Free The Cannibals by Iain Lawrence Page A

voice.
    “Hallo?” it asked. “Tom, are you there?”
    It was Boggis. He came right up to the longboat with a flurry of birds at his feet. He towered above us all, yet somehow seemed like a small boy. “Tom, you ain't leaving already, are you? Please take me with you. Don't leave me here.” He fell to his knees. “It's haunted, Tom. We can hear the dead men crying.”
    Mr. Mullock cursed him. “You lolloping thick-wit. It's the birds you hear. Pull yourself together.”
    “It ain't the birds; it's ghosts,” said Boggis. “We can hear the dead men rattling in their graves.”
    “The undertow!” cried Mr. Mullock. I could see by hisface that he'd spent many nights thinking of ghosts, telling himself that the sounds from his cave were only the stones rumbling in the surf. “Don't talk of dead men to me.”
    “They're calling out,” said Boggis. “They're calling to the boat, and the boat's calling back. It's full of spirits here, Tom.”
    “You can 'ear a boat?” cried Mr. Mullock. “Already you can 'ear it?”
    “Plain as day,” said Boggis. “The spirits are wailing out there.”
    “Lads, that's it,” said Mr. Mullock. “Launch the boat; we're leaving!”
    “It isn't finished,” I said.
    “Well, we are. Hah! We're all finished, boy, if we're not off this island.”
    “Take me with you!” pleaded Gaskin. He turned from me to Mr. Mullock. He threw himself at the man's feet and took hold of his ankles. “I beg you.”
    “Let me go!”
    “Please.”
    “All right,” said Mr. Mullock. “All right!”
    I believe he would have said anything at all to make Gaskin let go. The moment the boy's arms unwrapped, he stepped away and shouted a string of commands. “Get the water. Get the mast. Get the fish and oil, and for the love of God get the blasted boat afloat.”
    Poor Boggis must have thought all the commands had been aimed at him. Everything he could find, he snatched up and threw in the boat. The oars and the tiller, the pins and therudder, the bags of turtle skin and the mast with its sail; all of it went into the longboat. Then Boggis ran to the stern and pulled on the transom.
    It had taken four of us to haul the boat up, but Boggis moved it on his own. He tugged and gasped, and tugged again. Then he stopped to catch his breath.
    And I heard the junglies coming.
    It was indeed a ghostly sound. It was far away, very faint and quiet. There were no words that I could make out, only a chant of many voices, a sound that swelled and fell away like the rolling of the waves. In each hush was a rumbling thump. A thump and a swirl of water.
    “What's that?” asked Midgely.
    “They beat time with their paddles,” said Mr. Mullock. “They never tire; they never stop.”
    I had no thoughts right then for the skeletons or the Gypsy. I only wanted off the island.
    We pushed the boat together, all at once. It skidded down the beach and into the sea stern first. There was a splash and a plume of spray, and the boat was floating. But almost on the instant, a puddle of water appeared in the bottom.
    “It leaks,” I said.
    “Never mind that,” said Mr. Mullock. “A boat's like a Cheapstreet strumpet; a few drops and she's tight. Now get aboard, Midgely, and mind you help the stupid one. The lout can row. Tom, you'll push us clear.”
    “Why me?”
    “Blast you, boy!” he shouted. “Do you have to question me at every turn? Would you have the blind boy push instead?”
    “Golly, I don't mind,” said Midgely. “It's nothing to me to get me feet wet, Mr. Mullock.”
    “You'll sit where you are,” said Mr. Mullock. He shoved me aside and got into the boat.
    I would never know if he meant to leave me on the island. I suspected then that he did, and later I became almost certain. But at the time it didn't matter, for the birds suddenly lifted in a mass as shadowy figures came running down the hill.
    “It's the junglies!” shouted Early.
    Out sprang Mr. Mullock. Nimble enough he'd been before, but