Alistair MacLean - The Golden Rendezvous

“Where have you been all day?” I said accusingly. “I saw the guns.” She was pale and tired and seemed to have forgotten that she had been angry with me for cooperating with Carreras. “He’s got a big one mounted on the poop and a smaller one on the fo'c'sle. Covered with tarpaulins now. The rest of the day I spent with mummy and daddy and the others.”

“And how are our passengers?” I enquired. “Hopping mad at being shanghaied, or do they regard it as yet another of the attractions of the Campari — a splendid adventure thrown in at no extra charge that they can talk about to the end of their days? I’m sure most of them must be pretty relieved that Carreras is not holding them all to ransom.”

“Most of them are not caring one way or another,” she said.

“They’re so seasick they couldn’t care if they lived or died. I feel a bit the same way myself, I can tell you.”

“You’ll get used to it,” I said callously. “You’ll all get used to it. I want you to do something for me.” “Yes, John.” The dutiful murmur in the voice which was really tiredness, the use of the first name had me glancing sharply across at the bo’sun, but he was busy examining a part of the deckhead that was completely devoid of anything to examine. “Get permission to go to your cabin. Say you’re going for blankets, that you felt too cold here last night. Your father’s dinner suit — slip it between the blankets. Not the tropical one, the dark one. For heaven’s sake, see you’re not observed. Have you any dark-coloured dresses?”

“Dark-coloured dresses?” She frowned. “Why “for Pete’s sake!”

I said in low-voiced exasperation. I could hear the murmur of voices outside. “Answer me!”

“A black cocktail dress…”

“Bring it also.”

She looked at me steadily. “Would you mind telling me…”

The door opened and Tony Carreras came in, balancing easily on the swaying, dipping deck. He carried a rain-spattered chart under his arm.

“Evening, all.” He spoke cheerfully enough, but for all that he looked rather pale. “Carter, a small job from my father. Course positions of the Fort Ticonderoga at eight a.m., noon, and four p.m.

To-day. Plot them and see if the Conderoga is on its predicted course.”

“Fort Ticonderoga being the name of the ship we have to intercept?”

“What else?”

“But — but the positions,” I said stupidly. “The course positions of — how the devil do you know? Don’t tell me the Ticonderoga is actually sending you her positions? Are the are the radio operators on that ship?”

“My father thinks of everything,” Tony Carreras said calmly.

“Literally everything. I told you he was a brilliant man. You know we’re going to ask the Ticonderoga to stand and deliver. Do you think we want it sending out SOSs when we fire a warning shot across its bows? The Ticonderoga’s own radio officers had a slight accident before the ship left England and had to be replaced by ah — more suitable men.”

“A slight accident?” Susan said slowly. What with seasickness and emotion, her face was the colour of paper, but she wasn’t scared of Carreras any, that I could see. “What kind of accident?”

“A kind that can so easily happen to any of us, Miss Beresford.” Tony Carreras was still smiling, but somehow he no longer looked charming and boyish. I couldn’t really see any expression on the face at all; all I could see were the curiously flattened eyes. More than ever I was sure that there was something wrong with young Carreras’ eyes, and more than ever I was sure that the wrongness lay not in the eyes alone but was symptomatic and indicative of a wrongness that lay

Ill much deeper than the eyes. “Nothing serious, I assure you.” Meaning that they hadn’t been killed more than once. “One of the replacements is not only a radioman but an expert navigator. We saw no reason why we should not take advantage of this fact to keep us informed as to the exact position of the Ticonderoga. Every hour, on the hour.”

“Your father leaves nothing to chance,” I admitted. “Except that he seems to be depending on me as the expert navigator on this ship.”

“He didn’t know — we weren’t to know — that all the other deck officers on the Campari were going to be — ah — so foolish. We — both my father and I — dislike killing of any kind.” Again the unmistakable ring of sincerity, but I was beginning to wonder if the bell hadn’t a crack in it. “My father is also a competent navigator, but unfortunately he has his hands very full at the moment. He happens to be the only professional seaman we have.”

“Your other men aren’t?”

“Alas, no. But they are perfectly adequate to the task of seeing that professional seamen — your men — do their duties as they should.” This was cheering news. If Carreras persisted in pushing the Campari through the storm at this rate, practically everyone who wasn’t a professional seaman was going to be feeling very ill indeed. That might help to ease my night’s labours.

I said, “What’s going to happen to us after you’ve hijacked this damned bullion?”

“Dump you all on the Ticonderoga,” he said lazily. “What else?”

“Yes?” I sneered. “So that we can straight away notify every ship that the Campari had…”

“Notify whoever you like,” he said placidly. “Think we’re crazy? We’re abandoning the Campari the same morning: another vessel is already standing by. Miguel Carreras does think of everything.”

I said nothing and turned my attention to the charts while Susan made her request to be allowed to bring blankets. He smilingly said he would accompany her and they left together. When they returned in five minutes time I had entered the course positions on the chart and found that the Fort Ticonderoga was really on course. I handed the chart to Carreras with that information; he thanked me and left.

Dinner came at eight o’clock. It wasn’t much of a meal as Campari dinners went; Antoine was never at his best when the elements were against him, but it was fair enough for all that. Susan ate nothing. I suspected that she had been sick more than once but had made no mention of it; millionaire’s daughter or not, she was no cry-baby and had no self-pity, which was only what I would have expected from the daughter of the Beresfords. I wasn’t hungry myself. There was a knot in my stomach that had nothing to do with the motion of the Campari, but again on the principle that I was going to need all the strength I could find, I made a good meal. Macdonald ate as if he hadn’t seen food for a week. Bullen still slept under sedation, restless against the securing straps that held him to his bed, breathing still distressed, mumbling away continuously to himself.

At nine o’clock Marston said, “Time now for coffee, John?”

“Time for coffee,” I agreed. Marston’s hands, I noticed, weren’t quite steady. After too many years of consuming the better part of a bottle of rum every night, his nerves weren’t in any too fit a condition for this sort of thing. Susan brought in five cups of coffee, one at a time the wild pitching of the Campari, the jarring, jolting shocks as we crashed down into the troughs, made the carrying of more than one at a time impossible. One for herself, one for Macdonald, one for Marston, one for me — and one for the sentry, the same youngster as had been on guard the previous night. For the four of us, sugar; for the sentry, a spoonful of white powder from Marston’s dispensary. Susan took his cup outside.

“How’s our friend?” I asked when she returned.

“Almost as green as I am.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t come off. “Seemed glad to get it.”

“Where is he?”