Horse Under Water (10 page)

Pow Pow Pow. The high-pitched note of a Continental car horn ripped the morning air. Harry Kondit’s deux-chevaux was in the forecourt of Albufeira station.

‘Hi there, Ace, climb into the sled. I told your boys I’d pick you up – they’re diving and Charly’s shopping.’

I wondered by what process of deduction H.K. had latched on to our diving so soon. Was it possible to keep such a thing secret in a town as small as this one? It made the whole job a little more dangerous. We sped down the sunny road. The fig trees had lost almost every leaf and stood bare and silver in the red fields.

‘What’s the good word, Harry?’ I said. Perhaps I should tell London to prepare a new cover for us in case trouble blew up. We sped across the main road past the canning factories.

‘I just got some new jazz records from the States, Ace. Pretty wiggy. Come around for drinks
this evening. Get an earful of wax. Ha, ha, ha.’ We were outside Number 12 by now. I said ‘thank you’ to H.K. and he bumped down the narrow cobbled street to his place. I went inside.

Unfortunately for Charly she was the first person I saw. She was cleaning fish in the kitchen. She wore a microscopic white bikini.

‘Well hello, darling!’ she said, putting a sustained accent on the final syllable of each word.

‘Can the crap, Charly,’ I said.

‘Skilful alliteration, darling,’ she said and wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s upset the chiefman?’

‘First why is it too much trouble for anyone to meet me? Secondly I don’t appreciate H.K. riding me back and telling me about how the diving is going.’

‘How the diving is
going
? Admit it, lover, he didn’t really tell you how the diving was
going,
did he?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘he told me that the boys were diving. What sort of security do we have here? How much more information has he pumped out of you?’

‘He’s just done to us what he’s done for you: mentioned the word “diving” to see what reaction he got. What would you prefer us to do, take him up on it and start playing “What’s my line”?’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘Well, you know, little us can’t be expected to manage without big chiefman. You shouldn’t leave us, darling.’

‘Knock it off, Charlotte, and put some clothes on. So much flesh in the kitchen is revolting.’

‘I’ve had no other complaints,’ said Charly. She moved past me through the door, and paused, her nubile body brushing mine … ‘so far,’ she said, and leaned forward to touch the tip of my nose with her pointed tongue. ‘You are breathing heavily, chiefman,’ she said huskily just an inch or so from my mouth. ‘Buzz off, Charly,’ I said, ‘I’ve got enough troubles already.’ But I
was
breathing heavily.

‘I hear you have a sexy little secretary tucked away in London, darling.’

‘I wouldn’t say sexy,’ I said, ‘she has two kids, three chins, and five per cent of the gross. She drinks like a fish and cooks the sort of food advertised on television.’

Charly gave a high-pitched giggle. ‘You nasty old liar, you left a photo of her in your shirt last week, I know what she’s like.’

‘Do you wash
our
shirts, too?’ I said.

‘Well, of course I do, who do you think does your laundry? But don’t change the subject. I’ve got the photo of your secretarial sex-bomb and what’s more I can see the glint of matrimony at fifty paces.’

‘Fifty paces from you is close enough,’ I said.

‘Then stop looking down my swimsuit,’ said Charly.

‘What swimsuit?’

There was a knock at the door. I backed away from her. It was a local urchin who went to the fish market for Charly sometimes. Would I like him to clean the car? Yes I would. I walked across to the
Victor with him. We must be running up quite a bill with the hire company. He produced a bucket and cloth from nowhere and began to slop water over the windscreen. I sat inside the car and engaged this fourteen-year-old in conversation. Did he know H.K., da Cunha, Fernie Tomas. Yes, he knew them all. Was the tunny fish any good at present? It was all right but not like it is in July. Did he ever run errands for any of those people? No, they were too grand, he said. Would he care to do a small favour for me? But of course. And keep it secret? As secret as the grave. Did he know which barber Senhor Tomas went to? Augusto knew – the movement of the town was his pastime and career. He must get a small lock of Senhor Tomas’s hair. A small piece of hair and no one must see. He and I would share this secret and further I would reward him to the extent of five escudos.

It would be for sending to the ‘O país das fadas’? he asked. I thought of Charlotte Street. It would, I agreed, be for sending to the land of the fairies. I began to wonder how to tell them about Joe.

Giorgio and Singleton got back at 3.30 for a late lunch of grilled red gurnet and butter sauce in the Portuguese manner. I didn’t want to play the heavy father, but I suggested that H.K. was coming too close to the family circle.

‘You don’t suspect him of being a Salazar police spy, do you, sir?’ asked Singleton.

‘I suspect even you, Mr Singleton,’ I said. There were no grins behind the gurnet. They knew I wasn’t kidding.

We continued to eat in silence. Then, as Charly collected up the dishes, she said, ‘H.K. has bought or borrowed a forty-foot cabin cruiser.’

‘No kidding,’ I said. Charly had taken the used plates into the kitchen. She called to us, ‘It’s coming into the bay now.’ We went out on to the balcony to watch. Down below, beating a wake on the gleaming water, the big red-and-white launch cast a long shadow in the afternoon sunlight. From the high wheelhouse a cap, blue, soft, and
nautical, peeked over the wrap-around windscreen. H.K.’s bronze face broke into a grin and his lips moved. Charly put her flattened hand behind her ear and H.K. shouted again, but the wind from the sea grabbed the words out of his mouth and tossed them over his shoulder. He disappeared into the inner confines of the launch, which kept just enough power to hold its position without turning beam-to to the swell.

He reappeared with an electronic hailer.

‘C’mon, landlubbers,’ the metallic voice struck across the water. ‘Get off your butts and get out here, kids.’

‘He really is the most vulgar man,’ said Charly.

‘He is insufferable,’ said Singleton.

‘I only said he was vulgar,’ said Charly. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t like it.’

Giorgio blew on the lighted end of his cheroot. We all went down to the dinghy; the starter cartridge spat, and the outboard roared as we shot out towards the cabin cruiser.

‘Are you sure we can feel quite safe with you, Mr Kondit?’ asked Charly.

‘Holy cow, how many times do I have to tell you to …’

‘Harry.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you, Charly. These guys are safe. You – you aren’t so safe,’ and he pushed his yachting cap back and boomed his big laugh.

Inside the main cabin it was all mahogany veneer, bright curtains and soft music. Nautical
procedures had gone overboard. Along the wall was a stainless sink and a refrigerator. In the corner was a seventeen-inch TV set. We sank into the armchairs while H.K. blended vodka and vermouth with ritualistic devotion.

‘What’s that all about, Harry?’ Charly was looking at the mural of signal flags which decorated the cabin wall.

‘It’s kind of talk with flag, see, you haul them …’

‘Yes, Harry, I understand the function of signal flags; what, I mean to ask, do they mean?’

‘Sure, hon. They are international foreign code flags
K.U.Z.I.G
. and
Y
., nautical meaning …’ H.K. leaned over close to Charly, ‘“Permission granted to lay alongside.”’

Charly giggled. ‘Oh, that’s very nautical, Harry. I must commit it to memory.’

I noticed Singleton’s lip curl, but whether at H.K.’s suggestiveness or seamanship I couldn’t tell.

‘Step up to the bridge,’ said H.K. The record finished. The stereo player rumbled into a countdown for the next disc. Against the hull the water giggled and gurgled like a fool. I heard Singletpn say, ‘So this is the driver’s seat?’ H.K. replied, ‘Yep.’ I wondered how many of the jibes really bounced off H.K. and how many went deep under the skin like a chigger. Miles Davis began to pump the cabin full of sound.

From the forecastle overhead I heard Charly shouting, ‘I’m falling, I’m falling,’ in a not-very-convincing way, and the sound of Giorgio saving
her in an embrace that suited them both. Just behind me on the bridge Singleton was admiring the R.D.F. and the electronic depth-gauge.

‘Yes, sir,’ H.K. said, ‘a powered anchor; right here.’ He pushed one of a series of brightly coloured buttons. There was a faint purr and I felt the big cruiser float free on the outgoing tide. ‘Self-starter, a little choke.’ The big motor suddenly battered the quiet bay. H.K. moved the gear lever, and the screw engaged the water. We slid forward.

H.K. held the steering wheel in firm proprietorial grip, bit on a large cigar and beamed at us all from his high stool. ‘You British have had the monopoly of messing about in boats long enough; here, somebody else steer,’ he said, and poured us all another round of cocktails from the big jug that featured a design of pirates dancing a hornpipe with the words ‘splice the mainbrace me hearties’ around the top. We made a scene as domestic as a beer ad.

After dinner that evening Giorgio showed me on the diagram the proportion of the U-boat hull that had been searched. Charly made coffee and we sat around drinking the cheap local brandy.

An ocean-going U-boat is a very large piece of machinery. Over one thousand tons, over three hundred feet in length, it wasn’t difficult to understand why such a small section of the diagram was cross-hatched to indicate that it had been searched. Giorgio had brought little up to the surface. There was one pair of spectacles with red lenses.
^*
There was a tin marked ‘Pervitin’, which was the German Desoxyephedrine pep pill, and three German Admiralty charts of the Spanish coast. These interested me most. For, although they were of the standard German Admiralty pattern, there were figures on one corner in ballpoint writing. The number
127,342 was multiplied by 9,748 and the correct product inserted beneath.

Charts that are faded, tattered and corrugated by long immersion; charts that are dated 1940 and haven’t seen the light of day since 1945 should not, I felt, have
anything
written on them in ballpoint writing.

The search had been completed on the port side of the control room and extended along the port side of the officers’ quarters. The next compartment forward was the crew quarters, but before working on that we would begin to search the starboard side of the control room and work forward. Giorgio said that the starboard side promised to be more tricky. There had been a shift of the bulkhead that separated the control room and officers’ quarters, resulting in a collapse of the port side of the floor on each side of that bulkhead. Exposed under the floor was a jumble of broken battery cases, dented compressed-air bottles and a thick oil sludge still clinging heavily inside the split fuel tanks. A complete search would entail delving, groping, and scouring through this tangle of dirty debris with bare, swollen hands tender from prolonged submersion. No wonder Giorgio had left it until last in the hope that we would have everything we required before beginning on the starboard side.

These days of working together had brought the three of them closer, and now I felt an outsider while they swopped stories and teased Charly, who skilfully kept them at bay.

‘… is a millionaire this man,’ Giorgio was relating, ‘I teach him to swim underwater. You do not need all this, I say to him. But is of no use. He buy the American equipment, a rubber suit of bright red, flippers, depth-gauge, the magnificent underwater wrist-watch. Compass fit on the arm. An underwater gun with the arrow-head for fishing, which makes me very frightened I can tell you. He carries all this with him as well as his lung and a very pretty little blackboard and a mark that writes under the wet. I have to adjust his buoyancy for the weight of all this. He goes down with much breathing and blowing and when he is at the bottom another man join him there. All the other man have is the little bathing suit so small.’ Giorgio measured it with his hands and gave Charly a sly look. ‘Is very small. Nothing else, no lung, no mask, no gun, no bright red rubber suit or the special wool suit from the Shetland. Nothing but a little pants. My millionaire friend go up to him and write on his little blackboard, “Hey, what you do here? I have the special equipment costing me the six hundred dollar and you come down here with the nothing; what you do, how dare?”’

The audience were gripped. Charly at last broke the silence. ‘What did he say?’ she asked.

‘He say nothing,’ Giorgio continued. ‘You no speaking in the water. He take the little blackboard with the special mark for the undersea writing. He read the message from my friend the millionaire and he write, “Mama I drown.”’

Charly said, ‘No more coffee for you,’ but I was beginning to notice that Giorgio wasn’t worrying too much about coffee, he was hitting the brandy. It’s not good for a diver to drink a lot. A Thermos of hot wine or a brandy to restore circulation after a prolonged dive was one thing; drinking yourself to sleep was another.

The talk went on over more coffee. Giorgio told us of his uncle. ‘He wasn’t happy in the water. He never take a bath because he say that he might slip and drown in the water, until one day my uncle is taking a bath. He has one of the big terracotta pots for the lemon trees, he fill up the hole in the bottom and put water inside and then he get inside the pot and take a bath but all the time in one hand he holds a hammer. He say that if he feel he is slip he smash the terracotta pot with the hammer before he drown.’

Then Giorgio told us about the diving ship
Artiglio
when it was trying to get the gold from the
Egypt
: how they all paraded twice a day and sang the Fascist anthem ‘Giovanezza’ – but somehow Giorgio glossed quickly over the war years, and there was even more coffee and Giorgio was on his second bottle of local brandy, and he and Singleton were discussing the techniques of diving, when there was a knock at the door.

Charly said, ‘I’ll go,’ but I was nearest.

I guessed it might be the boy with a packet. It was. He had a small twist of newspaper in his hand. It contained a piece of Fernie’s hair. I thanked
him then sent him off again for a packet of cigarettes. Charly called, ‘Who is it?’

‘A kid,’ I said. ‘I asked him to bring me some fags around earlier today. He’s finally got round to it and he brings me filter tips.’

‘Have a cigar,’ said Giorgio.

‘No, I’m O.K. for cigarettes really, it’s just that he pestered me for something to do.’

‘I saw you chatting away like lost brothers,’ said Charly, ‘to the kid that hangs around that awful Fernie creature.’

‘Hangs around Fernie,’ I repeated, fighting back the hysteria. Out of all the kids in this town I choose that one for my mission.

Giorgio started talking about diving again and they both agreed that the air line made a difficult job almost impossible.

‘An umbilical cord,’ said Giorgio.

‘My uncle used to say the goddess Atropos had her shears constantly poised against the air line.’

‘Atropos – who was she?’ said Charly.

Singleton said, ‘One of the three Fates in Greek mythology. She carries a pair of shears and cuts the thread of life to decide man’s destiny.’ Giorgio said, ‘Yes, each sharp edge of metal in a wreck represented the shears of Atropos, just as the flimsy pipe down which a diver’s air comes is the thread of life.’

By the time we went to bed the wind was blowing a gale outside, and below on the beach, air, water, and sand thrashed together. Sometimes one
could distinguish each separate wave; the roar, crash, confusion, and withdrawal. Often, however, the sound became just one long howl; rocking the window panes, vibrating against the metal bucket, flapping the deck-chair canvas, pounding into the head, filling the ears and spinning the mind into a whirl.

My room opened on to the balcony. Two or three miles out on the black ocean the lights of the cuttlefish boats were winking in the movement of the horizon. I imagined the misery of the open Atlantic at night, working for one per cent of the catch. I watched the black clouds move across the moon for a long time before going to bed. I tried to sleep, but the noise of the wind and the effect of the coffee kept me awake. At 3.30 a.m. I heard the kitchen door open. Someone else couldn’t sleep; perhaps a cup of tea would be a good idea. The footsteps went across the kitchen tiles. I heard the far door open and the footsteps outside on the balcony. As I was climbing into some clothes I heard the rusty gate – half-way down the steps – creak open.

Looking over the balcony there was enough moonlight for me to see someone moving down the final flight. The figure turned and began to walk along the strand towards the west. I went down the staircase as quickly as I could. The wind cut me with an icy shiv and needle-points of spray penetrated my trousers and sweater. The metal of my pistol was cold against my hip. Twenty yards
ahead of me the nocturnal stroller made no attempt to conceal himself. It was Giorgio. He walked well clear of the rocks that littered the foot of the cliff. He came to the base of the wide Guardi-like staircase which twisted like a lost ribbon between the beach and the high promenade.

To begin my ascent before he had completed his would be foolish. He had only to glance down to be certain of spotting me.

I gave him plenty of time to get to the top; then, keeping well to the inside of the staircase, began to walk up. I watched carefully for loose stones, although the roar of the sea would have swallowed the noise of anything less than an avalanche. I paused as I neared the top, took the Smith & Wesson out of my belt, breathed in and out very slowly and moved on to the promenade. If he was waiting for me, a lungful of air could make all the difference.

No one was waiting for me. To the right the narrow cobbled road was empty for half a mile or so. From the left came only the faint sound of a two-stroke motor cycle and the pandemonium of the sea. A little finger of grey cloud rubbed the tired eye of the moon. It seemed as though Giorgio had got a pillion ride. Who did we know with a two-stroke motor bike? I was losing friends faster than I could replace them.