Uncharted Seas (9 page)

The Negro swivelled round, stooped suddenly, and grasping the Venezuelan, forced him away. An instant later Vicente was struggling wildly in the air, gripped by one ankle and his neck. Harlem rose again to his full magnificent height, heaved his attacker up over his head and with a cackle of evil laughter, chucked him green-faced and screaming, right over the stern tent into the sea.

‘Dat’s where yo’ll all go soon,’ he bellowed as Vicente, a whirling mass of arms and legs, spun through the air; but Vicente’s misfortune had given the others a chance to act.

As Harlem’s head came down just after his mighty throw the Colonel’s stick caught him a terrific wallop right across the eyes. At the same second a tin of bully beef thrown by Unity thudded into his left shoulder and Basil landed a welt like the kick of a mule in the pit of his stomach.

The black colossus possessed enormous strength and had lost little of his ring-craft; but he had allowed himself to go soft. He could have stood up to the whack from the Colonel’s stick and the impact of the heavy tin, alone, but Basil’s blow found his weakest spot. Under the triple assault he staggered, doubled up, and suddenly went down.

For the moment it looked as if the forces of order were victorious. Steffens, the red-headed sailor, had come to Jansen’s assistance and between them they were holding Gietto Nudäa down. Harlem lay squirming, mouth agape, white eyeballs popping, his limbs twisted in knots as he gasped and fought to get his wind back.

‘Jansen! Sutherland! Steffens! lend a hand here!’ Luvia’s voice came urgently from the far side of the sail. Jansen was astride Nudäa’s chest and the half-caste had ceased to struggle so he sent Steffens forward at once.

Basil grabbed a hatchet with intent to finish Harlem, while he had the chance. In his view only further trouble could come of letting the black live and this was no time for scruples. But Colonel Carden stepped between them and the flash of his rheumy old eyes showed clearly that he did not mean to see murder done.

His ill-judged interference proved their undoing. Supple as a snake, swift as a mongoose, Harlem rolled over, grabbed the ankle of the Colonel’s gammy leg and twisted it with all his force.

The old man let out a roar of pain, clutched wildly at the air and fell, cannoning full into Basil and bringing him down as well.

Instantly Harlem was on his knees. With a murderous backwards stroke he cut Jansen, who was just behind him, across the nape of the neck with the outer edge of his hand. The carpenter fell forward as though he had been pole-axed; slumping without a sound limply on to Nudäa’s body.

In falling the Colonel had struck his head on the tiller. He was not knocked unconscious but momentarily dazed and lay where he had fallen. Thrusting the Colonel aside, Basil struggled to his feet. Harlem rose to his full height at the same moment.

For a fraction of time they stood glaring at each other. Basil, half crouching, wary, flaying his wits for some trick, no matter how dirty, by which he might kill or main his far more powerful antagonist; Harlem grinning evilly, gloating in anticipation over the victim he was about to crush. For that blow in the stomach he meant to break every bone in Basil’s body before he flung him, a bleeding mass of pulp, to the sharks.

Basil had dropped the hatchet when he fell. His hands clenched spasmodically. He would have given another fortune, had he had it, to have felt the comforting grip of its smooth handle now.

Harlem ceased smiling. His greenish eyes, veined and flecked a bilious yellow in their whites, gleamed balefully.

His mouth dry, beads of sweat gathering thick upon his forehead, Basil stared back; and suddenly he knew that he was afraid, desperately afraid.

As Harlem moved, Basil stepped back. He was brought up sharply by the calves of his legs knocking against the edge of the stern seat. He was trapped. Nothing could save him. A strangled call to Luvia for help died in his parched throat; shouts and curses coming from beyond the sail showed that the Finn was still fighting his own battle in the bow.

Aid came from an unexpected quarter. The primus stove, hurled by Unity, hurtled past Basil’s shoulder and caught the black full in the chest.

Its weight, and the force with which it was thrown, would have
knocked any ordinary man off his feet; Harlem only grunted and gaped in fierce surprise, but his attention was diverted just long enough for Basil to decide on diving at the hatchet.

He stooped, but too late: the black recovered and came at him before his fingers had a firm hold of the handle. Terror-stricken, he half-rose again, cowered back, felt the edge of the seat catch him sharply behind the knees, lost his balance and went overboard.

The semi-tropical waters held a pleasant warmth, but the fierce excitement of the mutiny and the scorching sun under which it was being fought had both contributed to drench him in a bath of sweat. As he plunged downwards he felt as if he had suddenly been submerged in the icy waters of a polar sea. His heart seemed to contract with the shock and he came up gasping like a man who, without warning, has had a bucket of cold water thrown at his naked back.

Only two yards away the boat was rocking violently as the fight raged on. A dark blob showed under its stern—Vicente’s head as he trod water there, clinging to one of the life-lines fixed to the boat’s gunwale.

A new fear gripped Basil—sharks. He twisted swiftly in the water and struck out for the boat. Grabbing a life-line amidships he looked hurriedly round, peering as far as he could see into the green depths below. He expected great, dark shadows to be moving there, or a flash of white as one of the brutes turned over on its back and opened its huge jaws to snap off his feet, but to his infinite relief he could see no sign of life other than a million molecules that danced and shimmered as they caught the light.

Hand over hand he pulled himself rapidly along the side of the boat away from the fiendish Negro in the stern. He thought of the two girls but he knew he was powerless to help them, and that any attempt to board the boat again there would be simply asking to have his head bashed in. The only course seemed to be to reach Luvia in the bow, get hauled aboard, and when they had armed themselves with makeshift cudgels, to attack Harlem from the rear.

So much had happened since Basil’s raid on the rum he wondered that Luvia, with the aid of the loyal seamen, had been so long in getting the situation forward of the mast in hand, but in reality the whole desperate encounter had occupied less than five minutes. As Basil pulled himself up and peered over the gunwale he saw why Luvia had been detained even that length of
time. One of the black stokers was down, but the other two were still fighting and each was whirling an open razor over the back of his clenched right hand.

Luvia had Hansie with him and the three other Swedes, Steffens, Largertöf and Bremer. The unfortunate Steffens had received a frightful cut across his right cheek and mouth. Faint, sick and bleeding like a pig, he was lying collapsed half out of the boat. Largertöf held Corncob down right up in the bow, and was battering his woolly head. Hansie was vainly trying to staunch the bleeding from a badly slashed arm, while Luvia and Bremer were striving to get in under the guard of the two other blacks.

Lem and Isiah were both big men and they wielded their horrible weapons with practised skill. Luvia and Bremer were hard put to it to hold their own.

Basil, clinging to the far side of the boat, was well out of reach of the Negroes and as he was unable to hoist himself over the gunwale he could not give active help, but the result of the scrap meant life or death to him and his wits were still working.

‘Don’t try to rush them, you fool,’ he shouted to Luvia. ‘Get an oar and ram them in their stomachs.’

Hansie stopped dabbing at his arm and lifted the nearest oar. Luvia and Bremer jumped back and got hands on it. There was not much room to use such an unwieldy weapon but the three of them jabbed its blade hard into Isiah’s midriff. He gulped, goggled horribly and fell. Lem sprang forward at the same second, slashing at Bremer with his razor. Hansie gave the Negro a terrific kick behind the knee which threw him off his balance. The oar was brought into play again and caught him on the side of the neck, sending him spinning.

Largertöf’s blows with a knotted rope-end on Corncob’s thick skull had at last rendered the black unconscious. The young Swede jumped to help his comrades who were disarming Len and Isiah. Luvia turned to pull Basil in over the side. The sound of screams now reached them from the stern.

‘Haven’t you got a gun?’ gasped Basil.

‘Yes, but it’s in the locker aft,’ Luvia replied swiftly as he straddled a thwart.

‘Get aft then! For God’s sake get aft and stop that devil murdering those women.’

Luvia gave one glance round. Hansie had fainted from loss of blood. Steffens had slipped down into the bottom of the boat and was whimpering pitifully. Largertöf and Bremer were needed
there to tend them and secure the temporarily disabled mutineers. He slipped under the sail and scrambled towards the stern alone.

Basil’s eyes were just level with the gunwale of the boat and it took all the strength of his arms to raise himself so far out of the water. He made a desperate effort to lift himself further and scramble over but he could not manage it. The side of the boat sloped away from under him and he could get no purchase for his feet. He realised too late that if Luvia delayed a moment to help him in it would have been time well spent as there would have been two of them then to go aft and tackle Harlem.

In an effort to catch the Finn he pulled himself back along the boat’s side again, yelling ‘Luvia—Luvia!’ but the curses of the Negroes and the shrieks of the two girls drowned his shouts.

When he came opposite the mast amidships and could see round the sail Luvia was already charging into the stern.

Another brutal scene was being enacted there. The Colonel still lay on his back; Gietto Nudäa was standing astride of him and he had the two girls each by a wrist. They were both kicking and struggling to get away from him while he gave the wrist of first one and then the other a violent twist, striving to force them overboard. He could have managed it with either of them separately but could not exert quite enough pressure on one to snap her arm or throw her while he had to hold off the other fighting like a wildcat. Harlem, meanwhile, had half wrecked their tarpaulin shelter and was just carrying off the precious keg of water.

‘Drop that!’ roared Luvia. ‘D’you hear me? Drop that or I’ll knock your block off.’

Harlem put down the little cask, but gently, and squared up to the engineer. ‘It’s yo’s head’ll be fo’ de knocking, Bass,’ he spat out as he made a sudden pass with his big fist.

The muscles in Basil’s arms were strained to breaking point; the pain was so acute that he was compelled to relax and let himself slip back into the water where the high side of the boat cut off his view. When he had strength enough to pull himself up again the most terrific fist fight he had ever seen was in progress.

In height and weight the two men were matched pretty evenly. The Negro had the big advantage of his training as a professional boxer, but it was obvious that the herculean Finn was no mean amateur and he was in better condition.

There was little room to manœuvre and no clinching so it was
literally a stand-up fight where sledge-hammer blows were given and taken without cessation.

Harlem got a left in early, nearly closing Luvia’s right eye, but the Finn covered it up skilfully after that and got his own back twenty seconds later by landing a punch which had every ounce of his great weight behind it over the black man’s heart.

The strain on Basil’s arms forced him to drop down for the next half-minute and when he was able to look again Luvia had given back a pace. He was still getting in telling blows on the Negro’s body, but Harlem seemed capable of taking plenty of punishment and was striking again and again at his opponent’s head. Basil knew that if one of those hammer-blows got through Luvia’s guard it would be the end; and the defeat of Luvia would be the end of them all.

The Colonel had grasped that too apparently as, in spite of a savage kick in the ribs from Nudäa, who was still struggling with the two girls, he had succeeded in wriggling out from under the half-caste and now grasped the hatchet dropped by Basil in the earlier scuffle.

With a groan Basil dropped to the water level once more. He counted ten before gritting his teeth and hoisting himself up again. The Colonel was on his feet behind Harlem with the hatchet raised to cleave his skull in two. But Nudäa suddenly flung the girls from him and, lugging something from his belt, spun round. There was a crack, a spurt of flame, and the hatchet dropped from the Colonel’s nerveless fingers. Shot through the chest, he pitched forward at the half-caste’s feet.

Nudäa had fired at point-blank range and within two feet of Harlem’s back. The sudden shattering report threw the Negro off his guard for a second and involuntarily he half turned about. Instantly, Luvia sent a mighty right to the point of his jaw and followed it with a left to the solar plexus. The black dropped to his knees and slumped forward senseless. Without a pause Luvia rushed the half-caste, but Nudäa had no guts without his leader. He threw down the gun he had just stolen from the after locker and put up his hands.

The mutiny was over: Basil and Vicente were hauled aboard, but they had lost the primus, Synolda’s vanity case, the kettle and one tin of bully, all of which had gone overboard in the scrimmage, in addition to wasting the rum; Steffens was seriously wounded and Colonel Carden died that night. He was buried at sea; the first of several in the boat’s company who were soon to
go on that longest of all journeys, from which there is no return.

It was Wednesday, 12th January, and they had been sixty-six hours in the boat, as they crouched parched and sweltering on their third afternoon since abandoning the
Gafelborg
.

The unleashing of so much violent emotion during the mutiny twenty-four hours earlier seemed to have exhausted all their energies. A terrible lassitude had fallen upon them; moreover, they were conserving all their strength now, not for any set purpose but instinctively and because of the secret knowledge each of them had that they were already weaker. Under-nourishment, lack of water, and exposure were steadily sapping their vitality. With the last flicker of it they would die.