Then his heart skipped a beat. "Christ Almighty!" he burst out. The coffin was alongside to starboard, still afloat, level in the water, dipping and climbing with them, the two flags still around it. From the cabin Jamie had seen it too and knew, equally shocked, if a big wave varied course it could easily wash the coffin back aboard, or worse, use it as a battering ram against the fragile superstructure, or, worst of all, punch a hole in their unprotected hull.
The more Tinker eased away, the closer it came. Once it bashed against the side, then swirled off, spinning like a top in a vortex, but staying parallel and Jamie cursed that he had not had the foresight to weigh it with an anchor chain-- air or the buoyancy of the wood was keeping it afloat.
It was difficult for Jamie to watch it, holding Angelique as he did. But he was glad her head was deep in his shoulder greatcoat.
Again he craned around and caught sight of it, slightly aft and lying flat in the water, now seeming to him like the ghoulish craft of a sick mind.
The wind or a current turned it and now, parallel to the waves, it began to tumble but righted itself and was stable for three or four waves and then another comber came that overturned it and to his joy it went under. He breathed again, seeing it had gone for good, then it surfaced, the next whitecap surrounded it, lifted it and hurled it directly at them. Involuntarily he ducked. It did not come aboard, just smashed broadside against the hull, sounding as though they had hit a reef.
Momentarily, Hoag lifted his head. His brain was reeling in his skull worse than the boat so he saw nothing and fell back groaning into his seasick miasma, Angelique too looked up but Jamie held her close, caressing her hair to take the fear away, "Just some flotsam, nothing to worry about..."
His eyes were on the coffin, a few yards away, parallel to them, its lines clean and deadly, torpedo-like, both flags still intact.
He flinched as a frothing comber approached but it went by and over it and when the wave had gone the coffin had vanished.
Breathlessly he waited, searching the sea.
Nothing. More waiting. Still nothing. The squall lessened slightly and no longer howled around the cabin. The waves were still high and bullying but Tinker was doing a masterly job, using every piece of seamanship to lessen the threat, the engine shrieking as the propeller shaft came clear of the water from time to time. "Come on," Jamie murmured, "keep going, nice and easy."
Then his eyes focused. The coffin was fifty yards away, a little aft, the nose pointed directly at them. It was keeping station with them, rising and falling as though attached by some invisible hawser. Ugly and deadly. He counted six waves and never a change. Then the seventh appeared.
The seventh wave was bigger than the rest. It took the coffin, made it into a missile and hurled it at them. Jamie knew the impact point would be dead center amidships on their starboard side and their roll would expose the hull for maximum damage. His breathing stopped.
Tinker must have seen it too for at the last moment the cutter veered crazily into its path, dipping slightly to starboard, the gunnel awash now, and the violent coffin-missile reared up the wave and over the prow to tangle itself in the bowsprit hawsers, hanging there half in, half out of the water, pulling the craft against the rudder.
The Bosun was hauling on the wheel with all his strength but the waves and wind had seized on the coffin and used it to make the craft unstable. In minutes the Bosun knew they would founder. There was nothing he could do to stop it. The voice whistle shrieked. With difficulty he answered it, "Yes Percy..." but he was drowned out by the stoker's curses and saying what the bleeding hell was he doing up there so he slammed it back into its holder, redoubled his effort on the wheel as the bow was inexorably being forced to disaster.
Then he saw the cabin door open. Jamie shoved his way on deck. Hanging on for his life, he groped forward. At once the Bosun stuck his head out of the nearest window bellowing and pointing, "The fire axe, fire axe..."
As though in a dream, Jamie heard him and saw the axe in its red holders on the cabin roof. The deck was heaving and shivering, the soul of the boat knowing she was in a death spasm.
One foot skated away from under him but he collided with the gunnel and found he had the axe in one hand and was for the moment safe. Water came over the bow and swallowed him. Again he survived, but in its wake was a nauseating premonition.
Involuntarily his stomach heaved and the foulness passed out of him. He lay there in the scuppers, cold and frightened, his fingers dug into holds, then more water swamped him. When he could breathe, he coughed and spat the salt water from his mouth and nostrils and this helped shock him into action.
Up ahead the nose of the coffin was held tight by the mess of hawsers and twisted stanchions, the bulk of it shoved this way and that as the waves roared past or sucked at it. He squinted up at the Bosun against the wind and rain and saw him motion to hack it away, "... for the love of God watch out..."
No axe will cut that bastard away, he thought helplessly and hugged a stanchion as a violent wave came over the side at him, slammed him against the coffin then sucked him back to the gunnel again, choking and half drowned. When it subsided he was astonished to find himself still aboard. Don't waste time, his brain was shrieking at him, the next one or the one following will take you and drown you.
So he left his safe place and went forward until he was over the coffin, hating it and being here and that he had allowed himself to be part of this stupidity, risking her and the others for nothing, but mostly hating his own fear. The next wave tore at him but he survived it and hacked down two-handed with all his strength, slipped and grabbed the side of the cabin roof as another wave reached for him, battered him against the coffin's side.
Gasping he fought his way up and hacked again, this time at the coffin itself, hating the evil thing that it had become.
The blade sliced through one of the rope hawsers but made no impression on the wired ones, a tangled mess, and buried itself into the beflagged lid or bottom--he did not know or care which--and split it. But still the coffin hung there. Using all his strength he could not move it, shoving and kicking and cursing, the main length of it dangling overboard and in the water dragging them, twisting them under the sea.
Another blow and another and another, using the head of the axe now as a sledgehammer to batter the coffin to pieces, raging at it, cursing it. The wood splintered but held, then a howling blow crushed the side and top and he slipped and fell sprawling. The axe skittered out of his grasp and went overboard and the next deluge bashed him against the coffin, then pulled him away again. When the spume had gone and he could breathe he forced his eyes open. Still the same. Still firm as ever. Again he groped forward but his strength had gone and his hands could hardly hold him safe.
Then he saw a single frayed hawser part. The mess of wires and ropes screeched under the tension, twisted and untangled a little, then more, then the whole coffin slid away tail first and as it hit the ocean began to break up. For a moment its head held the surface, then it went under, froth and bubbles in its wake. A piece of cloth that was the Struan flag surfaced. The next comber broomed the sea clean and came aboard and grabbed his legs from under him, dragged him against the bowsprit housing, then sucked him back along the deck, Tinker fighting for control again.
Astonished to be alive, Jamie found himself gasping in the stern. At the limit of his strength he groped for the door and fell into the cabin.
Skye was still in his corner retching, half-conscious, Hoag lying on his stomach, unconscious, Angelique curled up on a bench where he had left her, hanging on grimly, moaning and sobbing slightly, her eyes tightly closed. Shivering, he slumped beside her, chest heaving, mindless, knowing only that he was still alive and they were still safe.
After a while his eyes cleared. He saw land a mile or so away, and noticed that the rain had lessened and so had the sea. Now only the occasional wave came aboard. In a locker below the seat he found blankets and wrapped one around himself the other around Angelique.
"I'm so cold, Jamie, where have you been?" she sobbed like a frightened child, only half aware.
"I'm so cold, so lonely, and feel awful but so glad we did it, so glad, oh Jamie, I'm so cold..."
When they came alongside the Struan jetty a few misted stars were out. It was still early, at the edge of nightfall. The sky had cleared and promised a good day tomorrow. Merchantmen and the fleet lay safe at anchor, quiet, riding lights on--only the mail ship still being worked under a multitude of oil lamps like so many fireflies.
Nimbly the stoker jumped onto the wharf with a hawser and tied the craft, then helped the others.
Angelique first, then Skye and Hoag.
Jamie climbed the steps easily, still wrapped in his blanket, chilled but not badly. Skye and the doctor were pasty grey, their stomachs and heads ill at ease, legs weak. Now Angelique was much better. Her headache had gone. She had not been sick nor felt seasick. Once again she had cried herself out. The last half hour she had been on deck, away from the sick tainted air below, and had joined Jamie on the poop.
There she faced the salt-sweet wind and let it wash her brain clean again.
Behind her Hoag coughed up a wad of phlegm and spat it into the water lapping the pilings.
"Sorry," he muttered, needing a drink badly. Then he noticed the mess on the prow, some timbers crushed, the fore hatch stove in, bowsprit vanished, halliards gone, most of the gunnel. "What the hell happened?"
"Some flotsam was washed aboard, looked like a crate. Gave me a fright for a moment," Jamie said.
"Thought I heard a crash... I... think I'll, think I'll vis't the Club before turning in."
"I'll join you," Skye said, needing more than one drink to settle his stomach. "Jamie?
More'ss Angelique?"
She shook her head and Jamie said, "Off you go, nothing more to do tonight. Don't forget the plan."
They had agreed nothing was to be said other than, if asked, they had conducted a symbolic sea burial, nothing more.
Fortunately none of the others had seen the coffin come aboard or his struggle with it--except Tinker. As soon as he could, he had gone aloft to the wheelhouse. "Bosun, about the coffin, the others below saw nothing, so on your head, by God, you saw nothing and you say nothing either. It's our secret."
"Whatever you say, sorr." Tinker handed him the flask and touched his forelock, "Thanks.
Weren't for you we'd be below, all of us--along with him."
There was barely a swallow left but it helped.
"I thought I'd never make it. We forget it. Your oath, eh?"' "Whatever you say sorr, but afore we forget it, when the box sank an' broke up an' he come out it, he didn't half give me a turn, by God. I thort he were trying to bloody come back aboard."
"Jesus Christ," Jamie had gasped.