The Eye of the Tiger

by Wilbur Smith

  She was speaking carefully, and her choice of words was odd, too technical for a woman. She had learned all this, I was certain - from Jimmy? Or from somebody else?

  Listen and learn, Harry, I told myself.

  “Billy Bryce was three days on a rubber raft on the ocean in a typhoon before the rescue helicopter from Rawano found him. He had time to do some thinking. One of the things he thought about was the value of that cargo - and he compared it to the salary of a Commander. His evidence at the court of inquiry omitted the fact that the “pogo sticd” had gone down within sight of land, and that Bryce had been able to take a fix on a recognizable land feature before he was blown out to sea by the typhoon.”

  I could not see any weakness in her story - it looked all right - and very interesting.

  “The court of inquiry gave a verdict of “pilot error” and Bryce resigned his commission. His career was destroyed by that verdict. He decided to earn his own retirement annuity and also to clear his reputation. He was going to force the US Navy to buy back its “killer whale” missiles and to accept the evidence of the flight recorder.”

  I was going to ask a question, but again Sherry stopped me with a gesture. She did not want her recital interrupted. “Jimmy had done some work for the US Navy - a hull inspection of one of their carriers - and he had met Bryce at that time. They had become friends, and so Billy Bryce naturally came to Jimmy. Between them they had not sufficient capital for the expedition they needed to mount, so they had to find financial backers. It isn’t the kind of thing you can advertise in The Tftm, and they were working on it when Billy Bryce was killed in his Thunderbird on the M4 near the Heathrow turn-off.”

  “There seems to be some sort of curse on this thing,” I said.

  “Are you superstitious, Harry?” she asked, looking at me through those slanted tiger eyes.

  “I don’t knock it,” I admitted, and she nodded, seeming to file the information away before she went on.

  “After Billy was dead, Jimmy went on with the project. He found backers. He wouldn’t tell me who, but I guessed they were unsavoury. He came out here with them - and you know the rest.”

  “I know the rest,” I agreed, and instinctively massaged the thickened scar tissue through the silk of my shirt. “Except of course the site of the crash.”

  We stared at each other.

  “Did he tell you?” I asked, and she shook her head.

  “Well, it was an interesting story.” I grinned at her. “It’s a pity we can’t check out the truth of it.”

  She stood up abruptly and went to the veranda rail. She hugged her arms and she was so angry that if she’d had a tail she would have switched it like a lioness.

  I waited for her to recover, and the moment came when she shrugged her shoulders and turned back to me. Her smile was light.

  “well, that’s that! I thought I was entitled to some of the rewards. Jimmy was my brother - and I came a long way to find you because he liked and trusted you-I thought we could work together - but I guess if you want it all, there’s not much I can do about it.”

  She shook out her hair, and it rippled and shone in the lamplight. I stood up.

  “I’ll take you home now,” I said, and touched her arm. She reached up with both arms, and her fingers locked in the thick curly hair at the back of my neck.

  “It’s a long way home,” she whispered, and pulled my head down, standing on her tiptoes.

  Her lips were very soft and moist, and her tongue was thrusting and restless. After a while she drew back and smiled up at me, her eyes were unfocused and her breath was short and fast.

  “Perhaps it wasn’t a wasted journey, after all?”

  I picked her up, and she was light as a child, hugging my neck, pressing her cheek to mine as I carried her into the shack. I learned long ago to eat hearty whenever there was food, because you never know when the famine is going to hit.

  Even the soft light of dawn was cruel to her as she lay sprawled in sleep beneath the mosquito net on the big double bed. Her make-up had smeared and caked, and she slept with her mouth open. The mane of blonde hair was a tangled bush and it did not match the triangle of thick dark curls at the base of her belly. I felt repelled by her this morning, for I had learned during the night that Miss. Sherry was a raving sadist.

  I slipped out of the bed and stood over her a few moments, searching her sleeping face in vain for a resemblance to Jimmy North. I left her, and, still naked, walked out of the shack and down to the beach.

  The tide was in and I plunged into the cool clear water and swam out to the entrance to the bay. I swam fast, driving hard in an Australian crawl, and the salt water stung the deep scratches in my back.

  It was one of my lucky mornings, old friends were waiting for me beyond the reef, a school of big bottle-nosed porpoise, who came flashing to meet me, their tall fins cutting the dark surface as they steeplechased over the swells. They circled me, whistling and snorting, the blow, holes in the tops of their heads gulping like tiny mouths and their own huge mouths fixed in idiotic grim of pleasure.

  They teased me for ten minutes before one of the big old bulls allowed me to get a grip on his dorsal fin and gave me a tow. It was a thrilling sleigh ride that had the water creaming wildly about my chest and head. He took me half a mile offshore before the force of water tore me from his back.

  It was a long swim back, with the bull dolphin circling me and giving me an occasional friendly prod in the backside, inviting me aboard for another ride. At the reef they whistled farewell and slid gracefully away, and I was happy when I waded ashore. The arm ached a little, but it was the healthy ache of healing and growing strength.

  The bed was empty, and the bathroom door was locked. She was probably shaving her armpits with my razor, I thought. I felt a flare of annoyance, an, old dog like me doesn’t like his routine disturbed. I used the guest shower to sluice off the salt and my annoyance receded under the rush of hot water. Then fresh but unshaven and hungry as a python, I went through to the kitchen. I was frying gammon with pineapple and. buttering thick cuts of toast when Sherry came into the kitchen.

  She was once more immaculate. She must have carried a complete cosmetic counter in the Gucci handbag, and her hair was dressed and lacquered into its mane and fall.

  Her smile was brilliant. “Good morning, lover,” she said and came to kiss me lingenngly. I was now well disposed towards the world and all its creatures. I no longer felt repelled by this glittering woman. The fine mood of the dolphins had -returned and my gaiety must have been infectious. We laughed a lot over the meal and afterwards I took the coffee pot out on to the veranda.

  “When are we going to find the pogo stick?” she asked suddenly, and I poured another mug of strong black coffee without answering. Sherry North had evidently decided that a night of her company had made me her slave for life. Now I may not be a connoisseur of women, but on the other hand I have had some little experience - I mean I’m not exactly a virgin - and I didn’t rate Sherry North’s charms as worth four killer whale missiles and the flight recorder of a secret strike aircraft.

  “Just as soon as you show me the way,” I answered carefully. It is an old-fashioned feminine conceit that if a man pleasures them with skill and aplomb, then he must be made to pay for it. I have long believed that it should be the other way around.

  She reached across and held my wrist, the tiger’s eyes were suddenly big and soulful.

  “After last night,” she whispered huskily, “I know that there is a lot ahead of us, Harry. You and I, together!

  I had lain awake for hours during the night and reached my decision. Whatever lay in the package was not an entire aircraft, but probably some small part of it - something that identified it clearly. It was almost certainly not either the flight recorder or one of the missiles. Jimmy North would not have had sufficient time -to remove the recorder from the fuselage, even if he had known where it was situated and had the proper tools. On the other hand the pa
ckage was the wrong shape and size for a missile, it was a squat round object, not aerodynamically designed.

  It was almost certainly some fairly innocuous object. If I took Sherry North with me to recover it, I would be playing only a minor card from my hand - although it would look like a major trump.

  I would be giving nothing away, not the site of the crash at Gunfire Reef, nor any of the valuable objects associated with it.

  On the other hand, I would be beating the tall grass for tigers.

  It would be very instructive to see exactly how Mademoiselle North reacted, once she thought she knew the site of the crash.

  “Harry,” she whispered again. “Please,” and she leaned closer.

  “You must believe me. I have never felt like this before. From the first moment I saw you - I just knew-” I roused myself from my calculations and leaned towards her, assuming an expression of simple-minded passion and lust.

  “Darling, I began but my voice choked up, and I enfolded her in a bear hug, feeling her stiffen irritably as I smeared her lipstick and ruffled the meticulously dressed hairstyle. I could sense the effort it required for her to respond with equal passion.

  “Do you feel the same way?” she asked from the depths of my embrace, smothered against my chest, and for the fun of watching her play the role she had assigned herself, I picked her up again and carried her through to the frowsy rumpled bed.

  “I will show you how I feel for you,” I muttered hoarsely.

  “Darling,” she protested desperately, “not now.”

  “Why not? “We have so much to do. There will be time later - all the time in the world! With a show of reluctance I set her down, although truthfully I was thankful for I knew that on top of a huge breakfast of gammon and three cups of coffee, it would have given me heartburn.

  It was a few minutes after noon when I cleared Grand Harbour, and swung away south and east. I had told my crew to take a day ashore, I would not be fishing.

  Chubby looked down at Sherry North, sprawled bikiniclad on the cockpit deck, and scowled noncommittally, but Angelo rotted his eyes expressively and asked, “Pleasure cruise?” with a certain inflection.

  “You’ve got a filthy mind,” I scolded him and he laughed delightedly, as though I had paid him the nicest compliment, and the two of them walked away up the wharf.

  Dancer romped down the necklace of atolls and islands until, a little after three o’clock, I ran the deep-water passage between Little Gull Island and Big Gull Island, and rounded into the shallow open water between the east shore of Big Gull and the blue water of the Mozambique.

  There was enough breeze to make the day pleasantly cool, and to kick up a white flecky chop off the surface.

  I manoeuvred carefully, squinting over at Big Gull as I put Dancer in position. When I hit the marks I pushed a little upwind to allow for Dancer’s fall-back. Then I cut the engines and hurried down to the foredeck to drop the hook.

  Dancer came around and settled down like a wellbehavedlady.

  “Is this the place?” Sherry had watched everything I did with her disconcerting feline stare.

  “This is it,” and I risked overplaying my part as the besotted lover by pointing out the marks to her.

  “I lined up those two Palms, the ones leaning over, with that single palm right up on the skyline, see it?”

  She nodded silently, again I caught that look as though the information was being carefully filed and remembered. “Now what do we do?“she asked.

  “This is where Jimmy dived,” I explained. “When he came back on board he was very excited. He spoke secretly with the others - Materson and Guthrie - and they seemed to catch his excitement. Jimmy went down again with rope and a tarpaulin. He was down a long time - and when he came up again, it started, the shooting!

  “Yes,” she nodded eagerly, the reference to her brother’s death seemed to leave her unmoved. “We should go now, before someone else sees us here!

  “Go?” I asked, looking at her. “I thought we were going to have a look?”

  She recognized her mistake. “We should organize it properly, come back when we are prepared, when we have made arrangements to pick up and transport.”

  “Lover,” I grinned, “I didn’t come all this way not to take at least one quick look.”

  “I don’t think you should, Harry,” she called after me, but already I was opening the engine-room hatch.

  “Let’s come back another time,” she persisted, but I went down the ladder to the rack which held the air bottles and took down a Draeger twin set. I fitted the breathing valve and tested the seal, sucking air out of the rubber mouth, piece.

  Glancing quickly up at the hatch to make sure she was not watching me, I reached across and threw the concealed cut-out switch on the electrical system. Now nobody could start Dancer’s engines while I was overboard.

  I swung the diving ladder over the stern and then dressed in the cockpit - short-sleeved Neoprene wet suit and hood, weight bek and knife, Nemrod wrap-around facePlate and fins.

  I slung the scuba set on my back and picked up a coil of light nylon rope and hooked it on to my belt.

  what happens if you don’t come back?” Sherry asked, showing apprehension for the first time. “I mean what happens to me?”

  “You’ll pine to death,” I told her, and went over the side, not in a showy back flip but a simple use of the steps, more in keeping with my age and dignity.

  The water was transparent as mountain air, and as I went head down I could see every detail of the bottom fifty feet below.

  It was a coral landscape, lit with dappled light and wondrous colour. I drifted down to it, and the sculptured shapes of the coral were softened and blurred with sea growth and restless with the sparkling jewels of myriad tropical fish. There were deep gullies and standing towers of coral, fields of eel grass between, and open stretches of blinding white coral sand.

  My marks had been remarkably accurate, considering the fact that I had been only just conscious from blood loss. I had dropped the anchor almost directly on top of the canvas package. It lay on one of the open spaces of coral sand, looking like some horrible sea monster, green and squat with the loose ropes floating about it like tentacles.

  I crouched beside it, and shoals of tiny fish, zebrastriped in gold and black, gathered around me in such numbers that I had to blow bubbles at them and shoo them off, before I could get on with the job.

  I unclipped the nylon rope from my belt, and lashed one end securely to the package with a series of halfhitches. Then I rose to the surface slowly paying out the line. I surfaced thirty feet astern of Dancer, swam to the ladder, and. clambered into the cockpit. I made the end of the line fast to the arm of the fighting chair.

  What did you find?” Sherry demanded anxiously.

  “I don’t know yet,” I told her. I had resisted the temptation to open the package on the bottom. I hoped it might be worth the sacrifice to watch her expression as I opened the canvas.

  I stripped my diving gear and washed it off with fresh water before stowing it all carefully away. I wanted the tension to eat into her a little longer.

  “Damn you, Harry. Let’s get it up,” she burst out at last.

  I remembered the package as being as heavy as all creation, but then my strength had been almost gone. Now I braced myself against the gunwale and began recovering line. It was heavy, but not impossibly so, and I coiled the wet line as it came in with the old tunny fisherman’s wrist action.

  The green canvas broke the surface alongside, sodden and gushing water. I reached over and got a purchase on the knotted rope, with a single heave I lifted it over the side and it clunked weightily on to the deck of the cockpit - metal against Wood.

  “Open it,“ordered Sherry impatiently.

  “Right away, madam,” I said, and drew the baitknife from the sheath on my belt. It was razor sharp, and I cut the ropes with a single stroke for each.

  Sherry was leaning forward eagerly as I drew
the stiff wet folds of canvas aside, and I was watching her face.

  The greedy, anticipatory expression flared suddenly into triumph as she recognized the object. She recognized it before I did, and then instantly she dropped a curtain of uncertainty over her eyes and face.

  It was nicely done, she was an actress of skill. Had I not been watching carefully for it, I would have missed the quick play of emotion.

  I looked down at the humble object for which already so many men had been killed or mutilated, and I was torn with surprise and puzzlement - and disappointment. It was not what I had expected.

  Half of it was badly eaten away as though by a sandblasting machine, the bronze was raw and shiny and deeply etched. The upper half of it was intact, but tarnished heavily with a thick skin of greenish verdigris, but the lug for the shackle was intact and the ornamentation was still clear through the corrosion - a heraldic crest - or part of it - and lettering in a flowery antique style. The lettering was fragmentary, most of it had been etched away in an irregular flowing line, leaving the bright worn metal.

  It was a ship’s bell, cast in massive bronze, it must have weighed close to a hundred pounds, with a domed and lugged top and a wide flared mouth.

  Curiously I rolled it over. The clapper had corroded solidly, and barnacle and other shellfish had encrusted the interior. I was intrigued by the pattern of wear and corrosion on the outside, until suddenly the solution occurred to me. I had seen other metal objects marked like this after long submersion. The bell had been half buried on the sandy bottom, the exposed portion had been subjected to the tidal rush of Gunfire Break, and the fine grains of coral sand had abrased away a quarter of an inch of the outer skin of the metal.