The Keys Of Hell

EIGHT

IT WAS JUST AFTER EIGHT O’CLOCK ON the following evening when the Buona Esperanza moved away from the jetty and turned out to sea. It was a warm, soft night with a luminosity shining from the water. There was no moon, for heavy cloud banked over the horizon as though a storm might be in the offing.

Orsini was at the wheel and Chavasse stood beside him, leaning forward to peer through the curved deckhouse window into the darkness ahead.

“What about the weather?” he said.

“Force four wind with rain imminent. Nothing to worry about.”

“Is it the same for the Drin Gulf?”

“A few fog patches, but they’ll be more of a help than anything else.”

Chavasse lit two cigarettes and handed one to the Italian. “Funny what a day-to-day business life is. I never expected to set foot on Albanian soil again.”

“The things we do for the ladies.” Orsini grinned. “But this one is something special, Paul. This I assure you as an expert. She reminds me very much of my wife, God rest her.”

Chavasse looked at him curiously. “I never knew you’d been married.”

“A long time ago.” Orsini’s face was calm, untroubled, but the sadness was there in his voice. “She was only nineteen when we married. That was in 1941 during my naval service. We spent one leave together, that’s all. The following year she was killed in an air raid while staying with her mother in Milan.”

There was nothing to be said and Chavasse stood there in silence. After a while, Orsini increased speed. “Take over, Paul. I’ll plot our course.”

Chavasse slipped behind him and the Italian moved to the chart table. For some time he busied himself with the charts and finally nodded in satisfaction.

“We should move into the marshes just before dawn.” He placed a cheroot between his teeth and grinned. “What happens after that is in the lap of God.”

“Do you want me to spell you for a while?” Chavasse asked.

Orsini took over the wheel again and shook his head. “Later, Paul, after Carlo has done his trick. That way I’ll be fresh for the run-in at dawn.”

Chavasse left him there and went down to the galley, where he discovered Francesca making coffee. He leaned in the doorway and grinned. “That’s what I like about Italian girls. So good in the kitchen.”

She turned and smiled mischievously. “Is that all we’re good for – cooking?”

She wore a pair of old denim pants and a heavy sweater, and the long hair was plaited into a single pigtail that hung across one shoulder. She looked incredibly fresh and alive and Chavasse shook his head.

“I could think of one or two things, but the timing’s wrong.”

“What about the terrace of the British Embassy?”

“Too public.”

She poured coffee into a mug and handed it to him. “There’s a place I know in the hills outside Rome. Only a village inn, but the food is out of this world. You eat it by candlelight on a terrace overlooking a hillside covered with vines. The fireflies dance in the wind and you can smell the flowers for a week afterwards. It’s an experience one shouldn’t miss.”

“I’m all tied up for the next couple of days,” Chavasse said, “but after that, I’m free most evenings.”

“By a strange coincidence, so am I. I’m also in the telephone book and I’d like to point out that you still owe me a date.”

“Now how could I forget a thing like that?”

He ducked as she threw a crust of dry bread at his head, turned and went through the aft cabin into the salon. Carlo had two Aqua-lungs and their ancillary equipment laid out on the table.

“There’s fresh coffee in the galley,” Chavasse told him.

“I’ll get some later. I want to finish checking this lot.”

He never had much to say for himself, a strange, silent youth, but a good man to have at your back in trouble and devoted to Orsini. He sat on the edge of the table, a cigarette smouldering between his lips, and worked his way methodically through the various items of equipment. Chavasse watched him for a while, then went through into the other cabin.

He lay staring at the bulkhead, thinking about the task ahead. If Francesca’s memory hadn’t failed her and the cross-bearing she had given them was accurate, then the whole thing was simple. There couldn’t be more than five or six fathoms of water in those lagoons and the recovery of the statue shouldn’t take long. With any kind of luck, they could be back in Matano within twenty-four hours.

He could hear a rumble of voices from the galley, Francesca quite distinctly, and then Carlo laughed, which was something unusual. Chavasse was conscious of a slight, unreasoning pang of jealousy. He lay there thinking about her and the voices merged with the throbbing of the engine and the rattle of water against the hull.

He was not conscious of having slept, only of being awake and checking his watch and realizing with a shock that it was two A.M. Orsini was sleeping on the far bunk, his face calm, one arm behind his head, and Chavasse pulled on his reefer coat and went on deck.

Mist swirled from the water and the Buona Esperanza kicked along at a tremendous pace. There was no moon, but stars were scattered across the sky like diamonds in a black velvet cushion and there was still that strange luminosity in the water.

Carlo was standing at the wheel, his head disembodied in the light from the binnacle. Chavasse moved in and lit a cigarette. “How are we doing?”

“Fine,” Carlo said. “Keep her on one-four-oh till three A.M. then alter course to one-four-five. Guilio said he’d be up around four. We should be near the coast by then.”

The door banged behind him and a small trapped wind lifted the charts, raced round the deckhouse looking for a way out and died in a corner. Chavasse pulled a seat down from the wall and sat back, his hands steady on the wheel.

This was what he liked more than anything else. To be alone with the sea and the night and a boat. Something deep in his subconscious, some race image handed on from his Breton ancestors, responded to the challenge. Men who had loved the sea more than any woman, who sailed to the Grand Banks of the North American coast to fish for cod, long before Columbus or the Cabots had dreamed of crossing the Atlantic.

The door opened suddenly as rain dashed against the window and he was aware of the heavy aroma of coffee, together with another, more subtle fragrance.

“What’s wrong with bed at this time in the morning?” he demanded.

She chuckled softly. “Oh, this is much more fun. How are we doing?”

“Dead on course. Another hour and Orsini takes over for the final run-in.”

She pulled a seat down beside him, balanced her tray on the chart table and poured coffee into two mugs. “What about a sandwich?”

He was surprised at the keenness of his appetite and they ate in companionable and intimate silence, thighs touching. Afterwards, he gave her a cigarette and she poured more coffee.

“What do you think our chances are, Paul?” she said. “The truth now.”

“All depends on how accurately your brother plotted the final position of the launch when she sank. If we can find her without too much trouble, the rest should be plain sailing. Diving for the Madonna will be no great trick in water of that depth. Depending on weather conditions, we could be on our way back by this evening.”

“And you don’t anticipate any trouble in the Drin Gulf?”

“From the Albanian navy?” He shook his head. “From an efficiency point of view, it’s almost nonexistent. The Russians had a lot of stuff based here before the big bust-up, but they withdrew when Hoxha refused to toe the line. Something he hadn’t reckoned on and China’s too far away to give him that kind of assistance.”

“What a country.” She shook her head. “I can well believe the old story about God having nothing but trouble left to give when it came to Albania’s turn.”

Chavasse nodded. “Not exactly a happy history.”

“A succession of conquerors, more than any other country in Europe. Greeks, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Serbs, Bulgars, Sicilians, Venetians, Normans and Turks. They’ve all held the country for varying periods.”

“And always, the people have struggled to be free.” Chavasse shook his head. “How ironic life can be. After centuries of desperately fighting for independence, Albania receives it, only to find herself in the grip of a tyranny worse than any that has gone before.”

“Is it really as bad as they say?”

He nodded. “The sigurmi are everywhere. Even the Italian Workers’ Holiday Association complain that they get one sigurmi agent allocated to each member of their holiday parties. Even at a rough estimate, Hoxha and his boys have purged better than one hundred thousand people since he took over, and you know yourself how the various religious groups have been treated. Stalin would have been proud of him. An apt pupil.”

He took out his cigarettes and offered her one. She smoked silently for a while and then said slowly, “Last year, two of your people who were operating temporarily through the Bureau in Rome went missing. One in Albania, the other in Turkey.”

Chavasse nodded. “Matt Sorley and Jules Dumont. Good men both.”

“How can you go on living the life you do? That sort of thing must happen a lot. Look how close you came to not getting out of Tirana.”

“Maybe I just never grew up,” he said lightly.

“How did it all begin?”

“Quite by chance. I was lecturing in languages at a British university, a friend wanted to pull a relative out of Czechoslovakia and I gave him a hand. That’s when the Chief pulled me in. At that time he was interested in people who spoke Eastern European languages.”

“An unusual accomplishment.”

“Some people can work out cube roots in their heads in seconds, others can never forget anything they ever read. I have the same sort of kink for languages. I soak them up like a sponge – no effort.”

She lapsed into fluent Albanian. “Isn’t it a little unnerving? Don’t you ever get your wires crossed?”

“Not that I can recall,” he replied faultlessly in the same language. “I can’t afford that kind of mistake. If it’s any consolation, I still can’t read a Chinese newspaper. On the other hand, I’ve only ever met two Europeans who could.”

“With that kind of flair plus your academic training, you could pick up a chair in modern languages at almost any university in Britain or the States,” she said. “Doesn’t the thought appeal to you?”

“Not in the slightest. I got into this sort of work by chance, and by chance I possessed all the virtues needed to make me good at it.”

“You mean you actually enjoy it?”

“Something like that. If I’d been born in Germany twenty years earlier, I’d probably have ended up in the Gestapo. If I’d been born an Albanian, I might well have been a most efficient member of the sigurmi. Who knows?”

She seemed shocked. “I don’t believe you.”

“Why not? It takes a certain type of man or woman to do our kind of work – a professional. I can recognize the quality, and appreciate it, in my opposite numbers. I don’t see anything wrong in that.”

There was a strained silence as if in some way he had disappointed her. She reached for the tray. “I’d better take these below. We must be getting close.”

The door closed behind her and Chavasse opened the window and breathed in the sharp morning air feeling rather sad. So often people like her, the fringe crowd who did the paperwork, manned the radios, decoded the messages, could never really know what it was like in the field. What it took to survive. Well, he, Paul Chavasse, had survived, and not by waving any flags, either.

Then what in the hell are you doing here? he asked himself, and a rueful smile crossed his face. What was it Orsini had said? The things we do for the ladies. And he was right, this one was something special – something very special.

The door swung open and Orsini entered, immense in his old reefer coat and peaked cap on the side of his head. “Everything all right, Paul?”

Chavasse nodded and handed over the wheel. “Couldn’t be better.”

Orsini lit another of his inevitable cheroots. “Good. Shouldn’t be long now.”

Dawn seeped into the sky, a gray half-light with a heavy mist rolling across the water. Orsini asked Chavasse to take over again and consulted the charts. He checked the cross-bearing Francesca had given him and traced a possible course in from the sea through the maze of channels marked on the chart.

“Everything okay?” Chavasse asked.

Orsini came back to the wheel and shrugged. “I know these charts. Four or five fathoms and a strong tidal current. That means that one day there’s a sandbank, the next, ten fathoms of clear water. Estuary marshes are always the same. We’ll go in through the main outlet of the Buene and turn into the marshes about half a mile inland. Not only safer, but a dammed sight quicker.”

THE MIST ENFOLDED THEM UNTIL THEY were running through an enclosed world. Orsini reduced speed to ten knots and, a few moments later, Carlo and Francesca came up from below.

Chavasse went and stood in the prow, hands in pockets, and the marshes drifted out of the mist and their stench filled his nostrils. Wildfowl called overhead on their way in from the sea and Carlo moved beside him and crossed himself.

“A bad place, this. Always, I am glad to leave.”

It was a landscape from a nightmare. Long, narrow sandbanks lifted from the water, and inland mile upon mile of marsh grass and great reeds marched into the mist, interlaced by a thousand creeks and lagoons.

Orsini reduced speed to three knots and leaned from the side window, watching the reeds drift by on either side. Chavasse moved along the deck and looked up at him.

“How far are we from the position Francesca gave?”

“Perhaps three miles, but the going would be too difficult. In a little while we must carry on in the dinghy. Much safer.”

“And who minds the launch?”

“Carlo – it’s all arranged. He isn’t pleased, but then he seldom is about anything.”

He grinned down at Carlo, who glared up at him and went below. Chavasse moved back along the deck and joined Francesca in the prow. A few moments later the launch entered a small lagoon, perhaps a hundred feet in diameter, and Orsini cut the engines.

They glided forward and grounded gently against a sandbank as he came out on deck and joined them. He slipped an arm around Francesca’s shoulders and smiled down at her.

“Not long now, cara. A few more hours and we’ll be on our way home again. I, Guilio Orsini, promise you.”

She looked up at him gravely, then turned to Chavasse, a strange, shadowed expression in her eyes, and for some unaccountable reason, he shivered.