Cocos Gold

by Ralph Hammond Innes

  “ML 615” had had her guns stripped out of her. But “ML 1262” was fully gunned. The Oerlikon antiaircraft gun in the bows was humped under its canvas cover, only the protection shield showing. There were twin Vickers on the wings of the bridge, each with covers on.

  I lay back then, wondering on what desperate enterprise the ship was sailing. A derelict, refitted in desperate secrecy and leaving a British port at dead of night unarmed and with a rusty hull. And now here she was off the coast of France, newly painted, renamed, fully gunned, and flying the white ensign. What could it mean? They had sounded like crooks, the way they had talked. And yet—where would crooks have got the guns?

  Footsteps passed close by me along the deck, staggering slightly as they braced their owner against the rise and fall of the deck. I peered out to see who it was and gasped in amazement. He was climbing up to the bridge, the wind whipping his bell-bottomed trousers round his legs. He wore a duffel coat, and perched on the side of his head was the round hat of a British naval rating. The man he relieved at the wheel, however, still wore civilian clothes as he stumbled down the ladder.

  And then something else caught my attention and the mystery deepened. The canvas covering of the starboard Vickers wasn’t properly fixed. Every now and then the wind whipped it back to show the dark brown of the butts. The trigger guard of the nearest was a pale yellow, not the dull gleam of steel. I couldn’t believe it at first. But when the wind took hold of the cover again, I saw part of the breech had also not been painted over and I knew my eyes had not deceived me. I could see the grain of it. The Vickers were made of wood. They were dummies.

  A voice almost in my ear said, “Like being back in the ruddy Navy, ain’t it, mate?” I’d been so absorbed in my discovery that I hadn’t noticed the crew coming on deck.

  “It’s glad I’ll be when we’re safe out of Cherbourg,” another voice answered as I ducked down.

  “There you go again, man. Stop worrying, I tell you. Look at her. Isn’t she a picture? Why, man, the First Lord himself could step aboard and not know he wasn’t on one of His Majesty’s ships.” The Welshman gave a quick laugh.

  “It’s not the First Lord we’re worrying about,” replied another. “It’s the Frogs, and they’re a suspicious lot, damn ’em.”

  “Why should they be suspicious? They’re expecting us, aren’t they?”

  “Aye, it’s a neat enough plan.”

  “Indeed it is. You’ve got to hand it to Nat.”

  “Sure and I’ll hand it to him—when we’re clear of Dungeness Beach.”

  The voices faded as the men went for’ard. Almost immediately a voice called out, “Spike! Get things stowed properly, will you. We’ll be in in half an hour and I want everything Navy fashion. That Vickers cover is loose and the lacing of the dinghy cover has come adrift.”

  “Okay, skipper.”

  I shrank back into the darkness at the bottom of the boat as Spike Edwards went up to the bridge. I heard him fixing the Vickers. Then he came aft to the dinghy. His short, powerful fingers showed for an instant against the narrow slit of sky as he tugged at the lacing. Then the sky vanished as the cover was pulled tight over the boat. His fingers fumbled close by my ear as he tied the lacing. Then he went for’ard again, whistling a tune between his teeth.

  It was dark inside the boat now. When all was quiet I explored the edge of the covering, but I could not reach the knot. I could cut the lacing with my knife. But I didn’t dare with the skipper, whoever he was, looking to the appearance of his ship. So I lay in the dark, listening to the sounds of the ship, fear clutching at my empty stomach. We were bound for the French Channel port of Cherbourg on some devilish business. Suppose we were spotted by a French warship? They might sink us. The feeling of being trapped grew in me. If only they had left that little gap for me to see out. After Cherbourg they were making for Dungeness. But after Dungeness? What had one of them said? “Then it’s heigh-ho for the island.” It might be days before I could get ashore. Suppose I made a dash for it at Cherbourg?

  I hugged that thought to me as I lay in the bottom of the boat. Only by concentrating my whole mind on a plan for escape could I check the feeling of panic- that gripped me. Time passed slowly there in the darkness. I ate another sandwich. There were four left. I wished I had brought more. Gradually the movement of the ship lessened, by which I judged we were nearing the shore. The engine-room telegraph sounded and the engines dropped to half speed. A voice hailed the shore in French through a megaphone. The engines went astern and there was a slight bump. Then the engines stopped and I could hear French voices speaking from the quay and the clatter of cranes.

  Orders were shouted from the bridge and the men came doubling aft. One of them called, “Aye, aye, sir.” And the way he snapped it out I might have been back on my father’s ship when he took me out on her trials in the Clyde that summer that seemed so long ago. “Mr. Kean. I’m going ashore with the customs officer. All men to remain on board.”

  “Very good, sir,” Kean’s voice answered from the bridge.

  “Marchons, mon ami, je suis presse. L’amiral compte sur mon retour ce soir. J’ai tous les papiers.” This to the French customs official.

  “Bon! En avant, monsieur le capitaine.”

  They passed close by my hiding place and I heard their footsteps on the cobbles of the quay. If only I could get ashore! That was my one thought. But the deck was alive with men. They were all strangely silent. I could hear them moving about and when they spoke it was quietly as though they feared to talk aloud.

  Half an hour passed by my watch. The men were getting restless. I could sense it in the way they moved about the deck. Once one of. them leaned against my boat. “Do ye think anything can have gone wrong?” he whispered.

  “Why should it?” It was Spike Edwards who replied. His tone was abrupt as though he didn’t like to think about it. Then suddenly it brightened. “Here’s Nat coming now.”

  “Mr. Kean.” It was the same authoritative voice. “Take all available hands. The cases are waiting for us in Number Four shed.”

  “Very good, sir.” And I heard Kean order the men to fall in on the quay.

  “Mike!” Spike’s voice was a low hiss. “Remember: if anything goes wrong, Kean gets it first.”

  “I ain’t forgetting,” was the reply.

  They tumbled over the side on to the quay. Kean came aft. He gave his orders crisply. Yet I thought I detected a hesitancy in his voice. The party marched off and the ship was suddenly very quiet. Quite close to me I heard the man who was apparently the skipper say, “Allons, mon ami, buvons un coup ensemble en attendant?”

  “Je veux bien,” replied the customs officer.

  I heard them climb on board and come aft to the wardroom for their drink. And suddenly I realized that this was my chance. I would never have a better one. In an instant I had my clasp knife out and was sawing at the lacing on the starboard side. It parted and I pulled it through the eyeholes. The joy of seeing daylight again! I blinked in the gray light as I peered through the gap I had made. I was looking out on an old quay backed by big storage sheds. Some of the sheds were new. Others had gaping holes in them where the damage of the war had not yet been repaired. To my left a crane was unloading a small freighter. But the quay opposite where we lay was empty. Standing by the entrance gates not a hundred yards away was a gendarme. I glanced up at the bridge. I could see the round hat of the man on duty. It was Spike Edwards. He was looking out over the battered town.

  I ripped the lacing through the eyeholes the whole length of the boat. Then I pulled back the cover and forced myself through the gap. The gunn’l of the boat overhung the quay. I hadn’t bargained for that. The drop was a long one and I hesitated. That hesitation was my undoing. There was a shout from the bridge. In the same instant I jumped. I hit the cobbles with a thud that jarred my whole body. Somebody shouted in French from the warehouse opposite. I got to my feet and began to run toward the entrance gates. But I had twisted
my ankle. The pain shot up my leg. Footsteps pounded on the quay behind me. I gritted my teeth and ran as best I could. But in a moment a hand caught at my shoulder and pulled me to a halt.

  “Alors! tu es presse, moil brave? On va parler a ton capitaine, nest-ce pas?”

  I did not understand what he was saying. He was a big dock worker in blue dungarees. “The police,” I said. “I must speak to the police. It’s urgent.”

  He grinned at me foolishly. “I not speak English. You speak with you Captain, n’est-ce pas? Tu es un—un stowaway.” He had turned me round toward the ship and I could see Spike Edwards coming over the rail on to the quay. If only I had paid more attention to my French! “Gendarme” I said. “I must… C’est—c’est necessaire je parle avec gendarme”

  “Soit! Tu parleras au gendarme, mais tout d’abord au capitaine” His grip on my arm tightened. He was twisting it behind my back. I tried to make him understand, but he wouldn’t. I was crying with exasperation. And then suddenly I was face to face with Spike Edwards. “So it’s you, sonny, is it?” he said, and there was an ugly tone in his voice.

  The docker became voluble in French. The word “stowaway” kept on recurring. Spike took hold of me. “O.K.,” he said. “Je savais bien. Merci, me old cock sparrow. Merci beaucoup. Captain tres—tres enchante. Cigarettes?”

  “Cigarettes ” The docker beamed. “Merci bien, monsieur! Merci mille fois!” And a whole lot more while he fawned and beamed and jerked in ecstasy at his dungarees. Spike had got me by the collar of my raincoat. He was twisting it so that I was almost choking as he dragged me along the quay back to the ship. “You little fool,” he said. “This is Kean’s doing, I suppose.”

  “Mr. Kean knew nothing about it,” I gasped.

  “We’ll see about that.” He picked me up in his hands and almost threw me on to the deck. Then he dragged me toward the bridge.

  I twisted free of him there and shouted as loud as I could, “I want to speak to the customs officer.” Then he had hold of me again and his hand clamped down over my mouth, almost stifling me. “Another squeak out of you and I’ll wring your blasted neck.”

  “What’s the trouble, Edwards?” If was the skipper’s voice from the foot of the wardroom companionway. “Stowaway, sir.”

  “I’ll attend to him later.” Then in a whisper that was barely audible. “Shove him in the tiller flat. Tie him up and batten down the hatch.”

  “O.K.,” Spike replied quietly. “Can you pass up some cigarettes. They’re for the docker who caught him. It’ll help to keep his mouth shut.”

  The cigarettes were passed up, an American carton of two hundred. The hand that passed them over to Spike had the fingers missing. I never got a chance to see the man’s face. He was just a voice and that horribly mutilated hand.

  Spike turned and called down to the quay. “Hey, Frenchy—catch.” And he tossed the cigarettes over. “Merci,” cried the docker. “Merci bien, monsieur.”

  “That’s okay, mate. You buzz off now. And silence. Savez? Un gar con tres—tres adventurous.”

  “Ah, oui, oui, cest entendu! Un petit aventurier. J’ai compris. Merci, monsieur.”

  From one of the sheds further along the quay I saw the crew coming back with hand trucks loaded with packing cases. Spike jerked at my collar and dragged me aft along the deck. Right at the stem he pulled open a small, square hatch. “In you get, sonny,” he snarled and lifting me up, began to stuff my legs through the opening. I struggled wildly. I knew what this place was and I was frightened. It’s the place they put drunks to cool off. It’s just a cubbyhole about four or five feet high and running the width of the ship. It houses the chains that work the twin rudders.

  He gave me a sudden vicious blow in my stomach and as I gasped for breath, he thrust me down into the dark interior of the flat. I felt myself falling and then I hit the chains at the bottom. He followed me down, his feet scraping on the narrow, vertical ladder. As his bulk filled the hatch, the darkness of the flat took hold of me. The air was suffocatingly stale—a queer mixture of grease and pitch and bad bilge water. I started to cry out, but Spike cuffed me again, tripped me and as I fell across one of the greasy chains, he got hold of my hands and tied them behind my back. Then he stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth and secured the gag with a piece of tarred twine. “One peep out of you, me lad, and you’ll get a knife in your ribs, understand?”

  He climbed up on deck again and closed the hatch. The sudden darkness was intense. I felt suffocated, what with the dirty handkerchief, the smell of the tarred twine, and, digging into my ribs, the greasy links of the rudder chains. I struggled desperately to free myself. But the more I struggled, the tighter the twine that bound my wrists seemed to get. It cut into the flesh until I could feel blood trickling down my hands. After that I lay still.

  I don’t know how long I lay there in that suffocating darkness. It seemed an age. I heard the packing cases being stowed aboard and occasionally I caught the murmur of voices. The twine was cutting at the corners of my mouth, my head throbbed, and my ankle ached. I lay moaning in the darkness wishing I were back at school, back on “The Bridge of Orchy”—anywhere but in this terrible ship.

  Then suddenly orders were being barked out and feet sounded on the deck close above my head. The engine-room telegraph rang, and the vibration of the engines increased. I rolled over quickly, clear of the rudder chains. I was just in time. They gave a jerk and began to move. I could hear them in the darkness, the well-greased clank of the links sounding above the sound of the screws as we went astern. There was a scraping sound as the hull ground against the fenders of the quay. Then we had swung away from the dock and were pounding out of Cherbourg at full speed. After that the rudder chains were never still. As we met the roll and pitch of the seas beyond the harbor entrance, I fought to keep myself clear of them. It was a nightmare of sound and vibration and those devilish, restless chains always moving there in the darkness beside me.

  At last the hatch was pulled back. With the gray light came a gust of cold air. Three men descended the ladder, black shapes against the little square of windswept cloud. A torch flashed on my face. “This the boy?”

  It was Kean who answered. “Yes,” he said, and his voice was taut as though he were holding his breath.

  “Did you know he was stowed away on board?”

  “No.”

  The cold blade of a knife against my cheek made my heart leap in my mouth. The twine at the corner of my lips was suddenly wrenched apart. Then the gag was pulled out of my mouth. “What’s your name, boy?” The voice was impersonal, toneless.

  “Keverne,” I answered, trying desperately to keep the tremor out of my voice.

  They leaned over me, three dark shadows bent double by the lack of headroom.

  “Why did you stow away?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know, eh? Did Kean put you up to it?”

  “Why should I?” Kean asked. And then added, “I made him promise not to come near the ship.”

  “Shut up! Let the boy answer for himself. Did Kean know you were on board?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t have broken that promise.” There was something terrible in the way Kean said this. There was a sadness of despair in his voice.

  “Why did you want to speak to the gendarme at the dock gates? Why did you call out for the customs officer? Answer, boy!” The voice was sharp now.

  “I don’t know.” I could hardly hear what I was saying I was so scared.

  “Course he does,” put in Spike. “He was going to blab. Who knows what he may have heard hidden away in that boat. We got to get rid of him, Nat.”

  “I know that. The question is how.”

  “For God’s sake don’t talk about it in front of the boy.” Kean’s voice trembled. For the first time since I met him, I knew I liked him. He knew what it was to be afraid.

  There was a jerk at my arms and then again at my wrists. The cords that
bound me parted and I eased my numbed limbs. “A pity,” said the captain. “He’s got pluck and it’s the sort of mad thing I’d have done when I was his age. Mother and father both dead, you say? That makes it easier.” The voice was sorrowful and yet pitiless. “What about the guardian you mentioned?”

  “A commander in the Royal Navy. Just been posted to the Home Fleet.”

  “When is he collecting the boy?”

  “He’s not,” Kean answered. “I’m to send him back to his school at the start of the next term. That’s on the twentieth. Why not take him with us? I could write to Commander Gurling. It would be safer that way.” There was a pleading note in Kean’s voice.

  “We don’t want no trouble, Kean,” Spike snarled. “The little runt’s safer where he can’t talk.”

  “And have his body washed up on the shore,” replied the skipper. “The police would be on to the disappearance of the ML in no time.”

  “We’d have reached Bilbao by then.”

  “There’s such a thing as radio.”

  “Well, we can give him a pair of lead boots, can’t we?”

  “The tides can do strange things.”

  “Please.” Kean’s voice was on edge. “The boy’s not deaf. How would you like—” He stopped then. His voice was trembling.

  “Kean’s right,” the skipper answered. “This is no place to discuss the matter. We’ve got from now until we reach Dungeness to make up our minds.”

  “The further out we are—” Spike began, but he was cut short.

  “Get up on deck, both of you.” The light was flashed on my face again. “It’s a pity,” the skipper said again. “I like a kid with spunk.” The torch was switched off and I heard him sigh. Then he followed the others up through the hatch and a moment later the square of daylight was blotted out. I was alone again in the darkness with only fear for company. True, I was free to move about in my cramped lodging and I was no longer afraid of being caught in the rudder chains. But now I had a new fear.