The Wicked Go to Hell (7 page)

They spent a troubled night. Frank’s temperature shot up several times. He grew delirious and Hal got up often to give him a cooling drink of water. He regretted he hadn’t taken a supply of medicines from the villa. The blonde woman would have let him have them as willingly as she had given the suits.

In addition to Frank’s groaning there was the loud beating of the sea all around them. It was as if they were on a motionless boat in the middle of a storm. The bright beam of a distant lighthouse flickered on and off all around with sickening regularity.

Hal did not get to sleep until early morning, when again it was his comrade who woke him.

“Hal!” he cried. “Hal!”

With the instant reflexes of a man who is hunted, Hal sat up clear-headed the moment he was awake.

“What?”

“It’s back; it’s started again; I can’t see… This time I’m really blind!”

“Don’t talk rubbish!”

“It’s not rubbish! I tell you I can’t see properly!”

Hal examined the wound. It did not look good and was beginning to fester. Overcoming his distaste he eased it open. The bullet had struck more deeply than he had thought. It had probably clipped the optic nerve.

“I’m going to clean you up,” he said. “There’s a bit of pus in it. You’re going to have to keep a bandage over your eyes,
Frank—you’ve probably damaged an optic nerve or something… You’ll find it more restful being in the dark.”

Frank said nothing.

He bore uncomplainingly the basic ministrations of his companion in adversity. Hal poured whisky on the wound and bound it with a piece of the lining of his jacket.

“There you go,” he said. “Don’t fiddle with it. You’ve probably got a bit of a temperature, but that’ll pass…”

“A bit of a temperature!” said Frank. “Come off it, you could fry an egg on my forehead!”

He lay down on his seaweed bed. The hut smelt of iodine. Hal looked all round and felt uneasy. The bottom line was that they were in a fix!… It wasn’t his idea of freedom!

He went outside.

“Hey!” bawled Frank.

“What do you want?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to get us something to eat.”

“Where?”

“Never heard of the infinite riches of the sea?”

“I’m not hungry!”

“You’re so self-centred!…” Hal snapped. “Just because you’re in a bad way you think the world has stopped turning! Well I’m good and hungry, you know… A griping hunger, like there’s a rat gnawing at my guts! And all the water I can drink won’t drown it, cos rats can swim…”

He picked up an old canvas bucket he found in one corner of the hut.

“Go on, get some sleep—it’ll set you up… When the body’s sick, you’ve got to let it get on with it. It’ll cure itself…”

Hal left the hut and walked towards the sea.

The previous evening, their isolation had seemed a blessing but now it oppressed him. He had an unsettling sense that a danger graver than that represented by the police was hanging over him.

He reached the rocks intending to look for crabs. It was the first time he’d ever tried an activity of this kind. All he knew about hunting for crabs was what he had read in books, and that didn’t amount to much.

But hunger sharpens the wits and Hal was very hungry indeed.

He ventured right to the water’s edge. He could just make out the mainland through a greyish fog, in which seabirds flew, shrieking their raucous, plaintive cries.

He began lifting stones. But crabs are wily creatures. They stay beneath the stone as it is being moved or else promptly bury themselves in the sand.

It was not long before Hal’s fingers were covered with blood. At first, he could not understand why. He examined his hands, which looked as if they had been sliced by small razor blades, and saw that every large stone he moved was ringed with a collar of tiny broken shells with wickedly sharp edges. In the water he could not feel the tiny cuts.

That was the sea, in a word: a mine of wonderment and deceit. This discovery led him to proceed with more care and he found crabs.

They teemed at that spot. Soon he had half a bucketful. The canvas receptacle was soon full of squirming life.

Cheered by his haul, he returned to the hut. Frank was dozing.

Hal put water to heat on the fire in the rudimentary hearth and waited until it boiled before putting the crabs into it.

“Catch anything?” asked Frank.

“Sure did. We’re going to have us a good feed, that I promise you.”

“But I told you, I’m not hungry.”

“So you did but you’ll have to force yourself unless you want to starve to death… They say it’s a good way to die. Life just seems to fade away, like water draining from a bucket with a hole in it.”

He made Frank eat the meat of a few crabs which he prepared for him. It was good eating.

“You got to eat it straight away, where it’s caught,” grinned Hal. “Crabs crawl but they don’t travel!”

The day passed without Hal noticing. He set about organizing their life on the island as if it were going to last a long time.

There were unsuspected riches in the hut if a man had an inventive turn of mind.

For example, outside, on a pile of old rubbish, he found a small drum of old engine oil left over from the time when a motorboat had been serviced there.

He was delighted with his find, for it solved the problem of lighting, at least for a time.

With an empty sardine tin and a length of twisted cotton he was able to fashion an oil lamp.

On the beach he found limpets clinging to the rocks under the seaweed. He prised them loose with an old knife blade. When he had collected enough, he returned to cook them.

“Are we going to be eating shellfish and crabs all the time we’re here?” asked Frank.

“Sure thing!… We’ll save the
poulet chasseur
for later… Seafood’s not bad. It’s got phosphorus in it.”

They ate a rather meagre dinner, which left their stomachs unsatisfied. Frank’s wound remained unchanged. Hal cleaned it up again with whisky.

“It’s a shame to waste good booze like that,” he said. “Still, it disinfects this nasty injury of yours.”

Frank was depressed because he still could not see. He felt he was sinking into a black pit… It was distressing and it also hurt like blazes.

“Buck your ideas up,” said Hal. “Lie down and try to get some shut-eye.”

“But I’ve spent all day on my back. I don’t feel sleepy.”

“You’ve still got a temperature. You need rest… And since you are at least able to get your head down, you might as well make the most of it. When you’re back on your feet again, we’ll leave this place one fine evening, as the tide comes in.”

“And where’ll we go?”

“Wherever you want.”

They remained a moment without speaking. The crude wick gave out a ghostly light. It smoked and filled the hut with a strong smell of engine oil.

“What was that?” Frank said, suddenly startled.

Hal frowned and listened, affected by a general sense of unease.

He noticed nothing unusual. He heard only the crash of the waves and the harsh cries of the birds.

“What’s up?”

“I thought I heard…”

“What?”

“I don’t know… shouts…”

“It’s only the sea and the birds,” said Hal in a neutral voice. “You’re on edge tonight, that’s what it is… You’ve got to pull yourself together!”

“Pulling yourself together’s not easy in the dark,” grumbled Frank. “In the pitch black I have this feeling that I’m surrounded by all sorts of dangers.”

Hal’s voice sounded hollow when he objected:

“Mustn’t start imagining things, Frank. I’m here… and I’ve got the gun… There’s still three bullets in the spout.”

“They’ve been in the sea,” Frank pointed out.

“No problem… There was a tobacco pouch in this suit, it’s made of nylon… I wrapped the piece in it.”

“Good thinking… What did you do with the tobacco that was in the pouch?”

“I slung it. Why? Would you have wanted it?”

“No, I don’t smoke.”

“Nor me,” said Hal.”

Frank got onto his knees on his seaweed bed.

“I’m scared,” he said in a raw voice.

“Why? I told you: I’ve got a gun!”

“But that’s it! That’s why I’m scared.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you wanted, if you took it into your head, Hal, you could get it out and point it at me and I wouldn’t know… You could aim… You could take your time!”

Frank’s teeth were chattering! Large beads of sweat ran down under the dressing. He was shaking.

Hal watched him panicking in amazement.

“Like now!” cried Frank. “This very minute! This very instant! I can feel you’re taking aim at me! Yes!” he screamed. “I can feel it. The small muzzle of the revolver, I can sense it… Don’t shoot! Please! I’m begging you!”

“You’re crazy,” said Hal sadly.

“Gimme your hands!…” Frank demanded. “Both of them… Now!”

Hal reached gently for his hands. Frank felt them frantically all over, then calmed down. At length, he gave a long sigh and murmured.

“Jeez… I was really scared!… How stupid is that?”

“Too damn right it’s stupid!” muttered Hal. “Afraid of me!… After all I’ve done for you!”

“I’m sorry… You have no idea what it’s like!…”

“But I do, Frank, I really understand…”

“You can’t,” said Frank. “You’ve got to be blind to understand… Blind! Do you think it’ll last?”

“Of course it won’t… It’s your wound that’s festering. When we get back on dry land you’ll get yourself off to see an optician.”

“That’s not going to happen for a while.”

“No, but it’ll happen soon! On the whole it’s all gone pretty well up to now, except for you getting winged, so let’s just wait till the heat has died down…”

Frank seemed calmer. But judging by the way his hands shook, Hal guessed he was shivering with fever.

“If only I’d grabbed some of those damn pills!” he said to himself. “The last thing we want now is for septicaemia to invite itself to the picnic.”

He wondered what he’d do if Frank’s condition worsened… Should he let him die in the hut or, instead, leave him, find a phone and raise the alarm? But they’d only make Frank better so that they could send him to the guillotine… So…

“Is it dark outside?” asked Frank.

“Has been for at least an hour…”

“Have you lit the lamp?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want it lit!” cried Frank. “I can’t stand it!”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to have the light on, Hal. It’s bad enough during the day. I can’t prevent you from seeing during the day, but at night… You’ve got to leave the night to me!”

“You’re a real tyrant!” said Hal.

“So put it out! Put it out, do you hear? Knowing there’s a light shining that I can’t see is making me ill!”

“For Pete’s sake!” cried Hal. “What do you expect me to do in the dark? I’m not blind!”

“We can talk,” sobbed Frank.

Hal knew that he was dealing with the ramblings of a sick man.

“OK, OK,” he sighed.

He blew hard as people do when extinguishing a flame but in reality it was to fool his sick partner.

“Is it out?” asked Frank.

“Sure is.”

Frank thought hard for something to say, failed and sat down on his makeshift mattress. Hal found a yellowed sheet of old newspaper on the floor and began reading
it to pass the time. He was not ready for sleep and was gripped by a vague gloom which he felt like a pain inside him.

“What are you doing?” Frank, who had been listening, asked suddenly.

“Oh… nothing much.”

Frank leapt to his feet. He groped his way to the table.

“You’re making paper rustle,” he said.

He felt Hal’s face, his hands, then the old sheet of newspaper.

“You bastard!” he cried. “You didn’t put the lamp out! You’re reading!”

Losing patience, Hal thumped the table with his fist.

“That’s enough!” he shouted.

Frank stopped yelling. He just stood, not moving, attentive and contrite.

“You’d better be careful!” Hal went on, his anger making him stumble over his words. “Listen to me, and listen good! I’m starting to get riled!”

Frank pleaded:

“No! Don’t!”

He tried to justify himself.

“You got to understand, Hal,” he whined, “I can’t see anything!”

Pathetically he asked:

“What are you reading?”

“The serial in an old newspaper that was lying around the place…”

“Is it any good?”

“Sensational!… Top notch!”

“Tell me the story!” said Frank, bursting with impatience as if he were expecting some crucial revelation. “Tell me now!”

“It’s about the daughter of this big oil tycoon who gets knocked up thanks to a criminal, as if it’s only criminals that put it about…”

“And?”

“She gets her maid to say the kid is hers. Problem sorted! Jeez, that must have taken a lot of dreaming up!”

“What happens after that?”

“How should I know?… It’s a serial and you’ve got to wait for the next episode, like all serials. You’ll just have to work it out for yourself. You don’t need to be rich to have imagination!”

Frank gave a thin, fearful smile indistinguishable from a sob.

“Hal,” he said suddenly, “give me the gun.”

“Are you off your head? You want to kill yourself?”

“No.”

“Then what? It’s all a blind man can do with a shooter: turn it against himself…”

“I want it!” persisted Hal. “I’m scared.”

“Sure,” said Hal. “And I’d be even more scared if I saw you waving it around!”

“At least give me the bullets…”

“If I did that, it wouldn’t be a gun any more… Suppose we got in a jam…”

“Give me the bullets!” snivelled Frank.

Hal sighed. His partner was being a real drag. He opened the chamber and took out the clip. With his thumb he removed two bullets.

“Here,” he said, holding them out to Frank. “If that’s what you want…”

Frank grabbed the two bullets the way a drug addict grabs a fix of snow.

He felt them with his fingers, and his jaw muscles tightened.

“You dirty son of a bitch! You’ve only given me two and a moment ago you said yourself there were three left!”