by Antony Trew
THE WHITE SCHOONER
Antony Trew
Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
By the Same Author
Copyright
Chapter One
He was in the foothills now, clear of the terraces of almonds and caribs which led in giant steps to the valley below. The carpets of marguerites and poppies had given way to undergrowth, sparse at first but becoming thicker as he climbed. The sun shone from an April sky and straggling clouds threw shadows across the campo. The wind carried the scent of pines and junipers, and from the undergrowth came the tang of sage and rosemary.
It was warm so he sat on a rock in a small clearing and looked out towards the Mediterranean, enjoying the distant coolness of the blue water and wondering how it could be described without clichés and deciding it couldn’t. From a fisherman’s bag he took binoculars and scanned the valley. To his right lay the white cluster of buildings about San José where the road turned south at first and then east towards Ibiza, a grey line rising and falling, lost in the undulations of the landscape. To his left, perhaps half a mile away, a dirt road climbed through the terraces reaching up into the hills until it was lost in the fold of a ravine.
An occasional car moved along the road through the valley, but otherwise the landscape was still.
Above him a falcon hovered and he wondered if it were a lanner or a peregrine until he used the glasses and knew it was a peregrine. It was the first he’d sighted on the island so he took a book from the bag, found the peregrine and made a marginal notation, ‘Nr. San José, 12/4/68.’
He put the binoculars and book in the bag, hesitating when he saw the bottle of wine. Better wait for lunch, he decided, and fastened the straps on the bag. He got to his feet slowly, slung it over his shoulder and set himself against the hill. There was no path and as the angle of the slope grew steeper he began to zigzag. It was hard work because the route he had chosen lay through thick undergrowth. At times he would find the way barred and then he would go back and try another.
Beads of sweat gathered on his face and rolled away to be replaced by others and dust, musty and choking, came from the shrubs he pushed aside as he climbed. It would be good, he thought, to be impervious to discomfort. But I am not. My left shoe hurts, I have this scratch on my forearm which smarts, the dust makes me asthmatic, I’m wet with sweat and have still a long way to go. I must make my mind a blank, he decided, and began humming Up, Up and Away. But he resented the tune because it had over the weeks and months become compulsive. So he changed to Colonel Bogey and felt better.
By late afternoon he had come to a gully which lay between the route he had taken and the dirt road. Opposite was a clearing, beyond it the road. Before he left the corner of the junipers he stood at their edge, making sure there was nothing on the road and no one in the gully. When he was satisfied he scrambled down the slope and worked his way slowly up the gully until he judged he was above the clearing. He could see on his right, ahead of him, the tops of pines, dark and menacing. He came out of the gully and went into them, choosing his way carefully, avoiding the dead branches which lay on the carpet of pine needles.
A bird called, a sharp tjik-tjik-tjik, and he started. God, he thought, even the call of a thrush shakes me. Must get a grip on myself. There’s no law against being in this wood. But he knew that wasn’t the point.
He set off through the plantation, still climbing obliquely across it until he saw the firebreak. Keeping to the trees he moved up the slope until he was abreast of thick undergrowth. Crossing the firebreak he went into it and crawled forward and when he’d gone like that slowly, perhaps for five minutes, he raised his head and saw the white splash of the finca in the trees on the far side of the ravine. It was ahead of him to the right, just clear of a jutting clump of pines. It was, he judged, four hundred yards away. He’d have to get a lot closer than that. He looked at his watch. There was an hour of daylight left. Slowly he crawled back through the undergrowth, reached the wood and, when he was well into it, moved up the slope again.
A part of his mind was analysing his emotions, registering surprise that he could at this moment be calm and objective. Kagan should be here to see that you can be emotionally involved and yet retain your caution and judgment. Anyway, it was just a big white house, a container, so many superficial feet of wall, so many cubic yards of capacity; it was inanimate, without movement, that which might be in it remote, unreal, maybe not even there. He shook himself free from his thoughts and plodded on up the hill, to his right bright slats of daylight alternating with the dark trunks of trees.
Half an hour later he was in position, slightly above the finca and to its left, no more than a hundred yards from it and with a clear view across the ravine.
He was kneeling now, well shielded in a spinney of junipers and scrub, binoculars focused on the big house. It was magnificently sited, looking outward from the hills towards the sea. The architecture was Ibizencan, split levels, geometric lines, high white walls, windows trellised with cast iron, flat roofs, terra-cotta tiled, to collect the rain for the cisterna beneath the house. Castilian arches broke the wide frontal elevation and gave the house depth and character. On the terrace above the main house, two wings ran back into the excavated hillside; clustered about them, interspersed with clumps of cacti and figs, were the outbuildings for animals and farm equipment.
‘So that’s Altomonte. It’s a big house,’ he muttered to himself. ‘They have not exaggerated.’ He tried to identify its components, to establish by their windows and position the character of the different rooms, but it was not possible. And in all that sprawling structure where was the gallery? The bedrooms? Van Biljon’s suite? Some things were self evident, like the barred windows. Others were not. Such as where the dogs were kept, and was there any break in the high stone wall which surrounded the finca, other than the iron-bound gate shut across the road from the valley.
For a long time these and other things occupied him and then the light had gone, and he put the binoculars back in the fishing bag. For some minutes he remained there, then, still on his knees, he started back towards the wood, going into the thicket where he rested until the moon had dipped beneath the hill. Then he went to the firebreak. He did not go into the wood again for he knew he would not be able to see the dried branches. So he kept to the firebreak where he could move faster and with less noise. Darkness would be his cover.
The ravine was on his left now, across it the lights of the finca, warm and inviting. As he watched those in the west wing went on, bright squares glowing in the high walls. Probably the gallery, he decided. With darkness had come a drop in temperature, and he buttoned the collar of his shirt against the cold. From the finca the smell of woodsmoke mixed with cooking came down to the firebreak. He sniffed it. Meat of some sort, mutton, perhaps with garlic. It reminded him of a night
in the desert round a fire with bedouins: on the road to Damascus when his car had broken down. On the road to Damascus. It has a biblical ring, he thought. A biblical ring. He kept repeating the words, liking the onomatopeia.
His thoughts flung away as he tripped over a stone. He tried to break the fall with his hands but his forehead struck the ground and he heard the stone rolling into the ravine, breaking through dry brushwood, and he was appalled at its noise.
Predictably the silence was broken by the barking of dogs. Still clutching the ground, he turned his head and looked back. Faintly, in the distance, he could hear men’s voices and presently he saw the beam of a flashlight travelling along a white wall.
‘You bloody fool,’ he gasped. ‘You bloody fool. You weren’t concentrating.’ He waited, tense and upset. But his common sense told him that those in the finca could not at that distance have heard the noise of the stone. The dogs, yes. But not the men.
Presently it was silent again. The dogs had stopped barking, and the voices ceased.
He got up and dusted himself, found there was blood on his hand where the gravel had torn the skin, and a lump on his temple, raw and tender. He set the strap of the bag across his shoulder and started down the hill. Gingerly this time, concentrating, determined to do it efficiently. Half an hour later he reached the first terrace. Only then did he relax. He stepped on to it and followed its curving contours to the east where it met the dirt road.
The croaking of frogs led him to a small spring inside a stone surround. From it a trickle of water ran down a concrete furrow. He tasted the water, decided it was good, and scooped handfuls into his mouth. Then he washed his face and hands and rested by the spring. The fall had shaken him. Feeling cold again, he took up his bag and set off down the road.
In the west a waning moon was setting.
As he walked he was aware of two things: the pungent smell of sweat and the warm stickiness of blood on his left hand. After a while he stopped and bound the hand with a handkerchief. It was not serious but it was uncomfortable, even painful. Pain is relative, he thought, gurus preclude it with mental disciplines. I shall presume that the pain in my left hand has always been there. Therefore it is normal, therefore I do not feel it. But it was no good. The hand still hurt.
An hour later he was nearing the foot of the hill and he knew that soon the dirt road would join the tarmac between San José and Ibiza and he would set off along it. The chances of a lift were not good. It was almost eleven o’clock, there would not be much traffic, and to car drivers he would seem a dubious risk. It promised to be a long night and he was already tired, but he could see no alternative. It reminded him of another night, long ago, when he had been alone in a strange country, on a fearsome journey.
The distant sound of a car travelling along the main road broke into his thoughts and soon its lights swept across the foot of the dirt road. Then they were gone and the noise of the engine faded. Soon afterwards he heard behind him the sound of a car starting, and as he turned its headlights came on and blinded him. It was parked just off the road, not more than fifty yards back. I must be tired, he thought, to have been so close without smelling it. The car started down the road and he stood aside to let it pass, but it drew up alongside him and he saw it was a jeep of the Guardia Civil. There were two uniformed men in it.
The driver said, ‘Beunas noches, señor.’
He replied, ‘Beunas noches, señor,’ and knew that they were sizing him up, wondering what he was doing there at that time.
‘It is late to be walking here,’ said the driver in Spanish.
‘Yes, indeed. I was in the hills to-day watching birds and then I fell.’ With his bandaged hand he indicated his forehead. ‘So I rested.’
‘You are English, señor?’ said the policeman in the passenger seat.
He nodded. ‘Yes, I am English.’ His Castilian Spanish was good, but his English accent always came through.
‘How do you mean you were watching birds?’ said the driver.
The Englishman took the binoculars and the bird book from the canvas bag and passed them to the driver, and while he and his companion examined them by torchlight the Englishman explained bird watching.
The policemen thought this was funny and they laughed to each other; but they were satisfied, and passed back the book and binoculars.
‘In Spain we shoot birds and eat them,’ said one of the policemen. ‘They taste good.’
‘I believe so,’ said the Englishman. ‘I have never tried.’
‘You must do so, señor.’
‘I may do so.’
The driver had an idea. ‘Next time you should watch the bird first, then shoot it, and afterwards eat it.’
‘This way you will have everything, señor,’ said his companion.
‘Quite so,’ said the Englishman. ‘It is worth considering.’
The earlier tension had gone. They were satisfied and when they offered him a lift into Ibiza he accepted.
They put him down at the Paseo Vara de Rey just as the crowd was coming out from the Cine Serra. Anxious to avoid them, he hurried down Calle Vincente Cuervo and then, by way of the harbour first, he went up into the old town.
He had told the police that his name was Charles Black and that he lived in a room in Señora Maria Massa’s house, in a lane near El Corsario.
Chapter Two
Streaks of cloud scudded across the Aegean sky above Patmos, and from Chora looking across the bay to Scala the wind could be seen to strike the water in eddying gusts, while billows of smoke from the island steamer coming in from Leros were snatched from the funnel and blown low over the sea.
‘It’s a squally place in a northerly wind,’ said the lanky young man sucking orange juice through a straw.
The girl with freckles and red hair nodded but didn’t look up.
‘Glad Zuletha’s snugly alongside,’ he said.
‘Famous last words.’
‘What time did they say?’
She sighed and put down the paper. ‘You’re determined I’m not going to read this, aren’t you?’
‘What time did they say?’
‘At, ’ow do you say, meeday,’ she mimicked. ‘We shall be ’appy eef you weel veesit us.’
He shook his head. ‘Not very good. You could do better.’
She dropped her voice and spoke hoarsely. ‘Ve haf not too much variety, but plenty good Sherman bee-er. Ja wohl.’
He laughed. ‘That’s better.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Helmut.’
‘Helmut what?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘He was the character with the bushy beard. The one with a faceful of fuzz, whiskers, and brass rings in his ears was Francois.’
‘You didn’t tell them our names,’ she said reprovingly. ‘Very gauche.’
‘They didn’t ask.’
‘They were nice. Picking up my scattered veg like that.’
‘Pretty obvious, wasn’t it?’ He stifled a yawn.
‘What was?’
‘The way you dropped it.’
‘Rubbish.’ She flicked at his nose with a straw. ‘You’re jealous. That lovely schooner. My dear, they must be rich. Rich, madly rich.’ She sang the words.
He looked at his watch. ‘Come on. It’s a quarter to go. Let’s go.’
He beckoned the waiter and paid the bill. Gathering their parcels they went across to the taxi, a tired looking Renault, and told the driver to take them to Port Scala.
As they walked down the quay to the schooner the lanky young man looked at it with a critical eye. ‘Staysail schooner, Bermuda rigged,’ he said.
The girl looked at the long white hull, reflected sunlight dancing on it, the masts standing high above the water. ‘She’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘No wonder they call her the Snowgoose.’
The name was on the stern transom, below it Piraeus, the port of registration.
‘Look at the size of the exhausts,’ he said. ‘She must
have bloody great auxiliaries.’
He could tell from the coachroofs and portlights that the schooner had crew space forward, the main accommodation amidships, aft of that a well-equipped cockpit and aft of that again more accommodation, probably the owner’s suite.
A man with leathery skin and a greying beard was in the cockpit polishing brightwork. When he saw them he called down the forward companionway. Soon afterwards two young men appeared.
‘Bon. You ’ave come,’ called the Frenchman.
‘Of course.’ The girl smiled. ‘I don’t think we told you our names. I’m Ann Alexander. This is my husband, Dougal.’ She felt she was being over formal and grinned to hide her embarrassment.
The Frenchman pointed to his companion. ‘This is Helmut. I am Francois.’
‘Yes,’ said Dougal Alexander. ‘You told us this morning.’ His wife frowned at him.
‘Welcome on board,’ said Helmut. ‘Meet the Snowgoose.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ said Ann Alexander.
They followed the German down the forward companionway and along an alleyway between cabin doors to a small saloon. It was simply furnished with settees, a central table, a bookcase and lockers. There were signs of interrupted industry: two typewriters, a litter of typewritten sheets, note books, cameras, paints and brushes, and sketches in water-colour and pen-and-ink.
Helmut gestured with his hands. ‘Excuse the rubbish, Always it is like this. We cruise to work.’ The deep voice and hoarse German accent gave the words weight.
Drinks were produced, formalities soon forgotten, and the talk became general. The English girl explained that they lived in Athens where her husband worked for an oil company. They were spending their holiday cruising in Zuletha, a ketch which belonged to friends in Athens. There was chatter about cruising in the Aegean, about the islands they had visited and their boats.
Dougal Alexander looked round the cabin. ‘What’s the size of this monster?’