“Lower the boat!” shouted O’Driscoll. The seaman shook his head. “We have no passengers!”
“Damn the passengers! Do you want to fry?!” and O’Driscoll held his fist in the seaman’s face.
O’Driscoll and I climbed into the lifeboat and standing unsteadily, took up to oars to push away from the ship’s side. Rykard stood between the stoker and seaman and ordered the boat away. As we reached the sea, I looked up at Rykard’s figure shrouded by the flames and smoke. Then, a wall of flame reached up behind him, and his body tumbled from the deck toward us, to strike just forward of the cross seat.
I hold the cup to Rykard’s lips; he coughs blood as he drinks. He fell thirty feet to the boat, and I suspect that he has smashed his ribs. We made him as comfortable as we could, after we had pulled away, the lifeboat shipping three large waves which threatened to swamp and drown us all. We sat and watched as the ship burned; one, two, then three lifeboats swung out and lowered into the treacherous sea. We heard the cries of those in the water. We did not go back. The moment the ship slipped beneath the waves was as a volcano extinguishing. Then all was black.
For several hours we rolled in the sea, silence overtaking us. Rykard’s silhouette became stiff; I reached out a hand, he was dead. I draw Rykard’s jacket around me, and huddle beneath the tarpaulin, as ocean spray flays the boat. The cold is now intense; sleep, deadly maiden, beckons to me, but the jolting of the boat in the sea forestalls her. O’Driscoll is silent. I look hard, straining my sight, but his form appears only as an indistinct outline that moves in a series of short jerks. “O’Driscoll!” I cry in a hoarse voice. There is no answer. “O’Driscoll, damn you man! Answer me!” The outline did not respond. I was taken by a fit of coughing, rasping gasps of air into corrupted lungs. Anger flushes my rigid limbs; I crawl forward unsteadily once more. I reached out with one hand toward O’Driscoll’s body. A dread cold, as of a wet marble statue, met my touch. I recoiled; his face was in shadow, and his dead eyes were cast down, to his chest, where his fist lay clasped in a gesture of defiance. I crouched beside his body and scrutinized his face. His haggard features had softened in death; the scowl that twisted his mouth had gone. I looked to his fist; I guessed what lay within the prison which his fingers made. I tugged at the encircling thumb; it did not yield; in desperation I clutched at the fingers.
My breath came harder, I tore at the hand, then in exasperation punched the dead man hard on the jaw, and fell back, exhausted. By now, all reason had fled; I wanted the diamonds, which I knew were held clutched to O’Driscoll’s cold breast. I looked wildly about for a tool; the ladle from the water barrel lay close to the keel. I grabbed at it and thrust the narrow handle between entwined thumb and forefinger of the clasped hand. The finger cracked, a sickening sound, then with another wrench fell away. The lip of the black jute diamond bag gawped out; I stabbed at the remaining fingers; the middle and ring fingers broke away in their frozen turn. I tore out the bag, and with claw like fingers wrenched it open. I tumbled a few of the diamonds out into one hand, and exhausted by my efforts, slunk to the keel to consider the trophy. Beyond the wooden cross rib, a pool of black salt water slopped as the boat rolled. I felt the hardness of the stones, but in my hand, they appeared as lustreless as beads of jet. It was then that I appreciated how tired I was, how utterly tired, as the sea rose and fell inexorably, and the boat rolled and pitched without respite. The wind had reached a new savagery. I was alone in the sea, the limitless sea, with my precious cargo. I looked up; the moon was dying slowly in the cold November sky, soon blackness will cover the waters like a shroud, and my suffering will be at an end.
Copyright © David Alexander 2023