The shadow was Bristow, and there was something about Bristow’s movements that roused a sudden grave suspicion in Keeton’s mind. He saw Bristow’s head turn as he glanced towards the awning, and then he stooped and began to fumble with something in the bottom of the boat. Keeton watched him; he saw Bristow lift some object towards his mouth and throw his head back in the unmistakable action of drinking; he heard the faint sigh of satisfaction that Bristow gave after he had drunk.
Keeton’s anger burned up in him as it had not burned since the day when the cat had been killed and the bullet had whined past his ear. Bristow was committing now an even greater crime, and this time there was no excuse of drunkenness to urge in mitigation: he was stealing the water, the precious liquid that was worth more now than gold; he was helping himself while he supposed Keeton to be asleep. And how often before this had he done so? How many times had he secretly dipped into the breaker to quench his thirst, not caring two pins for the rights or wrongs of the matter but intent only on satisfying his own desires?
Keeton crawled out from beneath the awning. ‘You damned swine, Johnnie,’ he said, and there was an edge of steel in his voice. ‘You damned, filthy, thieving swine.’
Bristow was startled; his head jerked round and the mug fell with a metallic clatter from his hand.
‘Charlie! I thought you were asleep.’
Keeton stood up. ‘You bet you thought I was asleep. That’s why you were sneaking the water, you bastard.’
‘Now, look, Charlie—’ Bristow began. Keeton clenched his fist and hit Bristow on the mouth. Bristow gave a squeal like a pig that has been hurt. Keeton hit him again and he staggered back into the sternsheets.
‘Keep away from me, Charlie. Keep away.’
Keeton followed him and hit him on the side of the head, and Bristow fell against the tiller.
‘I’ll keep away from you, Johnnie. I’ll keep away when I’ve finished what I’m going to do and not before.’
Bristow began to grope about for some weapon with which to defend himself, and his hand fell on the tiller. He managed to free it from the rudder and swung it at Keeton like a club. The tiller struck Keeton on the neck, and the pain of the blow seemed to mingle with his anger, almost blinding him. Before Bristow could swing the tiller again Keeton seized it and wrenched it from his hands. Bristow began to whimper.
‘Don’t hit me, Charlie. No, don’t hit me.’
In an effort to escape he made a sudden crouching dash towards the centre of the boat. Keeton lashed at him with the tiller and he fell across a thwart and lay there.
‘Get up,’ Keeton said.
Bristow did not move.
‘It’s no use shamming,’ Keeton said. ‘You’re not hurt yet. Not like you’re going to be.’
Still Bristow made no movement and no sound. Keeton stepped over the thwart and gripped Bristow’s shoulder, shaking him. There was a strange limpness about Bristow. Keeton left off shaking him. He touched the back of Bristow’s head and felt something warm and slippery on his fingers.
He was surprised, because he had not imagined that he was hitting Bristow very hard. Yet when he touched the end of the tiller the substance was there too, and he knew that it was blood. With a feeling of revulsion he cast the tiller away from him; it struck the gunwale and fell into the sea. Keeton was scarcely aware that he had lost it.
He shook Bristow again. ‘Wake up, Johnnie, wake up.’ It was like shaking a sack of grain.
He found the bailer, scooped up some water and poured it over Bristow’s head. The head did not move.
Again Keeton felt angry with Bristow, but for a different reason. What did he think he was up to, playing this trick?
‘Damn you, Johnnie; you aren’t dead. I didn’t hit you that hard. You know I didn’t. Why don’t you get up? Damn you; you can’t be dead.’
Dead! No, it was not possible. Bristow was either shamming in order to avoid further punishment or he was unconscious. Unconscious! Of course, that was the answer; the blow had knocked him out but he would be all right in a minute or two.
Keeton kneeled down and put his ear against Johnnie’s face. There was no audible sound of breathing. He lifted Bristow’s wrist and felt for the pulse. There was nothing.
He let the wrist drop and drew away from Bristow, withdrawing to the far end of the boat. And there he stayed for the rest of the night, waiting for Bristow to get up, yet knowing in his heart that he would never do so.
In the early light of morning Bristow lay across the thwart with the dried blood and matted hair visible on the back of his head. When Keeton, mastering his reluctance to go near, touched the body he found that it had already stiffened.
‘I didn’t mean to do it, Johnnie,’ he muttered. ‘You made me mad, but I didn’t mean to kill you, believe me, I didn’t. It was an accident.’
Yet even in this moment of remorse the thought crept into his mind that now there was no one with whom he had to share the gold. The treasure of the Valparaiso was his now, all his. If he could get it.
But Bristow had to be lifted out of the boat; he could not be left where he was to rot, for that would be the ultimate horror.
Keeton put his arms round the body and tried to lift it, but could not do so. He sat down, trembling from the exertion. He could not believe that Bristow, even at his fattest, had ever been as heavy as that; it was as though death had turned the flesh to lead, defying him to lift it. It did not occur to him at first that it was not Bristow who had grown heavier but he who had become weaker; he no longer possessed the strength that he had once had; he was a sick man now, sick from privation. And yet somehow Bristow must go.
‘If he stays,’ Keeton muttered, ‘I shall have to go. There’s not room for the two of us now.’
He got to his feet and put his hands under Bristow’s armpits and dragged him to the side. By exerting all his efforts he managed to lift Bristow’s head and shoulders on to the gunwale. He rested then, gasping for breath, his mouth dry and salty. Bristow, face downward on the gunwale, looked as though he were praying. With a muttered curse Keeton bent down and seized the dead man’s legs; he lifted them and with a final heave toppled the body over the side.
There was surprisingly little splash. Keeton looked over the gunwale and saw the shark. It must have been there all the time, waiting, as if it had known that Bristow would be coming to it.
Keeton closed his eyes, but he could not shut out the sound of that sudden flurry in the water. After a while the sound died away. He opened his eyes and saw the stains on the thwart like dry paint.
Keeton was alone in the boat now. The days slipped by and the boat drifted, without purpose, without aim, a piece of flotsam moved by the wind and the current. As time passed Keeton became weaker; he no longer made any attempt to bail out the water in the bottom of the boat, but after reaching a certain level it stopped rising, perhaps because the leak had sealed itself. Sometimes a kind of madness seized him; he made croaking shouts of defiance, daring the sea to come and take him, shaking his bony fists at the sky. In one of these fits he picked up the sextant and flung it away; it fell with a momentary glitter of reflected sunlight and was lost beneath the enigmatic surface of the ocean. The charts followed it, fluttering down like autumn leaves and floating for a time before, sodden and limp, they lost their buoyancy and succumbed to the irresistible pull of gravity.
He lost track of time. He knew that the days burned away under the harsh glare of the sun, that the nights were haunted by dreams of Bristow and the shark beneath the keel; but he kept no record of their passing. He felt an overpowering lassitude; his bones ached, but the pain of hunger scarcely troubled him any more; he had become used to it, or maybe it had withered away inside him like a dried-up flower.