Authors: Dennis Wheatley
‘I wish I’d known that,’ Basil said quickly. ‘I’m afraid I was far from polite to you once or twice, but that was only because I thought you were tarred with the same brush. You might have given me a hint.’
She shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘I was quite as rude to you as you were to me and I had two perfectly good reasons for not making myself pleasant.’
‘Really! Do tell me what they were.’
‘Well, for one, I didn’t like your habits.’
‘Of course. It seems so long ago that I’d almost forgotten, but I was drinking like a fish—wasn’t I?’
‘You were. I’m not a teetotaller or anything when I’m away from the family; though one of father’s nasty little meannesses was that he didn’t approve of women having anything to drink. “Daddy knew best” what was good for me in that as in everything else. But, all the same, I’ve never had any time for drunks.’
‘Quite understandable. What was the other reason?’
‘My life wouldn’t have been worth living if I’d shown the least sign of encouraging your cynical digs at him after the first night out.’
‘Why? What happened then?’
‘Don’t you remember? You said at dinner the reason they couldn’t get all the recruits they wanted for the Army was because young men didn’t mind fighting for their country, but they kicked at the idea of being pushed into impassable mud-swamps by incompetents like some of the Generals in the last Great War.’
‘Generals who have failed in a supreme trust and thrown the lives of their men away to no purpose should not be allowed to pass into history with glory.’
‘You seem so bitter about it though, and, after all, you could only have been a boy at the time.’
‘I was nine in the summer of the great slaughter. My father, an uncle, and my elder brother were in the same battalion; they all choked out their lives within a few days of each other—just three little units out of the mighty host that were mown down by machine-guns from the almost impregnable pill-boxes they’d been sent to attack across a sea of mud at Passchendaele. Indirectly, too, I probably wouldn’t have made such a mucker of my own life if one of them had been spared to keep an eye on me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘No wonder you feel so strongly. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter much what you said now, but I thought father would have apoplexy at the time and I wasn’t taking any chances of adding fuel to the fire. I was in his black books badly enough already.’
‘Were you—why?’
She laughed a little ruefully and then swallowed hard because her mouth was so dry. ‘I fell in love with a “cad” last summer. Ghastly, wasn’t it? A board-school boy who’s earning his living as an artist. He was spending his holiday sketching near my home in Norfolk because he’s mad on landscapes, although ordinarily he does poster work. He’s not making a fortune, but enough for us to have married on, and I’ve got a little money of my own. I was quite mad about him; I still am, a bit, and he was crazy about me.’
‘What happened? I suppose your father kicked?’
‘Yes. My happiness didn’t count, of course, and “Daddy knew best” as usual. I don’t come into my money till I’m twenty-five and he’s my sole trustee; so he sold out some of my shares and made me come on this trip with him.’
‘Could he do that? It hardly sounds legal.’
‘He had power to use part of the money for my education, and travel’s education, isn’t it? Anyhow, I couldn’t stop him without
taking action and I hadn’t the courage to burn my boats by running away.’
‘You poor dear. I can imagine him being pretty terrifying to anyone he’d had under his thumb for years.’
‘That’s just it. I knew well enough that he was only a stupid, narrow old man, but there was something about those stony eyes of his that used to freeze the marrow of my bones. He’d already arranged a round of visits in South Africa and Jamaica for this winter so it suited him splendidly to break up my affair and at the same time have me around to do his packing and all the odd jobs he hated doing himself. You must think it pretty beastly of me to say this sort of thing about him now he’s dead, though.’
‘Not at all! “We choose our friends, but our parents are thrust upon us”, as somebody once said very truthfully. It’s quite illogical that we should be expected to love people if they do nothing to earn our affection. Hadn’t you a mother, though, to help you out?’
‘No, mother died when I was sixteen. His selfish slave-driving wore the poor darling out and.… Hallo! What’s that?’
A shout had come from forward of the sail. It was followed immediately by a loud splash and then excited cries in Swedish.
Basil jumped to his feet and pressed forward to see what had happened. At the same moment Unity saw an arm suddenly protrude from the water about ten feet from the side of the boat: it was swept past and disappeared again within a few seconds.
Luvia yelled an order from the stern and the boat was put about; but the triangular fins which had followed in their wake so sinisterly all day had disappeared. A little cloud of bubbles and a sudden reddening of the water, in the place where Unity had seen the arm told the rest of the grim story. Further efforts at rescue were quite useless.
‘It was that poor devil Steffens,’ Basil said as he rejoined Unity. ‘The fellow who was cut about the face so badly in the scrap last night.’
‘Oh, dear! He’s been feverish all day and he was feeling the lack of water more than any of us. I was going along in a few minutes’ time to re-do his bandages. What happened?’
‘He couldn’t stand the strain any longer, I suppose. His friend Largertöf says they’ve twice had to prevent him by force from drinking sea-water, but the first time he swallowed quite a lot before they could stop him.’
‘Drinking sea-water sends people mad doesn’t it?’
‘So they say. He suddenly jumped up and chucked himself overboard.’
‘Oh, how horrible!’ Unity covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
‘Steady—steady on.’ Basil put his arm round her. ‘You’ve been so splendid all this time. Don’t give way now.’
After a moment she checked her sobbing and he helped her back to the stern. The others there had noticed them during their long talk together, so Basil’s presence was accepted without comment.
For a short spell the new tragedy had roused the whole boat’s company to frantic activity, but now they subsided in their places again, a hapless prey to the gnawing misery of their thoughts.
Largertöf wept for his friend Steffens and would not be comforted. He was a young fellow, little more than a muscular, well-grown boy, and the older man, a seaman of twenty years’ standing, had become his hero through having protected him in the rough life of the fo’c’sle. The others sat glum and silent; some of them wondering with good reason if Steffens had not taken the wiser course in making a sudden end of himself.
The sun, now a red-gold disc, touched the horizon. The long, low layers of cloud gathered about it were lit for a few moments into a glory of crimson, orange, and rose. With lack-lustre eyes they watched it sink into that underworld which the ancients believed to contain only death and eternal night. Another day was gone, and the passing of the supreme symbol of all life and virility left them doubly conscious of their ever-increasing weakness.
When the hurricane lantern was lit, Luvia issued rations. The cask was now empty as a hollow drum, and owing to the loss of the kettle and stove in the mutiny no sea-water could now be boiled to distil fresh with the limited amount of paraffin still at their disposal, but the fat of the corned beef contained a small amount of moisture and the condensed milk, of which he allowed them two spoonfuls apiece, was a semi-liquid.
After the long day of sunshine their throats were so dry and parched that it was a struggle to get down the sticky mess, but they masticated the ration doggedly; conscious that it would give them a little strength—a few hours more of the life for which they were so greedy now that its sands were running out with such terrifying speed.
Before they settled down to the long hours of darkness Juhani Luvia joined them all in prayer as he had done each morning and evening since they had been in the open boat. None of the company had a prayer-book with them, but Juhani’s mother had brought him up in the faith she held very dear, and on his leave he still accompanied her to an old church in Viipuri, so he experienced little difficulty in leading a simple appeal for help, guidance and fortitude to the Maker of them all.
The night proved calm, and had they been in comfortable berths after an ample meal they would normally have enjoyed a dreamless slumber, but their seats on the hard boards and lack of nourishment kept them wakeful. The gentle rocking of the boat and the monotonous lapping of the water against the sides became a torture to their frayed nerves. Towards midnight one of the Negroes began to pray aloud, a semi-incoherent rambling argument with God, it seemed, in which the man alternately reasoned and pleaded that he had done nothing to deserve such chastisement. Luvia was in two minds whether to stop it with an abrupt order, but, knowing that none of the others were really sleeping, could not bring himself to do so.
The coloured man was not the only one to become light-headed. Suddenly, without warning, Synolda began to scream and bang her head against the woodwork in the stern. It took twenty minutes’ patient handling on the part of Unity, Luvia, Vicente and Basil to restore her to sanity, and when the hard tears came at last to her dry eyes they thought her rasping sobs would never cease.
Starlight of a brightness unbelievable to those who have always lived in cities lit the scene. The Southern Cross gleamed high in the heavens to the south, yet moved in its orbit as the night crawled on with what seemed to them incredible slowness. Like points of light in a high canopy of dark purple, the countless stars winked and twinkled above them, so that each shape in the boat could be recognised as an individual by their gentle radiance. When the Negro had fallen into an uneasy slumber and Synolda had been quieted, a great silence was all about them. In the mysterious twilight of the stars they crouched, suffering there until the sky paled and out of its greyness came another dawn.
The night had not been cold, but their lowered resistance had made them more susceptible to the chill of a light breeze that had sprung up in the early hours. Their muscles ached almost unendurably from the strain of trying to keep in one position for
any length of time: their heads were heavy from fatigue and sleeplessness, yet curiously clear in the matter of awareness concerning their surroundings.
Water, condensed milk and rum were now all exhausted, so the only issue for the morning meal was the last tin of corned beef. Slowly they chewed it, but Unity found hers impossible to swallow and had to dispose of it over the side of the boat. Hardly a word was spoken; it was an effort for them to croak out more than a sentence from their leather-dry throats.
Anyone who had seen them go on board at Cape Town would hardly have recognised them on this, the fourth morning of their ordeal. Their eyes were sunken in their sockets; their cheeks leaden, where they were not covered with a coarse stubble.
Synolda’s vanity case had been sent spinning overboard during the upset of the mutiny. At the time her fury at its loss had caused her to become almost blasphemous, but now she no longer cared. Curiously enough, without her make-up she seemed years younger, but she had the pale-faced, hectic-eyed look of a consumptive rather than the robust freshness of a healthy girl.
After the ration of bully had been dispensed it was found that one portion remained over. At first Luvia feared that their depleted company of fifteen had been further reduced by yet another fatality unwitnessed by them during the night, but Hansie was discovered curled up sound asleep in the bow.
All efforts to arouse him proved fruitless and his big flask lay beside him quite empty. It was obvious that he had sought temporary oblivion in his supply of Bourbon and, on a practically empty stomach, the strong spirit had overcome him to an extreme degree. He was dead drunk, and, having rolled up his eyelids, Basil came to the conclusion that the ex-bartender would not regain consciousness before midday.
Four hours of the morning drifted by and for all of them each hour seemed like a month in hell. At a little before eleven o’clock the woolly-pated Lem, who had rambled so wildly in the night, went insane. Cursing, screaming, blaspheming, he suddenly dived at his feet and attempted to tear away the ropes that held them. The sailors tried to restrain him, but, wild-eyed and foaming at the mouth, he fought them off with superhuman strength. Luvia went forward and, thinking it the most humane thing to do, hit him a smashing blow under the jaw that knocked him out.
Just as Lem sagged and slid down in a heap, Vicente, who was doing look-out, gave a croaking yell.
‘A ship! I see her! Blessed Madonna! A ship to left there! A ship, Luvia—a ship!’
Instantly every neck was craned in the direction he had pointed. A groan of disappointment went up—the horizon was blank and empty.
‘Oh, how could you!’ Synolda’s cry of protest came huskily from between her cracked lips.
‘He wasn’t trying to be funny,’ said Basil bitterly. ‘The poor chap’s gone off his rocker.’
Vicente’s expression suddenly changed from delirious joy to utter despair. He ceased waving his arms and stood staring, mouth agape, at the unbroken seascape with its monotonous expanse of bobbing wavelets. ‘She is gone!’ he wailed. ‘She is gone. Yet I swear I see her this moment back.’
‘What was it you thought you saw?’ Luvia asked soberly.
‘Two masts—their top staffs—also, between, for a second, a black patch I think is a funnel tip.’
‘He’s higher than we are and can see further,’ Unity muttered just as Luvia pushed past her, and, jumping up on to the thwart beside Vicente, cried, ‘Hi you, give me those glasses.’
With a dazed look on his face the Venezuelan handed over the binoculars which Luvia lent to each look-out for his turn of duty.
For two breathless moments the whole company remained absolutely motionless, their hearts gripped by the most appalling suspense. Not a murmur escaped them while they awaited the verdict which meant for them life or death.