Colin Forbes - The Savage Gorge

With Marler behind the wheel, Ben opened the door to the stateroom. Paula was sitting up, legs curled like a cat's, studying a marine report.

'You're supposed to be cooking!' Ben bellowed. 'Can't you find the ruddy galley?'

'Cooking is not in the contract,' Paula snapped without looking up. 'Shouldn't you be on the bridge, as captain of this old tub?'

Ben muttered an oath under his breath, slammed the door shut. On the bridge Tweed was standing close to Marler, staring ahead with fascination at the incredible vastness of the Atlantic. The Tiger's port and starboard running lights were on. Ben saw him looking at them.

'Need 'em on in case we run into a Coastguard patrol. Further out I switches 'em off. Marler marked

Noak Island on the map he sent me. Talk about isolation – no airline flies near the place. And it's miles off any shipping route.'

'Mr Neville Guile likes his privacy,' Tweed said to himself.

Paula appeared and saw Harry, who had headed for the bridge as soon as he came aboard. Typically, he sat in a corner of the deck, knees bunched underneath him. He had his bag open, which carried an amazing mix of weapons and tools. He saw her watching him. She settled down beside him.

'What are these secret weapons you keep so quiet about? I might have to use one.'

Put your gloves on. The devices are slippery.'

He shifted position so they were shielded from the others. Out of the bag his gloved hand produced a cylindrical object about a foot long with a switch turned to green. Pushed forward it would point to red.

'For Pete's sake, and mine,' he whispered, 'don't touch that switch. You do and this whole ship explodes in flames, the sea boils. It's new, invented by Mac down in the boffins' basement.'

'What's inside?' she whispered.

'Mix of high-explosive and firebomb. Got five of the devils, all told. Don't know why Tweed wants 'em.'

Paula stood up, disappeared back into the state room. Tweed, on the bridge alongside Marler, was puzzled.

'We're gliding over the sea as though it were a skat ing rink. But no engine sound.'

'Ben explained that,' Marler said, glancing at the com pass and turning the wheel a fraction. 'The genius who built this vessel installed a special engine. If you listen carefully it makes no more sound than the purring of a cat. Another reason Noak won't know we're coming. Besides radar they'll have listening posts, I'm sure.'

Half an hour later someone was kicking the far side of the door from the stateroom. Tweed opened it and a glorious aroma offish and chips entered his nostrils. Paula stood with a large plastic tray. It had depressions for servings and smaller ones for plastic cups of Evian water. As a matter of form she served the master of the ship first. Ben stared as though he couldn't believe it. Then, greedily, he grabbed a plate offish and chips and a cup of water.

' You. ' He gave her a great big toothy grin. 'You was windin' me up.'

'Shut up and eat,' she snapped back at him.

For a while there was no conversation on the bridge as they concentrated on eating. Paula had fetched her own meal on a separate tray. She whispered to Tweed, 'I haven't seen Bob Newman anywhere. Is he still in London?'

'No, he's one of my secret weapons,' Tweed whis pered back. 'By now Guile will think he has identified my whole team. You, me, Harry and Marler. He won't know about Newman, who stays at one of those houses to let up the High Street. Don't know which one, don't want to know. He's wearing country clothes, a wide-brimmed straw hat and sunglasses. He mooches around, posing as an architect with his nose in a book. But I'll bet he doesn't miss a thing.'

On the bridge by the wheel Ben had gripped Marler hard by the arm. He was peering ahead at a dark bulk with a red light shining high up. Noak Island.

'That's why I switched off all my lights,' Ben explained, 'but somehow they've spotted us.'

'Well, at least it was such a calm voyage,' Paula called out to introduce a note of optimism.

'Won't be if we ever return,' growled Ben. 'Forecast is for a real twister of a storm which should hit us halfway back.'

'I think I've entered the gap in the radar zone,' Marler said.

'You have,' Ben agreed. As he spoke there was an explosion to starboard.

'They know we're coming,' Tweed warned.

'No, they don't,' called out Ben. 'That was an old wartime mine deciding to welcome us. Never heard of one being this far out, though.'

They were close in to what appeared to be a giant chunk of rock. Ben turned on a searchlight and Tweed stared. He had expected another dangerous gulch entrance like the one at Seaward Cove they had left far behind. Instead in the glare of Ben's light was a wide harbour enclosed by high stone walls.

'This map is out of date,' Marler complained.

'Unless Neville Guile has blasted rock to create a favourable entrance for large vessels,' Tweed sug gested.

'Like that one over there just going under,' Paula called out, and pointed.

Well over to port, away from Noak and the explod ing mine, the hull of a large vessel which had turned turtle protruded briefly above the surface of the smooth sea. Tweed felt sure it was a huge tanker as it slid below the sea, leaving behind a small ripple of waves.

'That were a tanker going down,' Ben said. 'Big job. What's it doin' 'ere?'

'The tanker that pirates hijacked in the East,' Marler said with a flash of inspiration.

'I think you're right,' Tweed agreed. 'And no oil seeping out – because it was all pumped ashore first onto Noak. I don't like pirates but I'll bet their bodies, each with a bullet in the back of the head, are lying in the hold. After they'd helped pump the oil ashore. No witnesses is one of Neville Guise's rules of business. And look at that cliff.'

A monster of a black cliff sheered up from the har bour. By now Ben had brought Tiger alongside an inner wall of one of the stone jetties. He picked up a great coil of rope, threw it at Harry.

'Get ashore with that, tie it round one of those stone bollards, then make fast the stern. I'll be there with more rope.'

Harry jumped to his feet, grabbed the rope coil and followed Ben down a ladder from the bridge to the main deck. Leaping over the narrow gap onto the jetty, he wound lengths of rope round the stone bollard.

Paula had skipped down the ladder behind Ben. He placed a huge ugly-looking knife beside the rope on deck.

'What's the knife for?' she asked.

'Always curious, you ladies. If we have to run for it in a hurry, that knife can cut through the rope in sec onds. Now I'm off to the stern. That Harry doesn't waste time.'

Paula shinned back up the ladder onto the bridge. Tweed was adjusting the glare light up the side of the precipitous cliff. At intervals he paused briefly. Paula saw a series of thick large rubber loops attached to the rock.

'What on earth -' she began.

'They attach a thick hose inside those loops and use a system to suck up the oil from the tanker berthed about where the Tiger is now.' He looked back to where Harry had appeared. 'Leather climbing boots for everyone except Ben. We've got to get to the top of this brute.'

Harry produced the boots from his capacious bag. On the soles were hard projections for clinging to ledges. At a fresh order from Tweed, Harry took out a backpack, slipped inside the torpedo-shaped weapons he had shown Paula – the firebombs. They began climbing, Tweed in the lead.

It was a difficult climb. The cliff face was almost vertical. Paula went up quickly, but tested her weight on every protruding spike of rock before trusting it. Harry was close behind her. She was about to turn to say something to him when Tweed's sharp whisper reached her as though he'd sensed what she was about to do.

'Nobody look down. That's a direct order. Look up! '