“Jump!” Sean shouted to me.
I didn’t have time to argue with him about the wisdom of that one. Lonnie was already in the water, half-swimming half-wading for the cover of the nearest clump of Cypress trees about sixty metres away to our left. If he could make it with only one arm working . . .
I reached over the back of the seat and grabbed Trey by the collar of his shirt. The adrenaline pumping through my system had the effect of making him weigh almost nothing as I heaved him away from Whitmarsh and all but threw him over the side of the boat. Sean kicked a squealing Keith into the water on the opposite side and jumped in after him.
Hitting flat water, even when you’re not travelling that fast is an unpleasant business, not unlike coming off a motorbike and bouncing along the road surface until you’ve scrubbed off some speed. The only difference was the lack of protective leathers and the fact that you’re unlikely to die by drowning at the end of your average bike crash.
Not that drowning was the biggest of my fears right now.
Even so, I was coughing like a consumptive as I surfaced, spitting out gouts of foul-tasting swamp water and scraping at the wet hair that was plastered across my eyes. Then I looked around me, frantic, but in the rapidly encroaching gloom I couldn’t spot Trey or Sean anywhere close by.
Just for a second I was assailed by all manner of terrors. Not least of which centred on the presence of the alligators. I splashed in another quick circle but there were no telltale lumps bearing down on me and eyeing me up with a view to dinner. Then I remembered about the poisonous water moccasin snakes.
Oh nice one, Fox.
The airboat thundered on past for a short distance after we’d bailed out of it, describing a big curving turn. Half the rudder system was shot away, too, and Mason wrestled for some semblance of control. The engine sounded raucous in the extreme, barely holding together under the incredible strain of trying to spin the lopsided propeller. It was protesting its mechanical agony loudly in the only way it knew.
I could just about see Whitmarsh up on his feet again now, struggling hand-to-hand with Haines as the airboat bucked and shuddered underneath them.
Whitmarsh had weight on his side but Haines was clearly the stronger party. As I watched he ducked and got a shoulder into Whitmarsh’s expansive stomach, ramming him backwards and toppling him over the side. He made considerably more of a splash when he hit the water than any of the rest of us had done.
And then, not far behind me I heard a strangled cry that could only be Trey. I spun round towards the sound and saw the kid thrashing in the water. I hoped those long shadows closing on him were just a product of the failing light but I knew I was wrong.
“Trey, for Christ’s sake keep still!” I yelled at him. He froze almost instantly, sinking until barely more than his nose and the top of his head was visible out of the water.
Without any clear idea of what the hell I was going to do when I got there I headed for him in a fast crawl. I arrived at just about the same time as an alligator that must have been twelve feet long, its body a dull greyish black like a slightly scaly nuclear submarine, only not so friendly.
Trey was terrified, incoherent with fright as the reptile approached in its sinuous way through the water. I put myself between it and the boy. My brain inconveniently fed me with an old nature programme snippet that an alligator’s jaws had the crushing power of 3000 pounds per square inch. I braced myself, still with no idea how to go about winning such an uneven fight.
But then, almost at the last moment, the ‘gator swerved around us, almost graceful in its evasion. I swear the end of its tail brushed past my bare arm in the water but it could have been one of those damned snakes. Another smaller alligator swam by on the other side, moving fast enough to leave a wake.
It was only when I looked at the water that I realised why they hadn’t bothered with us.
There was blood in it.
Not from Trey and certainly not from me. It was leaching out of the guy Lonnie had blown away in the front of the boat. His body now floated face down less than twenty feet away, leaving a greasy trail of blood in the water like oil from the wreck of a rusting Panamanian tanker.
The alligators converged on the man’s body with a purpose, squabbling over who got first bite of the prize. As I looked one of them seemed to rear up, its massive jaws wide open to show a mouth that was a surprisingly delicate shade of pink inside. A scrap of cloth had snagged on the beast’s teeth and flapped when it shook its head. I didn’t look too closely at what else might have been in there.
“Come on!” I grabbed Trey’s arm, tugged at him. “We’ve got to get away from here.”
Getting him to shift wasn’t easy, even though every ounce of logic should have told him that getting away from the vicinity of the corpse – or buffet as the alligators viewed it – was a good idea. Fortunately, Trey was easy to tow through the water, even if the vegetation did seem to constantly tangle round our limbs.
Suddenly, my feet hit the muddy bottom and then I, like Lonnie, was half-swimming half-staggering with my burden towards the relative safety of the trees.
I still hadn’t caught sight of Sean or Keith and that in itself scared me. Not that I cared what happened to Keith, which I recognised wasn’t the best attitude for a bodyguard. It was always Trey who’d been my responsibility and I was determined to do my damnedest to save him now.
I glanced behind me. The light levels were dropping fast but I could still make out the collective hump in the water where the alligators were feeding. More of them were gathering all the time until I couldn’t count the numbers.
Christ, aren’t they supposed to be a threatened species or something?
And, even though I couldn’t see it, I could certainly hear the airboat circling back towards us. The trees were almost within reach now. I shoved Trey on faster, slipping in my haste, going down on my knees and taking in another lungful of rancid gloop.
Blinded and gasping, I felt a pair of hands grab hold of the back of my shirt and the seat of my trousers and lift me clear of the water. I began to struggle instinctively until Sean’s voice said, “Be still!” in a savage whisper.
He dragged me through a small gap in the trees, and Trey after me. I got to my feet slowly, coughing and retching until there was only air in my lungs again. And not much of that.
On the other side of the trees the area opened out slightly into a pool of fly-blown water with shallow-sloping muddy banks. The trees were close in on all sides, making it darker in there than out on the open swamp.
I squinted suspiciously at a number of dark knobbly stumps protruding out of the pool until I realised they were part of a root system. They stuck up about six inches out of the water and would, at least, be enough to stop the airboat being able to force its way into our sanctuary.
Then, on the other side of the pool, I noticed the elongated shapes of three medium-sized alligators, drawn up on the far bank like beached canoes, watching us unblinkingly.
Keith and Lonnie were standing up to their knees in the water, watching the reptiles and brandishing ripped-out branches just in case any of them decided to make a move. Not that the rotting timber would have lasted long against something with the speed and agility of a hungry ‘gator. For the moment, though, both sides seemed willing to accept the uneasy standoff.
Keith was shaking so hard I’m amazed he could keep hold of his branch, let alone manage to remain at his post. Lonnie looked calmer, cradling his mangled right arm carefully across his body.
“Where’s Jim?” Lonnie asked over his shoulder.