by Nevil Shute
He had two spare clips, about twenty rounds in all. I looked at my watch; it was a quarter-past two. There were still two clear hours till dawn. One point was in our favour, I thought; our little cannon would make more row than forty of theirs put together. With any luck somebody would hear and come to see what it was all about—though I had to admit that the chance was pretty small.
I took a careful aim at the spot where I had seen the flash, and fired. Before the echo had died away we were lying flat on top of each other in the cockpit, listening to the bullets whipping over us or slapping into the topsides. I noticed something that put the wind up me properly. One of the bullets hit the boom above our heads and wrenched a great hunk out of it as big as my two fists, instead of penetrating. The sight gave me a nasty turn; I was on the point of calling Compton’s attention to it, but thought better of it. It wouldn’t do him any good, I thought, to know that they were shooting at us with soft-nosed bullets.
Presently the firing died away. I reckoned that they had hit us ten or a dozen times, mostly in the topsides. Neither Compton nor I were touched; the bullets did not seem to have the penetrating power to come through the cockpit. I couldn’t see what sort of a mess they were making of the hull, but I remember thinking that I should have to sell out my Imperial Tobaccos to buy the vessel after this was over—always supposing she were still afloat and I were capable of instructing a broker in any more conventional manner than by planchette.
I stuck my head up over the coaming and fired again. They replied at their leisure with two that came unpleasantly close. I didn’t fire any more because I could see nothing to fire at, and for a long time there was silence. We could hear nothing from the launch.
‘End of Part One,’ said Compton bitterly. ‘Part Two will follow immediately. I say, Stenning, I’m most frightfully sorry to have dragged you into this. I never thought that Roddy would go flying off the deep end in this way.’
We waited for some time, and presently he sat up. ‘They seem to have a complex that I should go with them to Italy,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It looks like one of those complexes that are dangerous to repress.…’
He raised himself in the cockpit to hail the Italians. I took him by the shoulders and pressed him down again.
‘No, you don’t,’ I said. ‘You’ll be cold meat ten minutes after you get aboard that launch.’
In the dim light he looked at me wonderingly. ‘I don’t think Roddy would do a thing like that,’ he said at last.
I laughed shortly. ‘I do,’ I said. ‘When they’d done with you they’d come back and polish off me. I reckon we’re better where we are.’
The vessel was lying about broadside on to the launch. ‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t slip over the side and swim ashore,’ I said. ‘I believe we could do it in this light without being spotted. Can you swim quietly?’
He nodded. ‘Would we be much better off on Pendruan?’ he said. ‘There’s not much cover there.’
‘There’s a cottage somewhere on Pendruan,’ I said. ‘In any case, we’d be farther away from those lads in the launch for the moment. That strikes me as a considerable advantage. I don’t think they’re quite nice to know.’
It looked feasible enough. True, the vessel was lying in bright moonlight, and I had no doubt that they were watching us intently from the shadow. At the same time, I thought it could be done. They were a good two hundred yards away. One would have to move very slowly while one was exposed to view; a quick movement would be seen at once. I thought it would be possible to crawl very slowly over the coaming of the cockpit and to slip into the water silently on the far side of the vessel. Once in the water we should have to swim quietly to Pendruan, taking care to keep the vessel between ourselves and the launch. I didn’t like this long silence. It seemed to me that they were up to some mischief on board the launch, and the sooner we were out of the Irene the better.
I took off my shoes and began to raise myself very slowly above the coaming by the upstanding hatchway. I don’t know how long it was before I was lying face downwards on the deck—perhaps ten minutes in all. I only know that every muscle in my body was aching with the strain of holding intolerable positions as I climbed out of the cockpit, for fear of moving too quickly. On deck I was able to relax, and I lay face downwards for a little, resting myself before tackling the next effort of getting noiselessly down the curving side of the vessel into the water.
‘Listen …’ muttered Compton.
And then, as I lay resting on the deck, I first heard the motor-boat very faintly in the distance. I think she was on the far side of Pendruan then, because it was fully a quarter of an hour before she came round the point into the entrance to White Sound.
From the first it never occurred to us to doubt that she was on our side; that is, that she contained the police, the friendly, tolerant police. It could be nobody else. We lay and listened with the most intense relief to the steady thumping of the little single-cylinder engine, growing gradually louder as she approached the entrance. They must have heard it on the launch too, but there was no sound or sign from her. Apparently they were going to stay and see it out.
‘I wonder if this is the end of Roddy,’ muttered Compton. ‘They’re bound to see the launch.’
For my part, I was never so glad to see my sins come home to roost as I was then.
‘I suppose this is the end of it,’ I said. ‘I can’t say I shall be sorry to be arrested. I wonder if we’ll be able to persuade them to go and have a look at the Dagoes.’
Compton shook his head. ‘They’ll be gone by the time this little boat gets here,’ he said. ‘They’ll slip out back through Marazan, the way they came.’
But they didn’t go. The puttering of the little engine grew clearer and clearer; even before I saw her I knew that she was the same little motor-boat that had brought Joan Stevenson and, later, Compton to Pendruan. The noise of her little engine dominated the situation. Long before she came in sight I was sitting upright upon the deck looking towards the entrance to White Sound for her appearance, a position that would have brought a dozen shots whistling about my ears ten minutes before.
She rounded the point at last and set a course straight for us. She carried a lantern in the bows and for a time this blinded us and prevented us from seeing by the moonlight how many men she had aboard. She came on straight down the middle of the sound, leaving a silvery trail behind her that spread till it lapped quietly upon the beaches on the Pendruan side. The Sound was as calm as that. I have often wondered what they thought of her on board the launch, how nearly they may have come to firing on her. She must have had a narrow escape, I think. I can only suppose that they knew what she was, and hoped to slip away unseen when she had departed with her prisoners.
Two or three hundred yards astern of us she altered course, and came up between us and Pendruan beach; I suppose, to put herself between us and the Pendruan shore in case we tried to swim for it. We could see then that she had four men aboard; the lantern glistened on a black oilskin that one of them was wearing who was seated in the bows, so that I judged them to be coastguards or lighthouse keepers enrolled for the occasion as guardians of the law. The boat came up between us and the land at a distance of perhaps fifty yards; in dealing with the motor-boat we had to turn our backs on the launch. I didn’t like that much, and resolved to keep an eye open in the direction of the Crab Pot.
They stopped their engine a little way astern of us, and the boat gradually lost way upon the water. I hailed them then, thinking it would be best to take what little advantage there was to be gained by assuming the offensive.
‘Boat ahoy,’ I cried. ‘What boat’s that?’
In the stern of the motor-boat a man stood up and coughed. ‘Is that the yacht Irene, of Salcombe?’ he said.
‘This is the Irene,’ I replied.
‘Quite so. I’m afraid I must ask you to allow me to come aboard, sir. I am a police officer. I have a warrant here for the arrest of Philip St
enning, and instructions to arrest Denis Compton at sight.’
‘You’d better come alongside, officer,’ I said. ‘I’m Stenning.’
They put out an oar and sculled her alongside. I watched the Crab Pot closely as they were doing this, but could detect no sign of life or movement from the shadow. They were playing a waiting game. One can see that clearly now.
The motor-boat bumped gently against the side. Standing in the cockpit of the Irene I was about on a level with the inspector standing in the boat. I leaned over the deck towards him.
‘One moment officer,’ I said. ‘My name is Philip Stenning. This is Compton. We’re giving ourselves up. Come aboard if you like, but be careful. There’s a launch full of men in the shadow of those rocks—over there, just under the island. They came to kidnap Mr. Compton. We’ve been firing at them, and they at us. Come aboard, but be careful.’
He clambered heavily into the cockpit and turned to me at once. One of the sailors followed him.
‘Captain Philip Stenning, of Claremont, Simonstown Road, Maida Vale, London.’
‘That’s me,’ I said.
‘I have a warrant for your arrest under the Air Navigation Acts. I must ask you to come with me, sir.’
I blinked at him. ‘Under what?’ I said.
‘The Air Navigation Acts,’ he replied imperturbably. ‘The warrant is issued in respect of offences arising out of an aeroplane accident at Stokenchurch on the 6th instant.’
‘Good God!’ I said weakly. That was how they got me. They had been unable to establish anything definite against me; they had such a strong case of suspicion, though, that they had raked up a string of technical offences connected with the crash upon which to issue a warrant. It seemed that I hadn’t written up the log-book for the machine for three days. It seemed that I had ‘committed material hurt or damage in landing’ and had gone away without paying the farmer for digging a hole in his field with the machine. However, I have always held that the end justifies the means, and I’ve never managed to feel as much aggrieved over this proceeding as I should like to. Indeed, at the time it struck me as damn funny.
‘All right, officer,’ I said. ‘I’ll come quietly.’
He turned to Compton and produced a sheaf of papers from his pocket. For a moment he stood trying to sort them out in the dim light from the lantern in the bows of the motor-boat. Then he turned to one of the men. ‘Pass up that lantern,’ he said.
I interposed. ‘One moment,’ I said. ‘Be careful of that lantern. There’s a boat over there in the shadows. Don’t show too much light about. Let’s get down into the saloon.’
‘Boat?’ he said. ‘What boat?’
I could have cursed his thick head, and did so under my breath. ‘The boat I was telling you about,’ I replied. ‘She’s lying over there in the shadow under the rocks. They’ve been firing at us.’
One of the men spoke up. ‘I said I heard shots fired,’ he remarked. ‘Didn’t I?’
The inspector turned his head and looked over the Sound to the shadows beneath the Crab Pot. I think he must have thought that this was some trick of ours, some device to throw him off his guard and to prevent him examining Compton. At any rate, he turned back abruptly.
‘I don’t see any boat,’ he said. ‘We’ll deal with the boat afterwards.’
He reached down to the motor-boat, took the lantern, and raised it above his head as he leaned forward to compare Compton with the photograph upon his papers. Compton grinned at him in the strong light from the lantern; I think he was going to say something funny. I like to think he was.
I glanced nervously towards the shadows across the water. I distinctly saw the two spurts of flame as they fired; there were two of them and they fired practically simultaneously. We learned later that their orders were explicit. They fired together. One of the shots missed and whipped through somewhere between us; the other went home with a sound that I wish I could forget.
For a moment I didn’t see who it was that was hit. And then I saw that it was Compton that they’d got, as they had meant to all along. He was standing there quite motionless, a little bent over the tiller, gripping the coaming of the cockpit with one hand.
The inspector was still holding the lantern aloft. I pushed past him with an oath; as I jumped aft there was a roar from the shadows as they started up the engine in the launch.
I got to him as he collapsed. He turned to me with his face all puckered; for a moment I thought he was going to cry.
‘I say … that’s torn it,’ he muttered.
I had one look, gripped his arm close to his side, picked him up in my arms and carried him down the steps into the saloon. The inspector stood aside to let me pass; it had all happened so quickly that I think that it was only then that he realised that Compton had been hit. As I went I remember that I saw the launch slip out from the shadows, heading towards the entrance to the Sound. The men in the motor-boat saw her too; they say that she was a large, half-decked pinnace, painted grey. There was nobody visible aboard her. She tore down the Sound at a great pace turned northward at the entrance, and vanished into the open sea.
I carried Compton below and laid him on the settee. For a long while I laboured over cutting away his clothes with a blunt penknife. I had a very small first-aid outfit on board; the tiny phials and bandages proved miserably inadequate. I don’t think I need go into details. It was a chest and shoulder wound; with an ordinary bullet it would have been a comparatively slight affair.
One of the sailors kept his head and gave me a lot of help; for the rest, I was quite alone. The inspector, I suppose, was competent to put a broken arm into splints; wholesale surgery was evidently beyond him, and he was useless.
And so it came to an end. He died about twenty minutes later.
CHAPTER SIX
THEY took me back to Hugh Town in the motor-boat in the early dawn; we left two men in the Irene. They were to bring her round to Hugh Town later in the day, a sad, battered little vessel; in the saloon a covered figure lay upon the soaked cushions. They took me back to Hugh Town in the cold dawn; the ebb was flowing strongly against us out of Crow Sound, so that we were two hours on the way. All the way, nobody spoke a word. It was the sanest, most horrible hour of the twenty-four, the hour when nothing cloaks reality, the hour when one sees things as they really are. I don’t count myself a coward, but I have always been afraid of the dawn.
They took me straight to the police station in the little grey town and put me in a cell, not so much as a prisoner as for privacy. I sat there miserably till they brought me some breakfast, and then asked to see the inspector. He came and I had a short talk with him, a grizzled, unimaginative family man of about fifty, desperately worried and entirely at sea over the whole business. I told him about Joan, and sent him off to break the news to her at her hotel. It was impossible to keep her out of it any longer. Before he went he offered hopefully to bring me writing materials if I would like to make a statement. I said I wouldn’t.
That was all that happened till we left by the afternoon steamer for England; I slept a little, fitfully, throughout the morning. They took me aboard the boat before the crowd came and put me in a cabin below the bridge; from there I could see the Irene lying off the end of the breakwater. There were one or two ugly scars in her topsides, showing bright yellow wood. I saw nothing of Joan, though I learned afterwards that she travelled to England on the same boat.
We travelled up to London on the night train, and they lodged me in a room somewhere in Scotland Yard.
We got there about seven o’clock in the morning. I was tired and sick; a bath would have put me right, but there was no bath available. They allowed me to send out to my flat, though, to get some clean clothes, and in the meantime a barber came to shave me. I was more myself when I had shaved and changed. Then for some hours I was left to my own devices, till late in the afternoon they had me up for a sort of an examination.
They took me into a large room that was some sort of
an office, of rather a menial variety. One knows the sort of place so well. The walls were distempered and peeling; the only furniture was two deal tables, ink-stained and loaded with files of dusty papers, and a few chairs. At one of the tables a sergeant was writing laboriously in a ledger, breathing heavily with the unwonted exercise. There was a large clock high up on one of the walls, stationary at eight minutes past twelve. The window was closed and dirty and there were a few dead flies lying on the sill inside—asphyxiated, I supposed.
The inspector who had arrested me was there, and two others. They opened a large ledger, and there I saw a photograph of myself, together with the Bertillon measurements that had been taken when I was in prison. They started off by taking another set of finger-prints. I was getting fed up with them already and asked them if the prints had altered much. I suppose that was a State secret, because I didn’t get an answer.
I wasn’t myself, I suppose, because quite suddenly I found myself beginning to lose my temper. I don’t know now what it was that did it; I knew at the time that I was unreasonable, that these fellows were only doing their job in the way they were accustomed to. I think it was the room that did it, that and the off-hand way in which they treated me. There wasn’t a man in the room who wouldn’t have taken my tip if he had done me a service in the street or at a railway station, but I was in Scotland Yard and arrested on a warrant. They modified their behaviour accordingly, and I found it galling. As I say, I don’t think I was myself.
They finished their measurements at last and put away the ledger. Then they made me go and stand before the table; the sergeant, still breathing heavily, put away one book and opened another, and turned to a clean page. When he was quite ready, pen in hand, one of the inspectors addressed me.
He cleared his throat. ‘Now, Mr. Stenning,’ he said weightily, ‘I want you——’
‘Captain Stenning,’ I said curtly. I was all on edge.
‘I want you to tell me when you first met the deceased, Denis Compton.’