Read Online In Distant Waters by Richard Woodman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Richard Woodman
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rolling motion and vast pressure. Darkness engulfed him as the force of the water thrust him down, rolling him over yet again, but this time in an involuntary way, shoving his aching body so that his lungs began to scream at his brain to let them have air.
He was drowning!
Such were the powerful reflexes tearing at the muscles of his chest that opposition to them was impossible. Blinding lights filled his head, the roaring of the water became intolerable. He could resist no longer. He opened his mouth and dragged water into his lungs.
Mount saw a figure suddenly rise, bursting from the surface of the dark pool some five yards below the fall itself. He levelled his gun, but his finger froze. So far out of the water was the man flung, welled up as strongly as he had just been thrust down, that Mount saw instantly that it was the captain.
A few minutes later Mount had dragged his gasping commander to the side of the pool. Drinkwater lay over a rock, his body wracked by helpless eructations as he spewed the water from himself. After a few minutes, as Mount alternately staredfrom Drinkwater to the ledge beside the waterfall on the far side of the pool, Drinkwaterâs body ceased its painful heaving. He looked up, pale and shivering, a mucous trickle running down his chin. His shirt was torn and Mount saw the scars and twisted muscles that knotted his wounded shoulder. Instinctively he saw the captain incline his head to the right, indicating the shock of the chill in those mangled muscles.
âHoganâs got your musket . . . his powderâs spoiled . . .â
âWhat about Witherspoon?â
âDidnât see him . . . think I may have winged him with my first shot . . .
âIâll get support, itâs getting dark . . .â
âNo! We must . . .â
But he got no further. A loud bellow, a bull-roar of defiance, it seemed, came from the waterfall. Both men looked round and Mount scrambled to his feet.
From behind the silver cascade, glowing now with a luminosity that it seemed to carry down from higher up the mountain where the last of the setting sunlight still caught the stream, Hogan emerged. He bore the musket in one hand and in the other the limp figure of Witherspoon.
It seemed to the still gasping Drinkwater, that the darkest of his suspicions had been correct. The bull-roar had not been of defiance, but something infinitely more elemental. It had been a howl of grief, animal in its intensity. The drooping body of Witherspoon was undoubtedly that of a dead lover.
Such was instantly obvious to Mount too. Without hesitation the marine officer raised his big pistol.
âSodomite!â he snarled, and took aim.
In the almost complete gloom the two officers were quite hidden from Hogan. The Irish giant had no thoughts now, beyond the overwhelming sense of loss. The desperate venture on which he and his lover had set out that morning had seemed worth the hazard.
Patrician
would not stay. Hogan read his commander for a man of resolution, and nothing waited for Hogan over the Pacific horizon beyond the chance of death by wounding, death by disease or death from one or another of the multiple foulnesses that haunted His Britannic Majestyâs fleet. Theisland, though, offered a bold man everything. He could have outwitted fate and lived, like Crusoe, upon such a spot until he met death in Godâs time, not King Georgeâs. It would have worked but for Lieutenant Mylchrist.
His frame was wracked by monstrous sobs as he dragged the dead body of his lover out of the cave. It only seemed another paroxysm of grief when Mountâs ball shattered his skull, and smashed his brains against the cliff behind him.
Shaking from cold and shock Drinkwater followed Mount gingerly back across the stream. Once again he approached the entrance to the cave. In the last of the daylight the two officers stood staring down at their
He was drowning!
Such were the powerful reflexes tearing at the muscles of his chest that opposition to them was impossible. Blinding lights filled his head, the roaring of the water became intolerable. He could resist no longer. He opened his mouth and dragged water into his lungs.
Mount saw a figure suddenly rise, bursting from the surface of the dark pool some five yards below the fall itself. He levelled his gun, but his finger froze. So far out of the water was the man flung, welled up as strongly as he had just been thrust down, that Mount saw instantly that it was the captain.
A few minutes later Mount had dragged his gasping commander to the side of the pool. Drinkwater lay over a rock, his body wracked by helpless eructations as he spewed the water from himself. After a few minutes, as Mount alternately staredfrom Drinkwater to the ledge beside the waterfall on the far side of the pool, Drinkwaterâs body ceased its painful heaving. He looked up, pale and shivering, a mucous trickle running down his chin. His shirt was torn and Mount saw the scars and twisted muscles that knotted his wounded shoulder. Instinctively he saw the captain incline his head to the right, indicating the shock of the chill in those mangled muscles.
âHoganâs got your musket . . . his powderâs spoiled . . .â
âWhat about Witherspoon?â
âDidnât see him . . . think I may have winged him with my first shot . . .
âIâll get support, itâs getting dark . . .â
âNo! We must . . .â
But he got no further. A loud bellow, a bull-roar of defiance, it seemed, came from the waterfall. Both men looked round and Mount scrambled to his feet.
From behind the silver cascade, glowing now with a luminosity that it seemed to carry down from higher up the mountain where the last of the setting sunlight still caught the stream, Hogan emerged. He bore the musket in one hand and in the other the limp figure of Witherspoon.
It seemed to the still gasping Drinkwater, that the darkest of his suspicions had been correct. The bull-roar had not been of defiance, but something infinitely more elemental. It had been a howl of grief, animal in its intensity. The drooping body of Witherspoon was undoubtedly that of a dead lover.
Such was instantly obvious to Mount too. Without hesitation the marine officer raised his big pistol.
âSodomite!â he snarled, and took aim.
In the almost complete gloom the two officers were quite hidden from Hogan. The Irish giant had no thoughts now, beyond the overwhelming sense of loss. The desperate venture on which he and his lover had set out that morning had seemed worth the hazard.
Patrician
would not stay. Hogan read his commander for a man of resolution, and nothing waited for Hogan over the Pacific horizon beyond the chance of death by wounding, death by disease or death from one or another of the multiple foulnesses that haunted His Britannic Majestyâs fleet. Theisland, though, offered a bold man everything. He could have outwitted fate and lived, like Crusoe, upon such a spot until he met death in Godâs time, not King Georgeâs. It would have worked but for Lieutenant Mylchrist.
His frame was wracked by monstrous sobs as he dragged the dead body of his lover out of the cave. It only seemed another paroxysm of grief when Mountâs ball shattered his skull, and smashed his brains against the cliff behind him.
Shaking from cold and shock Drinkwater followed Mount gingerly back across the stream. Once again he approached the entrance to the cave. In the last of the daylight the two officers stood staring down at their
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