Десмонд Бэгли - The Golden Keel

The Fairmile was in no better shape, either. She staggered and wallowed as unexpected waves hit her and I could imagine the tumult inside that hull. She was an old boat, being war surplus, and her hull must have deteriorated over the years despite the care Metcalfe had lavished on her. Then there was the fact that when she was built her life expectancy was about five years, and wartime materials weren’t noted for their excessive quality.

I had the sudden idea that she couldn’t move any faster, and that Metcalfe was driving her as fast as he dared in those heavy seas. Her engines were fine for twenty-six knots in calm water but if she was driven at much more than eight knots now she would be in danger of falling apart. Metcalfe might risk a lot for the gold, but he wouldn’t risk that.

As I heard the engine start I opened the throttle wide and turned Sanford away from the Fairmile. We had a biggish engine and I could still get seven knots out of Sanford, even punching against these seas. Our five minutes’ grace was now stretched to an hour, and maybe in that hour I’d get another bright idea.

Coertze came up and I handed the tiller over to him, and went below. I didn’t bother to tell him what to do — it was obvious. I opened the locker under my berth and took out the Schmeisser machine pistol and all the magazines. Francesca looked at me from the settee. ‘Must you do that?’ she asked.

‘I’ll not shoot unless I have to,’ I said. ‘Not unless they start shooting first.’ I looked round. ‘Where’s Walker?’

‘He locked himself in the fo’c’sle. He’s frightened of Coertze.’

‘Good. I don’t want him underfoot now,’ I said, and went back to the cockpit.

Coertze looked incredulously at the machine pistol. ‘Where the hell did you get that?’

‘From the tunnel,’ I said. ‘I hope it works — this ammo is damned old.’

I put one of the long magazines into the butt and clipped the shoulder rest into place. I said, ‘You’d better get your Luger; I’ll take the helm.’

He smiled sourly. ‘What’s the use? You threw all the bullets away.’

‘Damn! Wait a minute, though; there’s Torloni’s gun. It’s in the chart table drawer.’

He went below and I looked back at the Fairmile. As I thought, Metcalfe didn’t increase his speed when we turned away. Not that it mattered — he had the legs of us by about a knot and I could see that he was perceptibly closer.

Coertze came back with the pistol stuck in his trouser waistband. He said, ‘How long before he catches up?’

‘Less than an hour,’ I said. I touched the Schmeisser. ‘We don’t shoot unless he does — and we don’t shoot to kill.’

‘Will he shoot to kill?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He might.’

Coertze grunted and pulled out the gun and began to examine the action.

We fell into silence; there was nothing much to talk about, anyway. I ruminated on the firing of a submachine-gun. It had been a long time since I had fired one and I began to go over the training points that had been drilled into me by a red-faced sergeant. The big thing was that the recoil lifted the muzzle and if you didn’t consciously hold it down most of your fire would be wasted in the air. I tried to think of other things I had learned but I couldn’t think of anything else so that fragment of information would have to do.

After a while I said to Coertze, ‘I could do with some coffee.’

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ he said, and went below. An Afrikaner will never refuse the offer of coffee; their livers are tanned with it. In five minutes he was back with two steaming mugs, and said, ‘Francesca wants to come up.’

I looked back at the Fairmile. ‘No,’ I said briefly.

We drank the coffee, spilling half of it as Sanford shuddered to a particularly heavy sea, and when we had finished the Fairmile was within a quarter of a mile and I could see Metcalfe quite clearly standing outside the wheelhouse.

I said, ‘I wonder how he’s going to go about it. He can’t board us in this sea, there’s too much danger of ramming us. How would you go about it, Kobus?’

‘I’d lay off and knock us off with a rifle,’ he grunted. ‘Just like at a shooting gallery. Then when the sea goes down he can board us without a fight.’

That seemed reasonable but it wouldn’t be as easy as in a shooting gallery — metal ducks don’t shoot back. I handed the tiller to Coertze. ‘We may have to do a bit of fancy manoeuvring,’ I said. ‘But you’ll handle her well enough without sail. When I tell you to do something, you do it damn’ quick.’ I picked up the Schmeisser and held it on my knee. ‘How many rounds are there in that pistol?’

‘Not enough,’ he said. ‘Five.’

At last the Fairmile was only a hundred yards away on the starboard quarter and Metcalfe came out of the wheelhouse carrying a Tannoy loud-hailer. His voice boomed across the water. ‘What are you running away for? Don’t you want a tow?’

I cupped my hands around my mouth. ‘Are you claiming salvage?’ I asked sardonically.

He laughed. ‘Did the storm do any damage?’

‘None at all,’ I shouted. ‘We can get to port ourselves.’ If he wanted to play the innocent I was prepared to go along with him. I had nothing to lose.

The Fairmile was throttled back to keep pace with us. Metcalfe fiddled with the amplification of the loud-hailer and it whistled eerily. ‘Hal,’ he shouted, ‘I want your boat — and your cargo.’

There it was — out in the open as bluntly as that.

The loud-hailer boomed, ‘If you act peaceable about it I’ll accept half, if you don’t I’ll take the lot, anyway.’

‘Torloni made the same offer and look what happened to him.’

‘He was at a disadvantage,’ called Metcalfe. ‘He couldn’t use guns — I can.’

Krupke moved into sight — carrying a rifle. He climbed on top of the deck saloon and lay down just behind the wheelhouse. I said to Coertze, ‘It looks as though you called that one.’

It was bad, but not as bad as all that. Krupke had been in the army; he was accustomed to firing from a steady position even though his target might move. I didn’t think he could fire at all accurately from a bouncing platform like the Fairmile.

I saw the Fairmile edging in closer and said to Coertze, ‘Keep the distance.’

Metcalfe shouted, ‘What about it?’

‘Go to hell!’

He nodded to Krupke, who fired immediately, I didn’t see where the bullet went — I don’t think it hit us at all. He fired again and this time he hit something forward. It must have been metal because I heard a ‘spaang’ as the bullet ricochetted away.

Coertze dug me in the ribs. ‘Don’t look back so that Metcalfe notices you, but I think we’re in for some heavy weather.’

I changed position on the seat so that I could look astern from the corner of my eye. The horizon was black with a vicious squall — and it was coming our way. I hoped to God it would hurry.

I said, ‘We’ll have to play for time now.’

Krupke fired again and there was a slam astern. I looked over the side and saw a hole punched into the side of the counter. His aim was getting better.

I shouted, ‘Tell Krupke not to hole us below the waterline. We might sink, and you wouldn’t like that.’

That held him for a while. I saw him talking to Krupke, making gestures with his hand to indicate a higher elevation. I called urgently for Francesca to come on deck. Those nickeljacketed bullets would go through Sanford ’s thin planking as though it was tissue paper. She came up just as Krupke fired his next shot. It went high and didn’t hit anything.

As soon as Metcalfe saw her he held up his hand and Krupke stopped firing. ‘Hal, be reasonable,’ he called. ‘You’ve got a woman aboard.’