Desmond Bagley - Night Of Error

'That's right – but I'm damned if I know what it is. It was just something about his manner when I questioned him about Mark. There was a look of fear about him, something in his eyes I couldn't place. I think something much more terrible happened. But the outline of the story is clear enough.'

Clare shivered. 'I didn't have much sympathy for Mark -not after what he did to me – but I can't help feeling sorry for him. What a pitiful end for any man.'

I nodded. 'I wouldn't think about it too much, Clare. He's dead and beyond feeling anything any more. The world is for the living.'

And you are one of the living, I thought, looking at her. There was no romantic moon shining across the water; instead we were in the hard white glare of the tropic sun. There was no love song echoing from the saloon, just the rhythmic clanking of the winch and the throb of a diesel. I said, 'Clare, if we come out of this successfully I'd like to get to know you better – much better.'

She slanted her eyes at me. 'And if we don't come through successfully – will you just walk away and never want to see me again?'

'That's not a nice way to put it.'

That's the way I have to put it.'

I said nothing, fumbling for the right words.

'This is rather a new experience for me,' said Clare with a warmth of humour in her voice. 'I've never had to work at it myself. Most times I've had to fend off the advances'

'I'm not making…'

' – because I wasn't sure if I liked the man, or because I sometimes thought they were after me as Pop's daughter- the ones who never found his money a hindrance. I don't think that's your problem though. Or do you think that rich people should only marry rich people?'

I was about to reply angrily until I suddenly realized that she was teasing me. Her eyes were alight with mischief- and, I thought in astonishment, with fondness. I said lamely, 'Clare, there are all sorts of…'

She waited but I was still fumbling.

'Complications? But we could weather them all. Oh Mike, you're an awful fool – but I love you all the more for it.'

I said after a pause, 'Damn it, Clare, it isn't the way I intended this.'

'Am I driving you to the wall, Mike? Why don't you just say what's on your mind?'

So I did. I said, 'Will you marry me, Clare?'

She hung her head for a moment and then looked at me. 'Of course I will,' she said. 'We'll get married by the first priest we come across. I thought you'd never get to the point. Girls are only supposed to propose in Leap Year, but I nearly had to break that rule.'

I felt exhilarated and weak simultaneously. 'Well, I'll be damned,' I said, and we both burst out laughing out of sheer joy. I wanted to do the obvious thing and take her in my arms, but there was too little privacy even up here, so we simply clutched each other's hands.

Clare said, 'Mike, let's not tell anyone just yet. Pop has enough else on his mind right now. I think he'll be fine about it but I want to be sure when we tell him, and nobody else should know first.'

I agreed with her. I'd have agreed with anything she said just then.

We talked a lot of nonsense until the dredge came up. I can't remember us walking down to the laboratory – I think we floated.* 3*

We dredged and dredged, stopping every ten miles on the way to Minerva Reefs. We dredged during every scrap of daylight hours and I worked a sixteen-hour day, taking my meals in the laboratory. The girls were of great service but there was still a lot of work, and I began to fear that my supplies of chemicals would soon run out.

One thing bothered me. We were being continually pestered by members of the crew calling in at the lab to see what we were doing. Not only were they anxious to see good results but I found that Taffy Morgan had organized a sweepstake on the cobalt result of every dredge. I went to see Geordie.

'Look, this is wasting a lot of my time,' I told him. Tell them to put a sock in it.'

He smiled slowly. 'Don't want to dampen their enthusiasm, do you? Tell you what; give me the results of the dredge each day and I'll post a bulletin.'

'That'll do it. Get the results from Clare.'

He stuffed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. 'Campbell started something with his big talk of making us all millionaires. Do you think there's anything in it?'

'I should say he's a man of his word.'

'I'm not doubting his word,' said Geordie. 'I'm doubting whether he can live up to it. If ten to fifteen million pounds is only five per cent of what he expects to make, then I think he's expecting to make a devil of a lot.'

'He is, Geordie,' I said soberly. 'And so am I. I'm hoping that if we hit it all, it'll be big. When I've the time we'll get Campbell to talk in figures. That's going to open your eyes.'

'He's already done that.'

'He's hardly started.'

'We'll see,' said Geordie, unimpressed.

We dredged – and dredged – and dredged. Then we hit shoal ground at nearly 4000 feet. Geordie said laconically, 'Minerva Bank.'

'All right,' I said. 'Nice navigating. We carry out our plan -we dredge all round it. But first I'd like a sample from the middle of the shoal, as far into the shallows as it's safe to go.'

Campbell said, 'Isn't that wasting time?'

'We don't know – not until we've done it. And I'd like to know for the record – and for my own theories.'

We were wasting our time. We dredged at 2000 feet and came up with a bucketful of volcanic cinders, dead coral and shell. No nodules at all. The crew looked suddenly worried at the haul but I reassured them. 'I hardly expected any here, so don't worry. Plenty outside still. Now we can cross this area off the list, but I had to be sure.'

We retraced our track to the edge of Minerva Bank and started to circle it at a distance of about ten miles, dredging in deep water. Geordie worked it out on the chart. 'That's about sixteen times we drop – say four days.'

It took us a bit longer than that, but five days later we had made the full circle and still hadn't found anything. Campbell, first up and first down, was getting depressed again and his fretting was agitating the crew, who'd been working manfully. 'Are you sure we're in the right place?' he asked me, not for the first time.

'No, I'm not,' I said sharply. I was a bit on edge too; I was tired and not in a mood to be asked stupid questions. 'I'm not sure of a damned thing. I've got theories to offer, but no certainties.'

Geordie was more placid. 'Don't forget that our arrival in Tonga brought Ramirez there hotfoot. I think we're in the right place.'

I wished to God I knew where they were. They'd had time, I reckoned, to repair their engine, and I would have dearly loved to know if they were out at sea searching for us at this moment. If only we had some inkling as to how much Ramirez really knew, we could be better placed to cope with him.

Campbell echoed my thoughts. 'Where the hell is Suarez-Navarro? And where are these goddam nodules? What do we do next, Mike?'

'We carry on as planned. We go back towards Falcon on a parallel track.'

'East or west?' enquired Geordie.

I shrugged and felt in my trouser pocket. 'Anyone got a coin? This is a thing that can be tossed for.'

Campbell snorted in disgust.

Geordie said, more practically, 'Why don't we do both? We use the course we came on as a centre line and zig-zag back. First sample one side, then the other.'

'That's a reasonable idea,' I said. 'Let's do that.'

So we went back, and the same old boring routine went on. The winch motor whined, the bucket went over the side with a bubbling splash and a couple of hours later came up with its load which I then proceeded to prove worthless. There were plenty of nodules but not the gold-plated ones. The crew was kept busy at keeping the decks reasonably clean and at maintenance, and we devised all sorts of games and exercises to use up spare time.