The Pirate's Daughter

by Robert Girardi

  “The French biologist went white and started to shake. It wasn’t the squid so much as what the squid had its tentacles around, a massive unknown thing like a gigantic worm, thrashing in the black water, its long, tubular body disappearing into the depths of the sea. This looked to be some kind of fight—squids are like cats, you know, very territorial—but the squid, huge as it was, didn’t have a chance. The other creature was the largest living thing I have ever seen, and I have seen blue whales in the waters off Newfoundland long as two football fields.

  “We watched astonished, afraid to breathe. The bit of the creature’s flank we could make out was covered with a thick mess of barnacles and plant life, as if it had been resting somewhere on the bottom for centuries. Then the squid let out a massive cloud of black ink, and when the cloud cleared, there was nothing. Just empty water. We could only assume that the unknown thing, giant squid stuck to its back, had sunk forever into the depths.”

  “Wow,” Wilson said, impressed. “What was it?”

  The captain took a cigar out of his pocket and put it between his teeth unlit. “The Kraken,” he said quietly.

  “The what?” Wilson said.

  “The primeval worm that lives at the bottom of the sea. When it finally rises to the surface, they say the world will come to an end. And God knows, we’ve seen enough signs of that lately.”

  “You’re kidding,” Wilson said.

  At that moment Cricket turned from the navigational computer with a sarcastic grin on her face. “Of course he’s kidding,” she said. “It’s a fish story, the best damn fish story I’ve ever heard.”

  Wilson looked from Cricket to the captain, not sure what to believe.

  “One thing you need to learn about sailors, Wilson,” Cricket said, “is they always tell tall tales. Makes the time pass.”

  “Captain?” Wilson said.

  The captain scratched his shaggy beard and shrugged. “You don’t have to believe me,” he said, “either of you. But I’m here to tell you now there are more things in the sea and on it than you’ve ever thought possible. Just look around …”

  He gestured vaguely toward the ocean’s bleak expanse, the horizon black with storm, the waves tall as three-story buildings—then he fixed Wilson with a look of unknown significance.

  4

  They unbolted the Plexiglas bubble and replaced the foul-weather cowling. The turbo-diesels were switched off. The beach umbrella sails caught a gentle following wind and spread benevolently above the drying deck. The storm had blown itself out in the small hours of the night.

  For the first time in six days the airtight hatches were opened and the ship’s company emerged dazzled into the sunlight of early afternoon. They strolled the deck like tourists, staring out at the flat blue sea and harmless white clouds on the horizon. The designers had done their job well; a security cable snapped off the forward mast was the only damage to the Compound Interest from the worst Atlantic storm since 1935.

  The captain managed to get the BBC over the shortwave.

  “Reports say the west coast of Africa was hit pretty damn hard,” he repeated to Wilson. “From Morocco to the Cameroons. Between fifteen and twenty vessels lost, including a container ship from one of the Scandinavian lines. Three fishing villages in Gambia were washed out to sea. Electrical power went off in the nation of Guinea-Bissau, and in Liberia they were obliged to stop the civil war for a few days. All in all, it looks like casualties might add up to something around five thousand human beings. And we came through the worst of it unscathed. I take back everything I ever said about this tub.”

  It was one of the unremarkable natural disasters that each year cull millions of lives from the world’s multitudes each year, worth no more than a couple of minutes on the evening news in the States. Wilson knew he should be thankful for surviving the watery holocaust. Instead, he was angry and a little nauseated by the utter randomness of the thing. In a world where a gust of wind could blow away thousands, was there sense in taking another breath? Human beings were no better than ants, Wilson thought, but at least ants could go about their business without the curse of intellect. Then he changed his mind. No, human beings were not like ants; they resembled a different sort of insect altogether. They were like bees in a glass hive, busy at work making honey, full of energy and plans. All it took was one stone.

  5

  Porpoises ran alongside the ship. Rising to the surface, they made a gentle blowing sound as they filled their lungs with air, a light splash as they sank again into the murk. A smell like cinnamon and earth and rotting fruit drifted in on the easterlies. The captain had gone below and left Wilson at the helm for the second watch of the night. But Wilson didn’t need the man to tell him what that rich smell meant: Africa was near.

  After an hour of wind and porpoises, Wilson felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Cricket, her face indistinct in the sea darkness, her copper hair a black tangle. Her voice, when it came, had a hollow, faraway sound.

  “I need to see you tonight,” Cricket said.

  “O.K.,” Wilson said.

  “After the third watch. And be careful.”

  When the captain returned topside, Wilson went below and lay in his berth till his illuminated digital watch read 3:17 A.M., then he crept forward and opened the hatch to the utility closet. Cricket waited, suspended in her hammock like a spider. A little starlight reflected from the sea through the porthole. He could barely make out her pale face, her lips like a black wound. Wilson stepped inside and closed the hatch carefully.

  “What’s going on?” Wilson said in a whisper. “I think you should tell me now.”

  For a long time, Cricket was silent. “You ever fuck in a hammock?” she said at last.

  “No,” Wilson said.

  “It’s not easy,” Cricket said, “but it can be done.”

  Wilson got out of his T-shirt and shorts and managed to pull himself up beside her. The nylon ropes creaked from steel eyelets anchored into the bulkhead. The canvas bowed dangerously beneath their weight, but the contraption held. Cricket was naked, her skin cool to the touch. From the porthole a damp breeze blew down Wilson’s back. This time, it wasn’t a question of thrust and counterthrust. Wrapped up in the hammock like a cocoon, the usual movements were useless. It was like making love without the restraining hand of gravity. They moved against each other, and Wilson felt himself locked inside her. Again he heard the faint sound of porpoises clearing their blowholes from the nearby water. The beasts had been following the ship for hours, good luck or bad luck, depending on which sailor you talked to.

  When it was over, they lay suspended together, stuck with sweat, part of the same body, bent to the same inscrutable end.

  “The hard part is getting down,” Cricket said in Wilson’s ear.

  It took them nearly five minutes to disentangle themselves from the hammock. When they stood barefoot and naked, face-to-face on the cold planking, they were exactly the same height. Wilson reached forward absently and put his hands on her breasts. Cricket rested her elbows on his shoulders.

  “This next part’s going to hurt,” she said quietly. “I’ve got to mark you, and the mark has to be permanent.”

  Wilson didn’t quite understand, but he heard in her tone that she was serious.

  “It has to be done, or else,” she said.

  “Or else what?” Wilson said.

  “Don’t ask,” she said, and he felt her shudder. “Remember, you promised to do exactly what I told you to do, and no questions. Remember?”

  “Yes,” Wilson said reluctantly.

  They crept aft into the galley and closed the hatch behind them. Cricket pulled Wilson over to the gas burners, lit one of them with a kitchen match, and took a thick-bladed table knife from the cutlery rack.

  “This might work,” she said, and held it up. The blue glow of the gas flame shimmered along the dull blade.

  “Wait a minute!” Wilson said in a loud voice.

  “Sh!” Cricket caught
the back of his neck with one of her hard hands. “This is crucial! If you don’t do exactly what I tell you to do, we could both end up dead.”

  “Will you tell me what’s going on?”

  “No. I can’t explain right now. Will you honor your word to me, or not—and jeopardize both our lives?”

  She took an oven mitt from the wall and held the table knife, blade first, over the burner in the blue heart of the flame. After a few minutes, the blade glowed a bright red, with blue sparks frizzing off the edges.

  Wilson began to sweat and tremble. Suddenly he regretted the empty streets of his out-of-the-way neighborhood, the faces on the Rubicon bus, quiet evenings at home with Andrea, the dusty, nondescript life he had left behind for the sea. But a small voice in the back of his head still said: Then you were asleep; now you are alive.

  “We’re just about ready.” Cricket turned the knife in the flame. “Do you guys have something like butter or lard in here?”

  Wilson found a can of Crisco in the cabinet.

  “Open it.”

  He opened the can and peeled back the aluminum top. The round surface of congealed fat looked white as a field of untouched snow.

  “Now, your shirt.”

  He pulled his T-shirt over his head, and Cricket saw that he was afraid.

  “Steady,” she said in a softer voice. “You’ve got to hold still for this, and you can’t make a sound.” She took a wooden spoon from the cutlery rack and put it in Wilson’s mouth. “Go ahead, bite down.”

  Wilson bit down; the dry, splintery taste of the spoon gave him goose bumps. Cricket brought the knife blade out of the flame and set the thick edge into the flesh of Wilson’s shoulder. He felt a searing pain, and the galley was full of the rancid odor of seared meat. After a moment, the burning sensation was cooled by a handful of the lard. Cricket took a bandage out of the first-aid kit beneath the grill and bandaged him in an efficient, nurselike manner, and she helped him get his T-shirt back on. The sensation of lifting his arm brought tears to his eyes. She replaced the knife and turned the burner off, and they were in total darkness.

  “I’m sorry I had to hurt you,” she said, in a voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. “You hide that mark until I tell you different.” She set a quick, soft kiss on his lips.

  “Cricket …” Wilson said, but when he felt for her, she was gone.

  6

  The Compound Interest drew closer to the vast bulk of Africa. Her bow cut the greening waves. Light as feathers, land birds sailed on the morning breeze.

  The captain spotted it first. “My eyes are a little weak these days,” he said, and handed over the electronic binoculars.

  Wilson peered and fiddled. For a moment he couldn’t make out anything but water and sky. Then, all at once, there it was, the vaguest speck on the horizon. From time to time it disappeared among the swells, then appeared again, a shadow at the far limits of vision. They watched it closely for the next hour.

  “O.K.,” the captain said at last, “I think she’s within range of our sensors,” and he sat down at the navigational computer and tapped for a few minutes on the keyboard. “She’s following a parallel course, making good speed, maybe twenty-five knots.” He tapped out another command, and the bow cameras swung to the starboard with an electronic whirring sound. In an instant, a fuzzy video image of something that might be a ship appeared on the screen. It didn’t look like much to Wilson, but the captain seemed very tense.

  “What is it, sir?” Wilson said.

  “Hard to say just yet. No markings. She’s obviously a military vessel of some kind. Maybe a coast guard cutter out of the Ivory Coast; they’ve got two or three rusty old destroyers and a couple of other odds and ends. And look here!”

  Wilson leaned closer. He felt a sudden queasiness of the stomach; the burn on his shoulder began to ache again. The screen showed an indistinct grayish blob protruding from the front of another indistinct grayish blob.

  “She’s pretty heavily armed,” the captain said. “I make that out to be a potent piece of ordnance. A big Krupp marine cannon. Fires incendiary shells. Good range, great for shore bombardments. And this”—the captain indicated a slight silvery flash—“a rocket launcher. Most likely Davoust antiship missiles. French-made and murderous.”

  The captain took the Compound Interest off autopilot and for the first time gave Wilson a live wheel. Wilson felt it buck and pull in his hands as the vessel beat against the waves and knew why sailors think of ships as living things. The captain checked his charts, made a few quick calculations.

  “We’re still about two days out of Conakry,” he said. “That’s the nearest port. We’re going to make a run for it.” He retracted the beach umbrella sails, and for a moment there was total silence. The Compound Interest faltered in the water. A wave hit the gunwales amidships with a violent slap.

  “I don’t understand. The diesels should turn over automatically.” Now Wilson heard something in the captain’s voice he had not heard before. A single drop of sweat formed on the end of the man’s nose and fell into his beard.

  The captain went to the manual control board, switched a red-handled switch, and pulled a red knob marked “CHOKE.” For a moment the twin diesels began a harmonious rumbling; then they coughed and stuttered out all at once. He turned a baleful eye to Wilson.

  “I’m going below,” he said. “The ship’s in your hands.”

  7

  For the next fifteen minutes, Wilson watched the horizon with an increasing sense of dread. The shadowy vessel had altered its course and was cutting through the waves straight for the Compound Interest.

  When it was close enough to make out details through the binoculars, Wilson lashed the wheel and took a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships from the chart drawer and went through the illustrations till he found a match. It looked like a U.S.-built minesweeper of Korean War vintage that had long ago seen better days. But the vessel’s old naval markings had been painted out, and her sides were black with grime and rust-streaked. Two long, foreign-looking skiffs hung loose in the hawsers, and the decking was strewn with debris. Fierce eyes had been painted on either side of the bow—like the eyes that had decorated the warships of the Greeks when they set sail for the sack of Troy. Only the big naval gun on the forward deck, and the missile launcher aft, gleamed bright and new-oiled in the sun.

  A few minutes later, the captain emerged from below, pushing the Vietnamese cook before him. There had been a struggle. The captain’s face was bruised; the left side of Nguyen’s jaw was swollen, his forehead cut. Engine grease and dried blood were scrawled across his chef’s whites. His wrists were bound behind his back with a bit of electrical wire.

  “Sabotage,” the captain said. “I caught this little bastard having a go at the engines. He already smashed the distributor and was in the process of mixing sugar with the oil. I checked, all the spares are gone.”

  “You can shoot the mechanic,” Nguyen said with a yellow-toothed grin, “but engines still broke.”

  The captain turned and hit the cook across the face with the heel of his hand. Nguyen went sprawling against the taffrail but somehow managed to stay on his feet.

  The captain glanced out to sea. He didn’t need binoculars to see the vessel bearing down. “I think I know what’s happening, and it’s a damn shame,” he muttered, half to himself. Then he sighed and squared his shoulders. “And me just two years away from retirement.”

  He fished a small key from his pocket and handed it over to Wilson. “Mr. Wilson, the small arms closet.”

  Wilson went over to open a wooden chest stowed beneath the port bench in the octagon. The chest contained two Mauser carbines, an over-and-under shotgun, a 30/30 Marlin with a lever-action Winchester stock, three semiautomatic handguns, a few thousand rounds of ammunition, a flare gun and case of flares, a dozen pairs of plastic handcuffs, and a Stentorian Model E police bullhorn.

  The captain took a pair of plastic cuffs and one of the Mausers from the sm
all arms closet, loaded it with a 90-round banana clip, then turned to Nguyen and cuffed him to the taffrail. The Vietnamese cook seemed totally unconcerned. He leaned back, licking blood off his lip.

  “I gave your sister a pistol and told her to lock herself into the larder,” the captain said to Wilson. “She might have a better chance that way. I’m sorry.”

  Then he went below and emerged a quick moment later wearing his gold-braided hat and dress uniform jacket. Gold captain’s stripes and gold hash marks denoting more than thirty-five years’ professional experience glinted from the sleeves. He stepped over to the communications console, smashed a small glass panel with his fist, and activated the yellow switch inside. A yellow light began to wink on the console. It was the emergency locator beacon that would go out on all channels to all ships and installations for five hundred miles. Then he went to the small arms closet and took out the flare gun and the case of sausage-shaped flares.

  Wilson watched as the captain fired them off the starboard, one by one. Silver streaks of exhaust arched into the blue sky and exploded in powdery stars at the apex of trajectory. In another minute the octagon was full of sulfurous clouds of propellant. Wilson coughed, his mouth dry. He turned to the port side for a breath of air. Just above, the beach umbrella sails filled with wind, useless as a child’s balloon. The captain handed him the over-and-under.