Алистер Маклин: When Eight Bells Toll

‘They say it’s the worst on the West Coast -worse even than Coirebhreachan.’

‘I’d rather not be the one to find out. I had to hang on to the stern post for ten minutes before I’d got enough strength back to shin up that rope.’

‘You took a chance.’

‘It was near enough dark. Besides,’ I added bitterly, ‘there are some precautions intelligent people don’t think to take about crazy ones. There were only two or three people in the after accommodation. Just a skeleton crew aboard, seven or eight, no more. All the original crew have vanished completely’

‘No sign of them anywhere?’

‘No sign. Dead or alive, no sign at all. I had a bit of bad luck. I was leaving the after accommodation to go to the bridge when I passed someone a few feet away. I gave a half wave and grunted something and he answered back, I don’t know what. I followed him back to the quarters. He picked up a phone in the crew’s mess and I heard him talking to someone, quick and urgent. Said that one of the original crew must have been hiding and was trying to get away. I couldn’t stop him – he faced the door as he was talking and he had a gun in his hand. I had to move quickly. I walked to the bridge structure–’

‘You what? When you knew they were on to you? Mr Calvert, you want your bloody head examined.’

‘Uncle Arthur will put it less kindly. It was the only chance I’d ever have. Besides, if they thought it was only a terrified member of the original crew they wouldn’t have been so worried: if this guy had seen me walking around dripping wet in a scuba suit he’d have turned me into a colander.

‘He wasn’t sure. On the way for’ard I passed another bloke without incident – he’d left the bridge superstructure before the alarm had been given, I suppose. I didn’t stop at the bridge. I went right for’ard and hid behind the winchman’s shelter. For about ten minutes there was a fair bit of commotion and a lot of flash-light work around the bridge island then I saw and heard them moving aft – must have thought I was still in the after accommodation.

‘I went through all the officers’ cabins in the bridge island. No one. One cabin, an engineer’s, I think, had smashed furniture and a carpet heavily stained with dry blood. Next door, the captain’s bunk had been saturated with blood.’

‘They’d been warned to offer no resistance.’

‘I know. Then I found Baker and Delmont.’

‘So you found them. Baker and Delmont.’ Hunslett’s eyes were hooded, gazing down at the glass in his hand. I wished to God he’d show some expression on that dark face of his.

‘Delmont must have made a last-second attempt to send a call for help. They’d been warned not to, except in emergency, so they must have been discovered. He’d been stabbed in the back with a half-inch wood chisel and then dragged into the radio officer’s cabin which adjoined the radio office. Some time later Baker had come in. He was wearing an officer’s clothes – some desperate attempt to disguise himself, I suppose. He’d a gun in his hand, but he was looking the wrong way and the gun was pointing the wrong way. The same chisel in the back.’

Hunslett poured himself another drink. A much larger one. Hunslett hardly ever drank. He swallowed half of it in one gulp. He said: ‘And they hadn’t all gone aft. They’d left a reception committee.’

‘They’re very clever. They’re very dangerous. Maybe we’ve moved out of our class. Or I have. A one-man reception committee, but when that one man was this man, two would have been superfluous. I know he killed Baker and Delmont. I’ll never be so lucky again.’

‘You got away. Your luck hadn’t run out.’

And Baker’s and Delmont’s had. I knew he was blaming me. I knew London would blame me. I blamed myself. I hadn’t much option. There was no one else to blame.

‘Uncle Arthur,’ Hunslett said. ‘Don’t you think–’

‘The hell with Uncle Arthur. Who cares about Uncle Arthur? How in God’s name do you think I feel?’ I felt savage and I know I sounded it. For the first time a flicker of expression showed on Hunslett’s face. I wasn’t supposed to have any feelings.

‘Not that,’ he said. ‘About the Nantesville. Now that she’s been identified as the Nantesville , now we know her new name and flag – what were they, by the way?’

‘Alta Fjord. Norwegian. It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter. We radio Uncle Arthur–’

‘And have our guests find us in the engine-room with earphones round our heads. Are you mad?’

‘You seem damned sure they’ll come.’

‘I am sure. You too. You said so.’

‘I agreed this is where they would come. If they come.’

‘If they come. If they come. Good God, man, for all that they know I was aboard that ship for hours. I may have the names and full descriptions of all of them. As it happens I couldn’t identify any of them and their names may or may not mean anything. But they’re not to know that. For all they know I’m on the blower right now bawling out descriptions to Interpol. The chances are at least even that some of them are on file. They’re too good to be little men. Some must be known.’

‘In that case they’d be too late anyway. The damage would be done.’

‘Not without the sole witness who could testify against them?’

‘I think we’d better have those guns out.’

‘No.’

‘You don’t blame me for trying?’

‘No.’

‘Baker and Delmont. Think of them.’

‘I’m thinking of nothing else but them. You don’t have to stay.’

He set his glass down very carefully. He was really letting himself go to-night, he’d allowed that dark craggy face its second expression in ten minutes and it wasn’t a very encouraging one. Then he picked up his glass and grinned.

‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ he said kindly. ‘Your neck – that’s what comes from the blood supply to the brain being interrupted. You’re not fit to fight off a teddy-bear. Who’s going to look after you if they start playing games?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I meant it. I’d worked with Hunslett maybe ten times in the ten years I’d known him and it had been a stupid thing for me to say. About the only thing Hunslett was incapable of was leaving your side in time of trouble. ‘You were speaking of Uncle?’

‘Yes. We know where the Nantesville is. Uncle could get a Navy boat to shadow her, by radar if–’

‘I know where she was. She upped anchor as I left. By dawn she’ll be a hundred miles away – in any direction.’

‘She’s gone? We’ve scared them off? They’re going to love this.’ He sat down heavily, then looked at me. ‘But we have her new description–’

‘I said that didn’t matter. By to-morrow she’ll have another description. The Hokomaru from Yokohama, with green topsides, Japanese flag, different masts–’

‘An air search. We could–’

‘By the time an air search could be organised they’d have twenty thousand square miles of sea to cover. You’ve heard the forecast. It’s bad. Low cloud – and they’d have to fly under the low cloud. Cuts their effectiveness by ninety per cent. And poor visibility and rain. Not a chance in a hundred, not one in a thousand of positive identification. And if they do locate them – if – what then? A friendly wave from the pilot? Not much else he can do.’

‘The Navy. They could call up the Navy–’

‘Call up what Navy? From the Med? Or the Far East? The Navy has very few ships left and practically none in those parts. By the time any naval vessel could get to the scene it would be night again and the Nantesville to hell and gone. Even if a naval ship did catch up with it, what then? Sink it with gunfire – with maybe the twenty-five missing crew members of the Nantesville locked up in the hold?’