Cargo of Coffins

by L. Ron Hubbard

  From horizon to ominous horizon, no cloud stood alone, but the blue had become discolored until it was no color at all. And millimeter by millimeter, the glass continued its inexorable course down past the false markings of “Storm.”

  There was no storm here. Only a vast, crouching space of quiet sea and unmarked sky. But there would be a storm. Lars Marlin could feel it as certainly as he could feel the slow roll of the deck beneath his solidly planted feet.

  Johnson, corpulent and common, came at eight bells in the afternoon to relieve Lars. He looked at the chart which lay with stubbornly curled edges upon the charting table and placed a pudgy finger near the cross which Lars had just made.

  “South latitude thirteen,” said Johnson, as near as he ever came to a joke. “We won’t find any luck around here. God, I can’t even breathe it’s so hot.”

  “When the first blast hits, I’ll be on the bridge. If I’m not, call me.”

  There was something in Lars’ granitelike expression and something in his voice which caused Johnson to salute and say no more.

  Lars stepped out of the chart room and into the bridge wing. He stared out over the immense sameness of wind and water which blended into a sullen murk. His undershirt, beneath his stiffly starched exterior, was pasted hotly to his lean ribs.

  He was waiting for something, he seemed to know that the something was coming. Inactivity had worn his nerves paper-thin and even his great stolid calm was on the verge of cracking.

  He would welcome the coming violence of this blow. But now the sea was dead and the air was too thick to breathe.

  He heard footsteps coming up to the bridge, careless, confident steps. He turned and saw Paco rise in sections to the level of the bridge deck.

  Paco was grinning. He had changed subtly. There was less of furtiveness about him, more of command. He was dressed to his part as Prince of Spain. He wore Kenneth’s clothes and looked better in them than Kenneth’s spinelessness ever could. Rakish yachting cap, silk shirt, muffler of silk with small figured anchors of blue in it, correct trousers and spotless shoes. The whiteness of his attire set off the swarthiness of his features.

  Lars stood solidly and watched Paco approach, face impassive but thoughts all focused on Paco’s heart. The blue patch pocket made an excellent target.

  “Well, am I good or am I good?” said Paco. He came to a halt, lit a monogrammed cigarette and flipped the match down into the dead sea. He faced Lars, grin widening. “For two days I’ve raised hell about them opening those letters before they were sure I’d passed to the Great Beyond and now I got them eating out of my hand. Did I tell you I was a genius?”

  Lars looked his contempt.

  “Don’t you believe it even yet?” said Paco in mock surprise. “Why, Lars, that’s ungrateful of you. After all I’ve done! And you know, of course, that I’ll see you get entirely free of French officers. Oh, yes, of course, Lars. And haven’t I built you up to Terry?”

  “It’s Terry now, is it?” said Lars.

  “Sure,” said Paco. “She fell for this prince gag like a ton of bricks. I’m on easy street. As soon as she carries out my orders—”

  “Your orders? Are you ordering this ship now, too?”

  “Certainly I am!”

  “And where are we going?”

  Paco grinned. “You’ll know soon enough. Terry and the rest are ‘thrilled to death’ about it. Quite an adventure for them.”

  “You’ve still got me on the bridge, Paco.”

  “Is that a threat?” smiled Paco. “I think you’ll go along with me—unless you want to land back in the swamps. It’ll be Madame Guillotine next time. And by the way, Lars, it’s not Paco now. After this, address me as ‘Your Highness.’ I think I shall have to require that of you.”

  Lars clenched his fist and Paco saw it without any change of countenance.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Paco.

  “You’re taking this yacht to do your dirty business for you?” said Lars.

  “Of course. I might add, Lars, that you would be wise to follow orders. Everything and everybody is on my side now. Even you!” He laughed amusedly at this and turned and went down the ladder and out of sight.

  Lars looked back at the sea again. The keys to the gun racks were hard and sharp against his thigh. But he knew too well that any move he made would result in his sacrificing his own life.

  He stood there for an hour, though he knew he was off watch and would need a short sleep to take his night trick. And at the end of that hour his reverie was cut short by a white swirl of skirt to his right. He had not heard Terry Norton approach.

  He whirled about, startled for an instant. Then he saluted gravely. And then he saw something in her expression which alarmed him a little. She was very cold and formal—and could that be distrust in her beautiful face?

  “Yes, ma’am?” said Lars.

  “I have orders for you, Captain Lowenskold. Since discovering the real identity of Prince Enríque, we have made a change of plans. As we are a yacht we can enter ports at random.”

  Lars hesitated. He knew this was far from the right time to tell her anything but he thought that if he could give her some slight warning . . .

  “Miss Norton, are you sure about Paco?”

  Her tones were ice. “You mean His Highness?”

  “I mean Paco Corvino. Miss Norton, I’ve got a hunch—”

  “Are you, by any chance, trying to discredit him after seeing those certificates? Really, Captain Lowenskold, His Highness was right.”

  “About what?” demanded Lars.

  “About you. I think it only right to tell you that he has discovered some things about you which are not very flattering to your character, and if he had known them he never would have recommended you as captain after poor Simpson’s death. If you are trying to undermine my faith in His Highness, save yourself the breath. I came to give you orders.”

  The way she said that cut Lars deeply, gave him clearly to understand the fact that he was presuming when he considered himself higher than a butler aboard the Valiant.

  “As you can navigate and as you are the only man with a master’s license here, and as Johnson long ago refused command because he neither wants it nor has a ticket, you shall remain in your present status. However, any false step will bring your downfall with great quickness.”

  Stiffly, shivering with rage, his face white, Lars said, “You came with orders.”

  “Yes. You are to proceed to Cayenne.”

  “Where?”

  “Cayenne, French Guiana.”

  “But, Miss Norton—”

  “Are you going to obey my orders?”

  Lars saw the futility of trying to interfere and the question blazed like lightning through his brain. What devilish scheme had Paco thought up? Why did Paco, ex-convict, want to place himself in the jaws of the Penal Colony once more?

  “Are you going to obey?” said Miss Norton commandingly.

  Lars turned on his heel, jaw set, eyes stubborn.

  He entered the chart room.

  “Mr. Johnson. We are changing our course for Cayenne. What is our position?”

  “Latitude thirteen, sir. You saw it yourself an hour ago.”

  “Yes,” said Lars in a voice as dead as the calm. “I saw it myself.”

  He picked up the dividers and stood looking at the widely spread chart and then, with a vicious snap of his hand, he speared the dot which was Cayenne. The dividers stuck there, quivering.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Coffins for the Valiant

  AT Cayenne, Lars Marlin refused to cross the entrance to the harbor, dropping hook in the deep-water anchorage, six miles from the quays. The shallow entrance would only take fourteen feet but the Valiant, with the tide, could have managed that.

  Swinging at her chain, bathed in the steaming sunlight of morning then, the Valiant awaited the return of the shore party which had left with the coming of the sun in a swift speedboat.

  Lars nervous
ly paced his cabin. He could not bring himself to spend too long a time upon the bridge. Every scraggly tree in the water seemed to possess eyes and every wave which slapped the Valiant’s white hull cried out that the shore knew he was there.

  He stopped from time to time at the wide port of his big cabin to stare out through the harbor mouth, over the blue surface of the quiet bay and at the white and red town. Sight of Mt. Cépéron filled him with nausea. On it perched Ft. St. Michel. They could see the Valiant from up there.

  He could place the governor’s house even at this distance and could see the black rectangle which was the Place d’Armes.

  Every landmark of the port shouted death to Lars Marlin. Even his great strength was small beside the inexorable might of the French. His body cringed as it remembered the raw weight of irons and the oozing slime of the swamps. Past his eyes slouched a line of men in chains. One of them fell, to be dragged along by the rest—until the guards found that he was dead and cut him loose to throw the body into the sluggish, cayman-infested river.

  A boat, still far off, was coming toward the Valiant, flying the tricolor. It was an official boat. Lars gripped the sill, watching.

  A sound made him whirl. It was Ralph, and Lars had a difficult time trying to mask his terror.

  “I guess they aren’t ever coming back,” complained Ralph, scratching his shock of upstanding hair. “They’ve been gone for hours!”

  “You didn’t go with them?” said Lars, knowing it was a foolish question even before he said it.

  “No. They said I was one too many for the speedboat. They just didn’t want me, that’s all. All my life I’ve wanted to see the Penal Colony and they wouldn’t let me go.”

  “Maybe you can make it tomorrow.”

  “Naw, we won’t be here tomorrow. I wish they hadn’t been so doggone mysterious about it. His Highness was going around like he was wearing gumshoes and a false mustache. He’s up to something pretty smart, the prince.”

  From the first, Lars had not been able to believe that Paco would dare set foot again upon this shore. Certainly, it had been years since he had escaped. There had been no chase, even then. They had found a corpse and had named it Paco Corvino and the incident was closed. They would not be expecting a guest of Miss Terry Norton’s to be Paco Corvino. He looked different, too, now that he was well dressed and well fed. Still . . .

  “What were they going to do?” said Lars.

  “That’s what makes me mad. The only chance for some excitement and they won’t let me in on it. They’ve got a good plan. Pac . . . I mean His Highness is getting Terry to tell the authorities that she has come to request the removal of the bodies of four Americans who have been buried down here. A national gesture, y’understand. They’ll make it pretty touching. And then somehow, His Highness says he is going to put his jewels and money into those coffins and bring them aboard that way. Ain’t it a pip of an idea?”

  “They can’t get away with it!”

  “Sure they can. These four Americans were flyers on an expedition and they died down here. His Highness knows all about it. They weren’t convicts. So Terry is going to remove the bodies and take them home in state. It’s pretty nifty, isn’t it?”

  “Sure,” said Lars faintly. “Pretty nifty.”

  He turned back to watch the approach of the government launch. If only some official would recognize Paco. But then, that was too much to hope for. And if Paco was recognized, would he squeal on Lars? Sure he would. Hadn’t he told Miss Norton a pack of lies to discredit the captain already?

  “Why did she listen to the idea in the first place?” said Lars.

  “Why not? It’s lots of fun and, besides, isn’t he an honest-to-God prince? Say, what’d you say about His Highness to Terry last Thursday that made her so mad?”

  “Was she angry?”

  “And how!”

  “She’s foolish to try to go through with this.”

  Ralph had not missed Lars’ tenseness. “Say, what are you so jumpy about?”

  “I didn’t get much sleep during that blow.”

  “Oh. About time they were coming back. There’s a boat. What is it?”

  “You’d better go below, Ralph,” said Lars, “and tell the gentleman in it that I’m on the bridge. Would you?”

  “Sure,” said Ralph. “But what is he?”

  “Port captain, that’s all. Captain Delal.”

  “You know him?”

  Lars quickly shook his head and Ralph went out, puzzled. He turned. “How do you know his name?”

  “It’s in the Coast Pilot,” said Lars evasively.

  Ralph closed the door, and soon after, Lars heard the small motorboat putting at the gangway. He went to his mirror and looked at himself. He put on his cap and straightened up his blouse. Nervously he wiped the sweat from the palms of his hands.

  Captain Delal came in without knocking. He was a short little Frenchman, proud of his small mustache and his debonair manner. “Captain Lowenskold? I’ve got a few clearance papers for you to sign. If you weren’t a yacht, there’d be plenty of red tape, but Norton’s a power down here.” He spoke in slangy Colonial French, speaking no English. He had his black interpreter with him, but before he could put the words into Barbados English, Lars, unwittingly, had almost answered in prison French!

  “Merci, Capitaine Delal, je . . .” Lars stopped himself. Swiftly, he added, “I speak a little French. Served on French boats once. You said some clearance papers?”

  But Captain Delal was looking strangely at Lars. “Pardon me, m’sieu, but haven’t you called at this port before? Your face is familiar somehow.”

  Lars knew his face had been before Captain Delal in the past. He had been detailed to a harbor survey once.

  “You must be mistaken,” said Lars.

  “But one is not likely to forget a fellow with shoulders so big and hair so very light. Yes, I have seen you somewhere.” He puckered his brows, trying to recall.

  “I am sure the captain must be mistaken unless he once lived in Marseille.”

  “No, never saw the place. Let me see. I swear, Captain Lowenskold, I even remember your voice. But that’s silly, isn’t it? My memory is playing me tricks. Here, the papers.”

  Lars sat down at his desk, after offering the captain a chair. A steward came in with glasses and bottles and set them down, carefully withdrawing. Delal poured himself a drink and sipped it with compliments on its quality.

  “Quite in keeping with Norton’s reputation,” said Delal. “It isn’t every day— Say, are you certain you’ve never been here before?”

  Lars had been speaking in as correct French as he could muster, even injecting an American accent into it. “No. At times the memory is very odd, isn’t it. But perhaps some other man looks something like me.”

  “Yes, that’s possible. Yes . . .” He watched Lars for several minutes until Lars had finished with the papers. And then Lars handed the sheets across and got up to show that the interview was over. Delal did not rise.

  “I think I know,” said Delal with a relieved smile, pleased that he had recalled. “You look something like . . . pardon me, no offense, you know . . . a fellow named . . . let me see . . . Oh, yes. Of course! Marlin. Lars Marlin. And that’s a coincidence. He had the first name of Lars, too.”

  Lars could not trust his voice. He saw Delal’s gaze wander until it discovered the framed master mariner’s license on the wall. He thought he saw the glance narrow.

  “Well,” smiled Captain Delal, rising, “I shan’t clutter up your cabin longer. I have lots of ships to inspect.”

  He put the papers in his valise and handed it to the interpreter. They stepped out to the deck and the black raised an umbrella over the captain’s head.

  Delal’s handshake was flabby and his smile insincere. “Hope to see you again, sometime, Captain.”

  “Of course,” said Lars. “Glad you came.”

  The pair went down the ladder and soon Lars heard the motorboat putt
ing as it put off. He watched it cross a space of water to a nearby freighter which was unloading to lighters in the stream.

  Exhausted by the nervous strain, Lars sat down in his chair. He knew too well that when Delal got ashore he would mention this strange coincidence. The officials would think it best to check this master mariner’s license on the wall just as a matter of form. Delal had made a mental note of those numbers and signatures, all false.

  And shortly the whole French world would know that no such license had ever been issued. They would know that the captain of the Valiant was Lars Marlin, escaped convict!

  In a short space of time he had hold of himself again. He took a drink from the tray and followed it with another. He could only hope that the checkup would be made weeks hence, though he knew that radios speeded such things.

  At dusk he heard a tug bumping the side of the Valiant. He went into a wing and looked down.

  The speedboat streaked in a wide white curve to the gangway and the party came aboard, Paco smiling and confident in their midst. It was in keeping with his insolence to get away with a call like that.

  Lars transferred his attention to the lighter. Johnson was already taking orders for the loading. Four American flags were draped over four coffins.

  Paco paused on the main deck and saw Lars above. Paco grinned and passed on.

  Shortly, as the first coffin came swinging up over the rail and down into the hold, Miss Norton came to the bridge.

  “Captain,” she said coldly, “you will please proceed immediately for Lisbon.”

  “We did not clear for Lisbon but New York.”

  “I will fix that. You will please pay attention to your duties only. Lisbon.”

  Lars saluted stiffly and went into the chart room. He whistled down the tube to his engineer and gave him his orders.

  The last coffin was swinging high into the air, inboard and down. The tug was putting off, black smoke rising in a cloud about the Valiant.