We had not exactly quarrelled. But I had found myself unable to take too much of him. Because straight after the meeting at Fayrhare’s house he had expressed himself to me about Tear in such stubbornly self-confident terms that I had felt he was quite beyond the reach of argument.
‘He’s not the man for it,’ he had said. ‘None of them would be much good. But he’ll be the worst of the lot.’
‘You’re so certain it’s you who ought to be in charge?’
‘Yes,’ he had replied.
Just that.
And as we were embarking at a lonely spot in Bantry Bay, in answer to something I incautiously said, he had returned to the subject.
‘You’d think he’s set on making a mess of it,’ he had growled. ‘He couldn’t have hit on a more unmistakable day, and he’s already chosen to land at the place anyone with a grain of sense would expect.’
That was a little unfair on Tear: it had all along been the opinion of all those with any specialized knowledge that there was not really any choice about a landing place. Oceana scarcely presents a shore favourable to any landfall: the whole of its far, western seaboard faces the Atlantic in one long jagged mass of broken cliffs and high tumbling rocks with hardly so much as a single tiny beach along all its hundred-miles length, and the eastern coast is little better. There the hills are lower but they still present grey granite faces directly to the sea with only the deep inlet at Portharnel providing any decent harbourage and one other small port used by fishing boats near the southern tip of the island, a hopelessly remote place called Caloestown. The sole beaches that are anything more than strips of sand at the foot of cliffs lie some twelve or fifteen miles north of Lesneven at a point where the hills make their only considerable break on the whole coast. Here for a stretch of not much more than ten miles there are sands and the approach is easy, and here, all expert opinion was agreed, was the sole place where a landing in any strength was practicable.
We knew of course that Mr Mylchraine must be aware of this. The fact had been the subject of countless protracted Oceanan conversations during the Second World War when there had been talk of both sides wanting to occupy us. And in those turbulent days—by Oceana standards—a coastal battery and powerful searchlight had been installed on the north tip of the Kernel, giving protection to the whole vulnerable area.
From the crew of the weekly steamer we had learnt that the big searchlight was once again in nightly operation. But a landing-party was to go ahead of us in a dinghy, with Keig leading it, to try to put the light out of action before we made our final approach. Their little low-silhouette craft had already been inflated and it was now bobbing gently in the calm water at the end of a rope beside the place where Keig was sitting, waiting to start its journey into the dangerous swathe of diffused white light that we could see ahead. Keig intended, if at all possible, to deal with the searchlight crew in silence. And for this purpose he had brought with him his old axe. It rested now up against his shoulder, its clean head glinting in the dying rays of the sinking moon.
I sat looking at it. Was its butt-end really going to come hard down on the nape of someone’s neck before another hour had passed? The idea seemed quite unreal. And the rest of us? Were we really going to go running down the slatted ramp of our craft on to those sandy beaches? The beaches where I had once spent whole long days swimming and sunbathing? There was nothing to convince me that any of it at all would happen.
I turned to look at Marshall Tear in the hope that the sight of him would dispel these curious feelings. He was standing, as he had stood for several hours now, on the tiny aft bridge of our motionless craft. But the moonlight that had perhaps been responsible for casting such a web of unreality over everything else seemed to be affecting him too. While I watched it ceased to strike on his mane of grey hair as the upper rim of the moon at last sank beneath the far horizon. But its effect was not dispelled. Tall and upright on the little platform of the bridge, with hands thrust into the pockets of the long flapping riding mackintosh he wore, Tear had about him an invincibly buccaneering air. And I felt that the business that would begin at any moment now, with the sinking of the moon, should be quieter, better conducted and more grim than that.
A few seconds later Fayrhare appeared beside Tear, coming up from the tiny engine-room below the bridge. Here, I thought, is the sort of simply efficient figure that ought to be setting the keynote of what is to come. And with a sudden inner tenseness I realized that most probably Donald had in fact come back up on to the bridge to confirm with Tear that the moment had arrived for Keig and the three others in the dinghy party to set out.
But before the necessary short consultation could take place something else happened. Something altogether unexpected.
Clear and definite as a black penstroke on white paper, there came across the silence of the calm sea a noise none of us had at all counted on hearing—the powerful drone of a marine engine.
I felt the slumped figures all round me stiffen.
Marshall Tear asked in a low voice: ‘What is it?’
Donald answered him with a crisply reassuring calmness that warmed me to him again.
‘I dare say it’s just an old lobster-potter slipping off for some fishing.’
In the quiet his reply was clearly audible to everybody.
‘It’s no lobster boat,’ I heard Keig growl. There aren’t any lobsters this end of the island. The boats all run south for the fishing.’
That was more than I knew. But I had no doubt he was right.
‘No need to panic,’ Donald said.
Everyone sat listening.
Then a new explanation occurred to Tear.
‘I should say it’s some passing ship,’ he announced. ‘A small cargo vessel of some sort.’
‘Could be,’ Donald answered. ‘Though we’re off any shipping lanes here, except for the steamer and she’s in Cobh tonight.’
We waited in silence after that. The distant engine-noise did not seem to be receding. Ahead the great diffused beam of the big searchlight on the Kernel was unmoving.
And then our unspoken questions were abruptly answered. A sudden hard narrow ray of sharp light cut out across the glistening surface of the sea from the direction of the mysterious vessel.
Someone down near the raised ramp jumped to his feet.
‘Get down,’ Donald shouted in a voice which had cowed tougher men than our amateur soldiers.
The figure sprawled quickly forward. But the tugging flutterings of dismay that were running through all the rest of the men crouched on the grease-stained bottom boards of our craft could not be as easily dealt with. A vessel equipped with a searchlight of this sort could be only one thing in these waters: an addition to the island’s defences of which we had had absolutely no knowledge. It looked as if our heavy lumbering ship was going to be carved up like a moribund whale at the mercy of a barracuda.
Kneeling on one knee so that my head just cleared the side, I watched the hard pencil of white light flicking swiftly to and fro across the surface of the sea. It could not be many minutes before it hit on us.
On the little bridge Donald was consulting with Tear in a voice so low I could hear nothing of what was said. After a little he called quietly forward.
‘Mr Keig.’
‘Yes?’
‘Haul that dinghy aboard, will you? We want to be all clear.’
‘Right.’
Keig stood up cautiously. But before he had even had time to lean over the metal side and catch hold of the dinghy rope the searchlight beam found us.
I felt its bright whiteness dazzle me and momentarily closed my eyes. A second later the first shot came.
There was a sudden splash some fifteen yards ahead of us, sounding incredibly noisy in the quietness of the still summer night. And then almost immediately a sharp barking crack came from the direction of the distant hostile vessel.
Donald shouted something and someone in the little engine-house at his feet brought o
ur big engine smartly to life. It roared out deafeningly and the air all round was at once thick with the smell of fumes. Our heavy craft began, terribly slowly, to push through the water.
Above the din I did not hear the second warning shot. But I saw the white water-spout from it startlingly close to our side, and I was aware too that the beam of the searchlight was now narrowing rapidly as our attacker came forward into a killing position.
I heard Donald shout again. Our engine died as abruptly as it had sprung into life. Our attempt at escape had been every bit as short and futile as might have been expected.
In the comparative silence that settled on the indifferently calm sea I could hear the engine of the attacking vessel again. She was nosing quietly towards us, and peering over the side I was soon able to make out that she was some sort of launch, not very large but armed with that swivelling searchlight on her cabin roof and a curious four-barrelled gun on her fore-deck. She was not much of a warship really, but she was more than enough to deal with us.
From behind her blinding white light a voice called across the water through a loud-hailer. ‘Stay just where you are.’
A flood of grey despair overwhelmed me. So this was to be the end of it all: a picnic party cruise across the calm sea, a couple of gun-shots and then confinement in one of Mr Mylchraine’s gaols for years to come.
Donald Fayrhare must have been experiencing an almost identical reaction. Life as a convict under Mr Mylchraine’s Keepers as he had heard Keig describe it would be very different from days spent working in his garden overlooking the sea near Howth.
‘Well,’ I heard him say quite loudly to Marshall Tear, ‘it looks as if we haven’t been too bright. We ought to have got to know about this chappie.’
And Tear’s answer was equally audible in the quietness as the launch crept steadily nearer.
‘Cleverness is not always the needed quality. Sometimes courage is altogether more important. I knew about this launch. She carries an Oerlikon gun.’
It was then that I remembered the girl in the Fayrhares’ garden and how keen Tear had been to get rid of her.
Keig stood up. Ignoring the sharply revealing glare of the launch’s searchlight he turned and faced Tear.
That’s wicked,’ he announced. ‘You knew the strength of the enemy and you still let us go.’
‘My dear man,’ Tear said coldly, ‘if you had known the facts you wouldn’t have set out, would you?’
‘I certainly wouldn’t have set out in this tomfool way.’
‘And there are times when the heart of a great cause needs to be warmed with the red wine of blood,’ Tear answered.
He spoke loudly. The words rang out in the still night—a declaration of faith.
And then, clearly outlined up on the bridge in the cruel light beaming at us from the approaching launch, he stooped for an instant and stood up again holding cradled in his arms the heaviest of our weapons, a Thompson sub-machinegun. With legs braced he pointed it in the direction of the oncoming white searchlight and fired.
It was a roaring shattering burst of sound. The light in front of him disappeared with cataclysmic suddenness.
Now I understood everything. No wonder the whole expedition had had an air of unreality. As an invasion of hostile territory it had been a complete fake. Tear had tricked us all into accompanying him on what he had planned in its place, self-immolation. Keig’s prophecy had come too true: that voice of Tear’s had hypnotized us and him into trouble indeed.
All around me there was nothing short of panic. People stood up and yelled wildly at Tear to stop shooting. Others flung themselves down full length and hugged the oily bottom boards. I saw one or two vague shapes, as the darkness grew less thick, slipping over the sides into the sea. It would be a long, long swim to land. And what would await them if they got there? The launch, I had seen, had a tall wireless aerial and no doubt even at this moment Mr Mylchraine’s Keepers were being roused from sleep and sent down to the beaches in their dozens.
Above the clamour on our craft—with a small determined group now forcing its way aft towards Tear and his still intermittently yammering machinegun—I could hear the angry roar of the launch’s engine. She seemed to be swinging round away from us in a wide circle. Already she must be well out of range of Tear’s fire. At any moment she might find us again and open up with that four-barrel Oerlikon of hers. Even in the darkness we could hardly hope to escape. Our engine had throbbed as noisily as a thick old car’s, and whenever we moved we churned out behind us a broad white wake that must show up for miles.
But our respite was even shorter than I had counted on. At this moment there swept palely towards us the wide diffused beam of the giant searchlight on the Kernel. The launch’s wireless had been used to even better effect than I had foretold.
And the instant we showed up in that broad-spread beam the shooting began again. It was at once plain that the earlier rounds had indeed been fired as warnings: behind that four-barrelled gun was a grimly efficient marksman. The very first shell hit us down by the waterline somewhere near the prow. I heard screams and almost at once our floating box began to cant over towards the place where the sea was coming in.
The shouting and the yells increased sharply in intensity. Above them all there came once more the sound of Tear’s machinegun, like the passionate tantrum drumming of a child’s heels on a floor.
In the pale white beam of the distant searchlight I could see his tall figure clearly, standing up there on the bridge. I think Donald Fayrhare was trying to get him down, but he had his back to everybody and with his legs firmly astride he continued, lost in a dream, to fire blind bursts into the night.
And then the next shot came.
It blew Tear to pieces. One moment he was there, grey mane of hair dishevelled, long mackintosh flapping round his splayed-out legs. And the next moment he seemed to be flying in all directions.
But I had no time to contemplate his end. The launch was now firing rapidly and every shot was telling. Water came pouring in from every side. The wounded and the frightened were screaming hard. Most of the others were scrambling overboard and swimming out of harm’s way as fast as they could. I thought it was high time I joined them. I gave a quick glance round to see if Keig was anywhere about, but he seemed to have disappeared in the confusion. I bundled myself over the metal side and dropped into the warm night sea.
I swam hard for a little, as much to get out of the confusion as to avoid the Oerlikon shells. But when I no longer biffed a wildly swimming fellow-rebel with every stroke I turned on my back and surveyed the scene behind me. I had a notion I was going to need to conserve as much energy as I could if I was in any way to extricate myself from the disaster.
I was just in time to see our craft, purchased with a large part of the gold I had helped Keig seize on the island a little less than a year before, disappear from sight. Her long upright exhaust-pipe pointed skywards, thin and black, for one instant like a line put on a smudgy photograph to indicate the exact scene of a crime and then it plunged into the churned-up sea in its turn and only a score or two of bobbing heads and two or three just perceptible black sodden floating bodies remained in the diffused light still cast on the spot from the direction of the Kernel.
The launch however was plain to see, a clear silhouette in that same light. She had ceased firing now, and I thought her engine had begun to throb a little more loudly as for the second time she nosed forward to inspect us.
I wondered what to do. Should I struggle out of my coat, abandon the pistol hanging leadenly in one of my pockets and attempt to swim for the shore and risk being picked up by patrolling Keepers? Or should I do what I saw several people nearer the launch already doing: wave like mad and shout to be taken on board? So far the launch was making no move to help anybody, but no doubt her crew would come to the rescue before long. Only that meant one of Mr Mylchraine’s gaols for certain.
Still the launch made no move. I saw one dark head striki
ng out firmly towards her. Presumably they were busy on board telling the shore by radio what the outcome of the engagement had been.
And then, quite without warning, the shelling began again. A first shot blasted up in a white spume of foam where the head of the foremost swimmer had been. And, next, shot after shot went hurtling into the main mass of bodies in the water.
For two seconds I experienced a feeling of cold outrage, and then fear took over. I no longer debated what I should do: I swam just as hard as I could go away from that massacre, salt water slapping into my half-open mouth and an acute feeling of sickness infecting the whole centre of my body.
I did not look back. I dared not. I concentrated for all I was worth on forcing my legs to work harder, on cleaving with my arms at the water in front of me to get through it as quickly as possible.
But soon it was borne in on me that the water-plumes of the shells were getting nearer and nearer. The thought entered my head that the gunner on the launch must have dealt with the main mass of survivors and that he was now amusing himself by chasing individuals as they swam frantically away.
But there was nothing else I could do but swim. Nothing but swim and swim and hope that by sheer chance they would miss me until I had got far enough away. I swam on, gulping, panicked and wretched. And then I realized that the shooting had stopped.
At first I would not let myself believe it, but went on splashing away at the water before me. But my exhausted body was more of a realist than my frightened mind. I found I was swimming more and more slowly, and at last I decided I might as well roll over and see what was happening.
A totally unexpected sight met my eyes. There was the familiar silhouette of the launch, spindly radio aerial, awkward-shaped four-barrel gun and all, stationary at what must have been almost the spot we had sunk. And standing on the roof of her cabin, plain to see in the distant searchlight beam, waving his arms and, I think, hallooing, was Keig.
He was unmistakable. I would have known the outline of those bull shoulders anywhere. A flood of energy surged back into me. I struck out towards him.
The Strong Man Page 11