I ignored the alcoholic din from below, and I watched the mouth of the channel approach rapidly. I found myself hoping that the seamanship of the crash boat"s crew and commander was a faithful indication of their marksmanship.
Suddenly Peter Daly flew up the ladder to confront me. His face was pink with anger and his moustache tried to bristle its silky hairs. His mouth worked for a moment before he could speak.
"You gave them the liquor, Fletcher. Oh, you crafty b.a.s.t.a.r.d." "Me?" I asked indigriantly. "I wouldn"t do a thing like that."
"They"re drunk as pigs - all of them," he shouted, then he turned and looked over the stern. The crash boat was a mile behind us, and the distance was increasing.
"You are up to something," he shrilled at me, and groped in the side pocket of his silk jacket. At that moment we came level with the entrance to the channel.
I hit both throttles wide open, and Dancer bellowed and hurled herself forward.
Still groping in his pocket, Daly was thrown off balance. He staggered backwards, still shouting.
I spun the wheel to full right lock, and Dancer whirled like a ballet dancer. Daly changed the direction of his stagger, thrown wildly across the deck he came up hard ill against the side rail as Dancer leaned over steeply in her turn. At that moment Daly dragged a small nickelled-silver automatic from his side pocket. It looked like a .25, the type ladies carry in their handbags.
I left Dancer"s wheel for an instant. Stooping, I got my hand on Daly"s ankles and lifted sharply. "Leave us now, comrade," I said as he went backwards over the rail, falling twelve feet, striking the lower deck rail a glancing blow and then splashing untidily into the water alongside.
I darted back to the wheel, catching Dancer"s head before she could pay off, and at the same time stamping three times on the deck.
As I lined Dancer up for the entrance I heard the shouts of conflict in the saloon below, and winced as a machinegun fired with a sound like ripping cloth. - Barrapp - and bullets exploded out through the deck behind me, leaving a jagged hole edged with white splinters. At least they were fired at the roof, and were unlikely to have hit either Angelo or Chubby.
Just before I entered the coral portals, I glanced back once more.
The crash boat still lumbered along a mile behind, while Daly"s head bobbed in the churning white wake. I wondered if they would reach him before the sharks did.
Then there was no more time for idle speculation. As Dancer dashed headlong into the channel I was appalled by the task I had set her.
I could have leant over and touched coral outcrops on each hand, and I could see the sinister shape of more coral lurking below the shallow turbulent waters ahead. The waters had expended most of their savagery on the long twisting run through the channel, but the farther in we went the wilder they would become, making Dancer"s response to the helm just that much more unpredictable.
The first bend in the channel showed ahead, and I put Dancer to it. She came around willingly, swishing her bottom, and with only a trifling yaw that pushed her outwards towards the menacing coral.
As I straightened her into the next stretch, Chubby came swarming up the ladder. He was grinning hugely. Only two things put him into that sort of mood - and one of them was a good punch up. He had skinned his right knuckle.
"All quiet below, Harry. Angelo"s looking after them." He glanced around. "Where"s the policeman?"
"He went for a swim." I did not take my attention from the channel. "Where is the crash boat? What are they doing?"
Chubby peered across at her. "No change. It doesn"t seem to have sunk in yet - hold on, though2 his voice changed, yes, there they go. They are manning the deck gun.$ We drove on swiftly down the channel, and I risked a quick glance backwards. At that instant I saw the long streak of white cordite smoke blow like a feather from the three-pounder, and an instant later there was the sharp crack of shot pa.s.sing high overhead, followed immediately by the flat report of the shot.
"Ready for it now, Harry. Left-hander coming up."
We swept into the next turn, and the next round fell short, bursting in a shower of fragment and blue smoke on one of the coral heads fifty yards off our beam.
I coaxed Dancer smoothly into the turn, and as we went into A another sh.e.l.l fell in our wake, lifting a tall and graceful column, of white water high above the bridge. The following wind blew the spray over us.
We were halfway through now, and the waves that rushed to meet us were six feet high and angry with the restraint enforced upon them by the walls of coral.
The guncrew of the crash boat were making alarmingly erratic practice. A round burst five hundred yards astern, then the next went between Chubby and me, a stunning blaze of pa.s.sing shot that sent me reeling in the backwash of disrupted air.
"Here"s the neck now," Chubby called anxiously and my spirit quailed as I saw how the channel narrowed and how bridge-high b.u.t.tresses of coral guarded it.
It seemed impossible that Dancer would pa.s.s through so narrow an opening.
"Here we go, Chubby, cross your fingers," and, still under full throttle, I put Dancer at the neck. I could see him grasping the rail with both hands, and I expected the stainless steel to bend with the strength of his grip.
We were halfway through when we hit, with a jarring rending crash.
Dancer lurched and hesitated.
At the same moment another sh.e.l.l burst alongside. It showered the bridge with coral chips and humming steel fragments, but I hardly noticed it as I tried to ease Dancer through the gap.
I sheered off the wall, and the tearing sc.r.a.ping sound ran along our starboard side. For a moment we jammed solidly, then another big green wave raced down on us, lifting us free of the coral teeth and we were through the neck. Dancer lunged ahead.
"Go below, Chubby," I shouted. "Check if we holed the hull."
Blood was dripping from a fragment scratch on his chin, but he dived down the ladder.
With another stretch of open water ahead, I could glance back at the crash boat. She was almost obscured by an intervening block of coral, but she was still firing rapidly and wildly. She seemed to have heaved to at the entrance to the channel, probably to pick up Daly - but I knew she would not attempt to follow us now. It would take her four hours to work her way round to the main channel beyond the Old Men.
The last turn in the channel came up ahead, and again Dancer"s hull touched coral; the sound of it seemed to tear into my own soul. Then at last we burst out into the deep pool in the back of the main reef, a circular arena of deep water three hundred yards across, fenced in by coral walls and open only through the Gunfire Break to the wild surf of the Indian Ocean.
Chubby appeared at my shoulder once more. "Tight as a mouse"s ear, Harry. Not taking on a drop." Silently I applauded my darling.
Now for the first time we were in full view of the gun crew half a mile away across the reef, and my turn into the pool presented Dancer to them broadside. As though they sensed that this was their last chance they poured shot after shot at us.
It fell about us in great leaping spouts, too close to allow me any lat.i.tude of decision. I swung Dancer again, aimed her at the narrow break, and let her race for the gap in Gunfire Reef.
I committed her and when we had pa.s.sed the point of no return, I felt my belly cramp up with horror as I looked ahead through the gap to the open sea. It seemed as though the whole ocean was rearing up ahead of me, gathering itself to hurl down upon the frail little vessel like some rampaging monster.
"Chubby," I called hollowly. "Will you look at that."
"Harry,"he whispered, "this is a good time to pray."
And Dancer ran out bravely to meet this Goliath of the sea.
It came up, humping monstrous shoulders as it charged, higher and higher still it rose, a green wall and I could hear it rustling - like wildfire in dry gra.s.s.
Another shot pa.s.sed close overhead but I hardly noticed it, as Dancer -threw up her head and began to climb that mountainous wave.
It was turning pale green along the crest high above, beginning to curl, and Dancer went up as though she were on an elevator.
The deck canted steeply, and we clung helplessly to the rail.
"She"s going over backwards," Chubby shouted, as she began to stand on her tail. "She"s turtling, man!"
"Go through her," I called to Dancer. "Cut through the green!"
and as though she heard me she lunged with her sharp prow into the curl of the wave an instant before it could fall upon us and crush the hull.
It came aboard us in a roaring green horror, solid sheets of it swept Dancer from bows to stern, six feet deep, and she lurched as though to a mortal blow.
Then suddenly we burst out through the back of the wave, and below us was a gaping valley, a yawning abyss into which Dancer hurled herself, falling free, a gut-swooping drop down into the trough.
We hit with a sickening crash that seemed to stun her, and which threw Chubby and me to the deck. But as I dragged myself up again, Dancer shook herself free of the tons of water that had come aboard, and she ran on to meet the next wave.
It was smaller, and Dancer beat the curl and porpoised over her.
"That"s my darling," I shouted to her and she picked up speed, taking the third wave like a steeplechaser. Somewhere close another three-pound sh.e.l.l cracked the sky, but then we were out and running for the long horizon of the ocean and I never heard another shot.
The guard who had pa.s.sed out in the c.o.c.kpit from an excess of Scotch whisky must have been washed overboard by the giant wave, for we never saw him again. The other three we left on a small island thirty miles north of St. Mary"s where I knew there was water in a brackish well, and which would certainly be visited by fishermen from the mainland.
They had sobered by that time, and were all inflicted with nasty hangovers. They made three forlorn figures on the beach as we ran southwards into the dusk. It was dark when we crept into Grand Harbour. I picked up moorings, not tying up to the wharf at Admiralty. I did not want Dancer"s glaring injuries to become a subject of speculation around the island.
Chubby and Angelo went ash.o.r.e in the dinghy - but I was too exhausted to make the effort, and dinnerless I collapsed across the double bunk in the master cabin and slept without moving until Judith woke me after nine in the morning. Angelo had sent her down with a dinner pail of fish cakes and bacon.
"Chubby and Angelo gone up to Missus Eddy"s to buy some stores they need to repair the boat," she told me. "They"ll be down soon now."
I wolfed the breakfast and went to shave and shower. When I returned she was still there, sitting on the edge of the bunk. She clearly had something to discuss.
She brushed away my clumsy efforts at dressing my wound, and had me sit while she worked on it.
"Mister Harry, you aren"t going to get my Angelo killed or jailed, are you?" she demanded. "If you go on like this, I"m going to make him come ash.o.r.e."
"That"s great, Judith." I laughed at her concern. "Why don"t you send him across to Rawano for three years, while you sit here."
"That"s not kind, Mister Harry." "Life is not very kind, Judith," I told her more gently. "Angelo and I are both doing the best we can. just to keep my boat afloat, I"ve got to take a few chances. Same with Angelo. He told me that he"s saved enough to buy you a nice little house up near the church. He got the money by running with me."
She was silent while she finished the dressing, and when she would have turned to go I took her hand and drew her back. She would not look at me, until I took her chin and lifted her face. She was a lovely child, with great smoky eyes and a smoothly silken skin.
"Don"t fuss yourself, Judith. Angelo is like a kid brother to me.
I"ll look after him."
She studied my face a long moment. "You really mean that, don"t you?" she asked.
"I really do." "I believe you," she said at last, and she smiled. Her teeth were very white against the golden amber skin. "I trust you." Women are always saying that to me. "I trust you." So much for feminine intuition.
"You name one of your kids for me, hear?"
The first one, Mister Harry." Her smile blazed and her dark eyes flashed. That"s a promise."
They do say that when you fall from a horse you should immediately ride him again - so as not to lose your nerve, Mister Harry." Fred c.o.ker sat at his desk in the, travel agency, behind him a poster of a beefeater and Big Ben - "England Swings", it said. We had just discussed at great length our mutual concern at Inspector Peter Daly"s perfidious conduct, though I suspected that Fred c.o.ker"s concern was considerably less than -mine. He had collected his commission in advance and n.o.body had put his head in a noose, nor had they almost wrecked his boat. We were now discussing the subject of whether or not our business arrangement should continue.
"They also say, Mr. c.o.ker, that a man with his b.u.t.tocks hanging out of the holes in his trousers should not be too fussy," I said, and c.o.ker"s spectacles glittered with satisfaction. He nodded his head.
"And that, Mister Harry, is probably the wiser of the two sayings," he agreed.
"I"ll take anything, Mr. c.o.ker. Body, box or sticks. just one thing, the cost of dying has gone up to ten thousand dollars a run - all in advance."
"Even at that price, we"ll find work for you," he promised, and I realized I had been working cheaply before.
"Soon," I insisted.
"Very soon," he agreed. "You are fortunate. I do not think that Inspector Daly will be returning to St. Mary"s now. You will save the commission usually payable there."
"He owes me that at least," I agreed.
I made three night runs in the next six weeks. Two body carries, and a box job - all below the river into Portuguese waters. The bodies were both singles, silent black men dressed in jungle fatigues, and I took them far south, deep penetrations. They waded ash.o.r.e on remote beaches and I wondered briefly upon what unholy missions they travelled - how much pain and death would arise from those secret landings.
The box job involved eighteen long wooden crates with Chinese markings. We picked up from a submarine out in the channel, and dropped off in a river-mouth, unloading into pairs of dugout canoes lashed together for stability. We spoke to no one and n.o.body challenged us.
They were milk runs and I cleared eighteen thousand dollars - enough to carry me and my crew through the offseason in the style to which we were accustomed. More important, the intervals of quiet and rest were sufficient to heal my wounds and give me back my strength. At first I lay for hours in the hammock under the palms, reading or sleeping. Then as it came back to me, I swam and fished and sun-baked, went for oysters and crayfish - until I was hard and lean and sunbrowned again.
The wound healed into a thickened and irregular cicatrice, tribute to Macnab"s surgical skills, it curled around my chest and on to my back like an angry purple dragon. In one thing he had been correct, the ma.s.sive damage to my upper left arm left it stiff and weakened. I could not lift my elbow above shoulder-level, and I lost my t.i.tle in Indian wrestling to Chubby in the bar of the Lord Nelson. However, I hoped that swimming and regular exercise would strengthen it.
As my strength returned so did my curiosity and sense of adventure. I began dreaming about the canvas-wrapped package off Big Gull Island. In one dream I swam down and opened the package - it contained a tiny feminine figure, the size of a Dresden doll, a golden mermaid with Sister May"s lovely face and a truly startling bosom, the tail was the graceful sickle shape of a marlin"s. The little mermaid smiled shyly and held out her hand to me. On her palm lay a shiny silver shilling.
"s.e.x, money and billfish--2 I thought when I woke, "-good old uncomplicated Harry, real Freud food." I knew then that pretty soon I would be going for Big Gull Island.
It was very late in the season before I could prevail on Fred c.o.ker to arrange a straight fishing charter for me, and it turned sour as cheap wine. The party consisted of two overweight, flabby German industrialists with fat bejewelled wives. I worked hard for them, and put both men into fish.
The first was a good black marlin, but the party screwed down on his stardrag, freezing the reel while the fish was still green and crazy to run. It lifted the German"s huge backside out of the seat, and before I could release the stardrag for him, it had my three hundred dollar rod down on the gunwale. The fibre-gla.s.s rod snapped like a matchstick.
The other member of the party, after losing two decent fish, panted and sweated three hours over a baby blue marlin. When he finally brought it to the gaff, I could hardly bring myself to put the steel in, and I was too ashamed to hang it on Admiralty. We took the photographs on board Dancer and I smuggled it ash.o.r.e wrapped in a tarpaulin. Like Fred c.o.ker I also have a reputation to preserve. The German industrialist, however, was so delighted by his prowess that he slipped an extra five hundred dollars into my avaricious little paw. I told him it was a truly magnificent fish which was a thousand-dollar lie. I always give good value. Then the wind backed into the south , the temperature of the water in the channel dropped four degrees and the fish were gone. For ten days -we hunted far north but it was over, another season was past.
we stripped and cleaned all the billfish equipment and laid it away in thick yellow grease. I pulled Dancer up on to the slip at the fuelling basin and we went, over her hull, cleaning it down, re-working the temporary patches I had put on the injuries she had received at Gunfire Reef.
Then we painted her until she glistened, sleek and lovely, before we refloated her and took her out to moorings. There we worked lackadaisically on her upper works, stripping varnish, sandpapering, re-varnishing, checking out the electrical system, re-soldering a connection here, replacing wiring there.
I was in no hurry. It would be three weeks before my next charter arrived - an expedition of marine biologists from a Canadian university.
In the meantime the days were cooler, and I was feeling the old glow of good health and bodily well-being again. I dined at Government House, sometimes as often as once a week, and each time I had to tell the full story of the shoots out with Guthrie and Materson. President Biddle knew the story by heart and corrected me if I omitted a single detail. It always ended with the President crying excitedly, "Show them your scar, Mister Harry," and I had to open the starched front of my dress shirt at the dinner table.
They were good lazy days. The island life drifted placidly by.
Peter Daly never returned to St. Mary"s - and at the end of six weeks, Wally Arorews was promoted to acting Inspector and commanding officer of the police force. One of his first acts was to return to me my FN carbine.
This quiet time was spiced by the secret tingle of antic.i.p.ation which I felt. I knew that one day soon I was going back to Big Gull Island and the piece of unfinished business that lay there in the shallow limpid waters - and I teased myself with the knowledge.
Then one Friday evening I was rounding out the week with my crew in the bar of the Lord Nelson. Judith was with us, having replaced the flock that had previously gathered around Angelo on Friday nights. She was good for him, he no longer drunk to the morbid stage.
Chubby and I had just begun the first duet of the evening and were keeping within a few beats of each other when Marion slipped into the seat beside-me.
I put one arm around her shoulders and held my tankard to her lips while she drank thirstily, but the distraction caused me to forge even further ahead of Chubby in the song.
Marion worked on the switchboard at the Hilton Hotel. She was a pretty little dan with a s.e.xy pugface and long straight black hair. It was she whom Mike Guthrie had used for a punch-bag so long ago.
When Chubby and I straggled to the end of the chorus, Marion told me, "There is a lady asking for you, Mister Harry."