Dive in the Sun (29 page)

She moved as if to leave him, and he knew that he needed her to stay.

‘Perhaps after the war we may meet again? Things might be different then.’

‘Let us not even talk of the future, please!’ Her eyes were filled with concern. ‘But I will tell you one thing.’ She was facing the sea once more, and he had to bend his head to catch the words. ‘I am glad that I have known you.’ She moved aside, as he half reached out to touch her. ‘Let us leave it at that. For us there may be no future at all, so let us be content.’ She almost ran back to the hold, and Curtis was left staring blankly at the empty deck.

It was the final twist of fate. If he had found such a girl before … in other circumstances. He halted his racing thoughts. There could be no other girl. But she had tried to tell him that hope was wasted. When the world shuddered in its torment, there was no longer any room for the little people and their desires.

Duncan swayed towards him, his boots thudding on the sloping deck.

‘Hey, Ralph! What’s into you?’ He stood straddle-legged by the lee rail, his eyes squinting against the glare.

Curtis shrugged heavily. How could he even begin to explain?

‘I’m tired, that’s all. How’s everything going?’

‘Fair. There’s another meal on the way, an’ most of the pongoes are tryin’ to get some sleep. If only we could give ’em a bit of professional treatment, they’d be fine.’ He dropped his voice. ‘D’you really think we’ve got a chance?’

Curtis hid the surprise which welled up inside him. It was odd to see the defeat on Duncan’s face. He had always been the driver; the unbreakable rock around which their small team had been built, and now he had changed.

‘Well, we’ve a chance of some sort. That’s all I can tell you.’

Duncan smiled grimly. ‘It’s certainly done wonders for you anyway. You look like a new bloke. At one time I thought you were startin’ to throw a fit of tantrums!’

‘I was.’ Curtis’s voice was quiet. ‘I think this business has been a real test for all of us.’

‘Jesus! It’s one I can do without!’ He stared morosely at the sea. ‘It’s like we’re not movin’. I wish to God we had a real boat!’

Taylor climbed out of his hatchway and nodded to them. ‘Nice day, all!’ He sauntered across, wiping his filthy hands on a signal flag. ‘Why the glum faces then? I thought we was all fixed up.’

Curtis looked at them and pointed to the horizon. ‘When that starts to darken, I’ll feel a bit better. In any case, don’t breathe a word to anyone about our idea. Not even to the soldiers. No need to raise their hopes unnecessarily.’

Duncan nodded his huge head. ‘I was just thinkin’. It’s queer without Ian. Sort of busted up the team, I mean.’

‘Maybe there was more to it than we know, Steve. He’s new to this sort of thing, remember.’

‘We was all new once, Skipper!’ Taylor’s eyes gleamed with sudden fury. ‘It was all wrong! I feel all let down like!’
He
waved the flag vaguely. ‘No, ’e didn’t ’ave ter do that!’

‘We’ll talk about it later.’

‘Might not be time, Ralph.’ Duncan rubbed his chin. ‘If we run into trouble, I’m makin’ a break for it.’

The others regarded him thoughtfully.

Taylor was the first to speak. ‘Wivout us, yer mean?’ He sounded incredulous.

Curtis smiled with a calmness he did not feel. ‘When the time comes, we’ll stay a team. Got that?’

Duncan sighed deeply. ‘You’re nuts, Ralph. But we’ll see.’

Taylor relaxed, his thin face dark with indignation. ‘An’ I should fink so, too! We ain’t in the blessed outback now yer know! This is the Royal bloody Navy, ain’t it?’

Curtis strode back to the wheel, his heart pounding. For the first time in his life he knew what it was to feel a leader. They really
did
need him! Before this he had always regarded his position as a mere clause in an act, a signature on a piece of paper.

He looked towards the open hold, hoping to see the girl again, and suddenly began to whistle.

The darkness was so complete that the schooner was enclosed and encircled, a world apart, sharing the night only with the slender crescent of the moon, which hung cold and aloof over the main-truck. The wind had lost its persistent force, and came instead in short, blustery puffs, which whipped the black oily surface of the sea into a shimmering mass of dancing catspaws, and splintered the moon’s faint reflection into a broken necklace of silver, whilst above the decks, the limp sails billowed suddenly into shape, the coarse canvas booming and cracking with fury, before falling loose and useless as before.

The beat of the engine had softened into a slow confident rumble, and added to the general feeling of tenseness which hung over the vessel as it crept towards the as yet invisible shore.

Curtis shivered slightly and turned up the collar of his jacket.

‘How long now, d’you think?’ He spoke with quiet fierceness to the Italian captain, who merely shrugged his shoulders, his face hidden in the darkness.

‘Half hour, maybe less. It is a long time since I was here.’

Curtis strained his eyes along the ship’s length, as if by so doing he might suddenly see his objective. He was getting jumpy again, and tried to reason calmly with the problem which faced him.

‘What sort of place is this anyway?’ he asked, and immediately regretted the impulse. He had already examined the chart in great detail with Duncan, and had got a fairly clear picture from the captain, too. But now that supposition and planning had passed by and the whole operation was budding into a grim reality, he felt he wanted to be assured once more.

The captain sighed and glanced over the helmsman’s stooped shoulder at the dim binnacle light.

‘It is but a tiny place. ’Bout the size of the village where we all met.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘Nothing there except a bit of a jetty and a few fishing boats. Ver’ poor place, forgotten, useless. But I think it will suit our purpose.’ He lapsed into silence again.

Duncan padded out of the darkness of the half-deck and peered down at the compass.

‘I’ve spoken to the pongoes an’ told ’em what we’re tryin’ to do. Most of ’em seemed to think you’re a mug for botherin’ about ’em, but I think that they realize it’s the only thing to do now.’

‘How are our prisoners? Keeping quiet?’

‘I went along to see that they were O.K. an’ had been fed. That Jerry, Beck, or whatever his name is, kicked up a fuss of course, but I gave him one of his uniforms to wear, an’ think that cheered him up a bit. The master race didn’t take very kindly to sitting in his underpants in front of his friends!’

Another shadow glided silently along the poop, and Curtis caught the faint scent of the girl’s hair as she crossed to his side.

‘Soon now?’ she enquired. ‘I cannot keep still for wondering what will happen next.’

They all jumped as the captain grunted and pointed towards the bows with evident satisfaction. A light stabbed the darkness half-heartedly three times and then left them in darkness once more.

Curtis shook his head with admiration. ‘That was Vieste Light? You certainly know this coast very well, Captain!’

‘What did I tell you,
signore
? I do not need charts! I can smell my way!’

‘Say, how come we’ve only just seen that light?’ Duncan sounded irritable.

‘Simple, my friend! It has been hid by the headland. Now we are running into a tiny bay, the one I showed you on the chart. North-west of Vieste.’

The light stabbed the night again. Three flashes apparently suspended in the curtain of night.

The old grey-headed seaman scuttled down from the fo’c’sle and called softly to the captain.

‘He can see the coast. He has good eyes, that one!’

He rapped out an order and his men began to shorten sail, the noise of the clattering blocks and stiff canvas against the spars seeming to drown even the note of the engine.

Curtis felt the girl brush against his sleeve, and looked down at the pale oval of her face. When the light flashed its endless signal again, he saw the twin reflections in her dark eyes.

‘What do you wish me to do?’

‘You will stay aboard when I go ashore with the captain. I hope I shall not be long.’ He wondered why he was telling her all this, but he realized that since she had joined him on the poop, he had ceased to worry about what he had to do.

He saw her bared teeth.

‘I said that you would be a man to make plans! I was very right, yes?’

‘I don’t like this, Ralph!’ Duncan interrupted hoarsely, as the dark shadow of the land seemed to grow out of the night itself. ‘How can this joker know where he’s goin’?’

Curtis shrugged. ‘Well, it’s too late now, Steve. No turning back.’

Duncan grunted and made his way forward to check the mooring lines.

Curtis could almost feel the weight of the land, which grew darker and larger and more menacing with each second that passed. Already he could see the faint arm of the bay reaching out on the port beam, and even the wind had lost them, muffled perhaps by the hidden hills and cliffs ahead.

The captain took over the wheel and peered watchfully over the rail as the ship glided evenly through the calm water. Everyone was silent, and conscious of the lap of water against the hull and the clank of chain as the captain eased the wheel a spoke one way and then back.

The girl gasped and involuntarily gripped Curtis’s arm, as without warning, the white hull of an anchored boat loomed out of the night and passed eerily down the
Ametisa’s
side.

The captain spun the wheel and jerked the lever at his side. The engine died away into an uneven neutral, and they heard the swish of water under the stem as the schooner turned slightly in her course and dodged another moored vessel.

He grunted. ‘Even less boats here than when I came before!’ His tone was almost conversational and showing nothing of the strain of piloting the schooner into an unlighted cove amongst anchored fishing boats.

Curtis smiled, and was conscious of the fact that Carla Zecchi had not removed her hand from his arm. I must be mad, he thought. To think about her now, when at any moment we may be picked up in a searchlight and shot to pieces.

A thin grey finger of jetty loomed up practically under the bowsprit, and as the captain put the engine astern, and a rope fender was dropped between the hull and the crumbling stonework, one of the seamen vanished over the side and could faintly be seen running towards a stone bollard, dragging behind him the huge eye of the ship’s head-rope.

Curtis felt a vague sensation of anticlimax, as another man secured the ship by the stern and the captain allowed the engine to shudder into complete silence.

The schooner creaked and groaned against her fenders,
and
the seamen stood in a group by the rail, staring curiously at their homeland.

‘Well,
signore
? Here we are. No soldiers, an’ no Fascisti!’ He laughed. ‘Now we go ashore, eh?’

Curtis felt Carla’s hand slide away, and watched her as she walked to the rail. She was looking up at the dark shapes of the hills, only faintly visible against the starred pattern of the sky.

He drew Duncan aside and tried to see the expression on the man’s face. ‘You’ll stay here as we arranged, Steve,’ he began slowly, ‘and make sure that nobody gets ashore. I’ve told the mayor to co-operate with you, so you won’t have to use any force.’

‘Have you any idea what you hope to do out there?’

‘The captain and I will have a scout round and see if we can find a doctor. He says he’s got plenty of contacts hereabouts, and I imagine from what he says, that the locals are a pretty independent lot. It’s obviously true that the Jerries
have
left here, they’d never allow such a slipshod sort of security!’

‘Can’t I come with you? I hate the idea of bein’ cooped up with all these jokers!’

‘Now we’ve already settled all that.’ A slight hardness crept into his voice. ‘If anything goes wrong, you’ll be in charge, so you must be ready to act accordingly!’

The captain ambled over to them and gestured towards the jetty. One of his men was holding what appeared to be a glistening snake above his head and grinning broadly.

‘The fresh water,
signore
! She is connected to the jetty by that hose!’

Curtis sighed with relief. ‘Get cracking on that, Steve. Have the tank filled up, and I’ll get going for a doctor.’

Sergeant Dunwoody saluted stiffly in the darkness. ‘You off, sir?’

‘Yes. My Number One’s in charge now. Keep all our people off the deck, and see that all the hatchways remain covered. You can take the Schmeisser yourself, Sergeant, and station yourself up by the fo’c’sle.’

He turned back to Duncan, relieved to be moving. ‘So long, Steve. I’ll try not to hang about!’

There was a sudden disturbance by the aft hatch, and Signor Zecchi ran excitedly across the deck.

‘What is the meaning of this, Lieutenant? Where are you going? I insist on going with you!’

Duncan growled warningly, but Curtis raised his hand calmly. ‘Please be quiet! I came back to the coast as I promised. For the wounded, not for you, you understand?’

The man swayed and half stepped towards the darkened rail. ‘But this is an outrage! I must get ashore now!’ He dropped his voice to an unexpected tone of pleading. ‘I will not make any trouble.’

His daughter moved to his side. ‘It is all right, Papa! You must not get excited.’

Curtis was aware that the captain was waiting impatiently by the rail. ‘I must go,’ he said shortly. ‘No one goes ashore without my permission, and that’s final!’ He nodded to the girl, and followed the captain on to the jetty.

The feel of the rough stones beneath his feet made him falter and glance back at the indistinct shape of the little schooner, but a hand pulled at his arm and the captain muttered urgently. ‘Come! It is nearly two of the clock. We must hurry!’

They stumbled along the jetty’s hundred yards and began to climb up a narrow winding roadway, the surface of which was pitted and scarred with wheel-ruts and deep pot-holes.

Overhead they heard the drone of high-flying aircraft, and Curtis glanced up in time to see the shadow of one flit across the moon like an evil bat.