Алистер Маклин: The Golden Rendezvous

“No one could call the gun I have mounted on the after-deck a pop-gun, Mr. Carter.” But for all the untroubled smoothness of the face, he was thinking plenty. “It’s almost the equivalent of a 3.7.”

“So what? You’ll have to turn broadside on to bring that one to bear, and while you’re turning the Ticonderoga will be getting even farther away from you. For the reasons already given, you’ll almost certainly miss anyway. After the second shot, those deck-plates will probably be buckled to hell and gone. Then how do you propose to stop him? You can’t make a 14,000-ton cargo ship stop just by waving a few tommy-guns at it.”

“It will not come to that. There is an element of uncertainty in everything. But we shall not fail.”

“There’s no need for any element of uncertainty, Carreras.”

“Indeed? How do you propose it should be done?”

“I think that’s enough!” It was Captain Bullen who broke in, his husky voice heavy with all the weight and authority of the commodore of the Blue Mail. “Doing chart-work under pressure is one thing: voluntarily scheming to further this criminal’s plans is another. I have listened to all of this. Haven’t you gone far enough, Mister?”

“Hell, no,” I said. “I won’t have gone far enough till all of us have gone all the way to the Navy Hospital in Hampton Roads. The thing’s dead simple, Carreras. When he comes within a few miles on the radar scope, start firing off distress signals. At the same time – you’d better arrange this now – have your stooges on the Ticonderoga take a message to the master saying they’ve just picked up SOS signals from the Campari . When he comes nearer, send an Aldis message that you sprung engine-room plates coming through the hurricane, which he’s bound to have heard of.” I smiled my wan smile. “The last part is true anyway. When he’s stopped alongside and you whip the tarpaulins off your guns – well, you have him. He can’t and won’t dare to try to get away.”

He stared at me without seeing me, then gave a small nod.

“I suppose it’s out of the question to persuade you to become my – all – lieutenant, Carter?”

“Just see me safe aboard the Ticonderoga , Carreras. That’s all the thanks I want.”

“That shall be done.” He glanced at his watch. “In under three hours six of your crew will be here with stretchers to transfer Captain Bullen, the bo’sun and yourself to the Ticonderoga .”

He left. I looked round the sick-bay, they were all there, Bullen and MacDonald in their beds, Susan and Marston by the dispensary door, both shawled in blankets. They were all looking at me and the expressions on their faces were very peculiar indeed, to say the least of it.

The silence went on and on for what seemed like a quite unnecessarily long time, then Bullen spoke, his voice slow and hard.

“Carreras has committed one act of piracy: he is about to commit another. By doing so he declares himself an enemy of Queen and country. You will be charged with giving aid and comfort to the enemy, with being directly responsible for the loss of 150 million dollars in gold bullion. I shall take statements from witnesses present as soon as we get aboard the Ticonderoga .” I couldn’t blame the old man, he still believed in Carreras’s promise as to our future safety. In his eyes, I was just making things too damned easy for Carreras. But now wasn’t the time to enlighten him.

“Oh, here,” I said, “that’s a bit hard, isn’t it? Aiding, abetting, accessorying, if you like, but all this treason stuff–”

“Why did you do it?” Susan Beresford shook her head wonderingly. “Oh, why did you do it? Helping him like that just to save your own neck.” And now wasn’t the time to enlighten her either: neither she nor Bullen were actor enough to carry off their parts in the morning if they knew the whole truth.

“That’s a bit hard, too,” I protested. “Only a few hours ago there was no one keener than yourself to get away from the Campari . And now that–”

“I didn’t want it done this way! I didn’t know until now that there was a good chance that the Ticonderoga could escape.”

“I wouldn’t have believed it, John,” Dr. Marston said heavily. “I just wouldn’t have believed it.”

“It’s all right for all of you to talk,” I said. “You’ve all got families. I’ve only got myself. Can you blame me for wanting to took after all I have?”

No one took me up on this masterpiece of logical reasoning. I looked round them one by one and they turned away one by one, Susan, Marston and Bullen, not bothering to hide their expressions. And then MacDonald, too, turned away, but not before his left eyelid had dropped in a long slow wink.

I eased myself down in bed and made up my mind for sleep. No one asked me how I had got on that night.

When I awoke I was stiff and sore and still shivering. But it wasn’t the pain or the cold or the fever that had brought me up from the murky depths of that troubled sleep. It was noise, a series of grinding, creaking metallic crashes that echoed and shuddered throughout the entire length of the Campari as if she were smashing into an iceberg with every roll she took. I could tell from the slow, sluggish, lifeless roll that the stabilisers weren’t working: the Campari was stopped dead in the water.

“Well, Mister.” Bullen’s voice was a harsh grate. “Your plan worked, damn you. Congratulations. The Ticonderoga ’s alongside.”

“Right alongside,” MacDonald confirmed. “Lashed alongside.”

“In this weather?” I winced as the two ships rolled heavily together in the trough of a deep swell, and I heard the harsh tearing scream of sound as topsides metal buckled and rended under the staggering weight of the impact. “It’ll ruin the paintwork. The man’s mad.”

“He’s in a hurry,” MacDonald said. “I can hear the jumbo winch aft. He’s started trans-shipping cargo already.”

“Aft?” I couldn’t keep the note of excitement out of my voice, and everybody suddenly looked at me, curiosity in their eyes. “Aft? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, sir.”

“Are we tied bow to bow and stern to stern or are we facing in opposite directions?”

“No idea.” Both he and Bullen were giving me very close looks, but there was a difference in the quality of the closeness. “Does it matter, Mr. Carter?” He knew damned well it did.

“It didn’t matter,” I said indifferently. Not much it didn’t matter: only 150 million dollars, that was all it mattered.

“Where’s Miss Beresford?” I asked Marston.

“With her folks,” he said shortly. “Packing clothes. Your kind friend Carreras is allowing the passengers to take one suitcase apiece with them. He says they’ll get the rest of their stuff back in due course – if anyone manages to pick up the Campari after he has abandoned it, that is.”

It was typical, I thought, of the man’s extraordinary thoroughness in all he did: by letting them pack some clothes and promising the eventual safe return of the remainder, he would eliminate from even the most suspicious mind the unworthy thought that perhaps his intentions towards the crew and passengers weren’t of the highest and noblest.

The phone rang. Marston picked it up, listened briefly, then hung up.

“Stretcher party in five minutes,” he announced.

“Help me dress, please,” I said. “My white uniform shorts and white shirt.”

“You – you’re not getting up?” Marston was aghast.

“What if–”

“I’m getting up, dressing and getting back to bed again,” I said shortly. “Do you think I’m daft? What’s Carreras going to think if he sees a man with a compound fracture of the thigh hopping briskly over the rail on to the Ticonderoga ”