"Right, you could put your head and shoulders in his mouth."
The last of his reserves disappeared. He had been reading history and philosophy at Cambridge but spent too much time in the sea, and had to drop out. Now he ran a small diving equipment supply company and underwater salvage outfit, that gave him a living and allowed him to dive most days of the week. He did private work and had contracted to the Government and the Navy on some jobs.
More than once he mentioned the name "Sherry" and I probed carefully.
"Girl friend or wife?" and he grinned.
"Sister, big sister, but she"s a doll - she does the books and minds the shop, all that stuff," in a tone that left no doubt as to what James thought about book-keeping and counter-jumping. "She"s a red-hot conchologist and she makes two thousand a year out of her sea sh.e.l.ls." But he didn"t explain how he had got into the dubious company he was now keeping, nor what he was doing halfway around the world from his sports shop. I left them on Admiralty Wharf, and took Dancer over to the Sh.e.l.l Basin for refuelling before dark.
That evening I grilled the kingfish over the coals, roasted a couple of big sweet yams in their jackets and was washing it down with a cold beer sitting on the veranda of the shack and listening to the surf when I saw the headlights coming down through the palm trees. The taxi parked beside my pickup, and the driver stayed at the wheel while his pa.s.sengers came up the steps on to the stoep. They had left James at the Hilton, and there were just the two of them now - Materson and Guthrie.
"Drink?" I indicated the bottles and ice on the side table.
Guthrie poured gin for both of them and Materson sat opposite me and watched me finish the last of the fish.
"I made a few phone calls," he said when I pushed my plate away.
"And they tell me that Harry Bruce disappeared in June five years ago and hasn"t been heard of since. I asked around and found out that Harry Fletcher sailed into Grand Harbour here three months later - inward bound from Sydney, Australia."
"Is that the truth?" I picked a little fish bone out of my tooth, and lit a long black island cheroot.
one other thing, someone who knew him well tells me Harry Bruce had a knife scar across his left arm," he purred, and I involuntarily glanced at the thin line of scar tissue that laced the muscle of my forearm. It had shrunk and flattened with the years, but was still very white against the dark sun-browned skin.
"Now that"s a h.e.l.l of a coincidence," I said, and drew on the cheroot. It was strong and aromatic, tasting of sea and sun and spices. I wasn"t worried now - they were going to make a deal.
"Yeah, isn"t it," Materson agreed, and he looked around him elaborately. "You got a nice set-up here, Fletcher. Cosy, isn"t it, really nice and COSY.
"It beats h.e.l.l out of working for a living," I admitted. Or out of breaking rocks, or sewing mail bags."
"I should imagine it does."
"The kid is going to ask you some questions tomorrow. Be nice to him, Fletcher. When we go you can forget you ever saw us, and we"ll forget to tell anybody about that funny coincidence."
"Mr. Materson, sir, I"ve got a terrible memory," I a.s.sured him.
After the conversation I had overheard in Dancer"s cabin, I expected them to ask for an early start time the following morning, for the dawn light seemed important to their plans. However, neither of them mentioned it, and when they had gone I knew I wouldn"t sleep so I walked out along the sand around the curve of the bay to Mutton Point to watch the moon come up through the palm trees. I sat there until after midnight.
The dinghy was gone from the jetty but Hambone, the ferry man, rowed me out to Dancer"s moorings before sun-up the following morning and as we came alongside I saw the familiar shape shambling around the c.o.c.kpit, and the dinghy tied alongside.
"Hey, Chubby." I jumped aboard. "Your Missus kick you out of bed, then?"
Dancer"s deck was gleaming white even in the bad light, and all the metal work was brightly burnished. He must have been at it for a -couple of hours; Chubby loves Dancer almost as much as I do.
"She looked like a public s.h.i.t-house, Harry," he grumbled.
"That"s a sloppy bunch you got aboard," and he spat noisily over the side. "No respect for a boat, that"s what."
He had coffee ready for me, as strong and as pungent as only he can make it, and we drank it sitting in the saloon.
Chubby frowned heavily into his mug and blew on the steaming black liquid. He wanted to tell me something. "How"s Angelo?"
"Pleasuring the Rawano widows," he growled. The island does not provide sufficient employment for all its able, bodied young men - so most of them ship out on three-year labour contracts to the American satellite tracking station and airforce base on Rawano, island. They leave their young wives behind, the Rawano widows, and the island girls are justly celebrated for the high temperature of their blood and their friendly dispositions.
"That Angelo"s going to s.h.a.g his brain loose, he"s been at it night and day since Monday."
I detected more than a trace of envy in his growl. Missus Chubby kept him on a pretty tight lead - he sipped noisily at the coffee.
"How"s your party, Harry?"
"Their money is good."
"You not fishing, Harry." He looked at me. "I watch you from Coolie Peak, man, you don"t go near the channel you are working insh.o.r.e."
"That"s right, Chubby." He returned his attention to his coffee.
"Hey, Harry. You watch them. You be good and careful, hear.
They bad men, those two. I don"t know the young one - but the others they are bad."
"I"ll be careful, Chubby."
"You know the new girl at the hotel, Marion? The one over for the season?" I nodded, she was a pretty slim little wisp of a girl with lovely long legs, about nineteen with glossy black hair, freckled skin, bold eyes and an impish smile. "Well, last night she went with the blond one, the one with the red face." I knew that Marion sometimes combined business with pleasure and provided for selected hotel guests services beyond the call of duty. On the island this sort of activity drew no social stigma.
"Yes," I encouraged Chubby.
"He hurt her, Harry. Hurt her bad." Chubby took another mouthful of coffee. "Then he paid her so much money she couldn"t go to the police."
I liked Mike Guthrie a little less now. Only an animal would take advantage of a girl like Marion. I knew her well. She had an innocence, a child-like acceptance of life that made her promiscuity strangely appealing. I remembered how I had thought I might have to kill Guthrie one day and tried not to let the thought perish.
"They are bad men, Harry. I thought it best you know that."
"Thanks, Chubby."
"And don"t you let them dirty up Dancer like that," he added accusingly. "The saloon and deck - they were like a pigsty, man."
He helped me run Dancer across to Admiralty Wharf and then he set off homewards, grumbling and muttering blackly. He pa.s.sed Jimmy coming in the opposite direction and shot him a single malevolent glance that should have shrivelled him in his tracks.
Jimmy was on his own, fresh-faced and jaunty.
"Hi, skipper,"he called, as he jumped down on to Dancer"s deck, and I went into the saloon with him and poured coffee for us.
"Mr. Materson says you have some questions for me, is that right?"
"Look, Mr. Fletcher, I want you to know that I didn"t mean offence by not talking to you before. It wasn"t me but the others." "Sure," I said. "That"s fine, Jimmy."
"It would have been the sensible thing to ask your help long ago, instead of blundering around the way we have been. Anyway, now the others have suddenly decided it"s okay." He had just told me much more than he imagined, and I adjusted my opinion of Master James. It was clear that he possessed information, and he had not shared it with the others. It was his insurance, and he had probably insisted on seeing me alone to keep his insurance policy intact.
"Skipper, we are looking for an island, a specific island. I can"t tell you why, I"m sorry."
"Forget it, Jimmy. That"s all right." What will there be for you, James North, I wondered suddenly. What will the wolf pack have for you once you have led them to this special island of yours? Will it be something a lot less pleasant than penicillin allergy?
I looked at that handsome young face, and felt an unaccustomed flood of affection for him - perhaps it was his youth and innocence, the sense of excitement with which he viewed this tired and wicked old world. I envied and liked him for that, and I did not relish seeing him pulled down and rolled in the dirt.
"Jim, how well do you know your friends?" I asked him quietly, and he was taken by surprise, then almost immediately he was wary.
"Well enough,"he replied carefully. "Why?"
"You have known them less than a month," I said as though I knew, and saw the confirmation in his expression. "And I have known men like that all my life!
"I don"t see what this has to do with it, Mr. Fletcher." He was stiffening up now, I was treating him like a child and he didn"t like that.
"Listen, Jim. Forget this business, whatever it is. Drop it, and go back to your shop and your salvage company-" "That"s crazy," he said. "You don"t understand."
"I understand, Jim. I really do. I travelled the same road, and I know it well."
"I can look after myself Don"t worry about me." He had flushed up under his tan, and the grey eyes snapped with defiance. We stared at each other for a few moments, and I knew I was wasting time and emotion. If anyone had spoken like this to me at the same age I would have thought him senile.
"All right, Jim," I said. "I"ll drop it, but you know the score.
just play it cool and loose, that"s all."
"Okay, Mr. Fletcher." He relaxed slowly, and then grinned a charming and engaging grin. "Thanks anyway."
"Let"s hear about this island," I suggested and he glanced about the cabin.
"Let"s go up on the bridge," he suggested, and out in the open air he took a stub of pencil and a sc.r.a.p pad from the map bin above the chart table.
"I reckon it lies off the African sh.o.r.e about six to ten miles, and ten to thirty miles north of the mouth of the Rovuma River. -"
"That covers a h.e.l.l of a lot of ground, Jim - as you may have noticed during the last few days. What else do you know about it?"
He hesitated a little longer, before grudgingly doling out a few more coins from his h.o.a.rd. He took the pencil and drew a horizontal line across the pad.
"Sea level." he said, and then above the line he raised an irregular profile that started low, and -then climbed steeply into three distinct peaks before ending abruptly, " and that"s the silhouette that it shows from the sea. The three hills are volcanic basalt, sheer rock with little vegetation!
"The Old Men-" I recognized it immediately, you are a long way out in your other calculations, it"s more like twenty miles offsh.o.r.e-"
"But within sight of the mainland?" he asked quickly. "it has to be within sight."
"Sure, you could see a long way from the tops of the hills," I pointed out as he tore the sheet from the pad and carefully ripped it to shreds, and dropped them into the harbour.
"How far north of the river?" He turned back to face me.
"Offhand I"d say sixty or seventy miles," and he looked thoughtful.
"Yes, it could be that far north. It could fit, it depends on how long it would take " He did not finish, he was taking my advice about playing it cool. "Can you take us there, skip? I nodded. "But it"s a long run and best come prepared to sleep on the boat overnight." "I"ll fetch the others," he said, eager and excited once more.
But on the wharf he looked back at the bridge.
"About the island, what it looks like and all that, don"t discuss it with the others, okay?"
"Okay, Jim," I smiled back at him. "Off you go." I went down to have a look at the admiralty chart. The Old Men were the highest point on a ridge of basalt, a long hard reef that ran parallel to the mainland for two hundred miles. It disappeared below the water, but reappeared at intervals, formirig a regular feature amongst the haphazard sprinkling of coral and sand islands and shoals.
It was marked as uninhabited and waterless, and the soundings showed a number of deep channels through the reefs around it. Although it was far north of my regular grounds, yet I had visited the area the previous year as host to a marine biology expedition from UCLA who were studying the breeding habits of the green turtles that abounded there.
We had camped for three days on another island across the tide channel from the Old Men, where there was an all-weather anchorage in an enclosed lagoon, and brackish but just drinkable water in a fisherman"s well amongst the palms. Looking across from the anchorage, the Old Men showed exactly the outline that Jimmy had sketched for me, that was how I had recognized it so readily.
Half an hour later, the whole party arrived; strapped on the roof of the taxi was a bulky piece of equipment covered with a green canvas dust sheet. They hired a couple of lounging islanders to carry this, and the overnight bags they had with them, down the wharf to where I was waiting.
They stowed the canvas package on the foredeck without unwrapping it and I asked no questions. Guthrie"s face was starting to fall off in layers of sun-scorched skin, leaving wet red flesh exposed. He had smeared white cream over it. I thought of him slapping little Marion around his suite at the Hilton, and I smiled at him.
"You look so good, have you ever thought of running for Miss. Universe?" and he glowered at me from beneath the brim of his hat as he took his seat in the fighting chair. During the run northwards he drank beer straight from the can and used the empties as targets. Firing the big pistol at them as they tumbled and bobbed in Dancer"s wake.
A little before noon, I gave Jimmy the wheel and went down to use the heads below deck. I found that Materson had the bar open and the gin bottle out.
"How much longer?" he asked, sweaty and flushed despite the air-conditioning.
"Another hour or so," I told him, and thought that Materson was going to find himself with a drinking problem the way he handled spirits at midday. However, the gin had mellowed him a little and - always the opportunist - I loosened another three hundred pounds from his wallet as an advance against my fees before going up to take Dancer in on the last leg through the northern tide channel that led to the Old Men.
The triple peaks came up through the heat haze, ghostly grey and ominous, seeming to hang disembodied above the channel.
Jimmy was examining the peaks through his binoculars, and then he lowered them and turned delightedly to me. "That looks like it, skipper," and he clambered down into the c.o.c.kpit. The three of them went up on to the foredeck, pa.s.sed the canvas-wrapped deck cargo, and stood shoulder to shoulder at the rail staring through the sea fret at the island as I crept cautiously up the channel.
We had a rising tide pushing us up the channel, and I agreed to use it to approach the eastern tip of the Old Men, and make a landing on the beach below the nearest peak. This coast has a tidal fall of seventeen feet at full springs, and it is unwise to go into shallow water on the ebb. It is easy to find yourself stranded high and dry as the water falls away beneath your keel.
Jimmy borrowed my hand-bearing compa.s.s and packed it with his chart, a Thermos of iced water and a bottle of salt tablets from the medicine chest into his haversack. While I crept cautiously in towards the beach, Jimmy and Materson stripped off their footwear and trousers.
When Dancer b.u.mped her keel softly on the hard white sand of the beach I shouted to them.
"Okay - over you go," and with Jimmy leading, they went down the ladder I had rigged from Dancer"s side. The water came to their armpits, and James held the haversack above his head as they waded towards the beach.
"Two hours" I called after them. "If you"re longer than that you can sleep ash.o.r.e. I"m not coming in to pick you up on the ebb."
Jimmy waved and grinned. I put Dancer into reverse and backed off cautiously, while the two of them reached the beach and hopped around awkwardly as they donned their trousers and shoes and then set off into the palm groves and disappeared from view.
After circling for ten minutes and peering down through the water that was clear as a trout stream, I picked up the dark shadow across the bottom that I was seeking and dropped a light head anchor.
While Guthrie watched with interest I put on a faceplate and gloves and went over the side with a small oyster net and a heavy tyre lever. There was forty feet of water under us, and I was pleased to find my wind was still sufficient to allow me to go down and prise loose a netful of the big double-sh.e.l.led sun clams in one dive. I shucked them on the foredeck, and then, mindful of Chubby"s admonitions, I threw the empty sh.e.l.ls overboard and swabbed the deck carefully before taking a pailful of the sweet flesh down to the galley. They went into a ca.s.serole pot with wine and garlic, salt and ground pepper and just a bite of chilli. I set the gas-plate to simmer and put the lid on the pot.
When I went back on deck, Guthrie was still in the fighting chair.
"What"s wrong, big shot, are you bored?" I asked solicitously.
"No little girls to kick around?" His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. I could see him checking out my source of information.
"You"ve got a big mouth, Bruce. Somebody is going to close it for you one day." We exchanged a few more pleasantries, none of them much above this level, but it served to pa.s.s the time until the two distant figures appeared on the beach and waved and halloed. I pulled up the hook, and went in to pick them up.
Immediately they were aboard, they called Guthrie to them and a.s.sembled on the foredeck for one of their group sessions. They were all excited, Jimmy the most so, and he gesticulated and pointed out into the channel, talking quietly but vehemently. For once they seemed all to be in agreement, but by the time they had finished talking there was an hour of sunlight left and I refused to agree to Materson"s demands that I should continue our explorations that evening. I had no wish to creep around in the darkness on an ebb tide.