Reap the Wild Wind Page #9

Probably a hand-pumped

horn worked by a crank.

Yes. Pumping his own wind, too, likely.

I know it's steam! Well,

suppose it is the Southern Cross.

Jack knows what he's doing.

He can pick a channel.

LOXI:
But it isn't. It's the

Saturn, or some other paddle coaster.

[Conch horn blowing]

I suppose you know whose conch that is?

That's Cutler's Faicon.

Yes. You don't need to smell the

bait to know somebody's going fishing.

The steamer's safe. She's got power!

Wind or no wind, she's not drifting around

helpless like a cracker box, like us.

SAILOR:
No bottom, sir.

[Foghorn blowing louder]

Go on, say it.

We'd be in Havana except for what I did.

I'm glad I did it and I'd do it again!

- Because with all my heart

I believe in him. - Yeah.

Hark, ye.

[Faint engine hum]

Hark, ye!

[Foghorn blowing]

- Can you see her?

- You'll be seeing her soon enough.

Sound your sea horn, Sam!

[Sea horn blowing]

[Suspenseful instrumental music]

Any minute now.

JACK:
More steam. SAILOR: Aye, sir.

Drive her.

That'll be the Faicon's signal.

- Sounded to me like...

- Heave the lead!

Heave it is, sir.

[Foghorn blowing loudly]

[Tense instrumental music]

[Ship's bell dinging]

More steam you want? She's

shaking her caulks out now.

- You, Salt Meat.

- Yeah?

Check the forward well,

she must be making water.

Jughead, get over there!

[Slow instrumental music]

[Door creaking open]

[Foghorn blowing]

There she rises. Laying

straight for the reef.

The Southern Cross.

[Suspenseful instrumental music]

[Foghorn blowing]

LOXI:
No. It can't be.

Oh, Steve.

[Suspenseful instrumental

music intensifies]

Give me that horn, Sam.

[Sea horn blowing loudly]

[Dramatic instrumental music]

It's going astride.

Jack! Hard astern, Jack!

The reef! You're going to strike!

[Crashing]

[Drusilla screams]

[Water gushing]

[Men shouting]

Pretty work. She's plastered on the

reef like a herring on a biscuit.

JACK:
Man the lifeboats!

SAILOR:
Aye, aye, sir.

She's down by the head.

- She's a killed ship.

- Yeah.

There ain't nothing left

but to get her people off.

There's one thing left.

Arrest the man who

murdered his own command.

PHIL:
Stand by your boat tackle!

SAILOR:
Aye, aye, Capt. Phil.

Look after her.

STEVE:
Lower away!

SAILOR:
Aye, aye, sir.

[Crying] Capt. Phil, why

didn't he kill me instead?

And the night before you took

command of the Southern Cross...

did you or did you not

talk to King Cutler...

this same man who is now

conducting your defence?

Objection, Your Honour.

Mr. Cutler is defending

Capt. Stuart, not himself.

Your Honour, before

this case is finished...

I propose to throw the

shadow of the gallows...

over many in this room.

JUDGE:
The witness may answer.

Sure, I talked to King

Cutler. So have you.

[Crowd tittering]

Capt. Stuart, there are other able

skippers with ships in Rotten Row...

but you were the first to stand in defence

of the pirate wreckers that haunt these Keys.

I don't ask what unendurabie

circumstance drove you...

to join these men whom you must despise.

But I will ask the court for

ieniency in your behaif...

if you will join with me in

the destruction of these rats.

Tell us who was behind the

wrecking of the Southern Cross.

I'm not hiding behind anybody, Tolliver.

If you're trying to hang Cutler,

hang him for some other wreck.

Nobody gave any orders on

the Southern Cross but me.

You admit giving the order that

drove that ship at top speed...

through thick fog to sure destruction?

I was her skipper.

STEVE:
And who was your first mate?

Matthias Widgeon.

The same man who was first

mate of the wrecked Jubilee?

Yes.

Your witness, Mr. Cutler.

No questions.

That's all.

Call Capt. Phillip Philpott.

Capt. Philpott, please.

Adinarin, how did you

finally get home last night?

You go back to the house and look

after Mother. Tell her I'm all right.

Just when they're a-getting heated up.

STEVE:
You were an eyewitness to

the wreck of the Southern Cross?

How would you judge her speed?

Why, she come thrashing through the

fog there, fit to bust her ballast.

- How long have you known Capt. Stuart?

- Ever since Cutler wrecked the Jubilee.

I object to this scandalous attack!

JUDGE:
Strike out the answer.

In your opinion, could that wreck

have been anything but deliberate?

KING:
Object! JUDGE: Sustain.

- It was a typical King Cutler job.

- I said sustain!

I heard you, Will. Jehoshaphat.

I'm oniy answering the man's questions.

JUDGE:
Silence! STEVE: Your witness.

KING:
No questions. PHIL: No questions?

Man gets up here for nothing.

[Crowd laughs]

I ask you to remember that

a man is on trial here...

for the gravest offence

known to the sea.

Except that no ioss of life is shown...

this man, if guilty,

might well hang. Proceed.

I thank Your Honour. We

admit the defendant's error...

but you cannot convict a

captain for bad seamanship.

STEVE:
Your Honour...

we will show that behind the bad

seamanship lay a criminal conspiracy.

And will you also show why you

were waiting beside the reef...

when the Southern Cross went down?

Your Honour, if this man

is to go on as prosecutor...

the strange part which he himself has

played in this disaster cannot be ignored.

Why were you waiting beside the

reef that sank the Southern Cross?

It's in the testimony that Mr.

Tolliver's vessel fell becalmed.

Becalmed when the wind held till dawn?

He tells us he sailed all night, yet

he was only 15 miles on his course.

Why? He dares not answer.

Because the only living man who

could have foretold that wreck...

is the man who planned it!

Capt. Phil.

KING:
Gentlemen.

There are a thousand ways by

which conniving men may profit...

by the wrecking of their own ships.

KING:
And there stands a Charleston

sea lawyer who knows them all.

[Crowd murmuring]

He swindled his underwriters!

He swindled you...

as he lay at Satan Shoal to

gut the cargo of a ship...

he himself had wrecked!

- That cargo ain't been touched.

- Only because no diver will go down.

That ship hangs on the reef by a hair.

Your Honour, I demand an answer. Why

was Stephen Tolliver at that reef?

Mr. Tolliver, will you answer?

STEVE:
I will not. KING:

Of course he won't answer.

He can't.

[Crowd muttering]

If you please, Judge Marvin.

I can tell you why Mr. Tolliver

won't answer that question.

Miss Claiborne cannot

testify unless she is called.

Mr. Tolliver, do you wish Miss

Claiborne sworn as your witness?

I do not.

But he's charging Steve

with something he didn't do.

Your Honour, there is nothing

to be gained by calling her.

I call Miss Claiborne as

a witness for the court.

The reason the Ciaiborne didn't

reach Havana was that I disabled her.

You disabled her?

I parted the main beak

halyards with a wrecking axe.

Why?

Because I had faith in Jack Stuart.

Didn't Mr. Tolliver tell you that he believed

Stuart would wreck the Southern Cross?

Yes, sir, he did.

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