We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [74]
"I'll send you the bill, you devil!" Jack Lewis screamed, his face distorted by rage.
He reloaded the gun. His fingers shook as he pushed yet another precious pearl into place. I could barely believe my own ears when I heard the strange sound that escaped his compressed lips: I could have sworn it was a sob. The gun went off with a bang.
The Kanak behind me jumped. I thought he'd been shot, but it turned out that his oar had taken a direct hit close to the oarlock and snapped in two. Now I was the only one rowing.
Our lives were riding on the pearls, Jack Lewis's aim, and the strength of my arms, and I rowed until they felt ready to drop. Desperation lent them a power I'd never known, and the gap between our pursuers and us began to widen. There were fewer of them now. Lewis's precision with both bullets and pearls had taken every second man. Our enemy's victory song echoed in our minds just as menacingly as before—but its chorus had diminished. Finally we reached the Flying Scud, where a rope ladder awaited us. I slung the injured Kanak over my shoulder without feeling his weight, climbed the side of the ship, and hefted us both over the rail, heedless of what kind of target we might present as I did so. Several shots rang out behind us, but neither one of us was hit.
The Kanaks on board had prepared everything for our departure: the anchor was hung from the bow, the sails were set, and if they'd had access to the captain's cabin and his stash of guns, they'd undoubtedly have been handing him loaded rifles so he could continue shooting down our pursuers uninterrupted. But access to those guns was a taboo they dared not break.
We were barely back on deck before Jack Lewis had dashed to his cabin and reappeared with a box of cartridges and a new rifle. Then he knelt behind the rail and resumed firing. His face was that of a man settling a personal score, rather than putting a dangerous enemy out of action. For every precious pearl that he'd lost, he was making the natives pay, not just with the life each pearl had ended, but with interest. He greeted every clean kill with a cry of triumph.
"Take this, you devil!"
He spat contemptuously over the rail.
I had to take the helm: the captain was too preoccupied with his blood lust. It was up to me to get us across this lagoon and out through the opening in the reef. My success had nothing to do with seamanship, but with the fortunes of wind and tide, both of which were on our side. The wind had picked up and it filled our sails even before we were out of the lagoon. The tide was low and the current raced out through the gap in the reef. A believer would have said Our Lord was giving us a helping hand. But since I don't believe that the Lord, if He exists, would have been on Jack Lewis's side, all I'll say is that during one lucky hour, Nature ordered the sea and wind to side with him.
The feeling of being miraculously saved at the very last moment never quite left me, though I can't speculate who would have been worse off if Nature had decided to trap the Flying Scud in the lagoon, ourselves or the natives. There were many of them, but Jack Lewis's marksmanship was—to use a word that would undoubtedly have flattered his vanity—fiendish.
We sailed past the wreck of the Morning Star at a smart speed, at which point Jack Lewis took a break from shooting natives and turned his rifle on the wreck instead. I heard a bang and saw the face of the figurehead disappear in a cloud of splinters. It seemed that Lewis's rage could no longer be quenched by the blood of his enemies—and in that moment I sensed that we had not escaped danger. It had just changed shape. Now it was on board with us.
HAVING REACHED the open sea, I might have felt it was safe to breathe a sigh of relief—had I not seen that savagery in Jack Lewis's face. He'd finally put the gun down