Jack Higgins - The Keys Of Hell

Liri reduced speed and they coasted on, brushing against the pale fronds. Gradually, the sound of the river faded. The engine of the motor boat had stopped for a while, but now they heard it start again faintly in the distance and fade downstream.

Orsini laughed shakily. “A close call.”

Chavasse took from his pocket the compass Father Shedu had given him, and passed it to the Italian. “You’d better start using this. We haven’t got time to hang about.”

Orsini moved in to the stern beside Liri. “South-southwest must be our general direction. Can we do it?”

“I think so. I know this creek and where it goes. We’ll come to a large lagoon soon. We change direction there. But it’s possible you might have to get out and push in places.”

“When will it be light?” Chavasse asked.

“An hour, perhaps a little longer. It will be misty, one can always tell.”

“We’re in your hands, cara,” Orsini told her.

THEY MOVED INTO A LARGE LAGOON AS SHE had indicated and turned into a maze of twisting channels. The outboard motor stopped several times as trailing weeds clogged the propeller and finally, it died altogether.

Orsini examined it for several minutes and shook his head. “That’s all, I’m afraid. There’s nothing I can do, not under these conditions.”

From then on they used the paddles, and after a while the reeds became so thick that the two men had to go over the side, wading through thick glutinous mud as they forced a way through for the punt, always trying to keep to their general compass bearing.

The swampy water was treacherous and had a way of changing depth without warning. Once, Chavasse stepped into a deep hole and went in over his head. He struggled back with a curse to a comparatively safe footing and scrambled back into the punt as they emerged into another waterway.

Orsini laughed grimly. “Now this I could do without.”

It was bitterly cold and a damp mist curled from the water. Occasionally, wildfowl fluttered protestingly from the reeds as they passed through, calling angrily to each other, warning those ahead of the intruders.

There was an appreciable lightening of the darkness and a faint luminosity drifted around them. And then they could see the reeds and there was a honking of geese overhead lifting to meet the dawn.

Orsini was pale and drawn, the dark stubble of his beard accentuating his pallor. He looked about twenty years older, his hands shaking slightly in the extreme cold, and Chavasse didn’t feel any better. The girl looked healthier than either of them, but on the other hand, she hadn’t spent the best part of an hour up to her waist in freezing water.

They coasted into a broad channel and Orsini held up his hand. “We must be close now. Very close.”

He stood up in the punt, cupped his hands to his mouth and called at the top of his voice, “ Buona Esperanza , ahoy! Ahoy, Buona Esperanza !”

There was no reply and Chavasse joined him. “Carlo! Carlo Arezzi!”

Their voices died away and in the gray light they looked helplessly at each other. Liri held up her hand. “I heard something.”

At first Chavasse thought it was the cry of a bird, but then it sounded again, unmistakably a human voice. They paddled into the mist, calling again and again and gradually the voice grew louder.

For the last time, Chavasse and Orsini went over the side, forcing the punt through a wall of reeds and then, quite suddenly, they were through and drifting into a familiar lagoon.

At the other end, the Buona Esperanza seemed to swim out of the mist to meet them, Carlo Arezzi poised on top of the wheelhouse.

IT WAS WARM IN THE CABIN. CHAVASSE vigorously rubbed himself down and dressed quickly in a spare pair of denim working pants and a heavy sweater of Carlo’s.

There was a knock on the door and Liri Kupi called, “Are you dressed?”

She came in carrying a mug of coffee and he took it gratefully. It was scalding hot and the fragrance seemed to put new life into him. “Best I ever tasted. Where’s Guilio?”

“He went up to the wheelhouse. Said something about charting the course.”

She opened the little box, gave him one of her Macedonian cigarettes and struck a match for him, holding it in her cupped hands like a man.

Chavasse blew out a cloud of smoke and looked at her shrewdly. “You like him, don’t you?”

“Guilio? Who wouldn’t?”

“He’s got twenty years on you, you know that?”

She shrugged and said calmly, “You know what they say about good wine.”

Chavasse slipped an arm about her shoulders. “You’re quite a girl, Liri. I’d say he was a lucky man.”

He swallowed the rest of his coffee, handed her the jug and went up the companionway. It started to rain as he went out on deck and the mist draped itself across everything in a gray shroud. Orsini and Carlo were leaning over the charts when he went into the wheelhouse.

“What’s the score?” he said.

Orsini shrugged. “I think we should try the main channel out. It’s quicker and we could stand a good chance of getting away with it. It’s Yugoslavian territory on the other side and Albanian boats don’t like going in too close. If we can get into the open, nothing they’ve got stands a chance of catching us.”

“I should have thought Kapo would count on us doing just that.”

“He very probably has. I say we go and find out.”

Chavasse shrugged. “That’s all right by me, but I think it might be an idea to break out a little hardware, just in case.”

“You and Carlo can handle that end. I’ll get things moving up here.”

Chavasse and the young Italian went below, opened the box seat and unpacked the weapons. There was still a submachine gun left, a dozen grenades and the old Bren. They went back on deck and laid the weapons out on the floor of the wheelhouse under the chart table, ready for action.

It was just after five A.M. when the engines shuddered into life and Orsini took the Buona Esperanza into the mist. Chavasse stood in the prow beside Liri and rain kicked into his face and the wind, blowing in from the sea, lifted the mist into strange shapes.

The girl stared into the grayness eagerly, lips parted, a touch of color in each cheek. “Are you glad to be going?” he said.

She shrugged briefly. “I’m leaving nothing behind.”

As the light grew stronger, the dark silver lances of the rain became visible, stabbing down through the mist, and somewhere a curlew called eerily. Once, twice, and he waited with bated breath, trapped by a childhood memory. Once for joy, two for sorrow, three for a death .

There was no third call, which left them with a little sorrow, but that he could bear. He turned and went back to the wheelhouse.

FOR HALF AN HOUR THEY MOVED SLOWLY along the broad channel, crossing from one lagoon into the other, changing direction only once. Visibility was down to twenty yards, but the reeds were falling away now and the channel was widening.

The water began to kick against the hull in long swelling ripples and Orsini grinned tightly. “The Buene. We’re about half a mile from the sea.”

The launch crept forward, the engines a low rumble that was almost drowned in the splashing of the heavy rain. Chavasse examined the chart. The estuary was a mass of sandbanks, and the main channel, the one that they had used on the way in, was no more than thirty yards. If Kapo was anywhere, it would be there.

A few moments later, Orsini cut the engines and they drifted with the current. He opened the side window and leaned out.

“We’re almost there. If they’re patroling, we’ll hear the engines.”

Chavasse went on deck and stood in the prow listening. Carlo and Liri joined him. At first there was nothing, only the wind and the sizzle of rain, then Carlo held up a hand.