An Island Called Moreau by Brian W. Aldiss Page A

and let his arm go. I seized him under the armpits and heaved at him.
    What I needed was more purchase. For that, I had to get further through the cab and grasp his torso. Against myself, I was forced up to the surface.
    Those dark and alien faces whirled round me. What a racket they made—or else it was the blood hammering in my arteries. Dizzily, I gulped air, then plunged for the third time, right down through the cab.
    This time, I got my arms round Hans and my feet against the caterpillar wheels. I heaved and tugged and slipped. He was still struggling. Still I could not budge him. With my head in the murk and a vague square shadow of light above me, I heaved … and heaved again, unable to understand why he did not now float free. With my lungs bursting, I kicked down further and found that his left leg was pinned between crane and lagoon floor.
    When I returned to the world of sunlight, the Master loomed above me on the broken wall.
    â€œGet him up, you must get him up, Cal!”
    George was up to his hocks in the water, his black gaze devouring me. “You fish me out water—please!” Much later, reviewing the scene, recalling what George had said as he crouched there with his great neckless head thrust forward, I asked myself, Just a confusion with pronouns or a genuine identification with the drowning man?
    But the one creature there with real presence of mind was Foxy. He pushed through the melee with a length of rope from the building site. He threw one end to me, with a curious glance of triumph and mistrust from his shifty red eyes.
    â€œTake the other end, Dart,” I called. Then I dived once more.
    It was no problem to tie the rope about Hans’ chest. His eyes still stared, his hair streamed upward, tendrils of his beard drifted into his open mouth. Slithering in the muck on the floor of the lagoon, I jerked on the rope and kicked out for the surface.
    Dart heaved at the rope. The rabble, despite their awe of him, also pulled. It was a ghastly tug-of-war, during which I had visions of Hans floating up with one leg missing. But he never floated up at all.
    Twice more I dived to the lagoon floor. His leg and foot were crushed between the crane and one of the slabs of rock thrown in to build the harbor.
    At last I pulled myself out of the water.
    â€œHe’s trapped. You’re going to have to move the crane,” I told Dart. “Harness up the two landing craft with hawsers. If you can shift it a few inches, Hans will come free. Speed it up!”
    They did as I suggested. The operation was a shambles. What should have taken ten minutes, not more, took over an hour. Eventually, the crane was got to move, and we hauled poor Hans up. Dart laid about him with the whip while I applied the kiss of life. No response.
    We emptied a gallon of water out of his lungs and I tried again. It did not work. Hans Maastricht was dead.
    I squatted by his pale body, looking round at those who had known him. I was getting to recognize many individuals; not merely George, giving me his black inscrutable stare, Bernie, pleasingly staying as near as he could, Foxy, sneering over some secret pleasure, but several others—an old gray Swine Woman, a heavy Horse-Hippo with slow tread, a pair of Bull Men, very morose. They had enjoyed the excitement; most of them were beginning to back away, content to leave the sprawled body where it lay.
    Dart pointed his whip at the two Bull Men. “You two—carry the body to HQ. Pick it up. Quickly!”
    They seized Hans’ body by the shoulders, dragging it slowly along without expression beyond a habitual one of grievance, letting the dead man’s heels trail along the ground. Dart strode on ahead. George trotted about beside the Bull Men, patting the body, prodding it, as if unable to believe that life had fled. The rest of the Beast People milled about and started to trail home. Foxy had disappeared.
    The body was brought to a small surgery