The Prisoner's Dilemma

by Sean Stuart O'Connor

  The Schwarzsturmvogel lay some three hundred yards from the shore at the Dunbeaton end of the bay’s wide sweep. It was now in its death throes, locked in the open jaw of two massive lines of rocks whose black teeth would appear above the waves and then be lost from sight again as the sea poured in to cover them up once more. The ship was broken now, listing badly, and as they stood, huddled together on the shore, the villagers could see the crew on its sloping deck, fighting to free the boats. They watched as a man raised and then brought down an axe on the bindings of a tender – but no sooner had he severed the last of the ropes than a gigantic breaker smashed into the ship’s side and snatched up the boat, hurling it far out towards the shore with no more drama than a child tossing a ball.

  The Master had called two sailors over to him and together they’d worked their way to the aft rail. They were now attempting to launch a rescue rocket with a line attached, a novelty that Zweig had been sold by an engineer in Königsberg after Kant’s ship had sunk. They had never tried it before and the crew now devoured Hartmann with their agonized looks, praying that he had taken the launching instructions seriously.

  ‘Where do we point it, Master?’ screamed one of the assistants above the deranged roar of the gale.

  ‘Point it high,’ bellowed Hartmann, lifting his arm at a sharp angle, ‘high – let the wind take it to the shore.’

  Hartmann made a final adjustment and staggered to the wheel. He held it to steady himself and then wrapped the lighting cord around his wrist. He braced himself and gave a firm heave. The friction plate sparked and to his amazement and relief the rocket shot manically upwards, high into the night sky, a wild trail of sparks and flames gushing behind it. There were many hearts that soared along with it but these same hearts were broken almost immediately as it became clear that the rocket’s very speed had taken it too high through the wind. It now burnt out in a blazing flash, well before it reached the waiting rescuers on the shore.

  * * *

  Dunbeath jerked his head away from the brass eyepiece, blinded by the sudden glare that had pierced the storm’s blackness. In an instant the ever-burning embers of the Urquhain Rage flared up in him unchecked. Who were these damned people that had stopped him taking a reading? He rubbed his eye and stepped back to the telescope. He had moved to adjust the setting when a vast sheet of lightning drenched the bay and he looked coldly down at the ship in the sudden glare, a couple of furlongs or more off the village, and saw it held fast in the murderous grip of two lines of hidden rock. He looked again, expressionless and without a trace of concern for the people that must be so terrified on board. Instead, a righteous anger surged through him once more and with it came a poisonous, vengeful wish came to see for himself the stupid vandals that had interrupted his vital research.

  He lowered the great telescope until it pointed downwards, now towards the ship. He swiveled the eyepiece around for the shortness of the new focus and put his eye to it again. In the moonlight he could see blurred images of panicked sailors, running on the listing deck and he stepped back and brought the minor adjustment bar down.

  Now he had it in focus. He swung the image right and slowly ranged over the mayhem the terrible storm had wreaked. He moved right again and came to a sudden stop. Filling the image was a tall, striking figure, standing with his arms crossed in front of him, deep in thought. The man’s air of authority was extraordinary. Instead of sharing in the crew’s blind confusion there was something almost supernaturally calm about him and Dunbeath watched in amazement as he remained, almost rooted to the spot, completely still amongst the chaos.

  Dunbeath focused again. He now saw the man look up as two sailors had clearly answered an order and were bringing a woman to stand in front of him, their hands under her arms. She was covered only in a long white dress and as she came into the foreshortened image Dunbeath could see that she was a young, slim girl. And, extraordinarily beautiful.

  At an order from the man the sailors began to strap lifesavers around the girl’s waist and chest and a small wooden spar across the shoulders at the back of her neck. They fastened them expertly and finished by tightening light ropes under her arms.

  Dunbeath then saw the man lean forward to say something in her ear. He spoke for some seconds. She seemed rigid as she heard him out and made no sign of responding. Dunbeath could only imagine that she was frozen in terror.

  The tall man hesitated for a second. Then he moved his head forward once more. Again he leant down as if to say something in her ear; but now he turned his head slowly towards her - and kissed her cheek.

  The girl’s manner changed in an instant. She lifted her head with a sudden, furious movement and took a step backwards. Then she angrily wrenched her arm from the sailor’s grip and Dunbeath saw as she brought it high above her shoulder. She seemed to twist to stare upwards, full into the man’s eyes and then brought the flat of her hand down hard on the side of his face. The giant seemed to falter for a second but immediately recovered himself and smiled at her in reply.

  Dunbeath pressed closer to the eyepiece, astonished that he could be seeing a fight at a time like this. Surely this was no time to be settling scores, they would all be dead before the hour was out? To his amazement he then saw the man nod at the girl with the deepest show of respect. He watched him as he bent down and picked her up with no more effort than a mother would use to lift a baby. He then walked to the side of the ship and gently held her over the rail, still struggling wildly. Dunbeath focused again and saw that the man was now standing still, steadying himself, evidently waiting for the right moment. The girl continued to buck and twist in his arms but she might have been a small dog for all the trouble she gave him. A monstrous wave swept over the ship and Dunbeath saw the man bend down and carefully drop the figure over the side and into its path.

  Dunbeath refocused the telescope for a broader view. It was obvious that the ship couldn’t last much longer, stuck fast on the rocks and with the full force of the storm shrieking into its side. Enormous waves were now pounding the stricken vessel like a blacksmith’s hammer and as Dunbeath watched he knew that the rocks beneath it would be grinding the planks out of the ship’s hull with all the swift certainty of a Dunbeaton fisherman gutting a good catch.

  Dunbeath had seen enough. He stepped away from the telescope and picked up his notes, quite sure that the end must be near. The ship would break up before dawn rose and he saw little point in it interrupting his work any longer.

  * * *

  Onboard Zweig was like a man reborn. There was no calmness about him now as he called his men towards him, shouting orders as he did so.

  ‘Bring up a long cable from below. Enough to reach the shore,’ he bellowed.

  Before long the thick rope was being passed up and two men were then ordered to attach the lightest cord they could find to its end. Zweig inspected their work, pulling hard at where the two lines met. He satisfied himself that the join would hold and then ripped off his heavy weather jacket and sea boots. The crew looked at him with disbelief and yet with a hope born of despair. He tied the light line around his waist.

  ‘Hartmann,’ he yelled in the Master’s ear above the howl of the gale, ‘I shall swim for it. When I’m on the shore I’ll get those people there to pull the cable down. When we have it secure at that end, tighten it around the capstan. Lift it clear of the waves and then send the men down.’

  Zweig took no notice of Hartmann’s feeble attempt to restrain him and simply checked again that the light line was tight around his waist and trailing behind him. Then, without a backward glance, he jumped up on the rail and flung himself into the boiling sea.

  At first he swam strongly towards the beach. He made a hundred yards and every man on board urged him forward. With pounding hearts they would see his head break surface and then a collective prayer would be muttered when it disappeared once again. With each stroke he made, the line fed out and Zweig’s men could only guess at the drag he must have been fighting. A
t intervals they would see him stop and then desperately tread water as he leant backwards to manhandle the thin rope towards him. With it pooled beneath him he would strike out for the shore once more.

  Another hundred yards was gained. As each inch played out the sailors cheered more wildly. Any other man would have been spent by now but his crew knew that their captain’s huge strength, and his unbreakable determination, were driving him on to success or death. Nearer to the beach the breakers grew ever larger and Zweig would be frequently lost to the men’s view for half a minute or more. Then he’d reappear and they’d see an arm come over for yet another stroke. Yard by yard he closed on the beach. There could only be thirty or forty left.

  Just as the onlookers began to dare that Zweig might succeed, the crazy turmoil of the disturbed surf sucked him onto a line of hidden rocks close to the shore. Even the captain’s great strength was no match for the weight of water that forced him below the surface and in an instant he was pummeled and tossed before being spat out, blood streaming from a great gash to his head, lifeless, face down in the foam.

  The villagers knew the reef and had seen the disaster. Those closest to the water’s edge pointed urgently to the prone body and Mona McLeish snatched up a line and tied it round her son’s chest.

  ‘Go, James, you may save him yet,’ she shouted and, with a push that left no argument, the boy plunged in to swim the short distance to where Zweig’s body was floating. Yet even though it was so close to the beach James was nearly spent as he reached Zweig and he shot out a desperate arm to grab at his half sunk frame. The villagers saw his hand close about Zweig’s shirt and with a huge roar they ran backwards with the rope, pulling the two men to the shore.

  They now lay on the beach, James shattered by the effort and quite still as his mother, proud of him beyond measure, rubbed his back. Bit by bit his breathing steadied.

  Zweig was unconscious and blood streamed unchecked from a long wound over his right eye. He had been left on his side, higher on the beach, as the villagers took the line from around him and started the long operation of pulling it in. The light rope was little trouble but once the weight of the heavy cable followed their real work began. But they gained, manhandling it yard by yard through the turbulent water, the rope bucking and jumping as if a wild animal was at its end. At last the cable reached the shore and once they had enough of it looped on the beach, a boy was sent up the side of a large boulder with it.

  ‘Take it twice around the top,’ shouted Andrew McLeish. ‘Now loop it round the rest of the line!’

  Strong hands pulled at it until the villagers were sure they had it securely anchored. Once done, the little group turned and waved frantically to the ship.

  On board a great cheer went up from the crew and the Master gave out brisk orders. Their end of the cable was quickly wrapped around the capstan and the villagers could see the men run to snatch up the winch’s poles. A dozen turns later and the slack in the line had been drawn smartly into the capstan’s rotating barrel.

  Hartmann looked on as the cable started to tighten and his mind began to turn to the future – and the chances of salvage and insurance. He left the men to their long task at the ratchet and raced below to retrieve the ship’s logbook and other papers, vital if there was ever to be a claim for the lost ship. He ran down the companionway towards Zweig’s cabin but twenty steps were enough for him to become aware of the other disaster that was engulfing the ship. He pushed open a cabin door, only to be immediately forced backwards by the huge sheet of flame that leapt out to meet him.

  Yet more of the same, he thought to himself, resigned to seeing all their troubles coming at once - there was little he could do about the blaze, and anyway the poor old barky could have little time left. If there was ever to be a tomorrow, then such things as claims would have to take care of themselves.

  He went back the way he had come, climbing the lurching stairwell and making a slow progress along the angled deck. He saw that the men were finding it difficult to circle the capstan because of the list but they pressed on and yard by yard the line drew gradually tighter. As he approached them Hartmann even allowed himself a second of hope as he saw the cable begin to stretch clear of the surface of the water. Each turn of the barrel was lifting the hearts of the crew and a few of them now started to cluster at the rail, desperate to be climbing down the rope.

  On the beach the villagers were shouting that the line was tight at their end. They now waved wildly to the ship, screaming that the crew should start to make their escape. They were all standing, looking towards the wreck, so distracted by their yelling that not one of them had noticed that a few yards behind them Zweig had given a strangled cough and then retched seawater. Slowly his gasping settled and his mind began the long ordeal of clearing its confusion. He pushed himself up onto an elbow, his senses fighting to understand how sand could be beneath him, bewildered at not being in the sea. Gradually he took in the cluster of villagers in front of him. He heard them as they shouted to the ship and he rose unsteadily to his feet and stumbled towards them. The mists began to dissolve. He saw the cable he had brought to the shore, now clear of the water’s surface. Then he saw his doomed ship. He looked towards it, squinting to bring it into focus.

  In an instant he recoiled in horror. Through the slashing rain that drove into his face he’d seen the tongues of fire as they shot through the deck gratings. Then he saw the angry redness of the lower decks, showing through an open port lid. In spite of his injury the danger was obvious and he raced wildly towards the water’s edge, waving frantically to the tiny figures on the angled deck and screaming into the fury of the gale.

  ‘Fire! Fire! No! Jump for God’s sake. Get in the water. Get clear of it!’

  The villagers had parted to let him through. Now they watched him as he repeatedly flung an arm out in a series of frantic orders that his men should jump.

  A second later they turned back to look out to sea as an enormous rumble came to them above the shriek of the storm. This was followed immediately by a flash of intense light and then a colossal explosion lit up the night sky. The ship had exploded. No, it had virtually vapourised. And the crew with it. Three hundred yards away on the shore, Zweig was knocked to the ground by the blast and slipped gratefully into a deep unconsciousness.

  The Schwarzsturmvogel’s cargo was no longer a mystery.

  * * *

  There was little the villagers could do but carry Zweig back to Dunbeaton. Flesh from a great gash hung down over his face and Mona McLeish took off her shawl and bound it gently around his head.

  Together, four men put their arms under his great frame and linked hands. They lifted him and set off, half sideways and half shuffling, for the short distance back to the village.

  Once they were there Zweig was taken to the McLeish’s cottage and the villagers laid him out on a simple bed of rushes in front of the peat fire.

  Mona now sat beside him, weeping, praying, bandaging his head, rubbing his hands, substituting her grief for her dead son into a crazed determination that Alexis Zweig might live.

  * * *

  When Annie had left Dunbeath in the Grey Tower she’d hurried down to fetch her shawl and then set out for where she’d seen the villagers shouting on the shoreline. She’d taken the path through the dunes and as she’d looked over at the little group she thought she saw a rope rising above the maddened surface of the waves. She struggled forward against the ferocious wind and cursed Dunbeath’s callousness again and again, bitter that her own poor people were doing their best to help the crew, but that he, with so much, should care so little. Once more she had looked out to the wrecked ship with its tiny, frenzied figures and imagined what horrors those poor men must be suffering.

  As Annie lifted her head from the howling wind and looked at the sea’s crazed confusion she suddenly stopped. She held her hand over her eyes for protection and looked again. What was that being hurled among the waves, close in to the shore? She squinted agai
n through the driving rain, wondering frantically if she’d seen something moving there. Again, she thought she saw a long white form. Did something rise there?. Was that an arm? Could it be possible that a person was struggling in the water?

  She left the dunes and ran down towards the beach. The object was being driven away from the ship by the incoming breakers and as she came onto the sand she saw again that there was a movement from it. Yes, it was definitely an arm. It could only be someone making a despairing attempt at a stroke.

  Without a thought for her own safety Annie raced into the sea. Soon the whirling surf was up to her chest. Now she was alongside the figure. Her outstretched hand caught hold of some white cloth – yes, it was a person. And still alive, a young woman! At last she had the figure under the arms and she began the long task of dragging the body backwards through the waves. She stumbled twice, falling back under the water, terrifying herself. But she clung on and, step by step, she made progress. Just as her strength began to leave her, she felt the suck of the backsurge weaken and with a final effort Annie pulled the poor creature up onto the sand. The old woman had completely exhausted herself and she lay now on the beach, her chest heaving as she desperately tried to get her wind back. She breathed deeply, once, twice.

  And then the night sky lit up and a huge roar echoed around the bay.

  Annie gasped and sat up quickly to look out to sea. The ship had gone, utterly destroyed. She turned back towards the girl she’d saved and saw that she was a beautiful young thing – and a garbled prayer of thanks poured from the old housekeeper that the poor child had been spared.

  Annie got to her feet and stared out to where a few timbers sparked and smouldered in the water. Then she looked back to the pathetic figure in the white dress that lay at her feet on the sand. The old woman had had very little to love in her childless existence and an unshakable determination now rose in her that this lovely girl shouldn’t die. She opened the clasp knife that hung from her waist and sliced through the livesaver’s ropes. She managed to get her arm about the girl and, half carrying and half dragging her, she moved the limp figure along the beach and up the steps to the castle entrance. At last she had her inside and by the big fire in her kitchen.