They sank down through the clear water, the spear-gun spiralling off to one side. Mallory wrenched again with his free hand, pulling away the mask, and the man’s face turned up, contorted with fear.
Mallory hung on, even when a clutching hand reached backwards, wrenching away his own air-hose. He com-pressed his lips and tightened his grip. Blood began to seep from the man’s nostrils in two clouds and a moment later he swung loosely against Mallory’s arm. Mallory unlocked his fingers and the body bounced away, spun round twice and started to sink.
There was a roaring in his ears and his temples pounded. He kicked for the surface and bumped against the side of the dinghy, gasping and choking for breath. Guyon reached over and graspedhis outstretched hand and Mallory stumbled up the sloping shelf of rock and crouched on his hands and knees, chest heaving.
Guyon jumped knee-deep into the water beside him and helped him up, pulling away the mask, his face strained and anxious in the moonlight. When he spoke his voice sounded faint and far away and Mallory shook his head several times.
The roaring subsided abruptly and he gasped: “No time for questions. I ran into a little trouble. We’d better get moving.”
“You foundL’Alouette !”
“She’s there, all right. Moored to the jetty under the island just like we thought. Room for a couple more from the look of the place.”
He unbuckled the heavy aqualung, swung it into the prow and clambered aboard the dinghy. As he started the out-board motor Guyon unhooked the painter and followed him. A second later and the dinghy was moving back towards lie de Roc, following the twisting channel between the great rocks which already reared up on either side as the tide turned.
“What happens now?” Guyon said.
“We call up Leviathan the moment we get back. Those motor torpedo boats from St. Helier will be here before you know it.”
The dinghy rocked in the turbulence as it swept on a fast current between high black walls and turned towards the point. Behind them a full-throated roar shattered the night and Guyon raised the night-glasses and looked back. When he took them down his face looked very white in the moon-light.
“It’s that damned speedboat of de Beaumont’s. Coming up fast on this side of the reef. Must be doing all of fifteen knots.”
Mallory glanced back, catching a brief glimpse of the thin pencil of light that was the speedboat’s spot, and opened the throttle of the dinghy’s outboard motor. The strong current was running against them now as they tried to breast the point, and the light craft was twisted round, a wave splash-ing across her prow.
“Throw the aqualung overboard,” Mallory shouted.
Guyon scrambled to his knees, reached for the straps, heaved and slid the aqualung over. There was an immediate difference, the prow riding over the next wave, and they turned the point and moved into what should have been calmer water.
The turning tide at this point clashed headlong with the usual strong coastal current, and all around them great patches of white water joined with others, sending irregular waves cascading against the cliffs, the undertow sucking them out again.
The dinghy wallowed in the trough between two great swells, her speed cut in half, and, behind, the roar of the speedboat drew inexorably nearer.
“We’ll never make it to the harbour,” Guyon called. “A couple more minutes and they’ll see us.”
A great heaving swell was building up to starboard. As it swept in, lifting the dinghy high into the air, Mallory caught a glimpse of Hamish Grant’s house tucked into a fold at the top of the cliffs, a light shining in one of the ground-floor rooms. He swung the tiller over and the current drove the dinghy in towards the cliffs at tremendous speed.
The gap in the inlet had been at least twenty yards across, but the real problem was that line of jagged rocks blocking the entrance as surely as if it had been a steel portcullis. The one slim hope was that the waves, sweeping in, would raise the water-level and carry them over.