The Evolution of Fear (Claymore Straker #2) - Paul E. Hardisty Page 0,20

friend, never hear the stories of his life, the choices, the history, the losses and victories. Such isolation. We’re not islands, he thought. We’re fucking comets, hurtling through space, trailing the fiery plasma of our own destruction, at the mercy of our own fearful wanderings, ephemeral homeless visitors. And there, moving closer, was the vehicle of his peregrination. Saint Exupéry had it right, disappearing in his P38 over the Med, burning up in his own fiery chunk of the cosmos.

‘She’s called Flame,’ said Punk as they drew alongside. ‘Named her after Negley Farson’s boat. Heard of him?’

Clay shook his head, no.

‘The Way of a Transgressor. Great book. You’d like it. There’s a copy on board, I think.’

Clay grabbed the toe rail, pulled them close. Her hull was wood; the decking, cabin, cockpit, all made of gleaming, cared-for teak.

‘She was built in Bombay in 1965,’ said Punk. ‘The hull is one-and-a-quarter-inch planking all around, two-by-three-inch frames every fourteen inches. All teak. You could run a Centurion tank over her, wouldn’t bother her in the slightest. Ever sailed a ketch?’

Clay shook his head. His sailing experience had come as a boy, summers off Durban with his mother’s brother, a keen ocean racer. He’d crewed several races, learned a lot. On his last leave before jump school he had raced from Durban to Cape Town with his uncle. That was the last time he’d sailed.

‘The mizzen is a treat, once you know how to use it, especially in rough weather. Experiment with it, you’ll figure it out.’

Clay tied off the dinghy’s bow line and climbed aboard. The cockpit was small, functional. The decking gleamed in the flat light, the fittings looked as if they had been polished only hours ago. This boat was loved, adored.

Punk hoisted himself aboard, swung his leg over the lifeline, whispering something to himself, or was it to this object of his affection? A lover’s greeting, an invocation. Punk unlocked the main hatch, slid open the gangway cover and ushered Clay below.

It was like stepping inside a museum, a shrine to nautical tradition. Oiled teak, brass Clay could see himself in, his face warped and disfigured, copper. Heavy brass instruments adorned the bulkhead panelling, a ship’s chronometer running to time, a thermometer, an elegant barometer that read one thousand and one millibars. Books lined both sides of the cabin behind teak rails. A fully equipped galley, navigation station with new electronics. It was all here.

Clay stood for a moment and listened to the water rippling against the hull, surrounding him, amniotic. He felt like an intruder, being shown things he should not see, Gyges hiding in the shadows, watching Candaules’ queen undressing, the thin silk of her dress falling across her breasts and over her round hips, pillowing to the floor, Punk the proud, soon-to-be-murdered king. A shiver ran through him, cold like the October wind moaning outside.

‘This was going to be my escape,’ said Punk. ‘Estelle and me. Get out, go live in the Greek islands. Never worked out that way.’ He pulled open the engine compartment, revealing a beautifully maintained diesel engine. ‘There’s a full tank of fuel, a hundred gallons of fresh water in two tanks, fore and aft, plenty of food, as long as you don’t mind baked beans and sardines.’

Clay smiled. ‘I can’t take her,’ he said.

Punk turned, stood there with the foam-insulated engine panel in his hands. ‘I’m not coming down from twenty,’ he said. ‘The deal’s struck.’

‘It’s not the money, broer. You got anything else?’

Punk looked out the starboard porthole at the building weather. ‘Nothing that’s going to survive what’s coming. If you’re set on going, this is the best you can do. Believe me.’

Clay could see what the boat meant to this old guy, the love he’d poured into her, the years of faithful care, the hoped for adventures.

‘Look, guv,’ said Punk, ‘my friends are going to be here soon. It’s all in motion now, as we used to say back in the day. Nothing for it now but to push on.’

He was ex-army, Clay was sure now. Maybe a para like him. He wasn’t going to ask, just like Punk wasn’t going to tell.

Punk produced a set of keys, flicked them by like pages in an unwritten book. Engine ignition, padlocks for the hatch cover, starboard cockpit locker, safe under the port saloon locker. Clay took the keys and pocketed them. Sails forward, full complement, labelled. Extra sheets and warps in the starboard cockpit locker. Self-steering gear. Tool kit, emergency