“I found them.” I took a deep breath. “They won’t be coming home again, Annabelle.”
“They won’t be coming home again,” he repeated mechanically. He was silent for so long that I began to think that he had gone off the air. Then he came again, his voice empty, remote. “I warned you of this, Caroline.”
“Yes, Annabelle, you warned me of this.”
“And the vessel?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know. Just gone. North, I suppose.”
“North, you suppose.” Uncle Arthur never raised hfe voice, when he went on it was as calm and impersonal as ever, but the sudden disregard of his own rules about circumlocution betrayed the savage anger in his mind. “North where? Iceland? A Norwegian fjord? To effect a trans-shipment of cargo anywhere in a ‘million square miles between the mid-Atlantic and the Barents Sea? And you lost her. After all the time, the trouble, the planning, the expense, you’ve lost her!” He might have spared me that bit about the planning, it had been mine all the way. “And Betty and Dorothy.” The last words showed he’d taken control of himself again.
“Yes, Annabelle, I’ve lost her.” I could feel the slow anger in myself. “And there’s worse than that, if you want to listen to it.”
“I’m listening.”
I told him the rest and at the end of the he said: “I see. You’ve lost the vessel. You’ve lost Betty and Dorothy. And now our friends know about you, the one vital element of secrecy is gone for ever and every usefulness and effectiveness you might ever have had is completely negated.” A pause. “1 shaft expect you in my office at nine p.m. to-night. Instruct Harriet to take the boat back to base.”
“Yes, sir.” The hell with his Annabelle. “I had expected that. I’ve failed. I’ve let you down. I’m being pulled off.”
“Nine o’clock to-night, Caroline. I’ll be waiting.”
“You’ll have a long wait, Annabelle.”
“And what might you mean by that?” If Uncle Arthur had had a low silky menacing voice then he’d have spoken those words in a low silky menacing voice. But he hadn’t, he’d only this flat level monotone and it carried infinitely more weight and authority than any carefully modulated theatrical voice that had ever graced a stage.
“There are no planes to this place, Annabelle. The mail-boat doesn’t call for another four days. The weather’s breaking down and I wouldn’t risk our boat to try to get to the mainland. I’m stuck here for the time being, I’m afraid.”
“Do you take me for a nincompoop, sir?” Now he was at it. “Go ashore this morning. An air-sea rescue helicopter will pick you up at noon. Nine p-m. at my office. Don’t keep me waiting.”
This, then, was it. But one last try. “Couldn’t you give me another twenty-four hours, Annabelle?”
“Now you’re being ridiculous. And wasting my time. Good-bye.”
“I beg of you, sir.”
“I’d thought better of you than that. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye. We may meet again sometime. It’s not likely. Good-bye,”
I switched the radio off, lit a cigarette and waited. The call-up came through in half a minute. I waited another half-minute and switched on. I was very calm. The die was cast and I didn’t give a damn.
“Caroline? Is that you, Caroline?” I could have sworn to a note of agitation in his voice. This was something for the record books.
“Yes.”
“What did you say? At the end there?”
“Good-bye. You said good-bye. I said good-bye.”
“Don’t quibble with me, sir! You said—–”
“If you want me aboard that helicopter,” I said, “you’ll have to send a guard with the pilot. An armed guard. I hope they’re good. I’ve got a Luger, and you know I’m good. And if I have to kill anyone and go into court, then you’ll have to stand there beside me because there’s no single civil action or criminal charge that even you, with all your connections, can bring against me that would justify the sending of armed men to apprehend me, an innocent man. Further, I am no longer in your employment. The terms of my civil service contract state clearly that I can resign at any moment, provided that I am not actively engaged on an operation at that moment. You’ve pulled me off, you’ve recalled me to London. My resignation will be on your desk as soon as the mail can get through. Baker and Delmont weren’t your friends. They were my friends. They were my friends ever since I joined the service. You have the temerity to sit there and lay all the blame for their deaths on my shoulders when you know damn’ well that every operation must bave your final approval, and now you have the final temerity to deny me a one last chance to square accounts. I’m sick of your damned soulless service. Good-bye.”
“Now wait a moment, Caroline.” There was a cautious, almost placatory note to his voice. “No need to go off half-cocked.” I was sure that no one had ever talked to Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Arnford-Jason like that before but he didn’t seem particularly upset about it. He had the cunning of a fox, that infinitely agile and shrewd mind would be examining and discarding possibilities with the speed of a computer, he’d be wondering whether I was playing a game and if so how far he could play it with me without making it impossible for me to retreat from the edge of the precipice. Finally he said quietly: “You wouldn’t want to hang around there just to shed tears. You’re on to something.”
“Yes, sir, I’m on to something.” I wondered what in the name of God I was on to.
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours, Caroline.”
“Forty-eight.”
“Forty-eight. And then you return to London. I have your word?”
“I promise.”
“And Caroline?”
“Sir?”
“I didn’t care for your way of talking there. I trust we never have a repetition of it”
“No, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Forty-eight hours. Report to me at noon and midnight.” A click. Uncle Arthur was gone.
The false dawn was in the sky when I went on deck. Cold heavy slanting driving rain was churning up the foam-flecked sea. The Firecrest, pulling heavily on her anchor chain, was swinging slowly .through an arc of forty degrees, corkscrewing quite heavily now on the outer arc of the swing, pitching in the centre of them. She was snubbing very heavily on the anchor and I wondered uneasily how long the lengths of heaving line securing the dinghy, outboard and scuba gear to the chain could stand up to this sort of treatment.
Hunslett was abaft .the saloon, huddling in what little shelter it afforded. He looked up at my approach and said: “What do you make of that?” He pointed to the palely gleaming shape of the Shangri-la, one moment on our quarter, the next dead astern as we swung on our anchor. Lights were burning brightly in the fore part of her superstructure, where the wheelhouse would be.
“Someone with insomnia,” I said. “Or checking to see if the anchor is dragging. What do you think it is – our recent guests laying about the Shangri-la radio installation with crow-bars? Maybe they leave lights on all night.”
“Came on just ten minutes ago. And look, now — they’re out. Funny. How did you get on with Uncle?”
“Badly. Fired me, then changed his mind. We have forty-eight hours.”
“‘ Forty-eight hours? What are you going to do in forty-eight hours?”
“God knows. Have some sleep first. You too. Too much light in the sky for callers now.”
Passing through the saloon, Hunslett said, apropos of nothing: “I’ve been wondering. What did you make of P.C. MacDonald? The young one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, glum, downcast. Heavy weight on his shoulders.”
“Maybe he’s like me. Maybe he doesn’t like getting up in the middle of the night. Maybe he has girl trouble and if he has I can tell you that P.C. MacDonald’s love-life is the least of my concerns. Good night.”
I should have listened to Hunslett more. For Hunslett’s sake.
THREE
Tuesday; 10 asn. — 10 p.m..
I need my sleep, just like anyone else. Ten hours, perhaps only eight, and I would have been my own man again. Maybe not exuding brightness, optimism and cheerfulness, the circumstances weren’t right for that, but at least a going concern, alert, perceptive, my mind operating on what Uncle Arthur would be by now regarding as its customary abysmal level but still the best it could achieve. But I wasn’t given that ten hours. Nor even the eight. Exactly three hours after dropping off I was wide awake again. Well, anyway, awake. I would have had to be stone deaf, drugged or dead to go on sleeping through the bawling and thumping that was currently assailing my left ear from what appeared to be a distance of not more than twelve inches,