"Oh, Harry." Sherry"s face lit up. "You"ve given us the bad news - now stand by for the good."
"I could stand a little."
"You know Jimmy"s note on the letter - B. Mus?" I nodded.
"Bachelor of Music?"
"No, idiot - British Museum."
"I"m afraid you just lost me."
"I was discussing it with Uncle Dan. He recognized it immediately. It"s reference to a work in the library of the British Museum. He holds a reader"s card. He"s researching a book, and works there often."
"Could we ";2:+" get in there?"
"We"ll give it a college try."
I waited almost two hours beneath the vast golden and blue dome of the Reading Room at the British Museum, and the craving for a cheroot was like a vice around my chest.
I did not know what to expect - I had simply filled in the withdrawals form with Jimmy North"s reference number - so when at last the attendant laid a thick volume before me, I seized it eagerly.
It was a Secker and Warburg edition, first published in 1963. The author was a Doctor P.A. Ready and the t.i.tle was printed in gold on the spine: LEGENDARY AND LOST TREASURES OF THE WORLD.
I lingered over the closed book, teasing myself a little, and I wondered what chain of coincidence and luck had allowed Jimmy North to follow this paperchase of ancient clues. Had he read this book first in his burning obsession with wrecks and sea treasure and had he then stumbled on the batch of old letters? I would never know.
There were forty-nine chapters, each listing a separate item. I read carefully down the list.
There were Aztec treasures of gold, the plate and bullion of Panama, buccaneer h.o.a.rds, a lost goldmine in the Rockies of North America, a valley of diamonds in South Africa, treasure ships of the Armada, the Lutim bullion ship from which the famous Lutim Bell at Lloyd"s had been recovered, Alexandra the Great"s chariot of gold, more treasure ships both ancient and modern - from the Second World War to the sack of Troy, treasures of Mussolini, Prester John, Darius, Roman generals, privateers and pirates of Barbary and Coromandel. It was a vast profusion of fact and fancy, history and conjecture. The treasures of lost cities and forgotten civilizations, from Atlantis to the fabulous golden city of the Kalahari Desert - there was so much of it, and I did not know where to look.
With a sigh I turned to the first page, ducking the introduction and preface. I began to read.
By five o"clock I had skimmed through sixteen chapters which could not possibly relate to the Dawn Light and had read five others in depth and by this time I understood how Jimmy North could have been bitten by the romance and excitement of the treasure hunter. It was making me itchy also - these stories of great riches, abandoned, waiting merely to be gathered up by someone with the luck and fort.i.tude to ferret them out.
I glanced at the new j.a.panese watch with which I"d replaced my Omega, and hurried out of the ma.s.sive stone portals of the museum and crossed Great Russell Street to my rendezvous with Sherry. She was waiting in the crowded saloon bar of the Running Stag.
"Sorry, , I said, "I forgot the time."
"Come on." She grabbed my arm. "I"m dying of thirst and curiosity."
I gave her a pint of bitter for her thirst, but could only inflame her curiosity with the t.i.tle of the book. She wanted to send me back to the library, before I had finished my supper of ham and turkey from the carvery behind the bar, but I held out and managed to smoke half a cheroot before she drove me out into the cold.
I gave her the key to my room at the Windsor Arms, placed her in a cab and told her to wait for me there. Then I hurried back to the Reading Room.
The next chapter of the book was ent.i.tled "THE GREAT MOGUL AND THE TIGER THRONE OF INDIA."
It began with a brief historical introduction describing how Babur, descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan, the two infamous scourges of the ancient world, crossed the mountains into northern India and established the Mogul Empire. I recognized immediately that this fell within the area of my interest, the Dawn Light had been outward bound from that ancient continent.
The history covered the period of Babur"s ill.u.s.trious successors, Muslim rulers who rose to great power and influence, who built mighty cities and left behind such monuments to man"s sense of beauty as the Taj Mahal. Finally it described the decline of the dynasty, and its destruction in the first year of the Indian mutiny when the avenging British forces stormed and sacked the ancient citadel and fortress of Delhi - shooting the Mogul princes out of hand and throwing the old emperor Bahadur Shah into captivity.
Then abruptly the author switched his attention from the vast sweep of history.
In 1665 Jean Baptiste Tavernier, a French traveller and jeweller, visited the court of the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb. Five years later he published in Paris his celebrated Travek in the Orient. He seems to have won special favour from the Muslim Emperor, for he was allowed to enter the fabled treasure chambers of the citadel and to catalogue various items of special interest. Amongst these was a diamond which he named the "Great Mogul. "ravernier weighed this stone and listed its bulk at 280 carats. He described this paragon as possessing extraordinary fire and a colour as clear and white "as the great North Star of the heavens".
Tavernier"s host informed him that the stone had been recovered from the famed Golconda Mines in about 1650- and that the rough stone had been a monstrous 787 carats.
The cut of the stone was a distinctive rounded rose, but was not symmetrical - being proud on the one side. The stone has been unrecorded since that time and many believe that Tavernier actually saw the Koh-moor or the Orloff. However, it is highly improbable that such a trained observer and craftsman as Tavernier could have erred so widely in his weights and descriptions. The Koh-i-noor before it was recut in London weighed a mere 191 carats, and was certainly not a rose cut. The Orloff, although rose cut, was and is a symmetrical gem stone and weighs 199 carats. The descriptions simply cannot be mated with that of Tavernier, and all the evidence points to the existence of a huge white diamond that has dropped out of the known world.
In 1739 when Nadir Shah of Persia entered India and captured Delhi, he made no attempt to hold his conquest, but contented himself with vast booty, which included the Koh-i-noor diamond and the peac.o.c.k throne of Shah Jehan. It seems probable that the Great Mogul diamond was overlooked by the rapacious Persian and that after his withdrawal, Mohammed Shah the inc.u.mbent Mogul Emperor, deprived of his traditional throne, ordered the construction of a subst.i.tute. However, the existence of this new treasure was veiled in secrecy and although there are references to its existence in the native accounts, only one European reference can be cited.
The journal of the English Amba.s.sador to the Court of Delhi during the year of 1747, Sir Thomas Jenning, describes an audience granted by the Mogul Emperor at which he was "clad in precious silks and bedecked with flowers and jewels, seated upon a great throne of gold. The shape of the throne was as of a fierce tiger, with gaping jaws and a single glittering cyclopean eye. The body of the tiger was amazingly worked with all manner of precious stones. His majesty was gracious enough to allow me to approach the throne closely and to examine the eye of the tiger which he a.s.sured me was a great diamond descended from the reign of his ancestor Aurangzeb".
Was this Tavernier"s "Great Mogul" now incorporated into the "Tiger Throne of India"? If it was, then credence is given to a strange set of circ.u.mstances which must end our study of this lost treasure.
In 1857 on the 16th September, desperate street fighting filled the streets of Delhi with heaps of dead and wounded, and the outcome of the struggle hung in the balance as the British forces and loyal native troops fought to clear the city of the mutinous sepoys and seize the ancient fortress that dominated the city.
While the fighting raged within, a force of loyal native troops from 101st regiment under two European officers was ordered to cross the river and encircle the walls to seize the road to the north. This was in order to prevent members of the Mogul royal family or rebel leaders from escaping the doomed city.
The two European officers were Captain Matthew Long and Colonel Sir Roger Goodchildthe name leapt out of the page at me not only because someone had underlined it in pencil. In the margin, also in pencil, was one of Jimmy North"s characteristic exclamation marks. Master James"s disrespect for books included those belonging to such a venerable inst.i.tution as the British Museum. I found I was shaking again, and my cheeks felt hot with excitement. This was the last fragment missing from the puzzle. It was all here now and my eyes raced on across the page.
No one will ever know what happened on that night on a lonely road through the Indian jungle - but six months later, Captain Long and the Indian Subahdar, Ram Panat, gave evidence at the court martial of Colonel Goodchild.
They described how they had intercepted a party of Indian n.o.bles fleeing the burning city. The party included three Muslim priests and two princes of the royal blood. In the presence of Captain Long one of the princes attempted to buy their freedom by offering to lead the British officers to a great treasure, a golden throne shaped like a tiger and with a single diamond eye.
The officers agreed, and the princes led them into the forest to a jungle mosque. In the courtyard of the mosque were six bullock carts. The drivers had deserted, and when the British officers dismounted and examined the contents of these vehicles they proved indeed to contain a golden throne statue of a tiger. The throne had been broken down into four separate parts to facilitate transportation - hindquarters, trunk, forequarters and head. in the light of the lanterns these fragments nestled in beds of straw, blazing with gold and encrusted with precious and semi-precious stones.
Colonel Roger Goodchild then ordered that the princes and priests should be executed out of hand. They were lined up against the outer wall of the mosque and despatched with a volley of musketry. The Colonel himself walked amongst the fallen n.o.blemen administering the coup-degrace with his service revolver. The corpses were afterwards thrown into a well outside the walls of the mosque.
The two officers now separated, Captain Long with most of the native troops returning to the patrol of the city walls, while the Colonel, Subahdar Ram Panat and fifteen sepoys rode off with the bullock carts.
The Indian Subahdar"s evidence at the court martial described how they had taken the precious cargo westwards pa.s.sing through the British lines by the Colonel"s authority. They camped three days at a small native village. Here the local carpenter. and his two sons laboured under the Colonel"s direction to manufacture four st.u.r.dy wooden crates to hold the four parts of the throne. The Colonel in the meantime set about removing from the statue the stones and jewels that were set into the metal. The position of each was carefully noted on a diagram prepared by Goodchild and the stones were numbered and packed into an iron chest of the type used by army paymasters for the safekeeping of coin and specie in the field.
Once the throne and the stones had been packed into the four crates and iron chest, they were loaded once more on to the bullock carts and the journey towards the railhead at Allahabad was continued.
The luckless carpenter and his sons were obliged to join the convoy. The Subabdar recalled that when the road entered an area of dense forest, the Colonel dismounted and led -the three craftsmen amongst the trees. Six pistol shots rang out and the Colonel returned alone.
I broke off my reading for a few moments to reflect on the character of the gallant Colonel. I should have liked to introduce him to Manny Resnick, they would have had much in common. I grinned at the thought and read on.
The convoy reached Allahabad on the sixth day and the Colonel claimed military priority to place his five crates upon a troop train returning to Bombay. Having done this he and his small command rejoined the regiment at Delhi.
Six months later, Captain Long supported by the Indian Perty Officer, Ram Panat, brought charges against the commanding officer. We can believe that thieves had fallen out, Colonel Goodchild had perhaps decided that one share was better than three. Be that as it may, nothing has since given a clue to the whereabouts of the treasure.
The trial conducted in Bombay was a cause c&lyre and was widely reported in India and at home. However, the weakness of the prosecution"s case was that there was no booty to show, and dead men tell no tales.
The Colonel was found not guilty. However, the pressure of the scandal left him no choice but to resign his commission and return to London. If he managed somehow to take with him the Great Mogul diamond and the golden tiger throne, his subsequent career gave no evidence of his possessing great wealth. In partnership with a notorious lady of the town he opened a gaming house in the Bayswater Road which soon acquired an unsavoury reputation. Colonel Sir Roger Goodchild died in 187 1, probably from tertiary syphilis contracted during his remarkable career in India. His death revived stories of the fabulous throne, but these soon subsided for lack of hard facts and the secret pa.s.sed on with that sporting gentleman.
Perhaps we should have headed this chapter - "The Treasure That Never Was".
"Not on, c.o.c.k," I thought happily. "It was - and is." And I began once more at the beginning of the story, but this time I made careful notes for Sherry"s benefit.
She was waiting for me when I returned, sitting wakefully in the armchair by the window, and she flew at me when I entered.
"Where have you been?"she demanded, "I"ve been sitting here all evening eating my heart out with curiosity."
"You are not going to believe it," I told her, and I thought she might do me a violence.
"Harry Fletcher, you"ve got ten seconds to cut out the introductory speeches and give me the goodies - after that I scratch your eyes out."
We talked until long after midnight, and by then we had the floor strewn with papers over which we pored on knees and elbows. There was an Admiralty Chart of the St. Mary"s Archipelago, the copies of the drawings of the Dawn Light, the notes I had made of the mate"s description of the wreck, and those I had made in the Reading Room of the British Museum.
I had out my silver travelling flask and we drank Chivas Regal from the plastic tooth mug as we argued and schemed - trying to guess in what section of the Dawn Light"s hull the five crates had been stowed, guessing also how she had broken up on the reef, what part of her had been washed into the break and what part had fallen to the seaward side.
I had made sketches of a dozen eventualities, and I had opened a running list of my minimum equipment requirements for an expedition, to which I added, as various items came to mind, or as Sherry made intelligent suggestions.
I had forgotten that she must be a first rate scuba diver, but I was reminded of this as we talked. I was aware now that she would not be a pa.s.senger on this expedition, my feelings towards her were becoming tinged with professional respect, and the mood of exhilaration mixed with camaraderie was building to a crescendo of physical tension.
Sherry"s pale smooth cheeks were flushed with excitement, and we were shoulder to shoulder as we knelt on the carpeted floor. She turned to say something, she was chuckling and the blue lights in her eyes were teasing and inviting, only inches from mine.
Suddenly all the golden thrones and legendary diamonds in this world must wait their turn. We both recognized the moment, and we turned to each other with unashamed eagerness. We were in a consuming fever of urgency, and we became lovers without rising from the floor, right on top of the drawings of the Dawn Light - which was probably the happiest thing that had ever happened to that ill-starred vessel.
When at last I lifted her to the bed and we twined our bodies together beneath the quilt, I knew that all the brief amorous acrobatics that had preceded my meeting with this woman were meaningless. What I had just experienced transcended the flesh and became a thing of the spirit - and if it was not loving, then it was the nearest thing to it that I would ever know.
My voice was husky and unsteady with wonder as I tried to explain it to her. She lay quietly against my chest, listening to the words I had never spoken to another woman, and she squeezed me when I stopped talking which was clearly a command to continue. I think I was still talking when we both fell asleep.
from the air, St. Mary"s has the shape of one of those strange fish from the ocean"s abysmal depths, a squat mis-shapen body with stubby body fins and tailfins in unusual places, and a huge mouth many sizes too big for the rest of it.
The mouth was Grand Harbour and the town nestled in the hinge of the jaws. The iron roofs flash like signal mirrors from the dark green cloak of vegetation. The aircraft circled the island, treating the pa.s.sengers to a vista of snowy white beaches and water so clear that each detail of the reefs and deeps were whorled and smeared below the surface like some vast surrealistic painting.
Sherry pressed her face to the round Perspex window and exclaimed with delight as the Fokker Friendship sank down over the pineapple fields where the women paused in their labours to look up at us. We touched down and taxied to the single tiny airport building on which a billboard announced "St. Mary"s Island - Pearl of the Indian Ocean" and below the sign stood two other pearls of great price.
I had cabled Chubby and he had brought Angelo with him to welcome us. Angelo rushed to the barrier to embrace me and grab my bag, and I introduced him to Sherry.
Angelo"s whole manner underwent a profound change. On the island there is one mark-of beauty that is esteemed above all else. A girl might have buck teeth and a squint, but if she possessed a "clear" complexion she would have suitors forming squadrons around her. A clear complexion did not mean that she was free of acne, it was rather a gauge of the colour of the skin - and Sherry must have had one of the clearest complexions ever to land on the island.
Angelo stared at her in a semi-catatonic state as she shook his hand. Then he roused himself, handed me back my bag and instead took hers from her hand. He then fell in a few paces behind her, like a faithful hound, staring at her solemnly and only breaking into his flashing smile whenever she glanced in his direction. He was her slave from the first moment.
Chubby trundled forward to meet us with more dignity, as big and timeless as a cliff of dark granite, and his face was contorted in a frown of even greater ferocity than usual as he took my hand in a huge h.o.r.n.y fist and muttered something to the effect that it was good to see me back. He stared at Sherry and she quailed a little beneath the ferocity of his gaze, but then something happened that I had never seen before. Chubby lifted his battered old sea cap from his head, exposing the gleaming polished brown dome of his pate in an unheard-of display of gallantry, and he smiled so widely that we could see the pink plastic gums of his artificial teeth. He pushed Angelo aside when Sherry"s bags were brought out of the hold, picked up one in each hand and led her to the pick-up. Angelo followed her devotedly and I struggled along in the rear under the weight of my own luggage. It was fairly obvious that my crew approved of my choice, for once.
We sat in the kitchen of Chubby"s house and Mrs. Chubby fed us on banana cake and coffee while Chubby and I worked out a business deal. For a hard-bargained fee, he would charter his stump boat with its two spanking new Evinrude motors for an indefinite period. He and Angelo would crew it at the old wages, and there would be a large "billfish bonus" at the end of the charter, if it were successful. I went into no detail as to the object of the expedition, but merely let them know that we would be camping on the outer islands of the group and that Sherry and I would be working underwater.
By the time we had agreed and slapped hands on the bargain, the traditional island rite of agreement, it was midafternoon and the island fever had already started to rea.s.sert its hold on my const.i.tution. Island fever prevents the sufferer from doing today what can -reasonably be put off until the morrow, so we left Chubby and Angelo to begin their preparations while Sherry and I stopped only briefly at Missus Eddy"s for provisions before pushing the pick-up over the ridge and down through the Palms to Turtle Bay.
"It"s a story book," murmured Sherry, as she stood under the thatch on the wide veranda of the shack. "It"s make-believe! She shook her head at the sway-holed palm trees and the aching white sands beyond.
I went to stand behind her, placing my arms around her middle and drawing her to me. She leaned back against me, crossing her own arms over mine and squeezing my hands.
"Oh, Harry, I didn"t think it would be like this." There was a change taking place within her, I could sense it clearly. She was like a winter plant, too long denied the sun, but there were reserves in her that I could not fathom and they troubled me. She was not a simple person, nor easily understood. There were barriers, conflicts within her that showed only as dark shadows in the depths of her ocean-blue eyes, shadows like those of killer sharks swimming deep. More than once when she believed herself un.o.bserved I had caught her looking at me in a manner which seemed at once calculating and hostile - as though she hated me.
That had been before we came to the island, and now it seemed that, like the winter plant, she was blooming in the sun; as though here she could cast aside some restraint of the soul which had curbed her spirit before.
She kicked off her -shoes, and barefooted turned within my encircling arms to stand upon tiptoe to kiss me. "Thank you, Harry. Thank you for bringing me here."
Mrs. Chubby had swept the floors and aired the linen, placed flowers in the jars and charged the refrigerator. We walked through the shack hand in hand - and though Sherry murmured admiration for the utilitarian decor and solid masculine furnishings, yet I thought I detected that gleam in her eye which a woman gets just before she starts pushing the furniture around and throwing out the lovingly acc.u.mulated but humble treasures of a man"s lifetime.
As she paused to rearrange the bowl of flowers that Mrs. Chubby had placed upon the broad camphor-wood refectory table, I knew we were going to see some changes at Turtle Bay - but strangely the thought did not perturb me. I realized suddenly that I was sick to death of being my own cook and housekeeper.
We changed into swimsuits in the main bedroom - for I had found in the very few hours since we had become lovers that Sherry had an overdeveloped sense of personal modesty, and I knew it would take time before I could wean her to the standard casual Turtle Bay swimming attire. However, it was some compensation for my temporary overdress to see Sherry North in a bikini.
It was the first time I had really had an opportunity to look at her openly. The most striking single thing about her was the texture and l.u.s.tre of her skin. She was tall, and if her shoulders were too wide and her hips a little too narrow, her waist was tiny and her belly was flat with a small delicately chiselled navel. I have always thought that the Turks were right in considering the navel as a highly erotic portion of a woman"s anatomy - Sherry"s would have launched a thousand ships.
She didn"t like me staring at it. "Oh, Grandma - what big eyes you"ve got," she said, and wrapped a towel around her waist like a sarong. But she walked bare-footed through the sand with an unconscious push and sway of b.u.t.tock and breast that I watched with uninhibited pleasure.
We left our towels above the high water mark and ran down over the hard wet sand to the edge of the clear warm sea. She swam with a deceptively slow and easy stroke, that drove her through the water so swiftly that I had to reach out myself and drive hard to catch and hold her.
Beyond the reef we trod water and she was puffing a little. "Out of training," she panted.
While we rested I looked out to sea and at that moment a line of black fins broke the surface together in line abreast, bearing down on us swiftly and I could not restrain my delight.
"You are an honoured guests" I told her. "This is a special welcome." The dolphins circled us, like a pack of excited puppies, gambolling and squeaking while they looked Sherry over carefully. I have known them sheer away from most strangers, and it was a rarity for them to allow themselves to be touched on a first meeting and then only after a.s.siduous wooing. However, with Sherry it was love at first sight, almost of the calibre that Chubby and Angelo had demonstrated.
Within fifteen minutes they were dragging her on the Nantucket sleigh ride while she squealed with glee. The instant she fell off the back of one, there was another prodding her with his snout, competing fiercely for her attention.
When at last they had exhausted us both and we swam in wearily to the beach, one of -the big bull dolphins followed Sherry into water so shallow it reached to her waist. There he rolled on his back while she scratched his belly with handfuls of coa.r.s.e white sand and he grinned that fixed idiotic dolphin grin.
After dark while we sat on the veranda and drank whisky together, we could still hear the old bull whistling and slapping the water with his tail, in an attempt to seduce her into the sea again.
The next morning I gamely fought off a fresh onslaught of island fever and the temptation to linger in bed, especially as" Sherry awoke beside me with the pink glossy look of a little girl, and her eyes were clear, her breath sweet and her lips languorous.
We had to check through the equipment we had salvaged from Wave Dancer, and we needed an engine to drive the compressor. Chubby was sent off with a fistful of banknotes and returned with a motor that required much loving attention. As that occupied me for the rest of the day, Sherry was sent off to Missus Eddy"s for camping equipment and provisions. We had set a three-day deadline for our departure and our schedule was tight.
It was still dark when we took our places in the boat, Chubby and Angelo at the motors in the stern and Sherry and I perched like sparrows on top of the load.
The dawn was a flaming glory of gold and hot red, promise of another fiery day, as Chubby took us northwards on a course possible only for a small boat and a good skipper. We ran close in on island and reef, sometimes with only eighteen inches of water between our keel and the fierce coral fangs.
All of us were in a mood of antic.i.p.ation. I truly do not believe it was the prospect of vast wealth that excited me then - all I really needed in my life was another good boat like Wave Dancer - rather it was the thought of rare and exquisite treasure, and the chance to win it back from the sea. If what we sought had been merely bullion in bars or coins I do not think it would have intrigued me half as much. The sea was the adversary and once more we were pitted against each other.
The blazing colours of the dawn faded into the hard hot blue of the sky as the sun rose out of the sea, and Sherry North stood up in the bows to strip off her denim jacket and jeans. Under them she wore her bikini and now she folded the clothes away into her canvas duffle bag and produced a tube of sun lotion with which she began to anoint her fine pate body.
Chubby and Angelo reacted with undisguised horror. They held a hurried and scandalized consulation after which Angelo was sent forward with a sheet of canvas to rig a sun shelter for Sherry. There followed a heated exchange between Angelo and Sherry.
"You will damage your skin, Miss. Sherry," Angelo protested, but she drove him in defeat back to the stern.
There the two of them sat like mourners at a wake, Chubby"s whole face creased into a huge brown scowl and Angelo openly wringing his hands in anxiety. Finally, they could stand it no longer and after another whispered discussion Angelo was elected as emissary once more and he crawled forward over the cargo to enlist my support.
"You can"t let her do it, Mister Harry," Angelo pleaded. "She will go dark." "I think that"s the idea, Angelo," I told him. However, I did warn Sherry to take care of the sun at noon. Obediently she covered herself when we ran ash.o.r.e on a sandy beach to eat our midday meal.
It was the middle of the afternoon when we raised the triple peaks of the Old Men and Sherry exclaimed, "Just as the old mate described them."
"We approached the island from the sea side, through the narrow stretch of calm water between the island and the reef. When we pa.s.sed the entrance to the channel through which I had taken Wave Dancer to escape from the Zinballa crash boat, Chubby and I grinned at each other in fond recollection, then I turned to Sherry and pointed it out to her.