At some point they noticed a faint hum coming from somewhere toward the bow of the boat. They moved slowly along the companionway, gaping at the ruinous destruction of compartments to both sides. They searched the whole of the dead and drifting yacht. Someone had taken an ax to all the pretty mahogany woodwork, all the furniture, all the beautiful fixtures. The vessel was ruined, destroyed. Bad.
In the main stateroom they found an open safe, empty. A robbery at sea, piracy, was not all that uncommon in these waters. And the yacht flew a large British Union Jack flag at her stern. That made her a likely target for the growing number of island people, all descended from slaves, who were coming to despise their former British masters.
There was still a strange hum emanating from the forward compartment. They all mistook it for a noisy generator. But when they arrived they saw that it was nothing but a lone fly batting itself again and again against the door, as if trying to get in. One crewman swatted the fly away, but it was only momentarily distracted from its efforts. They tried the knob. The door swung inward.
The first thing they saw was a blood-caked machete. Then, the bodies. The two crewmen were suddenly staggering backwards into the captain.
He prodded them forward into the compartment, but, unable to stomach the buzzing flies, the stench, and the spattered walls, they quickly scrambled up the ladder and instantly heaved their breakfasts into the sea. The captain tore off his shirt, covered his mouth and nose, and remained below. Taking a deep breath, he entered the compartment.
Two nude and mutilated bodies. One, a woman, had had her throat slashed. There were other wounds, but the captain quickly averted his eyes. The other victim was worse. It was a man, and he was pinned to the forward bulkhead wall by two stiletto daggers driven through his hands. The captain stared at the corpse in disbelief. The man had clearly been crucified. He had also been disemboweled.
There was something else on the cabin floor. A large black bird, its feathers matted with blood. The captain saw faint movement of one wing and lifted the bird in his hands. It was badly hurt but still breathing. It squawked weakly as he cradled it in his arms.
Staggering backwards through the door of the small compartment, he made the sign of the cross.
“Mother of God,” he said softly to himself.
He fell back into the corridor and collapsed against the wall. He found himself struggling for breath. It was oven-hot in the little cabin, and he turned away, headed for the stern to fill his lungs and gather himself for what he knew he must do. He had only taken two steps aft when he stopped, listening carefully.
There was another sound coming from the compartment, different from the sickening buzz of the countless black flies. It was the sound of short, sucking breaths. Human. Somehow, there was a living being in that room.
McKay filled his lungs with air and stepped once more through the door to the horror inside. It seemed impossible, but the sound of breathing seemed to be coming from the man impaled on the wall.
He went up to the hanging corpse. There was no possibility that this man was alive. Still, he could hear it. Fast, shallow breathing.
It was coming from behind the body.
Captain McKay gritted his teeth and placed the injured parrot carefully on the floor behind him. He reached up and pulled both stilettos from the palms of the dead man. He had to step back as the body fell toward him and collapsed at his feet.
On the bloody wall where the man had died was a small door. It had three small vents. There was a gaping crack down the middle, as if the man had been hurled against it with great force. The sounds were coming from behind that door. He turned the knob. Locked from the inside.
Looking around desperately, he spied the blood-caked machete propped up against the back wall. He grabbed it and quickly pried the small door open with the blade’s edge. He bent and peered inside, his eyes adjusting rapidly to the darkness. The breathing was replaced by a low, keening whimper.
There was a figure, a small child, curled into the V-shaped sides of the bow. Not moving, but breathing. Small, shallow breaths. The captain climbed up inside the locker and gathered the child to his chest. It was a young boy, plainly delirious, and he was whispering something rapidly and repeatedly. Captain McKay put his ear to the boy’s lips.
three knocks three knocks three knocks three knocks
Lifting him out, the captain was amazed the boy was still alive. It must have been days since he’d eaten, and the child was obviously dehydrated. In an instant, the captain realized that this child must surely have witnessed the murder of his parents through the three ventilation slits.
He covered the boy’s eyes with his free hand, shielding him from the sight of the two bodies, and stepped out into the companionway.
In his mind the captain could see it now. How it might have been. The crucified man had hidden the boy in the locker. And died shielding the little door, and behind it, his son.
The captain went quickly to the stern of the yacht and gently handed the boy up to a crewman aboard the fishing vessel. Then he quickly returned for the wounded bird, gathered it up, and closed the main hatch on the horror below. Once the boy was safely aboard their vessel, they left the mutilated yacht untouched. Rigging a line to her bow, they took her in tow, and Captain McKay in the pilothouse got on the radio to the Nassau Constabulary.
The poor fishermen were shocked at what the child must have witnessed and endured. He was barely alive. They prayed for him all the way back to Nassau Harbor. The captain relinquished his berth and the three men tended the boy round the clock. The black parrot, who recovered quickly, never left the boy’s side. The only thing the child could keep down was some weak tea. He didn’t speak at all, other than to whisper a strange phrase over and over during his few brief spells of consciousness.
three knocks three knocks three knocks three knocks
The fishing boat, Misty II, towed the big yacht all the way into the main dock at Nassau Harbor, where a waiting police ambulance took little Alex Hawke, along with his parents’ bodies, to the Royal St. George’s Hospital. His grandfather was contacted in England, and immediately began making arrangements with the naval secretary to bring them all home.
He then flew to Nassau and spent every day at Alex’s bedside, holding his hand, telling him stories about his dog Scoundrel’s latest adventures at home on Greybeard Island.
It would be several weeks before Alex was well enough to travel. During that period, the Nassau police investigating the crime visited the hospital, hoping to learn something, anything, about what had happened aboard the Seahawke. They quickly realized the boy, mercifully, had no memory whatsoever of the terrible events.
One nice policeman continued to come every afternoon. He was a kind man with a big smile, and he never asked any questions. Every day he’d appear in the doorway, and he always brought some new toy along. A small bird he’d whittled or something from the straw market.
When Alex was about to be discharged from the hospital, the navy secretary at the admiralty in London sent two senior staff officers to the Bahamas to accompany the elderly Admiral Hawke and his grandson home.
The big Royal Navy plane flew from Nassau to Heathrow, refueling at Bermuda and Madeira. Alex sat with his grandfather, sleeping or holding his hand most of the way. His parents were somewhere in the back of the plane, he knew. Something bad had happened to them, he knew. Something terrible. He couldn’t remember.