Hunter Killer

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  cursing, we lowered the cutter, fending her off the rusty side while the angle steepened as Semittanté went to her grave. We clawed and shoved. Now the boat hung a foot or two

  above the sea. I grabbed an oar and swung round. I felt I

  had been struck in the face by a grey fist. The cyclone hit us anew, throwing the cutter against the steel side. Above its scream was another noise—the frightening snap of planking.

  Ragged rivets ripped the oilskin at my shoulder. Semittanté rolled, towered above our stricken craft. I reversed my oar. It slipped helplessly and then lodged against a buckled plate. Peace knelt in the bows with another oar. I saw his muscles bulge. Simultaneously, I threw all my weight against the

  rough wood.

  We were clear!

  The wind snatched the cutter away like a feather. Water

  poured through her broken planking. I whipped off my sou'wester and baled. The others did the same. André snatched Peace's oar and used it to steer—the tiller was useless, she lay so far over on her beam ends. It was impossible to breathe

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  facing the wind and speech was out of the question. We all

  baled frantically. Despite our efforts, the water rose.

  Then suddenly the cutter slewed, stayed in mid-course,

  bumped, crashed—and we were thrown in a heap on to sand!

  Peace picked himself up and gestured, ' Get her clear of the breakers!' His mouth formed the words, but I heard nothing

  in the gale. Adele raced forward and looped the bow painter over her shoulder. She, too, realized the danger of another sea hurling the boat on to the iron sand. Peace and MKG, André, Mac, Boz Blair's men, Trevor-Davis and I all threw

  our weight against the cutter. A long splinter ripped my

  torn hand, but I was unaware of the pain. MKG stumbled and fell, but he was up in a moment with Pete's help, hanging on to a rowlock.

  The cutter slid forward. Andre shouted, pointing. Up a

  shallow gradient, I saw the stone structure I had spotted from the sea. Dragging, heaving, our backs breaking while the

  wind thundered and tore at our clothes and the sea at our

  feet, we inched the boat out of the breakers towards the hut. It seemed to be made of heavy squared coral blocks. We headed for a ruined doorway.

  The cyclone's howl took on a new note, and I saw, outside

  the hut, a twisted metal grille, capped by two handcuffs like rowlocks. The lattice made the cyclone scream like the slaves who were lashed to death on it. This was the flogging-grating which gave the place its name, Vingt-Cinq Coups—Twentyfive Lashes. We manhandled the boat through the doorway, into shelter,

  away from the mad wind. As we up-ended the shattered hull

  and crept in under it, I pressed the crumpled Voice of America paper into Peace's hand. For four days the cyclone turned the sea to frenetic fermentation and the wind to a maniac which screamed its torment through the flogging-grating. Surf boiled like thunder against the reef. The high recurring note of the wind reminded me of the uninhibited keen which breaks into a shanty to cry the sailor's death-fear of the sea. It made speech impossible and sleep, exhausted though we all were, a nightmare. My dozing moments were punctuated by jerks into dazed wakefulness,

  as though I were goaded by the thought of the message I had given Peace. It seemed scarcely possible that the man who

  lay as if dead under the boat with us might by now be President of the greatest nation in the world.

  And he did not know!

  I salved my conscience by telling myself that it was impossible to communicate at all in the din of the cyclone and 190

  that the whole question would have to be solved when it was over. Four days! What was happening constitutionally

  during those four critical days in the United States, where the highest office of the nation might by now be left unfilled? The searchers, like us, would be stormbound. I simply could not face up to it. Peace had taken up a position on one side of Adele and me, and Mac on the other. I sensed, though conversation was impossible, that we were under guard.

  Our misery was made worse by the spray, salt and rain '

  which percolated through the cutter's smashed planking over our heads. Boz carefully moved the DATICO gear, the vu firing radio and space-suits to the driest spots. Mac buried the jerrycans of petrol in the sand to deaden the smell of fumes. Since the tank of the cutter's auxiliary had been empty when we left Semittanté—the reason why I had obtained the jerrycans from Mac—there was no need for us to worry about its standing upside down. We tried unavailingly to stanch the

  planking on the inside with our oilskins. Our mouths were

  raw with blown sand.

  The hut, Adele had told me aboard Semittanté, had been built by an eighteenth-century freebooter who had eloped

  with his mistress from Mauritius and been wrecked on LoveApple Crossing. They had waited fifteen years for a ship. It never came. She died. Her grave lay outside.

  Previous cyclones had reduced the outlying parts to rubble, but the centre remained, made of substantial blocks of fourfoot coral. We could not stand up against the force of the wind ; we could only crawl behind the shelter of the ruined walls. Whenever I did so, either Mac or Peace accompanied me, while the other watched Adele. We were evidently to be

  allowed no opportunity of telling what we knew. The rest

  of the island except the high-lying point where we were was completely submerged. On the second night, Adele lay in

  my arms in terror as the seas started to break into the shelter. MKG, his face caked with salt and stubble and his eyes red

  with sand, watched as the ocean reached out, sought our

  deaths, but could not quite touch us. A deep gloom fell over the launch team. We had eluded our pursuers, but the cost

  was plain: the stove-in cutter would never float again. I consoled myself with that thought in making bearable the secret inside the, which seemed to burn like fire whenever I looked across at the fine-drawn, tired features of the Vice-President. Radio reception was impossible with the storm and the

  blanketing effect of the walls and the boat. We could not

  have heard it, anyway.

  Two days were left till the launch.

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  One afternoon, after I had lost count of time, something

  awoke me. Adele, her thin sweater stained with dried-out

  sea-water and her pants shrunk above her ankles, lay against my shoulder, the softness all gone from her fine, bleached

  hair. André's back was instinctively to the storm. Peace, his face gaunt, stubbled and dirty, sat propped up watching, the top of his black turtle-necked sweater caked with white salt. Mac lay sleeping on our other side. MKG, encased in an oilskin to try and keep out the file of the sand, slept under the decking aft with Boz, Trevor-Davis and the other scientists. The sand began its attrition the moment I opened my eyes

  on the grey, sleep-drugged, wet group—alive, but little more. We had eked out an existence on Andres sack of salted seabirds, although I wanted to gag every time I smelt one. Fire was out of the question; even the acetylene lamp would not

  stay alight, so we gave it up and lay in a twilight, uncaring state. Now, something touched my sailor's sense. Something, somewhere, was amiss .

  The grating had stopped screaming.

  I heard—heard—Adele's breathing against my neck. I lifted

  my head to speak to her, but the sand locked my tongue. Unceremoniously, I spat. The wind's dropped.'

  My voice sounded like the crash of a shot in the confined

  space. Peace's eyes were alight. MKG and Boz started up, Boz letting out an oath as his head hit the planking above. By God!' exclaimed Peace. The salt caked the muscles of

  his face. Here—Mac MKG André!'

  The others blinked unbelievingly and Adele pushed herself

  upright to a sitting position. Peace crawled across to MKG and clapped him on the
shoulder. Let's get out of here—

  we've still got today and tomorrow before the launch—'

  MKG grinned back uncertainly. Let's get this damn' thing off our backs.'

  Still acting like automatons, we threw our shoulders under

  the cutter and tipped her over. We got shakily to our .feet, staring over the low wall which had saved us.

  Love-Apple Crossing had been sandpapered clean, except

  for a few snapped-off palm-tree trunks. Acres of white spume coated the lagoon and the shore. A sodden sea-bird lay snarled in the flogging-grating, pulped and smashed. The sun broke through as we stood in silent awe at the spectacle of devastation.

  Peace said, ' If the cyclone is over at Love-Apple Crossing, it'

  s been finished in Tyler's area since last night.'

  MKG said, The radio—'

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  The batteries are failing,' he said curtly. ' It will be used for operational messages only. There will be no time to listen to newscasts when we might miss a vital signal from either Tyler or Thornton. Only Adele operates the radio.'

  Aw, gee,' objected Pete Allingham good-naturedly. I was

  looking forward to a little cha-cha-cha to brighten this tropical isle of beauty.'

  There'll be enough music of another kind to face,' said

  Peace cryptically.

  Adele, anxious to steer the conversation away from the

  subject of the radio, said, Look, all the bois manioc has been washed away!'

  André spoke. André says,' she translated, it is like the great cyclone of 1958—the landmarks are all gone.'

  That may make it tougher for Tyler's men,' I added.

  From a thousand feet up Love-Apple Crossing now probably looks more like a reef than an island,' Peace reflected. Except,' remarked Adele, indicating the grating and the hut, for this.'

  That coat of spume will hide Little Bear if they come over

  the lagoon,' said MKG, screwing up his eyes.

  Unless the boat is fixed, we can forget about the whole

  thing,' Boz Blair said gloomily.

  MKG turned to Peace. Why don't we see if we can fix that cutter? You and André go take a look and the rest of

  us will scout for wood.'

  Peace nodded reluctantly. I'll need John as well, and I want Mac to check the engine and Adele to see what the

  hunter-killers are up to.' Once again we were to be segregated from MKG. If there's any news of significance . . .' began MKG, but

  Peace cut in quickly, Of course, Adele will note it down and we'll let you know. But I'm not going to waste precious power on hearing what Russia is up to, or whether Mrs Jones from Cardiff has murdered her six children.'

  MKG looked unhappy. We've been completely out of

  touch for four days now, Commander.'

  The sooner we can find some timber, the better for Little

  Bear's chances,' he replied. I said, Adele can make a note of any significant news.'

  Come on, fellers!' Pete Allingham gave a whoop and jumped over the wall. The others followed, grinning like schoolboys. Their carefree air seemed to drive away MKG's dark thoughts. He put his hand on the coral wall to vault

  over it, then he, too, grinned and said, Think the astronaut of the day after tomorrow had better get back into training.

  H..K.

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  Ci

  I'll trot round the beach a couple of times.' He followed the others at an easy lope.

  Peace went back into the hut and fetched the radio. This

  was the small set we had used in the cutter before. The VLF set was purely for firing Little Bear and could not be used for normal reception.

  As Peace put it down, I asked, ' How long are you going

  to continue with this lie?'

  His voice was controlled, but the emotion behind it was

  tight-packed. For as long as I think necessary,' he replied. Don't you see how this enhances the value of the spaceshot? MKG may be the first President of the United States to step into space.'

  You're perpetuating the biggest fraud in history,' Adele protested. It was bad enough when the President was fully in control of the situation, but now .

  I looked at the hard eyes, alive with dedication to Little Bear. I knew in my heart that Peace would stop at nothing. I had noticed his kinship with the DNI before ; it was ablaze in his face now.

  What you are doing is not only madness, but criminal,' I

  said heatedly. For four days now the President of the United States has been critically ill. Suppose he dies? He

  may be dead already. You know as well as I do that quick

  continuity is vital in the Presidential succession. When John F. Kennedy was shot, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in within an

  hour and a half.'

  I'm glad you mention President Johnson,' Peace replied. He was sworn in in a plane ; there is no reason why MKG

  cannot be sworn in at Space Station One, if need be. Where

  the foot of the American President treads, that is American soil.'

  I turned helplessly to Adele and looked into her troubled

  eyes.

  Mac,' Peace said crisply, I want you to fetch the Remington and the Colt and get the sand out of them. Get 'em in good working order—soon as hell.' He spoke to us. If the

  President dies, the Speaker of the House can act until the

  new President is sworn in.'

  This is no argument—' I began, but he waved me quiet.

  ' I'm not interested in arguments. If Tyler and Thornton

  don't catch up with us, I intend MKG to be shot to Sante Fe. I also intend to have your silence—at any cost.'

  Mac had reappeared with the two weapons. André was

  engrossed in examining the boat.

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  There was a long pause. I mean, at any cost,' Peace repeated. This is madness,' I said.

  Are you prepared to keep quiet?' he demanded, ' Two

  days—that's all I ask.'

  I shrugged and turned to Adele, who made a hopeless

  gesture.

  Good,' said Peace. Mac or I will be watching you all the time. Now get the radio going.'

  Mauritius Radio came through:

  The White House announces that the Seventh Fleet in the

  Sea of Limuria has resumed its intensive search for the person of Marvin K. Green, Vice-President of the United States, and the missing French freighter Semittanté. Admiral Thornton's heet has been strengthened by two more carriers from the United

  States Eastern Fleet. Long-range vr-5 maritime reconnaissance aircraft will fly southwards from the Seychelles tomorrow in co-operation with the Seventh Fleet. Fears for the safety of Semittanté have been expressed in view of the violence of the cyclone, which was the worst recorded this century at the meteorological stations at Chagos and St Brandon. The cyclone is, however, now moving eastwards out of the search area. Captain du Plessis, the shanghaied master of the Semittanté, is rendering all possible assistance in the search and is at present aboard Admiral Thornton's flagship. Meanwhile, as anxiety about the President's condition

  deepens, the United States is torn with the biggest constitutional crisis in its history. As listeners already know, the Speaker of the House, Mr. Donald Langley, was sworn in as

  pro forma President until some clarification has been received regarding the whereabouts of Marvin K. Green. Speaker Langley has appealed publicly to the kidnappers to hand over the popular Vice-President, with the promise of a full pardon. There has been no response to this appeal. There was a

  violent scene in Congress last night when a group of Southern senators sought to bring in a motion applying the disability clause to Marvin K. Green, whose popularity with the manin-the-street now appears to be higher than it ever was. The Congress reaction is stated by observers to be a reflection of the nation's state of nerves. Commerce has reported a serious decline in trade and Wall Street has fallen to its lowest
level in twenty years. Speaker Langley has appealed to the nation to remain calm in this time of crisis.'

  Peace had been scribbling while the broadcast progressed. 195

  What are you doing?' asked Adele.

  I'm faking a broadcast for MKG'S benefit,' he said brutally. It'll be quite harmless. Routine sort of thing. None of this.'

  We remained silent.

  Try the Seventh Fleet,' he ordered.

  The waveband was crowded with traffic.

  . . . Grid position E-7 negative,' said an American voice.

  Will commence search Grid position E-8. Over.'

  One of the carrier search planes,' muttered Peace. ' I

  wish I knew where Grid position E-7 was.'

  Weather clearing rapidly from east and north,' reported

  another plane.

  Then came a code signal, which Adele deciphered.

  GIG to combined Red and Blue Force x carrier aircraft and helots to search area between Saya de Malha and Agalega according to predetermined grid pattern x VP-5's ex Seychelles will carry out similar grid search south and south-east from Seychelles to St Brandon x all surface ships to take part x report contacts immediately x The heat is on,' said Peace. They're coming at us from

  the east and the north.'

  As he spoke MKG, Boz and the other scientists came up the slope towards us.

  Adele,' Peace commanded, 'ask Andre what hope there is of his fixing the cutter?'

  He says it is badly damaged,' she replied. ' Two bottom

  planks must be completely replaced before she will float. He has an axe, but, as you can see for yourself, there is no timber. If there were but one tatamaka tree or one bois mangue to be found, we could do something.'

  What about those coconut stumps?' Peace demanded.

  We use coconut for making oars,' replied Adele. The

  cutter is of best tatamaka, which is hard. The stumps will be useless, he says.

  The general gloom on the faces of the scientists indicated

  that their hunt for timber had been unsuccessful. Peace

  handed mica the faked newscast. He read it without interest. Why not simply rip off some of the cutter's decking and

  patch the planks?' I asked.

  When Adele had passed it on, André went and fetched the