The radio crackled. Then the crackle blanked as one of the cutters gave its departure message. I could not figure out why headquarters decided to send a cutter. That cutter would do no good out here. It drew maybe twelve feet of water, and where we were going there was only wading room. Maybe the radar on the cutter would help.
We cruised the starboard side of the channel as far as Portland Head, then turned around and cruised the other side coming back. Fog gathered. An occasional horn or whistle sounded. Fog settled from above until it finally pressed against the water. It was thick above, thinner at the waterline.
A thousand-to-one shot, but there seemed nothing else to do except search the islands. Dull, freezing work. As the ice fog gathered the searchlight became useless. The fog did not lift after nearly five hours. It looked like it was going to be another one of those cold and futile nights.
Wert’s teeth chattered. “It’s cold.”
“It’s November.”
“Take us home, Tommy.”
“Go sit on an engine.”
We traded off watch—standing in the bow. Tommy kept the engines barely turning. He searched along the beaches of the dark islands. Didn’t use the searchlight. We just stood in the bow and listened, hoping to hear the sound of a lobster boat’s engine. It was about 0330 when the cutter called, reporting a target on its radar. A small boat moved along the South Portland side of the channel.
“Got him,” Tommy said. “Let’s get him good.” Tommy had sort of settled down, but now he started to get all ruffled up again.
We were all tired, cold, and we had taken some spray five hours back. Nobody was wet, but nobody was exactly dry. Tommy shoved the rpms ahead, then lowered them a little as he realized he was being stupid. That boat was forty feet of steel hull. Not something to shove through fog at high speed.
The cutter talked us across the harbor and through the fog. We moved too quick, taking radar readings from the cutter. I don’t trust radar, and I sure don’t trust a set I’m not looking at. I always trusted Tommy.
As we overhauled the cutter we could see its searchlights swallowed by fog. Just beyond the lights, right on the edge of the lights, the lobster boat looked like a little ghost. It was weaving in and out past the rocks.
It’s a cliff along there. High-walled and granite and straight up. The lobster boat made its way toward a notch not big enough to be a tiny cove. It was just a place where the rock face was broken away and guys moored sometimes. We ran past the cutter, taking off speed, and coasted alongside the lobster boat. We were maybe twenty feet away.
The guy was hard to see in the dark and fog lying beneath that rock face. This close in our searchlight helped. I ran it over the boat and the numbers checked. This was the man.
The guy stood behind the wheel. He turned when our light hit him. He shook his fist and yelled, maybe daring us to come in. The lobster boat edged nearer the rock. I did not believe the guy was insane. He ran the boat too well, discounting the fact that he was where you shouldn’t run a boat.
Then he turned his face full to mine, and I believed it. He was like an abandoned beast, like a dog that’s been run over and is not yet numb in its dying. The guy’s eyes didn’t seem like eyes; just sockets; deep, empty, vacant.
Tommy moved in closer, maybe six or eight feet away. The old lobster boat kept chugging. We were so close I could see blistered paint in the glow of our running lights. The madman started howling.
“Can’t head him off,” Tommy said. “He’ll beach that thing. There’s nothing but rock in there.”
“Beach him,” Wert said. “That kid ain’t on that boat.”
“Get back to those engines.”
“If he’d swiped the kid in that kind of hurry, you think he’d have time to pack her clothes?”
“Move it aft,” Case told Wert. “Get back to those engines.” He paused, like he was thinking about what Wert had said. I couldn’t figure if Wert was right or not. He sort of seemed right. “When we figure what we’re going to do,” Case told Wert, “I’ll come and let you know.”
Wert laid aft.
“We’ll use three of us,” Case said. He laid it out. Tommy was to bring the boat close alongside. Three of us would jump. I was to go forward and get the kid, who had to be in the wheelhouse. Wert would kill the engine on the lobster boat. Then Wert was supposed to help Case with the madman.
“And Tommy,” Case said, “you hold steady. Because man, if he puts that thing on the rocks we’re going to need you.”
“He’s got a knife.”
“Yep,” Case said, “and I got myself one hell of a big crescent wrench.” He turned aft, yelling at Wert who stood beside the engines looking determined. Wert rubbed a fist into the open palm of his other hand.
When Tommy closed I jumped. The lobster boat ran in the shadow of the rock face. It loomed over me, darker than the rest of the dark. As I hit I felt the lobster boat shudder and rub the rock someplace deep. I lost my balance. We were so close-in that I actually shoved back to my feet by pushing on the rock face; while somewhere behind me Tommy yelled, “Left rudder. Left rudder.”
I came from the bow, around the starboard side of the dinky wheelhouse. The madman stepped from the wheel to meet me. I was scared. Couldn’t think of what to do, but my legs just ran me into him. Hit him like I was a fullback. He stumbled aft against Case who was on his knees. I think maybe Case sprained or broke an ankle. That lobster boat was just trash, the decks full of junk and gear. Tommy was still yelling, “left rudder, left rudder.” I heard the forty’s engines dig in as Tommy cut to port to give us running room. As the forty’s stern slid past I looked up and across, into the pale moon face of Wert. He stood motionless. The guy looked frozen with fear, wide eyes staring. He hadn’t jumped.
You never know—even after years you can never decide—if what you do is right. Everything happens so fast. If I didn’t detest Wert so much, I would have listened to him. Maybe saved Case.
What happened is that I did what I’d been told. I grabbed the helm and threw it hard to port. The boat edged away from the rock. It handled sluggish, already sinking from the lick it took on the rocks. Forward of the wheel a red light burned in the little cabin. I was supposed to get the kid, and so I went down there. Old coats, old blankets, slickers and boots. A gush of water through the ruptured hull. No kid. I must have wasted half a minute. I turned back to the deck just as a searchlight from the cutter swept us, and just as the forty’s engines started howling.
It all happened in slow motion, or that’s the way it seems. The madman stood above Case, and the madman howled almost like the engines. He had both hands raised high together, holding one of those long, thin stakes that lobstermen use to pin fish in their traps. The forty roared someplace real close. I heard a bow wave, but you never hear a bow wave—not like that—unless it’s pointed right at you. Case yelled something, tried to throw something at the madman, but you can’t throw much when you’re on your knees. I dived over Case, trying to tackle the madman. There was a shock, the lobster boat driven sideways, a crash of timbers; and a fish smell came off the deck as I rolled. Something, a lobster trap maybe, clipped me alongside the head. Then I was in water that is death-dealing cold, struggling to stay up.
The boat crew from the cutter took us aboard, dried us out and gave us clothes. At first I didn’t remember much. I sat for a long time on the messdeck shivering and drinking coffee. Didn’t see Tommy. Figured they were working on him. Didn’t see Case. Saw Wert. He sat at a table facing me, sullen, wearing his own clothes. He’d got his feet wet, and he put them on a bench, rubbing his legs and rolling up the wet part of his dungarees so they came to his calf.