The Forcing, page 28
‘France.’ My voice is barely audible, just a croak.
She looks up at me as if I am unknown to her, an intruder. She reaches for the gun.
‘France, it’s me. Teacher.’
She tightens her hand around the pistol. Her eyes narrow and she juts her chin out, but she does not reply.
‘France.’
She closes her eyes.
I brace myself against the gangway rails, try to swing one foot onto the first step. But as I do, darkness closes in. I just have time to step back and lean against the cockpit seat before I black out.
When I come to Francoise is sitting next to me. She has washed her face and is wearing a clean blouse and fleece jacket. I try to speak, to ask her what happened, but she shushes me and places her hand on my chest.
‘Don’t,’ she whispers. ‘You need to rest.’
‘How long have I been out?’
‘Three days.’
I take a breath. Surely not. ‘No way.’
‘Your skull is fractured. There was bleeding on the brain. I have operated, but you must rest.’
‘Operated?’ I wasn’t hearing straight.
She shakes her head. ‘Not now.’ Other than the bruises on her face, she seems unharmed.
‘Jesus, what happened?’
‘Not now. Rest. You are not out of danger.’
‘Argent?’
She shakes her head, closes her eyes. ‘No.’
I think of the storm, pulling him to the surface. ‘And the other one, down there?’ I can barely speak the words.
‘Gunshot to the lower abdomen. Internal bleeding, perforated intestine. I have repaired the worst of the damage and stabilised him.’
I shake my head. I can’t imagine it. ‘With what?’
‘With whatever there is.’
I can form no words.
‘I am accustomed.’
Of course. ‘Will he live?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Is it?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘You must rest,’ she says. ‘Please.’
‘Cut their boat loose,’ I say. ‘If someone sees it…’
‘Don’t worry,’ she whispers. ‘Now, sleep.’
I reach for her hand, hold it to my chest and close my eyes.
54
She sits on the gangway step and wipes the sweat from her eyes. Her patients are resting quietly, the living and the dead. She has cleaned Argent, sewed up his wounds, set him out on the opposing bench in the saloon, covered him over with a blanket. But the other two bodies remain where they fell, open-eyed and stiff-set. In the heat, they are starting to bloat and decompose. Already the smell is overpowering. She must dispose of them, but alone, there is no way she will be able to haul the bodies above deck. Each of them is double her weight. She will have to wait for me. But that could take days. The thought makes her physically ill. She breathes hard, fights back the nausea, steadies herself, gazes out across the water.
Her hand is clasped over the winch. There is dark blood under her fingernails. The winch handle is still in its pouch against the bulkhead, still standing by as if nothing has happened here. But the answers are all around her – the jib sheets, the pulleys, the swinging boom arm. The whole of this machinery makes her feel suddenly strong, capable, a survivor here amidst all this death. Soon she has one end of the spare jib sheet tied to the first man’s ankles, threaded through the pulley block that runs on the underside of the boom, and around the big main winch. She fits the winch handle into the capstan, spins out the slack and starts cranking. The rope bites into the dead man’s ankles, goes taught. Slowly, the body begins to move. With each turn of the handle, the corpse twists across the cabin floor. She keeps winching, her arms burning, demonic. Soon she has him hung in the gangway, head down like a marlin. A tendril of dark liquid spins from his open mouth. His eyes bulge with the pressure of unregulated fluids responding now only to gravity, all vascular control inoperative. When she has winched as far as she can, the feet touching the base of the boom, she pulls the vang aft, the body moving with it until the head and shoulders hit the upper step. Securing another rope around the body’s midsection and tying it off to the starboard jib winch, she cranks the corpse onto an angle. The head thumps against the handrail and then swings free. From there she can open out the awning on the starboard side, swing the boom out over the water, and lower the body into the sea.
In her revulsion and desire to see the thing gone, she considers letting the rope go entirely, but she knows that the rope is valuable. With the body floating, she leans over the side and cuts the rope away from the ankles, then stands back and watches the body disappear into the depths. The last things to vanish are the eyes, open still, as empty as her soul.
By the time she lowers the second body into the water the sharks are circling. She counts at least three of them, big grey brutes that start attacking the body even before she has a chance to cut it away. Their sudden appearance surprises her. With big shakes of their ugly heads, the animals tear the carcass apart in a few seconds. All of this she kept to herself for a long time.
*
The wind dies completely. We drift for days, her two patients in and out of consciousness, the boat steadily south and towards the coast, pulled along by the current. She is doctor and nurse, feeding and cleaning us both, checking wounds for infection, monitoring recovery. My moments of clarity are more frequent now, longer. We talk, she tells me some of what happened. She wishes she could take an X-ray to determine exactly the extent of fracturing. She knows it is extensive. I am lucky to be alive. Fortunately, there does not appear to be any more fluid on the brain. The pirate is improving, too. She is pretty sure that she has repaired all the internal damage, has done a complete debridement. His wounds look clean and there is no sign of infection. He is young and strong. She keeps his wrists bound with the plastic zip-ties she found in his pocket, the same ones they used on her. She keeps the gun close.
A day later, she buries Argent at sea, hoping that the sharks have moved away. She sews him into a square of the forward berth linen, offers a prayer, lets him slide into the deep. She scrubs the cabin clean like a madwoman. By now a light breeze has risen. It is coming from the east, from the Atlantic, from Africa. She checks on her prisoner, then climbs onto the pirates’ launch. On board she finds charts, some money, fishing rods and tackle, more weapons – another AK47, a handgun, knives, boxes of ammunition, even a couple of hand grenades. Disappointingly, there is no food, but the launch’s water tanks are almost full. After transferring everything she can to Providence she prepares to cut the launch loose, as I have been urging her to do. We cannot get under way with the launch aside, and towing it under sail will be impossible. I tell her to untie the stern line, throw it over the transom. She is about to move forward to let go the bow line when I see a flash of movement inside the cabin.
A massive jolt of adrenaline floods through me. I stagger to my feet, start towards the gangway. The man is standing in the cabin, a knife in his hands. I signal to Francoise, point below. She nods, wraps her hand around the grip of Argent’s gun, withdraws it from her pocket. By the time I reach the main hatchway, the man has managed to sever the tie around his wrists. He stands in the galley staring up at me, a kitchen knife in one hand, the other braced across his bandaged torso.
Francoise stands beside me, levels the pistol at him. Her hands are shaking wildly. ‘Baja eso,’ she shouts. Put that down.
The man looks at her a moment, appears not to hear.
She fills her lungs, repeats herself, with more control this time.
He does not drop the knife. Instead, he takes a step back, deeper into the cabin. He is rubbing his free hand along the length of the bandage that encircles his torso, as if to locate the exact point of the wound.
‘Tu?’ he says.
She nods.
‘Porque?’
‘Soy doctora.’ It is reason enough. I know it always has been.
He looks down at his midsection. ‘Una doctora con arma.’ A doctor with a gun.
She stares down at her attacker, tightens her finger on the trigger.
‘Don’t, France,’ I say, reaching for her arm.
‘I have done my duty,’ she hisses, her voice trembling. ‘Without me, he would be dead now, fed to the sharks like the others. Do you hear?’ she shouts in Spanish. ‘You live because of me.’ She knows very clearly that he must pay for what he did, and that she must be the one to enact justice.
She is about to pull the trigger when I put my hand on the gun.
‘France,’ I whisper, ‘you can’t.’
‘He…’ she begins, cannot continue.
‘We can’t, France. We just can’t.’
‘They almost killed you,’ she says. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘Not like this,’ I say again. ‘Please.’
Slowly, I guide her hands towards the deck, lowering the weapon.
The man drops the knife to the cabin floor, stands staring at us.
‘What will we do with him?’ she says. ‘I don’t want him here.’
‘Put him back in his boat. Set him adrift.’
The man smiles, an ugly crease across his cruel mouth. Does he understand?
She shudders. ‘He will come back. We killed his friends. He wants revenge. Look at him.’
‘I can disable the engine. By the time someone finds him, we will be far away.’
She considers this, does the calculation. ‘If they find him,’ she says.
‘We can give him some food and water. Give him a chance.’
‘It is more than he deserves.’
I take the gun from her hands, point it at the man. ‘Tell him to lie face down on the floor.’
‘Tírate al suelo,’ she shouts. ‘Boca abajo.’
He complies.
‘Tie his hands behind his back. Ankles, too.’
She fishes a tie from her pocket, steps down into the cabin. Despite the hours spent nursing this man back to health, something fundamental has changed. She forces herself closer, step by step, until she is standing above him. I can tell that the thought of physical contact with him fills her with revulsion. She looks back at me.
‘I can’t,’ she says.
‘Yes, you can, France.’
She closes her eyes, breathes. The knife he was holding is there on the cabin floor by her feet. She reaches down and picks it up. Then she kneels on his back and places the point of the knife on his neck, just below the jaw. The carotid artery is there, just below the skin, pulsing, full.
‘Una doctora con un cuchillo,’ she says.
Soon she has him trussed up and is back in the cockpit. She shows me the weapons she collected earlier, now stowed in the cockpit lockers. I pick out one of the two AK47s, check the magazine, pull back the bolt. Then I go to the stern and fire off a few single rounds, then a burst on automatic. When I turn back to face her, I say: ‘Practice.’
The painkillers Francoise has given me aren’t working. My head is pounding. Every movement sends a bolt of pain spearing through my head, as if my skull has been skewered from temple to jaw. I manage to clamber down into the other vessel, detach the outboard engine and drop it into the sea. She follows me, does another search of the vessel, finds a couple of mobile phones, an old GPS, a marine radio. It all goes overboard.
Soon we have our attacker above deck. I hold the rifle ready, levelled at his chest. Fear pours from him. He is jabbering in his coarse Spanish, asking for forgiveness, to be let go, pleading to be allowed to live.
I motion with the gun for him to move to the railing. ‘Tell him to turn around, face the water.’
She tells him. He complies. He is crying now, invoking the Virgin Mother.
‘Tell him to get on his knees.’
‘Arrodíllate,’ she says.
‘Por favor,’ he whimpers, pleading to her in Spanish.
I watch as she listens, see her countenance soften a moment. ‘What is he saying?’
‘He says he has a wife, a daughter. That he used to be a fisherman, but that now there are no fish, that everything is dying. He is just trying to provide for them. He says he is sorry.’ She cuts the tie around his wrists. ‘Vamos,’ she says. ‘Recuerda esto.’
He stands, glances back at her as if not quite believing what he’d just heard, and then scrambles into his boat. She unties the line. He stands in the stern looking back up at us as the boats slowly disengage and start to drift apart.
‘Now let’s raise the sails and get out of here,’ I say.
I set the gun down and take the helm. Francoise starts raising the main. A light breeze begins filling the sail. Our attacker stands in the stern of his disabled boat, watching us move away. The main is half up now, Francoise cranking the winch. The other boat is about five or six metres away when the man suddenly drops to the deck. When he reappears a moment later, he has a gun in his hand, a pistol of some sort.
‘Look out,’ Francoise shouts as he fires.
I turn the wheel hard to port, turning Providence towards our attacker. Another shot cracks out as the wind catches the main and slams Providence hard over. A second later we broadside the speedboat with a sickening crash of wood on fibreglass. The man loses his footing, topples to the deck. With the two vessels locked together, I grab the rifle and jump up onto the coaming. The man is lying on his back, looking up at me. I glance down at Francoise a moment, raise the weapon and take aim. On full automatic, I empty the magazine in a few seconds.
The Cloud-Shadowed Sea
It is just before midday when I set down my pen. The storm has passed. Thick beams of sunlight stream between low-slung cumulus, track across the becalmed surface of the sound. I go back, read through what I have written today. Having recalled all of this, having done it together, the events now seem somehow clearer than when they were happening, as if only in retrospect are we able to see the true nature of things.
I am putting my notebook back into its drawer when I hear it. A lone voice lifted on the breeze. I stand, pull my coat around my shoulders and shuffle out to the balcony. Francoise joins me a moment later.
Did you hear that?
It’s Lewis, she says.
We stand, listen. There it is again. Definitely Lewis, excited, getting closer.
We look back towards the head. Lewis is flying down the pathway, a blur between the rocks. He sees us, stops, waves his arms above his head, points out to the sound. Providence, he shouts. It’s him.
We turn and look out to sea, scan the horizon. Nothing. I shuffle inside, grab the binoculars, sweep the sound, the cloud-shadowed sea and the distant rocks of The Hope.
By now Lewis is next to us, jumping up and down, pointing. There, he shouts. There! Come on, Papa, can’t you see? Just beyond The Hope.
I refocus the glasses, register the two islets. And then I see. Two white sails.
My heart jumps. Joy floods my wretched body. It could be anyone, I say.
No way, shouts Lewis. It’s him, Dad. Look at the way he’s rounding The Hope, cutting close to the reef like he always does. It’s him! And before I can answer, he’s gone, sprinting away towards the beach, calling out to Mandy and Juliette at the top of his voice.
55
After a few days, I was able to start moving about again. We were making good way, moving steadily south. Somewhere ahead, still below the horizon, lay the east-west belt of Central America – Nicaragua, Panama – and then the main bulk of South America – Colombia, Venezuela. Dangerous places all, lawless and violent. At least we were well armed.
I was sitting at the chart table when Francoise came below. She put a CD into the player. Soon, Mozart filled the cabin with order and hope. She stood over me, running her hand over the back of my head. Earlier that morning she’d cut my hair and shaved off my beard, insisted on doing it herself.
‘You are healing quickly,’ she said.
‘I have a good doctor.’
She was smiling. Her hair was wind-blown, full, lofted with salt. There was sun and wind in her face. She looked healthy.
‘What did you say to him, just before he got onto the boat?’
She looked at me, not understanding.
‘Recuerda esto.’
‘Remember this.’
I nodded, understood.
‘Do you believe Argent’s story?’ she said. ‘His sanctuary.’
‘It makes sense, I suppose.’ Anticipating the political backlash, Argent set himself up a bolt-hole in the tropics, in a part of the world where he thought he would be safe. To do that, though, he would have had to consult the scientific literature in depth, or be advised by someone who knew what they were talking about. And while Argent had shown himself to be incredibly knowledgeable about the phenomenon, he had consistently misinterpreted the causes and effects. Why would he so vehemently deny that climate change was real, and then invest time and effort in protecting himself against exactly what he denied existed?
Francoise looked down at the chart. ‘Shangri-la, he called it. Paradise. He was dying. Why would he lie?’
‘All he did was lie.’
‘I think he was telling the truth.’ She placed Argent’s case on the map in front of me. ‘Open it.’
I hinged open the lid, glanced back at her.
‘Go ahead. Have a look.’
Slowly, I went through the contents, withdrawing each item and placing it on the map table. A stack of one-ounce Australian kangaroo gold coins encased in a clear, hard plastic roll. Title deeds for property, in Spanish, some names of places I didn’t recognise. Bank account details for Crédit Agricole. Two Australian passports, one with Argent’s picture and the name Randolph Artemis Hume, the other in the name of Denise Arabella Hume. I stared at the photograph. It was her.
