back swiftly as a torch shone vertically upwards from the hold. Carlos
was already climbing the ladder. “Report here afterwards.” god, i’d
never thought of so obvious a possibility! for a moment I panicked,
hands clenched on my pitiful weapons, irresolute, paralysed in thought
and action. Without any justification whatsoever i’d had the picture
firmly in mind of being able to dispose of caroline’s appointed
executioner without arousing suspicion. Had carlos, the radio operator,
been under instructions to knock off the unsuspecting caroline on the
way forward, then carry on himself to his wireless office, then I might
have disposed of him, and hours might have passed before carreras got
suspicious. But now he was in effect saying, “take him up top, shove
him over the side, and come back and tell me as soon as you have done
so.”
I could see the heavy rain slanting whitely through the wavering
torch beam as carlos climbed swiftly up the ladder. By the time he
reached the top I was round the other side of the hatch coaming, lying
flat on the deck.
cautiously I hitched an eye over the top of the coaming. Carlos
was standing upright on the deck now, his torch shining down wards into
the hold. I saw dr. Caroline’s white head appear, saw carlos move back
a couple of steps, and then caroline, too, was over the top, a tall,
hunched figure, pulling high his collar against the cold lash of the
rain. I heard, but failed to understand, a quick, sharp command, and
then they were moving off diagonally, caroline leading, carlos with his
torch on him from behind, in the direction of the companionway leading
up to “b” deck.
I rose to my feet, remained immobile. Was carlos taking him back
to his cabin after all? had I been mistaken? could it be I never
finished the thought. I was running after them as quickly, as lightly,
as silently as the stiffness in my left leg would permit. Of course
carlos was taking him in the direction of the companionway; had he
marched him straight towards the rail caroline would have known at once
what awaited him, would have turned and hurled himself against carlos
with all the frantic savagery of a man who knows he is about to die.
Five seconds, only five seconds elapsed from the time I started running
until I caught up with them. Five seconds, far too short a time to
think of the suicidal dangers involved; far too short to think what
would happen if carlos should swing his torch round, if any of the three
guards at the gun should happen to be watching this little procession,
if either carreras or his assistant in the hold should choose to look
over the coaming to see how the problem of disposal was being attended
to, far too little time to figure out what I was going to do when I
caught up with carlos.
and I was given no time to figure. I was only three or four feet
away when, in the backwash of light from the torch, I saw carlos reverse
his grip on his tommy gun, catch it by the barrel, swing it up high over
his head. It had reached its highest point and was just started on the
downswing when the bast of the heavy marlinespike caught him on the back
of the neck with all my weight and fury behind it. I heard something
crack, caught the tommy gun out of his suddenly nerveless hand before it
could crash to the deck, and made a grab for the torch. I missed. The
torch struck the deck with a muffled thud it must have been a ship’s
rubber-composition issue-rolled over a couple of times, and came to
rest, its beam shining straight out over the edge of the ship. Carlos
himself pitched heavily forward, struck dr. Caroline, and the two of
them fell against the lower steps of the companionway.
“Keep quiet!” I whispered urgently. “Keep quiet if you want to
live!” I dived for the torch, fumbled desperately for the switch,
couldn’t find it, stuck the glass face against my jacket to kill the
beam, finally located the switch and turned it off. “What in heaven’s
name
“Keep quiet!” I found the trigger on the automatic pistol and
stood there stock-still, staring aft into the darkness, in the direction
of both the hold and the gun, striving to pierce the darkness, listening
as if my life depended on it. Which it did. Ten seconds I waited. I
had to move, I couldn’t afford to wait another ten seconds. Thirty
seconds would have been enough and more for carlos to dispose of dr.
Caroline: a few seconds after that and carreras would start wondering
what had happened to his trusty henchman.
I thrust gun and torch towards caroline, found his hands
in the darkness. “Hold these,” I said softly. “What what is
this?” an agonised whisper in the dark. “He was going to smash your
head in. Now shut up. You can still die. I’m carter, the chief
officer.” i’d pulled carlos clear of the companionway where he’d held
caroline pinned by the legs and was going through his pockets as quickly
as I could in the darkness. The key. The key to the wireless office.
I’d seen him take it from his right-hand trouser pocket, but it wasn’t
there any more. The left-hand one. Not there either. The seconds were
rushing by. Desperately I tore at the patch pockets of his army-type
blouse, and I found it in the second pocket. But i’d lost at least
twenty seconds.
“Is’s he dead?” caroline whispered.
“Are you worried? stay here.” I shoved the key into a safe inner
pocket, caught the guard by his collar, and started to drag him across
the wet deck. It was less than ten feet to the ship’s rail. I dropped
him, located the hinged section of the teak rail, fumbled for the catch,
released it, swung the rail through 180 degrees, and snapped it back in
its open position.
I caught the guard by his shoulders, eased the upper part of his
body over the second rail, then tipped the legs high. The splash he
made couldn’t have been heard thirty feet away. Certainly no one in
number four hold or under the gun tarpaulin could possibly have heard
anything.
I ran back to where dr. Caroline was sitting on the lower steps of
the companionway. Maybe he was just obeying the order i’d given him,
but probably he was just too dazed to move anyway. I said, “quick, give
me your wig.”
“What? what?” my second guess had been right. He was dazed.
“Your wig!” it’s no easy feat to shout in a whisper, but I almost
made it.
“My wig? but but it’s glued on.”
I leaned forward, twisted my fingers in the temporary thatch, and
tugged. It was glued on all right. The gasp of pain and the resistance
offered to my hand showed he hadn’t been kidding: that wig felt as if it
was riveted to his skull. It was no night for half measures. I clamped
my left hand over his mouth and pulled savagely with my right. A limpet
the size of a soup plate couldn’t have offered more resistance, but it
did come off. I don’t know how much pain there was in it for him, but
it certainly cost me plenty: his teeth almost met through the heel of my
palm.
the machine gun was still in his hand. I snatched it away,
whirled, and stopped, motionless. For the second time in a minute I
could see rain slanting whitely through the vertical beam of a torch.
That meant only one thing: someone was climbing up the ladder from the
bottom of the hold.
I reached the ship’s side in three long steps, placed the wig in
the scuppers, laid the gun on top of it, raced back to the companionway,
jerked dr. Caroline to his feet, and dragged him towards the bo’sun’s
store, less than ten feet inboard from the companionway. The door was
still less than halfway shut when carreras appeared over the coaming,
but his torch wasn’t pointing in our direction. I closed the door
silently until only a crack remained.
carreras was closely followed by another man, also with a torch.
Both of them headed for the ship’s side. I saw the beam of carreras’
torch suddenly steady on the opened rail, then heard the sharp
exclamation as he bent forward and peered in the scuppers. A moment
later he was erect again, examining the gun and the wig he held in his
hand. I heard him say something short and staccato, repeated several
times. Then he started talking rapidly to his companion, but it was in
spanish and I couldn’t get it. He then examined the inside of the wig,
indicated something with the torch beam, shook his head in what might