It was the heavy vibration that awakened us, the vibration and a peculiarly regular thudding under our keel. The killer whales … I thought, and the last mists of sleep were driven from my brain by a sense of dreadful urgency. And then we wasted precious minutes in a ludicrous scuffle under the canvas, each of us trying to find the torch, each of us trying to break free of the other.
When at last I broke out of the sailcloth cocoon I stared aghast at the great white shapes, ghostly in the wan light of the half dawn, that were driving past us with lordly unconcern. And in my ears was the thunder — loud, close (too close) and continuous. Yet there was no lightning. And the white shapes roared by, in endless procession, like a stampede of pale horses …
Sea horses.
And one of them broke heavily over the bows, flooding the boat, hurling me back against Sally. We floundered there, gasping and choking, and then I got somehow to my feet, jerked Sally to hers. With a hand on the mast to steady myself I managed to stand erect, to look around.
Ahead of us, to seaward, were the breakers, building up on the shelving beach and then sweeping shoreward. And astern, a turbulence of luminescent broken water on dark sand, was the shore, distant still and with its distance undiminished as I watched.
What had happened was obvious, but it took some time for me to work it out. The sea anchor or its line had fouled some underwater projection and was holding us. That, in itself, was no great tragedy — but, especially now that the swamped boat was low in the water, we were being held in no great depth, were being battered against a hard bottom.
But we should still be able to make a landing through surf in the approved manner. All that needed to be done was to veer away on the sea anchor line, keeping the boat’s head to the sea until she grounded properly. I stumbled forward again, found the axe that I had lashed inside the gunwale. Ignoring the water that broke over me I worked with calm deliberation, letting go the painter from the thwart and then catching a couple of turns with it around the forward lowering hook and then, with the axe, cutting the sea anchor line just forward of the cleat, around which it was now tightly jammed. Hoping that the hitch with which I had made the painter fast to the anchor line would hold, I started to surge. The painter ran easily, and now that the boat was not held her own motion was easier; she was striking the bottom less frequently.
And then, suddenly, the line went slack; it had parted or, possibly, torn adrift from the sea anchor. The boat lurched and staggered, swung broadside on to the sea. There was no time to get an oar out; there would not have been much that the two of us could have done if there had been time. We just hung on to the weather gunwale, maintaining our grip in spite of the heavy water that was breaking over us, hung on, while the boat rolled viciously, pounded heavily. The mast snapped and whipped overside, barely missing us. I could hear the crunch and crack of shattering timbers.
She went over then, flinging us clear, flinging us shoreward in a welter of floating debris. The blade of an oar missed my face by the fraction of an inch, the loom of another one struck me heavily in the back. There was light enough for me to see Sally, floating limply on the surface, not moving. I struck out for her, realising dimly that the blow had almost crippled me.
I reached her somehow, although all that I could manage was a slow, painful breast stroke. I reached her and succeeded in flopping over on my back, with her body in front of me, my hands cupped under her chin. I struck out with my legs, almost crying out as the strain came on my bruised back muscles. But surely we weren’t far from the shore now …
And a breaker caught us, tore her from my grip, sent me tumbling over and over in a roaring chaos of white water. I was slammed down hard on the hard sand and sprawled there gasping …
But it was air that I was gasping.
And she was there, huddled only a few inches from me. I saw her move feebly, saw her legs twitch, an arm extend itself.
So she was alive.
And beyond her was a boat drawn up on to the beach, a small boat, seemingly intact, a motor boat. I could see the propeller, a dark trefoil against the white paint of the stern …
And there was a pair of bare feet by the stern of the boat, a pair of thick, muscular legs, a pair of ragged, filthy shorts …
“Quite a muckin’ coincidence, Petey boy, ain’t it?” remarked a hated voice. “But I suppose this is one o’ them places where the current sets everything ashore …”
He was grinning evilly and playing with the knife that he held in his right hand. He was walking slowly towards us.
I tried to get up, then fell back to the sand with a groan. I wondered vaguely what damage had been done by that heavy blow on the back, then decided wrily that it didn’t much matter, anyhow. Not now.
But there was Sally. I managed to crawl to her, to put out a hand to clutch and shake her shoulder. “Wake up!” I gasped. “Wake up! Run!”
A groan was her only reply.
“Don’t spoil things, Petey boy,” chuckled Green. “I want you to watch while I …”
He gave a gurgling scream, clutched at his throat. There was a shaft protruding from it. Somehow he tore it out, and there was a great gush of blood and he crumpled to the sand.
I turned to look at the edge of the jungle.
There was something there, something hunched and shaggy, something that came shambling cautiously out to the beach. It held a bow in its hand. But it was not human. I was reminded of that line of Kipling’s — the bear that walks like a man …
Then, from along the beach, a shot rang out. And another, and another.
I watched the men running towards us — the European in his khaki shorts and shirt, the natives in their loincloths. The white man made for us, his companions cautiously approached the edge of the jungle. One of them fired a round or two from his rifle into the trees.
The white man was talking to us. I could not understand what he was saying. Then, as Sally groaned and stirred, levering herself to a sitting posture, he was all solicitude, stripping off his shirt, draping it about her shoulders. I caught the word mademoiselle.
“We’re English,” I said.
“Australian,” corrected Sally. She had sufficiently recovered to be able to glare at me.
“And you are — what is the word? — shipwrecked,” said the white man. “Alas that I was too late to save your brave companion from …”
I did not catch his final words.
“From whom?” I asked. “Or what?”
“I do not know, M’sieur. We call them les nouveaux. The new ones — although it is sense to suppose that they have been here for many years. Perhaps, at one time, they moved only by night, and in secret. Now they are becoming bold.”
“Are they … men?”
The Frenchman spread his hands in a gesture of bafflement. “But I do not know. Never have we been able to take one …”
And I thought of genetic instability, and of the supposed bearlike ancestor of the cetaceans, and wondered how soon it would be before the new ones in the sea made contact with their cousins in the jungle.
Perhaps they had already done so.