Send a Gunboat (1960) (31 page)

Rolfe jerked his head to Chao. “O.K., Chao, get the lifejackets over here. I want to be sure they’re in good condition!”

He bent his head at his task, dimly aware that the sun had changed its coat to a deep orange ball, and its rays were no
longer flaying his skin. He examined the small, red battery-lamps which were fitted to each lifejacket, to make sure that they were still working. He thought of how he had intended to use one of them to signal a warning to the gunboat. To tell her to keep away, and leave them to die. Brian Felton had changed all that, and had given them their only chance. The ground swayed beneath him, and he cursed anxiously. A two-mile swim, even with lifejackets, would be a pretty hazardous effort, especially when the moment came to climb out of the water on to the knife-edged reef.

“We’ll tie ourselves together with the heaving-line,” he murmured, and saw Chao’s sad eyes glimmer with understanding. “That way we’ll stand a better chance. There’s a big undertow around this coast, and we might easily get swept apart!”

“When we start, Captain-sir?”

Rolfe eyed the softening sky, with its long golden shadows reaching across the hazy horizon.

“Sunset is about four hours before midnight,” he answered thoughtfully, “so I think we’ll start in about one hour. Without knowing the exact time, it’s better not to take any chances.” He tried to clear his throat, but the hard, prickling dryness clogged his aching mouth like hot sand.

He looked across for the girl, and saw her standing at the foot of the grave. She was quite still, and her head was bowed.

He wanted to run to her. To pull her against his chest, and let her cry out the misery which was stored in her heart. She was holding it back, he knew that, and he could imagine what it was costing her.

He stretched his shoulders and winced as the tight, sun-blistered skin made him stiffen with pain. He tried not to think about his thirst, and the great pounding in his ears, but each time that his guard dropped and his ear picked out the slap of water against the foot of the rock, he imagined that he was hearing the sounds of cool, fresh water running from a barrel.

He concentrated on the distant reef, feeling a note of alarm at the sight of the deep feathers of spray which rose and fell unevenly about the grinning rocks. Once out of control, and their bodies would be torn to shreds.

He kept his sagging body occupied, and his screaming mind busy, doing every little thing he could think of, not daring to lie down, in case he collapsed completely.

He noticed that the lip of the crater had cast a deep shadow across the silent figure by the grave, and a momentary panic gripped him and made him wonder whether he had misjudged the time.

Judith shivered slightly as his hands gently cupped her shoulders from behind.

“I think it’s time now!” he whispered against her soft hair.

She turned slowly, as if reluctant to leave, and he was at once made more anxious by her frail appearance. But she smiled wanly, “I’m ready!”

They struggled into the lifejackets, Rolfe gritting his teeth as the rough covering ground across his back.

Judith went first, lowered carefully by Rolfe, until her feet were resting on the smooth rock shelf by the warm water.

Rolfe took a last look round, and with a savage heave, sent the rifle whirling out to sea. He dropped the tin box, and all their spare pieces of tattered clothing over the side of the cliff, and stared grimly at the darkening shape of the grave. So long, my friend, he breathed, you have had your wish. You are with the people you tried to help. Then he swung himself over the edge and down the rope.

Chao, slower but still sure-footed, followed him, without using the line, which he had first thrown down to Rolfe.

Now that they had left the shelter of the crater, their weakness and pain made them feel unprotected and naked, and it was almost with relief that they lowered themselves into the tugging water and pushed away from the rock.

The orange and blue lifejackets bobbed brightly on the heaving water, and Rolfe swam cautiously ahead, the line around his waist jerking slightly as Judith twisted into a more comfortable position. Like a brown shadow, Chao swung out on the end of the line, panting with the exertion of movement, after the blazing inactivity on the rock.

Rolfe was finding it even more difficult than he had imagined, for now that he had lost the advantage of height, he could rarely see the reef, except when a freak wave lifted him momentarily
above the others, and he caught a brief glimpse of the white foam of breakers.

Each time he saw them he felt like crying with frustration. They still looked the same distance away, and the rock still loomed over his shoulder.

He twisted round, treading water. “How are you managing?” he gasped.

Judith’s hair floated around her like chestnut sea-weed, glossy and sleek, but when she tried to answer him, a small wave slapped her across the mouth, and she retched painfully as the salt tortured her raw throat.

They swam grimly on, Rolfe feeling the weight growing on his rope. But for the lifejackets, he realized numbly that it would all have been over now, and the sea would have finished what the sun had started.

He was getting so weary that repeatedly he misjudged his own movements, and his head ducked beneath the jostling water. He rose, choking and spluttering, and trying to find the reef.

He looked back again. Chao was still swimming with savage determination, his eyes almost closed with strain. But the girl had practically given up, and her arms were moving only disjointedly, while her legs hung limply down beneath her.

For God’s sake, he gasped, how much farther? It was much darker now, and everything was becoming more distorted and unreal. Perhaps I’m going under, he thought coldly, maybe I’m already unconscious.

A ghost rose in the water ahead, and fell with the hiss of spray. As he beat the water frenziedly with his aching hands, he saw it again and heard the dull boom of the breakers trying to force their way in over the reef.

He back paddled, and for a moment the three of them floated together in a confused tangle. He had to shake Chao’s arm to stop the fierce, jerky strokes, and even then the boy didn’t seem to realize that they had reached their objective.

“Slip your rope!” He had to shout, suddenly aware that the noise of the surf had grown much louder. His legs felt as if leaden weights were pulling them down. The cross-current, he thought desperately, and kicked out with the last of his strength. “I’m going to tackle it first! You follow on! Have you got that?”

Chao nodded, gulping noisily at the air.

Rolfe fumbled with the girl’s lifejacket, aware that she was watching him, and conscious, too, that they were both moving rapidly through the turbulent water. He put his lips against her face, feeling the smooth skin rubbing against the stubble of his chin.

“Going to swim for the rocks! Can you hold on to my back?”

He turned over and felt her hands slipping and snatching at his neck. Then she was holding him, and her knees straddled across his back. They plunged forward and Rolfe kicked and thrust madly, as each creaming roller threatened to tear the girl from his body, and carry them helplessly on to the waiting jagged teeth.

Suddenly he saw the reef, and all at once it was below him, and he was flying through the swirling water over the first line of submerged rocks. Ahead lay the main barrier, and for one terrible second he thought they were going to be dashed against it and broken like the surf. The water dropped into a trough, and he started to fall towards the glistening crag which rose to meet him. He cried out as the thick pad of kapok on his chest ripped into the rocks and all the breath was driven from him.

Then, while he wallowed and struggled like a landed fish, his legs were dragged mercilessly over and down, and he stared in disbelief as the water was tinged with red.

He was staggering to his feet when the next wave rolled, thundering over the reef, and he hurled himself against the rock, dragging Judith against his body.

The sharp edges tore at his knees and hands as he pulled her to safety, and together they stood shaking on the top of the rock barrier, while the foam plumed and roared beneath them. They could neither hear nor think, but he squeezed her limp figure tight against him, careless of the blood which poured from his lacerated legs, and which was washed away by the high-flung spray.

He watched Chao swimming strongly along the line of gleaming teeth, and when his body was picked up by the waves, Rolfe plunged to the edge to catch him. It was a turmoil of noise and lung-bursting frenzy, but as they stood clustered together on the slippery crag, they knew that whatever else lay ahead, they had done the impossible.

Rolfe braced his body and mind against the playful fury of the sea, until time and suffering became meaningless. It was dark, but the night was torn apart by a continuous and terrifying ballet of leaping white waves, and when the pin-point of red light jabbed across the heaving black water beyond the reef, it was some time before he could bring his reeling brain to function, as with slippery, numbed hands he groped for the life-light, and flashed it dazedly towards the distant signal.

Perhaps it was all his imagination, and the red light had just been one more part of the nightmare.

He hugged the two limp bodies against him, squinting into the spray.

An age passed and just when he felt his reason and hope beginning to fade, he heard the steady creak of oars, and as he swayed awkwardly on his precarious foothold, the pale shape of the boat skimmed towards them.

“Here! We’re over here!” The sea flung the words back into his mouth.

The boat faltered, and then its shape shortened as it turned towards the reef.

Blindly Rolfe clutched Judith’s shoulders. “Jump!” he yelled, and together they were engulfed by the waves once more.

He clung to her body with grim desperation, and only when he felt the eager hands pulling at his body, and the smooth wooden sides of the boat, did he allow himself to falter.

They lay panting in the bottom of the boat as the oarsmen pulled strongly away from the beckoning reef, and as the keel cut into the calmer water, Rolfe saw Herridge kneeling at his side.

“Thanks, Chief,” he gasped. “Couldn’t have held on much longer!”

Herridge eased the girl’s limp body against his knees, brushing the tendrils of hair from her face.

“Seems it was all worth while, sir!” He smiled as the girl opened her eyes and gazed at him in disbelief.

The next minute he saw the gunboat’s swaying bridge above him, and summoning up his strength, he helped the girl on to the low deck. They swayed dazedly on the sturdy planking, still unable to believe they were alive, and as the boat was being
hoisted briskly to the davits, and Fallow rushed forward to meet them, Judith fell limply against him in a dead faint.

“Thanks, Number One! You can get under way now!”

He carried her carefully to his darkened cabin and laid her across the bunk. Ripping off the remains of the shirt, he began to dab tenderly at her body with a towel, listening to the sound of her steady breathing.

Beneath him a bell clanged and the engines began to throb once more.

FALLOW WATCHED SILENTLY
from a corner of the dimly lighted wheelhouse, his shadowed face filled with unveiled curiosity and awe. He was an unimaginative man, but as he followed his Captain’s movements he pondered over the story which Herridge had told him, of how Rolfe had been found ‘standing in the sea’. The very fact that Herridge was so obviously impressed by all that had happened was in itself enough to make him wonder.

Rolfe, naked but for a new pair of duck trousers, was noisily draining the last of a punctured can of beer. He laid it down gratefully beside two similar cans and breathed deeply. As his broad shoulders twisted under the small pilot-light, Fallow saw the angry red blisters and the bruises, and he wondered if Rolfe would eventually explain what had been happening on Santu.

Rolfe dragged the chart roughly across the flag locker, and tapped it with his scarred hand.

“We’ll stay on this course, Number One, and if the Chief gives us all the revs, he can manage, we should be able to get sixty miles between us and the island by daylight!” He rubbed his lips gingerly with the back of his wrist. “In the morning we’ll alter course towards the coast and steer right along the edge of the international limit, so to speak, just in case we’re attacked!”

“Er—this destroyer you mentioned, sir,” began Fallow cautiously, “d’you think she’ll be after us?”

Rolfe eyed him distantly. “Could be. Once we’re clear of
the coast she may pick us up on her radar, although I don’t think they’re all that well equipped in that direction. Still, we shall have to be ready to take avoiding action.” He indicated the chart. “If we are attacked, our best chance will be to close the Chinese coast, and try to shake off the chase amongst these islands and reefs. With our draft we could do it. A destroyer would find it very difficult!” He smiled bleakly. “It’s a good chance, anyway!”

Fallow fidgeted awkwardly. “Suppose we meet them in the open sea, sir? I mean, we’re safe ’ere, surely?”

“If I’m forced, I shall fight! They’ll soon realize we’re not using our radio, and they’ll put two and two together.”

“I see,” Fallow nodded his big head, but inwardly he felt a strange sensation of calm, as if all his forebodings were coming to a head, and the realization gave him a distorted satisfaction.

Rolfe fingered his unshaven chin and shook his head to clear away the feeling of exhaustion. “They’re out for revenge, and there’s no saying what they might do.”

The door from his quarters slid open and Ursula Laker peered across the wheelhouse. She watched Rolfe in silence, until he looked up, and then smiled gently.

“I’ve made sure that your little nymph is comfortable,” she said quietly, “and I’ll sit by her in case she needs anything.”

Rolfe stared at her thoughtfully, as if seeing her for the first time. “Thank you. I’d appreciate that very much.”