The Evangeline Read Online Free PDF Page B

there.’
    Roberts was thinking of something else. ‘There were six survivors, and clothing for eight others. Fourteen people were in that lifeboat—fourteen!—but only six survived. And you found no food and no water—no provisions of any kind?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘How long had they been out there? How many days again?’
    ‘We picked them up the twenty-ninth day of July. From what I gather, the Evangeline went down the nineteenth of June. Forty days.’
    ‘Forty days in a lifeboat … What was the capacity of that lifeboat, Captain? How many people was it supposed to hold?’
    ‘Eight; ten at the most. How he kept her afloat with fourteen, in seas like that, I’ll never know.’
    ‘Yes, but there were only six left when you found it—and the remains of one other.You’re aware that the Evangeline went down off the coast of Africa.You’ve been advised of the general location. What is the approximate distance from there to where you found them, Captain Marlowe and the other survivors?’
    ‘A little more than a thousand miles.’
    ‘In forty days. Roughly twenty-five miles a day, in an open boat, during winter in the Southern Hemisphere. And you found no food, no water, but the clothing of eight other people, all of whom—or, rather, all but one of whom—seem to have disappeared without a trace. Do you think they each of them decided to take their own lives, end this ordeal of hunger and thirst and exposure to the elements by jumping into the sea, but out of consideration for the others did it naked so their clothing could be of some use?’
    ‘Objection, your Honour!’William Darnell had risen slowly to his feet. ‘There must be a question in there somewhere, your Honour, but I’m afraid I can’t find it, and I doubt the witness can either.’
    Roberts reddened. ‘I’m sorry, your Honour; perhaps I got a little carried away. In a case like this, it’s difficult not to.’ He exchanged a glance with Darnell, remembering what they had talked about in private, before turning back to the witness.‘No one wants to be here, Mr Balfour. But there isn’t any choice. Let me ask the question this way: do you have any doubt that there were fourteen people in that lifeboat and that eight of them are dead?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Do you have any knowledge as to how they died?’
    ‘Direct knowledge? No, none; I was not there.’
    ‘But you do have direct knowledge of how one of them died. You saw the body; the head had been cut off. Isn’t that correct?’
    ‘That isn’t how he died.’
    Roberts had just turned to the jury. He immediately looked back. ‘Then you do know how he died?’
    ‘No, only that he was already dead when the head was taken off.’
    ‘And why would anyone do that?’ he asked, eyeing him cautiously. ‘ Someone dies, but instead of throwing the body overboard, to make more room for the others, the body is left there—but the head is removed,and the hands and feet as well.Why do you imagine that was done, Captain Balfour? What purpose would it serve?’
    Balfour tensed. His eyes drew back until a bare glimmer of their bluish light could be seen.
    ‘I could not rightly say. All I know is what I found.’
    ‘And just to be sure that we have not misunderstood, what you found were six survivors, what was left of a seventh, and the clothing of the deceased and seven others. And there was no food and no water. When you say that, Captain Balfour, do you mean that there was no sign that they had ever had any?’
    ‘No, when they started out—when they were first in the lifeboat—they had a little water and they had some food. Not much: a few tins of beef, a gallon or two of water. The empty containers were still there. They used them to catch what rainwater they could.’
    ‘Given what they had, was it your impression when you rescued them that they had just run out?’
    ‘What they had might have lasted a few days, a week at most.’
    ‘Fourteen people?’ asked Roberts, his voice filled