The Golden Rendezvous (33 page)

there was a way. It was a way that gave little enough hope of success, with the added drawback that I would be forced to leave those three incriminating ropes attached to the guardrail aft; but at least it didn't carry with it an outright guarantee of failure. I stooped, felt for the coiled fall rope, cut it with my clasp knife. One end of the rope I secured to my waist with a bowline; the rest of it, about sixty feet, I wrapped round my waist, tucking the end in. I fumbled for and found the radio office key that i'd taken off the dead carlos. I stood in the rain and the darkness and waited.

a minute elapsed, no more, then the radio operator appeared, locked the door behind him, and made for the companionway leading up to the bridge. Thirty seconds later I was sitting in the seat he'd just vacated, looking up the call sign of the fort ticonderoga.

I made no attempt to hide my presence there by leaving the light off. That would only have aroused the suspicions, and quickly, too, of any passing guards hearing the stutter of transmitted morse coming from

a darkened wireless office.

twice I tapped out the call sign of the ticonderoga and on the second occasion I got an acknowledgement. One of carreras' radio operator stooges aboard the ticonderoga was certainly keeping a pretty sharp watch. I should have expected nothing else.

it was a brief message, speeded on its way by the introductory words: highest priority urgent immediate repeat immediate attention master fort ticonderoga. I sent the message and took the liberty of signing it: from the office of the minister of transport by the hand of vice-admiral richard hodson director naval operations. I switched off the light, opened the door, and peered out cautiously. No curious listeners, no one at all in sight. I came all the way out, locked the padlock, and threw the key over the side.

thirty seconds later I was on the port side of the boat deck, carefully gauging, as best I could in that darkness and driving rain, the distance from where I stood to the break in the focsle. About thirty feet, I finally estimated, and the distance from the focsle break aft to the window above my bed was, I guessed, about the same. If I was

right, I should be almost directly above that window now; the sick bay was three decks below. If I wasn't right-well, i'd better be right.

I checked the knot round my waist, passed the other end of the rope round a convenient arm of a davit, and let it hang down loosely over the side. I was just about to start lowering myself when the rope below me smacked wetly against the ship's side and went taut. Someone had caught

that rope and hauled it tight.

panic touched me, but the instinct for self-preservation still operated independently of my mind. I flung an arm round the davit and locked on to the wrist of the other hand. Anyone wanting to pull me over the side would have to pull that davit and lifeboat along with me.

But as long as that pressure remained on the rope I couldn't escape, couldn't free a hand to untie the bowline or get at my clasp knife. The pressure eased. I fumbled for the knot, then stopped as the pressure came on again. But the pressure was only momentary, no pull but a tug. Four tugs, in rapid succession. If I wasn't feeling weak enough already, i'd have felt that way with relief.

Four tubs. The prearranged signal with macdonald to show I was on my way back. I might have known archie macdonald would have been keeping watch every second of the time I was away. He must have seen or heard or even felt the rope snaking down past the window and guessed that it could only be myself. I went down that rope like a man reborn, checked suddenly as a strong hand caught me by the ankle, and five seconds later was on terra firma inside the sick bay.

"The ropes!" I said to macdonald. I was already untying the one round my own waist. "The two ropes on the bedstead. Off with them.

Throw them out the window." moments later the last of the three ropes had vanished, I was closing the window, pulling the curtains, and calling softly for lights.

the lights came on. Macdonald and bullen were as I had left them, both eyeing me with expressionless faces: macdonald, because he knew my

safe return meant at least possible success and did not want to betray his knowledge; bullen, because I had told him that I intended to take over the bridge by force, and he was convinced that my method of return

meant failure and didn't want to embarrass me. Susan and marston were by the dispensary door, both fully dressed, neither making any attempt to conceal disappointment. No time for greetings.

"Susan, on with the heaters! full on. This place feels like a frig after this window being open so long. Carreras will be here any minute and it's the first thing he will notice. After that, towels for me. Doc, a hand to get macdonald back to his own bed. Move, man, move! and why aren't you and susan dressed for bed? if carreras sees you

"We were expecting the gentleman to come calling with a gun,"

macdonald reminded me. "You're frozen stiff, mr. carter, blue with cold. And shivering like you were in an icebox."

"I feel like it." we dumped macdonald, none too gently, on his bed, pulled up sheets and blankets, then I tore off my clothes and started to towel myself dry. No matter how I towelled, I couldn't stop the shivering.

"The key," macdonald said sharply. "The key in the sickbay door."

"God, yes!" i'd forgotten all about it. "Susan, will you? unlock it. And then to bed. Quickly! and you, doctor." I took the key from her, opened the window behind the curtain, and flung the key out; the suit I had been wearing, the socks, the wet towels followed in short order, but not before I had remembered to remove the screw driver and macdonald's clasp knife from the jacket. I dried and combed my hair into some sort of order-as orderly as anyone could expect it to be after a few hours' sleeping in bed and helped doc marston as he swiftly changed the plaster on my head and wrapped splints and fresh bandages round the still soaking ones covering the wounds in my leg. Then the lights clicked off and the sick bay was once more in darkness.

"Have I forgotten anything, anybody?" I asked. "Anything that might show i've been out of here?"

"Nothing, I don't think there's anything." the bo'sun speaking.

"I'm sure."

"The heaters?" I asked. "Are they on? it's freezing in here."

"It's not that cold, my boy," bullen said in his husky whisper.

"You're freezing, that's what. Marston, haven't you

"Hot-water bags," marston said briskly. "Two of them. Here they are." he thrust them into my hands in the dark. "Had them all prepared for you; we suspected all that sea water and rain wouldn't do that fever of yours any good. And here's a glass to show your friend carreras a few drops of brandy in the bottom to convince him how far through you are.

"You might have filled it," I complained. "I did."

I emptied it. No question but that that neat brandy had a heating effect; it seemed to burn a hole through me all the way down to my stomach, but the only overall effect it had was to make the rest of me seem colder than ever.

then macdonald's voice, quick and quiet: "someone coming."

i'd time to fumble the empty glass on to the bedside table but time for nothing more, not even time to slide down to a lying position under the blankets. The door opened, the overhead lights clicked on, and carreras, the inevitable chart under his arm, advanced across the sick bay towards my bed. As usual, he had his expressions and emotions under

complete control: anxiety, tension, anticipation, all those must have been in his mind, and behind everything the memory of his lost son, but no trace showed.

he stopped a yard away and stared down at me, eyes speculative and narrowed and cold.

"Not asleep, carter, eh?" he said slowly. "Not even lying down."

he picked up the glass from the bedside table, sniffed it, and set it down again. "Brandy. And you're shivering, carter. Shivering all the time. Why? answer me!"

"I'm frightened," I said sourly. "Every time I see you I get terrified."

"Mr. carreras!" doc marston had just appeared through the dispensary doorway, a blanket wrapped round him, his magnificent mane of

white hair tousled in splendid disorder, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "This is outrageous, completely outrageous. Disturbing this very sick boy-and at this hour. I must ask you to leave, sir. And at once!"

carreras looked him over from head to toe and back again, then said quietly and coldly, "be quiet."

"I will not be quiet!" doc marston shouted. M.g.m. Would have given him a life contract any day. "I'm a doctor; i've my duty as a doctor and, by god, i'm going to have my say as a doctor!" there was unfortunately no table at hand, otherwise he would have crashed down his

fist on it, but even without the table banging it was a pretty impressive performance and carreras was obviously taken aback by marston's professional ire and outrage.

"Chief officer carter is a very sick man," marston thundered on.

"I haven't the facilities here to treat a compound fracture of the femur and the result was inevitable. Pneumonia, sir, pneumonia! in both lungs, so much fluid gathered already that he can't lie down, he can hardly breathe. Temperature 104, pulse 130, high fever, constant shivering. I've packed him with hot-water bottles, fed him drugs, aspirin, brandy, all to no effect. Fever just won't go down. One moment burning hot, the next soaking wet." he was right about the soaking wet bit anyway; I could feel the sea water from the sodden bandages seeping through to the mattress below. "For god's sake, carreras, can't you see he's a sick man? leave him be."

"I'll only keep him a moment, doctor," carreras said soothingly.

Whatever faint stirrings of suspicion he might have had had been completely laid to rest by marston's

oscar-whining performance. "I can see that mr. carter is unwell.

But this will give him no trouble at all."

I was reaching for the chart and pencil even before he handed it to me. What with the constant shivering and the numbness that seemed to be

spreading from my injured leg over my entire body the calculations took longer than usual, but they weren't difficult. I looked at the sick-bay clock and said, "you should be in position shortly before four a.m."

"We can't miss him, you would say, mr. carter?" he wasn't as confident and unworried as he looked. "Even in the dark?"

"With the radar going I don't see how you can." I wheezed some more so that he wouldn't forget to remember how sick I was and went on:

"how do you propose to make the ticonderoga stop?" I was as anxious as he was that contact should be established and transfers accomplished as quickly and smoothly as possible. The twister in the hold was due to blow up at 7 a.m. I'd just as soon be a long distance away by that time.

"A shell across the bow and a signal to stop. If that doesn't work," he added reflectively, "a shell through the focsle."

"You really do surprise me, carreras," I said slowly.

"Surprise you?" a barely perceptible lift of the left eyebrow, for carreras a perfect riot of expression. "How so?"

"A man who has taken such infinite pains and, I must admit, shown such superb planning throughout to throw it all away by such careless, haphazard action at the end." he made to speak, but I held up my hand and carried on: "i'm just as interested as you are in seeing that the fort ticonderoga is stopped. I don't give a tuppenny damn about the gold. I do know it's essential that captain bullen, the bo'sun, and I get to a first-class hospital immediately. I do want to see all the passengers and crew transferred to safety. I don't want to see any members of the ticonderoga's crew killed by gunfire. And, finally

"Get on with it," he interrupted coldly.

"Right. You intercept at five. In the present weather conditions it'll be half light the night enough to let the master of the fort ticonderoga see you approaching. When he sees another vessel closing in on him-with the whole width of the atlantic to use to pass him by he'll become immediately suspicious. After all, he knows he's carrying a fortune in gold. He'll turn and run for it. In the half-light, with poor visibility, falling rain, pitching decks, and a gun crew almost certainly untrained in naval gunnery, your chances of registering a hit on the small target presented by a target running away from you are pretty small. Not that that popgun i'm told you've mounted on the focsle will achieve very much anyway."

"No one could call the gun i've mounted on the afterdeck a popgun, mr. carter." but for all the untroubled smoothness of the face, he was thinking plenty. "It's almost the equivalent of a3."

"So what? you'll have to turn broadside on to bring that one to bear, and while you're turning, the ticonderoga will be getting even further away from you. For the reasons al ready given, you'll almost certainly miss anyway. After the second shot those deck plates will probably be buckled to hell and gone. Then how do you propose to stop him? you can't make a fourteen-thousand-ton cargo ship stop just by waving a few tommy guns at it."

"It will not come to that. There is an element of uncertainty in everything. But we shall not fail."

"There's no need for any element of uncertainty, carreras."

"Indeed? how would you propose it should be done?"

"I think that's enough!" it was captain bullen who broke in' his husky voice heavy with all the weight and authority of the commodore of the blue mail. "Doing chart work under pressure is one thing; voluntarily scheming to further this criminal's plans is another. I have been listening to all of this. Haven't you gone far enough, mister?"

"Hell, no," I said. "I won't have gone far enough till all of us have gone all the way to the navy hospital in hampton roads.

The thing's dead simple, carreras. When he comes within a few miles on the radarscope, start firing off distress signals. At the same time-you'd better arrange this now have your stooges on the ticonderoga take a message to the master saying they've just picked up sos signals from the campari. When he comes nearer, send an aldistress message that

you sprung engine-room plates coming through the hurricane, which he's bound to have heard of, that the campari's pumps can't cope, that you're beginning to sink, and that you want crew and passengers taken off." I smiled my wan smile. "The last part is true, anyway. When he's stopped alongside and you whip the tarpaulins off your guns-well, you have him.