The Golden Keel / The Vivero Letter (4 page)

Coertze said, ‘I suppose we must bring in the rest of the boys and vote on it.’

‘That’ll be no good unless it’s a unanimous vote,’ said Harrison almost casually.

They saw his point. If one of them held out in favour of telling the Count, then the majority vote would be useless. At last Walker said, ‘It may not arise. Let’s vote on it and see.’

All was quiet on the road so Donato and Parker were brought in from their sentry duty. The prisoners were herded into a truck so that Alberto could join in the discussion, and they settled down as a committee of ways and means.

Harrison needn’t have worried—it
was
a unanimous vote. There was too much temptation for it to be otherwise.

‘One thing’s for sure,’ said Harrison. ‘When this stuff disappears there’s going to be the biggest investigation ever, no matter who wins the war. The Italian Government will never rest until it’s found, especially those papers. I’ll bet they’re dynamite.’

Coertze was thoughtful. ‘That means we must hide the treasure
and
the trucks.
Nothing
must be found. It must be as though the whole lot has vanished into thin air.’

‘What are we going to do with it?’ asked Parker. He looked at the stony ground and the thin soil. ‘We might just
bury the treasure if we took a week doing it, but we can’t even begin to bury one truck, let alone four.’

Harrison snapped his fingers. ‘The old lead mines,’ he said. ‘They’re not far from here.’

Coertze’s face lightened. ‘
Ja
,’ he said. ‘There’s one winze that would take the lot.’

Parker said, ‘What lead mines—and what’s a winze, for God’s sake?’

‘It’s a horizontal shaft driven into a mountain,’ said Harrison. ‘These mines have been abandoned since the turn of the century. No one goes near them any more.’

Alberto said, ‘We drive all the trucks inside…’

‘…and blow in the entrance,’ finished Coertze with gusto.

‘Why not keep some of the jewels?’ suggested Walker.

‘No,’ said Coertze sharply. ‘It’s too dangerous—Harrison is right. There’ll be all hell breaking loose when this stuff vanishes for good. Everything must be buried until it’s safe to recover it.’

‘Know any good jewel fences?’ asked Harrison sardonically. ‘Because if you don’t how would you get rid of the jewels?’

They decided to bury everything—the trucks, the bodies, the gold, the papers, the jewels—everything. They restowed the trucks, putting all the valuables into two trucks and all the non-valuables such as the documents into the other two. It was intended to drive the staff car into the tunnel first with the motor-cycle carried in the back, then the trucks carrying papers and bodies, and lastly the trucks with the gold and jewels.

‘That way we can get out the stuff we want quite easily,’ said Coertze.

The disposal of the trucks was easy enough. There was an unused track leading to the mines which diverged off the dusty road they were on. They drove up to the mine and reversed the trucks into the biggest tunnel in the right
order. Coertze and Harrison prepared a charge to blow down the entrance, a simple job taking only a few minutes, then Coertze lit the fuse and ran back.

When the dust died down they saw that the tunnel mouth was entirely blocked—making a rich mausoleum for seventeen men.

‘What do we tell the Count?’ asked Parker.

‘We tell him we ran into a little trouble on the way,’ said Coertze. ‘Well, we did, didn’t we?’ He grinned and told them to move on.

When they got back they heard that Umberto had run into trouble and had lost a lot of men. The Communists hadn’t turned up and he hadn’t had enough machine-guns.

I said, ‘You mean the gold’s still there.’

‘That’s right,’ said Walker, and hammered his fist on the counter. ‘Let’s have another drink.’

I didn’t get much out of him after that. His brain was pickled in brandy and he kept wandering into irrelevancies, but he did answer one question coherently.

I asked, ‘What happened to the two German prisoners?’

‘Oh, them,’ he said carelessly. ‘They were shot while escaping. Coertze did it.’

Walker was too far gone to walk home that night, so I got his address from a club steward, poured him into a taxi and forgot about him. I didn’t think much of his story—it was just the maunderings of a drunk. Maybe he had found something in Italy, but I doubted if it was anything big—my imagination boggled at the idea of four truck loads of gold and jewels.

I wasn’t allowed to forget him for long because I saw him the following Sunday in the club bar gazing moodily into a
brandy glass. He looked up, caught my eye and looked away hastily as though shamed. I didn’t go over and speak to him; he wasn’t altogether my type—I don’t go for drunks much.

Later that afternoon I had just come out of the swimming pool and was enjoying a cigarette when I became aware that Walker was standing beside me. As I looked up, he said awkwardly, ‘I think I owe you some money—for the taxi fare the other night.’

‘Forget it,’ I said shortly.

He dropped on one knee. ‘I’m sorry about that. Did I cause any trouble?’

I smiled. ‘Can’t you remember?’

‘Not a damn’ thing,’ he confessed. ‘I didn’t get into a fight or anything, did I?’

‘No, we just talked.’

His eyes flickered. ‘What about?’

‘Your experiences in Italy. You told me rather an odd story.’

‘I told you about the gold?’

I nodded. ‘That’s right.’

‘I was drunk,’ he said. ‘As shickered as a coot. I shouldn’t have told you about that. You haven’t mentioned it to anyone, have you?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ I said. ‘You don’t mean it’s true?’ He certainly wasn’t drunk now.

‘True enough,’ he said heavily. ‘The stuffs still up there—in a hole in the ground in Italy. I’d not like you to talk about it.’

‘I won’t,’ I promised.

‘Come and have a drink,’ he suggested.

‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m going home now.’

He seemed depressed. ‘All right,’ he said, and I watched him walk lethargically up to the club house.

After that, he couldn’t seem to keep away from me. It was as though he had delivered a part of himself into my keeping and he had to watch me to see that I kept it safe. He acted as though we were partners in a conspiracy, with
many a nod and wink and a sudden change of subject if he thought we were being overheard.

He wasn’t so bad when you got to know him, if you discounted the incipient alcoholism. He had a certain charm when he wanted to use it and he most surely set out to charm me. I don’t suppose it was difficult; I was a stranger in a strange land and he was company of sorts.

He ought to have been an actor for he had the gift of mimicry. When he told me the story of the gold his mobile face altered plastically and his voice changed until I could see the bull-headed Coertze, gentle Donato and the tougher-fibred Alberto. Although Walker had normally a slight trace of a South African accent, he could drop it at will to take on the heavy gutturals of the Afrikaner or the speed and sibilance of the Italian. His Italian was rapid and fluent and he was probably one of those people who can learn a language in a matter of weeks.

I had lost most of my doubts about the truth of his story. It was too damned circumstantial. The bit about the inscription on the cigarette case impressed me a lot; I couldn’t see Walker making up a thing like that. Besides, it wasn’t the brandy talking all the time; he still stuck to the same story, which didn’t change a fraction under many repetitions—drunk and sober.

Once I said, ‘The only thing I can’t figure is that big crown.’

‘Alberto thought it was the royal crown of Ethiopia,’ said Walker. ‘It wouldn’t be worn about the palace—they’d only use it for coronations.’

That sounded logical. I said, ‘How do you know that the others haven’t dug up the lot? There’s still Harrison and Parker—and it would be dead easy for the two Italians; they’re on the spot.’

Walker shook his head. ‘No, there’s only Coertze and me. The others were killed.’ His lips twisted. ‘It seemed to be unhealthy to stick close to Coertze. I got scared in the end and beat it.’

I looked hard at him. ‘Do you mean to say that Coertze murdered them?’

‘Don’t put words in my mouth,’ said Walker sharply. ‘I didn’t say that. All I know is that four men were killed when they were close to Coertze.’ He ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Harrison was the first—that happened only three days after we buried the loot.’

He tapped a second finger. ‘Next came Alberto—I saw that happen. It was as near an accident as anyone could arrange. Then Parker. He was killed in action just like Harrison, and, just like Harrison, the only person who was anywhere near him was Coertze.’

He held up three fingers and slowly straightened the fourth. ‘Last was Donato. He was found near the camp with his head bashed in. They said he’d been rock-climbing, so the verdict was accidental death—but not in my book. That was enough for me, so I quit and went south.’

I thought about this for a while, then said, ‘What did you mean when you said you saw Alberto killed?’

‘We’d been on a raid,’ said Walker. ‘It went O.K. but the Germans moved fast and got us boxed in. We had to get out by the back door, and the back door was a cliff. Coertze was good on a mountain and he and Alberto went first, Coertze leading. He said he wanted to find the easiest way down, which was all right—he usually did that.

‘He went along a ledge and out of sight, then he came back and gave Alberto the O.K. sign. Then he came back to tell us it was all right to start down, so Parker and I went next. We followed Alberto and when we got round the corner we saw that he was stuck.

‘There were no hand holds ahead of him and he’d got himself into a position where he couldn’t get back, either. Just as we got there he lost his nerve—we could see him quivering and shaking. There he was, like a fly on the side of that cliff with a hell of a long drop under him and a pack
of Germans ready to drop on top of him, and he was shaking like a jelly.

‘Parker shouted to Coertze and he came down. There was just room enough for him to pass us, so he said he’d go to help Alberto. He got as far as Alberto and Alberto fell off. I swear that Coertze pushed him.’

‘Did you see Coertze push him?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Walker admitted. ‘I couldn’t see Alberto at all once Coertze had passed us. Coertze’s a big bloke and he isn’t made of glass. But why did he give Alberto the O.K. sign to go along that ledge?’

‘It could have been an honest mistake.’

Walker nodded. ‘That’s what I thought at the time. Coertze said afterwards that he didn’t mean that Alberto should go as far as that. There
was
an easier way down just short of where Alberto got stuck. Coertze took us down there.’

He lit a cigarette. ‘But when Parker was shot up the following week I started to think again.’

‘How did it happen?’

Walker shrugged. ‘The usual thing—you know how it is in a fight. When it was all over we found Parker had a hole in his head. Nobody saw it happen, but Coertze was nearest.’ He paused. ‘The hole was in the
back
of the head.’

‘A German bullet?’

Walker snorted. ‘Brother, we didn’t have time for an autopsy; but it wouldn’t have made any difference. We were using German weapons and ammo—captured stuff; and Coertze
always
used German guns; he said they were better than the British.’ He brooded. ‘That started me thinking seriously. It was all too pat—all these blokes being knocked off so suddenly. When Donato got his, I quit. The Foreign Legion was just about busted anyway. I waited until the Count had sent Coertze off somewhere, then I collected my gear, said goodbye and headed south to the Allied lines. I was lucky—I got through.’

‘What about Coertze?’

‘He stayed with the Count until the Yanks came up. I saw him in Jo’burg a couple of years ago. I was crossing the road to go into a pub when I saw Coertze going through the door. I changed my mind; I had a drink, but not in
that
pub.’

He shivered suddenly. ‘I want to stay as far from Coertze as I can. There’s a thousand miles between Cape Town and Johannesburg—that ought to be enough.’ He stood up suddenly. ‘Let’s go and have a drink, for God’s sake.’

So we went and had a drink—several drinks.

During the next few weeks I could see that Walker was on the verge of making me a proposition. He said he had some money due to him and that he would need a good friend. At last he came out with it.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘My old man died last year and I’ve got two thousand pounds coming when I can get it out of the lawyer’s hands. I could go to Italy on two thousand pounds.’

‘So you could,’ I said.

He bit his lip. ‘Hal, I want you to come with me.’

‘For the gold?’

‘That’s right; for the gold. Share and share alike.’

‘What about Coertze?’

‘To hell with Coertze,’ said Walker violently. ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with him.’

I thought about it. I was young and full of vinegar in those days, and this sounded just the ticket—if Walker was telling the truth. And if he wasn’t telling the truth, why would he finance me to a trip to Italy? It seemed a pleasantly adventurous thing to do, but I hesitated. ‘Why me?’ I asked.

‘I can’t do it myself,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t trust Coertze, and you’re the only other chap who knows anything about it. And I trust you, Hal, I really do.’

I made up my mind. ‘All right, it’s a deal. But there are conditions.’

‘Trot them out.’

‘This drinking of yours has to stop,’ I said. ‘You’re all right when you’re sober, but when you’ve got a load on you’re bloody awful. Besides, you know you spill things when you’re cut.’

He rearranged his eager face into a firm expression. ‘I’ll do it, Hal; I won’t touch a drop,’ he promised.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘When do we start?’

I can see now that we were a couple of naïve young fools. We expected to be able to lift several tons of gold from a hole in the ground without too much trouble. We had no conception of the brains and organization that would be needed—and were needed in the end.