“What about me?” she begged. “I can help you get rid of the gold. I know where I can sell it overseas. I don’t want any of it. I only came along because Sebastian asked me to. I didn’t know there would be trouble. I don’t need any money.” She shook her head, the blonde hair swirling about the top of her shoulders. “I could be good to you, to each one of you.”
Sebastian jumped forward. “No, Judy! No! Don’t do it to save me!”
“You!” she spat at him. “To save you? What good did you ever do for me? A stinking twenty-year-old yacht on the bloody Brisbane River? God! All you ever were was a place to eat, a place to sleep and a body when I felt the need! Do you think you would’ve been here now if I could have found someone else with a boat, someone dumb enough to believe he was in for a share of the treasure? Jesus, Sebastian, you are thick!”
There was a single cry of pain, of anguish, as all his illusions were finally shattered in that one brief instant in time. He crumpled to the floor and cried; large slow tears rolling down his sweat-stained face. She didn’t even give him a second glance.
“Hassan,” she called, the familiar lilt back in her voice. “Have you ever had a white woman?”
His face widened as the grin took hold, revealing a single missing tooth back along one side. He rattled off her last words to the other two, but they had already got the message, pushing forward to get a better look at the woman offering herself.
She pulled the T-shirt down to her waist, accentuating the sharp outline of those full breasts.
The one holding the shotgun pointed his finger at her, babbling excitedly, then wiped the back of a thin-fingered hand across his mouth and added; “Ji?”
“Ji ha!” was Hassan’s reply, followed by something else which wiped the smile off the other’s face as he found that he would have to wait for the pleasure, but then he smiled again, anticipating the moments to come.
Hassan wanted his hands on von Luckner’s chest first. He had the single pin-prick gleam in his eyes that had been in Judy’s when she spoke of the gold: greed.
“Don’t leave me down here too long, Hassan,” she said, smiling; but the nervous twitch in her cheek gave her away.
“Whore!” Rick snarled from the top of the ladder.
Henry shook his head in disgust and started up after him.
“Christ, Judy,” I muttered. “You’ve got the morals of an alley-cat. Haven’t you got any principles at all?”
She didn’t bother to answer, merely glanced at me with that smug self-satisfied smile she used whenever she had got what she wanted, and sat down again, drawing her legs up to her chin, tightening the crotch of her shorts, knowing what it would do to the Indians above. She was certain that she was safe now, and probably believing that she might even get a share of the gold; if she was really good to them that is. Maybe only a small share, but a share nonetheless.
I wasn’t so sure. These men weren’t going to let any of us go. She might live a little longer than the rest of us, but they would soon tire of her whingeing ways, and they couldn’t afford to let her live with the rest of us dead; and yet the silly bitch just couldn’t believe it might happen to her. It was outside her comprehension that anyone could resist her charms.
“Be careful!” I called to Rick and Henry as they crossed to the saloon door, the three Indians standing well back.
“You too, mate,” Rick said quietly. “Don’t give up the ship.”
Hassan followed them out, the shotgun cradled in his arms.
There were only the two of them left looking down on us, both wielding those vicious long-handled knives.
“Hey, Baiya!” I called to the one with the long sleeves and frayed cuffs. “How about a cup of coffee?”
He just looked at me stonily and grasped the knife even harder. He wanted my head, shirtsleeves did.
“How’s your shoulder?” I asked Sebastian.
He didn’t reply. He had sunk deep into himself after Judy had tossed him aside and offered to prostitute herself. He wasn’t going to be much use in the fight that had to come.
Five minutes later there was a call from the back deck. Shirtsleeves moved across to the saloon doorway and looked out, one eye still half on us. Then Hassan returned, sending shirtsleeves and the other Indian out to the back deck to watch over Rick and Henry. I could hear Rick abusing Henry at the top of his voice, but they weren’t really words of abuse. He was letting me know that they were both in the dinghy, with one of the Indians in charge of the outboard, and heading towards the bay.
Hassan sat down at the dining table, staring down at us, the shotgun lying in front of him on the polished wood. Shirtsleeves slid in quietly from the back deck and all but spat down into the fo’c’sle, showing me the hate he bore, letting me know that he knew what I had done to the cousins. He stepped back to the galley and boiled the kettle, making tea for them both, watching the dinghy through the saloon window. Nothing was offered to us and I didn’t bother to ask again.
******
Rick’s shotgun. It was the second time it had been so close and yet so far. The first time it had been down in the hold under the coil of rope and impossible to reach. This time it was closer to hand, and loaded, stretched out behind the tinned peaches, baked beans, peas and whatever other tasteless rubbish we had. Or was it? And if it was there, was it still loaded? There were only two people who knew for certain whether it had been removed or rendered useless, and I couldn’t ask either of them. One mention of the gun and Judy would be up on her feet yelling her head off to further ingratiate herself.
******
My hands were still tied, one wrist crossed over the other, palms downwards, and Hassan wasn’t taking his eyes off us for a second. There was no way I could reach in, grab the gun with one hand, and then turn and fire.
“Jude?” I said, and then checked myself.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
I had almost asked her to draw his attention away for a minute.
“Hey, Jude?” I asked again. “Do you really think those guys are going to let you live?”
“Of course!” she snapped. “They would be fools not to.”
It was no use trying to persuade her otherwise. Hassan was already toying with the two triggers, in half a mind to shut me up for good. She really believed she was irresistible to all men. Maybe she wasn’t all that wrong. None of the guys on the prawn boats had been able to resist what she had to offer; and they had always come back for a second helping. Perhaps in a way we were all partly to blame for that ever-present attitude of selfishness, her belief that she would always get exactly what she desired.
******
Sebastian. Would he hear me if I whispered what I planned to do once Hassan’s attention was distracted? I didn’t think so. His eyes were glazed, his mind far away in dreamtime, back to the twenty-year-old yacht on the Brisbane River, back to a life that had been happy and uncomplicated.
******
Rick. What was he planning? If only he had had the chance to tell me. Damn!
I tried to recall what he had shouted at Henry as they had pushed away from the side of the trawler: something about blaming him for dropping a spike the previous afternoon. Or had it been one of the chipping hammers? Maybe all he had in mind was to hide a couple of tools in their wetsuits, knock the Indian into the water and then come charging over the gunwale. If that was the plan, I would somehow have to get topsides before it happened. I didn’t hold out much hope of their chances against the gun in Hassan’s hands.
They had been gone for nearly three-quarters of an hour and would have to come out of the water soon; the longer they waited, the greater the tension would become, and Hassan might get careless. I wasn’t counting on it.
Hassan had drunk three cups of tea and I waited for him to go out and relieve himself, needing to go myself. He stood, leaning against the table, the gun held loosely in one hand, the barrels swinging gently, but never pointing far from the fo’c’sle hatch.<
br />
The other Indian, shirtsleeves, the one who would avenge the cousins’ death, stood by the doorway waiting anxiously, the cane knife held across his chest. Suddenly, without warning, he sprang forward, dashing out to the back deck. I heard him yell, and for one tense moment I thought that Rick might already have despatched the one in the dinghy; but it was a cry of excitement, not anger.
The noise of the outboard starting up reached down to the fo’c’sle as shirtsleeves came racing back into the saloon.
“Jeldi! Jeldi!” he yelled, jabbering in Hindi and hopping as though the deck was burning the soles of his feet. “Jeldi! Jeldi!”
It could only mean one thing.
The chest was up.
Twenty-One
Hassan sprang to his feet, the shotgun held out from his chest, and darted across to the saloon window.
“Ji! Ji!” he cried excitedly, turning to the other and pointing to us and rattling of a fast spurt of Hindi as he raced out through the doorway towards the stern. It left us alone with just one guard, his only weapon against us: the long-handled cane knife. In his haste Hassan had rushed out still carrying the shotgun.
I couldn’t afford to wait until the dinghy reached the trawler. Hassan had raced out in a state of exhilaration, thinking of nothing but the chest and the gold. It might take less than a minute before he remembered that he had only left one man on guard.
Judy and I were both sitting on the same bunk, the lower bunk on the starboard side; she at the head, leaning against the pillow, and me at the foot. Rick’s Greener was in the cupboard under the port bunk across from us, the one on which Sebastian now lay in a state akin to shock, his dreams destroyed.
The cupboard had two sliding doors, but with my hands tied I would only be able to open them one at a time; and whatever I did would be in full view of Judy, so I would have to move faster than her self-centred brain could follow.
Shirtsleeves stood across by the saloon window, unable to keep his eyes from the slowly approaching dinghy. Every fifteen seconds or so his head would swivel down in our direction and then jerk back to the window, his hands and fingers twitching with excitement.
I waited until he had looked down into the fo’c’sle one more time and then moved fast, leaping down on to the floor and thrusting my right index finger through the one-inch-diameter hole in one sliding door, knowing that I had fifteen seconds and probably less. Trying to work silently, I shot the light sheet of plywood sideways, jerking it to a stop before it rammed into the framework at the end; and then reached for the other door.
I had my right hand around the wrist of the shotgun, just back from the trigger guard, and the butt half way over the now jumbled piles of tins before Judy realised what I was doing. She sprung up, giving a high-pitched squeal as I struggled to my feet, the Greener’s barrels pointing to the floor.
The Indian leapt away from the window, took one look at the shotgun I was trying to raise one-handed, and sprinted for the saloon door, bouncing off the jamb as his eyes flicked towards me one last time.
“You bitch!” I yelled.
If she had kept her mouth shut for one more second I would have had him cold. He would have had nowhere to run and would have known it, and been silent as I covered him with the gun. He would have been my shield against the others, and the only way to a bloodless resumption of lawful authority; but now he was outside and screaming for Hassan, and blood would be let.
I took my eyes off Judy, my first mistake. She jumped from the bunk, landing across my shoulders. The gun fell from my single-handed grasp, crashing to the floor, but the explosion I expected never came. I turned and smashed both bound fists into her face, hurling her into the far corner. Sebastian drew breath and I turned to see his eyes wide open again as the anger started to rise. It was either for me, or for those out on the deck, but I wasn’t waiting to find out. Seconds were counting now.
I bent down and picked up the gun and looked at the ladder: five rungs. There was no way I could climb while still keeping hold of the gun, so I tossed it up into the saloon. If the cartridges hadn’t discharged after that first fall to the fo’c’sle’s steel floor, they might not go off when they hit the rubber matting. They didn’t.
Sebastian’s growling had grown to a low-voiced bellow. I could feel him coming up close behind me as I fell over the hatchway lip and tumbled across the saloon.
“You stupid bastard!” Judy shrieked after me. “Stop him, Sebastian!”
He was too late for that. I grabbed the gun and spun on one knee to meet him. I didn’t want to waste one of the two precious cartridges, but I would do it if there was no other way. His bound hands reached the top of the ladder as he looked into the twin barrels.
“Not you,” he said in a voice of ice, his tired eyes flashing towards the back deck. “Them!”
“Go around to the bow,” I said. “Over to the starboard side; but for Christ’s sake keep out of the way of this thing!”
He nodded and I let him go out of the doorway first. If Hassan was waiting it might save me a lot of grief; but there was no blasting explosion as he ducked forward and leapt up on to the bow.
Hesitation was Hassan’s undoing, hesitation and his thirst for the chest. I burst out through the saloon doorway and raced crouching along the portside alleyway, heading for the protection of the large square brine tank that took up most of the middle of the back deck.
Hassan had had his warning from shirtsleeves, but the coral-encrusted black iron box was now only yards away from the trawler’s stern, and the dream of all those shining gold pieces had seduced him, and caused him to deliberate just one moment more, his mind torn between action and the sight of the treasure almost within his grasp.
He should have sprinted back inside and blasted me as I had climbed the ladder, or as I had reached for the gun on the saloon floor, or as I came racing down the alleyway; but he hadn’t done any of those.
And now he faced me, standing at the stern, out in the open, his back against one of the drums of diesel, looking along the top of the brine tank towards my shoulders, my head, and Rick’s Greener.
But I didn’t hesitate as I skidded to a halt hard up against the two-and-a-half-foot-high steel tank, praying hard that Henry hadn’t inadvertently uncocked the gun, that it was still loaded, and that Judy hadn’t found it on that first search, or during that first night, and taken the cartridges out. I swept the barrels down, my right hand grasping the thin wrist of the stock, one finger curled through the trigger guard and touching the front trigger. My left hand, still bound to the right, twitched, empty and useless. Hassan pushed one hand out front, palm outstretched, his right arm holding the shortened gun down by his side, shaking his head from side to side, his mouth uttering a silent scream.
There was no hesitation as I thrust the polished wooden butt hard into my side with my elbow, and jerked the trigger.
The thunderous explosion kicked the shotgun up into my face, knocking me back into the wheelhouse overhang amongst the diving gear with a force almost as great as that which slammed Hassan into the drum of diesel.
I looked across and saw Sebastian kneeling by the starboard bulwark, ready to race forward.
“Keep down!” I yelled. “There’s still one of them back there.”
A figure ducked out of the saloon behind me as I reached down to pick up the gun; blonde hair flying, tanned well-shaped legs thumping the deck as she raced forward.
“Judy!” Sebastian cried as she came level with me.
I lunged out and hit her thigh with my elbow. She stumbled, caught her balance, and then staggered forward again before I had a chance to knock her to the deck.
If I needed a distraction, this was it. There wouldn’t be another. I jumped to my feet, swinging the gun around once more, and found myself staring at the two black holes of the gun Hassan had dropped. Shirtsleeves, the one who knew what I had done in the Bay of Islands, had snatched it up and he wasn’t going to miss. Hassan was the last of his cousins he
would let me kill.
I ducked sideways and pulled the rear trigger.
The muzzle facing me erupted in a brilliant silver-red flame almost at the same instant that the Greener roared out its own fiery death, the two blasts merging into one thundering crescendo.
Pellets smacked into the wheelhouse behind me as the heavy number-three shot from my gun blasted into the Indian’s chest. As he was pushed backwards, his body jerking in death, I saw Judy stumble, those long legs refusing to carry her further, tangling themselves. Her head turned to me, eyes asking a question as she slowly sank to the deck, her yellow T-shirt peppered with shot.
A loud yell from the stern snatched at my attention, but all I could see over the top of the gunwale was a black arm holding a cane knife as it swept up high and then came scything back through the air. There was the sound of two splashes in quick succession.
With a furious cry the third Indian came leaping over the rail, and saw the shotgun clutched in the hands of his dead cousin, or brother, one chamber perhaps still loaded. He looked at me as I stood frozen, both chambers now empty, no time to race back to the fo’c’sle to find more cartridges; and my hands still tied.
Sebastian rammed into my shoulder as he roared past like some wounded elephant, charging across to where Judy lay pale and crumpled on the deck, then veered away towards the Indian. He saw Sebastian coming, looked down at the shotgun not five feet away; his face clouding with uncertainty, not knowing whether he could reach the gun in time and then at last realizing that time for him had run out.
He raised the razor-sharp knife high above his tousled black hair to bring it crashing down on Sebastian’s head as he came thundering in; but he misjudged the speed of the big man’s onslaught and never got the chance. Sebastian cannoned into him with all the force of that huge frame, crashing him into the three-foot-high steel bulwark, folding the thin dark body backwards over the gunwale. The sharp crack as his spine snapped seemed louder than any of the shotgun blasts, and just as final.
The Stone Dog Page 28