Десмонд Бэгли - The Spoilers

‘How far?’

Metcalfe did a mental calculation. ‘Maybe six miles. And she has radar — she’ll have spotted us.’ He handed the binoculars to Abbot. ‘Stay here and keep an eye on her.’

He went down the derrick and back to the bridge where he picked up the bridge telephone and rang the engineroom. ‘Johnny, prod your chaps a bit — we want more speed... I know that, but Jeanette is on our tail.’

As he slammed down the telephone Hellier gave him a sideways glance. ‘How long have we got?’

‘This rust bucket might do a little over eight knots if she’s pushed. That yacht might do thirteen or fourteen. Say an hour.’ Metcalfe walked on to the wing of the bridge and looked astern. ‘Can’t see her from here; she’s still below the horizon.’ He turned and there was a grim smile on his face. ‘I was in a lark like this once before — over in the Western Mediterranean. Me and a guy called Krupke in a Fairmile. But we were doing the chasing that time.’

‘Who won?’ asked Hellier.

Metcalfe’s smile grew grimmer. ‘I did!’

‘What can she do if she catches up? She can’t board us.’

‘She can shoot hell out of us.’ Metcalfe looked at his watch. ‘This tub isn’t going to be too healthy an hour from now.’

Hellier said, ‘We have plenty of steel plate to hide behind.’

There was something of contempt in Metcalfe’s voice as he said in disgust, ‘Steel plate!’ He kicked against the side of the bridge and rust fell in large flakes. ‘Nickel-jacketed bullets will rip through this stuff like cardboard. You were in the artillery, so you ought to know. Tell me what a 40-millimetre cannon will do to this bridge?’

He left Hellier with that disconcerting thought and went up to the foredeck where Parker and Warren were working on the winch. ‘Put a jerk in it — we’re being followed. How long, for God’s sake?’

Parker did not pause in his steady movements as he screwed in a pipe. ‘I said an hour.’

‘An hour is all you’ve got,’ said Metcalfe. ‘After that keep your head down.’

Warren looked up. ‘Dan’s been telling me about what you think Delorme will do. Will she really shoot us up?’

That was enough to make Parker stop. ‘The first time I laid eyes on that cow I knew she was bad,’ he said. ‘I dunno how Mike could stand her. She’ll kill the lot of us an’ then go back an’ dance all night without a second thought.’ He hauled on the pipe wrench again, and said, ‘That does it up here. The rest we do below decks.’

‘If there’s anything I can do to speed up the job just shout,’ said Metcalfe. ‘I’m going below to tell Andy the score.’ He checked with Tozier and with Follet in the engine-room, and when he arrived back in the open air he saw that the Stella del Mare was visible from the deck, low on the horizon. He went right to the stern and explored, then went up on to the bridge and said to Hellier, ‘This is going to be the prime target — anybody standing where you are is going to get the chop.’

‘Someone has to steer,’ said Hellier quietly.

‘Yes, but not from here. There’s an emergency steering position aft.’ Metcalfe looked up at the derrick. ‘Mike, come down from there and take the wheel.’

He and Hellier went aft where they dragged the emergency steering-wheel from the locker and fixed it in place directly above the rudder. Metcalfe surveyed it. ‘A bit exposed,’ he commented. ‘It needs some canvas round it. It won’t stop bullets but they might not shoot at the stern if they don’t see anyone here.’

They draped a canvas awning around the wheel. ‘Stay here a while,’ said Metcalfe. ‘I’ll take Abbot off the wheel on the bridge — I need him. You can con the ship from now on until I relieve you.’

He dashed forward again, thinking as he went that he was covering a fair mileage on his own flat feet. He took Abbot off the wheel and regarded the course of the Orestes. After a preliminary swerve she continued on her way, and the bridge wheel turned slowly and even back and forth as though controlled by an invisible man.

‘Nip into the officers’ quarters,’ he said to Abbot. ‘Bring some pillows, blankets, jackets, hats — I want to rig up some dummies.’

They draped coats over pillows and fastened the uniform caps on top with meat skewers from the galley. They made three dummies and suspended them from the top of the wheelhouse by ropes so that they looked unpleasantly like hanging men. But from a distance they would look real enough, and they swayed lightly to and fro most realistically giving an impression of natural movement.

Metcalfe went out on the wing of the bridge and looked aft. ‘She’s catching up fast. About a mile to go — say ten minutes. You’d better get the hell out of here, Mike. I’m going to see what Parker’s doing.’

‘There’s a ship over there,’ said Abbot, pointing to starboard. She was going the other way and was about two miles on the starboard beam. ‘Do you think there’s any chance of getting help?’

‘Not unless you want to make this a real massacre,’ said Metcalfe in a strained voice. ‘If we went over to that ship we’d just be adding to the list of the dead.’

‘You mean she’d kill the crew of that ship, too?’

‘A hundred million dollars has a lot of killing power. The ports around here are stuffed with men who’ll kill anyone you specify for five thousand dollars, and I’ll bet she has that yacht full of them.’ He shrugged irritably. ‘Let’s move.’

Parker and Warren were tired and grimy. ‘Five minutes,’ said Parker in answer to Metcalfe’s urgent question. ‘This is the last bit o’ pipe.’

‘Where do you turn on the steam?’

‘There’s a valve on deck near the winch,’ said Parker. ‘You can’t miss it.’

‘I’ll be up there,’ said Metcalfe. ‘Give me a shout when you want it turned on. And someone had better go and tell Andy what’s going on. He might need some backing up, too, but I doubt it.’

He climbed back on deck to find the Stella del Mare coming up on the port beam. She slackened speed to keep pace with the Orestes and took station about two hundred yards away. He crouched behind the winch and looked across at her. Abbot said, from behind him, ‘Look at the stern. What’s that?’

‘Keep out of sight,’ said Metcalfe sharply. He looked at the unmistakable angles barely disguised beneath the canvas covering, and felt a little sick. ‘It’s a cannon. That thing can squirt shells like a hosepipe squirts water.’ He paused. ‘I think there’s a machine-gun mounted forrard up in the bows, and another amidships on top of the boatdeck. A floating packet of trouble.’

‘What are they waiting for?’ demanded Abbot almost petulantly.

‘For that other ship to get clear. Jeanette doesn’t want any witnesses. She’ll wait until it’s hull down before she tries anything.’ He judged the distance to the valve which was in the open. ‘I hope she does, anyway.’

He drummed his fingers against the metal of the winch and waited to be given the word and at last he heard Warren call, ‘All right, Tom; Dan says give it a three-minute squirt — that should be enough.’

Metcalfe came from behind the winch, stood over the valve, and gave it a twist. He was very conscious that he was in full view of the Stella del Mare and felt an uncomfortable prickling between his shoulder-blades. Steam hissed with violence out of a badly connected joint.

Far below him Tozier waited, the sub-machine-gun ready in his hands. Behind him Parker leaned stolidly against the wall waiting for something to happen. That something would happen he was certain. No man would stay for long in a steel box into which live steam at boiler pressure was being fed. He merely nodded as Tozier whispered, ‘The clamp is moving.’