by Bible, Jake
“What does the old man mean to parley with,” Kurtz responded, barely refraining himself from spitting on the floor, “Semaphore flags?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Pepper responded through clenched teeth, “but he means to keep the men safe.”
“They’ll be safer if they have the opportunity to face the danger like men.”
“The time for discussion is over,” the second mate said, pulling the door shut and bathing the hold in darkness.
Kurtz no doubt meant for his next words to be as silent as the last, but, unbidden, they rang through the Dead Hold, and Papillon wasn’t the only one who could hear.
“Long over.”
Papillon scrambled from his hiding place like a roach to rejoin the rest of the men. They all listened, packed together like jaguar cubs huddling for heat. The clicking of Kurtz’s jodhpurs filled the hold and echoed off each wall as he approached them, increasing the dread in every man’s heart with each click.
Then a single light, a match, and Kurtz’s face was illuminated.
“Have you got a fag, Papi?” Kurtz asked.
Papi swallowed something in his throat and fumbled in his blouse for a pack of Gauloises. He handed Kurtz one and waited as the man lit it, waved the match with his hand until it went out, and then puffed on the sole source of illumination in the bulk carrier’s middle hold. Tim, one of the food preparers, was the first to muster the courage to speak.
“What’s going on, Mr. Kurtz? What did Mr. Pepper have to say?”
Kurtz glared at Papillon.
“Haven’t you boys asked Papi? He was standing right there, eavesdropping through the entirety of our discussion.”
Papi stood up as straight as he could, dusted off his blouse, and stared at Kurtz right in the face.
“Fine, I’ll tell them if you won’t,” Papi said. “The captain means for us to die down here.”
That set off a wave of warbling admonitions and wild speculation amongst the mariners down in the bulk carrier’s middle hold. Shaking his head and rolling the tapering cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, Kurtz waited for the chatter to die down.
“To wait,” the over-tall European said, “the captain means for us to wait down here – where there are no bullets flying, one might remind you – until he has had the opportunity to find out what the pirate captain wants.”
“That weren’t no Filipino they was shouting in,” one of the oilers piped in, “and that’s all Mo knows.”
“And they sure as hell won’t speak Afrikaans,” Papi added, as though it pained him just to name the captain’s native tongue.
Kurtz made a show of checking his wristwatch. Then he looked up again, pantomiming surprise that Papi’s mouth was closed.
“You done?”
“Hell, no, I’m not done,” Papi said.
The murmurs of the crowd were growing louder, more confident, and they favored Papi over Kurtz. The tide was turning.
He walked defiantly towards the bulkhead and tapped on the metal wall. There was no echo, no sound of any kind. Papi pointed, his hand seeming magical in the dim light.
“Through here,” he said, finger quivering, “is the deep tank.”
Kurtz snorted.
“Your mother must be so proud.”
Papi ignored him and held up his index finger.
“One bullet,” he said, “and we all drown. Sure as shit.”
“How sure is shit, I wonder?” Kurtz muttered, shaking his head.
Unfortunately for the third mate, his flippant attitude was not enough to dissuade the sailors from Papi’s worries. Papi had them eating out of the palm of his hand, he could tell.
“Why stuff us in the third hold?” Papi cried out, though the sailors were already expressing their own ideas about that. “Nobody ever comes down here. Not voluntarily, anyway. Nobody even knows what’s down here.”
What if the captain didn’t value their lives? Worse, what if he wanted them dead? The man was a known gunrunner. Maybe he had hired up the crew to take them this far and would drown them all to take their wages out of his bottom line. Maybe he was working with the pirates. Maybe the pirates were working for him!
“This has gone on about long enough,” Kurtz said, dropping the cigarette to the floor and crushing the ember under his boot heel, plunging them all back into the eerie black. “One can tolerate griping, but only so much.”
He had no doubt meant for his voice to be terrifying in the void, but the men lit what lighters and flames they had. Some began to wonder openly why Kurtz hadn’t turned on the lights yet. Maybe he was in on the whole drowning plan and was only pretending to be looking after them as a ruse.
“Paranoid hysteria,” Kurtz stated flatly, “the captain will deal with the pirates, give them what they want, and then let us out, unharmed.”
“And if they kill him?”
Kurtz turned toward the crowd, unable to identify the speaker, his grey eyes darting from man to man, seeing the horror and seething anger on their faces.
“Then they will take what they want,” Kurtz said, “and finding our hold locked from within, will leave us adrift. And then we will come out when they are gone, unharmed.”
Papillon was shaking his head. He had been shaking his head against everything Kurtz said.
“No way, man,” Papi said, “no way. I’m not going to wait here to die.”
“And what – precisely – do you propose?”
Papi started nodding now instead of shaking his head, and it became infectious. All of the men were bobbing up and down as though they had all had Papi’s idea.
“I’ll tell you what I propose,” Papi said, “I’ll tell you all what I propose. The captain is a gunrunner. Everyone knows it.”
Seemingly everyone did know it, based on the positive response from the sailors.
“And if he doesn’t have weapons in this very hold, I’ll be a horse’s ass.”
“Too late,” Kurtz muttered.
Papi flipped one of his cigarettes into his mouth and fingered his neck where his tattoo ended. It was a magnificent bit of inkmanship he claimed to have gotten from natives during a jaunt to French Guiana. A hungry, hungry caterpillar crawled out of his navel, spun itself into a cocoon somewhere on his chest, and finally blossomed into a gorgeous butterfly on his neck. He blew a cloud of smoke into Kurtz’s face. Kurtz stood stock-still.
“Turn those lights on,” Papi ordered, pointing, “let’s see what’s really in these boxes.”
The overhead halogen lamps flipped on and began buzzing, revealing the contents of the hold. Most of the men had taken part in moving the wooden crates down here, by hand, barrow, and litter, but few of them had seen the results of their labor.
Row after row of boxes filled the hold, leaving just enough room at the edges for a man to make his way around. Some were nailed together to form natural building blocks, and the blocks were held together by industrial straps, winched to be tight enough to allow for the movement of the sea.
One of the Americans whistled and said, “Just like in Raiders.”
“Enver, hand me that crowbar,” Papi said, pointing.
The helmsman obeyed.
“Put it back, Enver,” Kurtz said in the lowest, coldest tone Papi had ever heard.
The helmsman blinked and look to Papi for help.
“You I never trusted,” Kurtz said, then he turned to the other thirty odd men assembled around the edges of Hold 3. “As for the rest of you, just take a moment and consider what you are planning.”
He genuinely waited; letting the men do the figuring for themselves. Outside of the glow of Papi’s rabble-rousing, at least a few of them seemed to be having second thoughts. He was unsurprised when Papi was the first to speak.
“We have no loyalty to Martigan,” Papi said, and with that, Enver released his end of the crowbar and walked away from the erstwhile mutineer leader.
“Loyalty doesn’t even enter into the equation,” Kurtz stated, channeling a m
ath professor explaining an incontrovertible theorem, “I am here to get paid, same as you. I never sailed under Captain Martigan’s banner before and I have no plans in the future, one way or the other.”
Kurtz began to goose-step past Papi as if he were unworthy of his attention. He had every eye in the hold on him.
“If any of you are in any doubt that the reason you are being salaried so handsomely is not the contents of these boxes,” he said, rapping one of the crates with his knuckle, “please allow me to divest you of that fool notion now. One doesn’t know what we are smuggling, and one doesn’t care to know. The captain says human remains. One should find that sufficient. Human remains it is, whether it is or it isn’t.”
“Guns,” Papi said, a gleam almost of avarice shining in his eye.
“Perhaps,” Kurtz agreed. “Do you all see this?”
Kurtz pointed at the nearest box, which was marked with a small black stamp. In the flickering light, the men could see that each box was similarly marked. They all bore two palm trees with a letter “M” between them.
“Montero,” Kurtz explained, “brand of the cartel. This is a warning. Touch our merchandise and your life is forfeit. Do you know what a Sulaco shave is?”
The hold was eerily silent. Only the occasional crack of firearms discharging outside broke the stillness. Even the odd thumping which had added an unnecessary veneer of extra creepiness to the Dead Hold in recent nights was absent. Kurtz loomed over Papi, a plucked bald mountain. He held up one of his hands as though to strike Papi with a backhand. Papi refused to flinch, but then Kurtz didn’t strike him.
“They sit one down just like they’re going to give one a shave, except one’s hands are strapped to the chair. For lather, they use chili peppers. Bad enough, no? No. That’s just for fun.”
As he spoke, the men watched his hands, mesmerized, as he mimicked the actions of this mystical torture on the air around Papi’s cheeks.
“Then they take a coconut grater,” Kurtz continued, “and slice. And slice. And slice.”
“How long?”
“‘Til they hit bone. Then a little pisco for aftershave.”
Kurtz mimed tossing a handful of liquor into Papi’s face.
“Will I live?” one of the mariners ventured.
Kurtz turned to face the boy.
“Maybe,” Kurtz mused, “but you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
Papi thrust his crowbar into the seam of the nearest crate. Kurtz took a step toward the able seaman, a cosh suddenly in his hand, and then the spell from his story was broken. Papi leaned on the crowbar, not enough to flip the lid off the crate, just enough to make a creaking noise, and Kurtz stood in place, stock-still. All eyes were on the arguing pair.
“I am the third officer of this boat,” Kurtz said, a low warning left unspoken.
Papi gestured expansively.
“We know which side our bread is buttered on,” he said, “and you’re the only officer here.”
Kurtz glanced around.
“I never figured you for a mutineer, Papillon,” Kurtz said. “A bad mariner, yes. But not a mutineer.”
“It’s not mutiny,” Papi said with a dark look, “It’s self-defense. Any of you men want to die?”
A roar went up amongst the men. Kurtz glanced around. It was obvious he had lost them. He took a step back and pocketed his cosh again, holding up his hands to show he was unarmed. Nodding, the copper-skinned Haitian pressed down on the crowbar.
The lid came clattering off, and settled on the ground after dancing for a moment like a snowflake unsure where it wanted to fall. The seal of the Costaguanero cartel was irrevocably and obviously broken. As best they could, the men gathered around to peer inside, and even Kurtz, who knew that they had perhaps made a fatal error, couldn’t contain his curiosity to find out what in fact, they were smuggling.
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