Clive Cussler: Shock Wave

“Good of you to come, Abner. He’s been asking for you every half hour.”

“How is the old sea dog?”

“I fear his days are numbered,” she answered with a trace of sadness.

Carlisle looked around the comfortable house filled with nautical furniture, the walls holding charts marked with daily runs during Scaggs’ record voyages. “I’m going to miss this house.”

“My brothers say it is best for the family if we sell it.”

She led Carlisle upstairs and through an open door into a bedroom with a large window that overlooked Aberdeen Harbor. “Father, Abner Carlisle is here.”

“About time,” Scaggs muttered grumpily.

Jenny gave Carlisle a peck on the cheek. “I’ll go and make you some tea.”

An old man, ravaged by three decades of a hard life at sea, lay unmoving on the bed. As bad as Scaggs looked, Carlisle couldn’t help but marvel at the fire that still burned in those olive-gray eyes. “I’ve got a new ship for you, Bully.”

“The hell you say,” rasped Scaggs. “What’s her rigging”

“None. She’s a steamer.”

Scaggs’ face turned red and he raised his head. “Goddamned stink pots, they shouldn’t be allowed to dirty up the seas.”

It was the response Carlisle had hoped for. Bully Scaggs may have been at death’s door, but he was going out as tough as he lived.

“Times have changed, my friend. Cutty Sark and Thermopylae are the only clippers you and I knew that are still working the seas.”

“I don’t have much time for idle chatter. I asked you to come to hear my deathbed confession and do me a personal favor.”

Carlisle looked at Scaggs and said sarcastically, “You thrash a drunk or bed a Chinese girl in a Shanghai brothel you never told me about?”

“I’m talking about the Gladiator,” Scaggs muttered. “I lied about her.”

“She sank in a typhoon,” Carlisle said. “What was there to lie about?”

“She sank in a typhoon all right, but the passengers and crew didn’t go down to the bottom with her.”

Carlisle was silent for several moments, then he said carefully, “Charles Bully Scaggs, you’re the most honest man I have ever known. In the half-century we’ve known each other you’ve never betrayed a trust. Are you sure it isn’t the sickness that’s making you say crazy things?”

“Trust me now when I say I’ve lived a lie for twenty years in repayment of a debt.”

Carlisle stared at him curiously. “What is it you wish to tell me?”

“A story I’ve told no one.” Scaggs leaned back on his pillow and stared beyond Carlisle, far into the distance at something only he could see. “The story of the raft of the Gladiator.”

Jenny returned half an hour later with tea. It was dusk, and she lit the oil lamps in the bedroom. “Father, you must try to eat something. I’ve made your favorite fish chowder.”

“I’ve no appetite, Daughter.”

“Abner must be starved, listening to you all afternoon. I’ll wager he’ll eat something.”

“Give us another hour,” ordered Scaggs. “Then make us eat what you will.”

As soon as she was gone, Scaggs continued with the saga of the raft.

“When we finally got ashore there were eight of us left. Of the Gladiator’s crew, only myself, Thomas Cochran, the ship’s carpenter, and Alfred Reed, an able seaman, survived. Among the convicts there was Jess Dorsett, Betsy Fletcher, Marion Adams, George Pryor and John Winkleman. Eight out of the 231 souls who set sail from England.”

“You’ll have to excuse me, dear old friend,” said Carlisle, “if I appear skeptical. Scores of men murdering each other on a raft in the middle of the ocean, the survivors subsisting on human flesh and then being saved from being devoured by a man-eating shark through the divine intervention of a sea serpent that kills the shark. An unbelievable tale to say the least.”

“You are not listening to the ravings of a dying man,” Scaggs assured him weakly. “The account is true, every word of it.”

Carlisle did not want to unduly upset Scaggs. The wealthy old merchant patted the arm of the sea captain who in no small way had helped to build the shipping empire of Carlisle & Dunhill and reassured him. “Go on. I’m anxious to hear the ending. What happened after the eight of you set foot on the island?”

For the next half hour, Scaggs told of how they drank their fill in a stream with sweet and pleasant water that ran from one of the small volcanic mountains. He described the large turtles that were caught in the lagoon, thrown on their backs and butchered with Dorsett’s knife, the only tool among them. Then using a hard stone found at the water’s edge and the knife as flint, they built a fire and cooked the turtle meat. Five different kinds of fruit that Scaggs had never seen before were picked from trees in the forest. The vegetation seemed oddly different from the plants he’d seen in Australia. He recounted how the survivors passed the next few days gorging themselves until they regained their strength.

“With our bodies on the mend, we set out to explore the island,” Scaggs said, continuing his narration. “It was shaped like a fishhook, five miles in length and a little less than one wide. Two massive volcanic peaks, each about twelve to fifteen hundred feet high, stood at the extreme ends. The lagoon measured about three quarters of a mile long and was sheltered by a thick reef to seaward. The rest of the island was buttressed by high cliffs.”

“Did you find it deserted?” asked Carlisle.

“Not a living soul did we see, nor animal. Only birds. We saw signs that Aborigines had once inhabited the island, but it appeared they had been gone a long time.”

“Any evidence of shipwrecks?”

“Not at that time.”

“After the calamity on the raft, the island must have seemed like paradise,” said Carlisle.

“She was the most beautiful island I’ve seen in my many years at sea,” Scaggs agreed, referring to his place of refuge in the feminine. “A magnificent emerald on a sapphire sea, she was.” He hesitated as if envisioning the jewel rising out of the Pacific. “We soon settled into an idyllic way of life. I designated those to be in charge of certain services and appointed times for fishing, the construction and repair of shelter, the harvesting of fruit and other edibles, and the maintenance of a constant fire for cooking as well as to signal any ship that might pass by. In this manner we lived together in peace for several months.”

“I’m keen to guess,” said Carlisle. “Trouble flared between the women.”

Scaggs shook his head feebly. “More like among the men over the women.”

“So you experienced the same circumstances as the Bounty mutineers on Pitcairn Island.”

“Exactly. I knew there would soon be trouble, and I designed a schedule for the women to be divided equally among the men. Not a scheme to everybody’s liking, of course, especially the women. But I knew of no other way to prevent bloodshed.”

“Under the circumstances, I would have to agree with you.”

“All I succeeded in doing was hastening the inevitable. The convict John Winkleman murdered able-seaman Reed over Marion Adams, and Jess Dorsett refused to share Betsy Fletcher with anyone. When George Pryor attempted to rape Fletcher, Dorsett beat his brains in with a rock.”

“And then you were six.”

Scaggs nodded. “Tranquility finally reigned on the island when John Winkleman married Marion Adams and Jess married Betsy.”

“Married?” Carlisle snorted in righteous indignation. “How was that possible?”

“Have you forgotten, Abner?” Scaggs said with a grin cracking his thin lips. “As a ship’s captain I was empowered to perform the ceremony.”