He passed the pistol to Francesca and I put the Luger away and took it from her. It was an army Beretta, probably a relic of his partisan days. I took the clip out, worked the action and put it in another pocket. Coertze passed two spare clips to me which he had taken from Piero's pockets.
I said to Walker, "Are you carrying a gun?"
He shook his head.
"Come and be searched." I was taking no chances.
Walker was bare of guns, so I said, "Now search the car and see if anything is tucked away there."
I turned to Francesca. "Are you carrying anything lethal?"
She folded her arms. "Are you going to search me, too?"
"No. I'll take your word, if you'll give it."
She dropped her aggressive pose. "I haven't a gun," she said in a low voice.
I said, "Now listen, everybody. I've taken a gun from Coertze and a gun from Morese. I hold in my hands the ammunition for those guns." With a quick double jerk I threw the clips away into the darkness and they clattered on a rock. "If there's going to be any fighting between us it will be with bare fists. Nobody gets killed, do you hear?"
I took the empty pistols from my pockets and gave them back to Coertze and Piero. "You can use these as hammers to nail the crates up."
They took them with bad grace and I said, "We've wasted enough time with this nonsense. Is that car ready?"
"Nothing in here," said Walker.
As the others were getting into the car, Francesca said to me, "I'm glad you did that. I didn't know Piero had a gun."
"I didn't know Coertze had one, either; although I should have guessed -- knowing his record."
"How did you take it from him?" she asked curiously.
"Psychology," I said. "He would rather have the gold than kill me. Once he gets the gold is might be a different matter."
"You will have to be very careful," she said. "It's nice to know you care," I said. "Let's get in the car."
II
Coertze drove slowly without lights along the overgrown road until we had turned a corner and were out of sight of the "main "highway. I could hear the long grass swishing on the underside of the car. Once the first corner was turned he switched on the lights and picked up speed.
No one spoke. Coertze and Morese were mad at me and so was Francesca because of what I'd said. Walker was boiling with ill-suppressed excitement, but he caught the mood of the others and remained quiet. I said nothing because I had nothing to say.
It didn't take long to get to the mine and soon the headlights swept over the ruins of buildings -- the shabby remnants of an industrial enterprise. There is nothing more ruinous-looking than derelict factory buildings and neglected machinery. Not that there was much left. The surrounding peasantry must have overrun the place like a swarm of locusts very soon after the mine was abandoned and carried off everything of value. What was left was worth about ten lire and would have cost a hundred thousand lire to take away.
Coertze stopped the car and we all got out. Piero said, "What kind of a mine was this?"
"A lead mine," said Coertze. "It was abandoned a long time go -- about 1908, I was told."
"That was about the time they found the big deposits in Sardinia," said Piero. "It was easier to ship ore to the smeltery in Spezia than to rail it from here."
"Where's your tunnel?" I asked.
Coertze pointed. "Over there. There were four others besides the one I blocked."
"We might as well get the car into position," I said, so Coertze got into the driving seat and edged the car forward. The beams of light swept round and illuminated the caved-in mouth of the tunnel. It looked as though it would need a regiment of pioneers to dig that lot away and it would probably take them a month.
Coertze leaned out of the side window. "I did a good job there," he said with satisfaction.
I said, "You're sure we can get through there in one night?"
"Easy," he said.
I suppose he knew what he was about -- he had been a miner. I went to help Piero and Walker get the tools from the boot and Coertze went to the rockfall and began to examine it. From this time on he took charge and I let him -- I knew nothing about the job and he did. His commands were firm-voiced and we all jumped to it with a will.
He said, "We don't have to dig the whole lot away. I set the charges so that the fall on this side would be fairly thin -- not more than ten feet."
I said, "Ten feet sounds like a hell of a lot."
"It's nothing," he said, contemptuous of my ignorance. "It isn't as though it was solid rock -- this stuff is pretty loose." He turned and pointed. "Behind that building you'll find some baulks of timber I sorted out three years ago. You and Morese go and get them. Walker and I will start to dig this stuff out."
"What can I do?" asked Francesca.
"You can load up the wheelbarrow with the stuff we dig out. Then take it away and scatter it so that it looks natural. Morese is right -- we don't want to leave a pile of rocks here."
Piero and I took torches and found the timber where Coertze had indicated. I thought of Coertze coming here every three or four years, frustrated by a problem he couldn't solve. He must have planned this excavating problem many times and spent hours sorting out this timber in readiness for a job which might never have happened. No wonder he was so touchy.
It took us about an hour to transfer all the timber and by that time Coertze and Walker had penetrated three feet into the rockfall. That was good going, and I said as much. Coertze said, "It won't be as easy as this all the way. We'll have to stop and shore the roof; that'll take time."
The hole he was digging was not very big; about five feet high and two feet wide -- just room enough for one man to go through. Coertze began to select his timbers for the shoring and Piero and I helped Francesca to distribute the spoil.
Coertze was right. The shoring of the roof took a long time but it had to be done. It would be bad if the whole thing collapsed and we had to begin all over again; besides, someone might get hurt. A moon rose, making the distribution of the spoil easier, so the car lights were switched off and Coertze was working by the light of the Tilley lamp.
He would not let anyone work at the face except himself, so Walker, Piero and I took it in turns helping him, standing behind him and passing out the loose rocks to the entrance of the passage. After another three hours we had six feet of firmly shored passage drilled through the rockfall and at this stage we broke off for something to eat.
Piero had spoken to me about taking away his gun. He said, "I was angry when you did it. I do not like to have guns pointed at me."
"It was empty," I said.
"That I found out, and it was that which made me angrier." He chuckled suddenly. "But I think it was well done, now I have thought about it. It is best if there is no shooting."
We were some distance from the rockfall. I said, "Did Francesca tell you about Coertze?"
"Yes. She told me what you said. It is something I have not thought of at all. I was surprised when Donato Rinaldi was found dead that time during the war, but I did not think anyone would have killed him. We were all friends."
Gold is a solvent which dissolves friendships, I thought, but I could not put that into my limited Italian. Instead, I said, "From what you know of that time, do you think that Coertze could have killed these four men?"
Piero said, "He could not have killed Harrison because I myself saw Harrison killed. He was shot by a German and I killed the man who shot him. But the others -- Parker, Corso and Rinaldi -- yes, I think Coertze could have killed them. He was a man who thought nothing of killing."
"He could have killed them, but did he?" I asked.
Piero shrugged. "Who can tell? It was a long time ago and there are no witnesses."
That was that, and there seemed no point in pressing it, so we returned to our work.
Coertze hurried over his meal so that he could get back to the rock face. His eyes gleamed brightly in the light of the lamp; the
lust for gold was strong upon him, for he was within four feet of the treasure for which he had been waiting fifteen years. Walker was as bad; he scrambled to his feet as soon as Coertze made a move and they both hurried to the rockfall.
Piero and Francesca were more placid. They had not seen the gold and mere descriptive words have not that immediacy. Francesca leisurely finished her midnight snack and then collected the dishes and took them to the car.
I said to Piero, "That is a very strange woman."
"Any child who was brought up in a guerilla camp would be different," he said. "She has had a difficult life."
I said carefully, "I understand she has had an unfortunate marriage."
He spat. "Estrenoli is a degenerate."
"Then why did she marry him?"
"The ways of the aristos are not our ways," he said. "It was an arranged marriage -- or so everyone thinks. But that was not really the way of it."
"What do you mean?"
He accepted a cigarette. "Do you know what the Communists did to her father?"
"She told me something about it."
"It was shameful. He was a man, a true man, and they were not fit to lick his boots. And now he is but a shell, an old broken man." He struck a match and the flame lit up his face. "Injustice can crush the life from a man even if his body still walks the streets," he said.
"What has this to do with Francesca's marriage?"
"The old man was against it. He knew the Estrenoli breed. But Madame was insistent on it. You see, young Estrenoli wanted her. There was no love in him, only lust -- Madame is a very beautiful woman -- and so he wanted her, but he could not get her. She knew what he was."
This was confusing. "Then why the hell did she marry him?"
"That was where Estrenoli was clever. He has an uncle in the Government and he said that perhaps they would reconsider the case of her father. But, of course, there was a price."
"I see," I said thoughtfully.
"So she married him. I would as soon she married an animal."
"And he found he could not keep his promise?"
"Could not?" said Piero disgustedly. "He had no intention of keeping it. The Estrenolis have not kept a promise in the last five hundred years." He sighed. "You see, she is a good daughter of the Church and when she married him, Estrenoli knew that he had her for ever. And he was proud of her; oh yes, very proud. She was the most beautiful woman in Roma, and he bought her clothes and dressed her as a child will dress a doll. She was the most expensively dressed mannequin in Italy."
"And then?"
"And then he got tired of her. He is an unnatural man and he went back to his little boys and his drugs and all the other vices of Roma. Signer Halloran, Roman society is the most corrupt in the world."
I had heard something of that; there had been a recent case of a drowned girl which threatened to rip apart the whole shoddy mess. But it was said that the Italian Government was intent on hushing it up.
Piero said, "At that time she helped her father and her old comrades. There were many cases of hardship and she did what she could. But Estrenoli found out and said he would not have his money squandered on a lot of filthy partisans, so he did not give her any more money -- not one single lire. He tried to corrupt her, to bring her down to his level, but he could not -- she is incorruptible. So then he threw her out on to the street -- he had what he wanted, as much as he could get, and he was finished with her."
"So she came back to Liguria."
"Yes. We help her when we can because of what she is and because of her father. We also try to help him, but that is difficult because he refuses to accept what he calls charity."
"And she is still married to Estrenoli?"
"There is no divorce in Italy and she follows the Church. But before God I say the Church is wrong when this can happen."
I said, "And so you are helping her in this venture."
"I think it is wrong and I think she is mistaken," he said. "I think many lives will be lost because of this. But I am helping her."
"This is what is puzzling me," I said. "Her father is an old man; this gold cannot help him much."
"But it is not only for her father," said Piero. "She says that the money is for all the men who fought with her father and were cheated by the Communists. She says it will be used to send them to hospitals when that is necessary and to educate their children. It will be a good thing if there is no killing."
"Yes, it will," I said reflectively. "I do not want killing, either, Piero."
"I know, Signer Halloran; you have already shown that. But there are others -- Torloni and this Metcalfe. And there is your friend Coertze."
"You don't trust him, do you? What about Walker?"
"Pah -- a nonentity."
"And me? Do you trust me?"
He stood and put a foot on his cigarette deliberately. "I would trust you in another place, Signer Halloran, such as in a boat or on a mountain. But gold is not good for the character."
He had said in different words what I had thought earlier.
I was going to reply when Coertze shouted irately, "What the hell are you doing out there? Come and get this stuff away." So we went on with the work.
III
We broke through at three in the morning. Coertze gave a joyous shout as his pick point disappeared unresistingly into emptiness. Within ten minutes he had broken a hole big enough to crawl through and he went into it like a terrier after a rabbit. I pushed the Tilley lamp through the hole and followed it.
I found Coertze scrambling over fallen rocks which littered the floor of the tunnel. "Hold on," I said. "There's no hurry."
He took no notice but plunged on into the darkness. There was a clang and he started to swear. "Bring that bloody light," he shouted.
I moved forward and the circle of light moved with me. Coertze had run Ml tilt into the front of a truck. He had gashed his cheek and running blood was making runnels in the dust which coated his face, giving him a maniacal look which was accentuated by the glare of his eyes.
"Here it is," he cackled. "Magtig, what did I tell you? I told you I had gold here. Well, here it is, as much gold as comes out of the Reef in a month." He looked at me in sudden wonder. "Christus, but I'm happy," he said. "I never thought I'd make it."
I could hear the others coming through the hole and I waited for them to come up., "Kobus Coertze is going to give us a guided tour of his treasure cave," I said.
Walker said, chattering, "The gold is in the first truck, this one. Most of it, that is. There's some more, though, in the second one, but most of it is in this one. The jewels are In the second one; lots and lots of necklaces and rings, diamonds and emeralds and pearls and cigarette lighters and cases, all in gold, and there's lots of money, too, lire and dollars and pounds and stuff like that, and there's lots of papers but those are in the trucks right at the back with the bodies . . ." His voice trailed off. "With the bodies," he repeated vacantly.
There was a bit of a silence then as we realised that this was a mausoleum as well as a treasure cave. Coertze recovered his usual gravity and took the lamp from me. He held it up and looked at the first truck. "I should have put it up on blocks," he observed wryly.
The tyres were rotten and sagging, as flat as I've ever seen tyres. "You know," said Coertze. "When we put this lot in here, my intention was to drive these trucks out some time. I never thought it would be fifteen years." He gave a short laugh. "We'd have a job starting these engines now."
Walker said impatiently. "Well, let's get on with it." He had apparently recovered from the scare he had given himself.
I said, "We'd better do this methodically, truck by truck. Let's have a look in the first one."
Coertze led the way, holding up the Tilley lamp. There was just enough room to squeeze between the truck and the side of the tunnel. I noticed the shattered windscreen where a burst of machine-gun fire had killed the driver and his mate. Everything was covered with a heavy layer of dust, most of w
hich must have been deposited when Coertze originally blew in the front of the tunnel.
Coertze was hammering at the bolts of the tailboard with a piece of rock. "The damn' things have seized solid," he said. "I'll need a hammer."
"Piero," I called. "Bring a hammer."
"I've got one," said Francesca quietly, so close behind me that I jumped. I took it and passed it on to Coertze. With a few blows the bolt came free and he attacked the other and caught the tailboard as it dropped. "Right," he said, "here we go for the gold," and vaulted into the truck.
I handed him the lamp and then climbed up and turned to give Francesca a hand. Walker crowded past me, eager to see the gold, while Piero climbed in more sedately. We squatted on our haunches in a circle, sitting on the bullion boxes.
"Where's the one we opened?" asked Coertze. "It must be at the back somewhere."
Francesca gave a yelp. "I've got a nail in my foot."
"That's the box," said Coertze with satisfaction.
Francesca moved and Coertze held up the lamp. The box on which Francesca had been sitting had been torn open and the cover roughly replaced. I stretched my hand and lifted the lid slowly. In the light of the lamp there was the yellow gleam of metal, the dull radiance of gold which.rusts not nor doth moth corrupt -- rather like treasure laid up in heaven. This gold, however, had been laid up in hell.
Coertze sighed. "There it is."
I said to Francesca, "Did you hurt your foot?"
She was staring at the gold. "No, it's all right," she said absently.
Piero lifted an ingot from the box. He misjudged the weight and tried to use one hand; then he got both hands to it and rested the ingot on his thighs. "It is gold!" he said in wonder.
The ingot was passed round the circle and we all handled it and stroked it. I felt a sudden resurgence of the passion I had felt in Aristide's strong-room when I held the heavy gold Hercules in my fingers.
Walker had a kind of terror in his voice. "How do we know that all these boxes have gold in them? We never looked."
"I know," said Coertze. "I tested the weight of every box fifteen years ago. I made sure all right. There's about three tons of gold in this truck and another ton in the next one."
Bagley, Desmond - The Golden Keel Page 14