The Night Boat

by Robert McCammon

Chapter Twenty-five

 

  MOORE STOOD PEERING out through the windshield, his eyes probing the dark for the thing he knew must be here, somewhere, perhaps dangerously close, perhaps a dozen miles away. Bolts of lightning crackled, striking deep into the sea. Wind whistled around the edges of the wheelhouse, died away, built back up.

  Moore had no idea how long they'd been tracking the U-boat - or was the U-boat tracking them now? - because his wristwatch had shattered when he'd fallen to the deck. It was a matter of hours, he was certain, but time here was elusive, something alien. His body was fatigued, his eyes ached from straining out to the horizon. They had not sighted any land nor any other ships, and once when Kip had gone out onto the deck, he let a blast of air into the wheelhouse that felt thick and hot, as if the sun were beating down directly overhead.

  "Turn us back to Coquina, Cheyne," Jana called from where she sat at the rear of the wheelhouse.

  "Your trawler can't take the force of these waves much longer. The U-boat's gone. It's gotten away and you won't be able to find it again. "

  Cheyne said nothing; he paid no attention to her.

  She rose and made her way forward. "Damn it!" she said, her gray eyes blazing. "Listen to me! You can't cover the whole of the Caribbean! And if you do find the boat again, how can you ever hope to force it to the reef? It will crush this trawler to pieces!"

  Cheyne glanced over at her and then at the other two men. "I've returned to original course, directly into the passage between Big Danny Cay and Jacob's Teeth toward the sea lanes. I know where they're headed. Turning back to grind us under cost them time; if they hadn't we would've lost them for sure. "

  He stared into Jana's face. "I didn't ask you to come. I didn't ask any of you. You all came of your own free will; I didn't have to tell you what you'd be facing out here. " He looked away, his gaze sweeping the wild horizon. "The currents come together between the cay and the Teeth; they drive a boat through there like a bullet. And that's where they'll try to go through into the lanes a few miles beyond. No. I'm not turning back now. "

  "You can't stop them," Jana said. "You're mad if you think you can!"

  "Maybe I am," he acknowledged. "But if I can't drive the boat over the Teeth, then. . . As for the artillery, or a bomb. . . Moore, take that lantern from back there and step down into the cabin. I want this woman to see something. "

  Moore turned up the wick and went down, carefully, through the narrow opening. "Go take a look," Cheyne told Jana.

  The light illuminated a small galley, a couple of bare-mattressed bunks, and more coils of rope and crates. Moore edged forward, watching his footing, and Jana followed close behind. Where the frames and plankings came together near the bow the crates were piled on top of each other and secured with heavy ropes. On some of them he could make out faded letters: CAUTION. HIGH EXPLOSIVES. He remembered the crate he'd kicked away on the deck. Dynamite. The fuses led out from cracks in the boxes, winding around each other to make a single, thick fuse, which was attached to a small reel. Bundles wrapped in clear plastic were tied to plankings, the cord fuses bound to the others. He raised the light and saw the long, brown sticks. There were four crates and two bundles of the plastic-wrapped dynamite. Enough for a tremendous explosion.

  They made their way silently back into the wheel-house. "Put that lamp back on the shelf," Cheyne said. He saw an opening beyond, spun the wheel for it; the Pride vibrated. Jana stared at him, her face pale. "That's the dynamite we stole from those company men," Cheyne said. "So you see, I did come prepared. "

  "The entire boat. . . ?" Jana asked softly.

  "Dynamite packed in the bow, drums of diesel fuel in the hold. When the primary fuse is wound out there'll be three minutes before the flame sets off the first case. When the explosion comes it'll take off the bow section and turn those hardwood plankings into spears. Then the hold will go, and those fuel drums will blow like. . . "

  ". . . depth charges," Moore said.

  Cheyne glanced quickly at him, sweat shining on his face, his massive shoulders glistening with the effort of controlling the rudder. Then he returned his gaze to the sea. "Three minutes to get off before the bow blows. "

  "Off? Where?" Jana thrust out her arm. "Into that sea?"

  "If it happens. . . if I have to light that primary fuse," Cheyne told her, "you'll gladly take your chances in the water, storm or no. Now stop your chatter and get out of my way. " He saw holes opening ahead, veered for the nearest; the sea streamed over the port beam and then rolled off, as if the Pride had shrugged her shoulders of the ocean.

  Cheyne kept the wheel under firm control. He saw the barometer was still descending; a pulse throbbed at the base of his throat. He looked across as the floating compass rose, and slowly corrected two points. Sweat dripped from his chin and spattered onto the instrumentation panel. He was listening for a noise over the gobbling racket of the diesels: the faint rattling of the warning buoys on the southeastern point of Jacob's Teeth. The sea would be twisting them around, making their bells hammer. Cheyne was staring off to port at about ninety degrees when the next few flashes of lightning cut the darkness. He had sailed these waters a thousand times with the Carib fishing fleet, and sheer instinct told him the cay should be within sight, though some miles distant; beyond them would be the treacherous, hundred-yard-long stretch of the reefs.

  But the lightning revealed only the wind-whipped sea. Something was wrong. Was it possible the compass was off, he wondered, or had his instincts been fooled by the storm? He leaned forward slightly, over the wheel, staring into the sea. It's not right, damn it! he told himself, his eyes flint-hard. Nothing is right! He should be hearing those warning buoys by now, and even seeing the wash around the first of the blunt, green-slimed bommies that would sharpen into knife blades ahead. "Try the radio," he said to Moore.

  Moore twisted the dial; this time there was no sound from the radio. He turned up the volume. No squeak of static or electrical interference.

  Only silence.

  "That's funny," Moore said. "Something's wrong with it. . . "

  "No," Cheyne said. "The radio's not out. I don't know what it is. I'm not sure where we are. "

  The wind hissed around the wheelhouse, whispering through cracks in the ceiling.

  "What's the matter?" Kip asked, his voice tight.

  Cheyne looked from side to side, searching for the bommies. There was nothing. He turned to port a few degrees. The wind filtering through the ceiling stank of rot, of something decayed, yet refusing to die.

  The sea stretched out before them, huge and empty, a universe of water. No Big Danny Cay, no landmark bommies. Cheyne eased back on both throttles, his skin beginning to crawl. The boat. . . where was the boat. . . ?

  "I haven't lost it!" he said through clenched teeth. "I haven't lost it! No! It's out there. And it's waiting for me. "

  "Where are we?" Jana asked, looking first at Moore and than at the Carib.

  A wave slammed hard into the hull, rocking the Pride to both sides. The wind pulled at the windshield frame.

  Then there was an abrupt, deafening silence.

  Sea crashed across the bow; Cheyne drove straight through the rising wave, and on the other side of it he clenched his hand tight around the wheel and stared.

  The ocean had flattened into a black, limitless plain. No wind, no slap of sea across the trawler. There was a strange, unnerving stillness.

  "Where are you, bastard?" Cheyne whispered. "Come on, let's be done with it!"

  Cheyne cut back the engines until the Pride was almost sitting still. Lightning flashed across his field of vision. Moore, standing beside him, gripped the instrumentation panel for support.

  "Listen. . . !" Kip said.

  The wind. Rising in the distance. Shrieking, turning, thrashing against itself like a maddened beast.

  Veins of yellow broke open in the sky, cutting the sea into a jigsaw pattern of black
and ocher. Lightning made the water shimmer. In the half-light Moore caught his breath; he'd seen the entire horizon roiling. The hurricane was advancing rapidly, a storm of gargantuan magnitude.

  At the same instant the entire plain of the ocean seemed to rise up, throwing the Pride forward so fast Jana and Kip were slammed against the bulkheads. Cheyne fought with all his strength to hold the rudder, shouting for Moore to help. The wind howled the length of the boat, and as the next roaring water flooded across the Pride there was a snapping noise - wood giving way. One of the masts toppling.

  Moore's head was thrown back, his teeth almost biting through his tongue. Cheyne gasped, pushing against the vibrating wheel, fearful that the rudder would break. The Pride was thrown high, almost free of the water; in the next moment it was toppling down a black wall, the sea smashing against them so hard Moore thought the windshield would shatter. Something hit the boat; there was a grinding noise beneath. Cheyne cursed, fought the rudder.

  The sea was littered with broken planks, pieces of boats, here a huge tree with naked branches - they could see it all by the intermittent lightning's illumination. The battered tin roof of a house whirled past the starboard beam. Floating crates, the bow of a skiff, jagged bits of a storm-broken wharf swept by on each side of the trawler. Sheets of spray drove over the boat, the scream of the wind like a man's outcry. As Moore watched, his shoulder pressing against the wheel, a dark object hurtled across the prow directly toward the wheelhouse: the trunk of a tree, trailing clumps of seaweed. It struck the windshield; glass cracked, stinging Moore's face. Water exploded into the wheelhouse, breaking out more of the glass. The tree trunk twisted, broke off, plunged away into the sea again. Cheyne wrenched at the wheel, his back about to give way, the sweat of pain running down his face. The rudder wouldn't respond!

  And then suddenly, from the darkness straight ahead, as if borne toward them by the hurricane, came the looming, monstrous war machine.

  The Night Boat.

  Cheyne glared at the iron behemoth. "PUSH!" he shouted, his voice ragged. Kip moved forward to help, his feet slipping in water.

  The rudder was still sluggish; the sea had it locked in a powerful grip. The Pride began to turn broadside, helpless before the rush of the oncoming monster. It would strike them on the port side, crushing across the wheelhouse; Moore opened his mouth but could not manage to cry out.

  The iron prow lifted up, up, towering over them. Foam roared beneath it, the noise of certain destruction.

  But then something else rose out of the storm: an apparition, flaming green and ghostly, a vision from a nightmare.

  A freighter. It appeared to be aflame - its length twisted, glowing metal. Burning figures on the decks. A hideous noise of screaming and moaning that made Moore cry out and clap his hands to his ears.

  The freighter, moving with incredible speed, roared between the trawler and the Night Boat; Moore could still see the submarine through a mist of fiery timbers. The U-boat veered away, water thundering against its superstructure; it swept past the trawler, and the grim freighter disappeared within the folds of the sea.

  Cheyne strained at the wheel, his teeth clenched. There was a loud crack that both Moore and Kip first mistook for breaking wood. Cheyne cried out in pain; bone protruded from his left elbow. The rudder came free, the wheel spinning. The Carib fell to his knees. "TAKE THE WHEEL!" he shouted.

  And Moore, his senses reeling, found himself reaching for it, gripping it, his wrists almost breaking. He let the wheel play out and then fought back, feeling the ocean's tremendous strength wrenching at the rudder.

  "KEEP YOUR HANDS ON IT!" Cheyne roared, pulling himself up, his arm dragging uselessly. "DON'T LET IT SLIP!"

  Moore held on, his arms about to rip from their sockets. Spray whipped into his eyes through the broken glass.

  "HOLD HER STEADY!" the Carib shouted.

  The wheelhouse door was suddenly torn from its hinges; in the next white-hot sear of lightning Jana saw the huge form take shape, saw it hurtling toward the Pride's starboard, saw the waves churning at its prow. "It's coming back!" she cried out, holding herself in the doorway. "There! It's coming back!"

  Kip twisted his head around, struggling toward her. He saw it approaching, could imagine the things aboard grinning as they sighted their easy prey.

  It raced onward, parting the sea, the rumble of its diesels and oil-stink filling the wheelhouse. Jana saw the dripping holes of the torpedo tubes as the submarine was lifted high; in that instant she fought for her sanity.

  In the far distance came a sound of metal against metal, a clattering racket borne in by the wind, swiftly carried away. The buoys marking Jacob's Teeth!

  When the submarine was almost upon them Moore felt the rudder respond; he spun the wheel to port. The Night Boat roared alongside, only feet away.

  Kip and Jana were shoved aside by the boat's turning. Cheyne, his broken arm hanging, stood between them, his eyes blazing. Then he staggered along the bucking deck, moving for the bow. He stumbled, fell, regained his footing. The noise of the buoys was more strident now, closer. The Night Boat shuddered, struck the Pride, and then was thrown back by a wave. It came in again, iron grinding along the trawler's hull. Timbers shattered.

  And finally Cheyne had reached the bow; he grasped a thick line and pulled at it. There was a crude twin-grappled anchor attached to the other end used for mooring on reefs. The thick, coarse line was coiled on the deck and made fast to a winch. He heard the buoys rattling dead ahead. If he could lift the anchor, throw it, get it hooked into the submarine's deck railing there was a chance of dragging it across the reefs and splitting that hull open. With one arm he hefted the anchor, the muscles cramping; he couldn't find strength enough to throw it. The Night Boat again crashed against the starboard gunwale. There was no time. In another moment it would be veering off from the Teeth.

  Cheyne pulled the anchor with him and leaped over the gunwale.

  He slammed against the superstructure, pain taking his breath away. He began to slide down the iron, his feet scrabbling at vents. With his good hand he sought to spike the anchor in, like a harpoon, but there was no place to hook it. The sea pounded him. He drove out with the anchor, feeling it catch into something: A collapsed, hanging section of railing.

  The rope snapped tight before his face and he clung to it, dragging in the water. Beside him, the monster vibrated. Hold! he commanded the bolts around the winch on deck. Hold! "I'VE GOT YOU!" he shouted, his mouth filling with water.

  And then the Night Boat swerved toward the Pride. Cheyne was caught between, but still he held the anchor firm into the railing, gasping for breath.

  The two vessels crashed together; the entire starboard gunwale split open. When the submarine pulled away, tightening the rope again, Moore looked for Cheyne but saw he was gone.

  The rattling of the warning buoys rang through the wheelhouse and Moore saw one of the red cans pass to port. They were in the danger zone. He threw the throttles forward, the Pride's diesels screaming. Ahead were the twisted outgrowths of coral; he turned directly for them. The only hope was the trawler's powerful engines against the submarine's ancient ones. The Pride, shuddering with the weight, pulled the Night Boat onward.

  There was a splitting noise, a snapping of coral; Moore heard iron being scraped and gouged as the Night Boat was dragged alongside. Kip saw figures on the conning tower, the terrible things watching with greedy, flaming eyes. A flash of lightning revealed a grim, jawless face.

  Moore continued on into the field of reefs, feeling the Pride being bitten and knifed by the coral. Water streamed into the wheelhouse, almost pulling him away from the wheel, but he fought it off, steering straight for the treacherous growths. Kip and Jana, holding on at the doorway, saw the submarine slam onto a sharp coral slab; iron shrieked, began to fold back.

  And then, the diesels still racketing, the Pride was held firm by the Teeth's bite; mere feet away
the Night Boat came to a stop, its guts pierced by a reef spear, oil leaking from its tank. The two boats hung side by side, each doomed. Waves swirled around them, seeking to break them free.

  Moore turned from the wheel, his eyes searching the shadows. The oil lamp had gone over; it lay on its side and where the glass had cracked a single, weak finger of flame burned. "Take Jana and get off," he told Kip. "Use that broken door as a raft. Hurry!"

  Kip stared, shook his head. "No, David. NO!"

  Moore ducked down through the hatch into the cabin. He reappeared a moment later with the reel of fuse, unwinding it as he backed up the steps. "Get off, I said!" he shouted.

  "There's time for all of us," Kip told him. "Please. . . !" He turned his head; a movement had attracted his attention. The zombies were climbing down from the conning tower, moving across the deck toward the Pride.

  "Take Jana!" Moore shouted. "Go on!"

  Kip grasped his arm. "You're going with us!"

  "If you don't try to fight the sea you can make it. I did. . . a long time ago. Two can make it on that door. Three can't. " He came to the end of the fuse, threw the reel aside; the things were scurrying down the conning tower ladder. One of them tried to pull the anchor free.

  Moore bent down and touched the fuse to the dying flame. It hissed, sparked; a red cinder burned past him, along the plank flooring and toward the bow-section cabin.

  "DAVID!" Jana pulled at his arm. "Please!"

  "I can't leave you," Kip said.

  "They need you on Coquina," Moore told him, his voice hurried. "The things are coming to board the trawler. If they find the fuse and put it out, they may be able to work their boat free of the shoals. They'll find someplace - maybe another Coquina - to repair it. Go on! Get out of here!"

  Kip paused. There was something cold and resolute in Moore's eyes; he had seen a vision beyond Kip's sight. There was nothing else to be said. Kip grasped his good shoulder tightly, then took Jana's hand and dragged her out over her shouted protests. He hauled the battered slab of the door over to the port side. The water was black and wild underneath, dotted with coral. "Listen to me!" Kip shook her hard. "I SAID LISTEN TO ME! Hang on to my back. There'll be a shock when we hit, but don't let go!"

  And then, gripping the door before him like a shield, he leaped over with Jana clinging to him. It was like hitting a solid wall when they struck; water crashed over them, tossed them high and then back down. Kip pushed off from coral, shredding one hand. He kicked with all his strength, trying to catch his breath, hearing Jana cry out in pain as her leg brushed one of the Teeth's needles. The bulk of the door kept them afloat and away from most of the coral. Kip clung to it with all the power he could manage.

  Moore whirled around in the Pride's wheelhouse as two of the zombies appeared in the doorway. They crept forward, claws outstretched. He backed away from them, counting off the seconds. One of them rushed him and he swung at it; the other grasped his arm, throwing him off balance. He staggered and fell through the companionway into the lower cabin. Fingers jabbed at his eyes; he kicked them back, struggling to his feet. Behind him glowed the eye of the fuse. Others came down after him, yellow fangs slavering, talons seeking his throat. He kept backing away, making them follow him toward the bow compartment. How long? his brain shrieked. His flesh was crawling. HOW LONG?

  With another few steps he twisted around to look. The primary fuse sparked higher, separated into four fuses that snaked toward the crates. There was a hiss of fetid breath in his ear; a spidery thing with gaping eye sockets leaped for him, forcing him to the plankings, a claw reaching to rip at his throat. He threw it off, kicked at it, crawled away. He found an odd piece of wood and stood up, brandishing it like a club. The cabin was filled with the stench of smoke and rot; whorls of smoke from the burning fuses undulated around them. One of the things reached out - a face eaten by gray fungus, red eyes staring - and Moore slammed the wood into its chin. It fell back, colliding into the others.

  "COME ON!" he dared them, beckoning with his club. "COME ON AFTER ME!"

  They stopped suddenly, watching him, the eyes moving past to probe the bow shadows. They saw; in the next instant they surged forward, flailing at him, trying to reach the dynamite and tear out the racing fuses. Moore swung wildly, felt the wood break beneath his grip, felt himself flung back by a tremendous, inhuman strength. Only seconds now, the seconds breaking into fragments. Seconds. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.

  Moore stood his ground, blood streaming from a hairline slash; he fought madly with his bare hands against the hideous things that advanced upon him, throwing them to each side, slamming fists against brittle bone.

  And through the knot of living corpses came the one that Moore recognized: the tall, livid-eyed form of Wilhelm Korrin. Moore saw the jawkss face illuminated in the faint red glow of the fuses. Korrin stepped forward slowly, a man in the grip of horrible pain; his arm came up, the finger pointing toward Moore. The hand became a claw, grasping, reaching. The others were motionless, watching their commander.

  And then the hand stopped, inches from Moore's throat. Korrin stood looking at the burning fuse. His head fell back slightly, the eyes closing, the lids blocking off that hellish gaze, as if in expectation of death's final and merciful deliverance.

  An instant before the heat seared him Moore had a split-second sensation: the touch of someone's hand, cool, kind, reaching for his through a wall of mist. He held it tightly. And his last thought was that he was staring toward the sea, that he had seen a beautiful boat in the distance and he must swim to it, must swim to it because he had recognized the name on the transom and they were waiting for him.

  The blast parted the sea. Kip and Jana, struggling through the churning waves, twisted around to look. There was a yellow glare so fierce it hurt their eyes; jagged shards of wood flew through the sky, leaving fiery trails. The bow section of the Pride had disappeared; beside the trawler the fist of a giant pounded the Night Boat, slamming a tremendous rent in the iron just at the waterline. The forward deck collapsed - crumpling, metal shrieking - the conning tower was almost ripped from the superstructure. Iron plates spun into the air, up into blackness. Bits of railing were thrown to all sides. In another roar of flame the Pride's wheelhouse vanished; the second blast deafened them. Drums of fuel were tossed high, and as they dropped back into the sea they exploded just over the surface, covering the submarine with sheets of flame. As Kip watched, he saw the Night Boat thrown free of the reef. Its twisted, smoking bulk veered toward him and Jana, faster and faster, driven by the rolling currents.

  And then came the collapse of the entire deck, the conning tower falling away, the periscopes snapping off. Kip felt the pull of the water at him; he fought it, his legs kicking wildly. A whirlpool had opened and the Night Boat began to whirl around the rim of a huge, black pit; as the submarine was sucked down, the bow peeled back, the noise of a dying beast screaming in agony. The ocean's thunder drowned out the death cries.

  The boat was folding in on itself, its iron caving in, being hammered into a misshapen mass. It was happening, Kip realized, just as Boniface had tried to make it happen when he twisted that bit of wax cast in the submarine's image and tossed it to the flames.

  The Night Boat's stern pitched high, dripping red flame; the bow vanished into the whirlpool. There was a loud hissing as the sea swept over hot iron. On the rising stern the screws glistened in the firelight.

  Water crashed over them, forcing them down; Kip clenched the door and pulled them back to the surface.

  And when his head broke free he saw the thing was gone.

  Though the plain of the sea was studded with fire, the whirlpool's action was lessening. A rush of bubbles exploded on the surface; then the whirlpool stopped, covering over the boat, its own deep grave.

  Kip and Jana clung to the platform of wood, exhausted, breathing raggedly. Kip shook his head to clear it, shrugging off water. Jana was limp, one hand still clamped to
his shoulder. He could feel the strong beating of her heart.

  On the horizon, silhouetted in a gash of orange sky, was a flat mass of land. Kip blinked, unsure of what he was seeing. It lay about two miles distant, but he could already feel the currents dragging them in. "Big Danny Cay," he said hoarsely. Beside him Jana stirred, lifted her head.

  They began to kick for it, slowly because the water was still rough. Kip looked over his shoulder, trying to pinpoint the spot where the submarine had gone down, but now the fires were dying and there was no way to tell. The creature was gone, and there was no cause to look back again. Now he could only think of all he would have to do, because he was the law on Coquina and there were people he was responsible for, people who looked to him for the kind of strength he knew he would find deep within himself.

  And swinging his vision back across the sea he thought he saw something, there against the warmth of the horizon, something like a small boat heading into the sun with her sails filled and all the great expanse of the sky beyond it.

  His eyes filled with tears and, looking away, he knew it would soon be out of sight.