Hy Brasil

by Margaret Elphinstone

  ‘But the lamp doesn’t burn for a whole month?’

  ‘Of course not. I do the housekeeping bit.’

  I looked round at the empty chapel, swept so clean and bare. I thought about those beautiful photographs in the Bulletin upstairs; or rather, I thought about the real objects that they represented, reposing now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. I felt bewildered, overwhelmed even, but above everything else desperately curious. Curiosity killed the cat, Arthur used to say when he was teasing me. My mother said it was bad manners to ask people personal questions. Also, I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. I turned to Lucy, and almost opened my mouth to ask her if the fantastic idea that was floating through my mind could have any possible foundation in reality. But I didn’t, and the moment passed.

  She stood there a couple of minutes longer, almost as if she were waiting for something, holding the torch so that it shone the length of the chapel and lighted on the empty altar. Then she turned to me and gave a little shrug. ‘Time to put the kettle on again, don’t you think? I could do with another cup of tea.’

  I don’t suppose that was really what she was thinking, but I didn’t say anything. She closed the door carefully after us, and led the way back upstairs.

  EIGHT

  THERE WAS A knock at the door.

  Jared put his bowl down on the hearth. He stared at the door. There was no one else on the island. He’d been out until dusk. There had definitely been no one else on the island. He’d come back by the shell strand and the mooring place. You couldn’t get ashore anywhere else. The only boat he’d seen was his own. She’d been tossing at the mooring, because the wind was southerly Force 5 and rising. It was raining hard. The tide would just be ebbing. It would have been the right moment to cross the sound. That is, if you could see in the dark and didn’t mind not being able to go back.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Hardly anyone could have made it though, in the dark. Per? Ishmael? They wouldn’t have knocked. Either of them would have walked straight in.

  The light was on, and there was no curtain at the window. Anyone outside could see right in. Jared got up and stared at the black square of outer darkness. ‘Come in.’ He realised he wouldn’t be heard outside. When he opened the door the wind snatched it out of his hand and blew it wide open. The fire behind him roared.

  A tall figure with a feebly glowing torch in its hand detached itself from the dark, came in, and pulled its hat off.

  ‘Colombo! What in God’s name are you doing here?’

  ‘Visiting, Jed, just visiting. Would you like to see my card?’

  ‘You gave me one hell of a shock!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  ‘You didn’t. I don’t believe in things that go bump in the night. Man, you’re wet through!’

  ‘I’m sorry if I startled you, then. I suppose I’d never thought of myself in a supernatural light. Yes, it was a bit rough out there. Unpleasant, even.’

  ‘Well, there’s plenty of supper if you want. I’ve cooked enough for the next four days. And you’d better have a change of clothes.’

  ‘Jed, do you have a change of clothes? I’m impressed. What’s your supper then? It smells all right.’

  ‘It’s bean stew.’

  ‘I daresay it has, but what is it now?’ Colombo took off his sea jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. ‘No, sorry, I don’t mean to be ungrateful. Yes, please.’

  Jared looked him over. ‘You’re not just wet. You’re soaking.’ He took hold of a fold of Colombo’s jersey. ‘Jesus, you’ve been in the sea. Haven’t you?’ He grabbed Colombo’s hands unceremoniously and felt them. ‘Quit making stupid jokes and get your things off. You’re cold as a fish. Seriously, I know what I’m talking about. How long have you been out there in this state?’

  ‘All right.’ Colombo peeled off his dripping jersey. ‘An hour or two, I think. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be facetious. To be honest, it’s just fright.’ He unbuckled his belt and let his jeans drop into the fast gathering pool of seawater round his feet. ‘I did give myself a bit of a shock.’ His teeth were beginning to chatter, and when he took his shirt off he was shivering violently.

  ‘Here’s a towel. Get by the fire. I’ll get some clothes.’

  Jared didn’t ask anything more until Colombo was sitting in the chair by the stove with a bowl full of stew on his knees, and a mug of instant coffee on the hearth. He was wearing Jared’s thick seaman’s jersey, a pair of patched corduroys that reached about halfway down his calves, and two pairs of darned socks. He looked a good deal less than his usual debonair self, but gradually he stopped shivering, and a little colour came back into his cheeks. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I feel a fool. Better not tell the lads about this.’

  ‘Too late. I’m already reckoning on the fortune I’ll make selling the story to the Times.’

  ‘“Man Falls In Sea: In Depth Probe By Sodden Hack”: something like that, were you thinking of?’

  ‘I’d like you to tell me what the sodden hack was probing into off Despair on a night like this.’

  ‘Ah.’ Colombo took a big spoonful of stew. He swallowed it and said, ‘Now that’s quite a long story.’

  ‘Then you’d better start. I go to bed early.’

  Colombo scraped the bowl out carefully. ‘Jed, have you noticed any strange shipping off Despair recently? More activity than usual? Anything like that?’

  ‘Coastguards,’ replied Jared promptly. ‘Sometimes I think they must be breeding out there. You know, spontaneous generation, like flies. One in the morning, ten in the afternoon. Well no, maybe not ten. But there’s often a couple of them hovering about out just off the island. West to sou’west usually, but it varies. I guess I know what they’re after.’

  ‘You do? What?’

  ‘No, Colombo, I’m not available for interview. Remember that was my supper you just ate. Suppose you tell me.’

  Colombo picked up his coffee and warmed his hands on the mug. Jared waited patiently. ‘OK,’ said Colombo at last. ‘There’s talk. Even you must have noticed that. We’re in a recession. Outside St Brandons more than half of us are unemployed. And the economy’s booming. The Brasil pound’s stronger than it’s ever been. Something doesn’t add up. Literally. I’ve tried talking to people, discreetly, you know. Either they know nothing or they’re evasive. My own editor’s warned me off. There’s nothing in the paper. No comment.’

  ‘Except Tidesman.’

  ‘Tidesman’s not exempt. He can’t deal in plain speaking. You know that.’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Because I need to get published. A point closer to the wind, and he’d be over. It’s been close.’

  ‘Does that worry him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Colombo baldly. There was a pause. ‘Did you think anything about those articles, Jared?’

  ‘I told you, I’m not up for interview. You tell me.’

  ‘OK. I talked to Ralph Gunn. You know he fishes out of Ogg’s Cove. There’ve been trawlers lying off Brentness all this summer, he says.’

  ‘So what’s new?’

  ‘What’s new is there’s no fish, so what are they doing out there? What’s new is they lie offshore, on the edge of the deep, and don’t come in sight of land till twilight. And what’s newer than that, Jed, is that they come right inside our limits, just a mile or so off the Ness and they don’t show any lights. Ralph said he damn near ran into one. It was misty, and he saw this bulk, just a patch of dark, you know, so he thought it was an island in the wrong place. I mean, he thought he’d lost his direction, but he hadn’t.’

  ‘Colombo, I’ve known Ralph all my life. I’d trust him with anything but the drink. And then I wouldn’t. He has his days, you know that.’

  ‘Of course I do. I go to the Crossed Bones in Ogg’s Cove myself, which is more than you do these days. But Jed, I’ll swear to you the man was stone-cold sober. And that isn’t the end of
it. I spoke to Ishmael. I’ve never seen Ishmael the worse for wear in my life.’

  ‘You never will. What did Ishmael say?’

  ‘Ishmael said he’s seen lights at sea from Ferdy’s Landing, a mile or two off, maybe. He said there was a port light out there three nights ago, moving south. It vanished in the middle of the open sea: clear night, at least a mile off Despair. It hadn’t gone behind the island. And if the ship was turning – well, no other light came up, and if she’d put over to port just there she’d have been on Brentness next thing. Ishmael rang the coastguard, and they said there were whales out there. Phosphorescence.’

  ‘Give us a break!’

  ‘That’s what Ishmael said. He didn’t tell you about it?’

  ‘I’ve not seen anyone at all for nearly a week.’

  ‘Or anything?’

  ‘Ah, that’s different. But you go on telling me.’

  ‘Was George Tinto still teaching senior history when you got to the Academy?’

  ‘Yeah. I even used to come in for his lessons sometimes, which says something. I left school in ’86. I think he retired the year after. Why?’

  ‘You callow youth. Do you remember drawing a map of smuggling routes through Hy Brasil?’

  ‘This is after the Pirates, you mean? Yes, I remember. Brandy and tobacco:1795–1812. A red line from Central America, then from here to the channel coast. Then opium. A green line, round the Cape and up to here. Then a yellow line across to Nantucket for Prohibition. It’s all coming back to me. And I remember that all the time the Brits had the forts manned at Lyonsness and Dorrado, we were using Nud’s Hole and the Brentness caves for running illegal goods. The Brits kept patrols off Despair but they didn’t have proper charts, not even then. The Brasils were just running rings round them.’

  ‘And you say the government’s keeping patrols out there now. And there’s Ralph nearly crashing into things, and Ishmael seeing lights, and you – I know you’ve seen something, and in a minute you will tell me – and yet the coastguards have never picked up anything.’

  ‘Not even a phosphorescent whale, so far. More coffee?’ Jared got up and shifted the kettle to the middle of the stove. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’ve seen. More whales than I ever saw before. A real stirabout. There’s something weird going on. And coastguards. But nary a smuggler. Shall I tell you why? There ain’t none. That’s what you think too, isn’t it?’

  ‘But you found cocaine on the beach.’

  ‘I didn’t say nothing was being smuggled. I just said there weren’t any smugglers.’

  ‘I wanted to handle that story. They wouldn’t give it to me.’

  ‘Did Ishmael tell you about the peelers?’

  ‘He said they gave you a rough time.’

  ‘Yes. And you still haven’t told me how you ended up in the sea.’

  ‘Simple. Ralph called me. I asked him to, if he saw anything new. He did. Lights, then – just like Ishmael said – nothing. A red light moving north-east towards Despair, then nothing at all. I took Baskerville’s inflatable. I didn’t say why, or where I was going. I launched it from Hogg’s Beach.’

  ‘Ishmael didn’t see you?’

  ‘There was no one outside when I drove past Ferdy’s Landing. The kitchen light was on. I launched the inflatable and followed the coast up to the Ness. Nothing. Then I headed east, towards Despair. I didn’t show any lights. There’s a bit of a moon; I could see enough, and I had the Despair and Brentness lights to steer by. But I was out of sight of land and it was getting a bit rough. And then – hell, Jared, I saw it – just like Ralph said, a damn great blackness where there should have been none. I cut the throttle so she was just ticking over; I reckoned no one would hear that over the sea, and I went on slowly. Jed, I went right up to her. Right up under her bows, and next thing I knew, I was almost into her anchor chain. I knew then we must be near Despair; she couldn’t anchor in the deep.’

  ‘Half a mile, maybe. Not more.’

  ‘I couldn’t read her name. It was too dark. I could see it’s a longish one. Two words. I started going round her, slowly. That didn’t tell me much. Then I heard another engine, louder than mine. Low down, between me and the mainland. At which point our hero started to beat a retreat due south. It dawned on him as he put the tiller over that he’d been running before a southerly wind, and hadn’t noticed that it was rising. He shipped enough water to make him pause for thought, and realised that he’d got himself far enough into the sound to have the tide-rip against him too. So he tried making west, back to where he thought Ferdy’s Landing must be, a point or two south of the Brentness light, and the next thing he knew a damn great wave broke over his head. Submitting to force majeure, he turned east, and what does he see but a green light. Literally. Someone’s showing a starboard light barely a hundred yards away. It vanishes and rises; the sea’s pretty choppy by this time. But there’s the Despair light right beyond it. Our hero grits his teeth, and heads for Despair full throttle, giving the port light as wide a berth as he dare. He passes it and looks back – and guess what – no port light– no light facing land at all. There isn’t time to think about that. He needs to find the white strand. There’s a lump of darkness which must be the island. Every time he turns a point south he ships half the sound. There’s water round his ankles. He doesn’t like it. He would fain die a dry death. But if he keeps due east he’ll go bang into the cliffs. Idon’t mind telling you he’s shit-scared. And suddenly there’s a damn great shadow looming over him, and white water, and the inflatable tips fifty degrees, and he’s reciting Hail Marys and trying to hang on to the tiller, and the whole damn ocean’s washing over him and he thinks, well, that’s it: Nearer my God to Thee. And then the inflatable’s full of sea but floating in a bit of dead water, and there’s rocks all round him. And miracle of miracles, he can see a dim white line and he realises it’s the strand maybe thirty yards away just. What’s more the engine’s still running, I can’t think why, and five minutes later I beach on the sand as soft as you please. I’m shaking so much I can barely pull the boat up and tip the water out of it, and I realise my hands are too numb to tie a knot so I just have to weight the ropes down with stones. I guess she’ll be OK.

  ‘So that’s it. I wish I could say our hero climbed up the anchor chain and brought all the miscreants in at gunpoint, with himself at the wheel sailing into St Brandons’ harbour in the steely light of dawn. Unfortunately it didn’t happen like that.’

  ‘Jesus, man, you should be down on your knees thanking God for what did happen. You must be bloody mad.’

  ‘The procedure you mention has not been omitted. You’re a Protestant, aren’t you, Jed?’

  ‘I’m not anything.’

  ‘Same difference. Is that kettle boiling? Thanks.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ remarked Jared, spooning coffee, ‘that after all this you’re not really any the wiser.’

  ‘Don’t rub it in.’

  ‘OK, so they rendezvous at sea. Trawlers come in and meet – nobody. Strict government patrols fail to intercept – nobody. Nobody takes the stuff somewhere. Not Despair, that’s for sure. I’d have noticed. Anyway, you’d only have to get the stuff off again. No public transport on Despair.’

  ‘That’s true of anywhere in the country.’

  ‘Not true. You can get off the mainland.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Straight to Europe. Could be plane, but security’s tightish these days. But there’s the ferry. You’ve landed at Southampton?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I have. The way those cars drive off, they could have more or less anything in them. They’re not too bothered about Hy Brasil. As far as they know the only thing we’ve exported for two hundred years is people. That’s how it’s done, Colombo. Nobody takes it ashore on the west side somewhere. Nobody leaves it in some depot. Then nobody picks it up discreetly and takes it over to Europe on the ferry, and nobody puts the money in the bank here, and bob’s your uncle, as long as nobody start
s adding two and two together and realising that in this country that makes ten.’

  ‘OK. So where does it come from? Which country?’

  ‘Colombia. Maybe Peru. It comes through Panama. That trawler you saw will be on its way to Europe. But with a contact on shore here it’s an ideal dropping-off point along the way. There used to be hardly any patrols. There’s a lot more now, but I guess there’s always a way through if you watch and time it carefully.’

  ‘You think there’s a contact here? Who? Where?’

  ‘Must be, or they wouldn’t be here. You’re looking for a small boat. Could be very small if it’s only carrying cocaine. Fifteen years ago there was a lot more dope, and the cocaine was bootlegged on the back of that, but even then the coke was taking over. Less bulk, lots more profit. You can just bag up cocaine in 50lb lots, and each one’s worth a bloody fortune. Easy. One cargo could make you rich, just in that inflatable of Baskerville’s. That’s if you knew how to sell it on, of course. You have to lay out the capital first. That’s the thing that really limits you.’

  ‘You seem to know a fair bit about it.’

  ‘I don’t know anything, but naturally I’ve been thinking. You’re still left with the question: who’s the contact? I’ve thought about that too, and I can tell you there’s no one it could possibly be who’s working the right sort of boat out of Lyonsness or Ogg’s Cove. I’ve gone through all of them, in my mind, and it just doesn’t add up.’

  ‘Couldn’t they land the stuff from the trawler?’

  ‘Lower a boat, you mean? No chance. What would they do with it? No, there has to be an offshore dealer – the chap who picks up the signal and goes out to the trawler, and buys direct from the smugglers. The point is – what’s in it for the smugglers – is that he’s the man who pays, up front. Cash. He’s the one who brings the stuff ashore – there has to be a stash house somewhere – and he sells it on, in 1lb lots usually, to the small dealers. They might sell a bit here, but mostly it goes straight on to Europe, the way I told you. Once the system’s up and running it’s easy. But it all falls down, because there isn’t the right man with the right boat. I tell you, Colombo, there just isn’t.’