by Basil Copper
“Hog Butcher to the World,” I said softly.
“What was that?” he barked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Leastways, nothing you’d understand.”
Otto went off then. He spat on the sand as he went by. He strode off down the beach taking the other seaman with him. The dinghy stood by.
Mandrake jerked his head at Diane Morris. “Now,” he said.
She picked up the metal canister. I saw that the top had holes pierced in it. Keeping her head averted she poured the contents into the tank. The water was full of sand which clouded the tank immediately but through the misty water I could see and feel the darting shapes of the small red fish.
Mandrake tapped the glass with a sensuous expression on his face.
“Lay off the girl,” I said. “I was going to kill you anyway but if you fool with her you’ll prefer the fish-tank to what I’ll dream up for you.”
He laughed. “I think not, Mr. Faraday.”
“See you around,” I said.
“Good-bye,” said Mr. Mandrake.
Diane Morris went off at a half-run down the beach. Mandrake picked up the metal can and followed her. I saw them get in the dinghy. A moment or two later the motor crackled and then they took off. I was alone.
2
When I felt the body of the first fish dart against me in the sandy water I drew in my belly muscles so far back I felt they must meet my spine. But when the initial fear had left me I was curiously calm; I remembered what Mandrake had said about their feeding habits but the image of that damn cat kept coming back into my mind.
I focussed my eyes up into the tree tops and concentrated on other things; principally where the hell Clay had got to and what the Stanley Bay Police Force were doing. Sweat ran into my eyes despite the general coolness of the water in the tank. By twisting my head I could just see the yacht; the muted note of engines came across the water. She was putting out to sea. It looked like Mandrake was going for the money and I could only hope Clay would be waiting for him. At least that would be some satisfaction, even if I wouldn’t be there to see it.
I tested the ropes behind me, but they were too well tied; my legs were numb and though my body weighed little in the water the roping had been done by experts and the rocks were far too big and heavy. After all I had seen they took three men to lift when they put me in here. I flexed up my muscles but the only immediate reaction was another trickle of blood running down the rough bandage Diane had put across my injured shoulder.
I looked up into the trees again and forced myself to think of other matters. I didn’t blame Diane Morris; she had her own life to think of and she couldn’t have done anything against the four men. I wondered how she would play her cards if Clay caught up with them; I hoped he would give her a decent break.
I felt something flicker against my inner thigh and the vibration of tiny fins set the nerves creeping up my body; I tightened my jaw and my flesh instinctively shrank away from fibrillating shapes that surrounded me, invisible in the tank. I had to give Mandrake full marks for a good idea—right out of the comic strips. It was just about his mark; corny and fiendish at the same time.
But he had got me going; I’m fairly steady in most situations but this was something new for me. A fly buzzed in the silence; it settled on the edge of the tank. A big, bloated blowfly with a metallic blue body; the sweat ran down my face again and I licked my cracked lips. I hoped to Christ it wouldn’t settle on my head. The place would be full of blowflies if these fish got hungry.
Thinking about comic strips set my mind in parallel curves; if this was a Popeye film he would get the blasted fish to eat through the ropes instead of the victim. For some reason this seemed like a hell of a joke to me; there was a strange sound and the blowfly flew away. Then I heard myself laughing and shut up with a start; I must have been a little delirious or maybe it was the heat.
The outlines of the tank and the sand beyond kept getting blurry and I sagged against the side; the tightness of the ropes was beginning to tell and they were stopping the circulation. This was more serious than the long-term hazards; if I got dizzy and fell forward I shouldn’t be able to get up again. I should drown before the piranha got their dinner. There was a thought. Anyway, it would be better than what Mandrake had planned. I could try that if it came to the pinch, though I had heard that it was the most difficult thing in the world to drown yourself deliberately.
I opened my eyes and when I turned my head I saw that the yacht had gone; the sun was well up. I couldn’t tell whether an hour had passed or two. All time seemed the same in this situation. If I had passed out for a bit it may well have been more than an hour. If Mandrake had gone full speed he could be diving by now. Or would he play it clever for another day and cruise about a bit and pick up the money after nightfall? I estimated if he had believed our story he would contain his impatience and have a go after dark; a big yacht mounting full-scale diving operations in daylight was asking for trouble with the stakes he was playing for.
I bit my tongue as something slipped and slithered along my groin. I had a job to keep from calling out. I could feel my nerve going. Every minute or so these things bumped me in their aimless to and fro; it was a joke to think that a thing smaller than a self-respecting herring could be so lethal. If I hadn’t been in Mandrake’s saloon that afternoon I might not have been so worried; but not after that.
It was when the violins began to play that I knew I was losing my mind; it was a symphony or something and the tune kept getting louder in my head. The sweat was in my eyes now and the blaze of the sun and the scarlet spreading on my shoulder made a vivid pattern whenever I opened them; I moved my head and the violins stopped. But when I settled back again the music began once more. I opened my eyes and saw who was playing the violins. The blowfly had collected some of his friends and they were having a concert. They probed delicately at the blood on my bandaged shoulder and waited for me to die. I laughed again then but I guess I was too crazy to care.
The heat of the sun was splitting my head open and I’d even stopped moving my stomach whenever a piranha nudged against it. I knew I couldn’t last much longer and for the first time I didn’t really care. The piranha had the heads of blowflies now and they were all playing as they sat down to table. I couldn’t recognise the tune but is sounded like something grand and funereal. Tough luck Faraday I told myself. Too bad to get it on holiday. That was a joke. Stella would be pleased.
When I thought about Stella that sobered me up. Irritation became uppermost in my mind and then anger; at Mandrake, the fish, the tank, the ropes that were slicing into me and most of all at the moment, the blowflies. I shook my head savagely and slopped the water with my body. My head cleared and I could see the stretch of beach. There was something white blocking my view; something white and billowing which moved across the field of vision.
The death-horn blew and then the universe split and flew into fragments. Water, glass and consciousness dissolved and I was one with the whirling sky. I went down into warm sand and salt water washed over me. I lay dazed, surprised to find myself still alive.
A shadow blocked out the sun. Something pink blinked into existence over my shoulder.
“Sorry about this, old man,” said Ian Phillips throwing down his rifle and kneeling by my side. “We’ve had one hell of a night!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Exit a Blonde
1
I SWIGGED my third cup of coffee and listened to Colonel Clay apologise again.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, my dear chap,” he said. He sat across from me in the cabin of the police patrol boat and looked at me with concern. Stella sat next to me with a curiously flushed face and held my hand. Phillips dabbed at my shoulder with an iodine pad.
“We’ve had the most frightful night,” said Clay. “We made the mistake of going to the real rendezvous first in order to intercept. Then the engine broke down and that took until dawn to fix. We got here on half-revs. If I
an hadn’t commandeered this fishing boat I don’t know what would have happened.”
“Not to worry,” I said. “I’d only been in the tank for two or three hours.”
Stella shuddered.
“Until then,” Clay went on, “things had been fine. We had the yacht pin-pointed by two radar stations and we had reports of her position every half hour. We were able to keep a check on your movements at all times. Though that didn’t help much when the engine went out.”
He rubbed his chin ruefully and stared out over the sparkling water. We were anchored just off shore and the fishing boat he had been talking about lay in the surf two hundred yards from us while its two-man Bahamian crew sat in the sun and mended nets. It was their white sail I had seen when I was half out of my head and Ian Phillips had risked a shot with his rifle, shattering the tank at the end farthest from me and tipping the whole thing over when the water ran out. That reminded me I hadn’t congratulated him on his shooting. I owed him a lot.
“Thanks for the William Tell stuff,” I said. “I guess it wasn’t my day to make piranha bait.”
Phillips put a new bandage on my shoulder, tightened the last knot and turned to me with a puzzled look.
“I don’t get it,” he said. My turn to be confused.
“It was Mandrake’s idea to feed me to the fishes,” I said.
He grinned. “I wondered what the gimmick was. You were in no danger of anything except drowning.”
He picked up a tin out of the stem of the boat. “It seemed a shame to waste these little fellows. They’re worth about a pound apiece in the open market.”
He put his hand into the tin and stroked the small pink forms which milled about inside. “Ordinary tropical fish,” he said. “Someone’s been having you on. Only thing these would frighten is a mealworm.”
Clay’s face was a picture and mine must have mirrored his for Stella suddenly burst out laughing. I put on the shirt Clay handed me as I puzzled at it. Then I understood why Diane Morris had put so much sand in the water; she wanted it cloudy so Mandrake wouldn’t tumble to the switch.
“The girl changed the fish over,” I told Clay. “She told me last night she’d do the best she could for me.”
I looked at him quietly. “I think she’s earned an amnesty,” I told him.
He nodded slowly. “I’ll go along with that, Michael,” he said. “Mandrake and his friends are the ones we’re after.”
I pointed over to the fishing boat. “Have we still got the use of this?” I asked.
Clay looked at Phillips and then back at me.
“She’s commandeered until further orders for police duties,” he said. “What have you got on your mind?”
“An idea,” I said. “We shall need the fishing boat to carry it out tonight.”
Clay looked hesitant but it was Stella who put it into the open.
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough, Mike?” she said. “Why not leave it to Colonel Clay and the regular police?”
“Sensible words,” I said. “It’s not that I’m being heroic but this has become a personal thing between Mandrake and me. If we go barging in there with police launches and rifles things will start popping and someone’s bound to get hurt apart from the girl. And I’ve a debt to her which I’d like to repay myself.”
Clay eyed me dubiously. “The young lady’s right, you know, Michael. It’s all right with me if you want to play it like that. I think you’ve earned it with the way you’ve handled things so far. But I insist that Phillips shall be with you at all times. I almost wish we’d come in last night when we saw you go overboard. It was touch and go.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. “It would have spoiled everything and Mandrake may well have gotten away with it. Any premature move by the police would have defeated the exercise.”
Clay frowned and picked up his half-empty coffee-cup. “Anyway, I decided to let things take their course when we saw you come back aboard. If we hadn’t had all this engine trouble the case would have been closed by now. Are you sure you feel up to tackling things?”
“I’ll be all right by tonight,” I said. “I don’t think Mandrake will make any direct move to lift the money until after dark. You got any reports on their position?”
He took out a sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket. “They’ve been zig-zagging in a wide circle about twenty miles from here for the last hour,” he said. “I’m inclined to agree, Michael. If what you surmise is correct, after nightfall would be the best course. We’ll work that out after we’ve eaten.”
“Was that you I saw just after dawn?” I asked Phillips.
He smiled again. “That was Stella’s idea,” he said. “She insisted on coming with me when we hailed the fishing boat at two this morning. We installed the spare radio and transmitter to keep in touch with Colonel Clay and cruised around this position. I edged in as close as we could at dawn but kept away when I saw Mandrake and all that crowd on the beach. I stooged along to the other side of the island and when we saw the yacht go away we came back. I must say it made a rather fine finish to a pretty rough night.”
“You can say that again,” I said.
A native constable poked his head in at the hatch. “Another message just in, sir,” he said to Clay. “Yacht continues to zig-zag. Same circular course as before.”
“Thank you,” said Clay perfunctorily. “Acknowledge.” The constable saluted and withdrew his head.
“So far so good,” said Clay. “I’ll have another patrol boat standing by at Stanley Bay tonight and we’ll rendezvous on my signal. We’ll discuss this fishing boat scheme of yours over a meal, Michael.”
We sat thankfully down round the small cabin table.
2
It was dusk. Stella and I sat in the stem of the patrol boat and watched the yellows and reds chasing the greens and blues out of the darkening sky. The sea made a dazzle of molten silver in the fading light. She put her head quietly against my face and her arms tightened about me.
“You’ll take care, won’t you, Mike?” she said gently. “You know, the last week hasn’t been much of a holiday for me.”
“I know, honey,” I said. “After tonight things will be the same as before. You’ll see.”
“I hope so,” she said. She kissed me again and then pulled away.
“Not to worry,” I said. A form materialised in the gloom behind us and I heard Clay’s apologetic cough.
“Time to go in about half an hour,” he said. “Let me know when you want to go aboard the fishing-boat. We’d better check our watches.”
As he called out the seconds, we synchronised them against Phillips’. I bet the old boy had been in his element during the last war. Anyway, it pleased him. Phillips was ready to go, so we ran through the arrangements for the last time.
“What about armaments?” I asked.
“Phillips has a revolver,” said the Colonel. “I think it’s best to leave things at that. After all, you are a civilian. You’ve come out all right so far in tougher situations. We hold all the cards tonight and I think one revolver is enough.”
I didn’t argue with that. After all it was his show now and the way I felt tonight I could handle Mandrake with my bare hands. In fact it would give me more pleasure that way.
“You’ve got the waterproofs?” he asked Phillips.
“Everything here, sir,” said the Inspector, tapping a bundle he carried.
“Off you go, then,” said Clay gruffly. He waited until Phillips had dropped overside into the dinghy which a constable was manning amidships. He held out his hand to me in the dusk. “See you later, then, Michael.”
“Fine,” I said. “Remember, give us half an hour after we hit The Gay Lady. We’ve got to get into position first before we know which way to play it. And I want to make sure the girl gets a square deal. I figure Mandrake won’t start diving until well after dark. That will make it around ten. With this wind we should get aboard, with a little luck, around ten-thi
rty. If you lay a couple of miles off and then come in soon after eleven you should be about right.”
Clay nodded. I went over the side and down into the dinghy. Stella’s face was a pink blur in the light of the setting sun. She waved as I went down.
“I’ll test the radio, sir, as soon as we get aboard,” said Phillips. Then we dropped away from the side of the police launch in the choppy tide. The constable rowed rapidly and in a very few moments we jumped out in the surf of Stocking Island. The constable set back and Phillips and I splashed through the surf to the fishing boat; two natives with broad grins above their tattered shirts helped us over the gunwale.
I stepped down into a dark space in the tween-decks where the dim light of a lantern glinted on the metal contours of a heavy duty radio transmitter. The boat lurched and I could hear the soft thud of ropes in blocks as the two-man crew hoisted sail. I put down my gear in a comer which smelt of fish and lit a cigarette, while Phillips tested the radio.
“All well,” he grunted after a minute. “The Colonel says bon voyage.”
We went out on deck again as the boat surged forward over the tide, heading towards the horizon where the sunset burned itself out in the depths of the sea. A light winked from the police launch and we could see the heads of Clay and Stella. They waved as we went by. Then we were clear of the land and the mast creaked and the sail thrummed as the breeze caught her and drove us on into the west with an exhilaration known only to those who sail small boats.
One of the boatmen was up tightening the foresail, while the other hummed tunelessly at the tiller as he straightened up on course. I stood for a moment smoking and looking at the wild beauty of the night sky and then back at the fading silhouette of the police boat.
“They know exactly where we’re going,” said Phillips, answering my unspoken query. “They know these waters like I know Stanley Bay parking regulations.”