Operation Manhunt

by Christopher Nicole

  But even six feet away, Jonathan could hardly hear her voice, and the sound of the lifeboat’s engine was lost in the slapping rain and the constantly growling thunder, for now the lightning was flashing without cessation. The rain lay on them like a fog, pitting the surface of the waves, limiting visibility to whichever trough they happened to be in. Time ceased to have meaning. There was nothing but rain and noise.

  And then, as suddenly as it had come, the rain squall passed on to shroud the island, and the sky was a marvelously vivid blue, and the rising sun warmed their flesh and glinted from the rainswept green slopes of the island, close to them now, and the thunder had gone to rumble around the mountaintops of Dominica itself. Now there was another sound dominating the morning, louder even than the thunder. It came from immediately in front of them, a continuous roar, emanating from the boiling surf not three hundred yards away.

  “Seems we might have stood more chance with that fish,” Benny remarked.

  “Where’s the lifeboat got to?” Brian O’Connor asked.

  Captain Strohm rose to his knees, surveyed the sea behind them. “There she is. They won’t be able to reach us in time, now.”

  Jonathan sat up, saw the launch bobbing on the wave, perhaps half a mile distant.

  “They’re not trying to reach us,” he said. “There’s an opening in the surf down there.”

  Strohm shaded his eyes. “You’re right, Mr. Anders. They’re making for that.”

  “So if any of us do get through the reef, they’ll be waiting to pick us up afterward,” Benny said. “Looks to me as if either way we’ve had it, Mr. Strohm.”

  Phyllis Malthus gazed at the tumbling foam coming closer every moment. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Do you think we may get wet? Oh, my, Aristotle does hate the water so.”

  “It’ll do his fleas good,” Benny said. “What do you think, Captain?”

  Strohm studied the comparatively still water on the inside of the reef, the narrow sand beach and the green jungle which started within a few feet of the tidemark and began climbing immediately, reaching upward to the cliff top several hundred feet above their heads. “I’d estimate we’re just south of Point Mulatre,” he said. “Which means there aren’t any people likely to be around. If we’d drifted a bit farther north we’d have come ashore at a little village.”

  “Only we haven’t,” Benny said.

  “Don’t you think someone from up there must have seen us?” Brian O’Connor asked.

  “I doubt that, Dr. O’Connor,” the captain said. “As a rule, small boats in trouble send up flares, or fly some kind of a distress signal, which is why they’re spotted. And there won’t be any casual fishermen out this morning, you can be sure of that. They’re all sitting at home with battens across their doors and windows.”

  “So what do we do?” Jonathan asked.

  “Well, the first thing we want to remember is that it’s just about high water, I’d say; that beach we’re looking at is mighty narrow, and the sand is dry. There’s not much rise and fall in these waters, but there’s enough to make it unlikely that we’ll actually hit anything; those rocks are at least six feet beneath the surface. But the swell is breaking on them, just the same, and the raft is going to get tossed about. I should expect her to capsize.”

  “Oh, my,” Phyllis Malthus cried. “But what about the fish?”

  “Any fish caught in that swell will be worrying more about himself than about you, Mrs. Malthus. And if we encounter a shark inside the reef in this weather we’ll have every reason to consider ourselves unlucky.”

  “I’ve always been unlucky,” Benny said sadly.

  “No, our problem is not fish, any more, but drowning. It may look a short distance to the shore, but we’ve been hanging on here all night, unable to relax or rest for a moment, with nothing to eat or drink. So we’re none of us more than ninety percent of ourselves. You get into that water and you’ll be surprised just how quickly you find you can’t move a muscle. So stick with the raft. No matter what happens, stick with the raft. That’s your only rule from now until we hit the beach. But when we do hit the beach, there’ll be no flopping. Any of you guys serve?”

  No one replied.

  “Well, I was on Guadalcanal, among others,” Strohm said. “You want to pretend there’s a sniper behind every tree. And that’s not so far out. Remember that Malthus means business, and that he has a gun. Our only chance is to get as far into that bush as possible, as quickly as possible. Okay?”

  “Aye-aye, Skipper,” Jonathan said, and looked at the launch again. It was moving very slowly, approaching the tumbling rollers with the utmost caution. It was essential for Harman to hit the narrow opening dead center, because the slightest error in judgment and the lifeboat would be capsized and smashed by the seas. Which would save an awful lot of trouble, he thought.

  “Jon?” Geraldine smiled at him. “I want to say that I’m sorry. For not trusting you yesterday morning. And for involving you in this mess at all. I could murder Tom Crater.”

  “I was just giving him a mental vote of thanks,” Jonathan said. “I wouldn’t have missed this little picnic for the world. Hold tight, now.”

  They lay flat, fingers and toes once again dug into the slats. The next swell picked them up and carried them, like surfers, high toward the reef.

  “Here we go!” Strohm shouted.

  The raft planed down the crest of the wave, seemed to plunge to the very floor of the ocean in a screaming and amazingly dry vacuum, struck something and shot up again, no longer dry, but obliterated by flailing white water, like a cork exploding from a bottle of champagne. It stood with its end on the surface for a long moment, Strohm upward, and the captain was whipped from his hold to plunge into the sea. Jonathan was already submerged, still desperately holding on, but realizing that the raft was, indeed, about to turn turtle, he let go himself, and dived. Blue and white and green flashed before his eyes, and there was a tremendous report as the raft hit the surface again. Time slowed right down as he swam, close to the bottom now, contracting his nostrils to stop himself from taking the long breath his lungs were demanding, looking toward the light, and then swimming upward, to break the surface with a rush, and find himself inside the reef, being carried onward by the surge.

  His first feeling was an immense exhilaration at having survived; the cliff seemed to be hanging immediately above him, and instinctively he struck out toward the beach. Six strong strokes and then, as the captain had warned, his arms suddenly filled with lead, and he slipped beneath the surface so easily it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Again he was down in a kaleidoscope of blues and greens and whites, and dark purple seaweed patches clinging to the bottom, the whole now clouded with swirling sand. Here was a peaceful world, so silent and relaxed after the long night’s catastrophe. He wanted to turn on his back and take a long breath and call a halt to all this enervating activity.

  Just in time his brain flickered a warning. His life belt was already carrying him back to the surface, and he raised his head and emptied his lungs and filled them again several times, while he drifted, and looked around him, and found the raft, not twenty feet away. Just reach it, he thought. Just reach it. He threw one arm over the other, and then again. But the effort was too much, and again his face dipped into the lukewarm sea. A hand gripped his wrist and dragged him forward, and another hand grasped the collar of his shirt. His fingers touched one of the lifelines. Someone put a hand under his chin to get his head up, and he gazed at Brian O’Connor.

  “Gerry?”

  “I’m right here,” she gasped from beside him. She still clung to his collar, and she seemed to be laughing and crying at the same time. “Look!”

  He turned his head. Aristotle swam before them, ignoring the raft, head proudly cocked free of the water. Jonathan felt vaguely hysterical as well. “Where’s Mrs. Malthus?”

  “Round the other side,” Brian O’Connor said. “With Benny, I think. I don’t know where the captain i
s.”

  “Strohm!” The captain’s strength and experience and confidence were more essential now than before, if they were to escape the men from the launch. “Captain?” he bellowed.

  The captain answered from the beach. Far from being as exhausted as they, he had reached the shallows in a few powerful strokes, had lain there long enough to regain his breath. Now he ran into the water to help them. “Come on,” he shouted. “There’s no time.”

  Jonathan looked in the direction of his pointing finger. The launch came through the reef like an express train, and Harman was desperately putting the engine astern to stop it from pounding right up the beach. They were not more than a quarter of a mile away, and Malthus was studying the raft through his binoculars.

  “Let go,” Strohm ordered. “You’re in shallow water. Get those life belts off, and up the hill with you. Quickly, now.”

  Jonathan released the lifeline. Unclasping his hand required a separate effort for each finger. Dr. O’Connor knelt in the shallows, head bowed, face gray with fatigue.

  “Come on, Daddy.” Geraldine unfastened his life jacket, tossed it after her own. She took one of his arms, and Jonathan took the other, and they urged him up the beach.

  “Oh, I just want to sit here,” Phyllis Malthus said, collapsing at the edge of the water. “I’m going to wait for Jimmy. He’s not going to harm me.”

  “You’re coming with us, Mrs. Malthus,” Benny said. “On your feet. Look, your dog has already left.”

  “Ooh!” She scrambled to her feet. “Aristotle, my pet!” She staggered up the beach, displacing clouds of sand.

  It began to rain once more.

  They climbed through a wet green world in which every flower, every leaf, every branch and every tree seemed to be waiting to deliver its own shower bath, and every footstep sank ankle-deep through rotting leaves and oozing mud, and filled with water behind them. And always their world stayed with them, loomed in front of them, closed in behind them; this was their private eternity.

  Strohm went first, parting the bushes, squelching the damp leaves under foot. He chose the best possible path, but the best possible path was bad, and steep. Brian O’Connor was second, head bowed, feet dragging. His world was one of agonizing movement, one sore foot in front of the other. Geraldine stayed at her father’s elbow, assisting him over the occasional outcroppings of rock that penetrated even the mud and the leaves to tear at their legs; her hair clung to her neck as her torn clothes clung to her body. She must be very close to collapse, Jonathan thought, but she was bearing up magnificently. Phyllis Malthus lumbered immediately behind her; she had regained Aristotle, and clutched him in her arms. They wheezed together, and the Peke, peering over her shoulder, panted. Benny the steward followed, making faces at the dog, every few seconds taking out a sopping handkerchief to mop a dripping brow, peering myopically into the green universe surrounding them.

  Jonathan brought up the rear. He picked his way through the underbrush, was scratched and torn by branches and thorns, tripped over unseen obstacles. The thunder growled ceaselessly, and was accompanied always by the sullen rain, but this was almost a relief. You could tilt your head back and catch a drop of water in your open mouth to suggest that one day, in the far distant future, you would be relieved from this tremendous, overwhelming thirst.

  Jon’s job was also to listen and watch behind them. There could be no doubt that the crew of the Sidewinder was following, just as there could be no doubt that, given a point of departure by the discarded life belts, the sailors would find the trail perfectly simple to follow. In any event, at least one of them, Jonas, had been born in Dominica, had probably rambled through these very forests as a boy. He might even know where they would have to come out, at the top of this seemingly interminable hill, and have directed Malthus to where he could await their arrival. But still they climbed, because there was nothing else for them to do.

  “Oh, my,” Phyllis Malthus complained, falling to her knees and releasing Aristotle, who promptly darted into the bushes. “I just couldn’t walk another step.”

  “Up you get,” Benny said. “Come on.”

  “Couldn’t we rest, Captain Strohm?” Geraldine asked. “I think Daddy has about had it.”

  “Take ten.” Strohm leaned against a tree, drew the tattered sleeve of his sodden shirt across his forehead. “Hear anything, Mr. Anders?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “I do,” Phyllis Malthus cried. “What’s that rustling? Oh, my, a snake!”

  “They don’t have snakes in the West Indies, Mrs. Malthus,” Jonathan explained. “They used to have fer-de-lance in the Windwards, and they were pretty deadly, but there aren’t any left now.”

  “They killed them off with mongeese,” Strohm said. “Although they do say there are a few left in St. Lucia.”

  “How do you know that for sure?” Phyllis Malthus demanded. “If there are some still left in St. Lucia, why shouldn’t there still be some here?”

  Benny thrust his hand into the bushes, pulled out a wriggling lizard. “There’s your fer-de-lance. Frightened by that confounded tripe hound, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “I’ll sue you for slander,” Phyllis Malthus said. “Aristotle has a pedigree taller than you.”

  “Listen to that thunder.” Geraldine shivered.

  “There’s a close one,” Strohm said.

  For the first time they actually saw the lightning, instead of the glare, and the following thunder clap was instantaneous. Aristotle returned from the bushes in great haste, leaped into his mistress’ lap, and tucked his head under her arm.

  “Aren’t all these bushes and trees lightning conductors?” Benny wanted to know.

  “That’s right,” Jonathan said. “But there are so many of them.…”

  “Don’t tell me,” Benny said. “I’d have to be very unlucky to be leaning against the one that was hit.”

  “What’s that noise?” Geraldine asked.

  “Oh, not another something unpleasant,” Phyllis Malthus said. “Oh, I’m going to have a nervous attack. Or maybe a stroke. I just know it. My doctor warned me against unnecessary exertion. He was right, wasn’t he, Dr. O’Connor? I’m not well. Really, I’m not.”

  “I thought it was your dog that was ill,” Benny retorted.

  “Oh, my poor Aristotle doesn’t have a hope of surviving. No, sir. I’m going to sue. Yes, I’ll sue.”

  “Sue who, now?” Benny asked.

  “Will you two be quiet?” Strohm demanded. “Listen!”

  “Sounds like an aircraft,” Jonathan said. “Coming low. Someone must have heard my message, after all.”

  “No aircraft, Mr. Anders,” Strohm said. “That’s wind.”

  The whine was growing every second.

  “Oh, boy,” Geraldine said. “Oh, boy. Captain, what’s going to happen to us?”

  Strohm was gazing at the forest around them. “There’s a hollow. Quickly, now.”

  Geraldine pulled her father to his feet. Benny and Jonathan each took one of Mrs. Malthus’ arms.

  “Oh, but I can’t leave Aristotle,” she complained.

  “He’s leading the way,” Benny pointed out.

  They tore through the jungle, regardless now of the bushes which ripped their clothing and scored their flesh, tumbled into the shallow hollow in the hillside, where there was a mass of fern, nearly six feet tall and dripping wet, in the middle of which they crouched, while the aircraft, or perhaps a whole air force, now, screamed lower over the island. The very mountain seemed to shake, as they huddled against one another. Phyllis Malthus scooped the whimpering dog into her arms; Jonathan put an arm around Geraldine’s shoulder. The wind seemed to blast the hillside above their heads, and enough of it came down the hollow to balloon their clothes and send their hair whipping across their faces. Strohm, who was the most exposed, fell on his back and skidded several feet before he was brought up against a tree trunk. The ferns themselves lay flat before the storm, and the rain hurtled by al
most horizontally, stinging faces and arms.

  The noise was quite unlike anything Jonathan had ever heard before. He had experienced three hurricanes during his boyhood in the West Indies, but always from the inside of a barricaded house, when he had known the feeling of being surrounded by catastrophe, but as yet had not been a part of it. Here the immediacy of the cataclysm made thought impossible. Apart from the wind, which buffeted them like an army of hostile fists, there was the booming of the thunder, the flickering of the lightning, the crackle of the rain which searched the forest like a machine gun, and the continuous high-pitched howl. There were other noises, too, yet more sinister, creakings and cracklings, booms and thuds. Whole branches, each as thick as a man’s wrist, hurtled through the air, thudding into the ferns. And then there was a crack like a cannon shot, and they looked up to see a giant cedar swaying above their heads.

  “Look out!” Jonathan shouted, although he could not hear the words himself. He threw Geraldine flat to the ground, lay across her head. The tree’s roots were being torn from the earth with a gigantic ripping sound, and he was showered with pellets of damp earth and flying twigs. There was a creaking, rushing noise, and a thud which filled the hollow. He felt Geraldine’s face against his shoulder. She bit him, her teeth sinking through his shirt into his flesh.

  The tree lay across the shallow pit, blackening the already dark morning, but providing shelter as well, from the wind and the rain and the lightning, and from any other displaced pieces of timber. Jonathan put his mouth against Geraldine’s ear.

  “We have to move,” he shouted. “Under the tree.”

  Her eyes were closed. He shook her arm, but she made no response. The wind had blown her hair flat across her face and her scalp showed in white lines between the roots. He put his hands into her armpits, sat behind her head, dug his heels into the soft earth, and dragged himself backward, through the mud and the leaves. He discovered Strohm beside him. The captain took one of the girl’s arms, and they pulled her under the tree. The others were already there, faces blank with exhaustion and fear and shock, unable to contemplate what was happening to them. Jonathan let Geraldine go and lay on his back, feeling the mud closing about his arms and legs, lapping at his ears. He gazed above him at the tree trunk, at the ivy wrapped around it, at a spider which had survived wind and rain and uprooting, and hung by a single thread, as yet unable to face the gigantic problem of reconstructing its world.