Evolution of Fear

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Clay grabbed the toe rail, pulled them close. Her hull was wood; the decking, cabin, cockpit, all made of gleaming, cared-for teak.

  ‘She was built in Bombay in 1965,’ said Punk. ‘The hull is one-and-a-quarter-inch planking all around, two-by-three-inch frames every fourteen inches. All teak. You could run a Centurion tank over her, wouldn’t bother her in the slightest. Ever sailed a ketch?’

  Clay shook his head. His sailing experience had come as a boy, summers off Durban with his mother’s brother, a keen ocean racer. He’d crewed several races, learned a lot. On his last leave before jump school he had raced from Durban to Cape Town with his uncle. That was the last time he’d sailed.

  ‘The mizzen is a treat, once you know how to use it, especially in rough weather. Experiment with it, you’ll figure it out.’

  Clay tied off the dinghy’s bow line and climbed aboard. The cockpit was small, functional. The decking gleamed in the flat light, the fittings looked as if they had been polished only hours ago. This boat was loved, adored.

  Punk hoisted himself aboard, swung his leg over the lifeline, whispering something to himself, or was it to this object of his affection? A lover’s greeting, an invocation. Punk unlocked the main hatch, slid open the gangway cover and ushered Clay below.

  It was like stepping inside a museum, a shrine to nautical tradition. Oiled teak, brass Clay could see himself in, his face warped and disfigured, copper. Heavy brass instruments adorned the bulkhead panelling, a ship’s chronometer running to time, a thermometer, an elegant barometer that read one thousand and one millibars. Books lined both sides of the cabin behind teak rails. A fully equipped galley, navigation station with new electronics. It was all here.

  Clay stood for a moment and listened to the water rippling against the hull, surrounding him, amniotic. He felt like an intruder, being shown things he should not see, Gyges hiding in the shadows, watching Candaules’ queen undressing, the thin silk of her dress falling across her breasts and over her round hips, pillowing to the floor, Punk the proud, soon-to-be-murdered king. A shiver ran through him, cold like the October wind moaning outside.

  ‘This was going to be my escape,’ said Punk. ‘Estelle and me. Get out, go live in the Greek islands. Never worked out that way.’ He pulled open the engine compartment, revealing a beautifully maintained diesel engine. ‘There’s a full tank of fuel, a hundred gallons of fresh water in two tanks, fore and aft, plenty of food, as long as you don’t mind baked beans and sardines.’

  Clay smiled. ‘I can’t take her,’ he said.

  Punk turned, stood there with the foam-insulated engine panel in his hands. ‘I’m not coming down from twenty,’ he said. ‘The deal’s struck.’

  ‘It’s not the money, broer. You got anything else?’

  Punk looked out the starboard porthole at the building weather. ‘Nothing that’s going to survive what’s coming. If you’re set on going, this is the best you can do. Believe me.’

  Clay could see what the boat meant to this old guy, the love he’d poured into her, the years of faithful care, the hoped for adventures.

  ‘Look, guv,’ said Punk, ‘my friends are going to be here soon. It’s all in motion now, as we used to say back in the day. Nothing for it now but to push on.’

  He was ex-army, Clay was sure now. Maybe a para like him. He wasn’t going to ask, just like Punk wasn’t going to tell.

  Punk produced a set of keys, flicked them by like pages in an unwritten book. Engine ignition, padlocks for the hatch cover, starboard cockpit locker, safe under the port saloon locker. Clay took the keys and pocketed them. Sails forward, full complement, labelled. Extra sheets and warps in the starboard cockpit locker. Self-steering gear. Tool kit, emergency tiller, planking for repairs in the forward port-side locker. Full set of charts in the nav station, Baltic to the Med, radio, lights, transponder.

  ‘No GPS, mind,’ said Punk. ‘I’m a bit of a purist that way. How’s your celestial navigation?’

  ‘Rusty. Sextant on board?’

  ‘Included in the price. That’s about all.’ Punk looked at Clay and held out his hand. They shook. Clay counted out the cash.

  ‘Oh, and one more thing,’ said Punk, shoving the wad of bills into his trouser pocket. He crouched down, reaching up and under the nav table. A teak panel swung open. ‘Priest hole.’

  Clay peered inside. It was about the size of a kitchen freezer.

  ‘Me mate’s a master cabinet maker,’ said Punk, arms crossed, smiling with pride. ‘Join work is perfect. Completely invisible once it’s closed up. There’s an air vent to the outside, even a foam base for your arse.’ He looked Clay down and up. ‘Might be a little tight for you, mind. But you never know, do you?

  Clay smiled. ‘You never do, broer.’

  Punk reached into the compartment, withdrew a polished wooden instrument and closed the door. He stood for a moment looking down at the thing, a miniature guitar. He looked up at Clay and handed him the ukulele. ‘Nights can get long,’ he said with an oblique scowl, half grin, half frown. ‘Especially single-handed.’

  ‘I’m getting used to it.’

  Punk grinned wide, pushed the ukulele into Clay’s hand. Like the rest of this place, the instrument gleamed as if it had been freshly, lovingly polished.

  ‘Play left-handed,’ Punk said. ‘Strum with your stump.’

  Clay looked into Punk’s eyes and smiled.

  ‘Rhodesia?’ Punk said.

  Clay shook his head.

  ‘When’d you leave South Africa?’

  ‘Eighty-three.’

  Punk nodded, turned and climbed the companionway steps. Clay followed him up to the cockpit. Above decks, the wind had risen. Waves thudded against the hull. The rigging sang. A few drops of rain spattered the deck, dotted the murky water.

  ‘Look after her for me,’ Punk said with a catch in his voice as he clambered down into the dinghy. ‘She needs to get out, do what she was made for.’ He untied the line and started back to shore.

  Clay stood a moment and watched Punk row for shore. He considered calling out, something about bringing Flame back to him, when this was all done, then thought better of it and turned away.

  He jumped below, found the small jib bag and pushed it up through the forward hatch onto the foredeck. In a few minutes he had the foresail hanked on and ready to go, the sheets made good and lined back to the cockpit. He pulled off the main cover, attached the halyard, checked the main winch and made ready the unfamiliar mizzen. The engine started first go, that comforting diesel rattle, not fast, but could go all day. He walked forward, looking back towards Punk’s yard, the chimney of the cottage trailing a wisp of smoke, and let go the mooring buoy.

  Soon Flame was motoring seaward, the estuary opening up broad and flat on both sides, the breakwater passing astern now, the breeze fresh in his face, the heads at Penlee looming to starboard, Haybrook bay to the east. The wind was strong but steady, eighteen knots by the anemometer, gusting twenty-five he guessed, the swell coming in strong now, Flame’s bow ploughing through the waves, the big, full keel steady and heavy, all that steel ballast holding her centre straight like a compass, a conviction.

  Clear of land now, Lizard Head off distant to the west, the Spanish coast somewhere over the horizon, through the black clouds and the grey sea, five hundred nautical miles distant. If he pushed, with a bit of luck and a following wind, he could be in Santander in four days.

  And somewhere out there, another thousand miles away again, across yet more sea, mountains, coastlines and frontiers, Rania.

  By noon, Flame was foaming along at ten knots under foresail, reefed mainsail and mizzen in a force four westerly. Clay made west as hard as he could, knowing that, in the northern hemisphere, the wind would back as the storm moved south. He was making good time. The weather had closed in, the clouds close and heavy, visibility still reasonable. Just after one, a small freighter appeared then tracked away off to the north, heading for the coast. He had long since lost sigh
t of land.

  Trimmed up, the wheel lashed, Flame heeling nicely, he moved around the cabin, stowing his few things in the priesthole – the money, the guns and ammunition, all sealed in plastic inside a duffel bag – exploring the food stores, laying out the charts, plotting a dead reckoning position he had taken half an hour earlier. He opened a can of baked beans and ate it cold sitting in the cockpit.

  He was estimating distance made good, Flame foaming along, close-hauled in a rising wind, stays and sheets strumming like guitar strings, when a pounding chop cut through the symphony. His body tensed, reflexed, knew what it was before his brain had time to compute, and he was back in Ovamboland, the Alouettes roaring in above the treetops, door guns blazing, the whump of the blades detonating in his chest, the white dust spinning all around, blinding, leaves and branches swirling in the storm, the atmosphere jumping with electricity, lead and steel ripping through the air, tearing at its very fabric, shearing the molecules he breathed. The noise was getting louder. At first he thought it was another of his hallucinations, another post-traumatic spell to ride out. He grabbed the gangway-hatch guide plate, steadied himself. The metal strip fixed into the teak decking was vibrating, the frequency matching the pounding beat. It was real.

  He clambered into the cockpit and searched the clouds. And then it was there, right above him, fifty metres above the masthead, no more, in a gap in the clouds. A Bell Jet Ranger, hovering tail up, jerking in the scuttling cloud like a hornet in a wildfire.

  9

  The Difference between Living and Dying

  The helicopter hung in mid-air for an instant, the pilots fish-bowled inside their Perspex bubble, headphones over their ears, working the pedals, the stick, struggling with the rising wind, peering down at him through the rip in the cloud. The machine pitched and yawed, battered by the gusts, the turbine screaming. As the tail swung around, Clay glimpsed the civilian registration markings, the blue stripes on the fuselage. The clouds were closing in, racing across the sky like crazed greyhounds. He could see the pilots’ mouths working behind the headset microphones as they fought to keep the little sailboat in view, the gap in the cloud narrowing. They were right above him now, staring down at him. The pilot had dark hair, a dark moustache, green-tinted Raybans. The man beside him was bulkier, fleshy, pink-faced. Clay could see the perspiration shining on his forehead, a wisp of platinum hair jutting out from under the headset strap. Their eyes met. It was Crowbar.

  Clay held his old platoon commander’s gaze for an instant, he there on the pitching deck, the other no more than thirty metres above, swirling in the gale, dancers parting on a crowded floor. Then he raised his hand, made a gun, flicked his thumb. Son of a bitch, he mouthed. I trusted you. Loved you even, as a boy loves an older brother, a father.

  Before Crowbar could react, Clay wrenched the wheel hard to port, falling off with the wind. Flame responded instantly, the sails driving the hull through the water. The compass spun as Flame went from close-hauled to broad reach in a matter of seconds. Clay opened up the main, let Flame flatten out, then eased the jib and mizzen, cleated the sheets and felt the surge of speed as she ran with the wind and the sea. He looked up over his shoulder just as the clouds closed, swallowing the helicopter. In a matter of seconds the dull concussion of rotor blades faded and was gone, leaving only the blood echo of empty, pounding loss.

  With Flame trimmed up in a searing broad reach, Clay noted time and heading and went below. He sat at the nav station, the chart spread before him, the dead-reckoning track jerking across the paper, bearings, times, estimated distances. Current position was about forty-five nautical miles south of Falmouth, give or take. With any luck, Koevoet had seen his course change and would be projecting a direct downwind run across the Channel to Normandy. He had to assume that they were calling in his position right now, that a chase boat would soon be on its way. That gave him a couple of hours at most. There was no way to outrun them. The storm was his only ally.

  Clay tuned the radio, dialling in the continuous marine weather report. It didn’t take long to get the news: severe gale warning, deepening depression tracking south and east across the Channel towards the Bay of Biscay, a secondary low developing over Ushant, the westernmost part of France, expected winds force five gusting to six or seven, seas four to six metres. Jesus. He’d never been in anything like this before. But there was no question of running for shelter. As Punk had said, it was all in motion now. He would head straight for the storm, lose himself in the heart of the depression, dare the bastards to follow him in. Clay looked at the chart, up at the barometer. Nine hundred and ninety-two, a fall of nine millibars in three hours. It was coming, fast and furious, and he was riding its whip edge. Time to dive in. Just try to catch me.

  Clay set about preparing. He found the kettle, half-filled it with water, fired up the stove and clamped the kettle down tight on the burner. The stove swung on its gimbals, the kettle perfectly happy despite Flame’s corkscrewing shimmy. He broke out a tin of beans, dumped them into a saucepan on the second burner then opened a can of sardines and dropped two of the salty darts into his mouth. He drank a litre of water, the taste clean aluminium. With the food warming, he went forward and rummaged in the wet locker. Punk’s heavy-weather gear was two sizes too small. Clay found an old wool sweater and pulled it over his head, tore the cuffs of the oilskin jacket up to the elbows along the seam and stuffed himself into it. He was too broad. It wouldn’t close across the chest. He found a pair of fingerless wool gloves, pulled on the right one, threw the left back into the locker and donned a black wool skullcap. It wasn’t going to keep him dry, but it was the best he could do. It would get cold in there.

  Soon the beans were steaming. He gulped them down straight from the pan with the rest of the sardines, poured the hot water into a steel thermos and sanded in a handful of instant coffee and a slug of sugar. He stowed the pot and kettle, stuffed a handful of muesli bars into his jacket pocket, wedged the ukulele tight between the settee cushions and climbed above deck.

  Coming out of the warmth and relative peace of the cabin into the fury of the rising storm was like waking up to a firefight, an awakening as rude as birth. His stomach lurching, more from fear than the increasingly violent motion, Clay stashed the thermos in the small aft locker, checked the compass, his watch, and looked up at the rigging, the too-dark sky close, boiling. He had too much sail up.

  It took him the best part of half an hour to put another reef in the main, shorten the mizzen, hank on and raise the storm jib, everything so much more difficult with just four fingers and one thumb. Then he brought Flame’s bow reluctantly to wind and set course for Ushant and the dark eye of the storm.

  As the depression tracked south and east, the wind backed, pushing Flame along in rising seas. Night fell, cold and brutal. By 21.00 the barometer had fallen another seven millibars. Clay estimated the winds at force five, howling through the taut rigging like wounded jackals. By 22.30 he had to douse the main, fighting with the flapping canvas as Flame pitched and yawed in a universe that seemed to have no end and no beginning. Punk was right. She was a strong little boat, this thirty-two feet of teak and brass, surfing the frothing wavetops, grinding through the black troughs.

  Just after midnight he caught a glimpse of lights somewhere off his starboard bow, a freighter perhaps, steaming south. He watched it a moment, imagining the well-lit bridge, warm and dry inside, the comforting rumble of the big engines underfoot, and then it was gone. Under storm jib and mizzen trysail, Flame hurtled into the depression. With the glass at 993 and falling, Clay closed up the hatch, took the wheel and tied himself into the cockpit.

  By 0300 hours, the last of the coffee gone, Flame was reaching in heavy quartering seas. Clay’s arms and shoulders ached with the continuous effort of keeping Flame on some sort of course. The wind seemed to have stabilised at something like force five, a deafening, almost human cry. Even under shortened sail, they were making ten knots, maybe more. With only the dull phospho
rescent glow of the compass to guide them, they rode the contours of the storm. Clay peered out into the darkness. Somewhere out there was the eye, the dark centre of the depression. Fear came hard. Koevoet’s people were out there. Clay had accepted that now, the wound of betrayal, the death of friendship. The company, Crowbar had called it, guns for hire. Just business. But this was a new kind of fear, sharper, more discriminating, seeping from deep within his cortex, Neolithic, ungovernable. And he knew that it was not like anything he had ever felt before. Fuck Koevoet. And fuck Medved – the bastard had deserved it. No, it wasn’t any of that. And it wasn’t the storm, this uncaring thing he was offering himself to. Nor was it death itself, or even the manner of dying, or the totality of all of this, the aggregated power swirling all around him, the pure indifference of it. It was something else. And as he wrestled with the tiller, his shoulders and arms burning with the effort, the icy wind tearing into the core of him, he knew. It was her. The impossible vulnerability of her. The power. God, just don’t think about it, he said to himself. Focus on this wave, this wall of black water, just get it behind you. Get there. Get to her first.

  He pushed the little boat on through the night, skidding and pounding through the chaos, riding the isobar as it spun towards the continent. With each wave, Flame’s bow pitched high until Clay was staring up into the swirling cloud. A star winked and was gone. Time stopped, hung there a moment, cresting a mountain, the bare mast just visible against the cloud. And up there, on the top of the world, songs came in the wind, screaming ballads. He could see Rania’s face, her mouth open wide so he could see her teeth and the black emptiness at the back of her throat, her midnight hair a hurricane about her head, and the rhythm of it was hard and adrenaline-fast, like a frightened heart, and she was sitting there cross-legged like a schoolgirl on the cabin roof, singing to him, a dirge all her own, the notes ragged and torn so that he could make out neither melody nor lyrics. He blinked the rain from his eyes, closed them hard. Go away, please, he said out loud. Not now. And then he felt it in his feet, his guts, the start of the fall, and down he went, eyes wide, nothing before him but the deep brine, pulling him in. And on that long ride down it was as if he could see into the cold depth of it, below that mean, slicked surface, down to the calm currents and the big, ancient bottom fishes, the sea-floor vents, the mud of aeons lying quiet and thick and so heavy. And then the shuddering impact and they were under, the bow buried. A cold sheet of brine knocked him to the cockpit floor, burying him. Water swirled all around. He reached for the wheel, pulled himself up spluttering and coughing, the salt burning in his mouth, the little ketch shedding water in thick streams as she struggled back out of the wave and began her climb up the next.