by Jack Higgins
Youngblood turned to look at him briefly. “How do you feel?”
“My arm hurts like hell, but I can use it, which is something. What about you?”
“I’m enjoying myself. There’s been quite a sea running for an hour or more now. Likely to get worse before it gets better.”
“Will it affect our time of arrival?”
“If you’d like to take the wheel I’ll have another look at the chart.”
Chavasse squeezed past, slipping into the pilot’s seat and Youngblood went to the chart table. He made one or two calculations and threw down his pencil, stretching his arms.
“We could be a little earlier than I thought. It all depends on the way the weather goes. Think you can handle her for a while?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“I’ll take a break—maybe Molly can find me something to eat. Afterwards, we’d better talk things over. We still don’t know what we’re getting into. Maybe it’s about time we put the squeeze on our friend.”
Chavasse nodded. “We’ll see.”
The door banged and he leaned back in the seat, one hand on the wheel and lit a cigarette. Already the darkness was fading, a faint pearly luminosity touching the water and he strained his eyes into the grey waste of morning, wondering what lay ahead.
One thing was certain. Whatever other difficulties might present themselves, in the final analysis, his greatest problem was still going to be Harry Youngblood himself and what to do with him.
He remembered their first meeting in the cell at Fridaythorpe and how it had confirmed the impression he had already gained from a close study of the man’s file at Bureau headquarters. That in spite of the newspaper stories and romanticised magazine features, Youngblood beneath it all, was a brutal and resourceful criminal who would smash down anything or anybody that got in his way and who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
Having said that, the fact remained that for many weeks they had been comrades of a sort in that strange sub-world that is life in any large prison. On the other hand, if Chavasse had not gained possession of Smith’s gun the night of the break from the hospital and forced the issue, Youngblood would never have taken him along, in spite of the fact that Chavasse had saved him from death, or at least serious injury, on two occasions in the machine shop.
And then there was Molly. If she’d turned her back at the farm, things would have taken their usual course and their journey might have ended at the bottom of Crowther’s well and yet Youngblood had been prepared to ditch her without a qualm until It had become obvious that she might still be useful.
Even at the end and in spite of the fact that Chavasse had pulled him out of trouble again at Long Barrow, Youngblood had been prepared to leave in the boat without him. He was without a single redeeming feature, a selfish egomaniac who had never in his life thought of anyone besides himself. Plenty of men had spent their early years in an orphanage, others had known a hard war—how many had taken Harry Youngblood’s road?
Chavasse sighed heavily and dropped his cigarette to the floor. All true, every word of it, which didn’t make it any easier to send him back to gaol for another fifteen years—possibly even more now.
He looked back on his own four months inside, remembering the filth, the squalor, the grey faces, the long empty days and was suddenly almost physically sick so that he opened a window quickly and drew in great lungfuls of damp salt air.
The door swung open behind him and Young-blood came in grinning hugely, rain on his face. “I haven’t felt like this for years. My God, Drum, I realise what I’d been missing.”
He took over the wheel and Chavasse leaned against the door watching him. He knew his stuff, there was no question of that and he increased speed, racing the dirty weather that threatened in the east.
The Pride of Man soared over the waves like a living thing, water cascading across the prow in a green curtain and Youngblood laughed aloud in a kind of ecstasy.
Chavasse found it impossible not to respond. “A hell of a change from that cell in Fridaythorpe.”
“Fridaythorpe?” For a brief moment Young-blood’s smile was wiped clean. “I’ll tell you something, Drum,” he said, his face all iron. “I’d send this tub to the bottom and go with her before they’d get me back there.”
He increased power, the Pride of Man lifting out of the water and Chavasse, feeling unaccountably sad, turned and went out on deck.
==========
He had a bacon sandwich and more coffee with Molly and then went to check on Vaughan. He was lying on his bunk face to the wall and when he turned, looked paler than ever.
“What’s wrong with you?” Chavasse demanded, hauling him into a sitting position.
“Some people have the stomach for this kind of life, old matt—others haven’t. They said Nelson was sick every time he put to sea or didn’t you know?”
Chavasse pulled him off the bunk, pushed him along the passage way to the saloon and shoved him down into a chair.
“How about some coffee?”
“Now that I wouldn’t mind.”
Chavasse nodded and Molly filled one of the enamel mugs and pushed it across the table. Vaughan lifted it in both hands, his wrists still tied.
“I don’t know how long it will stay down,” he said. “But we can but try.”
Chavasse lit a cigarette and put it between Vaughan’s lips. “And now we talk.”
“Do we, old man? That’s nice.”
“It won’t be if you persist in being awkward. Who are we going to find on Longue Pierre—the Baron?”
“God help you if you do.”
“What kind of a set-up does he have there?”
Vaughan smiled pleasantly. “Now you really can’t expect me to answer that. A breach of faith.”
Chavasse sighed. “You know you’re putting me in a very awkward position. I may even have to send Youngblood down to talk to you and I wouldn’t like that.”
“He doesn’t worry me in the slightest.”
“He should do. I think you’re forgetting an important item. I’m just an amateur compared to Youngblood. He knows that if they get their hands on him he goes back inside for fifteen years and they’ll watch him every minute of the time. He’ll never get out again.”
“So what?”
“He’d cut your throat if he thought it was necessary to prevent that happening.”
Vaughan showed not the slightest sign of fear, but he stopped smiling and frowned slightly. He was, in fact, remembering Rosa Hartman’s prediction and he smiled again, nodding to himself. No, he would not make it easy for her. If death was to come, then it must find him—he would not go looking for it.
“All right,” he said calmly. “The Baron may be on the island or he may not—I honestly don’t know. He doesn’t come in by boat usually. He has a private helicopter.”
“Owned by World Wide Exports of London?”
Vaughan’s eyes widened in amazement, then narrowed. “I say, you do know a lot, don’t you? Now that is interesting. I’ll be perfectly honest, old man, and say that I never was very happy about you from the start.”
“How big a staff does Stavru keep up at the house?”
Vaughan shrugged. “It depends. Most of the time, there’s just a caretaker—a trusted old retainer called Gledik. The Baron—or should I say the Count—is very feudal, you know. Always going on about happy days in dear old Hungary. Loathes the commies.”
“But isn’t above doing business with them when he has some expensive merchandise to sell?”
“Just like Alice—curiouser and curiouser.” Vaughan’s eyes flared with a strange green light. “I’ve a nasty feeling we’ve all been had where you’re concerned, old man.”
“Isn’t that a shame?”
Chavasse killed the conversation stone dead at that point by hauling Vaughan to his feet, running him back along the passageway and locking him in his cabin. When he returned to the saloon, Molly was still sitting at the table.
It was obvious that the conversation had been completely meaningless to her and he paused and tilted her chin.
Her eyes had dropped back into their sockets and were red and angry from lack of sleep. Her skin was blotched and unsightly and she seemed completely exhausted.
“I don’t like him, Paul,” she said. “He frightens me.”
“He can’t harm you—not now.” Chavasse patted her shoulder. “Why not lie down for a while? You look all in.”
She nodded wearily and followed him obediently like a small child when he took her into one of the cabins. She lay on a bunk and he covered her with a blanket and left.
When he went up to deck, it was still raining hard, but the sea was a lot calmer. Youngblood’s face was lined with fatigue in the grey light of morning, but his smile was as indefatigable as ever.
“We’ve just raised Alderney,” he said and pointed to a grey-green smudge on the horizon.
“How long?”
“Half an hour. I’m giving her full power now things are calmer. The only thing we have to worry about is the fog.”
“Is it likely to be bad?”
“Can’t say, but it’s coming in fast. On the other hand it does give us some kind of cover for the approach.”
“I’ve just been having words with our friend below.”
“Get anything out of him?”
“Apparently the Baron comes in and out by helicopter.”
“Is he there now?”
“Says he doesn’t know.”
Youngblood shook his head. “I can’t believe that. Maybe we’d better try a little persuasion.”
“You’d be wasting your time. I get a distinct impression that he’s the type which doesn’t crack easily and I think he was telling the truth. Most of the time there’s just a caretaker in residence up at the house.”
“Then what do we do?” Youngblood said. “I’ve had a good look at the chart and Bragg was right. The jetty is the only possible anchorage. If we go in there, we could run slap into trouble.”
“I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve had an idea of sorts. Let’s have another look at the chart.”
Youngblood switched to automatic pilot and joined him. “You’re wasting your time if you’re hoping to find somewhere else we can land. I’ve been over that chart a dozen times.”
Chavasse nodded. “I had something different in mind. The house is in a hollow on the western slope. If we approached from the east where the highest cliffs are, we wouldn’t be seen, especially in the fog.
Youngblood shook his head. “There isn’t any possible anchorage on that side.”
“Maybe not, but it looks to me as if there are plenty of places where a small boat could land.”
Youngblood looked dubious. “It sounds all right in theory, but I know these waters. It’s more than probable that a small boat couldn’t survive in the kind of surf you’ll find at the bottom of those cliffs.” “It could well be that we just don’t have any choice.” Chavasse shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
==========
They crept in towards the island through a grey shroud that seemed to go on forever and somewhere the surf boomed angrily like distant thunder.
The Pride of Man was making no more than two or three knots, her engine muted and Youngblood stood at the wheel, straining anxiously into the fog, feeling for the cross currents that would tell him he was getting close.
Chavasse was in the prow and suddenly, he pointed dead ahead and called excitedly. In the same moment the wind which had been strengthening noticeably for at least half an hour, tore a great hole in the curtain, giving a breath-taking view of the cliffs dead ahead.
They were perhaps two hundred yards away, the tops completely shrouded in grey, thousands of sea birds nesting on their rocky ledges and beneath them, the surf pounded in across jagged rocks.
Chavasse moved back to the wheelhouse as they went closer. “What do you think?”
Youngblood shook his head. “It doesn’t look too good to me.”
He approached to within fifty yards of the base of the cliffs and turned as the waves started to pull them in. Chavasse pointed to a horseshoe amongst the rocks and the strip of shingle beyond it.
“That looks something like.”
Youngblood shook his head. “I still say the dinghy wouldn’t last five minutes in that surf.”
“What if I wore the aqualung?”
Youngblood turned quickly. “Now you’re talking. I’d give you a better than even chance, always remembering that arm of yours.”
“Well, you can’t go, that’s obvious,” Chavasse said. “It looks as if I’m elected.”
He went below, opened the locker in the saloon and took out the skin-diving equipment. Whatever else happened it was going to be cold out there-damned cold and he stripped quickly and pulled on the close fitting diving suit in black rubber. He slipped Pentecost’s revolver into one of the pockets, zipped it up and went back on deck carrying the aqualung.
Youngblood stopped engines and joined him hurriedly. “Let’s make it quick. The current could have us on those rocks before you know it.”
“Give me an hour,” Chavasse said as they unshipped the dinghy from its davits. “Then come back for a look. If I stay back on the shingle, that means I want you to sail round to the jetty. If I stand in the surf, then the whole think stinks. You’d better let me have your watch.”
Youngblood unstrapped it and handed it across. “What will you do then?”
“I’ll try to swim back to the boat.”
Youngblood laughed harshly. “Rather you than me. Let’s have her over then.”
The dinghy was constructed of fibreglass and was therefore extremely light. They put her over the stern between them and Youngblood held on to the line while Chavasse struggled into the straps of his aqualung. He pulled the visor down over his face, adjusted the air flow and went over the side. Youngblood waved, the line went slack and as he reached for the oars, the current jerked him away.
The wind was freshening, lifting the waves into whitecaps and as he reached for the oars, the dinghy heeled and water poured in over the gunn’l. He adjusted his weight and started to row.
The engines coughed into life and the Pride of Man started to move away, but he had no time to watch its progress. He glanced over his shoulder and through the curtain of spray, the cliffs loomed larger, the surf boiling in over ragged, dangerous looking rocks. There was a hollow drumming on the hull of the dinghy and it spun round several times, grazing a black razor edge that would undoubtedly have split it neatly in half.
It was no good—his left arm simply didn’t have the strength to haul on that oar under such extreme conditions. He tried desperately to control the dinghy with just the right hand, but it was no good. The oar was snatched away by a sudden fierce eddy and he grasped the sides and waited.
The cliffs were very close now, the sea breaking over great ledges of rock in a dirty white foam and behind him, a great heaving swell rolled in, sweeping the dinghy before it.
He went over the stern, water closing over his head for only a moment or so. He surfaced in time to see the dinghy smashed down against the first line of rocks. Another wave lifted it high into the air, then it bounced across the reef twice and disintegrated.
There was a great smooth funnel in the rocks to the right and as another great swell lifted behind him, he dived and started to swim towards it, his webbed feet driving him through the water.
There was turbulence all around him, thousands of white bubbles and a great curtain of sand and grit and then he was lifted up as if by a giant hand. He surfaced, aware of the smooth black sides of the funnel on either side of him and suddenly found himself lying, arms outstretched, sprawled across a great moving bank of sand and shingle.
A giant hand seemed to be trying to pull him back and he crawled forward on hands and knees. Again the sea washed over him in a green curtain and as it receded, he staggered to his feet and stumbled forwa
rd. A moment later he was safe on the strip of beach at the foot of the cliffs.
The Pride of Man, on automatic pilot, cruised at a steady three knots, four hundred yards out from the cliffs and Youngblood stood at the rail watching Chavasse through a pair of binoculars he had found in the wheelhouse.
The tiny black figure on the beach waved once and then the curtain of mist dropped into place, hiding him from view.
Youngblood lowered the binoculars. “So far, so good,” he said softly. “And now we wait.”
He turned from the rail and went down the companionway to the saloon. There was no sign of Molly, but when he called her name, she answered from the galley and he found her at the stove making more coffee.
“I thought you were trying to get some sleep,” he said.
She shook her head. “I just couldn’t—I’ve got a splitting headache.”
“Paul’s gone ashore to see how the land lies,” he told her. “So we’ll be just cruising around for the next hour till we hear from him. Bring me up some coffee when it’s ready.”
He moved back along the passageway and paused as a thunderous kicking commenced on one of the cabin doors and Vaughan called to him.
“I say, old man, have you got a moment?”
Youngblood unlocked the door. “What do you want?” he said ungraciously.
“Where’s Drummond?”
“Gone ashore.”
“Has he, indeed? Now that was enterprising of him. On the other hand he seems a very resourceful sort of chap altogether, our Mr. Drummond. I must say I’d love to know how he found out who the Baron is.”
Youngblood frowned. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“Count Anton Stavru—the Baron,” Vaughan said. “Drummond seemed to know all about him when we were having words half an hour or so ago.”
Youngblood grabbed him by the front of his jacket, pulled him into the passageway and pushed him along to the saloon. He flung him down into a chair and stood over him threateningly.
“Now let’s get this clear. You say Drummond told you he knows the Baron was this bloke Stavru?”
“That’s right, old man. He even knew about our London front—World Wide Exports. To be perfectly honest, he seemed remarkably well informed to me.“