Firefly Gadroon (22 page)

In a sudden rage I burst the throttle into life and felt the deck lift as the boat accelerated into the estuary mouth. In for a penny in for a pound. No use looking at the hazed radar screen now. The rocking and shuddering practically flung me out. I realized in fright that I hadn’t even donned a life-jacket, and the boat carried six. Going so fast, the bows lifting and juddering nastily, I could do nothing else except gasp at the speed and hang on to the wheel to keep her straight. I gaped at the fog ahead, hoping I’d guessed the distance right. The fog rushed past me, parting and flinging past my face. Fear of what I wanted to do was draining me of willpower. Any strength I’d possessed had been left in the fort back there. Another glance at the screen. The swine following was as fast as me – and so close. Devvo’s blip was rapidly closing from ahead. I cut the speed back with a jerk.

They came at me simultaneously. Jesus, but Devvo’s boat looked big, a destroyer compared to mine. It came suddenly cutting the water into great level spouts through the fog, its engine deep with intent and power. In that second I glanced from front to back, judged the relative speed. The commodore’s boat was in line, coming at me, about twenty feet to go. I cracked the throttle ahead, curving to the right in the start of as narrow a circle as I could go, screaming abuse at the engine to move us.

‘You idle bastard,’ I bawled at it, terrified. The commodore’s boat tried following, hurtling round into a great banking curve and spraying a wall of sea up on to Devvo’s advancing bows and lifting its pale side. The crash wasn’t so much a crash as a clang with a muffled clatter. I was too busy wrestling with my steering-wheel to see much of what happened behind. I could again see nothing when I’d recovered and got my own boat slowed and straightened up in the choppy water, now surging unpleasantly high. The fog was light yellow now, pale, quiet. And empty. Engines muttered nearby. Somebody shouted.

While I was checking the screen a sudden whoosh sounded. I swear I even felt the heat. A reddish glow penetrated the fog for just an instant and was gone. A swift turbulence rippled across the sea, the blast tapped against my face, and that was that. Somebody’s boat had exploded, maybe the commodore’s again. Dear God. That was all I needed. I headed out to sea again, with the blip I guessed to be Devvo somewhere among the green haze that was the estuary’s banks. Which one was he? This close inshore the radar seemed sod-all use. I cut the engine and peered at the screen. Twenty, there must be twenty discrete blips there, if not more, and a haze that could mean anything. A bell was clanging. Somebody must have heard the explosion and be calling the men out to help, though exactly
where was difficult to tell. They’d see as little as me in this fog, I thought, though the more boats put out from shore the merrier, as far as I was concerned. All I needed was one friend. The trouble was I’d got none. My belly was cramped and my chest still thumping from the realization that the explosion might have been me.

At this point I seriously considered standing some miles offshore till the fog cleared. It didn’t take much to make me realize what an error that would be. Devvo’s boat was bigger and faster. Nothing would please him more than having me out there with no witnesses and no chance of assistance. This fog was a blessing for him. For me it was yet another danger. So it had to be inshore, and soon.

I swung round, slow but steady. The radar swept the coast in a great blur. I decided to ignore it. The tide would be running, filling the inlets and creeks and bringing up the boats as distinct radar points. But which of the fleet of static boats would turn out to be Devvo’s?

Then I had a brainwave. Drummer’s creek, where the commodore’s boat was normally moored, where I’d struggled across to that sandbank. It filled at the tide. Only a short distance over the mudflats to Drummer’s hut and Germoline. I could make it safely to land, moor there, dart across the mudflats past Drummer’s shed to tell Joe Poges and simply have him arrest Devvo! Once I reached land there’d be no problem. I could of course cruise boldly up the estuary, but I knew Devvo well enough by now not to do the obvious thing. He would get me for sure, probably ram me, claiming that stupid Lovejoy – that clumsy, dangerously unskilled sailor – had made some mistake and caused some calamity. His boat would cut mine in two like it had the commodore’s, and I’d go for a burton. And the fog, thinning all too slowly, would hide all.

I guessed I was almost about the spot where I’d escaped
from between the two boats, and flicked out of gear to search for debris. Maybe the explosion had been both of them after all, not just the commodore’s boat alone. My spirits rose. I might be free this very moment. A loss of a lot of antiques, but I would survive.

Something floated close by, wood maybe. A clue to who had suffered the destruction. I leant down to peer at the water and an oily hand rose from the sea and grabbed at my arm. ‘
Ooooh!
’ I flailed back, screaming and gasping and beating at the horrible thing. It was coated in black slime, blistered almost beyond recognition. I screeched in terror, lashed out at it with my feet as it kept coming, lifting out of the heaving sea in a mad benediction and finally clinging to the brass rail. I kept kicking and screaming from fright until it slipped away leaving a ghastly bloodstained oily mark on the gunwale. I flung the gear in and roared away fast as I could go. My teeth were chattering and my hands uncontrollable.

The boat had bucked a good half-mile with me whining and shivering at the wheel before I got my mind back again and cut speed. Thank God no innocent boat was in the way or I’d have bisected it without a chance. While she slowed to idling I struggled to regain control of myself. My hands were jellies and I was cursing and blinding about being out on the bloody ocean in the first place. It took me ten minutes to steady up and stop shaking all over. I couldn’t even look at the smears on the gunwale. The terrible fact was I’d just killed a man. Killed. Whoever it was had been a shipwrecked mariner, and I’d just killed him. He’d reached for help and I’d . . . and I’d . . . I heard myself moaning and tried to stop. All right, I’d panicked, been terrified. But my instincts to help had been submerged – I swallowed at the word – well, overcome by horror. And what was worse I’d felt the propeller chop, pause, jerk before pushing the boat
on, as if it had . . . almost as if something in the water had fouled the propeller and been cut . . . been cut . . .

Naturally I made excuses. I told myself it had probably been Devvo’s goon, and he’d been armed. I told myself it was a hoarding attempt and not a plea for rescue, but I knew I was lying. How much of my savagery had been Lovejoy the buffoonish antique dealer, and how much sheer hate? It might even have been envy of Devvo’s wealth, his birds, his power. I had a splitting headache. I’d have given anything just to reach land and go to sleep. But a living man, badly burned from the explosion, had been reaching from the sea for help, and I’d killed him. Being scared’s no excuse. Vengeance isn’t, either.

An unutterable weariness settled on me. Maybe it was the cumulative exhaustion, maybe the permeating cold. But maybe it was the wretched suspicion of myself. As I said, I’ve always believed that there’s nothing wrong with greed. Nowadays it’s one of the few remaining honest motives. But I’d always thought myself a pretty kindish bloke, even if some characters get on my nerves. Well, whatever I thought, being depressed was only stupid. I had to go through with it. No escape out to sea. Staying here meant that sooner or later I’d run out of petrol, wreck myself or do something just as hopeless in the fog. Nothing for it. I’d turn south, aim for Drummer’s creek fast as I could go, and get the hell off this ocean to turn Devvo in.

As I spun the wheel I somehow felt I was cutting my losses.

I took bearings from the radar screen. Its haze had diminished and I was able to spot the seaward bulge, south of which Drummer’s creek started. Despite this, heading inshore in fog’s hair-raising. East Anglian sea fogs are famed for density and patchiness. Several times I let the
way fall off until my confidence returned. Tiredness and cold were taking it out of me and concentrating on the screen was proving difficult, though I hadn’t been scrapping Devvo on the ocean as long as all that. Collingwood in his wooden sailing ship had waited for the French fleet three years without a break.

My instincts were dulled, practically non-existent, but something made me uneasy. By rights, the nearer I got to Drummer’s creek the more relieved I should have been. Instead I grew increasingly edgy and fidgety. Once I even started whistling, nervous as a cat, stopping myself as a precaution. The screen was now only guessing where the long sandbanks lay, though I wasn’t unduly worried. From the time I’d pulled Drummer off I remembered that the sea flooded swiftly in from the south until the sandbank was cut off. I could easily find my way by letting the ocean do it for me. On impulse I cut the engine. A gentle waft of air cooled my cheek. Maybe that would lift the fog, another worry. Another ten minutes and I’d be opposite the southern arm of Drummer’s creek. I felt the erratic seas swirling me on, pulling jerkily as the dangerous undercurrents competed for the boat. The only benefit was I knew which way the tide was going.

It was then I heard that familiar tinkling of the wires on masts. The faint breeze was helping. I could use the sound as a crude direction-finder. I began to hear the sea’s sounds, until now suppressed by the engine. I stood upright at the wheel, stupidly wrinkling my face as if that would let me see through the fog better. Telling if you are actually drifting in a fog’s one of the hardest things on earth. The sea doesn’t help because it moves like you do. Instinctively I found myself keeping quiet and just listening to that magic tinselly sound, my only guide.

Despite my caution the sense of unease persisted.
Something was wrong, horribly evil. I took off my plimsolls and padded carefully around the boat, peering nervously over the side to make sure no oily hands were planning to crawl up like blistered crabs and come scrabbling at me . . . I became so apprehensive I switched everything else off, too: radar, lights, cockpit light, cabin bulbs and chronometer light. The boat drifted on. Once I panicked, feeling sand or something scrape the keel. Another silent creep around the boat to peer over the side at the water to make sure . . . but of what? I returned to the cockpit and sat nervously by the controls. Ignoring the cold, I stripped completely except for my jacket with its weighty chrysoberyl lump in the pocket. I could easily chuck it off if anything happened.

The boat began swirling. Even though I could see damn all I was sure she was swinging round as well as being pulled forwards into Drummer’s creek on the tide’s flood. If I lodged on a sandbank now it would be no real hardship. I’d have to splash over the side as soon as I grounded, and wade inland for Joe, just walk across the mudflats, home and dry. A bell clonked once, mournful over a considerable distance. No use. I considered going forwards to sit on the front but decided against it, seeing I didn’t know which was front any more; I might be drifting into the creek backwards.

Feeling sick’s natural when you’re scared, and nausea was welling up in me. I felt I’d kept quiet so long I must have forgotten how to speak or whistle. The fog was no lighter, and the sea gave nothing away, just floating about looking enigmatic. I was almost in despair. There seemed no end to my frigging messes, one after the other. Fright’s a ridiculous thing. I told myself this so often I became fed up and stupidly reached for the starter, rather do something than nothing.

Then almost within reach somebody went, ‘
Shhh
. . .’

I froze, hand outstretched. The sound had come from behind me, obliquely left . . . about sixty feet off, maybe? But sounds in fog . . . The cold blank air was moving against my face but was opaque as ever. I swung around, heart bumping, desperately trying to see and sickened at my ineptitude. All I could remember of my entire life seemed fright, far back as I could go. A grown man terrified of shadows, of fog, of sea, of oily hands and now speechless with terror at a whisper. Anybody’s whisper.

‘Let’s go out and find the bastard,’ a voice growled. From the
right.

‘Wait.’ Devvo, definitely Devvo. Quiet, assured. ‘Lovejoy’ll come. I know him.’

‘We could do him easy out there.’ A complaint, the berk’s voice louder, closer, and this time from over my bows. I must be going round and round on the water like a top.

‘We wait here. And he knows it. That’s why he’ll come this way. He’s trying for us as much as we are for him.’

Another grumble. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

‘Shtum it. Sounds carry in this.’

It was here, and now. No escape, no chance of quietly escaping in Drummer’s creek. I felt clammy. How odd that Devvo believed I was the hunter and not hunted. Maud
had said something similar. Yet I’d been like a rabbit in a barrel of ferrets since last night.

I was done for. To wait would be useless. To run for the open sea was equally hopeless. I’d known that all along. To drift meant sooner or later our boats would come together by chance in this creek. It wasn’t as wide as all that after all, and when all the sandbanks and flats are submerged a quick sweep of the radar would reveal me, a precise dot on a spread of an otherwise empty screen. To shout for help would simply tell Devvo where I was. I contemplated swimming for it, but in what direction? I might head blindly out to sea in this fog. How stupid to think of missing East Anglia by miles. I’d drown, and I’d done enough drowning for today. I closed my eyes wearily. Finished after all. And in the most pathetic, hopeless way possible. To go out whimpering and useless. Maybe that was me through and through.

‘Give uz a light,’ I heard somebody say in a low voice, closer, the berk just wanting a fag, casual and sure. The sheer frigging effrontery of his calm certainty was suddenly galling. I felt heat rise in my throat. My cold vanished in a sudden burst of hatred. If I was going to get done I’d take one of these bastards with me, maybe both. I thought in a blistering blaze of white-hot fury, all
right
– let’s frigging go. I slipped the clothes from round my shoulders and slithered down into the cabin, tiptoeing feverishly about, opening drawers and cupboards and stupidly almost clunking myself unconscious with a great flat board thing which fell outwards from the cabin wall. I caught it in time and hoped I’d concealed the sound. A few pieces of cutlery, a series of plates and a stove with that gas thing. Gas? I ducked back to it, getting down to look at it under the sink. Gas is liquid, in a flattish metal bottle with brass screw top. Compressed. You release it by turning the
valve. I screwed the brass nut closed and waggled it free of its tube and restraining clamps. It was unbelievably heavy. So I had a metal bottle of compressed gas. I felt the boat swing suddenly and scrape, a creak from somewhere. The boat was slowly being pulled over the flooding mudflats.