I ducked and the wet blade hit the wheel with a loud clang. I dived towards the saloon table and picked up the only weapon I could find – my gold-plated Oscar. I swung it around like a Federer forehand volley and whacked the pirate on the side of his head. As he went down, I saw another menacing figure enter the saloon. Annie screamed again. He turned the barrel of an automatic rifle towards me. Just then The Scoop lurched violently as the wind ballooned the mainsail. The pirate staggered, one arm reaching out to steady himself and I saw my chance. I moved towards him and brought the heavy statuette down on the top of his head with a satisfying crack. He too went down instantly. I hit him again for good measure.
The boat continued to yaw so I dropped my makeshift weapon and grabbed the helm. I turned it to bring her round to starboard and watched anxiously as the stern just cleared the submerged rocks at the foot of the cliff. Moments later she righted herself and then The Scoop was gliding away from the headlands like a thoroughbred horse. More bullets pinged and plinked against the transom; now that the light-coloured sails were fully unfurled we were an easier target for the snipers above. I shouted to Annie to keep her head down as more bullets zipped through the saloon ceiling. But then, suddenly, miraculously, we were in open water with nothing in front of us. Soon we were out of range and there was only the sound of the wind and my heart beating like a bass drum. We had bloody done it!
51
ANNIE AND I looked at each other in the gloom and grinned like maniacs.
She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. ‘Ouch,’ I said, ‘that hurt!’ When she took her hand away we both saw it was wet. She held her hand up to her face to see better.
‘Jonno, you’re bleeding!’ she cried. ‘Oh my God, were you shot?’
I had totally forgotten about being hit. ‘Not now, we can’t stop, we have to get out of here now,’ I said, teeth gritted.
‘I’ll get something to put on it.’
Annie got hold of a torch from somewhere and lurched unsteadily down to the galley while I continued to steer us out of danger. She had to step gingerly over the prone body of one of the pirates I had felled. I could hear her rummaging around in the drawers. ‘Where do you keep the first-aid kit?’ she shouted up to me. ‘Are you badly hurt?’
My T-shirt was soaked in blood, I could even smell it as I held the wheel tightly. Christ, please don’t let it be a bullet wound, I prayed. There wasn’t much pain but that could just be adrenaline.
The compass showed we were heading north-west; in the distance on the starboard side I could see a bunch of strong lights, some static, some moving. I figured that was the main pirate ship. They wouldn’t know exactly what was going on but they would have been roused by the clamour on the beach and headland. I wondered what the pirate boss was thinking right now. He must be totally confused, perhaps starting to feel a little worried. Good!
Annie came back with the first-aid box; she shone a torch on my chest as I continued to grip the helm. ‘I can see something,’ she said. She moved the torch closer: ‘Okay, thank goodness . . . it’s not a bullet. There’s a bit of wood or something sticking out.’
I looked down and saw a triangular-shaped shard, about four centimetres long, poking out of my T-shirt. It looked like a teak arrowhead as it glistened dully in the torchlight. That’s my blood, I thought, feeling a bit faint. Hah, so much for Action Man! And at that moment the wound began to hurt. A lot. I winced at the sudden pain.
‘Now listen,’ Annie said, ‘this might hurt a bit.’
‘Ow!’ I shouted as she tugged at the shard.
‘Don’t be such a baby. Here, you’ll have to take your T-shirt off so I can clean the wound.’
‘Can’t it wait until we’re completely clear? I’m a bit worried that the pirate ship will come after us. Without power, we’re vulnerable; it could overhaul us quite quickly.’
‘It won’t take a moment. The splinter hasn’t gone in very deep. I’ll just disinfect it and put a temporary dressing on and we can do it properly later. Here, hold the torch and shine it there.’ She tapped my chest and I winced again. ‘Oops, sorry,’ she said with a giggle.
‘With all those bullets spraying around,’ she said, ‘you were lucky to get away with just a splinter. I thought we were going to be ripped to shreds at one point. I was so scared. The noise, the guns and then when I saw you thrown from the dinghy in the channel I thought you might have been killed. It was like a miracle when you suddenly appeared from the back.’
‘The stern. It’s called the stern.’ I grinned at her.
‘Whatever. Then when the shooting started, I thought we would both be killed. And then when the boat started moving towards the rocks . . .’ Annie was beginning to jabber a bit, her nerves obviously still jangling after all the drama. ‘Even worse was when those two brutes appeared from nowhere. You were incredible. How you managed to stop them, I’ll never know.’
‘Sheer instinct,’ I said modestly. ‘But it’s not all over yet. I don’t want to alarm you but we still have a tough trip ahead.’
‘You mean like the weather, the sea conditions?’
‘No, the pirates. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them yet.’
Apart from the stinging pain of the antiseptic, I was rather enjoying Annie’s attentions. She was bent over my naked upper torso and her proximity was intoxicating. The smell of her hair under my nose was making me feel giddy . . . or maybe it was the pain from the wound. Either way, when she stood up and said it was all patched up I felt a pang of disappointment.
We could not stop grinning at each other. I think we were both feeling heady, the adrenaline washing through our veins. We had escaped, at least for now, and The Scoop seemed to be enjoying being unleashed on the ocean again. I worried about the damage to her from the bullets but the beautiful boat seemed quite unaffected as she sliced through the dark sea. Once again I blessed the day I bought her.
Just as I began to relax and let the adrenaline seep away, I remembered the two pirates I had bashed.
52
THE FAMILIAR clatter of distant gunfire instantly woke BangBang. Normally he loved the sounds of guns popping but now, perplexed, he stood up in the Crimson Tide’s wheelhouse, where he had a cot. Were they being attacked? Had a patrol boat found them? What the fuck was going on? He grabbed his binoculars and put them to his eyes but he still couldn’t see much in the warm, dark night. He could make out a slight glow on the beach and a hint of some activity but that was all. There was no sign of another vessel, big or small. A few minutes later, he caught a few flashes to the right. They were much higher up. The headland. He shouted to Mamat, the helmsman, who had arrived looking sleepy and confused, to put the ship’s small inflatable in the water.
Ten minutes later, he was pacing up and down on the beach angrily demanding to be told what had happened by the lone crewmember remaining there. Nervously, the man explained that one of the others had been having a piss when he had heard the sound of an engine and raised the alarm. Initially they hadn’t been able to tell where it was coming from. Some had fired shots at the tree line, thinking they were under attack from the forest. Others ran to the end of the beach and started scaling the cliff. Shortly after, the man had heard more gunshots. He explained that he had remained to guard the camp.
In his mounting frustration, BangBang lashed out with his pistol and knocked the man over. Then he noticed there was no sign of the skiff. ‘Where the fuck are our boats?’ he yelled, kicking the man as he lay on the ground. He rubbed his mottled chin; this is all fucked up, he thought. A sudden chill gripped his chest: did this have something to do with the cave, with his treasures? Not possible, surely? How would any fucking thief even find it?
Nevertheless he had a horrible feeling and, despite the dark, he started walking across the beach determined to check the cave. Just then one of the other crew members appeared out of the gloom. Gasping and wheezing, he told BangBang what had happened, how they had scaled the cliff and seen an expensive
-looking yacht in some difficulty manoeuvring near the rocks. Whoever was steering it had managed to get it under control before heading out to sea. The crew had fired on it but it was dark and the man didn’t know if they had hit anybody. Two of the others had jumped into the water to go after the yacht but there had been no sign of them since.
‘Wait, you say boat had sail? No engine? Then what you hear earlier?’ The man told him they had found a small dinghy with the foreign name The Scoop Jon B upturned in the surf. BangBang spat on the sand, turned and stomped off into the jungle, his powerful torch jerkily illuminating the way ahead.
53
I STEELED myself to check out the two pirates while Annie held the wheel. Even in the dim light, it was clear that one of them was dead and the other in a terrible way. I didn’t feel bad. These bastards had tried to kill us, had probably been part of the original group who killed Annie’s husband and then abused her and Dani on the beach. They did not deserve my sympathy.
‘What will we do with them?’ Annie asked. Now that the immediate crisis was over and the adrenaline had gone, her earlier mood had also evaporated. She looked pale and tense once more. The sight of dead and bashed bodies can have that effect, I thought wryly.
I thought for a moment. Ideally, we could just chuck them both overboard but I wasn’t sure Annie would agree as one of the scumbags was still alive. But there was no way I was going to keep a dead body on board. In the end, Annie reluctantly helped me carry the corpse to the stern, where we eased it into the ocean. Needless to say, there were no prayers said for the ratbag. Without thinking I chucked the machete and gun after him. As soon as I’d done it, I realised how stupid it was not to have kept the weapons. And later I had reason to wish that I had not been so hasty.
The injured guy was moaning but still unconscious. His head was a mess of blood and other sticky stuff – I did not dare imagine what. We tied his hands and feet and laid him in the lazarette – the storage locker where the dinghy and kayak had been stored.
Walking back into the saloon, I stooped down and picked up the Oscar. An unusual weapon, but effective. I rinsed the blood and goo off it in the galley.
Back at the wheel, I pondered what to do now. Annie and I had discussed where the best place to go might be – somewhere within reasonable reach where the authorities would take us seriously and where there were British and Australian embassies in case we needed support. We had narrowed it down to Singapore, Phuket or Jakarta. Singapore would probably give us the best hearing but it was the furthest away. Phuket had seemed a reasonable choice but it would mean crossing the north end of the Malacca Strait. I was not keen to do that without power. So we had decided on Jakarta. If my previous estimate of the location of Rehab Island was right, it was the closest and probably the easiest destination. But now that the pirates were aware of our presence, and once their leader found his treasure gone, they would come after us with an almighty vengeance. I turned to Annie, who was sitting on the saloon sofa, her elbows on the table, staring straight ahead. She seemed listless. Her energy levels must have tanked after the rush of adrenaline from the last couple of hours’ drama seeped away.
‘Look Annie, I know you don’t want to hear this but we’re not out of the woods yet. Far from it. The pirates will scent blood. And they might well work out that we have no power. Once they get their act together, they could easily overhaul us in no time.’
Annie turned her head slowly and looked at me. ‘So what are we going to do?’ It sounded as if she did not really care. I picked up a maritime chart and put it in front of her.
‘Look – these are the Mentawai Islands here.’ I pointed the torch at the chart and put my finger on the shiny surface. ‘It’s where I reckon Rehab Island is. Their ship is moored maybe a couple of kilometres to the north of us. I reckon we should turn The Scoop around, sail past it and let them think we are heading north up the coast. It will look as if we are trying for Aceh or Phuket. Then we double back and go south. It will be dark for a few hours yet. We might be able to fool them.’
‘You mean . . . head towards them? Are you crazy?’
‘It’s a risk, I know, but I figure we have a bit of time before they come after us. That stocky guy is guaranteed to check out the cave and then have a look at our lagoon. They don’t have the skiffs so it will take them a while to get everybody back to the ship. We could be past it before they even get off the beach.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then, once we’re out of sight, we do a long looping turn and head back south-east along here.’ I moved my fingernail along the Sumatran coastline.
Annie looked at me with dull eyes and shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
Her apathy was beginning to worry me. I knew she must be tired, as I was. Neither of us had had any sleep.
‘We should be fine as long as this freshening wind holds. We have to reach the turning point before the sun comes up and they’ll be able to spot us with binoculars. I realise it all sounds a little iffy but I’m certain it’s the best chance we’ve got. What do you think?’
Annie thought for a moment. ‘Okay, but what if they guess that it’s a bluff and come south also?’
‘Then we’re stuffed,’ I told her bluntly. ‘Even if we have good wind, they have power and we don’t. Unless there’s a miracle, they’ll catch up with us sooner rather than later. Let’s hope they keep heading north after we’ve made our turn.’
54
BANGBANG SAT down shakily on a ledge by the rock pool and put his huge head in his grimy hands. Acid sweat squeezed through his fingers like hot tears. He had never shed a tear before, not even when his uncle had done those shameful things to him. But right now he felt like weeping his heart out. The cave was empty; everything had been taken, nothing remained apart from the stinking bats. His worst fucking nightmare. He moaned quietly in distress: his carefully accumulated treasures were gone, and with them his long-nurtured dreams and ambitions.
How could this have possibly happened? What miserable, poisonous motherfuckers could have done such a terrible thing? It was inconceivable that someone could have found his cave. Who were they and why had they done this to him? More to the point, where have the ratshit sons of bitches gone? His tortured mind turned to the careful plans he had made to ensure his future was comfortable and profitable; his dream to swap the squalid slum for a Shangri-la had turned to shit. In one terrible moment, the golden life he had planned for, worked hard for, robbed and killed for, had been ripped away from him.
I’m a dead man now, he thought. He banged his forehead with clenched knuckles in despair. His crime bosses would not care about his personal losses but they would be unforgiving about the theft of the blueprints detailing the imminent high-sea heists. The risk of going ahead would be too great: the thief could hand the documents over to the police, who would then undoubtedly stage an ambush. So the syndicate would cut its losses and abort the robberies. That would make them as mad as a cut cobra – and twice as dangerous. Fuck, fuck, fuck! What can I do?
BangBang took a few moments to recover his senses. He knew there was only one way to save his skin: he had to hunt down the thieving mongrels who had robbed him of his treasures and get them back. Then I will take my own sweet time in making the dogs suffer for what they have done, he resolved. The thought cheered him a little. He stood up, infused with renewed energy and a thirst for revenge. There was no time to lose. He crashed his way back through the jungle, not caring if he left a trail that could be seen from the moon. No fucking point trying to keep it a secret now anyway, he thought grimly.
55
‘WE’VE MADE good headway,’ I assured Annie as we left the pirate ship far behind us and ploughed our way west, deeper into the Indian Ocean. It had been a hair-raising time as we’d swept by the big trawler but there had been little activity on board. At first I was worried – we actually needed someone to clock us. But then I saw a man silhouetted by lamplight watching us from the door of the pilothouse. Perfect. We sail
ed on for another few kilometres before starting our long, lazy turn south. I checked my watch. Dawn was less than an hour away. ‘Now we need to put some distance between us and them.’
‘Do you think they’ll suss it out eventually?’ Annie’s brow was furrowed.
‘If that stocky guy has any brains, he’ll eventually realise that we’re not actually heading north and he’ll double back. Pray that this north-easterly wind keeps up and we can maintain this pace.’
I sounded confident but I too was starting to feel apprehensive. My mood was not improved by the fact that the holes in the headsail from the pirates’ bullets were starting to rip in the wind. If the rips started to seriously run, we could be in deep shit.
‘How long do you think it will take us?’ asked Annie. She was feeding Wagga in the galley below the saloon helm station.
‘To do what?’
‘To get to Jakarta, of course.’
‘I told you . . . four to five days. Tomorrow we’ll tuck in to the mainland coastline and then follow it all the way down to the Sunda Strait. Then it’s an easy passage through to the Java Sea and, hey presto, we’re home and dry.’
‘You make it sound easy.’
‘Well, normally it would be fairly straightforward but those damned pirates will be on our tail so we can’t be complacent.’
‘God, Jonno. I hope they don’t find us.’
There was an uneasy silence for a few minutes while we both thought about the danger looming behind us. To lighten the mood, I said, ‘Hey, if my old ancestor Captain Bligh could sail nearly seven thousand kilometres in a seven-metre open boat with nineteen men, we can do this.’
‘You’re related to that Bligh, the Bounty chap?’
The Scoop Page 16