It took me a long time to breathe in enough courage to let go of that rock and swim up through the settling waters.
“What the hell did you see, Sam?” Joe asked me in a hushed whisper as we yanked off our aqua-lungs in the launch.
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice shaking. “But I sure never want to see it again.”
Chapter 4
When we got back to the Triton, we found the Bos’n busy with the crewmen on the dock. They were working under a bright light shining from the deck of the ship. The men were sweating and heaving, trying to shake the huge water hose from the dock’s water tank onto the deck of the ship. Jack Finn was cursing and bouncing around like a dog with fleas, alternately cursing and encouraging the straining Irishers.
We climbed on board, and Joe approached the Bos’n.
“Boats!”
“Yes sir,” said Jack Finn coming up.
“When the hell can you get us out of here?”
Jack Finn thought a second. “Two, three hours.”
“Make it snappy,” Joe said, and turned to go below. At that moment I looked toward the beach in front of the village, and saw a number of torches burning brightly on the sand.
“What’s that?” I asked casually. “Irish Clambake?”
Finn joined me at the ship’s rail. Joe turned from the hatchway and came back.
Jack Finn shook his head. “Whatever it is, it’s been going on for a couple hours. All the time you’ve been away.”
As we watched, we could hear the muffled tolling of a church bell, booming monotonously and sonorously in the distance.
“Listen!”
I strained my ears, and then I could hear it too. It was a far-off moaning and humming, a gloomy lament, a wordless, keening cry in the night.
“Sounds like a wake,” Joe said grimly. “That’s a hell of a send-off for us. I’ll be glad to see the last of this place!”
I heard someone behind me, and I turned. It was Sean McCartin. He too was watching the shore.
“ ’Tis a wake for the two divers who died this afternoon,” Sean said softly. “One has not even yet been found.”
Joe frowned. “What are you doing on deck, boy?”
Jack Finn interrupted. “I told him he could watch us, sir. I hope it’s all right.” He grinned. “The lad has a feeling for the Triton and the ocean, being an islander.”
Joe considered a moment, and then nodded. “Okay. Be sure you git when I tell you git. We’re sailing soon.”
“Yes sir,” said Sean. “But there is a message I came to deliver. In the excitement I’ve nearly forgotten.”
Joe glowered. “What is it?
“My father wants to see you.” Sean looked from Joe to me, and then his glance dropped. “ ’Tis a fine rage he’s in.”
“A rage is it?” Joe snarled. “Come on, Sam. Let’s see what the devil this joker’s got up his sleeve.”
We didn’t have to go up to the cottage. We found the big red-bearded man standing on the beach surveying the torchlight activity with a jaundiced eye. He had his large hands on his hips, and was scowling at a group of villagers hauling a rowing boat along the sand into the water.
As we came up, we could hear him barking angrily in Gaelic, telling the men to keep away from him. All he got in return were sullen glances from the dour boatmen. Finally he turned away in disgust.
Then he saw us in the light of the flaming torches, and came stomping over.
“So there you are, you damned snoopers!”
Joe nodded. I was right beside him and I could see his arms tense up as if he were going to throw his fists at McCartin. I began to sweat. McCartin wasn’t loved by the villagers, but we were loved even less. It would be a very fine bruhaha if it started. The thing we had to do was hold our tempers. I figured I was all right, but I could never predict Joe. I’ve seen him fracture a man’s skull in a bar fight.
“So what’s it to you?” Joe grinned wolfishly, his tone inviting trouble.
“I told you not to prowl the bay out there! My divers told me you’ve been smelling around, like a bitch in heat.”
“Who’s to stop us?” Joe asked, breathing heavily.
“Are you doubting I can?” McCartin cried angrily.
“Maybe I am!” Joe said.
McCartin moved impulsively towards us. But then, as he got closer, I could see a flicker of indecision in his eyes. Obviously there was something else on his mind that was worrying him more than we were. I wondered for a moment what it was.
The red beard showed golden highlights in the torch flames. “After you load your water, you leave. Tonight.”
“The sooner the better,” Joe said testily.
McCartin stared at us in surprise. He couldn’t figure out what had made such a radical change in our attitude.
Joe relaxed and waved at the torches on the beach. “What’s all this?”
Sean was standing a little to the rear of us in the dark. He stepped up then, and said: “ ’Tis a wake they’re holding. That, and the thing we do when men are lost. For Ogra, the sea-spirit, that is.”
McCartin’s eyes opened wide, and his cheeks blew out in rage. “You! Go on with you. Get up to the house! This instant!”
Sean stared up at his father with a defiant expression and when McCartin moved toward him with a half-threatening swing of his big shoulders, the boy moved out of reach. Then he turned and began to go across the sand.
McCartin looked after his son, then turned and gazed at the torches stuck in the sand. “They’re no better than pagans, none of them. Father Donnelly would never allow it, but he only gets out here twice a year.”
McCartin looked at both of us, and then he moved off down the beach toward the cottage path. After a moment he was swallowed up in the gloom.
“Come on,” Joe said. “Let’s get back on board. I don’t want to have to tangle with that creep again.”
I started along after him, but then stopped, watching the activity on the beach. Some of the villagers were building bonfires on the shore. Others were moving toward the rowboats lined up at the edge of the water. They held torches as they climbed into the boats. From the cobblestone streets of the tiny village, groups of men moved toward me with the flaming torches held high in the air. The black smoke from them curled up into the night air.
“Somhairle!”
I jumped. It was Moira McCartin, standing beside me on the beach. She had approached me while I was concentrating on the ancient pageantry about me. I wondered why she had come.
“You’re leaving,” she said.
I nodded, feeling embarrassment. She had wanted to come with us. But we were sailing on such quick notice, I doubted if we could arrange for her to come along. Besides, I didn’t like to think what would happen if Joe began getting any bright ideas with her on board.
“Yes, Moira,” I said. “Unexpectedly. We must sail tonight. Before morning.”
I saw her looking up at me with those beautiful eyes, and in the flickering torchlight I could see tears forming around their edges.
“You’re going without me.”
I swallowed. “To take you would cause complications,” I said lamely. “I don’t want to be responsible for what might happen to you.”
“The skipper,” she said with a low laugh. “You are afraid for me.” She turned her head and looked off at the water in the harbor. Bright flashes of firelight danced in her hair. “But I can take care of myself.”
I reached out and touched her shoulder. “Moira,” I said softly. “It would not work. You do not know Captain Ryan. When it comes to women, he is a man without scruples. Do you understand what I am saying?”
She nodded. “And do you understand what I am saying? That I do not care?”
I felt the annoyance building in me. Against Joe Ryan who had taken every girl he’d ever wanted, this slip of a thing . . . ?
“Leave well enough alone, Moira,” I said sharply. “Hear me?”
Her eyes flashed. She t
ossed back her head, and the red hair tumbled around her ears and throat. “I must go!” she said. “I’m begging you, on my knees, to take me with you! Can I do more.”
I grasped both shoulders now and began shaking her. I was angry at her, angry at myself, and most of all angry at Joe who made the whole thing impossible. I don’t know what I was going to say, because I never got the words formed. At that moment I felt myself seized roughly from the side and torn from her. I went sprawling in the sand, hitting hard on my spine.
I shook my head to clear it. Kevin McCartin had returned from the darkness, and was now towering over his daughter, his bristling red beard wild and unruly in the torchlight.
“Slut!” he yelled at her, jostling her roughly. “Lousy little slut! Just like your mother. Can’t keep the smell of a man out of your nose! Get back to the house!”
The girl cowered there, brushing her hair back out of her eyes, holding herself away from him.
Outraged at her silence, McCartin drew back his hand and flung it, open-palmed, into her face. Moira fell back screaming, going out full length on the sand, the dress she was now wearing pulled up around her thighs. She crawled to her feet, digging at the sand around her, crying out, sobbing with her shame.
I sprang for McCartin’s throat. I wanted to strangle the man. I wanted to tear out his vocal chords. I wanted to rip that damn red beard off his face hair by hair and listen to him scream.
But I never got the chance. He was waiting for me figuring I’d be just the fool I was. As I leaped, he side-stepped me, and hacked down at my neck with his huge meathook of a hand. He slapped me into the sand, face first.
I came up spitting dried kelp and seashells. The big bastard was circling about, crouched, waiting for me to come at him again. I got to my feet warily and approached him. Both of us circled. I stepped closer and feinted at him. He didn’t turn a hair.
By now the villagers were gathering in a disinterested circle, holding the torches high and watching us with flat, expressionless eyes. No one lifted a finger to help either one of us. I noticed that with sardonic delight. As for Moira, I heard her sobbing some distance off. I hoped she was all right.
I moved in again, drawing back my right arm for a roundhouse blow. The big man retreated a step, and held firm. Then I came around again, still moving in. McCartin took my cue and prepared to deliver a knockout punch to me. He stepped back with his right foot, swinging his arm for the blow.
It was a simple matter after that. What I did was to execute a more or less satisfactory Judo throw call uki-goshi. As McCartin swung his right arm to the rear and stepped back with his right foot. I moved rapidly toward him on my left foot, at the same time grabbing his left wrist with my right hand, and circling his waist under his upraised right arm with my left arm. We were hip to hip. I tightened myself to him, and rolled the big body over my left hip, turning to the right as I did so. McCartin wasn’t familiar with the maneuver, and I toppled him over like a poleaxed steer.
He lay there stunned a moment, and a murmur of desultory approval came from the villagers standing nearby.
He shook himself doggedly, and rose slowly to his feet. But I wasn’t alone now. As I waited for the big man to charge me, I was shouldered roughly aside from the rear, and Joe Ryan stepped up to face McCartin.
“Get up, McCartin,” Joe said, “and beat it out of here! We’ve had enough trouble from you.”
McCartin glanced across at me as he stumbled to his feet, and stared sullenly at Joe. Without another word he turned and vanished into the darkness.
I grinned at Joe. “You came just in time, pal.”
Joe snorted. “You seemed to be doing all right, Sam.” Then the yellow cat’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What were you trying to do—prove yourself to that redheaded sea witch?”
I snorted and turned away, trying to get my breath. Moira was nowhere to be seen. Smart girl, I thought. But she’d better stay out of her father’s sight. He’d be rough when he caught up with her.
The villagers were now going about their tasks again on the shore line. Joe and I watched them. Already several of the rowboats were moving across the harbor from a left to right direction. In each boat two men carried torches, one in the bow, the other in the stern.
The leading boat was already halfway around the arc of a circle that would bring it back to shore across the harbor. The torch-bearer in the bow of the first boat was a dignified patriarch of the village, a leathery seaman with a strong, weathered face.
As the other boats fell into line behind him, he rose in the bow and held a crucifix up in his hand. Even from the shore the glittering reflection was plainly visible. He held it out in front of him, lifting his eyes to the skies.
Now, from around me, came the keening of the villagers’ dirge. The sound of it swept out from the shore over the waters, and echoed back from the cliffs with an eerie hollow moan. Shivers ran up and down my spine. I could tell that Joe, standing beside me, was transfixed too, swept up in the haunting agony of human grief.
And then, suddenly, as we all watched, hypnotized by the unearthly flicker of the wavering torches, spell bound by the wailing, the piercing scream of a terrified youth in one of the boats cut through the sound. Everything stopped, abruptly.
For a frozen instant everyone in the harbor was silent, and there was no noise at all but the lapping of the water on the boat hulls. Then, in the vague torchlight, I could see a small figure rise in the third boat, and plunge a long heavy harpoon down into the water by the prow.
I glanced at Joe. He was frowning as he peered into the harbor. None of us could see anything more. All around the villagers craned forward, listening, looking.
As we gaped, curious and startled by the agonized shriek that now repeated itself, the sea lifted up under the flickering procession of funeral boats, and a form that was neither water nor earth nor human reared into the air, sending the third boat high on its stern and toppling it over.
Rooted to the spot, I stared at what seemed to be a huge, massive shape writhing out of the water. Men and boat now plunged down, and the sea water churned about, foaming and sizzling as the torches plunged into it.
I could see the outline of a huge body, some twenty feet high, searching for something. The young boy’s scream sounded again, for the third time. The huge bulky shape turned in upon itself, slashing at the second boat with a huge tail, which now became visible to us for the first time.
“My God!” I cried. “It’s huge! As big as a house!”
We ran down to the shore now. Around us the villagers surged, eyes wide, mouths open, crossing themselves mechanically as they watched the fantastic, unbelievable visitation.
I saw Sean dart in front of me, and then Moira came running in from the cliffside. McCartin lumbered over, his eyes wide and aghast. The dirge was finished. A heavy, suspenseful silence closed down over us.
Men in the water began screaming for help. Cries of “Tarrthail, tarrthail,” echoed in the harbor. The huge beast turned again, moving toward one of the swimming men. A boat sailed around in back of the big beast, and the torchlights in it cast the monster into profile. It was like some prehistoric saurian, a giant marine lizard of some kind left over from the Mesozoic era. I’d certainly never seen its like in any textbook.
The boats circled about now, headed for shore. I could see the monster loom up into the skies, looking around in curiosity, following the wavering lights with its beady eyes.
Sean McCartin danced up and down in front of me. “It’s Ogra!” he cried. “Ogra!”
Someone else took up the chant. Soon it was echoing all about us and the torches waved back and forth.
The monster moved to the nearest boat, reaching out for it with one of its upper limbs. At the end of the prehensile extremity were huge cleaning talons. It reached out with them, and closed on a boat. The boat was lifted and crushed like a toy in a baby’s bathtub.
The boatmen in another craft threw harpoons at the beast. But I could
see the harpoons glance harmlessly off the tough, scaly hide.
But now another villager, a superior marksman, tried for the head. The harpoon hit close to the right eye and imbedded itself between the scales. The wound instantly sprouted blood and the monster reared back, dazed suddenly, and tried to shake out the sharp, barbed harpoon.
For a moment there was an awed silence.
Then the monster lifted its bleeding head and emitted a terrifying roar that bounded back earsplitting from the cliffs across the water. And as it roared, it moved forward, violently beating the water with its massive, powerful tail. It flung boats to the right and left, extinguishing the torches, battering the crafts to kindling wood. Men’s bodies ripped to pieces, smashed to shapeless flesh and bone by the power of the slapping tail, were tossed in all directions.
Now McCartin roared out, urging two of the villagers on. They were carrying rifles, and they started firing at the big beast.
“Shoot!” roared McCartin, “Shoot!”
Sean ran pell-mell across the sand, trying to stop them.
“No, father! No!”
McCartin cuffed the boy out of the way and the rifles began again.
Bullets had no effect on the beast. It roared and clawed with its massive talons at the flying slugs, as if it were swiping at a bothersome swarm of mosquitoes. It kept coming toward us.
Flipping its tail to the left and right, the monster scattered the remainder of the fleeing boats, and now the men, women and children on the beach began to run past us toward the shelter of the village. Joe and I pushed our way to the front, grabbing up large brands from the bonfire, waving them toward the beast.
Some of the more able-bodied villagers got the idea, and began manipulating their own torches. I glimpsed Sean standing in the sand, frozen, fascinated, and not joining in. The look on his face was strangely sympathetic, a look of anguish. I couldn’t see Moira at all.
We waved the torches at the huge beast as it leered at us from the edge of the surf. It thrust its head with the beady little red eyes down towards us, studying us curiously, like the ants we seemed to be. I could feel the hot stink of its breath as the immense head came closer. I fell back a bit, and so did those about me.
Gorgo Page 4
