by Andre Norton
Griff went to his post, and the Russian followed him, drawing a deep breath as he shared the vantage point of the glass with the American. The water was changing color; they were in the shallows—those shallows that were always dangerous now. But, though the usual inhabitants of the reef-protected section were there, Griff saw no signs of the enemy.
Again the LC altered course, now paralleling the outline of land. The fishing boats, with their engines driving heavily, sluggishly, copied her maneuver. When Griff dared to glance up, he saw that the strange ship anchored in Frigate Bay was now hidden by a headland. But it must be investigated when they could.
The flotilla was still some distance from the base when the engine on one of the fishing boats gave a final sputter and died.
"That does it!" Barnes exclaimed. "We can't take her in tow!"
From a whirlpool of activity on board the boat, her sails arose, cupping some of the trade. At sea it would not have been enough to give her headway; here it at least kept her moving and manageable.
Casey called across, "Can you keep going for a while? We'll be back as a ferry—"
"It's a case of have to," a voice unmistakably American shouted back.
"So far, so good. Any trouble from below?" Casey demanded of Griff.
But save for the usual dwellers on the shore line he saw nothing.
"Give her all you can now," Casey ordered. "We'll have to be back again."
The other fishing boat had passed them. Now the LC caught up and left her astern. Lawrence hailed a shore landmark with a shout of relief. Over a calm sea they headed straight in to crawl up on the beach. The Russians disembarked, as the other fishing boat anchored as close to shore as her crew could bring her. With a hurried explanation to the waiting Murray and a casting off of her earlier tows, the Navy amphibian took to the sea once more, heading back for the disabled refugee carrier.
"Ink!" The battle signal Griff had been watching for billowed. Undersea sentries were alerted. Did it mean attack?
"Lay a couple of eggs as a discouragement," Casey was cool. "Say one ahead and one behind."
The grenades sailed through the air, splashed, and the LC rocked with the force of those twin explosions. There was another sound carrying clearly across the sea —it could only be the crackle of rifle fire.
Barnes got more speed out of the lumbering craft than Griff would have believed possible. Once her treads bit on a sunken reef, but instead of slowing her spurt, that merely added to her impetus. They rounded a rocky point and saw the white sails of the other ship, heard the steady firing. One of the boats she had towed and had not been able to relinquish to the LC floated bottom up on the water, a water now riffled by more than the morning wind.
"Anything below?"
"Ink mostly. It's all screened out."
"Until we see something we can aim at, just plant eggs."
They tossed grenades at regular intervals as they bore down upon the almost helpless ship. Evidence floated to the surface telling them that they had made at least one direct hit on some gathering of attackers. There were wild shrieks as the second and the last of the towed boats began to rock vigorously. The LC was close enough for her crew to see those tough ropes of muscle that had tightened about the small skiff. Men slashed with knives. One tentacle was hacked in two—but there were others.
Lawrence depressed the muzzle of the bow gun, fired an experimental burst, which clipped below the surface, and then sent a steady round into the weltering mass. Luck was with him. The tentacles threatening the boat suddenly fell away and sank. By incredible good fortune one of those bullets had reached some vital spot in the enemy.
Barnes cut the throttle, and the men in the small boat hastily took to their oars, brought it alongside the amphibian, and then climbed the netted sides to drop into the cockpit. They were a mixture of native islanders, English-ancestored planters, and two whom Griff recognized as the manager of the Santa Maria airport—an ex-American flyer—and one of the customs officers.
Casey hardly waited until the last was on board before he called to the larger vessel for a towline. And so linked, the LC began the slow crawl back to the base.
The airport manager crouched beside Griff. His eyes were sunken in dark hollows; his wrist was bandaged, and he carried it thrust into the front of his shirt for the want of a sling.
"What's this thing anyway?" he asked. "A seagoing tank?"
"Something like."
"It sure can do the business! Look here—did a plane get through? We sent one off." His forehead wrinkled in a frown. "It must have been the day before yesterday."
"Yes. It came through. Cracked up when it landed, but everybody was all right. That's why we were out hunting you—"
The other sighed. "A little bit of luck. First we've had. My wife was on that plane. They're all safe—you sure of that?"
"I helped bring them down from the salt flat where they landed, so I can say 'yes' for sure."
The other's hand went to his face and shielded his eyes. "Thanks." His voice was a whisper. "Thanks very much."
Griff was back at his post by the glass. The dark cloud of ink, which had curtained the activities of the attackers, was thinning. Could they hope that the sea things had shot their bolt for this time? Brilliant coral fans, sea plumes bloomed. The unhurried schools of rainbow fish trailed through the drifting threads of weed as they had done for unnumbered years.
"You have any news?" The airport man edged forward. "My people live in Tampa. Any news from the States?"
"No."
The other sank back to stare dully at the flooring of the cockpit.
"Hey!" Lawrence called from the bow. "What's all that red stuff?"
Rippling from wave cap to wave cap, as in more happy days the trails of sargasso weed had moved along the Gulf Stream, was a dull red stain, a splotch that might have been blood draining from some giant wound. But Griff had seen its like before. And he didn't need to sight the fish bloating with distended bellies up in the circle of scum to underline its deadliness. The plague!
It had not yet cut across the course held by the LC, but those on board were able to see that it was only the advance part of a vast coat of the stuff, ragged patches of which had split free from the main mass. And from it came the stench of ancient rottenness—of decay fouler than that native to dead sea life.
Insensibly Barnes altered course to avoid those streamers among the waves. But Lawrence's second observation was awed.
"There must be miles of it!"
Yes, they could see that the stain covered the ocean as a blanket. Sea birds dipped, attracted by the dead things floating in its foulness. But then they sheared off suddenly, to rise screaming and baffled. And that which even the birds feared was headed straight for San Isadore. It would be washed ashore all along this end of the island.
They reached the base, and the crippled fishing boat anchored while the LC waddled ashore with her second cargo of refugees. Griff dropped to the sand. It was not until much later that a glimpse of Karkoff talking to Murray reminded him of the ship they had sighted in Frigate Bay, off the now three-quarters submerged Carterstown. Were there survivors aboard her? If so—shouldn't they be helped ashore?
But he couldn't get to Murray. Casey had disappeared. And, although he saw Holmes, he knew better than to try to enlist the aid of the security lieutenant. He had kept the rifle from the LC. Now, after filling a canteen, he went to the cave of the islanders and luckily found Le Marr in the first he entered.
"I think there's a ship anchored in Frigate Bay—near the town. If there's anyone on board her—"
"There be. That has been homin' a long time, many days," Le Marr answered surprisingly. "Yes, we must go to her—"
But he would not explain as they left the settlement and struck southward, with first the cliffs and then the wide beach as their path. The red taint was already leaving its mark on the rocks. He pointed it out to the islander.
"Death," Le Marr said
without emotion. That be death, mon."
The stench of the stuff was thick enough to taste. When they stopped to chew on rations, Griff discovered that, hungry as he had been, he could not stomach food. The odor got between him and every bite he took.
They plodded on into the late afternoon. The mangrove swamp, by some freak of the island displacement, was now higher ground, drained of most of its pools, the mud dried between the knee roots wherever the sun could strike in to suck up moisture. But enough scummy depressions remained to harbor the mosquitoes, which attacked the two so viciously that they had to beat them away, breathing in minute insects, crushing the larger until their shirts were bloody. However, the reek of the dying swamp cut some of the stench of the plague, and they welcomed the change. Crabs scuttled away from their line of march; lizards moved lightning quick along the branches of the trees. It was a dank green world, and Griff wondered if it were now totally doomed by the draining.
It was close to sundown when they came out on the other side. Had it not been for Le Marr, Griff might have been helplessly lost in the mucky maze. In the old days one could have taken to the sea and splashed around such a barrier. But now that path was closed.
They built a fire of driftwood and ate their rations. Griff tried to scrub the slime of the swamp from him with sand. If he could only strip and wash clean in the sea!
A burrowing owl, devoid of ear tufts so that its head was round, resembling nothing so much as an animated ball of knitting wool, cooed to itself as it appeared in its doorway under the roots of a bush hung with thousands of tiny blossoms. Griff brushed against one of the shrub's outstretched limbs. The owl snapped into cover as a jack-in-the-box. Pollen drifted through the air and with it a strong perfume heavy enough to banish some of the foulness that had clogged his lungs for so long.
They slept there that night, both silent and deep in their own thoughts, the fire at their feet. But the flames died before dawn, and Griff awoke shivering. The red tinge was on the sand here, and the waves brought in the bodies of harmless sea dwellers killed by its poison —lying limp for the tearing claws of the shore crabs, who were not as nice as the birds had been and devoured the dead eagerly.
It must have been close to ten o'clock when they came out on the scrap of road that had once run inland for a half mile or so from Carterstown. The rubble of the dead town lay ahead, three-quarters of it now under water, showing here and there a part of wall or a thatch-less roof projecting above the surface.
And there was a ship right enough, swaying at anchor with every rise and fall of the lazy swell, as Griff had seen her so many, many times in the past. The Island Queen had come home!
VII
CAPTIVE CARGO
she was not the same trim vessel that had put out from that port more than a week before. Her main mast ended in a splintered nub some feet above deck; her white paint was stained and in places ground from her boards. But there was something else! Fastened to that stub of mast, a colored rag beat out in the pull of the morning wind as might a tattered battle standard. Seeing that, Griff turned to Le Marr.
"There must be someone on board! That's a signal! How are we going to get out to her?"
Between them and that deck rolled the oily water that washed over the ruins of Carterstown. Although the red scum was missing here, the rubble under water provided too many good lurking places for the enemy to invite swimming. Yet Griff had to reach the Queen some way. A dug-out? There had been some in the town, used for fishing within the circle of the reef. Could they locate one of those? Only, such a craft would be as easy to attack as a swimmer!
Le Marr moved off around the edge of the flood, where the new shore line was in the process of establishment. Griff fell in behind, hoping the islander could produce a sensible plan of action.
Under them the ground began to rise. It was part of the old cliff line. Soon they were above the level of the anchored ship, for it was anchored. Griff could easily picture Captain Murdock, Rob, or Chris, sick or hurt, pent up in her cabin, waiting for help that was too long in coming.
Under the water from this height they could see the lines of walls, those dark pools that were the interiors of roofless houses. Then a triangular fin cut smoothly through the flood, beyond it another—sharks. Griff slipped the rifle strap from his shoulder. He was aiming at one of those dimly seen killers when another idea occurred to him. The sound of a shot might bring into the open anyone on board the Queen.
Pointing the rifle out to sea, Griff fired three times and was amazed himself at the roar of sound. Sea birds wheeled and screamed, and inland there was a wild clatter of hooves, a frightened bray. Some of the island's wild donkeys had survived the storm and were raiding garden patches on the outskirts of the town. But the donkeys were not the only life, as the two on the cliff speedily discovered. They were startled by a shout.
"Oheee—mon—"
Tearing through the thorn scrub came a wild figure, which looked to Griff no more than a skeleton barely concealed in flapping rags. And behind the first came a second, even barer, as its full clothing was a twist of drab stuff about the loins.
"What you do here, mons?" Between panting gasps the words broke, as the first skeleton clawed its way to them, using hands as well as feet on the ground to keep balance.
"Liz!" Griff almost dropped the rifle. The bony figure, the ravished face, was not the confident woman he had seen in the valley. But this was Liz making her way painfully toward them. He ran forward and tried to help her up.
"Mistuh Gunston!" Her hollow eyes fastened on him with a spark of her old energy. "Then the big storm, it don' take everybody like we think! Oh, there's still mons here—there still mons!" Tears rolled out of her eyes, and she made no move to wipe them away.
"But, Liz, how did you and—and—" He studied the second figure. The man might have been any age from twenty to fifty, but he moved stiffly, favoring his leg down which ran an angry-looking, puckered slash, and his face was dull, beaten.
"This is my boy, Luce. You 'member Luce, Mistuh Gunston!"
Luce! Griff remembered a young giant he had seen win two wrestling matches, a laughing young man with a fine voice for crooning chants of the island. But that Luce and this were not the same.
"What happened?" he began and then wished that he hadn't. Luce stood with hanging head, the vacant look on his face unchanging. But Liz shivered.
"The storm, that's what happened. We found us a cave—but even there—" She faltered. "You got things better, Mistuh Gunston?"
"Yes, you'll come back with us, Liz, and see for yourself," he was beginning when Luce suddenly came to life. Advancing to the edge of the rise, he pointed out to the Queen.
"There's the Queen! The Queen, she done come home!"
Liz was shaken out of her own concerns. She peered down at the bobbing ship. "That's right! Luce, he call it right," she marveled. "That's the Queen come home. But"—she surveyed the sunken town—"that home, they ain't goin' to find it no more."
"You haven't been here before, Liz? No one landed from her?"
Liz shook her head in answer to both questions.
"But someone brought her in and anchored here. There's a signal flag on the mast. Someone may be on board—"
"Why you don't swim out?" Luce asked.
"Too dangerous." Griff wondered if the other could understand. "There are things in the sea—"
Luce's skull jaws split in a grin. "They can't touch you if you got yourself jubee oil—"
Le Marr whirled. But he spoke to Liz and not to the grinning Luce.
"You make that?"
She drew herself up with much of her old commanding air, her hysterical welcome to them forgotten. "I found something," she replied. "You can swim in the sea an' nothing—nothing at all touch you."
"You have it here, woman?"
"Done used it all fishin'," she said regretfully. "But we can make us a mess o' it again—do you want it so."
"Do that thing!
" Le Marr snapped.
"First we git us a pig. An' they's hard to find now. Luce." She summoned her son. "Luce, we do want us a pig. How we git one—?"
The flash of intelligence still lit his face. He put out a bony hand and drew one finger almost caressingly down the barrel of Griff's rifle. "With this here, it ain't too hard. I show where—"
Liz smiled. "You go with Luce, Mistuh Gunston. Git us a pig, an' we find us what else we be needin'."
"I don't understand," Griff protested, but Le Marr interrupted him.
"It be this way, mon. They's ways the fishermons knows to poison fishes. Not here on the island—but over there"—he made a gesture westward—"where is the big land. Maybeso we find some thing here what will act like that. There's herbs an' there's bad things—poisons—grown here. Do we learn to use them right, we's got us something those sea debbles are goin' to fear. Liz, she knows the plants, better than me she know them 'cause—"