Page 6 (2/2)

"A sea-to-land shelling," Moore said after a moment "Then it was a Ger looked wicked enough, like soeful iron demon; Moore could understand why the islanders had feared it

"To us it was a thing from Hell, crewed by faceless, inhuman creatures of another world We wanted no part in that white man&039;s war and yet it was forced upon us We were not to be spared The boat caht death until it was itself destroyed"

"How?" Kip asked hiued "What destroyed it?"

"That I don&039;t know But hts I stood on this beach, perhaps in this exact spot, and watched the fires burning out at sea, the strange green and cri the debris washed in, parts of ships and men Frozen bodies with twisted, terror-struck faces; sos" He drew in his breath "That is the Night Boat, risen from its tomb at the bottom of the sea"

Theout past the reef, and their sharp rated on his nerves The sea washed strands of clinging weed across the U-boat&039;s deck, andfor anyone to fear anymore," Kip said "It&039;s a dead hunk of metal now"

Boniface turned slowly to face the constable "Not dead Only waiting And I beg you as I have never begged any man on this earth Return it to the Abyss"

"For God&039;s sake!" Kip said, irritated by the man&039;s persistence and aze "You&039;ve preached spirits and voodoo for so long you&039;re seeing ju for a long while, looking fro their belief and fear "Dieu vous garde," he said softly "I have a body to attend to" He turned fro his ith the tip of the cane, he round to stare back at the sub the clapboard houses fringing Front Street

Kip saw that Moore looked concerned "Don&039;t listen to him," he said "Superstition&039;s become his second nature But damn it all, I don&039;t see how that bastard cleared the reef and got through intoto rounds from the commercial wharfs across the beach Diesels rumbled; men shouted back and forth from boat to boat, and lines were cast off There would barely be roo past the obstruction of the sub now, a hot yellow orb in a sky that promised to be a clear azure blue A few moments before, the hulk had indeed looked dark and spectral, with the weeds entwining its deck and railings Now, in the clearer light, it siive me a lift back up to an walking toward the pickup truck "A hell of a mess," Kip muttered "The whole island probably knows about this by now, and if I judge Boniface correctly he&039;ll use it as an opportunity to strengthen his hold on these people I&039;ve got to do so about that boat, David I can&039;t let it rot here, but for the life of ht by the sun glinting brightly off the tin roof of the abandoned naval shelter off in the distance No, that would be one hell of a huge risk Then he asked hi it unattended on the sandbar?

The constable&039;s office, a se square There was an oval park of palranite statue of a blacka harpoon that had been erected by the British as a peace concession to the Carib Indian tribe It honored one of the Carib chieftains - a ainst a band of pirates ere trying to seize Coquina as a fortress The Caribs had been here at least a hundred years before the first British settlers had arrived; they lived off the sea and the land, keeping to the threatened, and then their wrath could be awesoing froraves in those early years Now they were mostly quiet, and Moore didn&039;t know much about their current way of life Across the Square were brightly painted buildings: Everybody&039;s Grocers and Cafe, Langstree&039;s marine supply store, an open-air oods on Saturdays, and the Coquina Hardware Store Dirt-track streets cut back through the jungle to rew thick and wild

Coquina was fifteena population of a little more than seven hundred In centuries past it had served as a battleground between the British and the French; the island, along with a dozen other small spits of sand in the area, had been possessed first, in the early 1500s, by the Spanish, who had left it pretty much alone, then a hundred years later by the British, who&039;d fought the Caribs to ar and tobacco plantations The French had attacked when the plantations had proven profitable And so on in a spiral of naval and diplomatic warfare, until finally the British seized it as a perreat houses still stood in the deep jungle although now they were cracked rowth had reclaimed their own territory When Moore wandered these old plantation houses through the long corridors and eht soazing out over their sloping fields to the seas beyond, the schooners with billowing sails slipping across the ocean to take on new cargoes for ood and inexpensive investment for the British, until the Caribs had rebelled and killed most of the plantation owners

The island was so named because it was shaped like a coquina&039;s shell; also because the beaches were filled with the little clae of the surf and then would rapidly scurry down again into the safety of the wet sand, their pathsbubbles of air

And now, over two hundred years since the French and British had battled here, Coquina was home to David Moore Perhaps it would not be hoh

God, how the years have passed, he thought as he drove into the Square Rapidly flashing by in swirls of color, of experience, of memories he kept close to his chest like a deck of cards In the space of seven years, everything had changed and the changes had led hiray waves, soaring whitecaps, a stor, thunderclouds torn froed i rage and left hiiven instant, the security and hope of a

"You okay?" Kip asked, gently touching Moore&039;s arm "You just passed my office Slon"

Moore shook hi"

He turned the pickup around and parked in front of Kip&039;s office

"You had your breakfast?" Kip asked

"Not yet"

"Coriddle" He opened the door and Moore followed hih with varied and assorted things - there was scarcely roo laal volulass, holding two rifles On a wall hung fraston, and there was also a crayon drawing of a scene in Coquina harbor - the trading vessels with masts like telephone poles and all of them colored a different hue - done by Kip&039;s five-year-old daughter, Mindy Gunainst the opposite wall next to a storage closet; another door with an inset of glass at eye-level led back to two cells

Kip drew open the blinds; sunlight flooded in He slid a couple of the s open so the sea-breezes could enter, and then he went to the far side of the roo a few plates and cups as well as a hot plate, which Kip plugged into a wall socket, and a portable icebox He rus, and knifed strips from a slab of bacon

Moore settled himself into a chair before the constable&039;s desk and ran a hand across his face He sighed wearily

"What&039;s wrong with you?" Kip asked hih sleep?" He threw the bacon into a skillet he had placed on the hot plate He smiled "I understand your probleht"

"How&039;d you hear about that?"

"I&039;oes on around here" Kip picked up two of the cups, saw that they were clean but rinsed them anyway He filled a teakettle and waited for the bacon to crisp "You ought to stop living out of damned cans like you do, David It&039;s no trouble for Myra to set an extra place"

"She&039;d strangle you if she heard you say that"

"Possibly" The bacon was curling; the scent of it wafted about the office One of Kip&039;s duties as constable was to keep whatever prisoners he had confined in good health, which et he couldn&039;t afford to send out for food "I ," he said after a pause

"And?"

"He couldn&039;t offer any suggestions; he thought I was joking at first, and I had a bad ti him In any event, Cyril&039;s pro to the Daily Gleaner" Kip forked the bacon out of the skillet and onto the plates; he cracked the eggs and let them fry

"It bothers me" Moore said quietly

"What does?"

"The subo down? And what about the crew?"

Kip looked over his shoulder as he lifted out the fried eggs "What about the crew?"

"I wonder what kind of men they were, and how did they come to be so far away fro the Caribbean in the early part of the war," Kip reminded him "You needn&039;t be concerned about the crew Most likely they&039;re oldtheir pipes, sipping their steins of beer, and swapping war stories Here Take this while I do the tea"

Moore took the plate "But the hatches are sealed How could they have gotten out?"

Kip shrugged "All those old crates had to have an eency hatch of some kind I don&039;t know; I&039; or eat it?"

Moore probed it with his fork "I&039;"

The kettle whistled Kip poured water over a teabag in each cup and offered one to Moore, then he sat down behind his desk and began to eat "I&039;raver tone "I&039;ll be going by to see the Kephas woman, and I&039;m not quite sure what to say to her Da to her husband are one in a million" His jaw clenched "Boniface worries me Oh, he&039;s pretty much harmless, but a lot of people on Coquina pay hi up trouble over the suble as many ti those cereal action I could take, if I wanted to - which I don&039;t I don&039;t care what gods the islanders pray to, I just don&039;t want undue and irrational fears taking over" He picked at his egg and then shoved his plate away "I wish to God Boniface had stayed in Haiti where he belonged"

"Why didn&039;t he?"

Kip drank down the rest of his tea "Local trouble" He began to roll a cigarette for hirown tobacco "A feud between hihts, I suppose Fro on; Boniface&039;s hole Not long after that the other houngan was found in the Port-au-Prince bay, weighted down by a gutfull of nails The police got on the track but nothing was ever proven; you kno those things go But this houngan was supposed to have had so Boniface&039;s head One way or another he got out of Haiti and wandered around the Caribbean for a while He settled here just before the war Some day I&039;d like to find out just how s us to that dastree to be hammered into scrap, but some museu in arette and stood up, taking the two plates over to the sink

Moore got up and went to the door "I&039;ve got things of "

Kip walked out to the truck with hied a few more comments about the ferocity of the stor: he dreaded the way the Kephas woman would stare at hi I could have done, it was an unavoidable accident Unavoidable?

Moore swung up into the truck and started the engine, waving back at his friend He drove along the street toward the Indigo Inn After he was out of sight, Kip turned toward the flat blue-green expanse of the harbor, watching the thing that grew across the sandbar like a cancer

He drew on his cigarette, exhaled sang ofsure they cleared the subhter inging in to take on a load of fish, coconuts, or tobacco

It would take three trawlers to break it off the bar and guide it, he decided Langstree would screa Kip had encountered before He closed and locked the office door and in anotherout of the Square toward the harbor below