A pirate in the engine room! What should he do? Hide? Run? Face the bastard?
Stoker gnashes what’s left of his teeth, tightens his grip on the knife and creeps on dirty toes over to the open door behind the machine shop. There he stands still in the shadow behind a two-metre-tall gas canister and waits. And waits…
Stoker’s bony chest expands and contracts, his milk-white skin stretches over his ribs and his black chest hairs rise around his brown nipples. His staring eyes wait for a movement in the gloom; his nostrils flare, and dark yellow teeth and greyish gums gleam in the black beard.
This is the bastard who killed Johnny, the bastard who killed Johnny, the bastard…
When the pirate finally appears behind the workshop, Stoker relaxes slightly. His chest eases, his eyes become narrow slits and his chapped lips close over his crooked teeth.
Stoker takes two steps forwards and turns left. He is standing opposite the pirate, who opens his slanting eyes wide and stares in wonder, and some horror, at this ghost of a man who’s staring back from a distance of just one metre.
Stoker takes care not to lose eye contact, and steps towards the man as he brings his right arm back, ready to stick the knife into the pirate’s abdomen.
By the time the bewildered pirate has recovered sufficient wit to pull the trigger of his machine gun, Stoker has moved inside the line of fire.
Ratatata!
The bullets slam into the engine-room walls, the gun goes quiet and the pirate stiffens as the sharp steel tears into his stomach, cuts apart his entrails and finally penetrates to the pirate’s spine. His mouth opens; life slowly drains from his eyes; his legs weaken and give way under the weight of his body.
‘This is for John,’ says Stoker, drawing the knife out of the wound and pushing the pirate onto his back on the floor. Then he kneels on top of the man’s bloody body and sinks the knife into the flaccid flesh, again and again.
00:07:17
Satan throws himself down on his abdomen on the boat deck landing when the pirate turns around and fires his machine gun at him.
Ratatatata!
The bullets hit the metal all around Satan, who curls up, shielding his eyes from flying sparks. Behind him Skuggi circles and whines.
The machine gun goes silent and Satan opens his eyes, rolls onto all fours, sticks the gun between the bars of the railing and sends three shots after the pirate, who runs to the stairs leading down to the weather deck on the starboard side.
Bam, bam, bam!
Shit! Missed!
Satan opens his left hand. No shells! He’s lost them in all the commotion. Only two bullets left in the gun. Two.
Fuck. Fuck.
‘FUCK!’ he screams as he grips the rail with his left hand and jumps over it without thinking. He lands on both feet in the stern and steadies himself with his left hand on the floor before he straightens up and runs after the pirate, who seems to be aiming to get back to the inflatable.
Could he be the last? Hopefully he’s the last.
When Satan reaches the metal stairs down to the weather deck the pirate is already on board the inflatable and has untied it from the railing.
Fuck!
Satan aims the shotgun at the boat but the ship rocks, and the boat is moving up and down. The pirate pulls the cord of the outboard motor and Satan tenses his muscles, holds his breath and pulls the trigger.
Bam!
He doesn’t even see where the bullet lands.
‘Fuck it!’ Satan mutters. He aims again, the pirate pulls the cord, the outboard motor starts up, his index finger clenches gently round the sensitive trigger and the last shot rips off.
Bam!
Nothing happens. The bullet lands in the sea. The pirate turns the boat and heads for the green light that’s covering the sea about 300 metres away.
Skuggi comes trotting up and lies down on the deck to the left of Satan.
‘I don’t believe this,’ says Satan, letting his gun drop as he turns his face to the sky.
The emergency flare is about to burn up; it comes floating down out of the dark red dome and will land in the sea after just…
Unless.
Satan follows the flare with his eyes. It’s floating at an angle over the ship, then the wind catches it and steers it directly into the inflatable, which is speeding north. Nothing happens at first, and then there is an explosion in the boat. It fills with fire that surges up in an instant and then leaps as a fireball up into the dark night
Everything goes black.
‘YAAAHHHOOOO!’ Satan screams over the ship’s rail, and then Skuggi howls beside him. ‘WHO’S THE KING? WHO’S THE KING? I SAID, WHO’S—’
The green light goes out as the big machine gun starts to spew fire. A burst slams into the ship, which trembles from end to end, and a second later comes the hollow bark of the gun.
Kra-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka!
Satan throws himself on the iron floor – but not fast enough. Two bullets hit his head, like miniature cement trucks travelling at three times the speed of sound.
XXIX
Monday, 17 September
It is almost four in the afternoon but it seems the world can’t be bothered to wake up today. The sky is grey as far as the eye can see; the ocean dark grey to the east and black to the west; the breeze smells of rotting ocean vegetation; it’s neither hot nor cold, and a muggy salt mist surrounds the ship, which drifts south across the heavy waves that seem like nothing so much as undulating mountains.
The starboard side of the ship is covered with pockmarks, scratches and holes left from all the artillery salvos. The scratches have gone rusty; they collect damp that gradually condenses, forming reddish-brown drops that run down the cold steel.
Guðmundur and Sæli stand in the stern of the ship, over the bodies of two of the pirates who are lying side by side across the stern with pillowcases over their heads. One of the pillowcases is soaked with black blood but the other is still white and reveals the outlines of the dead pirate’s face. Guðmundur and Sæli have been struggling with bodies all day long. These two are the last and they’re going to throw them overboard.
First, though, they catch their breath.
It took them more than two hours to get these bodies all the way from the bridge down to B-deck. They are soaked with sweat, their lungs are burning and their shoulders, arms and backs ache. It’s hard enough carrying heavy objects down the steep and narrow stairs even when those objects aren’t cold, stiff corpses.
But it was a piece of cake manhandling these two compared to the emotional ordeal of carrying Ási, Rúnar and Methúsalem. The captain and the seaman had wrapped their comrades in white sheets from head to toe before they set off with them down the stairs. All the same, being in such close contact with their lifeless bodies was so overpowering that they were thrice rendered powerless on the way down from A-deck. Then they collapsed under the weight and burst into silent tears, each keeping to himself and not looking at the other.
Guðmundur has not yet told the survivors about Methúsalem, how Methúsalem had somehow lost his mind and tried to murder the captain. He isn’t sure he should say anything about it. There was no reason to blacken the memory of a fine man, even though he had fallen apart at the very end.
It was difficult to keep quiet about such a huge secret, though, and his silence about the first mate’s madness preyed on the captain and further increased the grief that filled his heart on that blue-grey Monday. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the distorted face of the chief mate…