Big John manages to hook the middle finger of his left hand in a metal loop on the front of the forecastle, while the fingers of his right hand lock themselves round Rúnar’s left arm. Then they both dangle in thin air over the deck until the ship rights itself.
‘Everyone inside!’ calls Methúsalem the minute the ship reaches a pitch fairly near the horizontal.
Icy seawater floods across the deck from starboard to port. Satan and Methúsalem scramble to their feet and run inside the forecastle; Big John frees his middle finger from the metal loop and pulls Rúnar to his feet. Then they support each other to the forecastle door, climb over the high threshold and disappear into the gloom.
The hinges scream, the metal door swings back with great force and closes with a loud crash.
Boom!
Everything goes black inside the narrow forecastle, as if the dark were outer space.
Fear engulfs the companions in arms. They clutch their guns tightly and stare helplessly into the void. They’re trapped in a triangular iron box that bounces and shakes like a tin can on the back of a truck driving along a pitted dirt road; with them is a dangerous man, an invisible poisonous scorpion, and they don’t know where he is or what he’s doing.
‘Lights! Turn on the lights!’
‘Where’s the switch?’
‘By the door, port side!’
‘Methúsalem?’
‘Yes!’
‘Where’s John?’
‘I’m over here!’
‘I can’t find the fucking switch!’
‘Who’s closest to the door?’
‘Not me!’
‘Who’s me?’
The ship slams into a heavy wave, the forecastle vibrates like a drum, men slide about, gasp and fall flat over one another, then the bow lifts and the door opens wide again, letting the grey daylight in.
‘I’ve got it!’ shouts Rúnar as he jumps up and hits the light switch. A weak bulb lights up behind its dirty plastic cover above the door.
Rúnar holds onto a roof beam and looks at John, who is lying on his back in the corner to port, looking at the Methúsalem, who in turn is sitting on his rear at the front of the forecastle, his gun pointing at the prisoner. Satan is standing to starboard with his arms spread, loosely holding onto the edge of a long metal shelf.
John is clutching his shotgun to his chest with both hands, but Rúnar’s gun is sliding back and forth on the metal floor halfway between him and Satan, along with the chain and the water container.
‘Don’t even dream about it, mate!’ says Methúsalem, loosening the safety catch on his rifle.
‘Cool it, cowboy,’ says Satan with a mirthless grin. ‘You’d all be dead already, if I’d wanted that.’
He could, of course, just tell them who the saboteur was. Tell them that Jónas pretended to go to the toilet just as Satan came on the night watch, was away for a good half-hour and then did what he could to make Satan look suspicious in the eyes of the captain.
Even though it had been Jónas who was wet through, deathly pale and nervous as a chicken.
What are these men thinking? Can’t they add two and two?
Jónas killed that brother-in-law and now he’s trying to get to South America without the authorities making contact with the ship.
Isn’t it obvious?
But Satan doesn’t really care. All he wants, for the moment at least, is for this idiotic bunch of boy scouts to leave him in peace, even if that means an unjustified imprisonment in a cold iron box. When he gets tired of staying in the forecastle he’ll tell them who the guilty party is – if they haven’t discovered it for themselves by then.
Until then, he’s going to relax.
‘Here’s the heater,’ says Big John, pulling a little electric heater out of a wooden box tied to an iron column in the middle of the forecastle. He connects the fire to a plug in the column and sets it on low.
The ship pitches violently, the metal screeches, the hinges groan and the door shuts with its usual clang. Rúnar uses the opportunity to fasten one of the hasps from the inside.
‘So,’ says Methúsalem as he gets to his feet, ‘let’s get this over with before we all get trapped in here by the weather.’
Methúsalem aims his rifle at Satan while Rúnar tightens one end of the chain around his waist. He hooks the padlock through two links behind Satan’s back, sticks the other end of the chain through a metal loop on the starboard wall, hooks that end also onto the padlock and closes the lock.
‘Excellent!’ says Methúsalem, taking the key and putting it into his shirt pocket. ‘You just try to get comfortable, mate. We’ll leave the light on, of course.’
‘You make me laugh, you stupid seamen, for you know not what you do!’ says the still-standing Satan, laughing, as the three of them leave, slamming the door and replacing the hasps.
These imbeciles wrongly imagine that they’ve captured the evil in their little world and locked it in some sort of Niflheim when, in fact, they’ve made a little heaven for the stranger who woke up in the incomprehensible misery they live and work in, and have thus freed him from duties, responsibilities and the yoke of everyday life.
B-deck
Captain Guðmundur stands out of the wind on the port side of the wheelhouse, waiting for the trio to come back and walk up the metal stairs that lead from the weather deck up to B-deck. He’s clad in a parka, has a cap on his head and holds the pump-action Mossberg upright against his chest as he leans against a recess in the white-painted wall.
After a few long minutes the crown of Methúsalem’s head appears at the top of the stairs; next comes Rúnar and Big John brings up the rear. They’re holding their guns in their left hands and the railing with their right, their backs are bent to reduce their resistance to the wind and their grimacing faces are turned away from the salty sea spray.
Anger flares in the captain as he watches his shipmates of many years sneak about fully armed, having not only disobeyed his orders but also taken power into their own hands.
They are lawbreakers, traitors and rebels.
Guðmundur hides in the recess and watches every step. Methúsalem has reached B-deck; he holds onto the top railing and edges his way along. Rúnar steps up onto the deck and follows Methúsalem, while John is halfway up the stairs.
The back part of B-deck doesn’t have an actual railing around it but, rather, a solid gunwale of black-painted steel.
The west wind whines, stirs up the waves and batters the ship; lightning flashes in the clouds and thunder rumbles in the distance; the wheelhouse bobs like a buoy and the black hull of the ship regularly disappears in seawater and salt spray.
When the ship straightens after pitching deeply the captain steps out of his hiding place, lifts his shotgun and strikes the first officer on the side of the face with the stock, then slams his right elbow deep into the bosun’s solar plexus.
Methúsalem drops his rifle and falls forwards on the deck while Rúnar drops to his knees without letting go of the top of the gunwale or his shotgun.
‘Don’t shoot!’ shouts the chief engineer, who throws his gun overboard then lifts his left arm above his head where he stands, on the top step.
‘I ought to shoot the lot of you!’ the captain responds, pointing the shotgun at each in turn as he fights to keep his footing on the wet deck, which is rising and falling and leaning every which way.
‘Easy, man!’ shouts the bosun and slides his shotgun through the gutter at the bottom of the gunwale and overboard.