The single wharf light showed me our own dinghy rolling sluggishly in the inky water at our stem.
Getting into that dinghy wasn’t a thing done on the spur of the moment. I think I had known all along that when the time came I should row across to the ML. I seemed to have thought it all out in advance. I went below and got some warm clothing, cut myself some sandwiches and took a torch and my raincoat. I put out some milk and food for Nick and then went up on deck, closing and locking the door to the companion.
The tide was making as I started off across the estuary and I had to point the dinghy’s bows almost up to the yacht club in order to hold my course to the ML. It was a stiff row and though the night was cold, I was soon warmed up. The weather was clear and fine and the lights of Hove were very bright.
At last I could see the low line of the salt flats, and there was the “ML 615,” still grounded in the mud. A light showed dimly from one of the portholes. I headed the dinghy up still further against the tide and made the shore about a hundred yards on the seaward side of the ML. Then I let the dinghy drift up on to it with the tide.
The shape of the ML gradually emerged, her outline very black in the darkness. The dinghy was already slung in its davits aft. A motorboat was secured by a painter to the stem. The porthole glowed with a slit of light. Sitting there quite still and silent, drifting toward her with the tide, I began to wonder what was going on in the little cabin behind the drawn porthole curtains. Perhaps I’d come on a fool’s errand. He might have sold the boat. But somehow I knew it wasn’t that. A moment later something happened to confirm it.
I had just begun to make out all the familiar details of the craft, when a gash of light showed through the after hatch and a man came out on deck. I dipped my oars into the water and began to back-paddle against the tide. I thought he must see me, for I was quite close. But he didn’t even glance in my direction. “Hey, Spike,” he called softly down the hatch. “Time we were going.”
“O.K., mate, I’m coming.” I’d have recognized that voice even if he hadn’t been called by name.
A moment later his thick, heavy body emerged from the hatch. The two men got into the motor boat. The engine spluttered, coughed twice, and then started up. It drifted clear of the ML’s stern and then swung in an arc and went coughing up the estuary, trailing a white, short wake at its stern. Running with the tide, it soon disappeared. I stopped rowing then and let the dinghy drift. The rust-blotched hull of the ML came at me out of the darkness. I stood up to fend off. But though I threw my whole weight against the wood skin of the hull, the force of the tide still caused the dinghy to bump it with a hollow thud. I waited breathlessly. But nobody seemed to have heard. The whole world seemed still. The gurgle of the tide and the murmur of voices from what had been the officers’ wardroom aft were the only sounds. Using the flat of my hands, I ‘worked the dinghy along until I was opposite the lighted porthole. By standing on the thwart I could just see in through the narrow slit between the two curtains.
Facing the porthole and looking straight at me was Kean. I ducked down. But then I realized that he couldn’t possibly see me through that narrow slit. I raised my head again. He wasn’t looking at the porthole, but at somebody seated directly below it and out of my line of vision. He was speaking, but I couldn’t distinguish the words. His whole body was tense and rigid.
Then, as though in answer, a fist crashed down on the table, rattling the litter of bottles and glasses. A voice right under the porthole said, “You’ll do as I say, Kean.” But I wasn’t listening to the words, which I could just hear. I was staring, fascinated, at that fist. It wasn’t really fist at all. It was only half a fist. The fingers were all missing, the stumps protruding from the knuckles in four round, smooth humps of flesh. The skin was brown and the muscles stood out along the back of the clenched member so that it was more like a great gnarled piece of oak.
Kean seemed to brace himself as though about to refuse. Then his body sagged and by the movement of his lips I could see he was saying, “All right.”
The conversation continued in lower tones and I could make nothing of what was being said. And though I stood there until my whole body ached with the strain of holding the dinghy in with my feet on the thwart, I could distinguish nothing more of what was said. Nor did I see anything more of the man seated directly below the porthole. All I saw of him was that broken and powerful hand. Every now and then it would move forward into my line of vision and grasp hold of a glass with dexterous familiarity.
Then suddenly from far out in the darkness of the night I heard the cough of the motorboat. I stepped down into the dinghy and stood, rocking to the motion of it and listening. The sound gradually drew nearer. A tug hooted. The water gurgled more softly round the ML’s hull, for the tide was nearly at the full. I levered the dinghy along to the stem. Twin points of green and red showed two boats coming toward us. It was time for me to go. And yet I hesitated. Something drew me like a magnet. To this day I don’t know exactly what it was. A sense of adventure maybe? Curiosity? The fascination of that horrible hand? Or was it that fate had destined me to play my part in the business? I don’t know. But I remember I looked up at the black outline of the little warship’s superstructure and there, silhouetted against the stars, was the dark shape of its dinghy hanging in the davits.
I acted then without thought. I seized hold of a stanchion and kicked my own boat from under me. In a moment I was on the deck of the ML and there was the dark shape of my dinghy drifting slowly away on the tide. I watched it merge gradually into the darkness of the water and a feeling of panic gripped me. A moment later it had vanished, swallowed up in the night. And quite close now I heard the cough of the motorboat.
I slipped for’ard to the davits and climbed up to the dinghy. Its tarpaulin cover was firmly laced. I found a knot of the lacing, fumbling at it in the darkness. The tug hooted again. The sound of it was quite close and the heavy thud-thud of its- engines was drowning the lighter cough of the motorboat. A door banged, for’ard, and footsteps sounded on the companionway from the crew’s quarters. I tore at the knot, breaking my fingernails. A shaft of light showed by the bridge and a voice called out, “The tug’s coming now.”
The knot suddenly yielded. I pulled the lacing through the eyeholes and slipped under the tarpaulin. I had barely got it loosely laced up when the engine of the motorboat gave a final cough and died. There was a bump as it came alongside. Then the deck seemed alive with men. I heard stores being lifted aboard and the thud of a line being passed from the tug. Peering out through the loose lacing I could see the squat bulk of the tug, close in and stem-on to us. The heavy towing hawser was dragged up over the stern and the loop slipped over a bollard. “She’s fast,” a voice reported.
Then from up on the bridge I heard Kean’s voice sing out, “You can take her off now.”
“O.K.,” came the answer from the tug, and the engine-room telegraph gave two quick rings. The next moment the muddy water seemed to boil as the tug went ahead and our own engines thundered into life. The ship vibrated throughout her length like a violin string. I could feel her straining at the mud. Then suddenly there was a grating and bumping. The uptilt of her deck lessened and a moment later she was riding on the water, her decks level and the powerful engines driving her astern.
“Let go aft.” It was Kean’s voice again.
“Aye, aye,” came the reply, accompanied by the splash of the heavy towing line as it dropped into the sea. The motorboat went coughing into the darkness. Our own engine-room telegraph sounded and the deck shuddered as the engines went ahead. Gradually the shuddering ceased as we gathered way. In a moment the engines had settled down to a steady thrum below decks and the sound of our bow creaming along the side became a swish of racing water.
We were on our way. I suddenly had a feeling of panic because I didn’t know where we were going.
2. ML 615
It was cold and damp under the boat cover. Peering out through the
lacing I saw the dark bulk of the factory at the entrance to the estuary go sliding by to starboard, the great mounds of coal humped against the stars. Then we passed the yacht club and swung seaward so that the lights of Brighton came full astern of us. I watched those lights dwindle till they were no more than a thousand little gleaming pin points along the horizon. Then they vanished below the horizon and my world was a void of darkness and rushing water. Huddled in my raincoat I wished that I was back in my boat rowing toward the warmth of “The Bridge of Orchy’s” saloon. I thought of Nick curled up on the wicker chair in front of the stove. Then I remembered that the stove was out. A feeling of desperate loneliness took hold of me.
I ate one of my sandwiches, chewing at it slowly, for I didn’t know how long they’d have to last. I tried to sleep, but the ribs of the boat dug into me and I felt cramped and chilled through to my bones. I thought of reporting to Kean as a stowaway. Once I got as far as undoing the lacing preparatory to climbing down. But then I remembered the scared look on Kean’s face and the secrecy with which the ship had been got ready for sea. Above all, I remembered that fingerless hand crashing down on the wardroom table and the voice saying, “You’ll do as I say, Kean.” I laced up the boat cover again with fingers stiff with cold and lay shivering in the dark of my cramped lodging.
I must have dropped off to sleep, for I was suddenly wakened by voices. The whole crew seemed on deck. The luminous dial of my watch showed that it was just after midnight. I raised myself cautiously and peered out from beneath the boat cover. The deck lights had been turned on and men were all over the ship. For a moment I thought we must have reached our destination. But then I saw that every man had a pot of paint and they were slapping on a new coat of battleship gray. One man, working on a sling below the bridge, was blotting out the number, 615. I watched, fascinated, as he painted in a new number, 1262. By pulling back the boat cover a little further I was able to make out the polestar. It was almost directly above our stem. We were headed south. I knew these boats were capable of a good twelve knots. On that reckoning we were more than a quarter of the way across to France. What could they want in France, I wondered? Were they smuggling? Then why the hasty repainting? Or was this some strange, semiofficial expedition? That didn’t seem to fit, and yet my father had told me the most incredible stories about the activities of what he called our small-ship navy. Up on the bridge I could just see Kean pacing back and forth. Once when he turned, the light caught his face. It was pale and set. But it was the cap he wore that held my attention. It wasn’t the cap in which he’d left “The Bridge of Orchy.” It was a naval officer’s cap. I could see the gold-braided anchor.
My speculations were cut short by two men who were working along the deck toward my refuge. The other four —and that seemed to comprise the total of the crew—were rigging slings over the side in order to start work on the repainting of the hull itself. But these two were just finishing with the starboard side of the deckhouse. In a moment they would be at the davits in which the dinghy was slung. Suppose they did the job thoroughly and painted the inside of the boat as well as the outside?
I watched them tensely as they worked steadily along the deckhouse. I couldn’t see them clearly, for they were in the shadows, but I could hear the murmur of their voices and the slap-slap of their brushes as they worked. Suddenly they had finished the whole of the starboard side of the deckhouse. The taller of the two straightened up and glanced aft. “Will we be after doin’ the boat next?” I heard him say.
“He don’t want the boat done, surely?”
“Sure and he’ll want the boat done. It’s lookin’ spick and span like a real Navy boat we’ve got to be.”
“O.K.”
I ducked down. I heard them move across the deck toward me and the next moment the slap of their brushes sounded on the woodwork close by my ear. I froze into utter stillness. I could hear the sound of their breathing, they were so close. I held my breath, afraid I should cough or that they’d hear the thudding of my heart. They couldn’t work so close to me without knowing I was there. I had a wild desire to cry out, to kick the cramp out of my legs. A tickle developed where the hair touched my right ear. I remember thinking that I hadn’t had a haircut for a long time. My right arm, on which I was leaning my whole weight, began to go numb. Pins and needles developed. At last I could stand it no longer. Very gently I eased my arm from under me. And as I moved, I touched one of the rowlocks which was lying on a thwart. It clattered into the bottom of the boat, swinging back and forth on its string. The noise it made seemed deafening in that confined space.
One of the brushes stopped painting and a voice, almost in my ear, said, “Did ye hear that, Shorty? Something moved in the boat.”
“You got the jumps,” came the reply. “Something come adrift, that’s all. She’s beginning to roll. Gawd help us if we hit a rough patch. She’s making water almost as fast as the pumps can handle it.”
The brush began slapping away at the woodwork again. “Oi’ll be glad when we’ve seen the last of this trip.”
“Me too. Then it’s heigh-ho for the island. And this time we’ll lift the stuff—you see if we don’t.”
“If it’s still there.”
“If it’s still there! Blimey! You’re a Jonah and no mistake.”
“Ye know as well as I do, Shorty, the number of expeditions that have been made to that blasted island.”
“So what? They didn’t have the information what we got.”
“Mebbe. But first we got to get the dough to finance us. And this trip ain’t over yet.”
“What’s got into you, for Gawd’s sake?”
“Kean for a start. He’s scared. He’ll run us aground like he did before. I know his sort. It’s right on top of ’em you’ve got to be all the time or else—”
“Or else what?”
“Or else they screw up their courage and act the way they’ve been brought up to act. Shorty, it’s wishing I were back in the States, I am.”
“With the Federal agents after you?”
“Aw, I can look after meself. It’s just that I like to have control of the sityation.”
“You mean you ain’t happy without a gun in yer hand.”
“Mebbe.”
They were silent for a while after that and the sound of their brushes moved aft along the woodwork of the boat. Soon they were working up toward me again along the other side. And down, close by the water that raced along the ship’s side, I could hear the men in the slings talking. One of them called up. “Hey, Shorty! See this?”
The sound of the brushes ceased. “Can’t see a blasted thing, mate. What is it?”
“A bullet mark.”
“Well, what of it, Taffy?”
“Don’t you remember, man? I can see it now, plain f& fore my very eyes as though it were yesterday. There was Irwin down in the boat, moaning and clasping his stomach where Nat’s bullet hit him. And then suddenly he straightens up and fires. I tell you, man, that’s the mark of his bullet. Strange it is to be sailing in the same boat.”
“Stow it!” It was the Irishman’s voice and he spoke through his teeth.
“It’s jumpy you are, man.”
“And who wouldn’t be jumpy? Why in hell did we have to have Kean along of us?”
“Who else could we get?” This was a different voice, low and sullen. “Or do ye think ye can navigate?” The sneer was accompanied by a wheezy laugh like steam escaping from a burst pipe.
“No, Bugs. I ain’t a navigator. But I’d have found somebody who was willing. Not a lily-livered, drunken—”
“Get on with your work, Mike.” The voice came from for’ard. It wasn’t loud, yet it carried, and there was a violence in it that made me shudder.
The Irishman muttered under his breath and the brushes slapped close by my head again. And down by the slings I heard that other voice say, “Strange that this should be the very same boat. And strange it is that Kean should have bought her from the Admiralty. W
hy should he do that, now? It’s almost as though he had a secret here on board which he wished to preserve.” The singsong voice of the Welshman had a derisive quality. ‘.
“Shut yer blasted trap!”
After that the painting went on in silence. Soon the two deck workers left my hideout and moved further aft. I breathed freely again and eased my cramped limbs. All night the painting went on. I could hear them working between my intervals of dozing. The cold ate into my very bones. Yet I must have slept, for suddenly I was awake. The crew were cheering. It was a ragged, ironical sound. I lifted the boat cover cautiously and peered out. The first cold light of dawn was breaking and they were all in a huddle up for’ard. Then I saw the cause of the cheer. The white ensign was being hoisted. One of them, the Irishman called Mike I think, sang a line of “Rule Britannia.” It brought a coarse laugh. I glanced up at the bridge and saw Kean standing there. His face was drawn and bitter and he was gazing up at the white ensign. Then he turned abruptly and vanished from sight.
I stared out at the bleak waste of sea. The boat was pitching quite violently now and in the growing light I could see the whitecaps go hissing by. The painting was finished. The ship gleamed dull gray from end to end. And freshly painted on the side of the bridge was her new name, “ML 1262.”
I lay back in my cramped quarters and made my breakfast off one of the sandwiches. I could have eaten the whole packet, I was so hungry and cold. But I resolutely rationed myself to that one. Long after I had swallowed the last mouthful the taste of it kept coming back to me. When next I peered out, a watery sun was coming up over the horizon on our port quarter. The course had not changed —south with a little westing. The deck was still deserted and I slipped a bit more of the lacing back so that I could look out for’ard. And there, right over the pitching bows, I could see a thin, misty line lying across the horizon. France! However, it wasn’t about our destination that I began to speculate, but about something in the bows of the ship that brought me up with a shock of surprise.
Cocos Gold Page 3