Dive in the Sun (22 page)

It would be unlikely that the schooner would be missed for two days, he pondered, and by that time, well, anything might have happened. Then there was the girl, Carla. He glanced at the darkened hatch across the hold. She was still down there with the troops. Lucky devils, but there was plenty of time for him, too, he decided.

In his side pocket he carried the contents of the German officer’s safe. A small book of recognition signals and local patrol areas. Ralph would find that very useful, but it’ll keep until first light. He met the captain’s face across the compass, and the man’s mouth opened as if to speak. Duncan glared at him fiercely, and continued his pacing.

At the weather rail he paused and grinned into the teeth of the wind. They were all frightened of him, he knew that, and enjoyed the feeling of power it gave him.

He thought of Curtis, and marvelled at his stamina and will to keep going. He’s changed all right; more than I’d have thought possible. He looked down at the dark water, fighting his own tiredness with sheer brute force. ‘We’ve all changed,’ he spoke aloud, ‘and I’m not sure if it’s for the better!’ He laughed harshly, and two Italian seamen who darted past carrying the empty food tins from the hold, stopped rigid in their tracks, like rabbits caught in the glare of headlights, and waited until Duncan had crossed to the other side of the deck before they scuttled towards the fo’c’sle.

The steady beat of the engine pulsed life into the ship, and with each turn of the pitted and scarred screw, drove her onward into the night, leaving the darkened shoreline to sink into the storm.

Taylor climbed heavily around the shuddering engine, his
filthy
hands moving with strange gentleness across the rusted controls, as if to coax and wheedle the best effort from the ill-used cylinders, which had carried the ship heaven knew where in the past, and upon which they all depended at this moment.

He sank back at last, his boots lolling and nodding within inches of the giant flywheel’s gleaming teeth. He was happy in his own peculiar way, and watched the wheel spinning with the inner satisfaction of a born engineer.

The hatch was shut, the air thick with fumes and the stench of cheap diesel oil, but to him the tiny engine-room was a refuge, and something he could understand. If anything went wrong with the bellowing engine, he could deal with it. He glanced sleepily at the tools which he had arrayed on the deck in readiness, knowing just how much the others depended on him. His head rested against the pulsating bulkhead, and he closed his eyes, leaving his ears to follow and check the gyrations of his charge. It shut out the sound of the storm, and hid the misery of the wounded in the hold. He did not even have to worry about the behaviour of the skipper, or what made each of them act so differently, now that they had been given a new role to play. His head lolled, and a gentle snore drifted into the racing engine.

Twenty feet behind Taylor, beyond the bulkhead and lying uncomfortably in the narrow passage, Jervis still stared fixedly at the swinging lamp, his troubled eyes following the darting shadows as if mesmerized. Overhead came the measured tread of Duncan’s boots, and he wanted to join him and pour out his heart to him there and then.

What was different? He tried to think of all that happened, but already the German colonel and the sneering sentry had lost their firm outlines of reality. He touched the bandage around his head, hoping that he might be able to see more clearly the eager, pitiful expression of his strange, mad saviour. It was no good. Each time he was reminded instead of the present, and the uncertainty which the dawn would bring.

He flinched as a trickle of water filtered through the hatch and splashed across his face.

Curtis had made him feel as he did, he knew that, but he was still reluctant to consider the cause of his behaviour.

When he had burst into the house and dropped the sentry’s lifeless body carelessly on the floor, that should have been the greatest moment of Jervis’s life. But as he closed his eyes, he could only think of the overriding disappointment which had shown in the skipper’s eyes. It was almost as if Curtis had expected to find someone else in the cell, someone for whom he had been searching for a long time.

He pillowed his head on his arm and sighed. Perhaps I’m going off my head, he thought unhappily. A large wave punched the side of the hull with sullen force, and Jervis swore aloud, and was more surprised at his own words than the anger of the sea. Must be getting like Steve, he thought, and with a ghost of a smile on his lips, he fell asleep.

The
Ametisa
seemed eager to do battle with her common enemy, and as her raked stem dipped into each trough, the long bowsprit slashed downwards like a sword, until, with the water cascading over the bow, she lifted skywards again, victorious and trembling. One of the furled sails billowed with sudden fury, as the searching wind found its way into its folds and puffed it out from the yard in a flapping, ungainly pocket.

The captain looked up from the deck, his eyes squinting into the darkness as he searched the night sky for the new sound. He half reached for his bell, and then shrugged and continued to wrestle with the wheel, as if one more disaster was not even worth his consideration.

The schooner plunged on, alone in the tormented water. Of her passengers and crew, some slept the sleep of the exhausted and the beaten, while others still clung to the last shreds of watchfulness and human cunning.

Some wondered about the dawn, and a few prayed for the strength to meet it.

In a corner of the streaming deck, covered by canvas and firmly lashed in place, four soldiers lay together. They were neither thinking nor hoping, and for them the dawn would never come.

DUNCAN CLATTERED NOISILY
down the ladder, slamming the hatch behind him, and almost stepped on Jervis’s sprawled form in the middle of the passage. He stood astride the curled body and yawned hugely, his raised fists brushing the low deckhead. With a grunt he stooped and shook Jervis’s shoulder.

‘C’mon then! Don’t make a bloody meal of it!’

Jervis groaned and sat up blinking, his red-rimmed eyes staring round at first with shocked unfamiliarity and then with renewed weariness.

Oh, it’s you, Steve,’ he answered dully. ‘I wondered where the blazes I was.’

Duncan’s eyes crinkled. ‘Who the hell were you expectin’?’ He gestured towards the girl’s cabin. ‘Or is that where you’ve been all night?’

‘Steady on, Steve,’ began Jervis hotly, his face flushing, ‘you’re wrong about her! She’s a damned fine girl!’ He struggled for words. ‘Why, if it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead right now, and you’d have sailed without me!’

Duncan smiled grimly. ‘Well, that’s got that off your chest, hasn’t it? Now perhaps you’ll call the skipper and tell him it’s nearly dawn, leastways it would be, but for the blasted clouds!’ He turned heavily on the ladder and reached for the hatch. ‘
I
think she’s dinkum, too, Ian, if that’s of any interest to you.’

Jervis struggled to his feet and swayed against the door frame. ‘I know, Steve. It’s just that I can’t understand what’s got into the skipper. He keeps flaring up all the time. I just don’t know how to cope with him when he’s like that.’

‘Well, Ian, just put yourself in his place. How d’you reckon you would have measured up to all this, eh?’ He sighed and rested his elbow on the ladder. ‘It’s just that we’re not used to this kind of war. Up till now it’s been a pretty remote business for us.’

‘How can you say that?’ Jervis interrupted. ‘Why you and
he
, and Taylor have been right in the thick of it from the beginning!’

Duncan raised his hand patiently. ‘Not in this way. As I said, it’s been sort of remote. This is the real war. Bein’ able to see the enemy for once as flesh and blood, not just a hunk of ruddy steel in your periscope sights!’ He opened and closed his hands, whilst Jervis watched them as if fascinated by their power. ‘Bein’ able to see how they work, and act! And knowin’ what it’s like to hunt and be hunted!’ He slammed back the hatch, and sniffed at the air. ‘By the way, Taylor’s name is George. You might remember that, Ian!’ His body clambered over the coaming, and Jervis was left staring at the closed hatch.

‘Damn!’ he said fiercely.

The ship lurched and he smoothed the rumpled uniform with distaste. The German eagle on his right breast seemed to mock him, and even the uniform made him feel more than ever a man on the outside, looking in.

He wondered how it could all end, and whether the schooner was in fact the real answer to their destinies, or merely a means to their ultimate destruction.

He cleared his dry throat, and pushed his way into the stuffy cabin. The lamp had burned lower, and he had to strain his eyes to make out the distorted shape of Signor Zecchi sprawled open-mouthed in the chair, his feet entangled with those of a sleeping soldier whose bandaged hands stuck out in front of him, their hidden suffering marked on the soldier’s thin face. The other soldier stared up at him, his eyes glassy, and forced a grin.

Jervis crossed to the bunk and laid his hand on Curtis’s arm, which hung over the side of the bunk like a dead thing. He jumped as Curtis immediately sat up, his eyes bright and searching. He looked up at Jervis, his face pale, almost grey in the lamplight, and for a few seconds seemed to have difficulty in collecting his wits.

‘Lieutenant Duncan’s respects, sir, and it’s just on the dawn.’ He paused, stupidly aware of the formal naval speech and how out of place it sounded under these circumstances.

Curtis rubbed his knuckles savagely into his eyes and
coughed
. ‘Well, Ian, no one can say that your training hasn’t been thorough!’ He sat upright, his hair tousled across his forehead, but with a smile on his lips. ‘We’d better go on deck and see what’s what, hadn’t we?’

Jervis smiled gratefully and followed Curtis from the cabin. He watched Curtis’s shoulders stoop as if from the shock, as the keen air met them on deck, and waited with all the alertness he could muster, prepared to justify himself in front of Curtis and all the others if necessary.

Duncan’s shadow broke from the rail. ‘Mornin’, Ralph! You’re lookin’ a bit better.’

Curtis smiled with his teeth. ‘Feel like death! I don’t see much light yet.’

A tiny flicker of silver lanced at the black line where the horizon should have been, and occasionally the clouds seemed to lose their power as a growing glimmer crept over the sea’s edge.

‘Angry!’ commented Duncan, and then pointed up at the masts. ‘But you can see the topmasts now!’

Curtis lifted his head and stared up at the quivering spars and the billowing ball of loose canvas. ‘What about that?’ His voice was hard as he turned to the captain, who still leaned heavily across the wheel.

‘S’not important,
signore
. We never use him.’ The voice was tired, almost disinterested.

‘It might be later on! Get your men to work on it as soon as it’s light!’

He looked down at the package which Duncan had thrust into his hand. ‘What’s this, Steve?’

‘Baccy! Got it from forward. Thought it might interest you, seein’ what a glutton you are for the old pipe!’

They watched as Curtis pulled out his pipe and slowly filled the bowl with rank Italian tobacco. It was a moment of peace, and nobody wanted to spoil it. It suddenly seemed terribly important that Curtis should have his smoke.

He ducked his head beneath the gunwale, and they heard the rasp of a match. He stood up, the reflection from the glowing bowl casting a small flush across his taut features. He blew out a cloud of smoke, and they watched it hover
momentarily
around his head, before being plucked away by the wind.

Curtis breathed deeply, his body balanced and relaxed on the wet deck.

‘A forgotten ship,’ he said slowly. ‘No one knows where we are, or where we’re making for!’ He puffed out more smoke. ‘Only
we
know anything! I only hope to God we’re doing the right thing!’ he ended fervently.

Duncan yawned. ‘It’s a right queer set-up all right. But I’ll tell you now, Ralph, if we pull this off, it’ll be really something. It may prove something different to each one of us,’ he paused, his shadowed eyes on Curtis’s face, ‘but it’ll be worthwhile!’

‘I hope so!’ Curtis looked across the tumbling water. ‘Bed, Steve. I’ll take her now.’

Duncan opened the engine-room hatch and peered into the foul interior.

‘Good old George,’ he chuckled. ‘I’ll leave him be!’ He swayed across to the after hatch and yawned again. ‘Just a couple of hours an’ I’ll be up again, lookin’ for some grub.’

His head was level with the deck when Curtis called him.

‘Yeah? What d’you want?’ Duncan’s voice was slurred.

‘Thanks, Steve. Just thanks.’

They heard him laugh. ‘Oh sure!’ The hatch slammed.

Jervis trembled and checked his muscles angrily. ‘I always thought it was warm in this part of the world, Skipper.’ His voice was tinged with caution.

Curtis leaned back against the rail, his pipe jutting like an extension to his chin. ‘A strange sea this,’ he answered quietly, ‘as unpredictable as a woman.’

‘D’you think we shall see anything, I mean a ship or something like that?’

He shrugged. ‘Hard to tell. Never has been a lot of enemy activity up here. It was a bit too remote for our ships to operate, except for submarines that is, and they don’t like it either.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘No, we just can’t be sure of anything yet. We must be on our toes the whole time.’

‘I’ll get some lookouts sorted out as soon as it’s lighter,’
began
Jervis. ‘The soldiers might be able to do that quite well.’

‘Yes, the soldiers.’ Curtis stared at the silent hump on the deck. ‘We must bury those chaps, too. As soon as possible.’

He suddenly gripped Jervis’s arm, and pointed across the sea. ‘Look, Ian! D’you see that?’

He followed the pointing finger, half afraid of what he might discover. A pattern of gold light spilled across the horizon and splashed the distant waves to give them life and an angry splendour. The clouds above moved faster, as if to escape the full majesty of the dawn, which refused to give way to the storm and to the passing power of the night.