling and tumbling across the deck, and me to my knees.
I think we both recovered at the same time. When I staggered to my feet I found him facing me again. The other diving knives were behind me under the wheelhouse overhang, and I knew I couldn’t offer my back to him while I turned to find one.
“Go,” I said once more, but quietly this time, almost gently. “If you stay, I will kill you.”
I shocked myself with the calmness of those words. Kill? No; but I would do my best to put him out of action until the police arrived.
“Go, and I’ll forget that you were ever here.”
“You white bastard!” he screamed. “You killed Baiya! You killed my Baiya! You killed my brother!”
At last I knew why they had both laughed when I had called the dead one Baiya; why they had grinned when he had called me brother.
He came at me then, screaming and spitting: an inch taller than me, but thinner, not having my shoulders nor my strength, and his wrist bruised where the boat-hook had smashed into the sinews, but it didn’t stop his fingers as they gouged for my eyes, nor his knees as they rammed upwards, trying to find my groin.
We clashed together, falling to the deck; he still roaring after my death and me trying to subdue him – unequal goals. His teeth sank into my shoulder, the blast of blinding pain causing me to cry out and release my hold on his neck. He rolled away and gave another yell, this time of elation as he raced for the knife he had seen lying in the scuppers, knowing that he could avenge his brother.
As he leant down to snatch it up I leapt forward and lashed out with my foot, sending him flying even further along the deck, his fingers touching the knife pommel, pushing it through the open scupper and down into the bay. Before he could lift himself up I jumped on to his
back, my knees ramming into his shoulder blades, blasting the air from his lungs as he flattened into the deck.
I grabbed hold of his matted oily hair. His hands came clawing up around his head, the one wrist now almost useless, the fingers swollen and stiff. I let go of his hair. His head swung forward, thumping into the deck and then lifted again. Both hands went down to the deck to push himself up. I slammed both of mine violently together, his head in between, cupping my palms as they crashed into his ears, sending a deafening noise resounding through both eardrums.
Before he could recover I reached down under the thrashing head, cupped both hands around his jaw at the point of the chin, twisted it sideways, and gave a mighty heave upwards. There was a soft click and he went limp.
I rolled off his body, hitting the bulwark with one shoulder, the jolt bringing back reality as I realized what I had done.
The look of venom on his face hadn’t changed in death. It still spoke of hate, of terror, of vengeance.
I sat on the deck by him, my back propped against the bulwark, sucking deeply on the balmy night air, trying to stop the bile from rising; but stomach muscles rebelled as I retched and lost those five slices of dry toast and the glass of milk.
Shock would come later. It was horror at what I had done that was with me now, and remorse. I glanced up at the mast and thought of a near-naked body, white with fear, swinging at the end of a short length of cord; and the guilt faded.
******
Then I remembered Baiya. That fall to the fo’c’sle floor had been hard; but was he dead or only concussed? There had been blood, but that didn’t mean much. Might he even now come charging from the saloon, some new weapon in his hand?
I staggered upright, supporting myself on the gunwale, exhausted, spent. The cool breeze coming in from the sea outside the reef washed against my face, giving me courage.
I took several long breaths, drawing the air into my lungs, and crept back towards the accommodation, not even thinking to collect one of the other diving knives. I stopped and listened, went another four paces, and listened again. There was no sound from within Sally May; but it didn’t mean that he wasn’t waiting inside the saloon, or up in the wheelhouse, ready to spring.
The Stone Dog Page 11
