‘No dallying, lover,’ murmured Lyn in the galley forward of the saloon.
Colly Tucker sweated. Nikki sweated. The camera softly hummed.
The new photographer concentrated on his viewfinder. He was only eighteen. He had learned his photography in night-school in Queen’s. Sweat poured off his fat forearms. He was hoping to get a tan like Lyn’s and George’s.
Colly Tucker, at the age of nine, had been summoned to the study of the headmaster of his private school in Massachusetts. He was correctly accused of putting two dozen grasshoppers in the headmaster’s desk.
He had providentially and copiously thrown up. The result was not a pardon but at least a useful reprieve.
He had realised the power of mind over stomach.
During the rest of his childhood and adolescence he had summoned the gift at moments of crisis. At home, at school; at summer camp and at dancing-class. Then, at eighteen, it got him out of the embraces of a lecherous old woman. At twenty it got him out of an imminent and deplorable engagement.
Now hot and full of rum he struggled to his feet, his mouth working. He furiously exercised the groggy remnants of his will: he must vomit. He lurched up the short companion to the cockpit and afterdeck. He hung over the after rail. He sobbed and retched.
He was out of practice, but it was a fair performance.
George, elegant on the foredeck, looked at him with chagrin. Nicola, in the saloon, moaned. Lyn said, ‘Chicken!’ and told the photographer to stop wasting film.
Colly appeared to pass out on the afterdeck. Nicola went below and lay on her bunk. George crossly started the diesel and steered south towards St George’s.
Late in the afternoon Colly stumbled aboard the big schooner Cressida, which had motored in at lunchtime.
He seemed to make an astonishing recovery the moment he went below.
The old charter-party had already gone ashore; the new one had not yet arrived. Yes, Colly could be interested in Cressida if the owners were minded to sell. Not a new yacht but a fine sea-boat and very, very comfortable.
The advance guard of the new party arrived to say hullo. It was Colly’s friend John Millet, a rich idler like himself but not nearly so rich or so idle. He had been cheated of his free cruise in Colly’s Perelandra, and had consequently made his own expensive arrangements. He was abusive to Colly and they had a drink. The rest of his party was due in a day or two.
Colly could use Cressida’s radio. He could also if necessary use Cressida.
Colly radio’d a charter office several hundred miles to the north. He had something to report. He reported it in terms that the charter-company, and any eavesdropper, would entirely misunderstand. He hoped Sandro would get through quickly.
Colly had been desperately tempted to strike today, out there under the green bluff. But things were too delicately poised; he could not move without Sandro’s authority.
At seven-twenty-five he got it, from Nassau and relayed from St Lucia. He was to press ahead and purchase without delay. He could bargain as hard as circumstances warranted. He must pay particular attention to the radio. At least one of the existing crew must be kept, as their local knowledge would be helpful.
‘Understood,’ said Colly.
He thanked John Millet and the skipper of Cressida, and went ashore to confirm his terrible reputation.
His plan was simple. He would go early in the morning to Campanula, would apologise to his friendly hosts on the yacht for making such a fool of himself yesterday, and (eyeing their delicious supercargo) would wait for another invitation. They would doubtless take him at once. They would give him a little less rum.
They certainly had guns and probably throwing-knives on board. These would surely be in the saloon or in the cabins below. He would therefore secure the saloon, get Lyn and the photographer (whom he had never seen) in the galley, and then deal with George, unarmed on deck. It was impossible to plan more accurately. It would depend where they all were around noon. Colly doubted if the girl would be of any practical help.
He climbed out of his car at the yacht-basin at nine-thirty and walked with an air of bashfulness towards Campanula’s berth.
She was not there.
She was clearing the harbour mouth, sails beginning to draw. Once again she sharpened up and turned north.
Colly ran like a madman the thirty yards to where Cressida was tied up. He jumped aboard. Even after so short a distance, even early in the day, he was purple and pouring with sweat after his sharp effort in the blazing sun.
He flopped into the saloon, interrupting John Millet’s breakfast.
‘Skipper? Crew?’ he gasped.
‘I guess they’re around. You being chased by a girl, Colly?’
‘Can you get going? Now at once?’
John laid down his knife. ‘You are the most ridiculous friend—’
‘For the love of God, John.’
There was something in Colly’s face which John had never seen there before. He dropped his fork with a clatter and ran up on deck.
The skipper was startled and seemed disinclined to move. One deck-hand was varnishing, one was coiling spare cordage. Colly almost physically drove them into action. John Millet, looking stunned, supported him.
‘Tell you as we go,’ panted Colly.
Cressida was big, beamy, awkward in a confined space. Her gangplank and fenders and hawsers were heavy and her sails enormous. By the time she was in the harbour mouth Campanula was still visible but a long way away.
‘Can you catch her?’
‘With a reaching wind, sure,’ said the skipper. ‘The more it blows the faster we’ll be there. If the wind backs, I dunno. Those new sails, modern hull, she can point higher than old Cressy. If the wind drops, I dunno. I guess she’d be fast in a light air.’
‘Motor?’
‘If it comes to motoring she’s three knots faster, I guess.’
‘Christ.’
‘Point is, Mr Tucker, do they know we’re chasing her?’
‘No.’
‘Then I guess we’ll catch her. In mebbe two hours.’
‘Why are we chasing her, Colly?’ asked John Millet.
‘They have a prisoner on board.’
‘Shucks, son. You been reading Rip Kirby.’
‘A girl. Believe me.’
In Colly’s face there was again that unfamiliar expression, tense and vengeful. John Millet believed him.
‘Get me aboard. Then sail away fast.’
‘Want me to come?’
‘No.’
The big square topsail was shaken out. Cressida responded like a horse to the spur. Her angle of heel increased and she drove through the swell, spray crashing over the weather bow.
Campanula was already growing very gradually larger in the binoculars Colly found in the saloon.
The wind veered, backed, faded, gusted through gaps in the mountains to the east. The pale fan of their wake zigzagged across the sea – this was no time for sailing by the compass, but for getting all possible speed out of the splendid old yacht.
‘Don’t let Campanula get too far upwind.’
‘I get you. These damned mountains.’
A black cloud rushed downwind over the island. They could see the wall of rain running over the sea towards them. It hit them with an almost solid impact, roaring on Cressida’s deck, soaking them to the skin in the first second. The noise and the stinging assault of the rain confused the senses.
The black cloud swam on as quickly as it came. The rain stopped abruptly. The sun blazed down on them. The wind whipped at their saturated shirts and the great grey sails and dried them quickly.
Campanula was nearer.
‘Why, it’s Mr Tucker.’
‘How’re you feeling, Mr Tucker?’
It was eight minutes after twelve. Cressida and Campanula were sailing at four or five knots, lifting to the swell, side by side, two fathoms apart. George was at Campanula’s wheel and John Millet at Cressida’s – two competent and alert helmsmen who knew what they were doing. Lyn stood, relaxed and elegant, by Campanula’s lee rail. He held the slack main backstay with one hand and a boathook with the other. He had already slung out three portside fenders.
‘Trying out the schooner, Mr Tucker? How does she sail?’
‘She’s a witch,’ said Colly. ‘Got one big drawback, though.’
‘Yeah?’ shouted George. ‘What’s that?’
‘No girls.’
‘Come aboard, Mr Tucker! It’s party time!’
‘You sure,’ said John Millet softly, ‘you don’t want me along, Colly?’
‘No thanks, chum. As soon as I’m aboard her, port your helm and get the hell out.’
‘But it’s party time, you selfish bastard.’
Colly laughed. His eyes were not laughing.
Nicola came on deck in her lascivious bikini.
John whistled softly. ‘You selfish bastard.’
Both helmsmen pointed high, pinching, slowing their ships. All the sails began to quiver and thud. The yachts kept minimum steerage-way, just short of irons.
Lyn galloped up Campanula’s shrouds and took a nylon line over the main crosstrees. He came down the stay hand over hand like an acrobat, then coiled the line and threw it across the narrow gap of water to Colly. Colly nodded, gestured, grinned, and tied a bowline in the rope. He put the loop over his shoulders and climbed on to Cressida’s rail. He was now wearing swimming-trunks and a towelling shirt.
Cressida’s skipper watched all this jolly by-play with disapproval. He slung out fenders, and perched himself outside the rail on Cressida’s weather side ready to use his foot to fend off Campanula.
Lyn took up the slack in Colly’s lifeline. George and John Millet brought the two big yachts still closer together. Colly jumped, easily clutching and catching Campanula’s rail. He climbed inboard and wriggled out of the loop of rope. He was not much hampered by the gun under his left armpit. He turned and waved to Cressida: ‘See you this evening, fellers! Thanks for the ride.’
John Millet waved and spun Cressida’s wheel. The schooner sheered off fast, her sails filling. She showed her splendid high stern to Campanula and then her port quarter. Colly heard John shout: ‘Ready jibe,’ faintly over the noise of wind and water. Cressida’s crew sprang to sheets and backstays. In seconds she was sweeping away from them to the south.
‘Very forgiving of you guys,’ said Colly.
‘Better luck today, Mr Tucker.’
Colly caught Nicola’s eye. She was standing, in a pose of boredom, on the starboard deck, holding the shrouds. There was a flicker of dopey recognition on her face. There was perhaps a flicker of tension, perhaps fright, perhaps appeal, perhaps relief.
‘Say, uh,’ said Colly to George, I’ll just go below, use the head, if that’s all right.’
‘Be our guest. Lyn be ready with a drink pretty soon.’
Colly had no need of the heads. He had a great need to get below, neutralise the photographer, and command the saloon.
He went down the three steps into the saloon. He winked at Nicola before he disappeared. She showed no reaction. She could be discounted as a tactical factor, for or against.
The saloon door was held open by a brass hook. Colly nudged this as he went by, lurching as though residually a little drunk from the night before. The door swung indecisively with the motion of the yacht, then slammed shut as Campanula heeled to a gust.
Colly noisily opened the after door in the saloon. A companion led to the after cabins, between which were head, shower, small aluminium wash-basin. He banged the door shut again, but stayed on the saloon side of it. He crawled quickly forward, out of sight of anyone on deck who might be looking in through the ports. When he reached the forward door he got his gun out of the shoulder-holster and cocked it. Then he opened the door, went through it, and closed it again in one smooth movement. He held the gun in his left hand.
A pale, tubby youth with an outdated Presley hair-do stood in the galley. He was busy bolting a movie-camera to the ironwork of the stove.
He looked up with a knowing, guttersnipe smile, doubtless expecting Lyn. At the sight of Colly and Colly’s gun his smile dropped off as though unhooked from his nose and allowed to fall to the deck. His eyes opened wide. His mouth opened and he began to make a little high keening noise.
Colly spoke quietly but very distinctly: ‘Listen hard, boy. I don’t have the slightest objection to shooting you in the leg or the belly or the back.’
‘I’m only eighteen,’ whimpered the photographer.
‘Too young to die,’ said Colly affably. ‘Do exactly like I say, will you?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I just do what they say. I don’t even look.’
‘Okay. Now listen.’ Colly gave the boy orders, made sure he understood them, made as sure as possible, by means of sadistic threats, that he would obey them.
He gestured the boy through the door into the saloon, and followed him. The boy trotted aft, holding the saloon table to keep his balance on the steeply heeling deck. Colly followed, crouching. When the boy opened the after door to the cockpit Colly was beside it, flat against the bulkhead, the gun in his right hand.
‘Lynwood! The guy passed out!’
‘Oh great,’ sighed Lyn on deck.
‘Go see,’ came George’s voice.
Colly heard or imagined a small, despairing exclamation from the girl.
Lyn came delicately down the short companion. He poked his neat blond head into the saloon. ‘In here, Albie?’ He came lazily in.
The boy suddenly shouted: ‘Look out!’
As Lyn spun round Colly clubbed him with the gun. Lyn fell. He rolled down the steep deck to the side of the saloon. Colly turned his gun on the boy. The boy screamed and backed. The back of his knees met the edge of the seat and he collapsed backwards. Colly was suddenly on top of him and he screamed again. With reluctance, and disliking it, Colly hit him on the side of the head with the gun-butt and he crumpled sideways, down from the seat to the deck, and across the deck to the legs of the table.
Now George. But the damage was done.
Colly felt the yacht spin to starboard and heard the thunder of flapping sails. She was in irons. George had left the wheel. Did he have an armoury on deck?
‘George,’ called Colly, imitating the boy’s voice as well as he could, ‘George, come quick.’
Nicola screamed, close over his head, and then her scream was cut off into a shuddering gasp.
Christ.
Nothing could be seen out of the saloon portholes. Nothing could be heard over the monstrous flapping of the sails. There was no way on deck except by the cockpit.
Every second he stayed down here gave George more time to do whatever he was doing.
George was somewhere forward of the cockpit. He’d have good cover from the mainmast, galley ventilator, forward hatch, or the dinghy on the foredeck. But he might not have a gun.
Colly eased up the steps and peered with infinite caution forward over the roof of the saloon.
A flash of silver bloomed in the corner of his eye and a knife whammed into the mizzen. It hit the steel sleeve of the roller-reefing on the boom, and spun off into the sea. Nicola screamed again, and again her scream was cut off into a gurgle.
Main and mizzen booms swung idly from side to side. The yacht pitched and rolled as she drifted astern. The slack sails rattled overhead.
George was not trying to hide. He stood by the main backstay, slightly crouched so that he could see under the main boom. His right arm was hooked round the stay. His left arm held Nicola in a stranglehold, his forearm against her windpipe and his hand braced behind her shoulder. Her body was in front of his, hiding all but head and arms. In his right hand was a flick-knife with a five-inch blade. Its point was just touching Nicola’s rib-cage.
The yacht shuddered and the knife-point pricked Nicola’s skin. Nicola tried to scream again but George tightened his left arm against her throat and strangled the scream. There was a smear of blood on Nicola’s side.
Her bikini top had slipped off or been pulled off. It flapped round her thighs. The bottom had been torn in her brief struggle with George. It hung down from her left leg and the wind plucked at it and set it dancing in front of her knee.
Her eyes were wide open and aware and terrified. Her mouth was open and her tongue protruded. She was fighting for air against the hard bone and muscle of George’s forearm.
In a dead calm, in a dry dock, there was no chance of hitting what Colly could see of George.
‘If I was in your position, Mr Tucker,’ shouted George over the noise of the flapping sails, ‘I’d shoot the girl and then I’d shoot me. But you’re a chivalrous gentleman, Mr Tucker, so I guess you won’t shoot the girl. In fact, Mr Tucker, there isn’t a goddam thing you can do.’
Colly said nothing. There was nothing to say. George was right.