Alistair MacLean: The Golden Rendezvous

From birth to death that waterspout must have taken a full minute, and it was only seconds after it had vanished and the eastern horizon became clear again that the single flat thunderclap of sound followed by the deep, menacing rumble of the after-explosion and accompanying shock waves came at us over the surface of the sea. Then all was silence, profound and deathly.

“Well, Dr. Caroline,” I said conversationally, “at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that the damned thing works.”

He didn’t take me up on my conversational gambit. No one took me up on it. They were all waiting for the tidal wave, but no tidal wave came. After a minute or two a long, low, very fast-moving swell bore down on us from the east, passed under the Ticonderoga, made her pitch heavily perhaps half a dozen times, and then was gone. It was Captain Brace who was the first of all of them to find his voice.

“That’s it, then, Captain Bullen. All gone up in smoke. Your ship and my one hundred and fifty million dollars in gold.”

“Just the ship, Captain Brace,” I said. “Just the ship. As for the twenty vaporised generators, I’m sure the United States government will gladly recompense the Harms Worth and Holden Electrical Engineering Company.”

He smiled faintly; heaven knows he couldn’t have felt like smiling. “There were no generators in those crates, Mr. Carter. Gold bullion for Fort Knox. How that devil Carreras…”

“You knew there was gold in those crates?” I asked. “Of course I did. Rather, I knew we had it on board. But there had been a mistake in marking the crates. So much damned secrecy, I suppose, that one hand didn’t know what the other hand was doing. According to my manifest, the crates of gold were the forward twenty on the upper deck, but an admiralty message last night informed me of the mistake that had been made. Rather it informed those damned renegades of radio operators. Never showed it to me, of course. They must have radioed the news to Carreras, and the first thing they did when they tied up alongside was to give him the written message itself as confirmation. He gave it to me as a souvenir,” he added bitterly. He held out his hand with the form in it. “Want to see it?”

“No need.” I shook my head. “I can tell you word for word what’s in that cable. ‘highest priority urgent immediate repeat immediate attention master Fort Ticonderoga: grave error in loading manifest: special cargo not repeat not in forward twenty crates forward deck marked turbines Nashville Tennessee but repeat but in forward twenty crates afterdeck marked generators Oak Ridge Tennessee: indications you may be running into hurricane essential secure afterdeck cargo earliest: from the Office of the Minister of Transport by hand of Vice-Admiral Richard Hodson Director Naval Operations.’“

Captain Brace stared at me. “How in the name of…”

“Miguel Carreras also had a manifest in his cabin,” I said.

“Marked and correctly exactly the same as yours. I saw it. That radio message never came from London. It came from me. I sent it from the wireless office of the Campari at two o’clock this morning.”

It was a long silence indeed that followed; predictably enough, it was Susan Beresford who finally broke it. She moved across to Bullen’s stretcher, looked down at him, and said, “Captain Bullen, I think you and I both owe Mr. Carter a very great apology.”

“I think we do, miss Beresford. I think we do indeed.” He tried to scowl, but it didn’t quite come off. “But he told me to shut up, mind you. Me. His captain. You heard him?”

“That’s nothing,” she said in dismissal. “You’re only his captain. He told me to shut up, too, and I’m his fiancée. We’re getting married next month.”

“His fiancée? Getting getting married next month?” In spite of the pain Captain Bullen propped himself up on one elbow, stared uncomprehendingly at each one of us in turn, then lay back heavily on his stretcher. “Well, I’ll be damned! this is the first I’ve heard of this.”

“It’s the first Mr. Carter has heard of it, too,” she admitted. “But he’s hearing it now.”