Alistair MacLean - When Eight Bells Toll

"There's no ' why' about it, my dear Charlotte." Sir Arthur sounded almost irritable. "There's no justification needed. Calvert killed them or they killed us. They came to kill us. You told us that yourself. Would you feel any compunction at killing a poisonous snake? Those men were no better than that. As for arresting them!" Uncle Arthur paused, maybe for the short laugh he gave, maybe because he was trying to recall the rest of the homily I'd delivered to him earlier that evening. "There's no intermediate stage in this game. Its kill or be killed. These are dangerous and deadly men and you never give them warning,"

Good old Uncle Arthur, he'd remembered the whole lecture, practically word for word.

She looked at him for a long moment, her face uncomprehending, looked at me then slowly turned and left the wheelhouse. I said to Uncle Arthur: "You're just as bad as I am."

She reappeared again exactly at midnight, switching on the light as she entered. Her hair was combed and neat, her face was less puffy and she was dressed in one of those synthetic fibre dresses, white, ribbed and totally failing to give the impression that she stood in need of a good meal. From the way she eased her shoulders I could see that her back hurt. She gave me a faint tentative smile. She got none in return.

I said: "Half an hour ago, rounding Carrara Point, I near as dammit carried away the lighthouse. Now I hope I'm heading north of Dubh Sgeir but I may be heading straight into the middle of it. It couldn't be any blacker if you were a mile down in an abandoned coal mine, the fog is thickening, I'm a not very experienced sailor trying to navigate my way through the most dangerous waters in Britain and whatever hope we have of survival depends on the preservation of what night-sight I've slowly and painfully built up over the past hour or so. Put out that damned light!"

"I'm sorry." The light went out. "I didn't think."

"And don't switch on any other lights either. Not even in your cabin. Rocks are the least of my worries in Loch Houron."

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "And I'm sorry about earlier on. That's why I came up. To tell you that. About the way I spoke and leaving so abruptly, I mean. I've no right to sit on judgment on others — and I think my Judgment was wrong. I was just — well, literally shocked. To see two men killed like that, no, not killed, there's always heat and anger about killing, to see two men executed like that, because it wasn't kill or be killed as Sir Arthur said, and then see the person who did it not care…," Her voice faded away uncertainly.

"You might as well get your facts and figures right, my dear," Uncle Arthur said. "Three men, not two. He killed one just before you came on board to-night. He had no option, But Philip Calvert is not what any reasonable man would call a killer. He doesn't care in the way you say, because if he did he would go mad. In another way, he cares very much. He doesn't do this job for money. He's miserably paid for a man of his unique talents." I made a mental note to bring this up next time we were alone. "He doesn't do it for excitement, for — what is the modern expression? — kicks: a man who devotes his spare time to music, astronomy and philosophy does not live for kicks. But he cares. He cares for the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil, and when that difference is great enough and the evil threatens to destroy the good then he does not hesitate to take steps to redress the balance. And maybe that makes him better than either you or me, my dear Charlotte."

"And that's not all of it either," I said. "I'm also re-nowned for my kindness to little children."

"I'm sorry, Calvert," Uncle Arthur said. "No offence and no embarrassment, I hope. But if Charlotte thought it important enough to come up here and apologise, I thought it important enough to set the record straight."

"That's not all Charlotte came up for," I said nastily. "If dial's what she came up for in the first place. She came up here because she's consumed with feminine curiosity. She wants to know where we are going."

"Do you mind if I smoke?" she asked.

"Don't strike the match in front of my eyes."

She lit the cigarette and said: "Consumed with curiosity is right. What do you think? Not about where we're going, I know where we're going. You told me. Up Loch Houron. What I want to know is what is going on, what all this dreadful mystery is about, why all the comings and goings of strange men aboard the Shangri-la, what is so fantastically important to justify the deaths of three men in one evening, what you are doing here, what you are, who you are. I never really thought you were a UNESCO delegate, Sir Arthur. I know now you're not. Please. I have the right to know, I think."

"Don't tell her," I advised.

"Why ever not?" Uncle Arthur said huffily. "As she says, she is deeply involved, whether she wants it or not. She does have the right to know. Besides the whole thing will be public knowledge in a day or two."

"You didn't think of that when you threatened Sergeant MacDonald with dismissal and imprisonment if he contravened the Official Secrets Act."

"Merely because he could ruin things by talking out of turn," he said stiffly. "Lady — I mean, Charlotte — is in no position to do so. Not, of course," he went on quickly, "that she would ever dream of doing so. Preposterous. Charlotte is an old and dear friend, a trusted friend, Calvert. She shall know."

Charlotte said quietly: "I have the feeling that our friend Mr. Calvert does not care for me overmuch. Or maybe he just does not care for women."

"I care like anything," I said. "I was merely reminding the admiral of his own dictum: "Never, never, never — I forget how many nevers, I think there were four or five -tell anyone anything unless it's necessary, essential and vital. In this case it's none of the three."

Uncle Arthur lit another vile cheroot and ignored me. His dictum was not meant to refer to confidential exchanges between members of the aristocracy. He said: "This is the case of the missing ships, my dear Charlotte. Five missing ships, to be precise. Not to mention a fair scattering of very much smaller vessels, also missing or destroyed."

"Five ships, I said. On 5th April of this year the S.S. Holmwood disappeared off the south coast of Ireland. It was an act of piracy. The crew was imprisoned ashore, kept tinder guard for two or three days, then released unharmed. The Holmwood was never heard of again. On 24th April, the M.V. Antara vanished in St. George's Channel. On 17th May, the M.V. Headley Pioneer disappeared off Northern Ireland, on 6th August the S.S. Hurricane Spray disappeared after leaving the Clyde and finally, last Saturday, a vessel called the Nantesville vanished soon after leaving Bristol. In all cases the crews turned up unharmed.

"Apart from their disappearances and the safe reappearances of their crews, those five vessels all had one thing in common — they were carrying extremely valuable and virtually untraceable cargoes. The Holmwood had two and a half million pounds of South African gold aboard, the Antara had a million and a half pounds' worth of uncut Brazilian diamonds for industrial use, the Headley Pioneer had close on two million pounds' worth of mixed cut and uncut Andean emeralds from the Muzo mines in Columbia, the Hurricane Spray, which had called in at Glasgow en route from Rotterdam to New York, had just over three million pounds worth of diamonds, nearly all cut, and the last one, the Nantesville," — Uncle Arthur almost choked over this one — "had eight million pounds in gold ingots, reserves being called in by the U.S. Treasury.

"We had no idea where the people responsible for these disappearances were getting their information. Such arrangements as to the decision to ship, when, how and how much, are made in conditions of intense secrecy. They, whoever they' are, had impeccable sources of information. Calvert says he knows those sources now. After the disappearance of the first three ships and about six million pounds' worth of specie it was obvious that a meticulously organised gang was at work."