The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (4 page)

The manager's normally pink face had turned white as paper. "Which way
were they heading?" he asked sharply.

"North," Willy answered. "Almost due north."

"Right!" the manager said. "We'll take the speed-boat. I want
you with us, Willy. And you, Tom."

The manager, the two policemen and the two fishermen ran down to where the boat
that was used for water-skiing lay beached on the sand. They pushed the boat
out, and even the manager lent a hand, wading up to his knees in his
well-pressed white trousers. Then they all climbed in.

I watched them go zooming off.

Two hours later, I watched them coming back. They had seen nothing.

All through that day, speed-boats and yachts from other hotels along the coast
searched the ocean. In the afternoon, the boy's father hired a helicopter. He
rode in it himself and they were up there three hours. They found no trace of
the turtle or the boy.

For a week, the search went on, but with no result.

And now, nearly a year has gone by since it happened. In that time, there has
been only one significant bit of news.
A party of Americans,
out from Nassau in the Bahamas, were deep-sea fishing off a large island called
Eleuthera
.
There are literally thousands of
coral reefs and small uninhabited islands in this
area,
and upon one of these tiny islands, the captain of the yacht saw through his
binoculars the figure of a small person. There was a sandy beach on the island,
and the small person was walking on the beach. The binoculars were passed
around, and everyone who looked through them agreed that it was a child of some
sort. There was, of course, a lot of excitement on board and the fishing lines
were quickly reeled in. The captain steered the yacht straight for the island.
When they were half a mile off, they were able, through the binoculars, to see
clearly that the figure on the beach was a boy, and although
sunburnt
, he was almost certainly white-skinned, not a
native. At that point, the watchers on the yacht also spotted what looked like
a giant turtle on the sand near the boy. What happened next happened very
quickly. The boy, who had probably caught sight of the approaching yacht,
jumped on the turtle's back and the huge creature entered the water and swam at
great speed around the island and out of sight. The yacht searched for two
hours, but nothing more was seen either of the boy or the turtle.

There is no reason to disbelieve this report. There were five people on the
yacht. Four of them were Americans and the captain was a Bahamian from Nassau.
All of them in turn saw the boy and the turtle through the binoculars.

To reach
Eleuthera
Island from Jamaica by sea, one
must first travel north-east for two hundred and fifty miles and pass through
the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. Then one must go north-north-west
for a further three hundred miles at least. This is a total distance of five
hundred and fifty miles, which is a very long journey for a small boy to make
on the shell of a giant turtle.

Who knows what to think of all this?

One day, perhaps, he will come back, though I personally doubt it. I have a
feeling he's quite happy where he is.

I had a new car. It was an exciting toy, a big B.M.W. 3.3 Li, which means 3.3
litre
, long wheelbase,
fuel
injection. It had a top speed of 129
m.p.h
. and
terrific acceleration. The body was pale blue. The seats inside were darker
blue and they were made of leather, genuine soft leather of the finest quality.
The windows were electrically operated and so was the sun-roof. The radio
aerial popped up when I switched on the radio, and disappeared when I switched
it off. The powerful engine growled and grunted impatiently at slow speeds, but
at sixty miles an hour the growling stopped and the motor began to purr with
pleasure.

I was driving up to London by myself. It was a lovely June day. They were
haymaking in the fields and there were buttercups along both sides of the road.
I was whispering along at seventy miles an hour, leaning back comfortably in my
seat, with no more than a couple of fingers resting lightly on the wheel to
keep her steady. Ahead of me I saw a man thumbing a lift. I touched the
footbrake and brought the car to a stop beside him. I always stopped for
hitch-hikers. I knew just how it used to feel to be standing on the side of a
country road watching the cars go by. I hated the drivers for pretending they
didn't see me, especially the ones in big cars with three empty seats. The
large expensive cars seldom stopped. It was always the smaller ones that
offered you a lift, or the old rusty ones, or the ones that were already
crammed full of children and the driver would say, "I think we can squeeze
in one more."

The hitch-hiker poked his head through the open window and said, "Going to
London,
guv'nor
?"

"Yes," I said, "Jump in."

He got in and I drove on.

He was a small ratty-faced man with grey teeth. His eyes were dark and quick
and clever, like a rat's eyes, and his ears were slightly pointed at the top.
He had a cloth cap on his head and he was wearing a
greyish-coloured
jacket
wih
enormous pockets. The grey jacket,
together with the quick eyes and the pointed ears, made him look more than
anything like some sort of a huge human rat.

"What part of London are you headed for?" I asked him.

"I'm
goin
' right through London and out the
other side," he said. "I'm
goin
' to Epsom,
for the races. It's Derby Day today."

"So it is," I said. "I wish I were going with you. I love
betting on horses."

"I never bet on horses," he said. "I don't even watch '
em
run. That's a stupid silly business."

"Then why do you go?" I asked.

He didn't seem to like that question. His little ratty face went absolutely
blank and he sat there staring straight ahead at the road, saying nothing.

"I expect you help to work the betting machines or something like
that," I said.

"That's even sillier," he answered. "There's no fun working them
lousy machines and selling tickets to mugs. Any fool could do that."

There was a long silence. I decided not to question him any more. I remembered
how irritated I used to get in my hitch-hiking days when drivers kept asking
me
questions. Where are you going? Why
are you going there? What's your job? Are you married? Do you have a
girl-friend? What's her name? How old are you? And so on and so forth. I used
to hate it.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's none of my business what you do. The
trouble is, I'm a writer, and most writers are terrible nosey parkers."

"You write books?" he asked.

"Yes."

"
Writin
' books is okay," he said.
"It's what I call a skilled trade. I'm in a skilled trade too. The folks I
despise
is
them that spend all their lives
doin
' crummy old routine jobs with no skill in
em
' at all. You see what I mean?"

"Yes."

"The secret of life," he said, "is to become very
very
good at
somethin
' that's
very
very
'
ard
to do."

"Like you," I said.

"Exactly.
You and me
both."

"What makes you think that
I'm
any
good at my job?" I asked. "
There's
an awful
lot of bad writers around."

"You wouldn't be
drivin
' about in a car like
this if you weren't
no
good at it," he answered.
"It must've cost a tidy packet, this little job."

"It wasn't cheap."

"What can she do flat out?" he asked.

"One hundred and twenty-nine miles an hour," I told him.

"I'll bet she won't do it."

"I'll bet she will."

"All car makers
is
liars," he said.
"You can buy any car you like and it'll never do what the makers say it
will in the ads."

"This one will."

"Open '
er
up then and prove it," he said.
"Go on,
guv'nor
, open '
er
right up and let's see what she'll do."

There is a roundabout at Chalfont St Peter and immediately beyond it there's a
long straight section of dual carriageway. We came out of the roundabout on to
the carriageway and I pressed my foot down on the accelerator. The big car
leaped forward as though she'd been stung. In ten seconds or so, we were doing
ninety.

"Lovely!" he
cried."'Beautiful
! Keep
goin
'!"

I had the accelerator jammed right down against the floor and I held it there.

"One hundred!" he shouted. . . "A hundred and five
!. . .
A hundred and ten
!. . .
A
hundred and fifteen! Go on! Don't slack off!"

I was in the outside lane and we flashed past several cars as though they were
standing still -- a green Mini, a big cream-
coloured
Citroën
, a white Land-Rover, a huge truck with a container
on the back, an orange-
coloured
Volkswagen Minibus. .
.

"A hundred and twenty!" my passenger shouted, jumping up and down.
"Go on! Go on! Get '
er
up to one-two-nine!"

At that moment, I heard the scream of a police siren.

It was so loud it seemed to be right inside the car, and then a policeman on a
motor-cycle loomed up alongside us on the inside lane and went past us and
raised a hand for us to stop.

"Oh, my sainted aunt!"
I said. 'That's torn
it!"

The policeman must have been doing about a hundred and thirty when he passed
us, and he took plenty of time slowing down. Finally, he pulled into the side
of the road and I pulled in behind him. "I didn't know police motorcycles
could go as fast as that," I said rather lamely.

"That one can," my passenger said. "It's the same make as yours.
It's a B.M.W. R90S.
Fastest bike on the road.
That's
what they're
usin
' nowadays."

The policeman got off his motor-cycle and leaned the machine sideways on to its
prop stand. Then he took off his gloves and placed them carefully on the seat.
He was in no hurry now. He had us where he wanted us and he knew it.

"This is real trouble," I said. "I don't like it one bit."

"Don't talk to '
im
any more than is necessary,
you understand," my companion said. "Just sit tight and keep
mum."

Like an executioner approaching his victim, the policeman came strolling slowly
towards us. He was a big meaty man with a belly, and his blue breeches were
skintight around his enormous thighs. His goggles were pulled up on the helmet,
showing a
smouldering
red face with wide cheeks.

We sat there like guilty schoolboys, waiting for him to arrive.

"Watch out for this man," my passenger whispered.
"
'
Ee
looks mean as the devil."

The policeman came round to my open window and placed one meaty hand on the
sill. "What's the hurry?" he said.

"No hurry, officer," I answered.

"Perhaps there's a woman in the back having a baby and you're rushing her
to hospital? Is that it?"

"No, officer."

"Or perhaps your house is on fire and you're dashing home to rescue the
family from upstairs?" His voice was dangerously soft and mocking.

"My house isn't on fire, officer."

"In that case," he said, "you've got yourself into a nasty mess,
haven't you? Do you know what the speed limit is in this country?"

"Seventy," I said.

"And do you mind telling me exactly what speed you were doing just
now?"

I shrugged and didn't say anything.

When he spoke next, he raised his voice so loud that I jumped.
"One hundred and twenty miles per
hour!"
he barked. 'That's
fifty
miles
an hour over the limit!"

He turned his head and spat out a big gob of spit. It landed on the wing of my
car and started sliding down over my beautiful blue paint. Then he turned back
again and stared hard at my passenger. "And who are you?" he asked
sharply.

"He's a hitch-hiker," I said. "I'm giving him a lift."

"I didn't ask you," he said. "I asked him."

" 'Ave
I done
somethin
'
wrong?" my passenger asked. His voice was as soft and oily as
haircream
.

"That's more than likely," the policeman answered. "Anyway,
you're a witness. I'll deal with you in a minute. Driving-
licence
,"
he snapped, holding out his hand.