The Night Boat Page 3

Chapter Two

 

  WHEN MASON HOLCOMBE picked up his next card he knew Lady Luck with her shining golden hair and dress of crackling folding money was standing at his right shoulder. He tried to keep the look of the barracuda out of his eyes, but it was damned hard to do. He had a pair of queens and triple jacks; he raised his eyes very carefully. . . oh, mon, he told himself, do keep that look innocent!. . . to Percy "Pudge" Layne, who sat across from him at the up-ended, rusted fuel drum they used as a card table. Percy, a rotund black with a high forehead and close-set oval eyes, regarded him in silence.

  "Come on, mon!" said Mason carefully, trying to affect an off-handed aggravation. "How many cards?"

  "Three. " He tossed the three down, took another three off the top of a dog-eared pack that had been used in boatyard games for as long as both men could remember.

  "Okay, what you puttin' up?" Mason said, ready to get on with it.

  Percy shook his head, his face wrinkled up and worried. He gazed out across Mason's broad shoulder at the plain of the sea beyond, then dropped his eyes back to his hand. Without a word he reached beside him to a pack of cigarettes that had been broken in half. He put four halves before him.

  "Fine. " Mason put out his four cigarette halves, raked out three more. "And three. "

  Percy shrugged, met the raise.

  "What you got, my fine friend?" Mason asked, ready to leap.

  "Not so good, I doan think," said the other man. He laid down his cards in a fan shape. "You can beat that, I know. " Before him on the drum were two aces, two wild deuces, and a six.

  Mason sat, numb from the neck up. He dropped his cards down. Percy laughed out loud and took the cigarette halves to add to a growing heap. "Came up lucky as all hell on that draw," he said quietly.

  "I ain't playing no more with these old cards!" Mason said. "You can just damned see through the back of 'em! Jesus Christ!"

  "Oh shaddup," Percy said, "and lay down your ante. "

  The afternoon breeze off the sea was cool and fresh. It was a welcome relief to get out here when the sun was high, away from the heat of the wharfs and the stench of fuel oil, grease, and battery acids. They could hear the banging of a hammer against timber and the drawing of a handsaw repeated over and over again - someone still working in the boatyard. Probably J. R. , or the foreman, Lenny, burning themselves up in that sun to finish replacing the Ginger's broken hull planks. The old man who operated her, Harless, or "Hairless," as the boatyard men called him, was a good friend of the yard's owner, Kevin Langstree, and so that accounted for the rush that had been put into the repair work.

  The Langstree boatyard had seen better days. It was a jumble of wharf pilings, huts, piles of timber and empty oil drums, crates and boxes strewn everywhere, heavy ropes coiled like thick brown pythons, and a morass of bald tires stacked up to protect the hulls of boats. It had been affluent once, bustling with traffic from the island harbor, an anchorage for both British and American freighters. Now it was kept up primarily to service the island's fishing fleet and to do repair work if necessary on the yachts that cruised through here during the tourist season. The work force had been cut to a third of what it had been during the early part of World War II, when the boatyard was paid handsomely for repairs made on the huge Allied warships that had fought the Germans in the Caribbean. In those days, as the aging Langstree liked to tell everyone, the boatyard had worked fifty men on two shifts; the work was plentiful and hard but the men knew what they were doing. They were all tough, muscular islanders with a common-sense, natural knowledge of both the small fishing trawlers and the larger, more complex steel-hulled craft. They had learned the art of fast patching, of making use of available materials until what had seemed hopeless was again ready for the sea. They could take down and put back together ocean-going diesels blindfolded, restore the snapped rudders and broken hulls of sailing sloops, rebuild skiff motors by spit and wire.

  But no more. Many of those men had moved away from Coquina in search of better-paying jobs after the war had ended; some of them had died in action, for a boatyard servicing warships in a combat zone was a prime target for the enemy. Now most of the yard was abandoned. Of two tin-roofed wooden structures used as drydocks only one was in use, and that only occasionally when a larger boat needed a patch job or some such serious work. The other, allowed to fall to pieces in the salt air, had been constructed by the British navy for the purpose of storing damaged warships until they could either be patched or until the heavy naval tugs could arrive for them; it was filled with supplies and equipment left over when the warships were no longer needed to patrol the Caribbean. Although the jobs had dried up, the boatyard had always maintained a proud reputation and was the only thing that kept Coquina on the map. Most of the workmen made ends meet for their families by moonlighting either as fishermen or farmers.

  "Deal," Percy said over the noise of the hammer. He glanced across; the bulkheadlike doorway to the nearest drydock had been opened and he could see J. R. 's head as the man worked in the concrete-reinforced pit. Beside the shelter were the bleaching bones of an abandoned ketch, its splintered hull as white as the grass-thatched sand around it. A few dozen yards away, beneath a block-and-tackle assembly, were the wharfs, where a couple of fishing boats were moored. A sign on long stilts at the far end of the wharfs, facing the sea, read in weather-beaten red paint: LANGSTREE BOATYARD.

  Percy was not really concentrating as the cards were placed face-down before him. He was looking out at the sea. He had watched the little skiff with the white man in it move on through the bommies of Kiss Bottom, and while he and Mason played he gazed curiously out at the Abyss, where the skiff, only a white dot against the blueness of sea and sky, floated at anchor. He wondered what the white man was doing there. In the middle of the sea, beneath that searing orb of sun! Moore had to be crazy as hell. Even he, Percy, with his black flesh thickened by years of outdoor work, avoided the early afternoon heat, preferring instead to play poker beneath the shading palm fronds or drink beer and swap old stories with the other men up at the Landfall.

  He picked up his hand. Four and six of clubs, heart's king, ten of hearts, and ace of diamonds. What to discard, what to build on? He suddenly felt like a fool sitting here. He had nets to mend for the next morning's fishing. Without them he'd have to depend on trawling lines, and he didn't want to. The fish were getting too smart to grab just any old bait these days, and the huge nets on the industry boats that worked these waters on an erratic basis frightened away the fish that weren't scooped up. Damn it, he thought angrily, it's gettin' tough for a man to feed his own mouth, much less a wife's and two children's.

  "What you want, mon?" Mason asked him.

  And when the other man looked up, intending to ask for three cards, his gaze froze.

  The sea was boiling like a hot cauldron out in the Abyss, just beyond where Moore's skiff lay. Percy could see the great turbulence of it. Something was wrong. Bad wrong. He dropped his cards, rose up from the battery crates he'd been perched upon. He pointed. "What the hell's that?"

  Mason twisted around, narrowed his eyes. "Jesus," he said, quietly.

  The men could see foam crashing over the skiff; it was jerked down the side of a wave, then bobbed back into view again. And as they watched, spellbound, they saw a massive shape burst from the sea in a white geyser of water. They thought at first it was a whale emerging from the depths but then the sun glinted sharply off what appeared to be a hard surface; the thing rocked back and forth as the ocean continued to churn around it.

  "Damn!" Mason said, leaping up from his seat. He put a hand across his forehead to shield his eyes from the reflection and stared.

  "J. R. !" Percy shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. The hammering ceased and a man appeared at the shelter entrance. "GET OUT HERE QUICK!"

  On the Abyss rim, Moore clung to the skiff gunwale. He was trying to sort out what had happened, dazed because it had happe
ned so quickly. One moment he had been digging on the great mountain of sand, the next he had been gripping that depth charge, the next scrabbling wildly away as the charge hurtled into the depths. He wasn't bleeding anywhere, but his flesh felt raw and bruised and his head ached fiercely. And then, as he stared at the hulk that had begun its eerie movement with the currents, he realized what he'd been trying to dig out: the uppermost portion of a periscope. He'd been digging above the mass of the submarine; it had been buried beneath the tons of rock and sand, and the explosion had ripped it free.

  Moore unfastened his straps and heaved his tank over into the boat's bottom. Then he painfully pulled himself over, his muscles tight and unyielding, and quickly cranked up the anchor with the hand winch.

  He laid the anchor in the bow, started up his motor, and swung the skiff around to follow in the thing's wake.

  He drew up alongside it off the starboard beam, keeping well away in case it suddenly turned or heeled over for the bottom. It was riding low, the waves sliding across the bow and crashing with a hollow boom against the conning tower. A mass of black cables and wires, secured to the forward deck, writhed like angry snakes. The paint was almost completely scoured away to reveal the dark, sea-weathered iron, but here and there remained patches of rust-colored primer and even the original dingy gray. Moore could almost have sworn the old relic was operating under its own power, so straight was its direction, but of course the thing was long deserted - there was no noise of racketing diesels, only the relentless pounding of the sea. He turned the tiller a few degrees, moved in for a closer look. From the distance of only a few yards he could see the rivets in the conning-tower plates, and the sight was oddly disturbing. The plates looked like scales on a huge, prehistoric reptile. A cable as thick as Moore's arm hung down across the tower bulwark, slapping iron. He recalled a picture he'd seen in an encyclopedia as a child: a black-finned monster rearing high above storm-tossed waves to snap its jagged teeth through the neck of a pterodactyl.

  He was entranced by the thing, lost in its aura of power and ancient menace. In another few moments he heard the noise of the sea rushing around the Kiss Bottom reefheads; there were figures standing on the fishing wharfs and beach, others watching from the boatyard. The submarine began to turn, almost imperceptibly, for the opening in the reef, drawn by the influx of water there. Moore turned his skiff to avoid scraping across a gnarled, green-slimed bommie, then found himself in the midst of jagged reefheads. Someone shouted something from the fishing wharfs, but Moore couldn't hear. The hulk looked like it might pass unscathed through the reef into Coquina's tranquil harbor, but then he heard a loud grinding of iron across coral. Sea foamed at the bow, and the forward deck began to rise. The currents were driving the hulk across the reef; bits of coral shattered and collapsed under the thing's weight. The submarine shuddered, grinding forward, the bow rising out of the sea like a knife's black blade. And then, abruptly, the grinding noise stopped. The submarine was wedged on Kiss Bottom, its bow out of the water but its stern deck still awash. Moore could clearly see the closed vents of the two forward torpedo tubes on the starboard side, and a chill touched the flesh at the back of his neck.

  There was more shouting from shore, but Moore wasn't paying attention. Gulls swooped down from the blue; they circled, screaming, above the hulk, then sailed away on their currents of air as if disdaining contact with the thing. Moore drew nearer; the submarine loomed above him, angled crazily, now motionless. As the breeze swept across it he caught the stench of age, of a slow decay; it smelled to him like the carcass of a pilot whale that had beached itself in a directionless search for the sea. Moore's skiff moved into the submarine's shadow, and it towered over him. He cut his motor, tied a line onto the collapsed deck railing, and with a smooth, powerful movement, pulled himself up the railing to the submarine's deck.

  Part of the forward deck had caved in; he could see where the deck plankings had given way. There was still a lot of sand left aboard; it slithered with quiet hissing sounds around Moore's feet and lay in clumps among the twistings of cables. Just forward of the conning tower there was a deck gun, still firm on its mount and apparently in good shape but for the wet sand that dripped from its muzzle. Moore moved toward the bow, walking gingerly on the slippery planking. He reached the deck gun and hung on to it. Forward of the gun was the square outline of a deck hatch which appeared to be secured. Ahead of him the bow's sharp spear challenged the sky; railings were twisted and broken, iron scarred and gouged. He left the gun and worked his way forward as if climbing a steep hill. When he glanced back he saw the gun's bore, black and deadly looking.

  He had taken only another step when the planking gave way beneath him. As he slid through the hole he reached out, grasping a cable; it held and he pulled himself back up on deck, his heart hammering. Through the splintered opening Moore saw a gleaming, massive metal tube. He knew very little about submarines, but he figured that the tube, protected by the iron and timber of the superstructure, was actually where the guts of the boat lay. The pressure hull, he remembered it was called, was resistant to the great depths at which these boats had moved. Along the iron sides of the superstructure, the shell that protected the intestines, were dozens of ducts that allowed the water to stream in, cushioning the pressure hull. The engines, the control room, the crew's quarters, all the other compartments and stations necessary to the submarine's operation were inside that tube. It looked smaller than he would have imagined. How many men would have manned this thing? Twenty-five? Thirty? Fifty? It seemed impossible that they could have found space to move.

  Now there was only the noise of the sea swirling across the submerged aft deck, a series of whispers and groans.

  A dead relic, Moore thought, staring at the mass of the conning tower. He saw above it the periscope he'd been trying to dig out. There was a second shaft that looked like another periscope, but this was battered and slightly bent to one side. As the sun baked down, the smell of decay rose all around him. When did this thing go down? he wondered, and what boat was it? There were no identifying symbols or numbers; if there had ever been any, the sand had scraped them off. He felt like a fly crawling along the maw of a crocodile that had come up to sun itself on the rocks. Why, he wondered, did he sense something living about this boat now so long dead?

  Moore heard the distant pounding of engines. At first the sound chilled him until he looked toward the harbor and saw one of the beat-up old fishing trawlers approaching with men at the gunwales. A cluster of islanders had gathered on the wharfs, and children were running up and down the beach as if at some kind of festive celebration. He waved a hand at the trawler and a man at the bow waved back.

  The trawler, its engines rumbling, pulled up alongside; two brawny islanders leaped over onto the submarine's deck. Lines were thrown and secured; an anchor chain rattled down and a gangplank was tied into place between the trawler and the hulk. Most of the men seemed reluctant to come aboard but one, a broad-shouldered black wearing a dark-blue cotton shirt and khaki trousers, crossed the gangplank and came over to Moore, avoiding the holes that gaped in the planks.

  The man was not quite as tall as Moore but stockier, with iron-gray hair and a firm, chiseled face. He looked into the white man's eyes and then gazed the length of the thing, as if unsure of what he was seeing.

  "It came up from the Abyss," Moore said, still shaken.

  "Christ Jesus!" The black shook his head, peering down with deep-set, wary eyes through the broken planking at the pressure hull. "Tell me what happened. "

  "I was salvaging, looking for stuff off that freighter down there. This was buried beneath a mound of sand and coral; there was an explosion. . . "

  "An explosion?" He looked up, sharply.

  "An old depth charge. The shock blew it free, and this thing corked for the surface. God only knows how long it's been under there. "

  "You're okay?"

  Moore nodded. "Got a hell of a headache and
my ears are ringing like Sunday at the Vatican, but mostly the bastard just scared hell out of me. "

  "I've told you before about diving in the Abyss, David," said the man in a West Indian accent polished with a British veneer. Steven Kip had been Coquina's constable of police for some seven years. He stabbed a finger at Moore. "I've warned you about all that junk lying underwater, all that war crap. It could've been your bones at a thousand fathoms. So you found one damned brass compass. So what? Now this! You're a fool to go diving alone in there!"

  Moore said nothing, because he knew the constable was right. The currents were dangerous, the risks great for a group of divers and astronomical for one alone. What was it, he thought grimly, not looking at the other man. His death wish? Damn it to hell!

  "She's an old one," Kip said quietly, staring at the deck gun. "Sand's kept her as clean as a new tooth. " There was a sudden sharp clatter. One of the islanders was pulling at a cable that snaked off into the water at the stern. "Hey! Let that be!" The islander looked up, dropped the cable, and backed away from it. "How deep?" Kip asked Moore.

  "Hundred and fifty. Pretty close to the surface for one of these. "

  Kip shook his head. "Didn't want to stay down, did it? There's supposed to be a main hatch up on the tower. Did you check it?"

  "No," Moore said.

  "Then let's get at it. " Kip turned from him and made his way past two more islanders who had come aboard.

  "Watch your step," Moore called to his friend. "Deck's weak in places. "

  They stepped over the tangle of cables, reached a ladder, and climbed up to the tower bridge.

  The bridge was ankle-deep in gray sand and seawater, littered with pieces of planking and clumps of coral. Droplets splattered onto them from the periscope shafts above, ricocheting off the iron bulwark. Kip bent down into the water and parted sand with his hands until at last he uncovered the slab of a hatch. "Sealed tight," he said, wiping his forehead with a dripping hand. "If we want to get in we'll have to burn through, and I'm not so certain we want to do that. "

  "Why not?"

  "Still anxious to do some salvaging today, are you?" Kip fixed him with a cynical stare. "You might be doing your salvaging in Heaven if this thing's carrying live torpedoes. " He stood up, looking toward the stern. "There should be a crack somewhere in this boat's guts. Otherwise what was it doing in the Abyss?"

  "It seems to be stable enough now," Moore said. "No indication that it's sinking. "

  Kip grunted. "I can understand a dead boat going down. I can't understand a dead one coming back up. This beats all I've ever seen. One thing's for sure, though. Kiss Bottom's got a hold on it, and the hulk's not going anywhere soon. " He looked closely at Moore as he leaned back against the bulwark and ran a hand over his face. "You want to see Dr. Maxwell, David?"

  "No, I'm okay. I guess I'm still a little shaky. I knew the storm would have uncovered a lot down there, but I never figured on anything like this. "

  The constable was silent for a moment, gazing along the wide decks. "World War II crate, I'd say. No markings. Could be British, American, Italian, German. . . who knows? They all prowled these waters during the war. Now that it's up we're going to have to do something with it. I can't leave it out here, but for the life of me I'm stumped as to. . . "

  There was another sharp noise of something striking iron. Kip peered over the bulwark, expecting to see one of the islanders again trying to gather up that heavy-duty cable.

  But the men were all standing together at the bow. They had been talking quietly, and now they stared up at the constable, their faces frozen, their lips drawn into tight lines. The others on the trawler stood where they were, watching and listening.

  And all around a deep, hollow booming - something striking iron with a rising, feverish intensity.

  One of the islanders cried out in fear; they all backed away from the tower, moving toward the gangplank and the safety of the trawler.

  Moore felt a chill streaking up his spine. "What the hell. . . ?"

  "Get off it!" a bearded man on the trawler called out.

  "It's the sea!" Kip said loudly, so they could all hear. "What's wrong with you men? The sea's coming up and banging around underneath the hull, for God's sake!" But now their eyes were wide and terrified; they were chattering among themselves, and even as they did the noise grew louder and sharper, more frenzied, out of pace with the sea's rhythm.

  Then nothing. And the silence was ten times as bad.

  "It's about to come apart," Kip said quietly. "Let's get off this thing. " He swung himself easily over the bulwark and descended the ladder to the deck, then stepped back for Moore to come down. Kip paused a few seconds, looking over the side where the currents churned about under the hull, while Moore cast off the lines of his skiff. One of the men secured it so the boat would drag along with the trawler.

  "Let's get out of here," Kip said.

  They took the trawler's gangplank back aboard, freed the lines, and pulled them back. With a throb of its engines the trawler veered away from the submarine, swinging around for the clear entrance through the reef. Moore turned to look back at the thing. Its bow jabbed the sky, the maw of a beast. It unnerved him to think he'd been underwater with something like that, clinging to it, his unprotected network of flesh, nerves, muscle, and bone so close to an armor-plated creature of cables, gears, rivets, iron beams.

  He was unable to turn his eyes away. Where have you come from? And why are you here?

  No one spoke aboard the trawler. The sun beat down on the men, and the safety of harbor lay just ahead.

  The eerie hammering noises still echoed within Moore's head. Had it been the sea, as Kip had said? He'd heard the same thing underwater, as he worked around that exposed periscope. But it had seemed to him then that the noise had come from inside the thing, as if something were striking metal over and over again, with a terrible strength.

  Something trying to get out.