Strange Conflict (26 page)

He smiled at her. ‘Theoretically you may be right, Princess, but as leader of the party I regard myself as captain of
this ship. Nothing you can say or do would induce me to leave it before the rest of you.'

‘It's simple, then,' said Simon. ‘Richard is stronger than I am, and speed's important. He must go.'

But Richard shook his head. ‘Can you see me leaving Marie Lou? Don't be silly, Simon. It's your job, and you're quite strong enough to paddle that distance in a smooth sea.'

‘Ner,' Simon began to protest, but de Richleau cut him short.

‘I agree with Richard. Don't waste time in arguing, please. It's going to be pretty hellish here, exposed as we are to this torrid sun, and every moment counts if you're going to get help before the plane sinks under us. Come on, now; off you go.'

Rex had been blowing up the rubber dinghy while they had been talking. Realising the urgency of the matter Simon argued no further but helped Philippa into the frail craft and got in behind her. After a good push-off they began to propel the little boat canoe-fashion towards the land which they could not yet see.

A chorus of farewell and shouts of good luck followed them and every ten yards or so Simon turned to look back. His weak eyes were full of unshed tears and he felt a physical pain right down in the pit of his stomach. He wondered desperately if he would ever see those dear friends of his again.

They had got out of so many tight corners, but somehow this was different, because there was nothing at all that they could do to help themselves. Rex's great strength, Richard's common sense, Marie Lou's feminine wisdom and even the Duke's subtle, cunning brain were all utterly useless to them in this extremity. Their only hope lay in clinging to the wreckage of the sinking plane as long as possible and then swimming for it, while praying that he might be able to bring them help in time.

They, too, were fully conscious of their dire extremity and wondered if ever again they would hear Simon's chuckle or see his kind, good-natured smile. Sadly they watched the bobbing rubber boat until it was hidden from them by the gently heaving swell.

De Richleau roused himself and glanced at his watch. It
had been just after one o'clock when they had crashed and it was now only a quarter past, but already they were beginning to feel the grilling effects of the tropical sun. It was a brazen ball of fire, almost directly above their heads, in a cloudless blue sky. Crouched as they were on the roof of the wrecked plane, not an inch of shade was available from its scorching rays, which had already dried their sodden outer garments. All of them had lost their hats during the mix-up in the plane and had instinctively knotted handkerchiefs, pirate-fashion, about their heads; but these were scant protection and de Richleau feared that they might get sunstroke unless they could rig up some form of cover by using the things inside the plane. He was also extremely anxious to get up their luggage.

He spoke to Rex, who pulled the ripcord of the emergency exit, which they had closed behind them to keep as much air in as possible. A wave of air gushed out as they scrambled back into the plane to see what they could salvage. They found that the cabin was now awash waist-high, but they pressed forward towards the cubby-hole in the tail where their luggage was stowed. To de Richleau's fury he found that the pressure of the water was so great that in spite of their united efforts they could not drag open the door of the cubby-hole, and there was no other way to get their luggage out.

Every moment that they spent inside the plane was a risk, because there was always the possibility that the engine and the load of water might become too heavy for the fuselage so that it suddenly plunged, carrying them down with it. All the same, they set about a methodical search of the cabin. Kicking round with their feet and stooping to reach under-water with their hands, they passed up to Richard such things as they could find, through the escape exit.

They secured a small satchel of Richard's which contained his gun, his passport and money, together with a flask of brandy, some chocolates and a tin of cigarettes; then they fished up a couple of sodden rugs, Rex's mackintosh and—the best prize of all—Marie Lou's dressing-case. Now that the air could flow out the water in the plane was again rising rapidly so abandoning further attempts at salvage they climbed out and reclosed the escape exit.

The cigarettes and many of the things in the dressing
case were soaked through, but feeling that some of them might come in useful later on, they laid them out on the baking-hot roof of the plane to dry. In the meantime Marie Lou's pots of face creams proved a gift from Heaven, as their foreheads, noses, ears, necks and the backs of their hands were already going red with sunburn, and all of them had sun-bathed in the pleasant places of the earth so often that they knew that lovely warm sensation meant agony later on. Without a moment's delay they set about covering all the exposed portions of their skin with the pleasantly-scented greases which she recommended as the most suitable.

The wireless of the plane was now submerged and useless but its aerial ran from the plane's tail, a few feet above the fuselage, to a short staff near the cockpit, so they were able to drape the wet rugs over this, forming a rough tent under which they could get a little shelter from the blazing sun.

Almost at once the rugs began to steam as the heat rays drew off their moisture, but they crawled under them and lay down, with Rex at one end and de Richleau at the other to keep a lookout for any sail that might bring hopes of rescue.

By the time they had completed these arrangements it was getting on for two o'clock. For the next quarter of an hour they crouched in miserable silence under the scant cover of the tent, which was barely enough to shield them and soon became intolerably stuffy.

It was about twenty-past two when Rex gave a shout and stood up to wave frantically. In the distance he had spotted a large motor-boat which was coming towards them. The others all stumbled out of their shelter and joined him in shouting and waving. It seemed that the people in the boat could not possibly help seeing them and that they were already as good as saved.

Their disappointment was all the more bitter when the people in the boat made no response to their signals and, after having approached within quarter of a mile, it suddenly turned right round and headed away from them.

In angry disgust they sat down again, but after this sudden lifting of their hopes they positively could not keep still. Every few moments one or other of them stood up to peer in the direction in which the boat had gone. This constant
emerging from their shelter exposed them to the sun and they knew that Marie Lou's face-creams were only a scant protection against it. They were getting badly sunburnt now, but took little notice of that lesser evil seeing that they were all in peril of their lives. Although none of them mentioned it, they were all conscious that the plane was gradually sinking; inch by inch the water was creeping up its sides.

It was de Richleau who suddenly said: The only chance of our being able to continue to use the plane as a raft until Simon gets back is for us to take our weight off it.'

Richard gave a half-hearted laugh. ‘Go in for a swim, eh? Well, that's not a bad idea; at least it'll cool us off a bit.'

In consequence the men turned their backs on Marie Lou and they all undressed, then one by one they slid over the side. The cool of the water by comparison with the roasting roof of the plane was a blessed relief, as it eased their taut, parched skin and gave them new vitality. By hanging on to the side of the wreck they were, too, able to take advantage of a small patch of shadow, and each of them rested by turns in this way while the others swam about to take their weight off the waterlogged machine.

After they had been in the water for some twenty minutes Richard suggested that one of them ought to climb up on to the plane to see if there was any further sign of the motor-boat or other craft about, and Rex gave him a push up on to it. Shading his eyes with his hand he stared round, then suddenly cried that he could see the boat again; it was running sideways-on to them, about half a mile away.

He waved and shouted till he was hoarse, but apparently no one in the boat saw him so he gave up, having come to the conclusion, as the boat continued to patrol up and down, that its occupants were engrossed, to the exclusion of all else, in trolling for fish.

‘Come down, darling!' called Marie Lou, ‘or you'll get baked to a cinder,' and Richard suddenly realised that his silk pants had dried stiff on him while he had been standing there; so he dived in again and Rex clambered up to take his place. In doing so he cut his hand on a jagged strut of the plane where the wing had snapped off during the astral storm which had wrecked it. He thought nothing of it at the time, and stood for about ten minutes exasperatedly hailing
the seemingly sightless people in the launch until de Richleau came up to relieve him.

The Duke in turn signalled without result but he knew that it was much easier for them to see the motor-boat than for the people in it to see them, because while the boat with its big cabin stood at least ten feet out of the water the plane was right down on the water level, so that if they saw him at all it would only be as a small figure standing apparently on the water and entirely hidden every other moment by the intervening swell-crests.

As he stood there he knew that if they were rescued they were all in for a ghastly time from the exposure which they had sustained. Sun-bathing is a thing which should be indulged in at not too infrequent intervals and little by little at each fresh start, and none of them had sun-bathed since the beginning of the war. In consequence their bodies were a tender pink-and-white without the least trace of pigmentation left behind from old sun-bathing holidays. All of them in the last hour or so had gradually turned a dull, pinkish red and the stinging of the burns was already perceptible.

It was just then that his thoughts were switched to a far graver menace. Rex was swimming some way away from the plane, and cutting through the wavelets no more than twenty feet from him was a sinister triangular fin.

‘Shark!' yelled the Duke. ‘Shark!'

For a moment Rex did not seem to hear, the menacing, sail-like fin cut the water in a streak towards him, but suddenly he turned and came racing for the submerged plane, his head under water, his arms flailing and his feet threshing in a powerful crawl stroke.

Richard had scrambled on board and was dragging Marie Lou up after him. As Rex shot forward, churning up the water, the Duke saw the fin, which was now only a few yards from Rex's feet, suddenly disappear and he knew that the shark had dived to turn upon its back and attack its victim. Desperately he looked round for some weapon with which he might fend off the brute while Rex climbed out of the water, but there was no pole, or anything at all, that he could use; only the rugs, their clothes and the oddments which they had salvaged from inside the plane.

Rex spluttered up within a foot of the fuselage and it now
looked as though the fact that the plane was almost submerged would serve him in good stead. It was so low in the water that he had only to fling himself on to it and draw his legs up after him. But at the very second that he grabbed the tail-end of the plane de Richleau saw the shark immediately beneath him. The brute, which was at least twelve feet in length, had turned upon its back and its white belly was so plain in the translucent water that the Duke could see the sea-lice upon it. Its great mouth, with its seven rows of saw-like, gleaming teeth, was gaping open and Rex's left foot dangled almost inside it.

Richard was just behind de Richleau and with frantic fingers he had been wrenching open his satchel. Next second he fired with his automatic, under the Duke's arm, sending three bullets into the belly of the shark.

The brute's tail whacked with a thud against the side of the wreck, rocking it so that de Richleau was thrown off his balance and fell to his knees. The great jaws snapped as the shark thrashed in its death agony; its teeth grazed Rex's heel but he had jerked up his leg just in time and lay, panting, at full-length along the tail of the plane.

For thirty seconds they all crouched there gasping, then Richard suddenly cried, ‘Look' and pointed. Three more of the sail-like fins had appeared, moving swiftly towards them, and in another moment the three new-comers were fighting a desperate battle over the body of their dying comrade.

The water was no longer clear, but opaque and muddy with the shark's blood as it was torn in pieces by its cannibal shoal-mates. Marie Lou shivered and turned away, sick with nausea, so she did not see the end of the orgy, or that within a few minutes another dozen sharks had arrived upon the scene to join in the fray for any bits of fish-meat that might be left in the crimson, whirling water.

‘It's the blood that attracts them,' said the Duke with a shudder; ‘they've some sort of instinct by which they can scent it a mile away.'

Rex looked at the small wound in his hand which was still bleeding slightly. ‘That's it,' he said. ‘I ought to have realised. I cut myself climbing out of the water a little time back. It must have been my blood that the first brute scented.' He laughed, but it was a mirthless laugh, as he
added: ‘My swimming powers won't win me a medal now when the old bus goes under. Those devils wouldn't let the strongest swimmer get ten yards before they pulled him down.'

The others did not reply. They were staring at the water. It was quite clear again now and not a trace of the first shark remained. But having finished their banquet the others had not gone away; they were basking there, quite patiently, the fins of fifteen of them all protruding above the water.

The four friends had done many thousand miles of ocean travel and they had seen sharks follow a ship for weeks, waiting for any garbage that might be thrown overboard. Night or day was all one to those ravenous brutes. They had no sense of time once they had scented their prey. They would not give up until they had secured the victims that they could see sitting there, half-naked, on the wrecked plane.