The Golden Keel

I

We had fair winds at first and Sanford made good time. As I had suspected, the greater concentration of weight in the keel made her crotchety. In a following sea she rolled abominably, going through a complete cycle in two minutes. With the wind on the quarter, usually Sanford’s best point of sailing, every leeward roll was followed by a lurch in the opposite direction and her mast described wide arcs against the sky.

There was nothing to be done about it so it had to be suffered. The only cure was to have the ballast spread out more and that was the one thing we couldn’t do. The violent motion affected Coertze most of all; he wasn’t a good sailor at the best of times and the wound in his shoulder didn’t help.

With the coming of dawn after that momentous and violent night we lay hove-to just out of sight of land and set to work on the running rigging. It didn’t take long — Palmerini had done more in that direction than I’d expected — and soon we were on our way under sail. It was then that the crankiness of Sanford made itself evident, and I experimented for a while to see what I could do, but the cure was beyond me so I stopped wasting time and we pressed on.

We soon fell into our normal watchkeeping routine, modified by the presence of Francesca, who took over the cooking from Coertze. During small boat voyages one sees very little of the other members of the crew apart from the times when the watch is changed, but Walker was keeping more to himself than ever. Sometimes I caught him watching me and he would start and roll his eyes like a frightened horse and look away quickly. He was obviously terrified that I would tell Coertze about the cigarette case. I had no such intention — I needed Walker to help run Sanford — but I didn’t tell him so. Let him sweat, I thought callously.

Coertze’s shoulder was not so bad; it was a clean flesh wound and Francesca kept it well tended. I insisted that he sleep in the quarter berth where the motion was least violent, and this led to a general post. I moved to the port pilot berth in the main cabin while Francesca had the starboard pilot berth. She rigged up a sailcloth curtain in front of it to give her a modicum of privacy.

This meant that Walker was banished to the forecastle to sleep on the hitherto unused pipe berth. This was intended for a guest in port and not for use at sea; it was uncomfortable and right in the bows where the motion is most felt. Serve him damn’ well right, I thought uncharitably. But it meant that we saw even less of him.

We made good time for the first five days, logging over a hundred miles a day crossing the Ligurian Sea. Every day I shot the sun and contentedly admired the course line on the chart as it stretched even farther towards the Balearics. I derived great pleasure from teaching Francesca how to handle Sanford; she was an apt pupil and made no more than the usual beginner’s mistakes.

I observed with some amusement that Coertze seemed to have lost his antipathy towards her. He was a changed man, not as prickly as before. The gold was safe under his feet and I think the fight in the boatyard had worked some of the violence out of him. At any rate, he and Francesca got on well together at last, and had long conversations about South Africa.

Once she asked him what he was going to do with his share of the spoil. He smiled. ‘I’m going to buy a plaas,’ he said complacently.

‘A what?’

‘A farm,’ I translated. ‘All Afrikaners are farmers at heart; they even call themselves farmers — boers — at least they used to.’

I think that those first five days after leaving Italy were the best sea days of the whole voyage. We never had better days before and we certainly didn’t have any afterwards.

On the evening of the fifth day the wind dropped and the next day it kept fluctuating as though it didn’t know what to do next. The strength varied between force three and dead calm and we had a lot of sail work to do. That day we only logged seventy miles.

At dawn the next day there was a dead calm. The sea was slick and oily and coming in long even swells. Our tempers tended to fray during the afternoon when there was nothing to do but watch the mast making lazy circles against the sky, while the precious hours passed and we made no way towards Tangier. I got tired of hearing the squeak of the boom in the gooseneck so I put up the crutch and we lashed down the boom. Then I went below to do some figuring at the chart table.

We had logged twenty miles, noon to noon, and at that rate we would reach Tangier about three months too late. I checked the fuel tank and found we had fifteen gallons left — that would take us 150 miles in thirty hours at our most economical speed. It would be better than sitting still and listening to the halyards slatting against the mast, so I started the engine and we were on our way again.

I chafed at the use of fuel — it was something we might need in an emergency — but this was an emergency, anyway, so I might as well use it; it was six of one and a half dozen of the other. We ploughed through the still sea at a steady five knots and I laid a course to the south of the Balearics, running in close to Majorca. If for some reason we had to put into port I wanted a port to be handy, and Palma was the nearest.

All that night and all the next morning we ran under power. There was no wind nor was there any sign that there was ever going to be any wind ever again. The sky was an immaculate blue echoing the waveless sea and I felt like hell. With no wind a sailing boat is helpless, and what would we do when the fuel ran out?

I discussed it with Coertze. ‘I’m inclined to put in to Palma,’ I said. ‘We can fill up there.’

He threw a cigarette stub over the side. ‘It’s a damn’ waste of time. We’d be going off course, and what if they keep us waiting round there?’

I said, ‘It’ll be a bigger waste of time if we’re left without power. This calm could go on for days.’

‘I’ve been looking at the Mediterranean Pilot,’ he said. ‘It says the percentage of calms at this time of year isn’t high.’

‘You can’t depend on that — those figures are just averages. This could go on for a week.’

He sighed. ‘You’re the skipper,’ he said. ‘Do the best you can.’

So I altered course to the north and we ran for Palma. I checked on the fuel remaining and doubted if we’d make it — but we did. We motored into the yacht harbour at Palma with the engine coughing on the last of the fuel. As we approached the mooring jetty the engine expired and we drifted the rest of the way by momentum.

It was then I looked up and saw Metcalfe.

II

We cut the Customs formalities short by saying that we weren’t going ashore and that we had only come in for fuel. The Customs officer commiserated with us on the bad sailing weather and said he would telephone for a chandler to come down and see to our needs.

That left us free to discuss Metcalfe. He hadn’t said anything — he had just regarded us with a gentle smile on his lips and then had turned on his heel and walked away.

Coertze said, ‘He’s cooking something up.’

‘Nothing could be more certain,’ I said bitterly. ‘Will we never get these bastards off our backs?’

‘Not while we’ve got four tons of gold under our feet,’ said Coertze. ‘It’s like a bloody magnet.’

I looked forward at Walker sitting alone on the foredeck. There was the fool who, by his loose tongue and his stupidities, had brought the vultures down on us. Or perhaps not — men like Metcalfe and Torloni have keen noses for gold. But Walker hadn’t helped.

Francesca said, ‘What do you think he will do?’

‘My guess is a simple act of piracy,’ I said. ‘It’ll appeal to his warped sense of humour to do some Spanish Main stuff.’

I lay on my back and looked at the sky. The club burgee at the masthead was lifting and fluttering in a light breeze. ‘And look at that,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a wind, dammit.’

‘I said we shouldn’t have come in here,’ grumbled Coertze. ‘We’d have had the wind anyway, and Metcalfe wouldn’t have spotted us.’

I considered Metcalfe’s boat and his radar — especially the radar. ‘No,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference. He’s probably known just where to put his hand on us ever since we left Italy.’ I made a quick calculation on the basis of a 15-mile radar range. ‘He can cover 700 square miles of sea with one pass of his radar. That Fairmile has probably been hovering hull-down on the horizon keeping an eye on us. We’d never spot it.’

‘Well, what do we do now?’ asked Francesca.

‘We carry on as usual,’ I said. ‘There’s not much else we can do. But I’m certainly not going to hand the gold to Mr Bloody Metcalfe simply because he shows up and throws a scare into us. We carry on and hope for the best.’

We refuelled and topped up the water tanks and were on our way again before nightfall. The sun was setting as we passed Cabo Figuera and I left the helm to Francesca and went below to study the chart. I had a plan to fox Metcalfe — it probably wouldn’t work but it was worth trying.

As soon as it was properly dark I said to Francesca, ‘Steer course 180 degrees.’

‘South?’ she said in surprise.

‘That’s right — south.’ To Coertze I said, ‘Do you know what that square gadget half-way up the mast is for?’

‘Nee, man, I’ve never worried about it.’

‘It’s a radar reflector,’ I said. ‘A wooden boat gives a bad radar reflection so we use a special reflector for safety — it gives a nice big blip on a screen. If Metcalfe has been following us he must have got used to that blip by now — he can probably identify us sight unseen, just from the trace on the screen. So we’re going to take the reflector away. He’ll still get an echo but it’ll be different, much fainter.’

I fastened a small spanner on a loop round my wrist and clipped a lifeline on to my safety belt and began to climb the mast. The reflector was bolted on to the lower spreaders and it was an uneasy job getting it down. Sanford was doing her new style dot-and-carry-one, and following the old-time sailor maxim of ‘one hand for yourself and one hand for the ship’ it was not easy to unfasten those two bolts. The trouble was that the bolts started to turn as well as the nuts, so I was getting nowhere fast. I was up the mast for over forty-five minutes before the reflector came free.

I got down to the deck, collapsed the reflector for stowage and said to Coertze, ‘Where’s Walker?’

‘Dossing down; it’s his watch at midnight.’

‘I’d forgotten. Now we change the lights.’ I went below to the chart table. I had a white light at the masthead visible all round which was coupled to a Morse key for signalling. I tied the key down so that the light stayed on all the time.

Then I called up to Coertze, ‘Get a lantern out of the fo’c’sle and hoist it in the rigging.’

He came below. ‘What’s all this for?’

I said, ‘Look, we’re on the wrong course for Tangier — it’s wasting time but it can’t be helped because anything that puts Metcalfe off his stroke is good for us. We’ve altered our radar trace but Metcalfe might get suspicious and come in for a look at us, anyway. So we’re festooned with lights in the usual sloppy Spanish fisherman fashion. We’re line fishing and he won’t see otherwise — not at night. So he just may give us the go-by and push off somewhere else.’

‘You’re a tricky bastard,’ said Coertze admiringly.

‘It’ll only work once,’ I said. ‘At dawn we’ll change course for Tangier.’

III

The wind got up during the night and we handed the light weather sails so that Sanford developed a fair turn of speed. Not that it helped much; we weren’t making an inch of ground in the direction of Tangier.

At dawn it was blowing force five and we changed course so that the wind was on the quarter and Sanford began to stride out, her lee rail under and the bow wave showing white foam. I checked the log and saw that she was doing seven knots, which was close to her limit under sail. We were doing all right at last — on the right course for Tangier and travelling fast.

We kept a close watch on the horizon for Metcalfe but saw nothing. If he knew where we were he wasn’t showing his hand. I didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry about that; I would be glad if my stratagem had deceived him, but if it hadn’t then I wanted to know about it.

The fresh breeze held all day and even tended to increase towards nightfall. The waves became larger and foamcrested, breaking every now and then on Sanford’s quarter. Every time that happened she would shudder and shake herself free to leap forward again. I estimated that the wind was now verging on force six and, as a prudent seaman, I should have been thinking of taking a reef in the mainsail, but I wanted to press on — there was not much time left, and less if we had to tangle with Metcalfe.

I turned in early, leaving Walker at the helm, and before I went to sleep I contemplated what I would do if I were Metcalfe. We had to go through the Straits of Gibraltar — the whole Mediterranean was a funnel with the Straits forming the spout. If Metcalfe took station there his radar could cover the whole channel from shore to shore.

On the other hand, the Straits were busy waters, so he’d have to zig-zag to check dubious boats visually. Then again, if he was contemplating piracy, it would be dangerous to try it where it could be spotted easily — there were some very fast naval patrol boats at Gibraltar and I didn’t think that even Metcalfe would have the nerve to tackle us in daylight.

So that settled that — we would have to run through the Straits in daylight.

If — and I was getting tired of all these ifs — if he didn’t nobble us before or after the Straits. I hazily remembered a case of piracy just outside Tangier in 1956 — two groups of smugglers had tangled with each other and one of the boats had been burned. Perhaps he wouldn’t want to leave it as long as that; we would be close to home and we might give him the slip after all — once we were in the yacht harbour there wouldn’t be a damn’ thing he could do. No, I didn’t think he would leave it as late as that.

But before the Straits? That was a different kettle of fish and that depended on another ‘if’. If we had given him the slip on leaving Majorca — if he didn’t know where we were now — then we might have a chance. But if he did know where we were, then he could close in any time and put a prize crew aboard. If — yet another if — the weather would let him.

As I drifted off to sleep I blessed the steadily rising wind which added wings to Sanford and which would make it impossible for the Fairmile to come alongside.

IV

Coertze woke me up. ‘The wind’s getting stronger; I think we should change sail or something.’ He had to shout above the roar of the wind and the sea.

I looked at my watch as I pulled on my oilies; it was two o’clock and I had had six hours’ sleep. Sanford was bucking a bit and I had a lot of trouble putting my trousers on. A sudden lurch sent me across the cabin and I carommed into the berth in which Francesca slept.

‘What is wrong?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Everything is fine; go back to sleep.’

‘You think I can sleep in this?’

I grinned. ‘You’ll soon get used to it. It’s blowing up a bit, but nothing to worry about.’

I finished dressing and went up into the cockpit. Coertze was right; we should do something about taking in sail. The wind was blowing at a firm force seven — what old-time sailormen referred to contemptuously as a ‘yachtsman’s gale’ and what Admiral Beaufort temperately called a ‘strong wind’.

Tattered clouds fled across the sky, making a baffling alteration of light and shade as they crossed the moon. The seas were coming up in lumps and the crests were being blown away in streaks of foam. Sanford was plunging her head into the seas and every time this happened she would stop with a jerk, losing speed. A reduction of sail would hold her head up and help her motion, so I said to Coertze, my voice raised in a shout, ‘You’re right; I’ll reef her down a bit. Hold her as she is.’

I snapped a lifeline on to my safety belt and went forward along the crazily shifting deck. It took half an hour to take in two rolls round the bottom of the mainsail and to take in the jib, leaving the foresail to balance her head. As soon as I handed the jib I could feel the difference in motion; Sanford rode more easily and didn’t ram her bows down as often.

I went back to the cockpit and asked Coertze, ‘How’s that?’

‘Better,’ he shouted. ‘She seems to be going faster, though.’

‘She is; she’s not getting stopped.’

He looked at the piled-up seas. ‘Will it get worse than this?’

‘Oh, this is not so bad,’ I replied. ‘We’re going as fast as we can, which is what we want.’ I smiled, because from a small boat everything looked larger than life and twice as dangerous. However I hoped the weather wouldn’t worsen; that would slow us down.

I stayed with Coertze for a time to reassure him. It was nearly time for my watch, anyway, and there was no point in going back to sleep. After some time I slipped down into the galley and made some coffee — the stove was rocking crazily in its gimbals and I had to clamp the coffee-pot, but I didn’t spill a drop.

Francesca was watching me from her berth and when the coffee was ready I beckoned to her. If she came to the coffee instead of vice versa there was less chance of it spilling. We wedged ourselves in between the galley bench and the companionway, sipping hot coffee and talking about the weather.

She smiled at me. ‘You like this weather, don’t you?’

‘It’s fine.’

‘I think it’s a little frightening.’

‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ I said. ‘Or rather, only one thing.’

‘What is that?’

‘The crew,’ I said. ‘You see, small boat design has reached the point of perfection just about, as far as seaworthiness is concerned. A boat like this can take any weather safely if she’s handled right — and I’m not saying this because I designed and built her — it applies to any boat of this general type. It’s the crew that fails, rather than the boat. You get tired and then you make a mistake — and you only have to make one mistake — you can’t play about with the sea.’

‘How long does it take before the crew gets as tired as that?’

‘We’re all right,’ I said cheerfully. ‘There are enough of us, so that we can all get our sleep, so we can last indefinitely. It’s the single-handed heroes who have the trouble.’

‘You’re very reassuring,’ she said, and got up to take another cup from the shelf. ‘I’ll take Coertze some coffee.’

‘Don’t bother; it’ll only get full of salt spray, and there’s nothing worse than salted coffee. He’ll be coming below in a few minutes — it’s my watch.’

I buttoned my oilies and tightened the scarf round my neck. ‘I think I’ll relieve him now; he shouldn’t really be up there in this weather with that hole in his shoulder. How’s it doing, anyway?’

‘Healing nicely,’ she said.

‘If he had to have a hole in him he couldn’t have done better than that one,’ I said. ‘Six inches lower and he’d have been plugged through the heart.’

She said, ‘You know, I’m changing my mind about him. He’s not such a bad man.’

‘A heart of gold beneath that rugged exterior?’ I queried, and she nodded. I said, ‘His heart is set on gold, anyway. We may have some trouble with him if we avoid Metcalfe — don’t forget his history. But give the nice man some coffee when he comes below.’

I went up into the cockpit and relieved Coertze. ‘There’s coffee for you,’ I shouted.

‘Thanks, just what I need,’ he answered and went below.

Sanford continued to eat up the miles and the wind continued to increase in force. Good and bad together. I still held on to the sail I had, but when Walker came to relieve me in a cloudy and watery dawn I took in another roll of the mainsail before I went below for breakfast.

Just before I descended the companionway, Walker said, ‘It’ll get worse.’

I looked at the sky. ‘I don’t think so; it rarely gets worse than this in the Mediterranean.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know about the Mediterranean, but I have a feeling it’ll get worse, that’s all.’

I went below feeling glum. Walker had previously shown an uncanny ability to detect changes in the weather on no visible evidence. He had displayed this weather sense before and had invariably been proved right. I hoped he was wrong this time.

He wasn’t!

I couldn’t take a noonday sight because of thick cloud and bad visibility. Even if I could have seen the sun I doubt if I could have held a sextant steady on that reeling deck. The log reading was 152 miles from noon to noon, Sanford’s best run ever.

Shortly after noon the wind speed increased gently to force eight verging on force nine — a strong gale. We handed the mainsail altogether and set the trysail, a triangular handkerchief-sized piece of strong canvas intended for heavy weather. The foresail we also doused with difficulty — it was becoming very dangerous to work on the foredeck.

The height of the waves had increased tremendously and they would no sooner break in a white crest than the wind would tear the foam away to blow it in ragged streaks across the sea. Large patches of foam were beginning to form until the sea began to look like a giant washtub into which someone had emptied a few thousand tons of detergent.

I gave orders that no one should go on deck but the man on watch and that he should wear a safety line at all times. For myself, I got into my berth, put up the bunkboards so that I wouldn’t be thrown out, and tried unsuccessfully to read a magazine. But I kept wondering if Metcalfe was out in this sea. If he was, I didn’t envy him, because a power boat does not take heavy weather as kindly as a sailing yacht, and he must be going through hell.

Things got worse later in the afternoon so I decided to heave-to. We handed the trysail and lay under bare poles abeam to the seas. Then we battened down the hatches and all four of us gathered in the main cabin chatting desultorily when the noise would allow us.

It was about this time that I started to worry about sea room. As I had been unable to take a sight I didn’t know our exact position — and while dead reckoning and log readings were all very well in their way, I was beginning to become perturbed. For we were now in the throat of the funnel between Almeria in Spain and Morocco. I knew we were safe enough from being wrecked on the mainland, but just about here was a fly-speck of an island called Alboran which could be the ruin of us if we ran into it in this weather.

I studied the Mediterranean Pilot. I had been right when I said that this sort of weather was not common in the Mediterranean, but that was cold comfort. Evidently the Clerk of the Weather hadn’t read the Mediterranean Pilot — the old boy was certainly piling it on.

At five o’clock I went on deck for a last look round before nightfall. Coertze helped me take away the batten boards from the companion entrance and I climbed into the cockpit. It was knee-deep in swirling water despite the three two-inch drains I had built into it; and as I stood there, gripping a stanchion, another boiling wave swept across the deck and filled the cockpit.

I made a mental note to fit more cockpit drains, then looked at the sea. The sight was tremendous; this was a whole gale and the waves were high, with threatening overhanging crests. As I stood there one of the crests broke over the deck and Sanford shuddered violently. The poor old girl was taking a hell of a beating and I thought I had better do something about it. It would mean at least one man in the cockpit getting soaked and miserable and frightened and I knew that man must be me — I wouldn’t trust anyone else with what I was about to do.

I went back below. ‘We’ll have to run before the wind,’ I said. ‘Walker, fetch that coil of 4-inch nylon rope from the fo’c’sle. Kobus, get into your oilskins and come with me.’

Coertze and I went back into the cockpit and I unlashed the tiller. I shouted, ‘When we run her downwind we’ll have to slow her down. We’ll run a bight of rope astern and the drag will help.’

Walker came up into the cockpit with the rope and he made one end fast to the port stern bitts. I brought Sanford downwind and Coertze began to pay the rope over the stern. Nylon, like hemp and unlike manila, floats, and the loop of rope acted like a brake on Sanford’s wild rush.

Too much speed is the danger when you’re running before a gale; if you go too fast then the boat is apt to trip just like a man who trips over his own feet when running. When that happens the boat is likely to capsize fore-and-aft — the bows dig into the sea, the stern comes up and the boat somersaults. It happened to Tzu Hang in the Pacific and it happened to Erling Tambs’ Sandefjord in the Atlantic when he lost a man. I didn’t want it to happen to me.

Steering a boat in those conditions was a bit hairraising. The stern had to be kept dead in line with the overtaking wave and, if you got it right, then the stern rose smoothly and the wave passed underneath. If you were a fraction out then there was a thud and the wave would break astern; you would be drenched with water, the tiller would nearly be wrenched from your grasp and you would wonder how much more of that treatment the rudder would take.

Coertze had paid out all the nylon, a full forty fathoms, and Sanford began to behave a little better. The rope seemed to smooth the waters astern and the waves did not break as easily. I thought we were still going a little too fast so I told Walker to bring up some more rope. With another two lengths of twenty-fathom three-inch nylon also streamed astern I reckoned we had cut Sanford’s speed down to three knots.

There was one thing more I could do. I beckoned to Coertze and put my mouth close to his ear. ‘Go below and get the spare can of diesel oil from the fo’c’sle. Give it to Francesca and tell her to put half a pint at a time into the lavatory then flush it. About once every two or three minutes will do.’

He nodded and went below. The four-gallon jerrycan we kept as a spare would now come in really useful. I had often heard of pouring oil on troubled waters — now we would see if there was anything in it.

Walker was busy wrapping sailcloth around the ropes streamed astern where they rubbed on the taffrail. It wouldn’t take much of this violent movement to chafe them right through, and if a rope parted at the same moment that I had to cope with one of those particularly nasty waves which came along from time to time then it might be the end of us.

I looked at my watch. It was half past six and it looked as though I would have a nasty and frightening night ahead of me. But I was already getting the hang of keeping Sanford stern on to the seas and it seemed as though all I would need would be concentration and a hell of a lot of stamina.

Coertze came back and shouted, ‘The oil’s going in.’

I looked over the side. It didn’t seem to be making much difference, though it was hard to tell. But anything that could make a difference I was willing to try, so I let Francesca carry on.

The waves were big. I estimated they were averaging nearly forty feet from trough to crest and Sanford was behaving like a roller-coaster car. When we were in a trough the waves looked frighteningly high, towering above us with threatening crests. Then her bows would sink as a wave took her astern until it seemed as if she was vertical and going to dive straight to the bottom of the sea. The wave would lift her to the crest and then we could see the stormtattered sea around us, with spume being driven from the waves horizontally until it was difficult to distinguish between sea and air. And back we would go into a trough with Sanford’s bows pointing to the skies and the monstrous waves again threatening.

Sometimes, about four times in an hour, there was a freak wave which must have been caused by one wave catching up with another, thus doubling it. These freaks I estimated at sixty feet high — higher than Sanford’s mast! — and I would have to concentrate like hell so that we wouldn’t be pooped.

Once — just once — we were pooped, and it was then that Walker went overboard. We were engulfed in water as a vast wave broke over the stern and I heard his despairing shout and saw his white face and staring eyes as he was washed out of the cockpit and over the side.

Coertze’s reaction was fast. He lunged for Walker — but missed. I shouted, ‘Safety line — pull him in.’

He brushed water out of his eyes and yelled, ‘Wasn’t wearing one.’

‘The damned fool,’ I thought. I think it was a thought — I might even have yelled it. Coertze gave a great shout and pointed aft and I turned and could see a dark shape rolling in the boiling waters astern and I saw white hands clutching the nylon rope. They say a drowning man will clutch at a straw — Walker was lucky — he had grabbed at something more substantial, one of the drag ropes.

Coertze was hauling the rope in fast. It couldn’t have been easy with the drag of Walker in the water pulling on his injured shoulder, but he was hauling just as fast as though the rope was free. He pulled Walker right under the stern and then belayed the rope.

He shouted to me, ‘I’m going over the counter — you’ll have to sit on my legs.’

I nodded and he started to crawl over the counter stern to where Walker was still tightly gripping the rope. He slithered aft and I got up from my seat and hoisted myself out of the cockpit until I could sit on his legs. In the violent motion of the storm it was only my weight that kept Coertze from being hurled bodily into the sea.

Coertze grasped the rope and heaved, his shoulders writhing with the effort. He was lifting the dead weight of Walker five feet — the distance from the taffrail to the surface of the water. I hoped to God that Walker could hold on. If he let go then, not only would he be lost himself but the sudden release of tension would throw Coertze off balance and he would not have a hope of saving himself.

Walker’s hands appeared above the taffrail and Coertze took a grip on the cuff of his coat. Then I looked aft and yelled, ‘Hang on, for God’s sake!’

One of those damnable freak seas was bearing on us, a terrifying monster coming up astern with the speed of an express train. Sanford’s bows sank sickeningly and Coertze gave Walker another heave, and grasped him by the scruff of the neck, pulling him on to the counter.

Then the wave was upon us and away as fast as it had come. Walker tumbled into the bottom of the cockpit, unconscious or dead, I couldn’t tell which, and Coertze fell on top of him, his chest heaving with the strain of his exertions. He lay there for a few minutes, then bent down to loosen Walker’s iron grip on the rope.

As he prised the fingers away, I said, ‘Take him below — and you’d better stay there yourself for a while.’

A great light had just dawned on me but I had not time to think about it just then — I had to get that bight of rope back over the stern while still keeping a grasp of the tiller and watching the next sea coming up.

It was nearly an hour before Coertze came back — a lonely and frightening hour during which I was too busy to think coherently about what I had seen. The storm seemed to be building up even more strongly and I began to have second thoughts about what I had told Francesca about the seaworthiness of small boats.

When he climbed into the cockpit he took over Walker’s job of looking after the stern ropes, giving me a grin as he settled down. ‘Walker’s O.K.,’ he bawled. ‘Francesca’s looking after him. I pumped the water out of him — the bilges must be nearly full.’ He laughed and the volume of his great laughter seemed to overpower the noise of the gale.

I looked at him in wonder.

V

A Mediterranean gale can’t last; there is not the power of a huge ocean to draw upon and a great wind soon dies. At four the next morning the storm had abated enough for me to hand over the tiller to Coertze and go below. When I sat on the settee my hands were shaking with the sudden release of tension and I felt inexpressibly weary.

Francesca said, ‘You must be hungry; I’ll get you something to eat.’

I shook my head. ‘No, I’m too tired to eat — I’m going to sleep.’ She helped me take off my oilies, and I said, ‘How’s Walker?’

‘He’s all right; he’s asleep in the quarter berth.’

I nodded slowly — Coertze had put Walker into his own berth. That fitted in, too.

I said, ‘Wake me in two hours — don’t let me sleep any longer. I don’t want to leave Coertze alone too long,’ and I fell on to my berth and was instantly asleep. The last thing I remembered was a fleeting vision of Coertze hauling Walker over the stern by the scruff of the neck.

Francesca woke me at six-thirty with a cup of coffee which I drank gratefully. ‘Do you want something to eat?’ she asked.

I listened to the wind and analysed the motion of Sanford. ‘Make breakfast for all of us,’ I said. ‘We’ll heave to and have a rest for a bit. I think the time has come for a talk with Coertze, anyway.’

I went back into the cockpit and surveyed the situation. The wind was still strong but not nearly as strong as it had been, and Coertze had hauled in the two twenty-fathom ropes and had coiled them neatly. I said, ‘We’ll heave to now; it’s time you had some sleep.’

He nodded briefly and we began to haul in the bight of rope. Then we lashed the tiller and watched Sanford take position broadside on to the seas — it was safe now that the wind had dropped. When we went below Francesca was in the galley making breakfast. She had put a damp cloth on the cabin table to stop things sliding about and Coertze and I sat down.

He started to butter a piece of bread while I wondered how to go about what I was going to say. It was a difficult question I was going to broach and Kobus had such a thorny character that I didn’t know how he would take it. I said, ‘You know, I never really thanked you properly for pulling me out of the mine — you know, when the roof caved in.’

He munched on the bread and said, with his mouth full, ‘Nee, man, it was my own fault, I told you that before. I should have shored the last bit properly.’

‘Walker owes you his thanks, too. You saved his life last night.’

He snorted. ‘Who cares what he thinks.’

I said carefully, getting ready to duck, ‘Why did you do it, anyway? It would have been worth at least a quarter of a million not to pull him out.’

Coertze stared at me, affronted. His face reddened with anger. ‘Man, do you think I’m a bloody murderer?’

I had thought so at one time but didn’t say so. ‘And you didn’t kill Parker or Alberto Corso or Donato Rinaldi?’

His face purpled. ‘Who said I did?’

I cocked my thumb at the quarter berth where Walker was still asleep. ‘He did.’

I thought he would burst. His jaws worked and he was literally speechless, unable to say a damn’ thing. I said, ‘According to friend Walker, you led Alberto into a trap on a cliff and then pushed him off; you beat in the head of Donato; you shot Parker in the back of the head when you were both in action against the Germans.’

‘The lying little bastard,’ ground out Coertze. He started to get up. ‘I’ll ram those lies down his bloody throat.’

I held up my hand. ‘Hold on — don’t go off half-cocked. Let’s sort it out first; I’d like to get your story of what happened at that time. You see, what happened last night has led me to reconsider a lot of things. I wondered why you should have saved Walker if you’re the man he says you are. I’d like to get at the truth for once.’

He sat down slowly and looked down at the table. At last he said, ‘Alberto’s death was an accident; I tried to save him, but I couldn’t.’

‘I believe you — after last night.’

‘Donato I know nothing about. I remember thinking that there was something queer about it, though. I mean, why should Donato go climbing for fun? He had enough of that the way the Count sent us all over the hills.’

‘And Parker?’

‘I couldn’t have killed Parker even if I’d wanted to,’ he said flatly.

‘Why not?’

Slowly he said, ‘We were with Umberto doing one of the usual ambushes. Umberto split the force in two — one group on one side of the valley, the other group on the other side. Parker and Walker were with the other group. The ambush was a flop, anyway, and the two parties went back to camp separately. It was only when I got back to camp that I heard that Parker had been killed.’

He rubbed his chin. ‘Did you say that Walker told you that Parker had been shot in the back of the head?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at his hands spread out on the table. ‘Walker could have done it, you know. It would be just like him.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘You told me once that Walker had got you into trouble a couple of times during the war. When exactly did that happen? Before you buried the gold or afterwards?’

He frowned in thought, casting his mind back to faraway days. He said, ‘I remember once when Walker pulled some men away from a ditch when he shouldn’t have. He was acting as a messenger for Umberto and said he’s misunderstood the instruction. I was leading a few chaps at the time and this left my flank wide open.’ His eyes darkened. ‘A couple of the boys copped it because of that and I nearly got a bayonet in my rump.’ His face twisted in thought. ‘It was after we buried the gold.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m certain. We only joined Umberto’s crowd after we’d buried the gold.’

I said softly, ‘Maybe he could shoot Parker in the back of the head. Maybe he could beat in the back of Donato’s head with a rock and fake a climbing accident. But maybe he was too scared of you to come at you front or rear — you’re a bit of an awesome bastard at times, you know. Maybe he tried to arrange that the Germans should knock you off.’

Coertze’s hands clenched on the table. I said, ‘He’s always been afraid of you — he still is.’

‘Magtig, but he has reason to be,’ he burst out. ‘Donato got us out of the camp. Donato stayed with him on the hillside while the Germans were searching.’ He looked at me with pain in his eyes. ‘What kind of man is it who can do such a thing?’

‘A man like Walker,’ I said. ‘I think we ought to talk to him. I’m getting eager to know what he’s arranged for me and Francesca.’

Coertze’s lips tightened. ‘Ja, I think we wake him up now out of that lekker slaap.’

He stood up just as Francesca came in loaded with bowls. She saw Coertze’s face and paused uncertainly. ‘What’s the matter?’

I took the bowls from her and put them in the fiddles. ‘We’re just going to have a talk with Walker,’ I said. ‘You’d better come along.’

But Walker was already awake and I could see from his expression that he knew what was coming. He swung himself from the berth and tried to get away from Coertze, who lunged at him.

‘Hold on,’ I said, and grabbed Coertze’s arm. ‘I said we’re going to talk to him.’

The muscles bunched in Coertze’s arm and then relaxed and I let go. I said to Walker, ‘Coertze thinks you’re a liar — what do you say?’

His eyes shifted and he gave Coertze a scared glance, then he looked away. ‘I didn’t say he killed anybody. I didn’t say that.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ I agreed. ‘But you damn’ well implied it.’

Coertze growled under his breath but said nothing, apparently content to let me handle it for the moment. I said, ‘What about Parker? You said that Coertze was near him when he was shot — Coertze said he wasn’t. What about it?’

‘I didn’t say that either,’ he said sulkily.

‘You are a damned liar,’ I said forcibly. ‘You said it to me. I’ve got a good memory even if you haven’t. I warned you in Tangier what would happen if you ever lied to me, so you’d better watch it. Now I want the truth — was Coertze near Parker when he was killed?’

He was silent for a long time. ‘Well, was he?’ I demanded.

He broke. ‘No, he wasn’t,’ he cried shrilly. ‘I made that up. He wasn’t there; he was on the other side of the valley.’

‘Then who killed Parker?’

‘It was the Germans,’ he cried frantically. ‘It was the Germans — I told you it was the Germans.’

I suppose it was too much to expect him to confess to murder. He would never say outright that he had killed Parker and Donato Rinaldi — but his face gave him away. I had no intention of sparing him anything, so I said to Coertze, ‘He was responsible for Torloni’s attack.’

Coertze grunted in surprise. ‘How?’

I told him about the cigarette case, then said to Walker, ‘Coertze saved your life last night, but I wish to God he’d let you drown. Now I’m going to leave him down here alone with you and he can do what he likes.’

Walker caught my arm. ‘Don’t leave me,’ he implored. ‘Don’t let him get at me.’ What he had always feared was now about to happen — there was no one between him and Coertze. He had blackened Coertze in my eyes so that he would have an ally to fight his battles, but now I was on Coertze’s side. He feared physical violence — his killing had been done from ambush — and Coertze was the apotheosis of violence.

‘Please,’ he whimpered, ‘don’t leave.’ He looked at Francesca with a passionate plea in his eyes. She turned aside without speaking and went up the companionway into the cockpit. I shook off his hand and followed her, closing the cabin hatch.

‘Coertze will kill him,’ she said in a low voice.

‘Hasn’t he the right?’ I demanded. ‘I don’t believe in private executions as a rule, but this is one time I’m willing to make an exception.’

‘I’m not thinking of Walker,’ she said. ‘It will be bad for Coertze. No one can kill a man like that and be the same after. It will be bad for his... his spirit.’

I said, ‘Coertze will do what he has to do.’

We lapsed into silence, just looking at the lumpy sea, and I began to think of the boat and what we had to do next.

The cabin hatch opened and Coertze came into the cockpit. There was a baffled expression on his face and he said in a hoarse voice, ‘I was going to kill the little bastard. I was going to hit him — I did hit him once. But you can’t hit anyone who won’t fight back. You can’t, can you?’

I grinned and Francesca laughed joyously. Coertze looked at us and his face broke into a slow smile. ‘But what are we going to do with him?’ he asked.

‘We’ll drop him at Tangier and let him shift for himself,’ I said. ‘We’ll give him the biggest scare any man’s ever had.’

We were sitting grinning at each other like a couple of happy fools when Francesca said sharply, ‘Look!’

I followed the line of her outstretched arm. ‘Oh, no!’ I groaned. Coertze looked and cursed.

Coming towards us through the tossing seas and wallowing atrociously was the Fairmile.

I

I looked at it bitterly. I had been certain that Metcalfe must have lost us in the storm — he had the luck of the devil. He hadn’t found us by radar either, because the storm had made a clean sweep of the Fairmile’s upperworks — his radar antenna was gone, as also was the radio mast and the short derrick. It could only have been by sheer luck that he had stumbled upon us.

I said to Coertze, ‘Get below and start the engine. Francesca, you go below, too, and stay there.’

I looked across at the Fairmile. It was about a mile away and closing at about eight knots — a little over five minutes to make what futile preparations we could. I had no illusions about Metcalfe. Torloni had been bad enough but all he knew was force — Metcalfe used his brains.

The Fairmile was in no better shape, either. She staggered and wallowed as unexpected waves hit her and I could imagine the tumult inside that hull. She was an old boat, being war surplus, and her hull must have deteriorated over the years despite the care Metcalfe had lavished on her. Then there was the fact that when she was built her life expectancy was about five years, and wartime materials weren’t noted for their excessive quality.

I had the sudden idea that she couldn’t move any faster, and that Metcalfe was driving her as fast as he dared in those heavy seas. Her engines were fine for twenty-six knots in calm water but if she was driven at much more than eight knots now she would be in danger of falling apart. Metcalfe might risk a lot for the gold, but he wouldn’t risk that.

As I heard the engine start I opened the throttle wide and turned Sanford away from the Fairmile. We had a biggish engine and I could still get seven knots out of Sanford, even punching against these seas. Our five minutes’ grace was now stretched to an hour, and maybe in that hour I’d get another bright idea.

Coertze came up and I handed the tiller over to him, and went below. I didn’t bother to tell him what to do — it was obvious. I opened the locker under my berth and took out the Schmeisser machine pistol and all the magazines. Francesca looked at me from the settee. ‘Must you do that?’ she asked.

‘I’ll not shoot unless I have to,’ I said. ‘Not unless they start shooting first.’ I looked round. ‘Where’s Walker?’

‘He locked himself in the fo’c’sle. He’s frightened of Coertze.’

‘Good. I don’t want him underfoot now,’ I said, and went back to the cockpit.

Coertze looked incredulously at the machine pistol. ‘Where the hell did you get that?’

‘From the tunnel,’ I said. ‘I hope it works — this ammo is damned old.’

I put one of the long magazines into the butt and clipped the shoulder rest into place. I said, ‘You’d better get your Luger; I’ll take the helm.’

He smiled sourly. ‘What’s the use? You threw all the bullets away.’

‘Damn! Wait a minute, though; there’s Torloni’s gun. It’s in the chart table drawer.’

He went below and I looked back at the Fairmile. As I thought, Metcalfe didn’t increase his speed when we turned away. Not that it mattered — he had the legs of us by about a knot and I could see that he was perceptibly closer.

Coertze came back with the pistol stuck in his trouser waistband. He said, ‘How long before he catches up?’

‘Less than an hour,’ I said. I touched the Schmeisser. ‘We don’t shoot unless he does — and we don’t shoot to kill.’

‘Will he shoot to kill?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He might.’

Coertze grunted and pulled out the gun and began to examine the action.

We fell into silence; there was nothing much to talk about, anyway. I ruminated on the firing of a submachine-gun. It had been a long time since I had fired one and I began to go over the training points that had been drilled into me by a red-faced sergeant. The big thing was that the recoil lifted the muzzle and if you didn’t consciously hold it down most of your fire would be wasted in the air. I tried to think of other things I had learned but I couldn’t think of anything else so that fragment of information would have to do.

After a while I said to Coertze, ‘I could do with some coffee.’

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ he said, and went below. An Afrikaner will never refuse the offer of coffee; their livers are tanned with it. In five minutes he was back with two steaming mugs, and said, ‘Francesca wants to come up.’

I looked back at the Fairmile. ‘No,’ I said briefly.

We drank the coffee, spilling half of it as Sanford shuddered to a particularly heavy sea, and when we had finished the Fairmile was within a quarter of a mile and I could see Metcalfe quite clearly standing outside the wheelhouse.

I said, ‘I wonder how he’s going to go about it. He can’t board us in this sea, there’s too much danger of ramming us. How would you go about it, Kobus?’

‘I’d lay off and knock us off with a rifle,’ he grunted. ‘Just like at a shooting gallery. Then when the sea goes down he can board us without a fight.’

That seemed reasonable but it wouldn’t be as easy as in a shooting gallery — metal ducks don’t shoot back. I handed the tiller to Coertze. ‘We may have to do a bit of fancy manoeuvring,’ I said. ‘But you’ll handle her well enough without sail. When I tell you to do something, you do it damn’ quick.’ I picked up the Schmeisser and held it on my knee. ‘How many rounds are there in that pistol?’

‘Not enough,’ he said. ‘Five.’

At last the Fairmile was only a hundred yards away on the starboard quarter and Metcalfe came out of the wheelhouse carrying a Tannoy loud-hailer. His voice boomed across the water. ‘What are you running away for? Don’t you want a tow?’

I cupped my hands around my mouth. ‘Are you claiming salvage?’ I asked sardonically.

He laughed. ‘Did the storm do any damage?’

‘None at all,’ I shouted. ‘We can get to port ourselves.’ If he wanted to play the innocent I was prepared to go along with him. I had nothing to lose.

The Fairmile was throttled back to keep pace with us. Metcalfe fiddled with the amplification of the loud-hailer and it whistled eerily. ‘Hal,’ he shouted, ‘I want your boat — and your cargo.’

There it was — out in the open as bluntly as that.

The loud-hailer boomed, ‘If you act peaceable about it I’ll accept half, if you don’t I’ll take the lot, anyway.’

‘Torloni made the same offer and look what happened to him.’

‘He was at a disadvantage,’ called Metcalfe. ‘He couldn’t use guns — I can.’

Krupke moved into sight — carrying a rifle. He climbed on top of the deck saloon and lay down just behind the wheelhouse. I said to Coertze, ‘It looks as though you called that one.’

It was bad, but not as bad as all that. Krupke had been in the army; he was accustomed to firing from a steady position even though his target might move. I didn’t think he could fire at all accurately from a bouncing platform like the Fairmile.

I saw the Fairmile edging in closer and said to Coertze, ‘Keep the distance.’

Metcalfe shouted, ‘What about it?’

‘Go to hell!’

He nodded to Krupke, who fired immediately, I didn’t see where the bullet went — I don’t think it hit us at all. He fired again and this time he hit something forward. It must have been metal because I heard a ‘spaang’ as the bullet ricochetted away.

Coertze dug me in the ribs. ‘Don’t look back so that Metcalfe notices you, but I think we’re in for some heavy weather.’

I changed position on the seat so that I could look astern from the corner of my eye. The horizon was black with a vicious squall — and it was coming our way. I hoped to God it would hurry.

I said, ‘We’ll have to play for time now.’

Krupke fired again and there was a slam astern. I looked over the side and saw a hole punched into the side of the counter. His aim was getting better.

I shouted, ‘Tell Krupke not to hole us below the waterline. We might sink, and you wouldn’t like that.’

That held him for a while. I saw him talking to Krupke, making gestures with his hand to indicate a higher elevation. I called urgently for Francesca to come on deck. Those nickeljacketed bullets would go through Sanford’s thin planking as though it was tissue paper. She came up just as Krupke fired his next shot. It went high and didn’t hit anything.

As soon as Metcalfe saw her he held up his hand and Krupke stopped firing. ‘Hal, be reasonable,’ he called. ‘You’ve got a woman aboard.’

I looked at Francesca and she shook her head. I shouted, ‘You’re doing the shooting.’

‘I don’t want to hurt anybody,’ pleaded Metcalfe.

‘Then go away.’

He shrugged and said something to Krupke, who fired again. The bullet hit the gooseneck with a clang. I grinned mirthlessly at Metcalfe’s curious morality — according to him it would be my fault if anyone was killed.

I looked astern. The squall was appreciably nearer and coming up fast. It was the last dying kick of the storm and wouldn’t last long — just long enough to give Metcalfe the slip, I hoped. I didn’t think that Metcalfe had seen it yet; he was too busy with us.

Krupke fired again. There was a thud forward and I knew the bullet must have gone through the main cabin. I had brought Francesca up just in time.

I was beginning to worry about Krupke. In spite of the difficulties of aiming, his shooting was getting better, and even if it didn’t, then sooner or later he would get in a lucky shot. I wondered how much ammunition he had.

‘Metcalfe,’ I called.

He held up his hand but not soon enough to prevent Krupke pulling the trigger. The cockpit disintegrated into matchwood just by my elbow. We all ducked low into the cockpit and I looked incredulously at the back of my hand — a two-inch splinter of mahogany was sticking in it.

I pulled it out and shouted, ‘Hey, hold it! That was a bit too close.’

‘What do you want?’

I noticed that the Fairmile was crowding us again so I told Coertze to pull out.

‘Well?’ Metcalfe’s voice was impatient.

‘I want to make a deal,’ I shouted.

‘You know my terms.’

‘How do we know we can trust you?’

Metcalfe was uncompromising. ‘You don’t.’

I pretended to confer with Coertze. ‘How’s that squall coming up?’

‘If you keep stringing him along we might make it.’

I turned to the Fairmile. ‘I’ll make a counter-proposition. We’ll give you a third — Walker won’t be needing his share.’

Metcalfe laughed. ‘Oh, you’ve found him out at last, have you?’

‘What about it?’

‘Nothing doing — half or all of it. Make your choice; you’re in no position to bargain.’

I turned to Coertze. ‘What do you think, Kobus?’

He rubbed his chin. ‘I’ll go along with anything you say.’

‘Francesca?’

She sighed. ‘Do you think this other storm coming up will help?’

‘It’s not a storm, but it’ll help. I think we can lose Metcalfe if we can hold him off for another ten minutes.’

‘Can we?’

‘I think so, but it might be dangerous.’

Her lips tightened. ‘Then fight him.’

I looked across at Metcalfe. He was standing by the door of the wheelhouse looking at Krupke who was pointing astern.

He had seen the squall!

I shouted, ‘We’ve been having a conference and the general consensus of opinion is that you can still go to hell.’

He jerked his hand irritably and Krupke fired again — another miss.

I said to Coertze, ‘We’ll give him another two shots. Immediately after the second, starboard your helm as though you are going to ram him, but for God’s sake don’t ram him. Get as close as you can and come back on course parallel to him. Understand?’

As he nodded there was another shot from Krupke. That one hit Sanford just under the cockpit — Krupke was getting too good.

Metcalfe couldn’t know that we had a machine-gun. Sanford had been searched many times and machine-guns — even small ones — aren’t to be picked up on every street corner in Italy. There was the chance we could give him a fright. I said to Francesca, ‘When we start to turn get down in the bottom of the cockpit.’

Krupke fired again, missed, and Coertze swung the tiller over. It caught Metcalfe by surprise — this was like a rabbit attacking a weasel. We had something like twenty seconds to complete the manoeuvre and it worked. By the time he had recovered enough to shout to the helmsman and for the helmsman to respond, we were alongside.

Krupke fired again when he saw us coming but the bullet went wild. I saw him aim at me and looked right into the muzzle of his gun. Then I cut loose with the Schmeisser.

I had only time to fire two bursts. The first one was for Krupke — I must get him before he got me. Two or three rounds broke the saloon windows of the Fairmile and I let the recoil lift the gun. Bullets smashed into the edge of the decking and I saw Krupke reel back with both hands clasped to his face and heard a thin scream.

Then I switched to the wheelhouse and hosed it. Glass flew but I was too late to catch Metcalfe who was already out of sight. The Schmeisser jammed on a defective round and I yelled at Coertze, ‘Let’s get out of here,’ and he swung the helm over again.

‘Where to?’ he asked.

‘Back to where we came from — into the squall.’

I looked back at the Fairmile. Metcalfe was on top of the deck saloon bending over Krupke and the Fairmile was still continuing on her original course. But her bows were swinging from side to side as though there was nobody at the helm. ‘This might just work,’ I said.

But after two or three minutes she started to turn and was soon plunging after us. I looked ahead and prayed we could get into the squall in time. I had never before prayed for dirty weather.

II

It was nip and tuck but we made it. The first gusts hit us when the Fairmile was barely two hundred yards behind, and ten seconds later she was invisible, lost in spearing rain and sea spume.

I throttled back the engine until it was merely ticking over; it would be suicide to try to butt our way through this. It was an angry bit of weather, all right, but it didn’t have the sustained ferocity of the earlier storm and I knew it would be over in an hour or so.

In that short time we had to lose Metcalfe.

I left the tiller to Coertze and stumbled forward to the mast and hoisted the trysail. That would give us leeway and we could pick a course of sorts. I chose to beat to windward; that was the last thing Metcalfe would expect me to do in heavy weather, and I hoped that when the squall had blown out he would be searching to leeward.

Sanford didn’t like it. She bucked and pitched more than ever and I cursed the crankiness caused by the golden keel, the cause of all our troubles. I said to Francesca, ‘You and Kobus had better go below; there’s no point in all of us getting soaked to the skin.’

I wondered what Metcalfe was doing. If he had any sense he would have the Fairmile lying head to wind with her engines turning just enough to keep position. But he wanted the gold and had guts enough to try anything weird as long as the boat didn’t show signs of falling apart under him. He had shown his seamanship by coming through the big storm undamaged — this squall wouldn’t hurt him.

Just then Sanford lurched violently and I thought for a moment that she was falling apart under me. There was a curious feel to the helm which I couldn’t analyse — it was like nothing I had felt on a boat before. She lurched again and seemed to sideslip in the water and she swayed alarmingly even when she hadn’t been pushed. I leaned on the helm tentatively and she came round with a rush.

Hastily I pulled the other way and she came back fast, overshooting. It was like riding a horse with a loose saddle and I couldn’t understand it.

I had a sudden and dreadful thought and looked over the side. It was difficult to make out in the swirl of water but her boot-topping seemed to be much higher out of the water than it should have been, and I knew what had happened.

It was her keel — that goddamned golden keel.

Coertze had warned us about it. He had said that it would be full of flaws and cracks and that it would be structurally weak. Sanford had taken a hell of a hammering in the last couple of days and this last squall was the straw that broke the camel’s back — or broke the ship’s keel.

I looked over the side again, trying to estimate how much higher she was in the water. As near as I could judge three parts of the keel were gone. Sanford had lost three tons of ballast and she was in danger of capsizing at any moment.

I hammered on the cabin hatch and yelled at the top of my voice. Coertze popped his head out. ‘What’s wrong?’ he shouted.

‘Get on deck fast — Francesca, too. The bloody keel’s gone. We’re going to capsize.’

He looked at me blankly. ‘What the hell do you mean?’ His face flushed red as the meaning sank in. ‘You mean the gold’s gone?’ he said incredulously.

‘For Christ’s sake, don’t just stand there gaping,’ I shouted. ‘Get the hell up here — and get Francesca out of there. I don’t know if I can hold her much longer.’

He whitened and his head vanished. Francesca came scrambling out of the cabin with Coertze on her heels. Sanford was behaving like a crazy thing and I shouted to Coertze, ‘Get that bloody sail down quick or she’ll be over.’

He lunged forward along the deck and wasted no time in unfastening the fall of the halyard from the cleat — instead he pulled the knife from his belt and cut it with one clean slice. As soon as the sail came down Sanford began to behave a little better, but not much. She slithered about on the surface of the water and it was by luck, not judgement, that I managed to keep her upright, because I had never had that experience before — few people have.

Coertze came back and I yelled, ‘It’s the mast that’ll have us over if we’re not careful.’

He looked up at the mast towering overhead and gave a quick nod. I wondered if he remembered what he had said the first time I questioned him about yachts in Cape Town. He had looked up at the mast of Estralita and said, ‘She’ll need to be deep to counterbalance that lot.’

The keel, our counterbalance, had gone and the fifty-five foot mast was the key to Sanford’s survival.

I pointed to the hatchet clipped to the side of the cockpit. ‘Cut the shrouds,’ I shouted.

He seized the hatchet and went forward again and swung at the after starboard shroud. It bounced off the stainless steel wire and I cursed myself for having built Sanford so stoutly. He swung again and again and finally the wire parted.

He went on to the forward shroud and I said, ‘Francesca, I’ll have to help him or it may be too late. Can you take the helm?’

‘What must I do?’

‘I think I’ve got the hang of it,’ I said. ‘She’s very tender and you mustn’t move the tiller violently. She swings very easily so you must be very gentle in your movements — otherwise it’s the same as before.’

I couldn’t stay with her long before I had to leave the cockpit and release both the backstay runners so that the stays hung loose. The mast now had no support from aft.

I went forward to the bows, clinging on for dear life, and crouched in the bow pulpit, using the marline-spike of my knife on the rigging screw of the forestay. The spike was not designed for the job and kept slipping out of the holes of the body, but I managed to loosen the screws appreciably in spite of being drenched every time Sanford dipped her bows. When I looked up I saw a definite curve in the stay to leeward which meant that it was slack.

I looked round and saw Coertze attacking the port shrouds before I bent to loosen the fore topmast stay. When I looked up again the mast was whipping like a fishing rod — but still the damn’ thing wouldn’t break.

It was only when I tripped over the fore hatch that I remembered Walker. I hammered on the hatch and shouted, ‘Walker, come out; we’re sinking.’ But I heard nothing from below.

Damning his minuscule soul to hell, I went aft and clattered down the companionway and into the main cabin. I staggered forward, unable to keep my balance in Sanford’s new and uneasy motion and tried the door to the fo’c’sle. It was locked from the inside. I hammered on it with my fist, and shouted, ‘Walker, come out; we’re going to capsize.’

I heard a faint sound and shouted again. Then he called, ‘I’m not coming out.’

‘Don’t be a damned fool,’ I yelled. ‘We’re liable to sink at any minute.’

‘It’s a trick to get me out. I know Coertze’s waiting for me.’

‘You bloody idiot,’ I screamed and hammered on the door again, but it was no use; he refused to answer so I left him there.

As I turned to go, Sanford groaned in every timber and I made a dash for the companionway, getting into the cockpit just in time to see the mast go. It cracked and split ten feet above the deck and toppled into the raging sea, still tethered by the back and fore stays.

I took the tiller from Francesca and tentatively moved it. Sanford’s motion was not much better — she still slid about unpredictably — but I felt easier with the top hamper gone. I kicked at a cockpit locker and shouted to Francesca, ‘Life jackets — get them out.’

The solving of one problem led directly to another — the mast in the water was still held fore and aft and it banged rhythmically into Sanford’s side. Much of that treatment and she would be stove in and we would go down like a stone. Coertze was in the bows and I could see the glint of the hatchet as he raised it for another blow at the forestay. He was very much alive to the danger inherent in the mast.

I struggled into a life jacket while Francesca took the helm, then I grabbed the boathook from the coach roof and leaned over the side to prod the mast away when it swung in again for another battering charge. Coertze came aft and started to cut away the backstays; it was easier to cut them on the deck and within five minutes he had done it, and the mast drifted away and was lost to sight amid the sea spray.

Coertze dropped heavily into the cockpit, his face streaming with salt water, and Francesca gave him a life jacket. We fastened our safety lines and, on a sudden impulse, I battened down the main hatch — if Walker wanted to come out he could still use the fore hatch. I wanted to seal Sanford — if she capsized and filled with water she would sink within seconds.

Those last moments of the squall were pretty grim. If we could last them out we might stand a chance. Sanford would never sail again, but it might be possible to move her slowly by a judicious use of her engine. For the first time I hoped I had not misled Metcalfe and that he would be standing by.

But the squall had not done with us. A violent gust of wind coincided with a freak sea and Sanford tilted alarmingly. Desperately I worked the tiller, but it was too late and she heeled more and more until the deck was at an angle of forty-five degrees.

I yelled, ‘Hang on, she’s going,’ and in that moment Sanford lurched right over and I was thrown into the sea.

I spluttered and swallowed salt water before the buoyancy of the jacket brought me to the surface, lying on my back. Frantically I looked round for Francesca and was relieved when her head bobbed up close by. I grabbed her safety line and pulled until we floated side by side. ‘Back to the boat,’ I spluttered.

We hauled on the safety lines and drew ourselves back to Sanford. She was lying on her starboard side, heaving sluggishly over the waves, and we painfully crawled up the vertical deck until we could grasp the stanchions of the port safety rail. I looked back over the rail and on to the new and oddly shaped upper deck — the port side of Sanford.

I helped Francesca over the rail and then I saw Coertze clinging to what was left of the keel — he had evidently jumped the other way. He was clutching a tangle of broken wires — the wires that were supposed to hold the keel together and which had failed in their purpose. I slid down the side and gave him a hand, and soon the three of us were uneasily huddled on the unprotected hull, wondering what the hell to do next.

That last flailing gust of wind had been the squall’s final crack of the whip and the wind dropped within minutes to leave the hulk of Sanford tossing on an uneasy sea. I looked around hopefully for Metcalfe but the Fairmile wasn’t in sight, although she could still come out of the dirty weather left in the wake of the squall.

I was looking contemplatively at the dinghy which was still lashed to the coach roof when Coertze said, ‘There’s still a lot of gold down there, you know.’ He was staring back at the keel.

‘To hell with the gold,’ I said. ‘Let’s get this dinghy free.’

We cut the lashings and let the dinghy fall into the sea — after I had taken the precaution of tying a line to it. It floated upside down, but that didn’t worry me — the buoyancy chambers would keep it afloat in any position. I went down the deck and into the sea and managed to right it. Then I took the baler which was still clipped in place and began to bale out.

I had just finished when Francesca shouted, ‘Metcalfe! Metcalfe’s coming.’

By the time I got back on top of the hull the Fairmile was quite close, still plugging away at the eight knots which Metcalfe favoured for heavy seas. We weren’t trying to get away this time, so it was not long before she was within hailing distance.

Metcalfe was outside the wheelhouse. He bellowed, ‘Can you take a line?’

Coertze waved and the Fairmile edged in closer and Metcalfe lifted a coil of rope and began to swing it. His first throw was short, but Coertze caught the second and slid down the deck to make the line fast to the stump of the mast. I cut two lengths of line and tied them in loops round the rope Metcalfe had thrown. I said, ‘We’ll go over in the dinghy, pulling ourselves along the line. For God’s sake, don’t let go of these loops or we might be swept away.’

We got into the dinghy and pulled ourselves across to the Fairmile. It wasn’t a particularly difficult job but we were cold and wet and tired and it would have been easy to make a mistake. Metcalfe helped Francesca on board and Coertze went next. As I started to climb he threw me a line and said curtly, ‘Make the dinghy fast; I might need it.’

So I made fast and climbed on deck. Metcalfe stepped up to me, his face contorted with rage. He grabbed me by the shoulders with both hands and yelled, ‘You damn’ fool — I told you to make certain of that keel. I told you back in Rapallo.’

He began to shake me and I was too tired to resist. My head lolled back and forward like the head of a sawdust doll and when he let me go I just sat down on the deck.

He swung round to Coertze. ‘How much is left?’ he demanded.

‘About a quarter.’

He looked at the hulk of Sanford, a strained expression in his eyes. ‘I’m not going to lose that,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to lose a ton of gold.’

He called to the wheelhouse and the Moroccan, Moulay Idriss, came on deck. Metcalfe gave quick instructions in Arabic and then dropped into the dinghy and pulled himself across to Sanford. The Arab attached a heavy cable to the line and when Metcalfe got to the hulk he began to pull it across.

Francesca and I were not taking much interest in this. We were exhausted and more preoccupied in being alive and together than with what happened to the gold. Coertze, however, was alive to the situation and was helping the Arab make the cable fast.

Metcalfe came back and said to Coertze, ‘You were right, there’s about a ton left. I don’t know how that wreck will behave when it’s towed, but we’ll try.’

As the Fairmile turned and the cable tautened, a watery sun shone out over the heaving sea and I looked back at Sanford as she moved sluggishly to the pull. The cockpit was half under water but the fore hatch was still free, and I said, ‘My God! Walker’s still in there!’

Coertze said, ‘Magtig, I’d forgotten him.’

He must have been knocked unconscious when Sanford capsized — otherwise we would have heard him. Francesca was staring back at Sanford. ‘Look!’ she exclaimed. ‘There — in the cockpit.’

The main hatch was being forced open from the inside and I could see Walker’s head as he tried to struggle out against the rush of water pouring into the boat. His hands grasped for the cockpit coaming — but it wasn’t there — Krupke had shot it away. Then Walker disappeared as the force of the water pushed him back into the cabin.

If he had come out by the fore hatch he would have been safe, but even in death he had to make one of his inevitable mistakes. The main hatch was open, water was pouring into the hull and Sanford was sinking.

Metcalfe was in a rage. ‘The damn’ fool,’ he cried. ‘I thought you’d got rid of him. He’s taking the bloody gold with him.’

Sanford was getting low in the water and as she did so, the water poured into her faster. Metcalfe stared at her in despair, his voice filled with fury. ‘The stupid, bloody idiot,’ he yelled. ‘He’s bitched things from the start.’

It wouldn’t be long now — Sanford was going fast. The towing cable tightened as she sank lower in the water and the Fairmile went down by the stern as the pull on the cable became greater. Sanford gave a lurch as compressed air in the fo’c’sle blew out the forehatch and she began to settle faster as more water poured in through this new opening in her hull.

The downward drag on the stern of the Fairmile was becoming dangerous and Metcalfe took a hatchet from a clip and stood by the cable. He looked back at Sanford, his face twitching with indecision, then he brought the hatchet down on the cable with a great swing. It parted with a twang, the loose end snaked away across the sea and the Fairmile bobbed up her stern.

Sanford lurched again and turned over. As she went down and out of sight amid swirling waters a vagrant sunbeam touched her keel and we saw the glint of imperishable gold. Then there was nothing but the sea.

III

Metcalfe’s anger was great but, like the squall, soon subsided and he became his usual saturnine self, taking the loss with a philosophical air. ‘A pity,’ he said. ‘But there it is. It’s gone and there isn’t anything we can do about it now.’

We were sitting in the saloon of the Fairmile, on our way to Malaga where Metcalfe was going to drop us. He had given us dry clothing and food and we were all feeling better.

I said, ‘What will you do now?’

He shrugged. ‘Tangier is just about played out now the Moroccans are taking over. I think I’ll pop down to the Congo — things seem to be blowing up down there.’

Metcalfe and a few others like him would be ‘popping down to the Congo’, I thought. Carrion crows flocking together — but he wasn’t as bad as some. I said, ‘I think you’ve got a few things to explain.’

He grinned. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Well, the thing that’s been niggling me is how you got on to us in the first place. What led you to suspect that we were after the gold?’

‘Suspect, old boy? I didn’t suspect, I knew.’

‘How the devil did you know?’

‘It was when I got Walker drunk. He spilled the whole story about the gold, the keel — everything.’

‘Well, I’m damned.’ I thought of all the precautions I’d taken to put Metcalfe off the scent; I thought of all the times I’d beaten my brains out to think up new twists of evasion. All wasted — he wasn’t fooled at all!

‘I thought you’d get rid of him,’ Metcalfe said. ‘He was a dead loss all the way through. I thought you’d put him over the side or something like that.’

I looked at Coertze, who grinned at me. I said, ‘He was probably a murderer, too.’

‘Wouldn’t be surprised,’ agreed Metcalfe airily. ‘He was a slimy little rat.’

That reminded me — I had probably killed a man too. ‘Where’s Krupke?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t seen him around.’

Metcalfe snickered. ‘He’s groaning in his bunk — he got a faceful of splinters.’

I held out the back of my hand. ‘Well, he did the same to me.’

‘Yes,’ said Metcalfe soberly. ‘But Krupke is probably going to lose an eye.’

‘Serve him damn’ well right,’ I said viciously. ‘He won’t be too keen to look down rifle sights again.’

I hadn’t lost sight of the fact that Metcalfe and his crew of ruffians had been doing their damnedest to kill us not many hours before. But there wasn’t any advantage in quarrelling with Metcalfe about it — we were on his boat and he was going to put us ashore safely. Irritating him wasn’t exactly the best policy just then.

He said, ‘That machine-gun of yours was some surprise. You nearly plugged me.’ He pointed to a battered loudhailer on the sideboard. ‘You shot that goddamn thing right out of my hand.’

Francesca said, ‘Why were you so solicitous about my husband? Why did you take the trouble?’

‘Oh, I felt real bad when I saw Hal slug him,’ said Metcalfe seriously. ‘I knew who he was, you see, and I knew he could make a stink. I didn’t want anything like that. I wanted Hal to get on with casting the keel and get out of Italy. I couldn’t afford to have the police rooting round.’

‘That’s why you tried to hold Torloni, too,’ I said.

He rubbed his chin. ‘That was my mistake,’ he admitted. ‘I thought I could use Torloni without him knowing it. But he’s a bad bastard and when he got hold of that cigarette case the whole thing blew up in my face. I just wanted Torloni to keep an eye on you, but that damn’ fool, Walker, had to go and give the game away. There was no holding Torloni then.’

‘So you warned us.’

He spread his hands. ‘What else could I do for a pal?’

‘Pal nothing. You wanted the gold out.’

He grinned. ‘Well, what the hell; you got away, didn’t you?’

I had bitter thoughts of Metcalfe as the puppet master; he had manipulated all of us and we had danced to his tune. Not quite — one of his puppets had a broken string; if Walker had defeated us, he had also defeated Metcalfe.

I said, ‘If you hadn’t been so obvious about Torloni the keel wouldn’t have broken. We had to cast it in a bloody hurry when he started putting the pressure on.’

‘Yes,’ said Metcalfe. ‘And all those damned partisans didn’t help, either.’ He stood up. ‘Well, I’ve still got to run this boat.’ He hesitated, then put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette case. ‘You might like this as a souvenir — Torloni mislaid it. There’s something interesting inside.’ He tossed it on the table and left the saloon.

I looked at Francesca and Coertze, then slowly put out my hand and picked it up. It had the heavy familiar feel of gold, but I felt no sudden twist to my guts as I had when Walker had put the gold Hercules into my hand. I was sick of the sight of gold.

I opened the case and found a letter inside, folded in two. It was addressed to me, care of the yacht Sanford, Tangier Harbour, and had been opened. I started to read it and began to laugh uncontrollably.

Francesca and Coertze looked at me in astonishment. I tried to control my laughter but it kept bursting out hysterically. ‘We’ve... we’ve won... won a sweep... a lottery,’ I gasped, and passed the letter to Francesca, who also started to laugh.

Coertze said blankly, ‘What lottery?’

I said, ‘Don’t you remember? You insisted on buying a lottery ticket in Tangier — you said it was for insurance. It won!’

He started to smile. ‘How much?’

‘Six hundred thousand pesetas.’

‘What’s that in money?’

I wiped my eyes. ‘A little over six thousand pounds. It won’t cover expenses — what I’ve spent on this jaunt — but it’ll help.’

Coertze looked sheepish. ‘How much did you spend?’

I began to figure it out. I had lost Sanford — she had been worth about £12,000. I had covered all our expenses for nearly a year, and they had been high because we were supposed to be wealthy tourists; there had been the exorbitant rental of the Casa Saeta in Tangier; there was the outfitting and provisioning of the boat.

I said, ‘It must run to about seventeen or eighteen thousand.’

His eyes twinkled and he put his hand to his fob pocket. ‘Will these help?’ he asked; and rolled four large diamonds on to the table.

‘Well, I’m damned,’ I said. ‘Where did you get those?’

‘They seemed to stick to my fingers in the tunnel.’ He chuckled. ‘Just like that machine pistol stuck to yours.’

Francesca started to giggle and put her hands to her breast. She produced a little wash-leather bag which was slung on a cord round her neck and emptied it. Two more diamonds joined those on the table and there were also four emeralds.

I looked at both of them and said, ‘You damned thieves; you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. The jewels were supposed to stay in Italy.’

I grinned and produced my five diamonds and we all sat there laughing like maniacs.

IV

Later, when we had put the gems away safe from the prying eyes of Metcalfe, we went on deck and watched the hills of Spain emerge mistily from over the horizon. I put my arm round Francesca and said wryly, ‘Well, I’ve still got a half-share in a boatyard in Cape Town. Will you mind being a boat-builder’s wife?’

She squeezed my hand. ‘I think I’ll like South Africa.’

I took the cigarette case from my pocket and opened it with one hand. The inscription was there and I read it for the first time — ‘Caro Benito da parte di Adolf — Brennero —1940.’

I said, ‘This is a pretty dangerous thing to have around. Some other Torloni might see it.’

She shivered and said, ‘Get rid of it, Hal; please throw it away.’

So I tossed it over the side and there was just one glint of gold in the green water and then it was gone for ever.