The sailcloth shroud - By Charles Williams Page 0,19

I came up with a rush just before the hands reached me pushing myself off the wall and lunging toward the light. A hand caught my shirt. It tore. The light swung back, but I was on it; it fell to the floor and rolled, but didn’t go out. The beam sprayed along the opposite wall. There was an open doorway, and beyond it a pair of mooring bitts, and the dark outline of a barge. A blow knocked me off balance; a hand groped, trying to hold me. I spun away from it, driving toward the door. Shoes scraped behind me, and I heard a grunt and curses as two of them collided in the darkness. Something smashed against the side of my head, and I started to fall. I hit the door frame, pushed off it, and wheeled, somehow still on my feet, and I was in the open. Stars shone overhead, and I could see the dark gleam of water beyond the end of the barge.

I tried to turn, to run along the pier. One of them crashed into me from behind, and tackled me around the waist. Our momentum carried us outward toward the edge. My legs struck one of the mooring lines of the barge, and I shot outward and down, falling between it and the pier.

Water closed over me. I tried to swim laterally before I surfaced, and came up against solid steel. I was against the side of the barge. I kicked off it and brushed against barnacles that sliced into my arm. It was one of the pilings. I grabbed it, pulled around to the other side, and came up.

“Bring the light! Somebody bring the light!” a man was yelling just above me. Apparently he’d caught the mooring line and saved himself from falling. I heard footsteps pounding on the wooden planking overhead. They’d be able to see me, unless I got back farther under the pier, but the tide was pushing me out, against the barge. I tried to hold onto the piling and see if there was another one farther in that I could reach, but the darkness in that direction was impenetrable. The current was too strong to swim against.

Light burst on the water around me. “There he is! There’s the creep!” somebody yelled. “There’s his hand!” I took a deep breath and went under, and immediately I was against the side of the barge again. I might swim alongside it for some distance, but when I surfaced I’d still be within range of that light. I did the only thing left. I swam straight down against the side of the barge. My ears began to hurt a little, so I knew I was below twelve feet when the plates bent inward around the turn of the bilge and there was only emptiness below me. It was frightening there in the pitch darkness, not knowing how wide she was or how much water there was under the flat bottom, but it wasn’t half as deadly as the three goons back there on the wharf. There was no turning back, anyway; the current was already carrying me under. I kicked hard, and felt the back of my head scrape along the bottom plates.

Then there was mud under my hands. For a moment I almost panicked; then I regained presence of mind enough to know that the only chance I had was to keep on going straight ahead. If I turned now I’d never get out. Even if I didn’t lose all sense of direction and get lost completely, I’d never be able to swim back up against the current. I kicked ahead. The water shoaled a little more; my knees were in mud now, with my back scraping along the bottom of the barge.

Suddenly there was only water below me and I was going faster. My lungs began to hurt. I passed the turn of the bilge and shot upward. My head broke surface at last, and I inhaled deeply—once, twice, and then I went under again just as the light burst across the water not ten feet 0ff to my left. They had run across the barge and were searching this side. I stayed under, kicking hard and letting the tide carry me. When I surfaced again I was some fifty yards away. They were still throwing the light around and cursing. I began swimming across the current toward the dark line of the beach. In a little while