Alistair MacLean - The Golden Rendezvous

“A couple of shots will be all that we require.” I thought about that last remark. A couple of shots. It didn’t make any kind of sense at all. What was Carreras up to?

“What on earth are you both talking about?” Susan asked wearily.

“Reinforced steel decks, angle irons — what is it all about?”

“Come with me, Miss Beresford, and I shall take pleasure in showing you personally what I mean.” Carreras smiled.

“Besides, I’m sure your good parents are becoming very anxious about you. I shall see you later, Mr. Carter. Come, Miss Beresford.”

She looked at him in doubtful hesitation. I said, “You might as well go, Susan. You never know what luck you’ll have. One good shove when he’s near the rail and off-balance. Just pick your time.”

“Your Anglo-Saxon humour becomes rather wearisome,” Carreras said thinly. “One hopes that you will be able to preserve it intact in the days to come.”

He left on this snitably sinister note, and Marston looked at me, speculation taking the place of puzzlement in his eyes. “Did Carreras mean what I thought he meant?”

“He did. That’s the hammering you’ve been hearing, the pneumatic drills. There are prepared bolt holes in the reinforced sections on the poop and foredeck to accept the base plates of several different sizes of British guns. Carreras’ guns probably come from the other side of the iron curtain and he has to drill new holes.”

“He he’s actually going to fit naval guns.”

“He had them in a couple of those crates. Almost certainly stripped down into sections, ready for quick assembly. Don’t have to be anything very big an’t be; it’s a dockyard job to fit anything of any size. But it will be big enough to stop this ship.”

“I don’t believe it!” Marston protested. “Holdup on the high seas? Piracy in this day and age? It’s ridiculous! It’s impossible!”

“You tell that to Carreras. He hasn’t a moment’s doubt but that it’s very, very possible. Neither have I. Can you tell me what’s going to stop him?”

“But we’ve got to stop him, John. We must stop him!”

“Why?” “Good God! Why? Let a man like that get away with heaven only knows how many million pounds…”

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

“Of course,” Marston snapped. “So would anyone be.”

“You’re right, of course, doctor,” I agreed. “I’m not at my best to-day.” What I could have said was that if he thought about it a bit more, he would become ten times as worried as he was, and not about the money. About half as worried as I was. And I was worried to death and frightened, badly frightened. Carreras was clever, all right, but perhaps a shade less so than he imagined. He made the mistake of letting himself get too involved in conversation, and when a man gets too involved and has anything to hide, he makes the further mistake of either talking too much of not talking enough. Carreras had made the mistake on both counts. But why should he worry about whether he talked too much or not? He couldn’t lose. Not now.

Breakfast came. I didn’t feel much like eating, but I ate all the same. I had lost far too much blood, and whatever little strength I could recover I was going to need that night. I felt even less like sleep, but for all that I asked Marston for a sedative and he gave it to me. I was going to need all the sleep I could get, too; I wouldn’t get much that coming night.

The last sensation I recalled as I dozed off was in my mouth, a queer unnatural dryness that usually comes with overmastering fear. But it wasn’t fear, I told myself. It wasn’t really fear. Just the effect of the sleeping draught. That’s what I told myself.

It was late afternoon when I awoke, round four o’clock: still a good four hours short of sunset, but already the surgery lights were on and the sky outside dark, almost, as night. Driving, slanting rain was sheeting down torrentially from the black lowering clouds, and even through closed doors and windows I could hear the high, thin sound, part whine, part whistle, of a gale-force wind howling through the struts and standing rigging.

The Campari was taking a hammering. She was still going fast, far, far too fast for the weather conditions, and was smashing her way through high, heavy rolling seas bearing down on her starboard bow. That they weren’t mountainous waves, or waves of even an unusual size for a tropical storm, I was quite sure; it was the fact that the Campari was battering her way at high speed through quartering seas that seemed to be almost tearing her apart. She was corkscrewing viciously, a movement that applies the maximum possible strain to a ship’s hull. With metronomic regularity the Campari was crashing, starboard bow first, into a rising sea, lifting bows and rolling over to port as she climbed up the wave, hesitating, then pitching violently forward and rolling over to starboard as she slid down the far shoulder of the vanishing wave to thud with a teeth-rattling, jolting violence into the shoulder of the next sea, a shaking, shuddering collision that made the Campari vibrate for seconds on end in every plate and rivet throughout her entire length. No doubt but that the Clyde yard that had built her had built her well, but they wouldn’t have constructed her on the assumption that she was going to fall into the hands of maniacs. Even steel can come apart.

“Dr. Marston,” I said, “Try to get Carreras on that phone.”

“Hello, awake?” He shook his head. “I’ve been on to him myself, an hour ago. He’s on the bridge and he says he’s going to stay there all night, if need be. And he won’t reduce speed any further: he’s taken her down to fifteen knots already, he says.”

“The man’s mad. Thank god for the stabilisers. If it weren’t for them, we’d be turning somersaults.”

“Can they stand up to this sort of thing indefinitely?”

“I should think it highly unlikely. The captain and bo’sun how are they?”

“The captain’s still asleep, still delirious, but breathing easier. Our friend Mr. Macdonald you can ask for yourself.”

I twisted in my bed. The bo’sun was indeed awake, grinning at me. Marston said, “Seeing you’re both awake, do you mind if I have a kip down in the dispensary for an hour? I could do with it.” He looked as if he could, too, pale and exhausted. “We’ll call you if anything goes wrong.”

I watched him go, then said to Macdonald, “You like your sleep, don’t you?” “Just naturally idle, Mr. Carter.” He smiled. “I was wanting to get up, but the doctor wasn’t keen.”

“Surprised? You know your kneecap is smashed and it’ll be weeks before you can walk properly again.” He’d never walk properly again.

“Aye, it’s inconvenient. Dr. Marston has been talking to me about this fellow Carreras and his plans. The man’s daft.”

“He’s all that. But daft or not, what’s to stop him?”

“The weather, perhaps. It’s pretty nasty outside.”

“The weather won’t stop him. He’s got one of those fanatic one-track minds. But I might have a small try at it myself.”

“You?” Macdonald had raised his voice, now lowered it to a murmur. “You! With a smashed thighbone. How in the…”

“It’s not broken.” I told him of the deception. “I think I can get around on it if I don’t have too much climbing to do.”

“I see. And the plan, sir?”

I told him. He thought me as daft as Carreras. He did his best to dissuade me, finally accepted the inevitable, and had his own suggestions to make. We were still discussing it in low voices when the sick-bay door opened and a guard showed Susan Beresford in, closed the door, and left.