In a direct contrast of weight for weight like this, I was outmatched, and he came up over me with blood streaming from his injured nose, still bellowing with anger, and he pinned me into the shallows forcing my head below the surface and bearing down upon my chest and lungs with all his vast weight.
I began to drown. My lungs caught fire, and the need to breathe laced my vision with sparks and whorls of fire. I could feel the strength going out of me and my consciousness receding into blackness.
The shot when it sounded was muted and dull. I did not recognize it for what it was, until I felt Suleiman Dada jerk and stiffen, felt the strength go out of him and his weight slip and fall from me.
I sat up coughing and gasping for air, with water cascading from my hair and streaming into my eyes. In the light of the fallen torch I saw Sherry North kneeling on the sand at the edge of the water. She had the rifle still clutched in her bandaged hand and her face was pale and frightened.
Beside me, Suleiman Dada floated face down in the shallow water, his half-naked body glistening blackly like a stranded porpoise. I stood up slowly, water pouring from my clothing and she stared at me, horrified with what she had done.
“Oh God,“she whispered, “I’ve killed him. Oh God!”
“Baby,” I gasped. “That was the best day’s work you’ve ever done,” and I staggered past her to where Chubby lay.
He was trying to sit up, struggling feebly.
“Take it easy, Chubby,” I snapped at him, and picked up the torch.
There was fresh blood on his shirt and I unbuttoned it and pulled it open around the broad brown chest.
It was low and left, but it was a lung hit. I saw the bubbles frothing from the dark hole at each breath. I have seen enough gunshot wounds to be something of an authority and I knew that this was a bad one.
He watched my face. “How does it look?” he grunted. “It’s not sore.”
“Lovely,” I answered grimly. “Every time you drink a beer it will run out of the hole! He grinned crookedly, and I helped him to sit up. The exit hole was clean and neat, the FN had been loaded with solid ammunition, and it was only slightly larger than the entry hole. The bullet had not mushroomed against bone.
I found a pair of field dressings in the medical chest and bound up the wounds before I helped him into the boat. Sherry had prepared one of the mattresses and we covered him with blankets.
“Don’t forget Angelo,” he whispered. I found the long heartbreaking canvas bundle where Chubby had dropped it, and I carried Angelo down and laid him in the bows.
I shoved the whaleboat out until I was waist-deep, then I scrambled over the side and started the engines. My one concern now was to get proper medical attention for Chubby, but it was a long cold run down the islands to St. Mary’s.
Sherry sat beside, Chubby on the floorboards, doing what little she could for his comfort - while I stood in the stern between the motors and negotiated the deep-water channel before turning southwards under a sky full of cold white stars, bearing my cargo of wounded, and dying and dead.
We had been going for almost five hours when Sherry stood up from beside the blanketed form in the bottom of the boat and made her way back to me.
“Chubby wants to talk to you,” she said quietly, and then impulsively she leaned forward and touched my cheek with the cold fingers of her uninjured hand. “I think he is going, Harry.” And I heard the desolation in her voice.
I passed the con to her. “You see those two bright stars,” I showed her the pointers of the Southern Cross, “steer straight for them,” and I went forward to where Chubby lay.
For a while he did not seem to know me, and I knelt beside him and listened to the soft liquid sound of his breathing. Then at last he became aware. I saw the starlight catch his eyes and he looked up at me, and I leaned closer so that our faces were only inches apart.
“We took some good fish together, Harry,” he whispered. “We are going to take a lot more,” I answered. “With what we’ve got aboard now we will be able to buy a really good boat. You and I will be going for billfish again next season - that’s for sure.”
Then we were silent for a long time, until at last I felt his hand grope for mine and I took it and held it hard. I could feel the callouses and the ancient line burns from handling heavy fish.
“Harry,” his voice was so faint I could just hear it over the sound of the motors when I laid my ear to his lips, “Harry, I’m going to tell you something I never told you before. I love you, man,” he whispered. “I love you better than my own brother.”
“I love you too, Chubby,” I said, and for a little longer his grip was strong again, and then it relaxed. I sat on beside him while slowly that big horny paw turned cold in my hands, and dawn began to pale the sky above the dark and brooding sea.
During the next three weeks, Sherry and I seldom left the sanctuary of Turtle Bay. We went together to stand awkwardly in the graveyard while they buried our friends, and once I drove alone to the fort and spent two hours with President Godfrey Biddle and Inspector Wally Andrews - but the rest of that time we were alone while the wounds healed.
Our bodies healed more quickly than did our minds. One morning as I dressed Sherry’s hand, I noticed the pearly white seeds in the healing flesh of her fingertips and I realized that they were the nail roots regrowing. She would have fingernails once more to grace those long narrow hands - I was thankful for that.
They were not happy days, the memories were too fresh and the days were dark with mourrning for Chubby and Angelo and both of us knew that the crisis of our relationship was at hand. I guessed what agonies of decision she must be facing, and I forgave her the quick flares of temper, the long silences - and her sudden disappearances from the shack when for hours at a time she walked the long deserted beaches or made a remote and lonely figure sitting out on the headland of the bay.
At last I knew that she was strong enough to face what lay ahead for both of us. One evening I raised the subject of the treasure for the first time since our return to St. Mary’s.
It lay now buried beneath the raised foundations of the shack.
Sherry listened quietly as we sat together upon the veranda, drinking whisky and listening to the sound of the night surf upon the beach.
“I want you to go ahead to make the arrangements for the arrival of the coffin. Hire a car in Zarich and drive down to Basie. I have arranged a room for you at the Red Ox Hotel there. I have picked that hotel because they have an underground parking garage and I know the head porter there. His name is Max.” I explained my plans to her. “He will arrange a hearse to meet the plane. You will play the part of the bereaved widow and bring the coffin down to Basie. We will make the exchange in the garage, and you will arranged for my banker to have an armoured car to take the tiger’s head to his own premises from there.”
“You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?”
“I hope so.” I poured another whisky. “My bank is Falle et Fils and the man to ask for is M. Challon. When you meet him you will give him my name and the number of my account - ten sixty-six, the same as the battle of Hastings. You must arrange with M. Challon for a private room to which we can invite dealers to view the head-” I went on explaining in detail the arrangements I had made, and she listened intently. Now and then she asked a question but mostly she was silent, and at last I produced the air ticket and a thin sheaf of traveller’s cheques to carry her through.
“You have made the reservations already? she looked startled, and when I nodded she thumbed open the booklet of the air ticket. “When do I leave?”
“On the noon plane tomorrow.”
“And when will you follow?”
“In the same plane as the coffin, three days later - on Friday. I will come in on the BOAC flight at 1.30 p.m. That will give you time to make the arrangements and be there to meet me.”
That night was as tender and loving as it had ever been, but even so I sensed a deeper mood of melancholia in Sherry - as at the time of leave-taking and farewell.
In the dawn, the dolphins met us at the entrance of the bay, and we romped with them for half the morning and then swam in slowly to the beach.
I drove her out to the airport in the old pick-up. For most of the ride she was silent and then she tried to tell me something, but she was confused and she did not make sense. She ended lamely, “—if anything ever happens to us, well, I mean nothing lasts for-ever, does it-” “Go on,” I said.
