10

Sookin Sin

I broke surface and retched sea water. I breathed air again, great gulps of it, instead of water. Whether the blackness was the blackness of unconsciousness, or of blindness, or of night, I could not tell — all I knew was that the air was merciful and I was getting lungfuls of it. I rid myself of more sea water. There was a phosphorescence next to me. Then a slim arm was round me, holding me as I choked.

Thank God!' It was Mary. 'Thank God, I've found you, John. Here!'

She came close and thrust something under my hands.

'What is it?'

To my dazed senses it felt like a chunk of the Loch Ness monster.

'It's some of the Mazy Zed's hose — the explosion must have blown it clear.'

Half-submerged, it was safer than a rescue dinghy and rough, like a car tyre. Its semi-floating state made it easier to grasp. She levered me up so that I lay spread-eagled, face down.

She was sobbing convulsively. 'I thought… I thought it was you… when I touched it first…'

I put out a hand to her in the darkness. Her shoulder was trembling and rags of her overall slopped about.

Her voice was thick with shock and emotion. 'I'm in a mess. My shoes are gone — I slipped them off when I swam looking for you — and…'

My anger exploded: 'I'll have Shelborne's guts for tonight's work. Radar! Patrols!.. bah!'

'Steady,' she said shakily. 'Steady, John. I've got you, which is the most important thing.'

She supported me while I choked and coughed, still half-dazed. I wanted to know what was going on, but I found myself still too weak, and put my head against her, drawing in deep breaths of fresh air.

She said softly, a little wanly, I thought, 'I could almost thank whoever did it — for this.'

I felt lulled by her presence but the lethargy which was starting to creep across my limbs was a danger sign of delayed shock. I shook the cobwebs out of my head. They sneaked right in under Bob Sheriff's patrols and torpedoed the bloody ship!'

Take it easy, John,' she said. 'You know Shelborne hasn't a fleet any more than I have. And the Kalingrad People's Atlantic Fleet…'

I had to see. I trod water and tried to heave myself up higher on the hosing, but I wasn't very successful. There was no sign of the Mazy Zed. I could not credit that one torpedo, even of the large calibre type, would have sent the Mazy Zed with all her watertight compartments to the bottom.

I said, 'It must have been a motor-boat and she still must be somewhere around. One torpedo isn't enough…'

Torpedo?' she echoed. 'Was that a torpedo?'

A line of light streaked across the part of the night that I was looking at. Tracers! Another parabola answered the first — Bob Sheriff!

The bastards!' I swore. The bloody bastards…!'

'A submarine…?' said Mary.

'No — that burst of fire was from a fast boat, maybe a hydrofoil like Sheriff's.'

They went straight for the mining equipment, didn't they?'

'Yes. It doesn't look as if they were after the diamonds we'd sucked up today, or else she would not have tried to sink the Mazy Zed. No, she was out to stop us mining — just as Shelborne tried to settle me.'

'You're wrong about him, John.'

'We'll sort that out later,' I replied roughly. This was the second time in a matter of days that I had found myself hanging on to life by a thread, thanks to Shelborne. She drew away at my tone. I went on, conciliatory. 'Was there one torpedo or two. Was there a second explosion?'

'I don't think so. I only remember a fearful crash and then I found myself in the water — looking for you.' She caught my arm, and whispered, 'Listen!'

I would have known that voice anywhere: thin, it rattled as harshly as a compressor drill, that remarkable Bushman-Hottentot patois. Skipper Koeltas! The Malgas must be close at hand, unless they were survivors like ourselves. The staccato vowels clicked like handcuffs. I started to shake with silent laughter. Never had I heard anything like it — and they're pretty tough in the Richtersveld.

'What is he saying?'

'It's about the torpedo-boat captain.' I grinned. 'Koeltas says — do you really want to know?'

'Yes. How he manages those clicks and clacks I shall never know.'

'He says the captain is a pimp and his mother the village whore — there's a lot more, a sort of potted genealogical table, a la Koeltas.'

'A la Koeltas!' she echoed.

I cupped my hands. 'Ahoy, Koeltas! You Sperrgebiet-poacher-sonofabitch!' I broke into an expletive which must have brought all Koeltas's ancestors, buried in their customary seated position, back on their feet.

The thin voice cut off in mid-sentence, and then crackled like static. The water gurgled against the thick hose, there was a north-flowing current in the bay, setting from the Mazy Zed's anchorage towards Black Sophie Rock and Plumpudding Island. These two were in the northern part of the bay among jagged reefs about a quarter of a mile from the shore. The two islets were close together and Malgas's berth was about fifty yards from Black Sophie.

Silence.

'Koeltas! Johaar! Kim!'

There was a ripple alongside the hose. Mary screamed, 'Shark! Shark!'

Her scream ended in a strangle. Someone had a hand over her mouth. I couldn't see a face, only a gleam of steel in the starlight, fluid-blue as the sea itself.

'Quiet! It is Johaar! Shut up — come. That bastard hear and shoot us up.'

The knife was in his teeth. Mary cringed against me. The improvised life-raft was pulled along by Johaar's powerful stroke. I saw the schooner's masts, then hands reached down and dragged us over the low rail on to the deck.

'Keep down!' snarled Koeltas, with a reflex burst of Richtersveld profanity.

'By Jesus, it is a woman!'

'Kim, you bladdy womanizer! I'll cut your throat if you don't shut your trap!'

From somewhere behind Plumpudding came a heavy fusillade, coupled with the drum of engines pushed beyond the limit of their revs.

Koeltas said softly, 'He's coming back for the Mazy Zed.'

'So he didn't sink her?' I asked.

'There was a hell of a bang and her lights went out,' he replied. 'No, man she's afloat. That's why he comes back…'

'With one tit hanging low,' leched Kim.

'What do you mean?'

'One of the shells went off, but the other is stuck.' said Koeltas.

By shells he meant torpedoes. One had run, but the second was fast in its firing-tube.

'Where are Commander Sheriff's men?' I went on.

Johaar laughed derisively. They were caught with their pants down, all right. They're okay for chasing a ship like the Malgas and bluffing themselves, but that bastard sank one of them. The other is throwing a lot of stuff around, but he doesn't know what in hell he's firing at.'

'Where did the boat come from?' asked Mary in a small voice.

'Lady,' said Koeltas with an odd note of deference. 'I know this place well. I know a way through the rocks between Black Sophie and Plumpudding…'

'That Cape Town tart,' said Kim, 'she was before my time.'

'Ag sis, don't be so saucy, man!' snapped Koeltas. 'Lady, I smell a ship out at sea. She waits. That's where the boat comes from.'

. 'A ship?' I echoed. 'What sort of ship waits off a peaceful coast with a torpedo-boat ready slung…?'

Koeltas laughed in his harsh, metallic laugh. 'Mister, you don't know the Sperrgebiet. There are diamonds. The Mazy Zed finds diamonds, but not for the right people. There are ships — strange ships, black ships, fast ships — and you don't see them by day. They hide themselves against the sea like the stoneplants of the Richtersveld; what is stone and what is plant you do not know.'

'Look!' exclaimed Mary. A faint luminescence, a defined line of light, was becoming visible. The moon was rising behind the dunes. Very soon the enemy would give the Mazy Zed the coup de grace.

'We must sink her.'

It was light enough for me to see the wiry little yellow man lying on the deck in his oilskin. The Tartar's eyes were as savage as his voice. Mary lay next to me, shivering in a pool of sea water. I could sense Kim's eyes burning on the outline of her body under the soaked remnants of her overall.

'With your Standard Police Smith and Wesson,' sneered Johaar. 'Yes, we'll sink her all right, man.'

'He'll think you're a spook with that silencer,' added Kim. 'Yes, let's shoot him up with the thirty-eight!'

They all laughed, including Koeltas.

'Wait!' snapped Koeltas. 'Listen!'

A strong roar of motors reverberated from the direction of Plumpudding Island, but Black Sophie Rock cut across our line of vision. It was growing lighter. Then, about 1000 yards away, I saw a vicious cream of water and the torpedo-boat shot into view. She was a fine sight, blurred in her own spray but listing to port as she rode high on the hydrofoils. A torpedo hung, half-in and half-out, of one firing tube. She raced towards the Malgas at fifty knots, I reckoned. Out of sight there came another scream of hard-pressed engines. Bob Sheriff was far behind. Then the enemy boat was abreast the Malgas. I looked into the twin muzzles of the quickfirer mounted on the cabin roof as they bore on us. I dragged Mary nearer, waiting for the guts-tearing, flaring rip of incendiary bullets which would reduce the schooner to a flaming mass of wooden splinters. Perhaps she was saving the whole weight of her metal for the Mazy Zed, for she simply thundered past, rocking us wildly.

'She sits up like a dog,' said Koeltas admiringly. 'You sink her, mister?'

They all turned and looked at me. Their best and most effective weapon, the FN automatic, would be useless against the hydrofoil craft. And the Malgas was immobile — a sailing ship at anchor against a fifty-knotter!

'Anyone see her name?' I asked lamely.

'Sookin Sin,' said Mary.

'What the hell's that?' growled Koeltas.

'It's not important anyway,' I replied, trying to think as the enemy lined herself up to rake the Mazy Zed. Six anchors! They couldn't even cut the ungainly barge adrift. I visualized the anchorage, Sinclair Island and its nearby promontory. The enemy would have to continue on between the Mazy Zed and Sinclair because at her speed there would be no room to turn; if she did, she'd run into Sheriff, who was now screaming out from behind Plumpudding in pursuit. Between Sinclair and the shore there was less than 300 yards. There came into my mind the idea of a trip-rope. Three hundred yards… Black Sophie was closer than that to the Malgas. If only… I glanced across the water to the rock, feverishly measuring, calculating. If I could rig a heavy cable between the schooner and the rock…

'Johaar! Could you swim to Black Sophie and fix a line…' I outlined my plan while we stood transfixed, waiting for the ripping burst at the Mazy Zed, visible now under the rising moon.

There it was! A polka-dot of flame bickered along the upperworks.

'He's stopped firing!' exclaimed Mary.

That short volley could not have done much harm.

'Gun jammed,' I said tersely. 'He'll clear the stoppage and return.'

Koeltas's eyes were so slitted that they seemed closed. He was dubious about the kingpin of my plan. 'That bastard does not wish to make war on an old ship like the Malgas. Unless…' — he switched into patois to express himself. 'The jackal is very, very cunning, and if you put a trap down with meat, he comes and smells human and laughs and goes away. But if you can make him really think it is not a trap, then…'

'That boat is not a seal you can hit over the head with a club.' said Kim.

Seals! The idea was born with the word! What had Koeltas himself said when they fished me, half-dead, off the blinder? — 'other nights we float in an old oil drum with dinnameet and a fuse.' Oil drums charged with dynamite! But we'd have to be quick, mighty quick, if my plan were to have a chance of succeeding. The torpedo-boat was already making for the gap between Sinclair Island and the promontory. The north-flowing current which had helped save Mary and myself had its place in my trap. Koeltas confirmed that the current was strong between Black Sophie Rock and the shore. A dozen mathematical problems of time and distance leapt into my mind; I needed an electronic computer, not a slow human brain. How much fuse should I allow? How long.would the torpedo-boat take before reaching the Malgas again, granting her fifty knots? Would she follow the same course. Would she skirt the foul ground, the, rocks and the blinders through which she had torn so gracefully before? Seeing she was now headed seawards she might prefer the" main entrance to Angras Juntas instead of the way she had come in first time. If she did, my whole plan fell to the ground.

'Kim! Get me six drums of dynamite — do you have to fill them?'

'No, he grinned. 'They're loaded, ready. Just cut the fuse the right length…'

'How much dynamite in each drum?'

'Some have thirty pounds — for the small jobs — some fifty…'

Fifty pounds of high explosive! That was better than I had hoped for. It would have to be a really old-fashioned firing job, coupled with a most up-to-date piece of calculation. If the drums detonated before the torpedo-boat was firmly committed to a course near the Malgas, she would simply veer out of harm's way round the northern flank of Black Sophie and bear directly down on her main sitting target, the Mazy Zed, from the other direction.

'Bring six fifty-pounders.' I ordered.

Kim's voice rippled with excitement. 'And fuse — how much?'

I paused. The length of fuse was vital. 'Koeltas, the current — three knots?'

The thrill of action was in his harsh voice too. 'Nee, nee! Four, maybe four and a half.'

Four and a half knots! Say the hydrofoil would complete a five-mile circuit at fifty knots, followed by a three-mile run-in to her target the length of the bay — 'Seven and a half minutes!' I told Kim. 'And cut that bloody fuse exactly!'

'Kim knows how!' grinned Johaar. 'Now give me the rope and I swim to Black Sophie.'

'Swim to Black Sophie!' Kim started for the explosives, reaching, and drawing a heavy clasp-knife to cut the fuse.

'Cut the cackle!' My nerves were ragged. The pay-off if the fuse were too long or too short would be a bellyful of heavy machine-gun bullets. 'Where is the torpedo-boat now?'

'She's between Sinclair Island and the promontory,' replied Mary. 'You can hear the sound of the engine choking off the cliffs.'

'That's where I hoped she would make for. Johaar, how long will it take you to swim to Black Sophie?'

'Six, seven minutes.'

'With the line around you?'

'Easy.'

I turned to Koeltas. The rope.'

'I pull down the rigging to get that bastard.'

Johaar slipped a light line round his waist, putting the knife between his teeth again. He wore only a pair of shorts. He stood poised on the low rail while two of the crew hastily knotted the pilot line to a two-inch manila from the forrad sail locker.

'If I catch anyone, I cut his throat?' Johaar inquired genially.

'No! I want him alive — I want to find out who is at the bottom of all this.'

Johaar shrugged. 'Okay. But I'll beat him like a donkey first.' He went over the side.

Zero hour! I checked my watch.

'Prepare to get the drums overboard! One from the bows, one from the stern, and the rest at intervals along the side!'

Koeltas flayed his men with his thin voice, good though they were. 'Not altogether, you stupid clots! I want a neat line of drums in the sea!'

The crew grabbed the canisters and took station. I borrowed a battered old Ronson from Koeltas. Then, one after another, six fuses came sputtering to life. Three hundred pounds of high explosive, with fuses burning!

Seven minutes to go!

I raised my hand. 'Let go!'

Expertly, the crew got the drums clear. They fanned out as they floated away. The sinister red tops and pinpoint fuses formed a deadly line under the hard moon.

Six minutes!

Mary was at my side. 'Johaar is in trouble.'

I raced to the stern with her, Koeltas and Kim. We could see his head and the powerful thrash of his arms. He had underestimated the current; he was being swept away from Black Sophie. The way he was going, he'd finish up among the drums as they exploded. Koeltas, wordless, seized my wrist and looked at my watch. His eyes went to the guano-daubed rock and then to the white scar of the torpedo-boat's track.

'He'll never make it' — the patois was strained, brittle, a cacophony of clicks and clacks.

He snatched up an axe from the belaying-pin rail and cut Johaar's rope.

'What the hell…!' With one stroke, Koeltas had wrecked my whole operation. I grabbed at him, but with the strength of a steel spring he shook me clear and lumped on to the low rail, cupping his hands. The foam was at the corners of his mouth from the rattle of words. 'Johaar! Let go! Swim there! I'll shoot a rope. Fasten it on Black Sophie!'

Five minutes!

Koeltas dived below. Free of the rope, Johaar turned like an eel and struck strongly towards the rock. Koeltas came back with a small rocket line-gun, the sort of thing for firing a light line to rig a breeches buoy.

Four and a half minutes!

The hydrofoil swung in from the sea.

Koeltas did not wait for Johaar to reach shore. He touched the fuse. We stood back. Mary's face flared blue in its light. The line arced over Johaar's head. We saw the marker burning bright among the rocks.

Four minutes!

The torpedo-boat emerged from the lee of Plumpudding Island. Sheriff's craft was still out at sea. The enemy boat did a series of dainty side-steps through the blinders.

Three minutes!

Johaar scrambled ashore. He snatched the light line and started hauling in the heavier manila. The crew paid it out in return, shouting and gesticulating at the approaching menace.

Two minutes!

The heavy rope reached Johaar. He vaulted over rocks, stumbled, rose, making for a pinnacle about twelve feet high. In my anxiety over him, I had lost sight of the line of drifting drums. The torpedo-boat was rushing towards them at fifty knots; they drifted across at four knots.

One minute!

Johaar raised a dripping arm. I saw his grotesque, python-like piebald markings in the moonlight.

Throttle wide open, bumping against the set of the current, the torpedo-boat screamed down at the schooner. This time there was no doubt about her intentions. The twin muzzles were locked on us.

Zero!

Black Sophie Rock abeam!

The first drum exploded far to port of the enemy, almost among the breakers. The second, closer, followed almost at once. The boat shied like a Polaris breaking surface. The helm went over hard and she streaked for the gap between the Malgas and Black Sophie. Mary, Koeltas, Kim and I — and the rest of the crew — stood at the rails without a thought of the deadly twin muzzle's. They were swinging hard now, trying to regain their lost target. Four other drums exploded like a badly-timed broadside. The craft skidded sideways, hydrofoils fighting for a grip, away from the ragged detonations. She lay hard over on her starboard side: the loose torpedo jinked up and down. Fifty knots and a live torpedo hanging loose! Let her touch the trip-wire with that…

I never saw her die. One moment the superb craft was creaming along as fast as a torpedo itself, the next — the Malgas jerked on the end of the rope. There was a shattering roar, a blinding flash. The torpedo exploded. The gun-mounting cartwheeled high into the night, like a discarded space booster rocket. A foul dribble of obscenities dripped from Koeltas's mouth and the yellow skin was taut to whiteness over the high Tartar cheekbones.

Kim mouthed, 'Black Sophie! My beautiful bitch! My Beautiful bitch!'

I caught the flash of Johaar's knife blade waved in frantic glee. Then he took a flying header into the breakers and came ploughing across to us. He and Bob Sheriff's boat arrived simultaneously. The power cut and she sank on her hull, gliding to the schooner's side.

'Give us a light, blast you!'

I wasn't surprised at Sheriff's tone, standing outlined in the torch beam, capless, oilskins streaming.

'What the hell gives?' he demanded, jumping on to the deck. 'What sort of party is this, Tregard? I heard a couple of small explosions and then one hell of a big one. The other craft's disappeared…'

Kim said, aping the Royal Navy's accent. 'Simple matter of a trip-rope, old boy. Nothing simpler. Nothing at all, on my oath!'

Sheriff turned on him savagely. 'Who the hell are you anyway?'

I think Koeltas, Johaar and Kim would have torn him to pieces if I had not intervened. 'These are my pirates,' I said placatingly. 'They are capable of almost anything. Don't give them too many excuses.'

Sheriff shrugged and called across to the patrol boat, 'Watson, if there's any trouble aboard this ship, you know what to do.'

The bearded figure at the gun nodded. 'Aye, aye, sir.'

'Listen,' I said. 'That's not the sort of threat I care for, any more than your tone with these chaps. We have done your job — we sank her almost with our bare hands.'

'Christ!' he exploded. 'That's exactly what I'm bitching about! How the hell did you get here from the Mazy Zed?'

Mary laughed, and her voice eased the tension. 'We went into orbit.' She explained the torpedoing, our rescue, the canisters of dynamite, the trip-rope.

Sheriff listened in amazement and then laughed ruefully. 'Seems you boys know a lot about in-fighting that I don't.' He came over and gripped my arm, a sort of clubman's gesture, and said formally to Koeltas, 'Thank you for your invaluable assistance.'

Koeltas looked disconcerted. The vowels clicked and I translated. '"That's all right, we just buggered him up nicely."'

Kim leered. 'Man, he talks like a fancy love-boy, but underneath I think he's tough.'

Johaar refused to be left out of the accolades. 'I swim. I tie the rope.'

'Is this Man Friday or Long John Silver?' Sheriff asked.

I grinned. 'All of us have got scores to settle up the coast.' I gestured to the north. 'We intend going about it in our own way…'

'I hate to think what that might be.'

'If you'd like them on your side, you only have to offer them a ride in your speedboat.'

He laughed. 'Hell, of course! I have to report to the Mazy Zed anyway.'

Across the anchorage at the barge, a small emergency light had been rigged on the wrecked gantry.

'Come on, chaps, let's get going.'

It was too short a distance to the Mazy Zed to use the hydrofoils, although Koeltas begged a quick feel of the helm. Watson, the gunner, gazed at the lot of us with the sort of disapproval that only a former Chief Petty Officer of the Royal Navy can exude.

I found a windcheater for Mary, who had become very quiet. 'Cold?' I asked.

'Yes, John,' she replied. 'Cold inside. We seem to be being guided inexorably into violence and death. I fear Mercury and I fear your meeting Shelborne again. I like you both — terribly, and I can't bear it. It's like two express trains who believe the points are right but are racing for head-on collision.'

The small figure stood in a pool of sea water — torn, ragged, her hair astray. The swift passage of phosphorescence was reflected in her amber eyes. Once again, I was puzzled by my feelings for her — warmth, closeness, a curious intuition of her moods, but lacking in something. She looked at me, and I at her.

We bumped alongside the Mazy Zed.

Under the jury light I could see where the machine-gun bullets had stripped metal and rubber raw. A big section of hose was missing, probably the piece Mary and I had used as a raft. The hull had a hole about the size of a piano. For a radius of about twenty feet round it the plating was buckled. It did not seem too bad for me. The explosion had largely dissipated itself.

Rhennin was shouting orders when he caught sight of Mary and myself. He helped us aboard. 'Thank God! I thought you both had bought it up on deck… Venter! Get a couple of blankets! Rustle up a steward. I want hot drinks — rum. No, coffee and rum. Quick!'

'Don't thank me, Felix, thank my pirates.'

'You sank her?'

I told him briefly. He whistled at the name Mary had seen on the boat. 'Sookin Sin — know what that means?'

I shrugged.

'I do,' he said quietly. 'It's Russian. Sonofabitch. Pretty low class. Koeltas category.'

I too exclaimed. 'That Second Atlantic People's Fleet, or whatever it calls itself?'

'Could be. Hell on them! I don't want the Mazy Zed spotlighted in an international incident.'

I shrugged. 'She made the attack, not us. What is the Mazy Zed like below?'

'She shipped some water, but it was more a hell of a noise than anything. I thought we'd sucked up Davy Jones himself from his locker — bellowing!'

'And the machine-gunning?' Mary asked.

'They shot away the hoses, but we have hundreds of feet of it in reserve below. A couple of hours will see that fixed. And it's going to be fixed. The nozzles still look okay to me; no bullets penetrated.'

The electric power snapped on. The deck was white under the floodlights, set up for working twenty-four-hours-a-day shifts. Mary and I in our blankets were a couple of scarecrows in the general untidy picture of the deck"- twisted metal, scarred steel, blackened plating.

'I want a full damage assessment in half an hour,' Rhennin said to the chief engineer. He turned to Sheriff. 'See what clues you can find — bodies, flotsam of any sort. Slap it about, will you, Bob: we'll talk about the other part of it later.'

Sheriff glowered under his tan. 'I have yet to have a radar warning from those so-and-so's on Sinclair — I can't see in the dark.'

Rhennin went on, 'They won't risk a second attack — you can use your spotlight.'

'Aye, aye.'

Koeltas called to me. Rhennin waited until his rapid-fire request was done» 'Who is that, John?'

'Skipper Koeltas. He wants to go out to sea. There's a ship from which the boat came, he says — he smells it.'

'No,' he replied. 'It's been a costly enough night's work without endangering Bob again. Any survivors from our other boat?'

'All safe,' replied Sheriff. 'I pulled them out of the water. Walker, the engineer, is shot up — the burst caught her in the engine room. Went up like a ruddy Roman candle.'

Venter came to tell Rhennin that drinks and dry clothes were in his cabin. He shepherded us below like a couple of children. Mary went to change after a stiff pull of the cook's brew. I stripped in the cabin and drank more coffee while Rhennin prowled up and down. The telephone told us that the Mazy Zed had suffered less damage than most of us thought; it was the crew's morale that had suffered, and some of them were talking of returning to Cape Town.

In ten minutes Mary was back in black slacks and a black-and-white poncho top, with heelless black casuals. Rhennin waited without comment while we gave him a full account of the attack.

Then he said sharply to me, 'So you reckon Shelborne did it?'

'I'm sure he didn't make the attack.' -

'What do you mean?'

'If we could get to Mercury tonight on a magic carpet, we'd find Shelborne asleep in his bed. Or on Sudhuk, if the bells are…' I fumbled for the word.

'Ringing?'

They don't ring. It's a curious reverberating noise, like down-horizon gunfire, but throatier.'

Rhennin picked his words. 'See here, John. Assume that Shelborne had the resources to launch tonight's attack, why would he do it? Again, assume that he knows the whereabouts of the diamond fountainhead, why not cash in on that? He could name his price — it could be worth a million to him, even if there are big technical difficulties. His knowledge of what those problems are would in itself be worth a fortune.'

I shook my head. 'No, Felix, it's much deeper than that with Shelborne. It is some obscure and involved question of redemption — to make up for his killing of Caldwell, maybe. Redemption. Maybe that's Shelborne's aim, a wager with fate for his friend's bad deal, if you like.'

Mary said, 'The way you put it, it's just as if he had taken over- my father's personality.'

'And his luck,' I replied.

'What of my brother's luck?' asked Rhennin.

'The one meshes in with the other,' I started to say, but Mary interrupted: 'No, John, not the way I see it. The fate of Korvettenkapitan Rhennin might be a lead to the other, but it would be of subordinate importance at all times in Shelborne's mind if what you think about him is true. Say Shelborne knew the whereabouts of the Goering hoard. Why not simply unearth it and live in luxury for the rest of his life?'

'Because,' I said quietly, 'something guards both the cache and the parent rock, something pretty hideous. A killer on whom five U-boats could make no impression…'

'This is fanciful,' rejoined Rhennin angrily.

It was Mary who took the acerbity out of the conversation. 'A skeleton in the Glory Hole, let's say.'

We all laughed. Rhennin picked up the phone. 'Mac,' he said crisply, 'we sail before dawn. I want a rough patch over the hole for a three-day tow…'

The instrument crackled like the Koeltas vernacular.

'Well, so what?' asked Rhennin. 'Shore up the inner bulkhead, and I'll tow her stern-on to Mercury. With the Mazy Zed, it doesn't make much odds whether it's stern or bow.'

The instrument crackled again. 'Those are orders,' he snapped. 'Orders. It may be wet, but we won't sink.' He slapped the receiver down.

Mary and I looked at one another and at him. 'Aren't you taking a big risk, Felix?'

He got to his feet with the decisiveness which had taken him to the top in the Germany Navy. 'We sail — now. They'll expect us to stay and patch the Mazy Zed. They'll be back tomorrow and won't make the same mistake a second time. If we clear out, they won't know where to look.'

He pressed an intercom. 'Du Plooy! Get Captain Anderson on the shortwave. No long-distance stuff, see? I don't want this overheard. The tug will be alongside, ready to tow, at 0400 hours — clear?' He flicked another switch. 'Captain Longstaff: the Mazy Zed sails at 0400. The tug will be ready at that time. Start getting in the anchors-now.'

There was an indignant crackle over the phone and Mary and I smiled.

'Where to?' asked Rhennin. 'Mercury Island. Where is that? In Spencer Bay. Mr Tregard will brief you. Okay then. The safety of the ship is my concern too. Escort? Sheriff and the schooner will be convoy guards…' There was another outburst at the other end and he looked up at us and grinned. 'If you don't like it, Captain, by all means stay at Angras Juntas. The next ship may be along in six months.'

He put down the instrument. He was excited, tense. 'If Shelborne signalled the People's Atlantic Fleet to make tonight's visitation, then he's got another big think coming when we show up at Mercury; Sookin Sin to him!'

Mary suddenly looked grave. 'Sookin Sin! But John how could I have been able to read it if it was written in Russian?'

Rhennin stopped short in his rapid-fire orders. 'By God! How? It must have been faked — a Russian word in English writing?'

'Something else that stinks around Mercury,' I said.

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