Sea Lord

A gun fired. The flash of it was blinding and the sound of it deafening. Garrard had gone to the stern and blasted a shotgun into the water. If I had not moved round the counter, I would have taken that cartridge clean in the skull. Garrard fired again. “He’s not there now, Peel.” I heard the heavy gun drop on to the deck. “So bloody look while I try again.”

I was shivering with fear and cold, but made myself edge to the very corner of the stern. Peel was very close to me, but he wouldn’t have seen me if I’d been waving at him; his eyes were so light-blinded. “Give it a go!” he shouted.

Garrard started the engine, put it in gear, and it stopped. I shivered and said a small prayer of thanks that the crankshaft had not broken. “Well?” Garrard asked. I don’t know what they expected to see; they were just groping in the frightening dark searching for any straw to clutch.

“I can’t see nothing!” Peel shouted.

“Then lean over properly, you bastard!”

Peel leaned over. There was a single lifting derrick at Mist-Spinner’s stern, put there for hauling pots, and he held on to it as he craned far out over the transom. “Go on, then!”

Garrard started the engine again, Peel leaned out to look down into the blackness, and I pulled myself up on the outboard bracket. As I pulled, Mist-Spinner’s hull dropped on a wave so that I shot up from the black sea, shedding water, like a drowned man coming to life. Peel could not even call out before my cold hands had gripped the collar of his coat. I fell back, pulling. He was a huge man, far heavier than I, but terror and shock were on my side. He was already leaning outwards, and now I dragged him down. He lost his grip on the derrick, opened his mouth to shout, then hit the water. The motor roared, surrounding us with noise and smoke, then abruptly died as Garrard pushed it into gear. I let go of Peel and twisted desperately away so that he could not grab hold of me.

Garrard, looking from the lit wheelhouse into the foggy darkness, did not know what had happened. He shouted for Peel, who was splashing and spluttering two yards from Mist-Spinner’s stern. “Help!” Peel finally shouted, then spluttered as he went under again. I was working my way forward along the hull. I was cold and weak, but desperation was giving me a last surge of warming adrenalin.

“You fucking idiot!” Garrard twisted off the helmsman’s chair and ran aft.

“It was him!” Peel shouted; then, more urgently and pathetically, “I can’t swim!”

Garrard seized a lifebelt and hurled it towards his partner. I grabbed the gunwale, said a prayer, and pulled.

I had worked my way forward so that I was close to the open after-end of the wheelhouse. The freeboard was low here to give men room to work crab pots or long-lines. I grabbed and heaved, trusting that Garrard would still be confused by the panic.

He saw me as I rolled my right leg up to the gunwale. For a second he didn’t quite believe what he saw, then he ran towards me to kick me off the gunwale. He would have finished me there and then, but Les Trois Grunes saved me. We had been taken to where the sea bed rose to undercut the waves. The swell was breaking and lurching and Mist-Spinner suddenly heaved up to one such broken sea. Garrard staggered desperately away and almost went overboard, only steadying himself at the last moment with a despairing lunge for the derrick. The delay let me roll over the gunwale on to the deck. I needed a weapon, any weapon, and I saw an old rope fender by my hand so I picked it up and threw it blindly towards him.

Garrard ducked out of its way. The searchlight mounted on the wheelhouse roof was still pointing forward and I could see, in the pearly fog, where Marianne was rolling in water broken white about the shoals. I hadn’t been looking for that danger, but for another weapon. The only thing I could find was an empty plastic fish-box, the kind that are packed with ice and newly caught fish. I snatched it up, turned back, and saw that Garrard had drawn his long-bladed knife. He ignored the discarded shotgun; clearly it was empty and he had no cartridges in the pockets of his tweed jacket.

“Very clever, my lord.” He smiled at me. His confidence, so abraded by the night and the sea, was returning, for now he was in a situation he could master: one man against one man, with death as the finale.

“Very clever,” he said again, then he let go of the derrick and came towards me. I raised the heavy fish-box as a shield. Mist-Spinner heaved up, then thumped down. Garrard lost his balance, and I charged him. I was still cold and weak, but I was used to a pitching deck and he was not. I whirled the heavy box like a club, hoping to slam him overboard, but he dropped to one knee, under my wild swing, and lunged the knife like a poniard. I stepped back just in time, tried to crush him with the box, but a heave of the sea threw him back from my blow. I could hear Peel splashing at the stern. He had the lifebelt now, and it could only be a matter of time before he was back on board. All around us the sea was fretting white, while beneath us the sea bed was rising to shatter the waves into churning chaos.

“Now!” Garrard shouted, at the same time glancing over my shoulder towards the companionway that led to the forward cuddy. I fell for the trick, because I had still not convinced myself that Elizabeth would trust Garrard, and that she might therefore have been sheltering in the tiny cabin. I glanced back for a half-second, realised I’d been fooled, but by the time I looked back Garrard was already moving. He threw himself forward, knife reaching. I swung the fish-box, but he was past my defence and I felt a dull punch on my right side. The boat rocked to port, Garrard staggered, and I hit him hard in the face with the plastic box. The blow jarred him sideways so that he fell on to the open engine hatch. I was hurt. Blood was streaming down my wet shorts and dripping on to the deck. Garrard had fallen heavily across the engine. It was the moment for me to finish him off, but I was too weakened by the cold. All I could do was clumsily swing the plastic box at him. The blow achieved nothing. Garrard rolled off the engine towards the stern and picked himself up. Mist-Spinner was broaching to the waves, jerking and rolling.

Garrard braced himself against the stern gunwale, waiting for a wave to pass. When it did, and Mist-Spinner was momentarily stable, he came forward with short dancing steps, like a boxer approaching cautiously for a final attack. I was only just realising how much the cold sea had weakened me. I was shivering, bleeding, gasping for breath, and I think Garrard knew I was finished. He smiled. “Had enough?”

“Fuck off.” It was a feeble defiance.

He was still braced against the stern, one hand on the derrick, the other holding the knife. He gave the sea rapid glances, waiting for a calm trough of the waves to give himself a moment’s peace during which he could kill me. Peel was clinging to the stern, unable to haul his huge weight over the transom.

“You didn’t kill me before,” I tried to goad Garrard, “and you won’t now.”

He laughed. “We weren’t meant to kill you the first time, just scare the shit out of you.” He edged forward, but a surge of sea water made him stagger back to the derrick’s security.

I wondered if he’d been telling the truth, and that the attempt on my life in Cullen’s yard had been nothing but a scare tactic. “So why kill me now?”

“Why ever not?” He was amusing himself.

“Whatever Elizabeth’s paying you,” I said, “I’ll double.” I was not planning to make any deals, just to kill him, but I wanted to distract him for a few seconds.

Instead I had amused him. “Your sister’s paying me nothing. We’re partners!” He was mocking my ignorance, but behind the mockery I detected an odd tenderness.

“You’re lovers!” I said in astonishment, and understood at last why she trusted him with the money.

“And partners. It was I, after all, who discovered the picture, and it was I who graciously allowed your sister to invest in that discovery.” He glanced astern and I saw a smooth trough approaching behind a steep crest, and I knew that when that smooth water settled the pitching hull he would come for me.

“What do you mean,” I asked, “discovered it? Elizabeth and you stole it!”

He laughed. “Proclaim your innocence to the end, my lord, and much good may it do you.” He looked behind again, judging the wave’s approach, and, while he was looking away from me, I charged. He must have sensed the attack for he looked back quickly, saw me stagger as the wave heaved Mist-Spinner high, then, as her bows dropped, he let go of the derrick and came at me.

He lunged with the knife. I swung the fish-box, but his lunge had been a feint. He danced away, but I had released the box so that it hit him a glancing blow on the hip. Mist-Spinner tilted backwards on the wave’s crest and the violent motion together with my small blow gave me just enough time to twist away and scramble on to the narrow walkway beside the wheelhouse. Garrard followed me, but he wasn’t so