The German Numbers Woman

by Alan Sillitoe

  ‘A beautiful letter,’ Cleaver agreed. ‘The first in the alphabet.’ Howard thought if he had been a detective trying to work out what recognition light they would choose for the landing he would decide it had to be an A. People like them would naturally pick the first out of twenty-six. It was simple because easy to remember, and they wouldn’t have to think further, and be less liable to detection because it was so obvious. They might even imagine it to be safer. They could persuade themselves it was an inspired choice. Having selected it they wouldn’t then have to sit around a table sweating for hours about what letter to use.

  Yet maybe a detective would never imagine they’d use an A, that they couldn’t resist trying to choose something else. In the contest of wits, however (as he looked at the identikit picture of a drug runner pasted up on the wall) he would conclude that to choose A as an identifying letter might be the most subtle move of all.

  ‘You can’t go wrong with it,’ Waistcoat said. ‘Number one. Always go for number one. It’s the only thing that makes sense.’

  Richard, joined to him by hope if nothing else, saw no reason not to. Yet he was beyond caring, as usual at this stage. The black emptiness of the sea had entered him, a void rarely if ever to be filled, but giving energy for the job in hand. They would refuel, get the bags on board at the double and after the delivery had been seen to he would do no more such trips. No one can be lucky forever. The time had come to enjoy the money in the bank, and find ways for his life to change.

  The light twinkled every few seconds, short-long, short-long, like an eyelid trying to shake off an insect that insisted on settling. He took the wheel, going directly towards it, the boat closing with each beat of the engines. Every pull of the water, and he waited for an announcement from the lookout that the shadow of land was close. ‘Won’t be long,’ Howard said. ‘I smell it, feel it for sure. Trees and dry soil.’

  ‘Like a canary down a coalmine for the first whiff of gas,’ Waistcoat said. ‘We’re lucky to have you on board. How far, though.’

  ‘Two miles?’ he suggested.

  ‘Nautical or statute?’ Cleaver must have smiled.

  ‘Oh, statute. They’re the ones I’m used to.’

  ‘He’s right. I see it, dead ahead.’ A trace of excitement came into Cleaver’s tone. ‘It’ll be rocks to starboard for a mile. Then starboard again, and we’re right in.’

  Scud came to say he had also seen it. ‘Even the fucking blind man got it before you did,’ Waistcoat said. ‘Get back and keep a sharper butcher’s. Tell Paul it’s half speed. Hear me, Richard?’

  ‘Half speed.’

  Black palisades of rock to the right cut them off from the west. ‘I’m keeping well clear.’ He would need all the tricks of the trade to get in, foam at the base of the rocks as if magnetised to pull the boat onto them, positive touches at the wheel to fight it.

  ‘I see the point up ahead where we turn,’ Cleaver said. ‘Plain as a pikestaff. We’ll make it now.’

  ‘Dead slow when we go to starboard,’ Waistcoat said.

  ‘Less than a mile to the beach. We’ll see the gravel soon. Let the anchor go half a cable from shore. Head for their light.’

  Howard listened again on VHF. Maybe those who normally used the channels were as intent on radio silence as themselves, but if so, why? A clear and empty spectrum seemed strange, as if a trap was laid, unless it was a coincidence. Someone was usually gabbling, yet he’d heard no one since the skipper’s demise on the sailing yacht. Perhaps the missive in morse, posted before leaving, had reached its destination, and even Jehu had made land to provide more gen. Unable to sit, he went back on deck as the anchor rattled down. ‘I smell a lot of land now.’

  ‘And well you might,’ Richard said. ‘If you could see the slit we’ve got into you’d say it was a miracle we found it. Just a touch of beach, no more than a few yards, and a track winding down to it, though how they got Land-Rovers here I’ll never know.’

  ‘Midnight,’ said Waistcoat, ‘as near as damn it, so let’s shift our arses.’

  Howard heard the oars of a dinghy coming from shore. Time to lean against the rail and guess what was going on. He wanted to smoke but didn’t care to hear Waistcoat’s screams of rebuke. The earth seemed all around, even behind them, the way they had come. A strange yet homely smell of warm but cooling vegetation mixed with that of the sea. A rattle of the gangplank, and a heavily built man was careful to put one step before the other as he came on board. ‘Have you got it?’

  The English voice sounded more genuine in its class than Waistcoat’s, cool and uppercrust. ‘We have our lot, if you have yours.’

  ‘There’s no problem, then.’

  ‘None at all, old man. They’ll begin loading as soon as I say it’s time. Enough juice to get you back as well, though it was no joke hauling it to this godforsaken spot.’

  ‘Come to my cabin, and I’ll hand over the wherewithal.’

  ‘Expect no less.’ The man laughed. ‘But no false-bottomed suitcases, eh?’

  ‘Not where I come from,’ Waistcoat said, as if he had met someone, Howard thought, on an even higher level of villainy, but couldn’t openly curse him as he would like.

  The crew stood waiting. ‘Wouldn’t mind going ashore for a drink,’ Cannister said. ‘I was in Delgado once, and met a girl. Had a wonderful time. Got robbed of every penny!’

  ‘You’ll have to come back as a tourist,’ Scud said. ‘Me, I don’t want to see the place. There’s plenty better in the world.’

  ‘I’d rather go to Greece,’ Ted put in. ‘Topless bathing on the islands, and all that. There’s one where all the German women are lesbians. I forget what it’s called. I hear they rip you to bits if you get close. France is safer. Was that a plane I heard?’

  ‘No,’ Cannister said, ‘it was a car up the coast. They’ve got the fuel on the beach, by the look of it.’

  ‘You’ve got good eyes. We’d better not drop a barrel, or we won’t get home.’

  Waistcoat and his business partner had done their dealing, and when the door opened Howard heard the man say: ‘I’m sending one of my crew back with you – surplus to requirements.’

  Waistcoat must have nodded. ‘Yeh, all right’ – and when the man was settled into his boat he turned to the others: ‘Come on, then, get to work. We’re loading any minute, diesel one way, dope another.’

  Richard, through his night-vision monocular, the latest thing from Russia, watched the boat pulling from the shore. Three people were getting packages and barrels over the rocks. One was a tallish woman, fair hair moving in the breeze, obviously not someone local. The dinghy went ashore with Waistcoat, as if he wanted to know what he was getting. Now was the time for someone to put a knife in his back. Richard waited for the sound of a pig being killed, a squealing to wake the whole island, if not the dead. Music to his ears, he and Cleaver would get the boat home – though not without fuel. But the squeal didn’t come, and the signal was given for loading.

  Howard heard each piece of cargo bump onto the deck, slide along and be snatched for stowing below, a counterpoint to barrels of diesel for refuelling the engines. Cinnakle dipped a finger in each to sniff the quality (not too much water mixed in so that they would stall within the twelve mile limit and get caught) while Waistcoat fussed and put each bundle to his nostrils, as if any clue of quality could get through the wrapping, gave a pat to one, the rump of a loving girl – or boy, Richard thought, never certain, but he made sure each of the forty packages was checked and counted, and concealed in prepared hidey-holes below.

  Howard wanted to know where they were, but was pushed so hard at the doorway, almost a punch, that he fell against the rail, and only the strength of his sending arm stopped him splashing into the drink, where there would be no air-sea rescue service to pick him up. ‘Out of the fucking way,’ Waistcoat said.

  Richard steadied him. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘As far as I can tell.’

  ‘Keep your mouth sh
ut. Nobody likes questions of that sort. Get to the stern, and melt into the night.’

  But he stood close enough until everything relevant had been brought on board. The dinghy came for its final call, and Waistcoat said, at someone stepping onto the deck: ‘What the fuck do you want?’

  A woman answered. ‘I’m going back to England with you.’

  ‘Oh no, you’re not.’

  ‘I should have gone a couple of weeks ago from Turkey, but I couldn’t, so I’m going now.’

  ‘I have all the crew I want.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘I’m only hitching a lift.’

  Howard sat, head towards his knees, like a man with perfect sight trying not to look.

  ‘What’s in that sack?’

  ‘Pineapples. It’s my contribution to the galley. Clarence said I was to come,’ she told Waistcoat. ‘He promised I’d go back with you. He won’t be needing me for a while.’

  ‘And I don’t need you, either.’

  ‘Well, you have to take me. It’s part of the deal.’

  Howard hadn’t heard anyone exchange contrary words with Waistcoat, and sensed the explosion on its way. ‘Yeh, but he didn’t say it was a fucking woman.’

  The expletive must have set her off: ‘Yes, but I don’t suppose he said it was a man, either,’ she called, in a tone of fiery sarcasm. ‘But I’m as good as any fucking man, you shit-head, so I’m here.’ She dropped the bag of pineapples. ‘Let some prick take these to the galley. I’m shagged out and pissed off, and I want to get my head down.’

  ‘Ted!’ Waistcoat shouted, in a voice of panic and loathing.

  ‘Yes, sir, what is it?’

  ‘Get these fucking things out of the way, then we’re shoving off.’ He kicked the bag, and sent one of the choice fruits so far it only stopped rolling at Howard’s feet. He picked it up, and held the delicious scent to his face.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Engines bumped into life, a monotonous song that wouldn’t stop until the boat was tied up to be unloaded, a song of words that became his own, saying to himself over and over all she had said, fair words and foul, repeated and reiterated, anagrammed and oxymoronned, words that had put Waistcoat in his place and caused fruit to scatter over the deck. The Goddess had boarded the Flying Dutchman.

  He lay in his bunk and hoped for oblivion, yet too inert to vanish from the world by slipping over the side. Dreams were all he had been given in life, had ever been able to handle. They’d had their uses in lulling him not too painfully through months and years, but one had stepped from his theatre of fantasy, and walked into reality, macerating his ability to play any part.

  Anchors up, the boat headed from the cove at a carefully measured rate. Everyone knew what they had to do and how to do it, but he couldn’t move. Not a finger would uncurl to get him on deck. Words from the outer world shot clear into his brain, crisp islands of sound, an effort needed to unite one with another in terms of meaning.

  Clear the headland, and then it’s a course of zero-one-zero, half speed till o-one-thirty. Open up and get as far north as the boat will go before daylight. Lady Moon is still in bed, wind pulling her blankets off and laying them on again. All well because, they said, by morning we’ll be beyond the aircraft reporting point at Position Bravo. Let them chew on that. He heard laughter, as if more than a few drinks were being sucked from the leather covered flasks everyone carried, and now thought it all right to use. Forgive them, Lord, they know not what will happen.

  He sensed the bumping and sliding of soft packets around him, even under his feet it seemed. If customs officers marched on board they wouldn’t find a thing, such was the idea of the others, unless he explained that the only way was to take the boat apart, board by board and strut by strut. ‘I saw them bring it on. All of it.’

  ‘What did you see? Don’t make us laugh. How could you see anything?’

  ‘It’s what I know. I felt it. Heard. Forty or more parcels of hard drugs.’

  And they would search the boat, the crew looking on with anger and fear. ‘We can’t find a thing,’ adding when they turned to Howard: ‘Don’t make stupid jokes. We’re busy men. We don’t like it.’ After their departure he would be allowed off the boat, though not get far before the knife struck or the bullet made a hole in him. The same for Richard.

  If someone had taken in the sense of his morse letter the customs would dismantle the boat anyway, and he would stand in panic with the rest, including Judy. The game had been turned upside down, because her skipper had wanted to make up for ordering her to stay behind in Turkey. In the Azores her replacement had appeared, and she was being sent back on their morris-dancing vessel because it saved the price of an airline ticket. Or maybe it was her idea. She liked boats, was at home on them, thought the trip would be more interesting, even adventurous (it certainly would) going back this way. What was the price of an airline ticket to them?

  He wanted a helicopter to come down now, didn’t want to wait, the game up at the right time. But any time was the right time. They knew exactly what was going on, playing cat and mouse, aware of where the boat was, the direction it was heading. They would strike when the boat reached international waters, the crew lulled by thoughts of a quiet trip. Or they would lurk in ambush at a landing place on the British coast and catch whoever was meeting them as well.

  He’d wanted to hear her, to be close, and would now give anything to mellow down the banging of a heart unable to manage the sudden gift. He wanted to get up and tell her what was on board (as if she didn’t know) and what he had done about it, but they were on their way together, and he could reveal it anytime. She would think him a crazy old man on the Flying Dutchman who had been too long at sea. She might even mention his lunacy to Waistcoat.

  The door banged open. ‘What are you doing?’ Richard called, ‘at a time like this? I know you’re tired. We all are. But pull yourself together. Get on the radio, and find out if anyone’s tracking us. Time for shut-eye later.’

  People with nothing to worry about slept easily at night, so there was less traffic on the airwaves. His legs ached, knees pressed against the table. Voices on VHF were too distant even to make out the language. Ships or smaller boats were out there. He went on deck with the mobile receiver and its ferrite direction finder, the bearing undoubtedly east, though with so much metal around he couldn’t be too specific. Louder chat might indicate a vessel coming towards them, which he mentioned to Waistcoat, on the bridge with Richard and Cleaver.

  ‘You’ve got to expect it. As long as there isn’t a boat coming the other way as well. Still, they might get us on their radar soon, the nosey bastards.’

  ‘Not while we’re heading for Polaris.’ Cleaver’s tone was as close as he would allow to gloating. ‘All worry gone when that little sparkler’s in sight.’ He turned to Howard. ‘Listen some more. You’re doing well.’

  The talk was a shade clearer, therefore closer, timbre and rhythm telling him it wasn’t English. After a further report he went on deck, a treacle of cooling blackness all around. Cigarette smoke came against his face.

  ‘I can’t sleep. There’s too much going on.’

  He hadn’t heard her approach. ‘Well, so it is. Or it might be.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind knowing what.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about.’ He fumbled for his cigarettes, and took a step closer. ‘Will you light one for me? Keep it down, though. We’re still under blackout regulations.’

  ‘I don’t care about that.’ She gave him hers, without thought. Very matey, but that was the kind of person he’d always known her to be. He tasted the dampness, and a faint flavour of lipstick, a kiss by proxy. She lit one for herself. ‘What’s your job on this jumblies boat?’

  ‘I’m the wireless hack, listening for any opposition.’

  ‘A sparks, eh? They don’t generally carry one.’ After a silence she asked: ‘How long till we get back?’

  He stroked the rail, as if it breathed for them both. ‘
Are you in a hurry?’

  ‘I’ve someone to see. The other boat’s gone to the Med. I want to see my girlfriend.’

  She was so close he touched her when the boat lurched, its course coming into line with the north. ‘Can you see anything?’

  ‘No more than you can.’ She laughed. ‘What a funny question.’

  ‘I can’t see, even when I look.’

  ‘How do you mean? You’re getting a bit philosophical. I’m not used to that.’

  Her voice was so much the same, locked in by darkness, and the rushing of the sea, that he wondered if he wasn’t hearing it as in former days, earphones clamped, and she chatting to a male interloper who had wandered onto the wavelength. ‘Can you see me smile?’

  ‘If I look close. Your eyes are fixed. I’m not surprised you can’t see. How do you do it?’

  He jumped the inches, hands going over the features to take in her image. ‘Like this.’

  ‘What the hell?’ she cried.

  ‘Sorry. I wanted to see you. I wanted to make out what you looked like.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right then. I’ve never had that excuse before. Very funny.’

  ‘I really am.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference being blind if you’re a wireless operator.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  ‘You could even say it sharpens the ears wonderfully.’

  ‘I’ve never met anyone who’s blind.’

  To say he’d caught her in a rare area was more than right. She’d never been such a way before, and since it was something to his advantage he sensed an element of cheating. ‘Not many people have.’

  ‘You aren’t kidding?’

  ‘Who would, about that?’ He wallowed in the closeness of her voice, and her face as she looked closer for confirmation. ‘I only wish I could be.’

  ‘What sort of a boat have I landed on?’

  ‘You may well ask.’

  ‘Was it in a car crash, or have you been like that from birth?’

  There was a possibility of her spending a long time in jail, because sitting at his radio night after night he had malignly influenced the turn of events which brought her before him. Back at the radio he might hear voices closing in on them by the minute, a pair of powerful launches crossing searchlights over the bridge, a bellow through megaphones for them to heave-to. The jaunt would be over. She would be handcuffed, and led away with the rest of them.