Wildtrack

by Bernard Cornwell

  I did not consider the choices. Not for one heartbeat did I sit and think it through. It never occurred to me that I was being asked to take sides, nor did I think it odd that a girl would send me an expensive air ticket. At that moment, after years in which I had known nothing except fighting, pain, and hospital, I was being offered a great gift. The gift seemed to imply all the things that a soldier dreams of when he's neck-deep in wet mud with nasty bastards trying to bury him there forever.

  In short, with visa and passport ready, I would go.

  There would be no time to hide Sycorax, but a stratagem would have to protect her while I was away. I also asked Jimmy to keep an eye on her. "If they tow her off, Jimmy, follow them."

  "I'll do what I can, boy." He eyed the air ticket. "Going far, are you?"

  "Out of the frying-pan, Jimmy, and straight into bed." I laughed. It seemed like a madcap thing to do, an irresponsible thing to do, but a wonderfully spontaneous and exciting thing to do, and there had been precious little spontaneous and enjoyable excitement in my life since the bullet caught me. So I locked the cabin hatch, rode Jimmy's boat downriver to the town, and caught a bus. For Boston.

  The stratagem to protect Sycorax involved telephoning my mother in Dallas.

  "Do you know what time it is, Nick?" She sounded horrified. "Are you dying?"

  "No, you are." I fed another fifty-pence piece into the coinbox.

  "It's half-past four in the morning! What do you mean, I'm dying?"

  "I apologize about that, Mother, but if anyone calls from England and asks after me, then say you're not well. Say you asked me to visit your deathbed. It'll only be for a few days."

  There was a pause. "It bloody well is half-past four!"

  "I'm sorry, Mother."

  "Where are you, for God's sake?"

  "Heathrow."

  "You're not really coming to see me, are you?" She sounded appalled at the prospect.

  "No, Mother."

  "Your sister came a month ago and I'm still exhausted. Why am I dying?"

  "Because I've told some people that I'm visiting you. I'm actually going somewhere else and I don't want them to know."

  Another pause. "I really don't understand a word you're saying, Nick."

  "Yes, you do, Mother. If anyone telephones you and wants to know if I'm there, then the answer is that I am there, but I can't reach the telephone straight away, and you're dying. Will you tell your maid that?"

  There was another long pause. "This is uncommonly tedious, even for you. Are you drunk?"

  "No, Mother. Now will you help me?"

  "Of course I will, I just think it's terrifying to be telephoned at half-past four in the morning. I thought the Russians must have invaded. Did you transfer the charges?"

  "No, Mother." "Thank God for that." She yawned down the telephone. "Are you well?"

  "Yes. I'm walking again."

  "How's your father?"

  "I haven't seen him."

  "You ought to. You were his favourite. How are Piers and Amanda?"

  "They're very well."

  "So crass of you to have lost Melissa. Do you mind if I go back to sleep now?"

  "Thank you, Mother."

  "You're very welcome."

  I pressed the receiver rest, put in more coins, and dialled Devon. No one answered in Bannister's house, or rather the relentlessly cheerful answering machine responded. "This is Sandman," I said, "and I'm phoning to say that my mother's been taken ill in Dallas and her doctors think I should be with her. I'll discuss our other problems when I get back."

  I was taking precautions. I feared that Angela might interpret my disappearance as a desertion of her wretched film, and that she would then carry out her legal threats. I had no idea how long it took to get a court order, or whether the court could really order Sycorax's sequestration, but I reckoned the fiction of a dying mother would confuse the lawyers for long enough. Then, just as soon as I returned to England, I planned to take the boat away. I'd had enough of Bannister, more than enough of Medusa, and I would take Sycorax to another river and there rig and equip her. But first, America.

  They looked at me very oddly at the check-in desk. I was wearing a pair of my oldest deck-shoes, duck trousers which were stained with varnish and linseed oil, and a tatty blue jumper over one of the unwashed Army shirts I'd found in the bergen. It was my cleanest shirt. "Any luggage?" the girl asked me.

  "None."

  But my ticket was valid, and my visa unexpired, so they had to let me on.

  I went with excitement. I forgot Bannister and I forgot his threats because a girl with bright eyes and black hair had summoned me to Boston.

  It was raining at Boston's Logan Airport. There was no Jill-Beth. Instead a chauffeur with a limousine the size of a Scorpion tank waited for me. The chauffeur apologized that Miss Kirov was unable to be personally present. He was civilized enough to overlook my lack of luggage and the state of my clothes. The US Immigration officers had been less courteous, though a phone call to the Military Attaché at the British Embassy in Washington had finally convinced them that I had not come to corrupt the morals of the Republic. I rather hoped that I had.

  In which hope I was driven south through a thunderstorm.

  We drove to Cape Cod. I remembered, as we crossed the canal, how I had sailed Sycorax down this waterway to the East Boat Basin six years before. I'd had a crew from my regiment on board and we'd all been awed by the glossy boats amongst which Sycorax had seemed like a poor and shabby relation.

  Now, taken deep into the Cape, I was wafted to a hotel of unimaginable luxury where I was expected and, despite my appearance, treated as a most honoured guest. I was shown to a door that carried a brass plate inscribed "Admiral's Quarters", but few admirals could ever have lived in such sybaritic splendour. It was a suite of rooms which overlooked a harbour. I had a jacuzzi, a bath, a bedroom, a living-room and a private balcony.

  I went to the window. My father had always loved America; he loved its freedom, its excesses and its shameless wealth. I found the Republic more frightening, perhaps because I had not inherited my father's talent for manipulating cash. I stared now at the busy harbour where boats that cost more than an Army officer could earn in a lifetime jostled on their moorings. The rain was clearing, promising a bright and warm evening. A motor-yacht with a flying bridge, raked aerials, fighting chair and a harpoon walkway accelerated towards the sea, while behind me the air-conditioning hissed in the Admiral's Quarters. It all suddenly seemed very, very unreal; like a splendid dream that will end at any moment and return the sleeper to a commonplace reality. I turned on the television to find that the Red Sox were four runs ahead at the bottom of the eighth with three men on base. A printed card planted on the television set assured me that Room Service could bring me the Bountiful Harvest of the Sea or Land at any hour of the Day or Night. I felt as though I was drowning in casual affluence. There was a shaving kit laid out for me in the bathroom, a towelling robe waiting on the bed, while in one of the walk-in cupboards I found my old brogues which had been re-heeled, then polished to a deep shine. The sight of them, and the memory of the last time I had worn them, made me smile. There were also four pairs of new shoes sitting alongside the brogues.

  Above the shoes, and hanging in protective paper covers, were clothes. There were two dinner-jackets; one white, one black. There were slacks, shirts, unnecessary sweaters, even a rain-slicker. Some ties hung on a door-rack and I noticed, with astonishment, that my old regiment's striped tie was among them. A label was pinned on to the regimental tie: "With the Compliments of Miss Kirov." At the bottom of the paper slip was the legend, 'Kassouli Hotels, Inc., a Division of Kassouli Leisure Interests, Inc.'.

  I suppose I'd really known right from the moment when I'd opened that thick creamy envelope in Sycorax's cabin. I'd known who had paid for the ticket, and who wanted me in the States, but I'd deceived myself into thinking that it was love; as bright and shiny and new as a fresh-minted coin. Of course i
t was not. It was Kassouli. The compliments slip only confirmed it, but still I thought I could pluck my fresh coin out of the mess.

  The telephone startled me.

  "Captain Sandman? This is the front desk, sir. Miss Kirov has requested us to inform you that she'll come by at seven o'clock with transportation. She suggests formal dress, sir."

  "Right. Thank you."

  He enjoined me to have a nice day. On the television the batter hit a grand slam home run, the ball rising so that the picture was shattered by the starburst of stadium lights. I turned the set off and drew a bath. It was madness, but I had volunteered to come here because of a girl. I felt my right leg trembling and I feared that the knee would buckle, so I lowered myself into the bath and told myself that there was no need for apprehension, that it was an adventure, and that I was glad to be here.

  My sense of unreality, that I was a sleepwalking participant in a sleek dream, only increased when Jill-Beth arrived. She came in a white BMW convertible, and was wearing an evening dress of black and white speckled silk. She had a triple strand of pearls beneath a lace shawl. Her hair seemed glossier and her skin more glowing than I remembered. "Hi, Nick."

  "Hello." I was shy.

  She laughed. "I knew you'd choose the black tux."

  "I'm sorry to be so conventional."

  "Hell, no. I like a black tux on a man. You don't want to look like a waiter, do you?" She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. "How's the jet lag?"

  "As bad as yours, I imagine?"

  "I feel great. You'd better, too, because we're partying." She accelerated the BMW from under the hotel's awning. It was a hot sticky evening, but, though the BMW's hood was down, she had the air-conditioning on full blast so that my legs froze while my chest became sticky with sweat.

  "I didn't bring much money," I said warningly.

  "A thousand bucks should see you through the night." She saw the expression on my face, and laughed. "Hell, Nick! You're Kassouli's guest, OK?"

  "OK," I said, as though I'd known all along that it was Kassouli who'd plucked me across an ocean and not love.

  Jill-Beth swung into a marina entrance where an armed guard recognized her and opened the gate. We drove past a row of moored motor-cruisers, each the size of a minesweeper and each with an aerial array that would have done service to a frigate.

  "La-la land," I said, echoing the comment Jill-Beth had written about me in the file that Bannister had shown me.

  Jill-Beth instantly understood the allusion, and laughed. "Did you see the files?"

  "Only those that Bannister wanted me to see."

  "That figures. Were you offended by what I wrote?"

  "Should I have been?"

  "Hell, no." She waved to a man on board one of the moored cruisers, then offered me a deprecating smile. "I guess I'm not exactly flavour of the month with Tony Bannister?"

  "Not exactly. Nor am I."

  "Tough." She swung the BMW into a parking slot opposite a berth where a white cutter was moored. She put the gear into neutral and kept the motor running as she nodded at the yacht. "Like it?"

  I knew that make of boat, and liked it very much. She was called Ballet Dancer and had been built on America's West Coast; a 42-foot cutter with a canoe stern, bowsprit, and the solid, graceful lines of a sturdy sea boat. She was made of fibreglass, but had expensive teak decks and rubbing-strakes. "Yours?" I guessed.

  "Mine. I always wanted to be a ballet dancer, you see, but it doesn't help if you're built like a steer."

  "You should have qualified then."

  She smiled at the compliment. "I grew too tall. Anyway, I prefer sailing now."

  "She's a lovely boat," I said warmly. Ballet Dancer had the good look of a well-used boat. You can always tell when a boat is sailed hard; it loses its showroom gloss and accretes the small extra features that experience has demanded. Ballet Dancer 's cleats and fairleads were worn, there were extra warps neatly coiled in her scuppers, and there was a ragged collection of oars, poles and boathooks bundled beside the lashed-down liferaft. The teak decks and trim had faded to a bone white. In a month or two Sycorax would have this same efficient and weathered look. "She looks beautiful," I said.

  "And all mine," Jill-Beth said happily. "Paid off the final instalment last month." She switched off the BMW's engine and opened her door. "Coming?"

  I followed her on to the floating pontoon and watched as she disconnected the shoreside electricity and unlooped the springs. "We're going out?" I said with surprise.

  "Sure. Why not?"

  It seemed very odd to be crewing a boat while dressed in evening clothes, but that was evidently Jill-Beth's plan. She started the engine. "You want to take her out, Nick?"

  The boat's long keel made it hard to turn in the marina's restricted water, but I backed and filled until the bow was facing the channel. Once there Jill-Beth unrolled the genoa from the forestay, then hoisted the main. I'd never seen a girl in evening dress rig a yacht before. "The trick to it," she said happily, "is a damned good antiperspirant." She came and sat next to me in the cockpit where she opened a locker. "Champagne?"

  "I thought you'd never ask."

  The evening had been sparked with a spontaneity that matched the irresponsibility of flying the Atlantic. I felt happy, even lightheaded. It was cooler out on the water where the small wind spilt down on us from the mainsail's curve. "How does she compare to Sycorax?" Jill-Beth asked.

  "Sycorax carries more windage aloft. The gaff, all those blocks and halliards, the topsail yard. So she has to have a lot of metal underwater. That makes her stubborn."

  "Like you?"

  "Like me. And like me she's not too hot to windward, but I don't plan to fight my way round the world." A motor-cruiser surged past us. There was a party in evening dress on its covered quarterdeck and they raised their glasses in friendly greeting. I could see the first stars pricking the sky's pale wash where an airliner etched a white trail. "Thank you for the air ticket," I said.

  "Nada." Jill-Beth grinned. "Isn't that why white knights rescue damsels in distress? For a reward?"

  "Is this my reward?" I asked.

  "What else?" She touched my glass with hers. The wake of the cruiser jarred Ballet Dancer's double-ended hull and made Jill-Beth's champagne spill on to my black trousers. She wiped the excess off. "I like you in a tux. It makes you look elegantly ugly."

  I laughed. "I think it's the first time I've worn a tie since they gave me the medal." We passed a moored boat which had a smoking barbecue slung from its dinghy davits. The skipper waved a fork at us and we raised our champagne flutes in reply. I thought how the pleasure of this evening compared to the bitter paranoia of Bannister's life; the jealousies and ambitions, the sheer squalidness of his suspicions. No wonder, I thought, that his American wife had tired of it. Had she wanted to come back to this elegant coast with its sprawl of luxuries?

  I pushed the mainsheet traveller across as the wind backed a point or two. We were going softly eastwards, past shoals, but keeping within the buoys that marked the offshore channel. Two more motor-cruisers passed us, and both carried yet more people in evening dress. "Where's the party?" I asked.

  "There." Jill-Beth pointed directly ahead towards a massive white house that occupied its own sand-edged promontory. The house was shielded on its landward side by trees while wide terraced lawns dropped to the private beaches and to the private docks that this night were strung with lanterns and crowded with boats. A string of headlamps showed where other guests drove along the spit of sand that led to the promontory. "The house belongs to Kassouli's wife," Jill-Beth said. "She's not there, but Kassouli is. He wants to thank you."

  "Thank me for what?"

  "For rescuing me."

  I suddenly felt nervous. There's something about the very rich that always makes me nervous. Principles, I remembered, are soluble in cash, and I had already surrendered my privacy to Bannister's cash and feared that something more might be asked of me this night. I pushed th
e helm away from me. "Why don't we just bugger off to Nantucket? I haven't been there for years."

  Jill-Beth laughed and pulled the helm back again. "Yassir wants to see you, Nick. You'll like him!"

  I doubted it, but obediently steered for the dock where servants waited to berth our yacht. I could hear the thump of the music coming from the wide, lantern-hung gardens. I chose a windward berth, spilt air from the sails, and two men jumped aboard to take our warps.

  We entered the garden of Kassouli's delights. A pit had been dug on one of the beaches and a proper clambake of driftwood and seaweed sifted smoke into the evening and tantalized us with the smells of lobster, clams and sweetcorn. Higher up, on one of the terraces, steaks dripped on barbecues. There was champagne, music and seemingly hundreds of guests. It was clearly an important social occasion, for there were photographers hunting through the shoals of beautiful people. One flashed a picture of Jill-Beth and myself, but when he asked my name I told him I was no one important. "A Brit?" He sounded disappointed, then cheered up. "Are you a Lord?"

  I told him my name was John Brown. He wrote it down, but it was plain I was not destined to be the evening's social lion.

  "Why didn't you say who you were?" Jill-Beth protested.

  "I'm no one important."

  "Nonsense. You want to dance?"

  I said my back hurt too much and so we sat at a table where we were joined by a noisy group. One of the men, after the introductions, told me how I could refinance my boat on a twelve-year amortization schedule. I made polite noises. I gathered that a good few of the guests worked for Kassouli, either in his finance houses, shipping line or oil companies. I looked for Kassouli himself, but the man who wanted to lend me money said that the boss probably wouldn't show himself. "Yassir's not a great partygoer. He likes to give 'em, though." The man peered round the garden. "That's his son, Charlie."

  I recognized the son from the pictures I'd seen in Bannister's house, but there was one thing I was not prepared for. Charles Kassouli was now in a wheelchair. He was only in his early twenties, but had withered legs slewed sideways on the chair.