Then I shifted behind the wheel and started up and moved off, and when I passed the tall balconied house the light in the dormer window was still burning, so I stopped again and fished for a map in the glove pocket and found one and looked for Chucunantah Road and moved off again and turned east and then south, with the thought in my mind of seeking Parks.
You don't remember him, I know, but I'll tell you this. He was my only chance, and the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings.
Chapter 23: SING
'Will this do you?'
'Yes.'
It stank of rotten eggs or something, and sea-water was lapping at the side as the swell moved against the harbour wall. Flotsam made a multicoloured scum on the surface beyond the rail. 'It's not for long,' Kim said. 'Is that right?'
'Twenty-four hours. Did the hurricane do all this?'
'Most of it.' She ducked her head under the shattered boom and crouched beside me in her frayed sunbleached shorts. It was almost dark here, in contrast to the glare of the morning sun across the water outside. 'The harbour's becoming abandoned, pretty well. Other storms began wrecking it, and people began bringing their boats here, those that were still afloat. Their idea is to do them up, given enough time, but the thing is they haven't got enough money. They're allowed to leave them here; they don't pay dues or anything.'
She pulled a loose timber and shoved it into the flooded hold behind us, then moved away to work at the jammed door of the cabin. Two of the berths were still intact, and she'd brought oil lamps and a keg of water.
She'd been asleep when I'd telephoned the tug just before five this morning from Parks' place, but she'd said straight away that she'd pick me up at the Exxon station three blocks from the harbour and find me shelter. I'd telephoned Avis and told them where I'd left their van.
I would go down in signals as missing.
All instructions to the executive in the field will be followed except where extenuating circumstances are seen to exist, as determined by Administration at the time or at a later date.
Failure to report to a rendezvous was technically a breach of contract and if I ever managed to get back to London I would face a board of enquiry. I hadn't telephoned Ferris from the Exxon station to tell him I was going to ground because that would have put him in an invidious position: technically he would have been expected to inform Croder but he wouldn't have done that; he would simply have accepted the fact that his executive had become a rogue agent and reported to Croder only that I had missed the rendezvous. He would first, of course, have done everything he could to persuade me to change my mind and follow instructions, but there would have been no point in letting him go through an exercise in predetermined futility.
And if I'd told him what I planned to do he would have tried everything to stop me.'
Soon after 06:00 hours today the executive in the field for Barracuda would be posted on the signals board in London as missing. Soon afterwards his name would be removed from the board and replaced by Purdom's.
In the meantime there would be a man holed up in the stinking cabin of a wrecked schooner on the Florida coast, awaiting the coming night with the patience of a saint and the conscience of a sinner, while hour by hour the terror would grow in him until at the long day's end he would surely come to know that he was mad.
'I can't borrow a boat,' Kim said when she came over to me again. 'It'd involve other people, and we don't want that. So what I'll do is take the tug out to deep water and hang around and see if anyone's followed me. If I'm clear I'll head back to the coast where there's not much shipping, and come into the harbour here as soon as it's dark.' She sat next to me on the splintered bunk, touching, her bare arms folded across her knees. 'Does that sound all right?'
'It sounds very good.'
I offered her a couple of hundred dollars to defray expenses, the diesel oil and the three diving lessons she'd had to postpone, but she said she often went out deep-sea 'just to be there', and the lessons were no big deal. 'This ride's on me,' she said, 'and that's the only way you can get it.'
During the heat of the day I slept, woke and slept again. Voices came sometimes, but not close. This place was a graveyard, and there was no sea-borne traffic.
In the evening I opened a can of sardines and had them with a piece of bread, and drank some tea from the thermos Kim had left for me. The blood-red remnants of the sun were paling to a grey wash and then darkening as night came down across the littered sea, and I heard the straining of rowlocks not far off, then the bump of timbers.
She came aboard quickly and on bare feet, without a sound. The moon, in its third quarter, cast an ashen light across the harbour, and reflections pooled on the planks above our heads. I hadn't lit the lamp.
'There was no one,' she said, coming beside me, 'absolutely no one.' Her hands smelled of oil and rope and seaweed; the pale light frosted the salt along her arms. 'Being not quite certain isn't a risk I'd take. I mean -'
'I know what you mean.'
Her breath was coming a little fast, and she tried to slow it, talking about the tides for a moment and the state of the sea, until she finally said, and had not been willing to say, 'All right, when you're ready.'
By the brass chronometer in the cabin of the tug it was eight in the evening when we anchored over deep water, a few minutes after eight, though time had lost its meaning now, and there was no hurry.
'How far are we?' I asked her.
'Two sea miles, give or take a bit. That's what you said you wanted.'
'Are we under their radar?'
'Yes. But we're only a blob. They don't know what vessel she is.'
The sea was dead calm, and the lights between here and the coast were motionless. The moon hung among hazy stars, and you would have said it was a night for magic to be made across this vast unfathomable stage, a night for sorcery, its reaches peopled by warlocks, witches and diabolists, casting their spells and conjuring phantoms from the very air. I told you, my good friend, that by nightfall I would come to know that I was mad, and here was the night, and here this madman's tale.
Here too of course the appalling urgency to turn back and gain the shore and find a telephone and offer myself to be led like a lamb to London.
'Did you eat anything?' she asked me.
'Yes.'
'Not too much.'
'No. Some sardines.'
Time to go to the loo.'
When I came back she helped me on with the wet-suit, and I asked her, 'All right, what am I up against?'
I heard her take a breath. 'Bad news first. They feed by night, and actively. There are a lot more rods than cones in the retinae, so they can see quite well in dim light. The moon isn't a help, though you'll need it to see what you're doing.'
I pulled the front zip and began strapping the ankles. She helped me, crouching at my feet, her hands quick and deft. 'The things that attract them are light, noise and rapid movement. I suppose that's true for most creatures, it's nothing special. But watch out if you see garbage being thrown overboard, and keep well away from it. They sometimes move about in packs, as you saw yesterday, but ninety per cent of attacks are made by a single shark. The attack's usually direct, straight on, without any close passes beforehand.' She straightened up and began helping me with the gear and the floats. 'Statistically, which is really all I'm talking about, only a third of the vie – of the people attacked have reported seeing the shark. It's usually what we call a blind hit, before you can see anything.' She stopped talking for a minute; I suppose she was having trouble with a buckle or something.
That's all I need to know,' I said. 'You've -'
They're also attracted to fish moving in a shoal. If you see a shoal, steer clear of it or try to swim towards it to turn it away. Most of the strikes are made at the extended arms and legs; try to remember to swim with your flippers almost together; just paddling slowly, with your arms close to your sides.