Flynn's voice dried up, and he watched in disbelief as the white-clad officer lifted his right arm in a gesture that might have been a salute. The beat of the cruiser's engines mounted as it increased speed, and she swung away towards the west.
Flynn O'Flynn began to laugh, the cackling hysteria of relief and delirium. He rolled off the sack of corks and his head dropped forward, so the warm green water smothered his laughter. Mohammed took a handful of the grey hair and lifted his face to prevent him drowning.
S
ebastian reached the raft, and grasped the rope that hung in loops around its sides. He paused to regain his breath before hauling himself up to lie gasping, the blood-warm sea-water streaming from his sodden clothing, and watched the shape of the battle cruiser recede into the west.
âMaster! Help me!'
The voice roused him and he sat up. Mohammed was struggling, dragging Flynn and the sack through the water. Among the floating wreckage a dozen others of the crew and the bearers were flapping their way towards the raft; the weaker swimmers were already failing, their cries becoming more pitiful, and their splashing more frenzied.
There were oars roped to the slatted deck of the raft. Quickly Sebastian cut one loose with his hunting knife and began rowing towards the pair. His progress was slow, for the raft was an ungainly bitch that balked and swung away from the thrust of the oar.
An Arab crewman reached the raft and scrambled aboard, then another, and another. Each of them freed an oar and helped with the rowing. They passed the body of one of the bearers floating just below the surface, both its legs cut off above the knees and the bones sticking out of the ragged meat of the stumps. This was not the only one â there was other human flotsam among the scattered wreckage, and the pinky-brown stains that drifted away on the current attracted the sharks.
The Arab beside Sebastian saw the first one and called out, pointing with the oar.
It came hunting, its fin waggling from side to side as it tacked up against the current, so that they could sense its excitation, the cold, unthinking excitement of Euselachii
hunger. Below the surface, distorted and dark, showed the tapering length of its body. Not a big one. Perhaps nine feet in length and four hundred pounds in weight, but big enough to chop a leg with one bite. No longer guided by the drift of blood-taste, picking up the vibrations of the swimmers, it straightened and came in on its first run.
âShark!' Sebastian yelled at Flynn and Mohammed where they foundered ten yards away. And both of them panicked; no longer making for the raft, they tried to clamber on to the sack of corks. Terror has no logic. Their only concern was to lift their dangling legs from the water, but the sack was too small, too unstable and their panic attracted the shark's attention. It veered towards them, showing the full height of its curved triangular fin, each sweep of its tail breaking the surface as it drove in.
âThis way,' shouted Sebastian. âCome to the raft!' He was hacking at the water with the oar, while beside him the Arabs worked in equal dedication. âThis way, Flynn. For God's sake, this way.'
His voice penetrated their panic, and once more they struck out for the raft. But the shark was closing fast, long and dappled by sunlight through the surface ripple.
The sack was still tied to Flynn's body, and its resistance to the water slowed them as it dragged behind. The shark swerved and made its first pass; it seemed to hump up out of the water, and its mouth opened. The upper jaw bulged out, the lower jaw gaped, and the multiple rows of teeth came erect like the quills of a porcupine,
and it hit the sack
. Locking its jaws into the coarse jute material, worrying it, still humped out of the water, shaking its blunt head clumsily, scattering a spray of water drops that flew like shattered glass in the sun.
âGrab here!' commanded Sebastian, leaning out to offer the blade of the oar to the pair in the water. They clutched at it with the strength of fear, and Sebastian drew them in.
But the sack and the shark were still attached to Flynn, its threshing threatening to break Flynn's hold on the life-line around the raft.
Dropping to his knees, Sebastian fumbled the knife from its sheath and sawed at the rope. It parted. The shark, still worrying the sack, worked away from the raft and Sebastian helped the Arabs to drag first Flynn, and then Mohammed, over the side.
They were not finished yet. There were still half a dozen men in the water.
Realizing its error at last, the shark relinquished its hold on the sack. It backed away. For a moment it hung motionless, puzzled, then it circled out towards the nearest sound of splashing. One of the gun-boys, clawing at the water in exhausted dog-paddle. The shark hit him in the side, and pulled him under. Moments later he reappeared, his mouth an open pink cave as he screamed, the water about him clouded dark red-brown by his own blood. Again he was pulled under as the shark hit his legs, but again he floated. This time face down, wriggling feebly, and the shark circled him, dashing in to chop off a mouthful of his flesh, backing away to gulp it down before coming in again.
Then there was another shark, two more, ten, so many that Sebastian could not count them, as they circled and dived in ecstatic greed, until the sea around the raft trembled and swirled in agitation.
Sebastian and his Arabs managed to drag two more of the crew into the raft and they had a third half out of the water when a six-foot white-pointer shot up from the depths, and fastened on his thigh with such violence that it almost jerked all of them overboard. But they steadied themselves and held on to the man's arms, frozen in this gruesome tug-of-war, while the shark worried the leg, so dog-like in its determination that Sebastian expected it to growl.
Little Mohammed staggered to his feet, snatched up an oar and swung it against the pointed snout with all his strength. They had dragged the shark's head from the water, and the oar fell on it with a series of rubbery thumps, but the shark held on. Fresh, bright blood squirted and trickled from the leg in its jaws, running down the shark's glistening snake-like head into the open slits of its gill covers.
âHold him!' gasped Sebastian, and drew his knife. The raft rocking crazily under him, he leaned over the man's outstretched body and drove the knife blade into the shark's expressionless little eye. It popped in a burst of clear fluid, and the shark stiffened and trembled. Sebastian withdrew the blade and stabbed into the other eye. With a convulsive gulp the shark opened its jaws and slid back into the sea to meander blindly away.
There were no more swimmers. The little group on the raft huddled together and watched the shark pack milling hungrily, seeming to sniff at the tainted water as they gathered the last morsels of meat.
The shark victim hosed the deck with his severed femoral artery and died before any of them could rouse themselves to apply a tourniquet.
âPush him over,' grunted Flynn.
âNo,' Sebastian shook his head.
âChrissake, we're crowded enough as it is. Chuck the poor bastard over.'
âLater on, not now.' Sebastian could not stand to watch the sharks squabble over the corpse.
âMohammed, get a couple of your lads on the oars. I want to pick up as many of those coconuts as we can.'
By the time darkness stopped them, they had retrieved fifty-two of the floating coconuts, sufficient to keep the seven of them thirst-free for a week.
It was cold that night. They crowded together for warmth
and watched the underwater pyrotechnics, as the shark pack circled the raft in phosphorescent splendour.
â
Y
ou've got to cut for it,' Flynn whispered, and he shivered with cold in the burning heat of the midday sun.
âI don't know anything about it,' Sebastian protested, yet he could see that Flynn was dying.
âNo more do I. But this is certain â you've got to do it soon â¦' Flynn's eyes had sunk into plum-coloured cavities and the smell of his breath was that of something long dead.
Staring at the leg, Sebastian had difficulty controlling his nausea. It was swollen fat and purple. The bullet hole was covered with a crusty black scab, but Sebastian caught a whiff of the putrefaction under it â and this time his nausea came up acid-sweet into the back of his throat. He swallowed it.
âYou've got to do it, Bassie boy.'
Sebastian nodded, and tentatively laid his hand on the leg. Immediately he jerked his fingers away, surprised by the heat of the skin.
âYou've got to do it,' urged Flynn. âFeel for the slug. It's not deep. Just under the skin.'
He felt the lump. It moved under his fingers, the size of a green acorn in the taut hot flesh.
âIt's going to hurt like Billy-o.' Sebastian's voice was hoarse.
The rowers were resting on their oars, watching with frank curiosity, while the raft eddied and swung in the drift of the Mozambique current. Above them the sail that Sebastian had rigged from salvaged planking and canvas flapped wearily, throwing a shadow across the leg.
âMohammed, you and one other to hold the master's shoulders. Two others to keep his legs still.'
Flynn lay quiescent, pinioned beneath them on the slats of the deck.
Sebastian knelt over him, gathering his resolve. The knife he had sharpened against the metal edge of the raft, and then scrubbed clean with coconut fibre and seawater. He had sluiced the leg also, and washed his hands until the skin tingled. Beside him on the deck stood half a coconut shell containing perhaps an ounce of evaporated salt scraped from the deck and the sail, ready to pack into the open wound. âReady?' he whispered.
âReady,' grunted Flynn, and Sebastian located the lump of the bullet and drew the edge of the blade across it timidly. Flynn gasped, but human skin was tougher than Sebastian allowed. It did not part.
âGoddamn you!' Flynn was sweating already. âDon't play with it. Cut, man, cut!'
This time Sebastian slashed, and the flesh split open under the blade. He dropped the knife and drew back in horror as the infection bubbled up through the lips of the knife wound. It looked like yellow custard mixed with prune juice â and the smell of it filled his nostrils and his throat.
âGo for the slug. Go for it with your fingers.' Flynn writhed beneath the men who held him. âHurry. Hurry. I can't take much more.'
Steeling himself, closing his throat against the vomit that threatened to vent at any moment, Sebastian slipped his little finger into the slit. Hooking with it for the bullet, finding it, easing it up although tissue clung to it reluctantly, until it popped from the wound and dropped on to the deck. A fresh gush of warm poison followed it out, flowing over Sebastian's hand, and he crawled to the edge of the raft, choking and gagging.
â
I
f only we had some red cloth.' Flynn sat against the rickety mast. He was still very weak but four days ago the fever had broken with the release of the poison.
âWhat would you do with it?' Sebastian asked
âCatch me one of those dolphins. Man, I'm so goddamned hungry I'd eat it raw.'
A four-day diet of coconut pulp and milk had left all their bellies grumbling.
âWhy red?'
âThey go for red. Make a lure.'
âYou haven't any hooks or line.'
Tie it to a bit of twine from the sack and tease them up to the surface â then harpoon one with your knife tied to an oar.'
Sebastian was silent, peering thoughtfully over the side at the deep flashes of gold where the shoal of dolphin played under the raft. âIt's got to be red, hey?' he asked, and Flynn looked at him sharply.
âYeah. It's got to be red.'
âWell â¦' Sebastian hesitated, and then flushed with embarrassment under his tropical sunburn.
âWhat's wrong with you?'
Still blushing, Sebastian stood up and loosened his belt â then, shyly as a bride on her wedding night, he drew down his pants.
âMy God,' breathed Flynn in shock, as he held up his hand to shield his eyes.
âHau! Hau!' was the chorus of admiration from the crew.
âGot them at Harrods,' said Sebastian with becoming modesty.
Red, Flynn had asked for â but Sebastian's underpants were the brightest, most beautiful red; the most vivid sunset
and roses red, he could have imagined. They hung in oriental splendour to Sebastian's knees.
âPure silk,' said Sebastian, fingering the cloth. Ten shillings a pair.'
Â
Â
âWhoa now! Come on, little fishy. Come on there,' Flynn whispered as he lay on his belly, head and shoulders over the edge of the raft. On its thread of twine, the scrap of red danced deep in the green water. A long, slithering flash of gold shot towards it, and Flynn jerked the twine away at the last instant. The dolphin swirled and darted back. Again Flynn jerked the twine. Chameleon lines and dots of excitement showed against the gold of the dolphin's body. âThat's it, fishy. Chase it.' The other fish of the shoal joined hunt, forming a sparkling planetary system of movement around the lure. âGet ready!'
âI'm ready.' Sebastian stood over him, poised like a javelin thrower. In the excitement he had forgotten to don his pants and his shirt-tails flapped around his thighs in a most undignified manner. But his legs were long and finely muscled, the legs of an athlete. âGet back!' he snapped at the crew who were crowded around him so that the raft was listing dangerously. âGet back â give me room,' and he hefted the oar with the long hunting knife lashed to the tip.
âHere they come.' Flynn's voice trembled with excitement as he worked the scrap of red cloth upwards, and the shoal followed it. âNow!' he shouted as a single fish broke the surface â four feet of flashing gold, and Sebastian lunged. The steady hand and eye that had once clean-bowled the great Frank Woolley directed the oar. Sebastian hit the dolphin an inch behind the eye, and the blade slipped through to lacerate the gills.
For a few seconds the oar came alive in his hands as the
dolphin twitched and fought on the blade, but there were no barbs to hold in the flesh, and the fish slipped from the knife.
âGod damn it to hell!' bellowed Flynn.
âDash it all!' echoed Sebastian.
But ten feet down the dolphin was mortally wounded; it jigged and whipped like a golden kite in a high wind while the rest of the shoal scattered.
Sebastian dropped the oar and began stripping his shirt.
âWhat are you doing?' demanded Flynn.
âGoing after it.'
âYou're mad. Sharks!'
âI'm so hungry, I'll eat a shark also,' and he dived over the side. Thirty seconds later he surfaced, blowing like a grampus but grinning triumphantly, with the dead dolphin clasped lovingly to his bosom.
They ate stripes of raw fish seasoned with evaporated salt, squatting around the mutilated carcass of the dolphin.
âWell, I've paid a guinea for worse meals than this,' said Sebastian, and belched softly. âOh, I beg your pardon.'
âGranted,' Flynn grunted with his mouth full of fish; and then eyeing Sebastian's nudity with a world-weary eye, âStop boasting and put your pants on before you trip over it.'
Flynn O'Flynn was slowly, very slowly, revising his estimate of Sebastian Oldsmith.