The Golden Rendezvous

Chapter 6

As far as attendance went, Mr. Julius Beresford had no grounds for complaint that night: every single passenger on the ship had turned up for his wife’s cocktail party and, as far as I could see, every off-duty officer on the Campari was there as well. And the party was certainly going splendidly; already, at seven forty-five, practically everyone was already on his or her second drink, and the drinks served up in the drawing room of the Campari were never small ones. Beresford and his wife had been moving round, speaking to each of the guests in rotation, and now it was my turn. I saw them approaching, raised my glass, and said, “Many happy returns, Mrs. Beresford.”

“Thank you, young man. Enjoying yourself?”

“Of course. So is everybody. And you should be, most of all.”

“Yes.” she sounded just the slightest bit doubtful. “I don’t know if Julius was rightly mean, it’s less than twenty-four hours…”

“If you’re thinking about Benson and Brownell, ma’am, you’re worrying unnecessarily. You couldn’t have done a better thing than arrange this. I’m sure every passenger on the ship is grateful to you for helping to get things back to normal so quickly. I know all the officers are, anyway.”

“Just as I told you, my dear.” Beresford patted his wife’s hand, then looked at me, amusement touching the corners of his eyes. “My wife, like my daughter, seems to have the greatest faith in your judgement, Mr. Carter.”

“Yes, sir. I wonder if you could persuade your daughter not to go visiting in the officers’ quarters?”

“No,” Beresford said regretfully, “It’s impossible. Self-willed young lady.” He grinned. “I’ll bet she didn’t even knock.”

“She didn’t.” I looked across the room to where Miss Beresford was giving Tony Carreras the full benefit of her eyes over the rim of a Martini glass. They certainly made a striking couple. “She had, with respect, some bee in her bonnet about something being wrong aboard the Campari. I think the unfortunate happenings last night must have upset her.”

“Naturally. And you managed to remove this?”

“I think so, sir.”

There was a slight pause, then Mrs. Beresford said impatiently, “Julius, we’re just beating about the bush.” “Oh, now, Mary, I don’t think…”

“Rubbish,” she said briskly. “Young man, do you know one of the principal reasons I came along on this trip? Apart” — she smiled — "from the food? Because my husband asked me to, because he wanted a second opinion from you. Julius, as you know, has made several trips on your ship. He has, as the saying goes, had an eye on you for a job in his organisation. My husband, I may say, has made his fortune not so much by working himself as by picking the right men to work for him. He’s never made a mistake yet. I don’t think he’s making a mistake now. And you have another very special recommendation.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said politely.

“You’re the only young man of our acquaintance who doesn’t turn himself into a carpet to be trampled on as soon as our daughter appears in sight. A very important qualification, believe me.”

“Would you like to work for me, Mr. Carter?” Beresford asked bluntly.

“I think I would, sir.”

“Well!” Mrs. Beresford looked at her husband. “That’s settled…”

“Will you?” Julius Beresford interrupted.

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because your interests are in steel and oil. I know only the sea and ships. They don’t mix. I have no qualifications to work for you, and at my present age I’d be too long in acquiring them. And I couldn’t accept a job for which I’d no qualifications.”

“Even at double the money? Or three times?”

“I’m grateful for the offer, sir, believe me. I do appreciate it. But there’s more to it than money.”

“Ah, well.” The Beresfords looked at each other. They didn’t seem too disturbed over my refusal; there was no reason why they should. “We asked a question, we got an answer. Fair enough.” He changed the subject. “What do you think of my feat in getting the old man here tonight?”

“I think it was very thoughtful of you.” I glanced across the room to a spot near the door where old Cerdan, sherry glass in hand, was sitting in his wheel chair, with his nurses on a settee by his side.

They too had sherry glasses. The old boy seemed to be talking animatedly to the captain. “He must lead a very shut-in life. Much difficulty in persuading him?” “None at all. He was delighted to come.” I filed away this piece of information; my one encounter with Cerdan had left me with the impression that the only thing that would delight him about such an invitation would be the opportunity to give a surly refusal. “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Carter. Hosts’ duties to their guests, you know.”

“Certainly, sir.” I stood to one side, but Mrs. Beresford planted herself in front of me and smiled quizzically.

“Mr. Carter,” she said firmly, “You’re a very stiff-necked young man. And please don’t for a moment imagine that I’m referring to your accident of last night.”

They moved off. I watched them go, thinking all sorts of thoughts, then crossed to the hinged flap that led to the rear of the bar. Whenever I approached that flap I felt it was not a glass I should have in my hand but a machete to help me hack my way through the jungle of flowers, potted shrubs, cacti, and festoons of creepers and hanging plants that transformed the place into the most unlikely looking bar you’d ever seen. The interior desiguer responsible had gone into rhapsodies about it, but it was all right for him he didn’t have to live with it; all he had to do was to retire nightly to his semi-detached in south London where his wife would have had him out the door if he’d tried on any such nonsense at home. But the passengers seemed to like it.

I made it to the back of the bar without getting scratched too much and said to the barman, “How’s it going, Louis?”

“Very well, sir,” Louis said stiffly. His bald pate was gleaming with sweat and his hairline moustache twitching nervously. There were irregularities going on and Louis didn’t like irregularities. Then he thawed a bit and said, “They seem to be drinking a fair bit more than usual tonight, sir.”

“Not half as much as they will later on.” I moved to the crystal-laden shelves from where I could see under the back of the bar and said, “You don’t look very comfortable to me.”

“By God, and I’m not!” and indeed there wasn’t much room for the bo’sun to wedge his bulk between the raised deck and the underside of the bar; his knees were up to his chin, but at least he was completely invisible to anyone on the other side of the counter. “Stiff as hell, sir. Never be able to move when the time comes.”

“And the smell of all that liquor driving you round the bend,” I said sympathetically. I wasn’t as cool as I sounded. I had to keep wiping the palms of my hands on the sides of my jacket, but try as I would, I couldn’t seem to get them properly dry. I moved over to the counter again. “A double whisky, Louis. A large double whisky.”

Louis poured the drink and handed it across without a word. I raised it to my lips, lowered it below counter level, and a large hand closed gratefully round it. I said quietly, as if speaking to Louis, “If the captain notices the smell afterwards you can claim it was that careless devil Louis that spilt it over you. I’m taking a walk now, Archie. If everything’s o.k., I’ll be back in five minutes.” “And if not? If you’re wrong?”

“Heaven help me. The old man will feed me to the sharks.” I made my way out from behind the bar and sauntered slowly towards the door. I saw Bullen trying to catch my eye but I ignored him; he was the world’s worst actor. I smiled at Susan Beresford and Tony Carreras, nodded civilly enough to old Cerdan, bowed slightly to the two nurses the thin one, I noticed, had returned to her knitting and she seemed to me to be doing all right and reached the doorway.

Once outside, I dropped all pretence at sauntering. I reached the entrance to the passengers’ accommodation on “A” deck in ten seconds. Halfway down the long central passageway white was sitting in his cubicle. I walked quickly down there, lifted the lid of his desk, and took out the four items lying inside: Colt revolver, torch, screw driver, and master key. I stuffed the Colt into my belt, the torch in one pocket, the screw driver in the other. I looked at White, but he didn’t look at me. He was staring down into one corner of his cubicle as if I didn’t exist. He had his hands clasped tightly together, like one in prayer. I hoped he was praying for me. Even with his hands locked he couldn’t stop them from shaking uncontrollably. I left him without a word and ten seconds later was inside Cerdan’s suite with the door locked behind me. On a sudden instinct I switched on my torch and played the beam round the edges of the door. The door was pale blue against a pale-blue bulkhead. Hanging from the top of the bulkhead, dangling down for a couple of inches over the top of the door, was a pale-blue thread. A broken pale-blue thread: to the people who had put it there, an unmistakable calling card that visitors had been there. I wasn’t worried about that, but I was worried by the fact that it showed that someone was suspicious, very, very suspicious. This might make things very awkward indeed. Maybe we should have announced Dexter’s death.

I passed straight through the nurses’ cabin and the lounge into Cerdan’s cabin. The curtains were drawn, but I left the lights off: light could show through curtains, and if they were as suspicious as I thought, someone might have wondered why I had left so suddenly and taken a walk outside. I hooded the torch to a small pencil beam and played it over the deck head. The cold-air trunking ran fore and aft, and the first louvre was directly above Cerdan’s bed. I didn’t even need the screw driver. I shone the torch through the louvre opening and saw, inside the trunking, something gleaming metallically in the bright spot of light. I reached up two fingers and slowly worked that something metallic down through the louvre. A pair of earphones. I peered into the louvre again. The earphones lead had a plug on the end of it and the plug was fitted into a socket that had been screwed on to the upper wall of the trunking. And the radio office was directly above. I pulled out the plug, rolled the lead round the headphones, and switched off my torch.

White was exactly as I had left him, still vibrating away like a tuning fork. I opened his desk, returned key, screw driver, and torch. The earphones I kept. And the gun.

They were into their third cocktails by the time I returned to the drawing room. I didn’t need to count empty bottles to guess that; the laughter, the animated conversation, the increase in the deciBel ratio was proof enough. Captain Bullen was still chatting away to Cerdan. The tall nurse was still knitting. Tommy Wilson was over by the bar. I rubbed my cheek and he crushed out the cigarette he was holding. I saw him say something to Miguel and Tony Carreras at twenty feet, in that racket, it was impossible to hear a word he said — saw Tony Carreras lift a half-amused, half-questioning eyebrow, then all three of them moved towards the bar.

I joined Captain Bullen and Cerdan. Long speeches weren’t going to help me here, and only a fool would throw away his life by tipping off people like those. “Good evening, Mr. Cerdan,” I said. I pulled my left hand out from under my jacket and tossed the earphones onto his rug-covered lap. “Recognise them?”

Cerdan’s eyes stared wide, then he flung himself forwards and sideways as if to clear his encumbering wheel chair, but old Bullen had been waiting for it and was too quick for him. He hit Cerdan with all the pent-up worry and fury of the past twenty-four hours behind the blow, and Cerdan toppled over the side of his chair and crashed heavily to the carpet.

I didn’t see him fall; I only heard the sound of it. I was too busy looking out for myself. The nurse with the sherry glass in her hand, quick as a cat, flung the contents in my face at the same instant as Bullen hit Cerdan. I flung myself sideways to avoid being blinded, and as I fell I saw the tall, thin nurse flinging her knitting to one side and thrusting her hand deep into the string knitting bag.

With my right hand I managed to tug the Colt clear of my belt before I hit the ground and squeezed the trigger twice. It was my right shoulder that hit the carpet first, just as I fired, and I didn’t really know where the bullets went, nor, for that one nearly blinding instant of agony as the shock of falling was transmitted to my injured neck, did I care; then my head cleared and I saw that the tall nurse was on her feet. Not only on her feet but raised high on her toes, head and shoulders arched sharply forwards, ivory-knuckled hands pressed deep into her midriff; then she swayed forward, in macabre slow-motion action, and crumpled over the fallen Cerdan. The other nurse hadn’t moved from her seat: with Captain Bullen’s Colt only six inches from her face, and his finger pretty white on the trigger, she wasn’t likely to, either.

The reverberations of my heavy Colt, painful and deafening in their intensity in that confined metal-walled space, faded away into a silence that was deathly in more ways than one, and through that silence came a soft highland voice saying gently: “If either of you move I will kill you.”

Carreras senior and junior, who must have had their backs to the bar, were now turned round halfway towards it, staring at the gun in Macdonald’s hand. Miguel Carreras’ face was unrecognisable, his expression changed from that of a smooth, urbane, and highly prosperous businessman into something very ugly indeed. His right hand, as he had whirled round, had come to rest on the bar near a cut-glass decanter.

Archie Macdonald wasn’t wearing any of his medals that night, and Carreras had no means of knowing the long and bloodstained record the bo’sun had behind him, or he would never have tried to hurl that decanter at Macdonald’s head. Carreras’ reactions were so fast, the movement so unexpected, that against another man he might have made it; against Macdonald he didn’t even manage to get the decanter off the counter and a split second later was left staring down at the shattered bloody mess that had been his hand. For the second time in a few seconds the crashing roar of a heavy gun, this time intermingled with the tinkle of smashed and flying glass, died away and again Macdonald’s voice came, almost regretfully: “I should have killed you, but I like reading about those murder trials. We’re saving you for the hangman, Mr. Carreras.”

I was climbing back to my feet when someone screamed, a harsh, ugly sound that drilled piercingly through the room. Another woman took it up, a sustained shriek like an express, whistle wide open, heading for a level crossing, and the stage seemed all set for mass hysteria.

“Stop that damned screaming,” I snarled. “Do you hear? Stop it at once. It’s all over now.”

The screaming stopped. Silence again, a weird, unnatural silence that was almost as bad as the racket that had gone before. And then Beresford was coming towards me, a bit unsteadily, his lips forming words that didn’t come, his face white. I couldn’t blame him; in his well-ordered and wealth cushioned world the entertainments offered his guests couldn’t often have ended up with bodies strewn all over the floor.

“You’ve killed her, Carter,” He said at length. His voice was harsh and strained. “You’ve killed her. I saw it; we all saw it. Aba defenceless woman.” He stared at me, and if he had any thought of offering me a job again I couldn’t see it in his face. “You murdered her.”

“Woman my foot!” I said savagely. I bent down, yanked off the nurse’s hat, then ruthlessly ripped away a glued wig to show a black close-cropped crew cut. “Attractive, isn’t it? The very latest from Paris. And defenceless!” I grabbed her bag, turned it upside down, emptied the contents on the carpet, stooped, and came up with what had originally been a full-length double-barrelled shotgun: the barrels had been sawn off until there was no more than six inches of them left, the wooden stock removed and a roughly made pistol-type grip fitted in its place. “Ever seen one of those before, Mr. Beresford? Native product of your own country, I believe. A whippet or some such name. Fires lead shot, and from the range our nurse friend here intended to use it, it would have blown a hole clear through my middle. Defenceless!” I turned to where Bullen was standing, his gun still trained on the other nurse. “Is that character armed, sir?”

“We’ll soon find out,” Bullen said grimly. “You carrying a gun, my friend?”

The “nurse” swore at him, two words in basic Anglo-Saxon, in a low, snarling voice. Bullen gave him no warning; he swept up the Colt and struck the barrel heavily across the man’s face and temple. He staggered and swayed, out on his feet. I caught him, held him with one hand, while with the other I ripped the dress down the front, pulled out a snub-nosed automatic from a felt holster under the left arm, then let him go. He swayed some more, collapsed on the settee, then rolled to the floor.

“Is’s all this necessary?” Beresford’s voice was still hoarse and strained.

“Stand back, everyone,” Bullen said authoritatively. “Keep well over to the windows and clear of these two men, our two Carreras friends. They are highly dangerous and might try to jump in among you for cover. Macdonald, that was splendidly done. But next time shoot to kill. That’s an order. I accept full responsibility. Dr. Marston, bring the necessary equipment, please, and attend to Carreras’ hand.”

He waited till Marston had left, then turned to Beresford with a wry smile. “Sorry to ruin your party, Mr. Beresford. And all this, I assure you, is highly necessary.”

“But — but the violence, the — the killing…”

“They murdered three of my men in twenty-four hours.”

“They what?”

“Benson, Brownell, and Fourth Officer Dexter. Murdered them. Brownell was strangled; Benson was strangled or shot; Dexter’s lying dead in the wireless office with three bullets in his stomach, and god knows how many more men would have died if chief officer Carter hadn’t got on to them.”

I looked round the white, strained, still unbelieving faces; there was no real understanding yet of what the captain was saying; the shock, the fear, the near hysteria left no room for thought in their minds. Of them all, I had to admit that old Beresford had taken it best, to adjust himself to what must have been the incredible spectacle of seeing fellow passengers suddenly gunned down by officers of the Campari, to fight his way out of this fog of crazy bewilderment. “But I mean, captain, what part can an old cripple like Mr. Cerdan have in all this?”

“According to Mr. Carter, Cerdan isn’t old at all — he’s just made up to look old. And also, according to Mr. Carter, if Cerdan is a cripple, paralysed from the waist down as he is supposed to be, then you’re going to witness a modern miracle of healing just as soon as he recovers consciousness. For all we know, Cerdan is very probably the leader of this bunch of murderers. We don’t know.”

“But what in God’s name is behind it all?” Beresford demanded.

“That’s just what we are about to find out,” Bullen said tightly. He glanced at Carreras, father and son. “Come here, you two.”

They came, Macdonald and Tommy Wilson following. Carreras senior had a handkerchief wrapped round his shattered hand, trying, not very successfully, to stem the flow of blood, and the eyes that caught mine were wicked with hate; Tony Carreras, on the other hand, seemed calmly unconcerned, even slightly amused. I made a mental note to keep a very close eye indeed on Tony Carreras. He was too calm and relaxed by half.

They halted a few feet away. Bullen said, “Mr. Wilson?”

“Sir?”

“That sawn-off shotgun belonging to our late friend here. Pick it up.”

Wilson picked it up. “Do you think you could use it? And don’t point the damned thing at me,” he added hastily.

“I think so, sir.”

“Cerdan and the so-called nurse. A sharp eye on them. If they come to and try anything…” Bullen left the sentence unfinished. “Mr. Carter, Carreras and his son may be armed.”

“Yes, sir.” I moved round behind Tony Carreras, careful to keep out of the line of fire of both Bullen and Macdonald, caught his jacket by the collar, and jerked it savagely down over shoulders and arms till it reached the level of his elbows.

“You seem to have done this sort of thing before, Mr. Carter,” Tony Carreras said easily. He was a cool customer all right, too damned cool for my liking.

“Television,” I explained. He was carrying a gun under the left shoulder. He was wearing a specially made shirt with a couple of hemmed slits front and back on the left-hand side so that the chest strap for the holster was concealed under the shirt. Tony Carreras was very thorough in his preparations.

I went over his clothes, but he’d only the one gun. I went through the same routine with Miguel Carreras, who wasn’t anywhere near as affable as his son, but maybe his hand was hurting him. He wasn’t carrying any gun. And maybe that made Miguel Carreras the boss: maybe he didn’t have to carry any gun; maybe he was in a position to order other people to do his killing for him.

“Thank you,” Captain Bullen said. “Mr. Carreras, we will be in Nassau in a few hours’ time. The police will be aboard by midnight. Do you wish to make a statement now or would you rather make it to the police?”

“My hand is broken.” Miguel Carreras’ voice was a harsh whisper. “The forefinger is smashed; it will have to be amputated. Someone is going to pay for this.”

“I take it that is your answer,” Bullen said calmly. “Very well. Bo’sun, four heaving lines, if you please. I want those men trussed like turkeys.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” the bo’sun took one step forward, then stood stock-still. Through the open doorway had come a flat staccato burst of sound — the unmistakable chattering of a machine gun. It seemed to come from almost directly above, from the bridge. And then all the lights went out.

I think I was the first person to move. I think I was the only person to move. I took a long step forward, hooked my left arm round Tony Carreras’ neck, rammed the Colt into the small of his back, and said softly, “Don’t even think of trying anything, Carreras.” and then there was silence again. It seemed to go on and on and on, but it probably didn’t last more than a few seconds altogether. A woman screamed, a brief choking sound that died away into a moan, and then there was silence once more, a silence that ended abruptly with a violent crashing, splintering as heavy solid metallic objects, operating in almost perfect unison, smashed in the plate-glass windows that gave to the deck outside. At the same instant there came the sharp echoing crash of metal against metal as the door was kicked wide open to smash back against the bulkhead. “Drop your guns, all of you,” Miguel Carreras called in a high clear voice. “Drop them now! Unless you want a massacre.”

The lights came on.

Vaguely outlined against the four smashed windows of the drawing room I could see the blurs of four indistinct heads and shoulders and arms. The blurs I didn’t care about; it was what they held in their arms that worried me — the wicked looking snouts and cylindrical magazines of four submachine guns. A fifth man, dressed in jungle green and wearing a green beret on his head, stood in the doorway, a similar automatic carbine cradled in his hands.

I could see what Carreras meant about dropping our guns.

It seemed an excellent idea to me; we had about as much chance as the last ice cream at a children’s party. I was already starting to loosen my grip on the gun when, incredulously, I saw Captain Bullen jerk up his Colt on the armed man in the doorway. It was criminal, suicidal folly; either he was acting completely instinctively, without any thought at all, or the bitter chagrin, the killing disappointment after having thought that he had held all the cards in his hands, had been too much for him. I might have known, I thought briefly and wildly, he’d been far too calm and self-controlled, the safety valve screwed down on the bursting boiler.

I tried to shout out a warning, but it was too late; it was far too late. I shoved Tony Carreras violently aside and tried to reach Bullen, to strike down his gun hand, but I was still far too late, a lifetime too late. The heavy Colt was rearing and bucking in Bullen’s hand, and the man in the doorway, to whom the ridiculous idea of resistance must have been the very last thought in his head, let the machine gun slide slowly out of lifeless hands and toppled backwards out of sight.

The man outside the window nearest the door had his machine gun lined up on the captain. Bullen, in that second, was the biggest fool in the world, a crazy suicidal maniac, but even so, I couldn’t let him be gunned down where he stood. I don’t know where my first bullet went, but the second must have struck the machine gun. I saw it jerk violently as if struck aside by a giant hand, and then came a continuous cacophonous drum fire of deafening sound as a third man squeezed the trigger of his machine gun and kept on squeezing it. Something with the power and weight of a plunging pile driver smashed into my left thigh, hurling me back against the bar. My head struck the heavy brass rail at the foot of the counter and the sound of the drum fire died away.

The stink of drifting cordite and the silence of the grave. Even before consciousness came fully back to me, even before I opened my eyes, I was aware of those, of the cordite and the unearthly stillness. I opened my eyes slowly, pushed myself shakily up till I was sitting with my back more or less straight against the bar, and shook my head to try to clear it. I had, understandably enough, forgotten about my stiff neck; the sharp stab of pain did more to clear my head than anything else could have done.

The first thing I was aware of was the passengers. They were all stretched out on the carpet, lying very still. For one heart-stopping moment I thought they were all dead or dying, mown down in swathes by that stuttering machine gun, then I saw Mr. Greenstreet, Miss Harrbride’s husband, move his head slightly and look round the drawing room with a cautious and terrified eye. One eye was all I could see. At any other time it would have been very, very funny, but I never felt less like laughing. The passengers, perhaps through wisdom, but more probably through the reflex reaction of instinctive self-preservation, must have flung themselves to the deck the moment the machine gun had opened up and were only now daring to lift their heads. I concluded that I couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a few seconds.

I moved my eyes to the right. Carreras and son were standing just where they had been, and Tony Carreras had a gun in his hand now. My gun. Beyond them a huddled group lay sprawling or sitting about the floor. Cerdan, the “nurse” I’d shot, and three others.

Tommy Wilson, the laughing, lovable, happy-go-lucky Tommy Wilson, was dead. He wouldn’t have to worry about his mathematics any more.

It didn’t need old doc Marston and his short-sighted peering to tell me that Wilson was dead. He was lying on his back, and it looked to me as if half his chest had been shot away; he must have taken the main brunt of that concentrated burst of machine-gun fire. And Tommy hadn’t even lifted his gun.

Archie Macdonald was stretched out on his side, close to Wilson. He seemed to me to be very still, far, far too still. I couldn’t see the front of his body for he was turned away from me; for all I knew magnum slugs had torn the life out of him as they had out of Tommy Wilson. But I could see blood all over his face and neck, slowly soaking into the carpet.

Captain Bullen was the one who was sitting. He wasn’t dead anyway, but I wouldn’t have bet a brass farthing on his chances of staying alive. He was fully conscious, his mouth warped and dragged into an unnatural smile, his face white and twisted with pain. From shoulder almost to the waist his right side was soaked in blood, so soaked that I couldn’t see where the bullets had gone home, but I could see bright red bubbles flecking the twisted lips, which meant that he had been shot through the lung.

I looked at the three of them again. Bullen, Macdonald, Wilson. Three better men it would have been hard to find, three better shipmates impossible to find. They had wanted none of this, none of this blood and agony and death; all they had wanted was the chance to do their jobs in peace and quiet and as best they could. Hard-working, companionable, and infinitely decent men, they had sought no violence, thought no violence, so now they lay there dead and dying, Macdonald and Bullen with their wives and families, Tommy Wilson with his fiancée in England and a girl in every port in America and the Caribbean. I looked at them and I felt no sadness or sorrow or anger or shock; I just felt cold and detached and strangely uninvolved in it all. I looked from them to the Carreras family and Cerdan and I made myself a promise, and it was well for me that neither Carreras heard my promise or knew of its irrevocable finality, for they were clever, calculating men and they would have shot me dead as I lay there.

I wasn’t feeling any pain at all, but I remembered about the pile driver that had hurled me back against the bar. I looked down at my left leg, and from mid-thigh to well below the knee the trousers were so saturated with blood that there was no trace of white left. The carpet all round my leg was soaked with it. That carpet, I remembered vaguely, had cost over $10,000, and it was certainly taking a terrible beating that night. Lord Dexter would have been furious. I looked at my leg again and fingered the soggy material. Three distinct tears, which meant that I had been shot three times. I supposed the pain would come later. A great deal of blood, far too much blood: I wondered if an artery had been torn.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” It was Carreras speaking, and although his hand must have been giving him hell there was no sign of it in his face. The fury, the malevolence I had so recently seen, was only a memory: he was back on balance again, urbane, commanding, in complete control of the situation. “I regret all this, regret it extremely.” He waved his left hand in the direction of Bullen and Wilson, Macdonald and myself. “All so unnecessary, so terribly unnecessary, brought upon Captain Bullen and his men by Captain Bullen’s reckless folly.” Most of the passengers were on their feet now, and I could see Susan Beresford standing beside her father, staring down at me as if she weren’t seeing too well, eyes abnormally large in the pale face. “I regret, too, the distress you have been caused, and to you, Mr. and Mrs. Beresford, I tend my apologies for the ruin of your night’s entertainment. Your kindness has been ill-rewarded.”

“For god’s sake cut out the fancy speeches,” I interrupted. My voice didn’t sound like mine at all, a harsh, strained croak, a bullfrog with laryngitis. “Get the doctor for Captain Bullen. He’s been shot through the lung.”

He looked at me speculatively, then at Bullen, then back at me. “A certain indestructible quality about you, Mr. Carter,” he said thoughtfully. He bent over and peered at my blood stained leg. “Shot three times, your leg must be pretty badly smashed, yet you can observe so tiny a detail as a fleck of blood on Captain Bullen’s mouth. You are incapacitated, and I am glad. Had your captain, officers, and crew been composed exclusively of men like yourself, I would never have come within a thousand miles of the Campari. As for the doctor, he will be here soon. He is tending a man on the bridge.”

“Jamieson? Our Third Officer?”

“Mr. Jamieson is beyond all help,” he said curtly. “Like captain Bullen, he fancied himself as a man cast in a heroic mould; like captain Bullen, he has paid the price for his stupidity. The man at the wheel was struck in the arm by a stray bullet.” he turned to face the passengers. “You need have no further worry about your personal safety. The Campari is now completely in my hands and will remain so. However, you form no part of my plans and will be transferred in two or three days to another vessel. Meanwhile you will all eat, live, and sleep in this room: I cannot spare individual guards for each stateroom. Mattresses and blankets will be brought to you. If you co-operate, you can exist in reasonable comforts; you certainly have no more to fear.”

“What is the meaning of this damnable outrage, Carreras?” There was a shake in Beresford’s voice. “Those desperadoes, those killers, what of them? Who are they? Where in the name of God did they come from? What do you intend to do? You’re mad, man, completely mad. Surely you know you can’t expect to get off with this?” “You may use that thought for consolation. Ah, doctor, there you are.” He held out his right hand, swathed in its bloodstained handkerchief. “Have a look at this, will you?”

“Damn you and your hand,” Dr. Marston said bitterly. The old boy was trembling; the sight of the dead and dying must have hit him hard, but he was hopping mad for all that. “There are other more seriously injured men here. I must…”

“You may as well realise that I, and I alone, give the orders from now on,” Carreras interrupted. “My hand. At once. Ah, Juan.” This to a tall, thin, swarthy man who had just entered, a rolled-up chart under his arm. “Give that to Mr. Carter here. That’s him, yes. Mr. Carter, Captain Bullen said — and I have been aware of it for many hours — that we are heading for Nassau and are due there in less than four hours. Lay off a course to take us well clear of Nassau, to the east, then out midway between the Great Abaco and Eleuthera islands and so approximately north-northwest into the north Atlantic. My own navigation has become rather rusty, I fear. Mark in the approximate times for course changes.”

I took the chart, pencil, parallel rulers, and dividers, and laid the chart on my knee. Carreras said consideringly, “What, no ‘do your own damned navigation’ or words to that effect?”

“What’s the point?” I said wearily. “You wouldn’t hesitate to line up all the passengers and shoot them one by one if I didn’t co-operate.”

“It’s a pleasure to deal with a man who sees and accepts the inevitable.” Carreras smiled. “But you greatly overestimate my ruthlessness. Later, Mr. Carter, when we have you fixed up you shall become a permanent installation on the bridge. It is unfortunate, but I suppose you realise that you are the only deck officer left to us?”

“You’ll have to get some other installation on the bridge,” I said bitterly. “My thighbone is smashed.”

“What?” he looked at me narrowly.

“I can feel it grating.” I twisted my face up to let him see how I could feel it grating. Dr. Marston will soon confirm it.”

“We can arrive at some other arrangement,” Carreras said equably. He winced as Dr. Marston probed at his hand. “The forefinger it will have to come off?”

“I don’t think so. A local anaesthetic, a small operation, and I believe I can save it.” Carreras didn’t know the danger he was in; if he let old Marston get to work on him he’d probably end up by losing his whole arm. “But it will have to be done in my surgery.”

“It’s probably time we all west to the surgery. Tony, check engine room, radar room, all men off duty; see that they are all safely under guard. Then take that chart to the bridge and see that the helmsman makes the proper course alterations at the proper time. See that the radar operator is kept under constant supervision and reports the slightest object on his screen: Mr. Carter here is quite capable of laying off a course which would take us smack into the middle of Eleuthera Island. Two men to take Mr Cerdan to his cabin. Dr. Marston, is it possible to take those men down to your surgery without endangering their lives?” The good Samaritan, all overcome with concern for his fellow men.

“I don’t know.” Marston finished his temporary bandaging of Carreras’ hand and crossed to Bullen. “How do you feel, captain?”

Bullen looked at him with lack-lustre eyes. He tried to smile but it was no more than an agonised grimace. He tried to speak but no words came, just fresh bubbles of blood at his lips. Marston produced scissors, cut the captain’s shirt open, examined him briefly, and said, “We may as well risk it. Two of your men, Mr. Carreras, two strong men. See that his chest is not compressed.”

He left Bullen, bent over Macdonald, and straightened almost immediately. “This man can be moved with safety.”

“Macdonald!” I said. “The bo’sun. He — he’s not dead?”

“He’s been hit on the head. Creased, probably concussed, perhaps even the skull fractured, but he’ll survive. He seems to have been hit on the knee, to-nothing serious.” I felt as if someone had lifted the Sydney Bridge off my back. The bo’sun had been my friend, my good friend, for too many years now, and, besides, with Archie Macdonald by me all things were possible. “And Mr. Carter?” Carreras queried.

“Don’t you touch my leg,” I yelled. “Not until I get an anaesthetic.”

“He’s probably right,” Marston murmured. He peered closely. “Not much blood now you’ve been lucky, John. If the main artery had been severed — well, you’d have been gone.” He looked at Carreras, his face doubtful. “He could be moved, I think, but with a fractured thighbone the pain will be excruciating.”

“Mr. Carter is very tough,” Carreras said unsympathetically. It wasn’t his thighbone; he’d been a Good Samaritan for a whole minute now and the strain had proved too much for him. “Mr. Carter will survive.”