Time passed, and a very cold, shivering and miserable time it was too. I thought it was impossible for me to become any colder and wetter than I was but I was wrong, for about four in the morning the sky darkened and it began to rain and I had never felt rain so cold. By this time what little was left of my body heat had managed partially to dry off some of the inner layers of clothing, but from the waist down — the canvas jacket provided reasonable protection — it just proved to have been a waste of time. I hoped that when the time came that I had to move and take to the water again I wouldn’t have reached that state of numbed paralysis where all I could do was sink.
The first light of the false dawn was in the sky now and I could vaguely distinguish the blurred outlines of land to the south and east. Then it became darker again and for a time I could see nothing, and then the true dawn began to spread palely from the east and I could see land once more and gradually came to the conclusion that we were fairly close in to the north shore of Huyler and about to curve away to the south-west and then south towards the island’s little harbour.
I had never appreciated that those damned barges moved so slowly. As far as the coastline of Huyler was concerned, the barge seemed to be standing still in the water. The last thing I wished to happen was to approach the Huyler shore in broad daylight and give rise to comment on the part of the inevitable ship-watchers as to why a crew member should be so eccentric as to prefer the cold roof of the wheelhouse to the warmth inside. I thought of the warmth inside and put the thought out of my mind.
The sun appeared over the far shore of the Zuider Zee but it was no good to me, it was one of those peculiar suns that were no good at drying out clothes and after a little I was glad to see that it was one of those early-morning suns that promised only to deceive, for it was quickly overspread by a pall of dark cloud and soon that slanting freezing rain was hard at work again, stopping what little circulation I had left. I was glad because the cloud had the effect of darkening the atmosphere again and the rain might persuade the harbour rubber-neckers to stay at home.
We were coming towards journey’s end. The rain, now mercifully, had strengthened to the extent where it was beginning to hurt my exposed face and hands and was hissing whitely into the sea: visibility was down to only a couple of hundred yards and although I could see the end of the row of navigation marks towards which the barge was now curving, I couldn’t see the harbour beyond.
I wrapped the gun up in its waterproof cover and jammed it in its holster. It would have been safer, as I’d done previously, to have put it in the zipped pocket of my canvas jacket, but I wasn’t going to take the canvas jacket with me. At least, not far: I was so numbed and weakened by the long night’s experience that the cramping and confining effects of that cumbersome jacket could have made all the difference between my reaching shore or not: another thing I’d carelessly forgotten to take with me was an inflatable life-jacket or belt.
I wriggled out of the canvas jacket and balled it up under my arm. The wind suddenly felt a good deal icier than ever but the time for worrying about that was gone. I slithered along the wheelhouse roof, slid silently down the ladder, crawled below the level of the now uncurtained cabin windows, glanced quickly for’ard — an unnecessary precaution, no one in his right mind would have been out on deck at that moment unless he had to — dropped the canvas jacket overboard, swung across the stern-quarter, lowered myself to the full length of my arms, checked that the screw was well clear of my vicinity, and let go.
It was warmer in the sea than it had been on the wheel-house roof, which was as well for me as I felt myself to be almost frighteningly weak. It had been my intention to tread water until the barge had entered harbour, or at least, under these prevailing conditions, it had disappeared into the murk of the rain, but if ever there was a time for dispensing with refinements this was it. My primary concern, my only concern at the moment, was survival. I ploughed on after the fast receding stern of the barge with the best speed I could muster.
It was a swim, not more than ten minutes in duration, that any six-year-old in good training could have accomplished with ease, but I was way below that standard that morning, and though I can’t claim it was a matter of touch and go, I couldn’t possibly have done it a second time. When I could clearly see the harbour wall I sheered off from the navigation marks, leaving them to my right, and finally made shore.
I sloshed my way up the beach and, as if by a signal, the rain suddenly stopped. Cautiously, I made my way up the slight eminence of earth before me, the top of which was level with the top of the harbour wall, stretched myself flat on the soaking ground and cautiously lifted my head.
Immediately to the right of me were the two tiny rectangular harbours of Huyler, the outer leading by a narrow passage to the inner. Beyond the inner harbour lay the pretty picture-postcard village of Huyler itself, which, with the exception of the one long and two short straight streets lining the inner harbour itself, was a charming maze of twisting roads and a crazy conglomeration of, mainly, green and white painted houses mounted on stilts as a precaution against flood-water. The stilts were walled in for use as cellars, the entrance to the houses being by outside wooden stairs to the first floor.
I returned my attention to the outer harbour. The barge was berthed alongside its inner wall and the unloading of the cargo was already busily under way. Two small shore derricks lifted a succession of crates and sacks from the unbattened holds, but I had no interest in those crates and sacks, which were certainly perfectly legitimate cargo, but in the small metal box that had been picked up from the sea and which I was equally certain was the most illegitimate cargo imaginable. So I let the legitimate cargo look after itself and concentrated my attention on the cabin of the barge. I hoped to God I wasn’t already too late, although I could hardly see how I could have been.
I wasn’t, but it had been a near thing. Less than thirty seconds after I had begun my surveillance of the cabin, two men emerged, one carrying a sack over his shoulder. Although the sack’s contents had clearly been heavily padded, there was an unmistakable angularity to it that left me in little doubt that this was the case that interested me.
The two men went ashore. I watched them for a few moments to get a general idea of the direction they were taking, slid back down the muddy bank — another item on my expense account, my suit had taken a terrible beating that night — and set off to follow the two men.
They were easy to follow. Not only had they plainly no suspicion that they were being followed, those narrow and crazily winding lanes made Huyler a shadow’s paradise. Eventually the two men brought up at a long, low building on the northern outskirts of the village. The ground floor — or cellar as it would be in this village — was made of concrete. The upper storey, reached by a set of wooden steps similar to another concealing set of steps from which I was watching at a safe distance of forty yards, had tall and narrow windows with bars so closely set that a cat would have had difficulty in penetrating, the heavy door had two metal bars across it and was secured by two large padlocks. Both men mounted the stairs, the unburdened man unlocking the two padlocks and opening the door, then both passed inside. They reappeared again within twenty seconds, locked the door behind them and left. Both men were now unburdened.
I felt a momentary pang of regret that the weight of my burglar’s belt had compelled me to leave it behind that night, but one does not go swimming with considerable amounts of metal belted around one’s waist. But the regret was only momentary. Apart from the fact that fifty different windows overlooked the entrance to this heavily barred building and the fact that a total stranger would almost certainly be instantly recognizable to any of the villagers in Huyler, it was too soon yet to show my hand: minnows might make fair enough eating but it was the whales I was after and I needed the bait in that box to catch them.