CHAPTER 5
Yap Island
(Shikarrak)
“How much longer do you
suppose they’ll be?” Princess Rebecca Anne McDonald, daughter of
the Governor-Emperor of the New Britain Isles, asked anxiously; her
large jade eyes narrowed with worry. Her sun-lightened blond locks
had gone horribly astray under the constant battering of the stiff
sea breeze, and finally getting some growth, she’d also suddenly
begun to sprout from the battered Imperial dungarees she wore. Her
waiflike appearance did much to undermine her “princess” status.
She glanced fretfully westward, where the sun was making its final
rapid equatorial plunge.
Nurse Lieutenant and
Minister of Medicine Sandra Tucker’s bad sunburn was beginning to
turn tan, but her normally sandy blond hair had gone peroxide. She
looked at the bedraggled and somewhat gangly royal teen. “Don’t
worry,” she said with a smile. “They’ll be along.”
“But it’s nearly
dark!”
“I assure you, my
dear,” insisted Sister Audry in her precise Dutchaccented English,
“Mr. Silva would be far safer in any wilderness you chose to drop
him than any poor creature he might happen upon.” Sister Audry’s
words were meant to reassure, but there was a subliminal thread of
condemnation in her tone as well. Like the surviving Imperials, she
harbored a deep suspicion that Silva was at least mildly psychotic.
She stepped from beneath the sailcloth shelter they’d rigged
against the daily rains and stood beside Sandra and Rebecca. She
wore dungarees now too, although her practically destroyed habit
was kept safely stowed in a bundle of oilcloth.
“I’m concerned about
poor Lawrence as well,” Rebecca said, “and perhaps ever so slightly
about Messers Cook and Brassey.”
“And Captain
Rajendra?” Sandra asked dryly.
“Him too, I suppose,”
Rebecca conceded. “I really should be, shouldn’t I?” she asked
Sister Audry. Rebecca had learned to respect the nun’s moral
authority, even if most of the other Imperial castaways still
considered her some form of Roman witch. Rebecca knew better. She
knew there was no more similarity between Sister Audry’s “Catholic”
faith and that practiced by the “Holy Dominion” than there was
between night and day.
“One should always
try to think charitable thoughts about all people,” Sister Audry
replied, but it was clear by her tone how difficult even she found
that at times.
A panicked cry arose
near the shoreline, where Captain Lelaa and Carpenter Hersh were
wrapping up their day’s repairs to the boat. Three other men, armed
with muskets, raced to the spot from where they’d been posted along
the beach to provide security for the laborers and their important
charges. A loud Thump and a jet of fire
flashed in the rapidly deepening gloom.
Captain Lelaa, the
Lemurian commander and possibly only survivor of the destroyed
sloop USS Simms, raced past them, tail
curled high in alarm, toward the ranks of muskets they kept loaded
and under cover. “Shik-saak!” she shouted breathlessly as she
passed.
A large shadow,
almost indistinguishable from the color of the sea behind it,
lunged up onto the shore, barely missing the overturned boat where
it lay chocked and supported on the sand. The carpenter was on his
back, frantically scrabbling up the beach on his hands and heels,
shrieking as he went. The security detail raced to that side of the
boat and fired a volley directly into the monster before fleeing as
fast as they could, reloading as they ran. It was a tactic they’d
practiced before; get the shiksak’s attention, then lead it away
from the boat and camp. They had no real hope of killing it with
their muskets, and wouldn’t have wanted to kill it There in any case. Its carcass would only draw more
predators. Their intent in this instance was to preserve the boat,
protect the camp, and—hopefully—save the carpenter by provoking the
beast into chasing them. It worked.
With a mighty
froglike leap, the shiksak lunged after them, absorbing its fall
with its semi-rigid front legs, or flippers, and the mattresslike
cushion of fat on its belly. It emitted a kind of croaking wail
when it struck the ground, but immediately gathered itself for
another hopping leap. In a flat-out sprint, the security detail
avoided being crushed beneath the massive body or taken by the
gaping jaws, but they’d learned in a previous encounter that
only a flat-out sprint would save
them—and they’d practiced the technique against a considerably
smaller shiksak. They’d discovered then that the slightest misstep,
fall, or stumble would spell their death. It looked as though this
larger, more powerful beast would render their tactic moot. Without
a word among them, they split up.
Lelaa snatched a pair
of muskets and raced into the jungle that paralleled the beach.
With a glance that encompassed Rebecca and Sister Audry, Sandra did
the same, following Lelaa as fast as she could.
“I must go as well!”
Rebecca insisted, “I can handle a musket as well as
any!”
Sister Audry grabbed
her. “No, child, you must remain here. Those others are willing to
sacrifice their lives to save yours. If any die and you are not
saved, their sacrifice will have been in vain. It is a harsh and
heavy burden to bear, but it is yours
to bear.”
They heard another
thundering, croaking groan, this time accompanied by a shrill
scream. Sister Audry muttered something and crossed herself with
her free hand while holding Rebecca even tighter against her
renewed efforts to escape. The night was punctuated by more musket
fire and shouts. Evidently pausing to devour its victim, the
shiksak did not immediately leap again, allowing the survivors to
gain some distance. It was almost pitch-black now, and the musket
flashes of a suddenly augmented skirmish line pulsed in the
darkness a considerable distance up the beach.
“I would attest that
that volley was comprised of more guns than Miss Tucker and Captain
Lelaa alone would have added!” Sister Audry assured Rebecca
hopefully. The shiksak leaped again and again, moving beyond their
ability to hear the dreadful sounds it made or see any movement.
Rebecca collapsed against the nun and began to sob. Even if she
broke free now, the action had drawn too far away to
join.
Sister Audry led the
girl carefully out onto the beach, keeping a wary eye on the deadly
sea, until they reached the traumatized carpenter. The scrawny man
was standing now and almost blubbering with relief.
“I thought the bugger
had me!” he gasped. “So big and fat, and yet so fast!” He calmed
himself slightly and glanced apologetically at the princess.
“Pardon the ‘bugger,’ if you please, Your Highness.”
Through the tears
that filled her eyes, Rebecca could still occasionally see the
distant sparkle and bloom of a musket shot, but the hissing surf
now drowned any report. Suddenly, to her surprise and almost
infinite relief, she saw the muzzle flash of what might almost have
been a cannon. A moment later, she did hear a muffled boom
punctuate that shot. Shortly afterward, there came a veritable
flurry of flashes, followed by another massive discharge. Then
there was only the darkness and the surge of the marching
sea.
“It would seem that
your inimitable Mr. Silva has come to the rescue once again,”
Sister Audry observed with an apparent mix of relief and disgust.
“I only hope his various schemes to save us don’t cost a life with
each attempt.”
“What happened?”
Sandra asked impatiently. Silva sat on a large fallen tree trunk,
ravenously devouring a plate of stew. He brandished a spoon,
delaying his answer while he chewed. Finally, he pointed the spoon
at Rajendra.
“Things went pretty
much the way His Surliness said, except it wasn’t as tough a trip
as he made out. Sure, hacking through all that bamboo stuff was a
chore, but I had tougher days behind a mule when I was seven. Once
we got through that stuff, wasn’t anything to it. Might’ve found a
good channel through the breakers too.”
“Then what took you
so long, and what’s the matter with Mr. Cook? ”
“He took to acting
strange on the way back. Poked his finger on something in that
kudzulike stuff. Went all silly on us. We had to throw together a
stretcher, sort of, to get him back here. Even had to tie him down
eventually. That’s why we was dee-layed.” He waved the spoon. “As
for what’s the matter with him, you got me. You’re the doc. See for
yourself.”
“I can barely see
him with just the light from the fire,”
Sandra said in frustration. “I certainly can’t diagnose what’s
wrong with him.”
Silva shrugged. “Look
at him in the morning, then. He might live that long.”
Sandra shook her
head. “You are a heartless bastard,”
she observed, almost amazed.
“Nope. I like the
little guy a lot. I’m just sick o’ getting blamed whenever somebody
croaks.” He pointed his spoon at Rajendra. “Bastard said it was my
fault another one of his guys got ate. What was I supposed to do? I
wasn’t even here.”
“That’s just the
point,” Rajendra snarled. “If we’d been here, it wouldn’t have
happened!”
“You mean if me and
the Doom Whomper’d been here it wouldn’t have happened. Another few
muskets wouldn’t have made a difference. You want me to sit here
all day and guard everybody until we starve or I run out of lead to
cast my bullets? What the hell good is that gonna do when there’s
too many of the damn things to kill? Look, I’m sorry you lost a
fella, but sometimes bad sh ... stuff just happens, an’ it ain’t
always my fault!”
Sandra glared at
Rajendra. “You know, he’s right. All you’ve done is whine ever
since we got here. You stood up and pulled your weight on the boat,
but now all you do is complain and blame. That’s not good enough!
Do you want to save your princess? Do you want to live? Look, you don’t like taking orders from a
woman. I get that, but here’s the deal: I already command my
people, Rajendra, and your princess has placed me in command of you
and yours. Our numbers are about even, with a dozen of us left,
counting Rebecca and Larry. Even if this was a democracy, you’d
lose. If more of you besides Hersh and Mr. Brassey don’t pitch in
and pull your weight, we aren’t going to make it because we’re just
dragging the rest of you along. Well, I have the cure for that! By
the authority vested in me by the United States Navy and Princess
Rebecca Anne McDonald, and as Minister of Medicine for all the
Allied powers, I’ll consider any further dereliction of duty or
refusal to obey my orders tantamount to mutiny and punishable by
death. Do I make myself perfectly clear?” Her voice had risen to a
roar that her small frame seemed incapable of producing, but it
would have made the Bosun proud. In a quieter voice she continued,
“Mr. Silva and I have discussed his plan and it seems the most
viable option. If we all work together, we can get it done with
hands to spare. If I were you, I’d try very hard not to give the
impression that I was a spare hand. I’m completely, deadly serious
about this, and I advise you not to test me.”
She took a long
breath and continued to glare at the darkened faces as if measuring
each one. “Tomorrow we start moving the boat. We’ll need rollers,
and plenty of them. Those not actively cutting rollers will be
widening and clearing the path Mr. Silva and Captain Rajendra’s
party made through the bamboo today.” She looked at Rajendra. “Now,
I know you’ve been saving back some candles and at least two
lanterns. I want them. All of them.” She allowed only the slightest
hesitation, as the Imperials glanced at their commander, before she
pulled the .45 from its holster and racked the slide.
“Captain Rajendra,”
she said very softly, “must I repeat myself?”
“Princess?” Rajendra
asked.
“Obey her this
instant, you fool!” Rebecca demanded harshly. “I have told you she
alone commands! If you ever ask my approval for her orders again, I
swear I’ll shoot you myself!”
“Very well, Your
Highness. Please accept my apologies. I was only
trying—”
“What you were trying
to do, what you’ve been trying to do,
is quite clear! The traditions of the Empire have no bearing here,
and you will obey this woman as you would me.”
“Brassey,” Rajendra
said stiffly, “please fetch the items Miss Tucker requested.”
Brassey leaped to his feet and raced to the pile of supplies the
Imperials had kept somewhat segregated.
“A wise choice,
Captain Rajendra,” Sandra said as her thumb pushed upward on the
pistol’s safety and she thrust the weapon back into its holster.
“You might be interested to know that I was counting to myself and
you had less than three seconds to live.” She smiled, then moved
off toward where Abel Cook lay.
Silva shook his spoon
at Rajendra. “And here all this time you thought I was a bad man.”
He chuckled quietly. “You don’t know doodly.”
With the help of the
lanterns and a couple of mirrors, Sandra was finally able to
examine Abel’s hand. The boy was conscious and even tried to
cooperate with the inspection, but he had a fever and was acting
almost euphorically drunk. He was still tied to the stretcher so he
couldn’t get up, but he sometimes almost desperately wanted to, as
if his main goal in life had suddenly become to run off into the
jungle as far and fast as he could. He alternated between begging
them to turn him loose and apologizing for being a bother. Silva
held his arm still when necessary, and Rebecca dabbed at his
forehead with a cool, damp cloth. Most of the others had gathered
around to watch interestedly, but they kept a respectful distance.
Only Sister Audry and Captain Lelaa remained in attendance to hold
the mirrors and reflect the best light.
“Good Lord!” Sandra
said when she at last got a good look at the wound. “What on earth
did he get into?” She could see where the initial puncture had
been. The area around it was almost black, and the finger had
swelled to three times its normal size. The skin was mostly pink
and seemed stretched tight enough to burst. The boy should have
been in agony instead of acting, well, like he was. On closer
inspection, she thought she saw tiny bluish-green filaments
radiating outward from the blackened region as if they were
following the capillaries and veins within the finger. She’d never
seen anything like it.
“Uh, he was pierced
by a thorn,” Brassey supplied. “It was just a little thing, and we
gave it no thought at the time.”
“A thorn? What did it
look like? The plant, I mean.”
“Well, Mr. Silva said
it looked like something he called ‘kudzu,’ but I don’t know what
that is. We have plants with similar blossoms at home, and they
even have thorns, but they don’t cause anything like Mr. Cook’s
reaction.”
“It’s the damnedest
thing I ever saw,” Dennis murmured. “One little poke. It’s almost
like it left a seed in there and it sprouted something fierce.
Already putting out roots!”
Sandra felt a chill.
“My God, I think that’s exactly what it’s done! You say these
plants were growing up among and around skeletons of some
sort?”
“Yes . . . ah . . .
ma’am,” Brassey confirmed. “Great big ones.”
“Say,” Silva muttered
thoughtfully, “they ain’t no big critters running around on this
island! Not most of the time, anyway, except for them big
lizard-turtle things, and if these were them, they’d’ve left big
old shells layin’ around!”
“You’re saying that
the skeletons must have been these shiksak creatures?” Sister Audry
asked.
“No way around it,”
Silva replied. “I bet those big old shit-sack toad boogers go
hoppin’ through that kudzu stuff, get poked, and eventually wind up
fertilizin’ a whole new patch of them nasty weeds! God ... dern! I
always hated kudzu!”
Sandra sighed and
laid Abel’s hand down. “If you’re right—and I’m afraid you are—that
finger will have to come off. Immediately. In just the few hours
since he was infected, the ‘roots’ have spread nearly to his hand.
Those are just the filaments I can see. Deeper down, they might
already be in his hand.”
“We better get
crackin’, then,” Dennis said.
“Right.” Sandra
looked at Sister Audry. “Would you and Lawrence please boil some
water? Mr. Silva, you still have a small amount of polta paste in
your shooting pouch, do you not?”
“Are you absolutely
certain we have no other choice? ” asked Rebecca.
The tears in her eyes
reflected the candlelight.
“I don’t know that we
can be certain without waiting,” Dennis answered her gently. “But
if it does what we think it does, I don’t reckon we have
time.”
Later that night,
Dennis was one of the last to arrange his bedding in the sand. It
had been a long day and he was exhausted. As usual, there were
plenty of biting, stinging insects to pester him, but he doubted
he’d notice them tonight. Captain Lelaa and Lawrence had the guard
and he knew he could sleep soundly with them on duty, so he
arranged his weapons around himself, scrunched down, and pulled his
wool blanket up to his chin. There was often a chill before dawn.
Almost as an afterthought, he pulled off the patch that covered his
ruined left eye and stared at it for a moment. Hell, a pinky finger
ain’t much, he decided. The kid was already resting easier. He laid
the patch on his shooting pouch and closed his other
eye.
From somewhere nearby
he heard a strange sound. Opening his eye again, he raised up to
listen. Over there. Sighing, he replaced the patch—no reason to
disgust folks—and pulling his cutlass out of the sand, he crept
over to where the sound was emanating. He sat.
“What’s eatin’ you,
Li’l Sis?” he whispered. “You know you can tell ol’
Silva.”
The muffled crying
continued a moment longer before Rebecca managed to control it.
“It’s just so awful,” she said at last. “Not just Mr. Cook’s poor
hand, although that is bad enough. It’s just . . . everything! This
whole day has been dreadful! I don’t know how much longer I can
bear it!”
“Now, now. You’re
doin’ fine. I bet Abel’ll be just fine too. We’re gonna get outta
this jam, I promise.” He cocked his head. “I’m glad Miss Tucker
finally laid down the law, though.”
“And that’s another
thing! She seemed fully prepared to shoot Captain Rajendra! That
can’t sit well with her. She is so kind and gentle! Do . . . do you
think she would have done it?”
“Yep. Lookie here,
she may be kind and gentle, but she’s a tiger when it comes to you
and the Skipper. Hell, when it comes to any of us she thinks of as her kin.”
“Do you think it will
matter?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause Rajendra and
the rest o’ his people . . . your
people, believed her. Believed you too. You and her is so much
alike it spooks me now and then, honest to God. You look alike, act
alike, you both got plenty o’ brains, but you got even more guts.”
He snorted. “A time or two, that’s got you both in
trouble.”
“You think I have
‘guts’?” Rebecca asked, incredulous.
“Yep. Big, long,
heapin’ piles of ’em, and you’re gonna need ’em too. I’ll tell you
somethin’ else. Havin’ guts is one thing, but bein’ too sleepy to
use ’em is another. So why don’t you just squirm on down there an’
shut them little eyes. Ol’ Silva’ll be right here.” He paused a
moment, looking out at the surf and the hazy moon beyond. In a
quiet, gravelly voice he started to sing:
“Once upon a time the
goose drank wine.
The monkey chewed
tobacco on the live steam line.
The steam line broke,
the monkey choked,
And they all went to
heaven in a little tin boat.”
Rebecca snorted a
giggle. “What’s that supposed to be, a lullaby?”
A little embarrassed,
Dennis shrugged. “Nope,” he said. “Just a stupid
song.”