‘Then the civvy goes, too?” Benedict inquired, nodding toward me.
“Sure. He knows too much. We can’t take the chance of his blabbing. He goes into the drink with the others,” Mayday decided.
I’m allergic to salt water. It makes me break out in hives. There was no point in mentioning it, though. I wouldn’t have been heard over the frenzied pleading of Captain Maldemerde.
Click-click. The Captain was sobbing out an offer to throw the race as we were marched out onto the foredeck. Mayday ignored him and had the sailors line us up by the rail.
“Damn!” Mayday noticed. “If we throw them off here, they won’t clear the bow.”
“Hey, look!” one of the mutineers pointed. “Sharks!”
I looked. Squinting in the twilight, I made out half a dozen fins circling ahead of the prow of the Lascivia. I’m allergic to sharks, too!
“Mama!” the Captain shrieked. Click-click.
“Put a gag on him,” Mayday ordered. “And unscrew the cover from that stairwell and bring it over here,”
he instructed two crewmen. “We’ll use it for a plank. It should extend far enough so they’ll clear the ship when they go over. Oh, yes, and blindfold them.”
“What for, sir?” Benedict asked.
“Tradition.”
Benedict shrugged and blindfolded the Captain. I came next. Then there was a flurry that I heard but couldn’t see. It was punctuated by a scream from the Captain and a loud click-click.
“Little shithead bit me!” Benedict cursed. “That’s it, boys. Sit on him. Let the civvy go first,” he added. Blindfolded, hands tied behind my back, I was boosted up to the stairwell planking which had been propped to extend out over the side of the bow. The tip of a knife bit into my rear end and I took a step forward. Another stab and I moved another step. I could feel the spray from the sea beneath me with the next step. Now I was poised over the water with its waiting sharks.
I was one, perhaps two or three, steps away from death. It was a helluva death for the twentieth century. It was a helluva way to go -
Walking the plank!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Walking the plank, the tip of a blade pricking my trembling haunches, prodding me forward until there would be no footing left beneath me, until I would plunge through the empty air to the ocean depths below, into the savage sea with its school of circling, hungry sharks . . . My situation wouldn’t have encouraged Metropolitan Life12 to issue a policy!
The plank swayed. Someone else had been forced to mount it behind me. Click-click. I heard Captain Maldemerde sobbing. There was a shifting of weight and the sound came closer. Click-click.
Suddenly, from very close by, there was the roar of gunfire. Several shots were fired in such rapid succession that there had to be more than one gun involved. Behind me on the plank, Maldemerde panicked. Click- click. He jumped and bumped smack into me. The two of us, blindfolded, swayed back and forth on the narrow plank.
Somehow I managed to steady both the Captain and myself. I lowered my face until I felt his shoulder against it. By rubbing back and forth, I worked off my blindfold.
The first thing I saw was confusion on the deck behind us. The next thing I realized was that I really was just half a step away from briny oblivion. With Maldemerde shaking like a leaf against me, make that a quarter-step!
First things first. Carefully, I prodded him back along the plank. Not that I was so hipped on rescuing him, understand. It was just that there was no way around him.
Our captors seemed to have pretty much forgotten us. They appeared to be under siege from two directions. Caught in a crossfire with no place to take cover, their position was pretty vulnerable. They’d flattened themselves out on the deck. Shots coming from behind a bulkhead to starboard of them, and from the stairwell on the port side, were zinging over their heads. Two of the mutineers were returning the fire with the skeet guns.
My hands were still tied, but I didn’t let that stop me from taking action. There was no question whose side I was on. My only chance to survive was if the mutiny was quelled.
I pushed Maldemerde ahead of me to the foot of the plank. When we reached it, I gave him a shove that sent him sprawling on top of one of the sailors who was shooting. I jumped the other one myself, kicking the rifle out of his hands and sending it sliding down the deck. .
The other armed sailor flung Maldemerde off him. The Captain careened into Benedict. The burly stoker had been kneeling behind Mister Jewish, using him as a shield, holding a knife at his back. When Maldemerde rolled against Benedict, the knife was diverted and knocked out of his grip. Mister Jewish caught it in the two hands tied behind his back. Before Benedict could untangle himself from the Captain, Mister Jewish had contrived to sever his bonds.
Number One knocked Benedict out with a haymaker punch. He wrenched the rifle away from the sailor and cracked it over the skull of another knife-wielding mutineer who’d been guarding Chief Engineer Gorilla. By this time, I was flat on my back under a bunch of angry tars, having a rough time defending myself since my hands were still tied behind my back. Gorilla sailed into my attackers, using his hambone hands like two clubs. Chopped karate-style at their neck-napes, three of them fell like axed trees. The rest scrambled away.
Struggling up on my elbows, I saw that was the end of it. One last sailor, not as perceptive as I was, fell to the deck howling from a crotch-kick delivered by Gorilla. The rest of them lay flat with their hands over their heads to indicate their surrender to Mister Jewish, who had now taken command with one of the rifles.
He crouched as he covered them, because the cross-fire from behind the bulkhead and from the stairwell was still continuing. That’s when I realized something the jittery mutineers had missed before. The shots hadn’t been aimed at them, and they weren’t being aimed at us now. The two gunmen were shooting at each other! Our group just happened to be caught in the middle!
After a few minutes, abruptly, the shots stopped coming from the stairwell. Then there was silence from the starboard bulkhead as well. The silence lengthened, and finally a figure stepped cautiously from behind the bulkhead, Luger held ready. He seemed unconcerned by the rifle trained on him by Mister Jewish as he approached. He was focused on the stairwell on the other side of us, obviously poised to duck fast at the first sign of movement there.
But there was no movement. His adversary had departed. For the time being, the gun duel was over. Reassured that this was so, Mario Brandino put the Luger back in his shoulder holster as he drew abreast of us. “Why are you pointing that gun at me?” he inquired coolly of Mister Jewish.
“We’ve had trouble. I just want to be sure which side you’re on.”
“I’ve got my own problems.” Brandino smiled ironically. “A jealous husband who wants to kill me; flattering for a man my age, yes? And some unknown enemy who fingers me for the potential triggerman. You see, there are implications beyond this ship. Whose side am I on? I don’t take sides. . . . I only make business decisions.”
“There is only one possible side!” Click-click. Captain Maldemerde, now that the danger was over, puffed himself up to re-establish his authority. “Law and order!” ‘
“Oh, I’m all for law and order,” the Mafioso assured him. “I couldn’t stay in business without it.”
“Hang these mutinous dogs from the yardarm!” the Captain ordered Mister Jewish. Click-click.
“They’re entitled to a Court of Inquiry,” Mister Jewish said evenly. “We’ll hold them in the brig until we reach port.”