went on so softly that I could hardly hear her above the storm: “i can
just see carreras ripping those bandages off your leg and finding out
that your thigh is not broken. You know what will happen then?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” she said the words calmly, matter -of factly,
as if they were of no particular significance. “Another thing. You
said everybody would know the setup within a few hours. The two radio
operators carreras has planted on the ticonderoga will know immediately.
They will immediately radio the news back to the campari to carreras.”
“After i’m finished in the wireless office no one will ever
be able to send or receive on that set again.”
“All right. So you’ll smash it up. That itself would be enough to
let carreras know what you’ve done. And you can’t smash up every radio
receiver on the campari. You can’t, for instance, get near the ones in
the drawing room. Everybody will know, you say. That means the
generalissimo and his government will know also, and then all the
stations on the island will do nothing but keep up a non-stop broadcast
of the news. Carreras is bound to hear it.”
I said nothing. I thought vaguely that I must have lost a great
deal of blood. Her mind was working about ten times as quickly and
clearly as mine. Not that that made her very smart.
she went on: “you and the bo’sun seem very sure that carreras won’t
let us-the passengers and crew-live. Perhaps you think it’s because he
can’t have any witnesses, that whatever advantage the generalissimo
gained from getting this money would be offset over and over again by
the world-wide reaction against him if the world knew what he had done.
Perhaps
“Reaction!” I said. “Reaction! he’d find the american and
british navies and air forces on his doorstep the following morning, and
that would be the end of the generalissimo. Not even russia would raise
a hand to help him; they wouldn’t as much as rattle a rocket. Of course
he can’t afford to let anyone know. He’d be finished.”
“In fact, he couldn’t even afford to let anyone know he’d made the
attempt? so, as soon as carreras picks up the news of your sos, he gets
rid of all the witnesses-permanently and sheers off, transships to this
other vessel that’s waiting and that’s that.”
I stood there, saying nothing. My mind felt dull and heavy and
tired, my body even more so. I tried to tell myself it was just the
drug marston had pumped into me, but it wasn’t that; I knew it wasn’t
that. The sense of defeat is the most powerful opiate of all. I said,
hardly knowing what I was saying, “well, at least we would have saved
the gold.”
“The gold!” you had to be a millionaire’s daughter before you
could put all that scorn into your voice when you mentioned the word
“gold.”
“Who cares a fig for all the gold in the world? what’s gold
compared to your life and my life, my mother’s and father’s and the
lives of everyone on the campari? how much money did carreras say the
fort ticonderoga was carrying?”
“You heard him. A hundred and fifty million dollars.”
“A hundred and fifty million! daddy could raise that in a week and
still have as much again left.”
“Lucky daddy,” I muttered. Lightheaded, that’s what I was getting.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. Nothing. It all seemed such a good idea when macdonald
and I worked it out, susan.”
“I’m sorry.” she caught my right hand in both of hers and held it
tight. “I’m truly sorry, johnny.”
“Where did you get this ‘johnny’ business from?” I mumbled.
“I like it. What’s good enough for captain bullen-your hands are
like ice!” she exclaimed softly. “And you’re shivering.” gentle
fingers pushed up under my hood. “And your forehead is burning.
Running a temperature and fever. You’re not well, oh, you’re not well.
Come on back down to the sick bay, johnny. Please.”
“No.”
“Please!”
“Don’t nag at me, woman.” I pushed myself wearily off the
ventilator. “Come on.”
“Where are you going?” she was quickly beside me, her arm in mine,
and I was glad to hang on.
“Cerdan. Our mysterious friend mr. cerdan. Do you realise that we
know practically nothing about mr. cerdan except that he seems to be the
one who lies back and lets the others do all the work? carreras and
cerdan they seem to be the kingpins, and maybe carreras isn’t the boss
after all. But I do know this: if I could get a knife sticking into the
throat or a gun jabbing into the back of either of those men I would
have a big card to play in this game.”
“Come on, johnny,” she pleaded. “Come on down below.”
“All right, so i’m loopy. But it’s still true. If I could shove
either of those men into the drawing room ahead of me and threaten the
two guards with his death if they didn’t drop their guns, I rather think
they would. With two machine guns and all the men in there to help, I
could do a lot on a night like this. I’m not crazy, susan, just
desperate, like I said.”
“You can hardly stand.” there was a note of desperation
in her voice now. “That’s why you’re here. To hold me up.
Carteras is out of the question. He’ll be on the bridge and that’ll be
the most heavily guarded place on the ship, because it’s the most
important place.” I winced and shrank back into a corner as a great
blue-white jagged streak of forked lightning, almost directly ahead,
flickered and stabbed through the black wall of cumulo-nimbus clouds and
the driving rain, momentarily illuminating every detail of the campari’s
decks in its blinding glare. The curiously flat explosive clap of
thunder was muffled, lost in the teeth of the gale.
“That helps,” I muttered. “Thunder, lightning, a tropical
rainstorm, and moving into the heart of a hurricane. King lear should
have seen this little lot. He’d never have complained of his blasted
heath again.”
“Macbeth,” she said. “That was macbeth.”
“Oh hell,” I said. She was getting as nutty as I was. I took her
arm, or she took mine, I forget which. “Come on. We’re too exposed
here.”
a minute later we were down on “a” deck, crouched against a
bulkhead. I said, “finesse will get us nowhere. I’m going into the
central passageway, straight into cerdan’s cabin. I’ll stick my hand in
my pocket, pretend I have a gun. Stay at the entrance to the
passageway; warn me if anyone comes.”
“He’s not in,” she said. We were standing at the starboard forward
end of the accommodation, just outside cerdan’s sleeping cabin. “He’s
not at home. There’s no light on.”
“The curtains will be drawn,” I said impatiently. “The ship’s
fully darkened. I’ll bet carreras hasn’t even got the navigation lights
on.” we shrank against the bulkhead as another lightning flash reached
down from the darkened clouds, seemed almost to dance on the tip of the
campari’s mast. “I won’t be long.”
“Wait!” she held me with both hands. “The curtains aren’t drawn.
That flash-i could see everything inside the cabin.”
“You could see ” for some reason i’d lowered my voice almost to a
whisper. “Anyone inside?”
“I couldn’t see all the inside. It was just for a second.” I
straightened, pressed my face hard against the window, and stared
inside. The darkness in the cabin was absolute -absolute, that is,
until another forked finger of lightning lit up the entire upper works
of the campari once more. Momentarily I saw my own hooded face and
staring eyes reflected back at me in the glass, then exclaimed
involuntarily, for I had seen something else again.
“What is it?” susan demanded huskily. “What’s wrong?”
“This is wrong.” I fished out marston’s torch, hooded it with my
hand, and shone it downwards through the glass.
the bed was up against the bulkhead, almost exactly beneath the
window. Cerdan was lying on the bed, clothed and awake, his eyes
staring up as if hypnotised by the beam of the torch. Wide eyes,
staring eyes. His white hair was not just where his white hair had
been; it had slipped back, revealing his own hair beneath. Black hair,
jet-black hair, with a startling streak of iron-grey almost exactly in
the middle. Black hair with an iron-grey streak? where had I seen
somebody with hair like that? when had I ever heard of somebody with
hair like that? all of a sudden I knew it was “when,” not “where”; I
knew the answer. I switched off the light.
“Cerdan!” there was shock and disbelief and utter lack of
comprehension in susan’s voice. “Cerdan! bound hand and foot and tied
to his bed so that he can’t move an inch. Cerdan! but no, no!” she