The Keys of Hell (10 page)

“And she’ll go on playing the same game unless we can manage to stop her,” Chavasse said. “Liri thought you might have a compass?”

The priest held one forward, pressing a small spring so that the lid flew open. Chavasse examined it, noting the inscription “W.D. 1941” and the official broad arrow.

“British Army issue?”

“A souvenir from another life. Take it with my blessing.” He turned to Liri and placed a hand on her shoulder. “And what happens to you, Liri?”

“She goes with us, Father,” Orsini said gruffly. “I’ll look after her.”

The priest gazed at him searchingly and then smiled. “God moves in His own strange ways. Now go, all of you, while there is still time.”

They dropped into the boat and Liri took the tiller. The roaring of the engine seemed to fill the cavern when it broke into life and the boat turned away quickly.

As they moved through the dark entrance, Chavasse glanced back and saw the Franciscan still standing there watching them. A moment later, they swung into the main current and turned downstream through the darkness.

T
HE RIVER WAS ANGRY
,
SWOLLEN BY
the rains flowing down from the mountains of the north, and it rushed toward the sea with more than usual force.

The frail punt skipped water constantly and Chavasse and Orsini took turns at bailing with an old tin basin. They ate the food the priest had provided and finished the bottle of brandy.

Chavasse sat in the prow, his collar turned up against the spray, and longed for a cigarette. He wondered what Kapo would do? Probably tie up farther downriver till dawn. Then he would send Francesca in with the dinghy and Carlo would swallow every damned thing she said.

Perhaps half an hour later, the engine faltered and died abruptly. As the punt started to drift broadside on in the strong current, Liri called, “There are paddles under the seat. Keep her head round.”

Chavasse fumbled in the darkness and found two crude paddles. He leaned over the side and dug one deep into the water, using all his strength, and gradually the punt turned into the current.

Orsini scrambled to the stern and, after a struggle, managed to get the engine housing off. He started to try to trace the fault by touch alone and after a while his sensitive fingers encountered a broken lead to one of the plugs. The wire was old and brittle and crumbled between his fingers, but he eventually managed to link it together and tried the starter. The engine turned over twice, faltered, then rumbled into life, and Chavasse rested on the thwart in relief as the punt surged forward.

“Any chance of that happening again?” he called softly.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. This must be the one they used on the Ark.”

Orsini stayed at the tiller, nursing the engine along, and Liri moved into the center and started to bail. It was still quite dark and visibility was almost nil. Only the surge of white water against the bank gave them any kind of bearing.

The bulk of a large island loomed out of the night and Liri called urgently as Orsini swung the tiller, taking them away toward the center of the river.

As the current caught them, there was a sudden challenge from the left and Chavasse glanced over his shoulder and saw the motor boat anchored in the lee of the island, a light in her wheelhouse.

He was aware of people moving along the deck, of confused voices and then a powerful spot mounted on top of the wheelhouse was switched on, the beam splaying out across the dark water. It followed them relentlessly, trapping them in its dazzling beam like flies in a web.

There was an incredulous cry of dismay and Francesca’s voice sounded on the cold air like a bugle. “Kapo! Kapo! Come quickly!”

Chavasse leaned over the side, digging the paddle into the water feverishly as Orsini gave the old motor everything it had. They dipped into the millrace as the current flowed past the final curved point of the island and coasted into darkness again.

A few moments later, the engine of the motor boat rumbled into life and Liri scrambled back into the stern. “I’ll take over now,” she said. “There’s a creek about a quarter of a mile below. If we can reach that, we’re safe. It’s too narrow for the motor boat to enter. They’ll have to stay in the main channel.”

Orsini moved down beside Chavasse, picked up the other paddle and drove it into the water with all his great strength. They were passing through a narrower section of the river now and the flood waters rushed with a mighty roar, drowning the sound of the motor boat’s engine. Chavasse stabbed the crude paddle into the water again and again, exerting everything of mind and will in a supreme effort, pushing the tiredness, the fatigue, of the past twenty-four hours away from him.

They swung in close to the land as the river broadened, and quite suddenly, as the roaring of the flood waters subsided, the engine of the motor boat sounded close behind.

He glanced over his shoulder, saw the lighted wheelhouse, the searchlight stabbing out toward them. There was the harsh deadly staccato of a submachine gun and then the punt swerved into the lee of a small island and started to turn.

Reeds swam out of the darkness and as the beam of the searchlight fell across them, the opening of the creek sprang out of the night. The punt surged toward it, slowed as it slid across a submerged mud bank and then they were through. The machine gun rattled again ineffectually as the reeds closed about them.

Liri reduced speed and they coasted on, brushing against the pale fronds. Gradually, the sound of the river faded. The engine of the motor boat had stopped for a while, but now they heard it start again faintly in the distance and fade downstream.

Orsini laughed shakily. “A close call.”

Chavasse took from his pocket the compass Father Shedu had given him, and passed it to the Italian. “You’d better start using this. We haven’t got time to hang about.”

Orsini moved in to the stern beside Liri. “South-southwest must be our general direction. Can we do it?”

“I think so. I know this creek and where it goes. We’ll come to a large lagoon soon. We change direction there. But it’s possible you might have to get out and push in places.”

“When will it be light?” Chavasse asked.

“An hour, perhaps a little longer. It will be misty, one can always tell.”

“We’re in your hands, cara,” Orsini told her.

T
HEY MOVED INTO A LARGE LAGOON AS SHE
had indicated and turned into a maze of twisting channels. The outboard motor stopped several times as trailing weeds clogged the propeller and finally, it died altogether.

Orsini examined it for several minutes and shook his head. “That’s all, I’m afraid. There’s nothing I can do, not under these conditions.”

From then on they used the paddles, and after a while the reeds became so thick that the two men had to go over the side, wading through thick glutinous mud as they forced a way through for the punt, always trying to keep to their general compass bearing.

The swampy water was treacherous and had a way of changing depth without warning. Once, Chavasse stepped into a deep hole and went in over his head. He struggled back with a curse to a comparatively safe footing and scrambled back into the punt as they emerged into another waterway.

Orsini laughed grimly. “Now this I could do without.”

It was bitterly cold and a damp mist curled from the water. Occasionally, wildfowl fluttered protestingly from the reeds as they passed through, calling angrily to each other, warning those ahead of the intruders.

There was an appreciable lightening of the darkness and a faint luminosity drifted around them. And then they could see the reeds and there was a honking of geese overhead lifting to meet the dawn.

Orsini was pale and drawn, the dark stubble of his beard accentuating his pallor. He looked about twenty years older, his hands shaking slightly in the extreme cold, and Chavasse didn’t feel any better. The girl looked healthier than either of them, but on the other hand, she hadn’t spent the best part of an hour up to her waist in freezing water.

They coasted into a broad channel and Orsini held up his hand. “We must be close now. Very close.”

He stood up in the punt, cupped his hands to his mouth and called at the top of his voice, “
Buona Esperanza
, ahoy! Ahoy,
Buona Esperanza
!”

There was no reply and Chavasse joined him. “Carlo! Carlo Arezzi!”

Their voices died away and in the gray light they looked helplessly at each other. Liri held up her hand. “I heard something.”

At first Chavasse thought it was the cry of a bird, but then it sounded again, unmistakably a human voice. They paddled into the mist, calling again and again and gradually the voice grew louder.

For the last time, Chavasse and Orsini went over the side, forcing the punt through a wall of reeds and then, quite suddenly, they were through and drifting into a familiar lagoon.

At the other end, the
Buona Esperanza
seemed to swim out of the mist to meet them, Carlo Arezzi poised on top of the wheelhouse.

I
T WAS WARM IN THE CABIN
. C
HAVASSE
vigorously rubbed himself down and dressed quickly in a spare pair of denim working pants and a heavy sweater of Carlo’s.

There was a knock on the door and Liri Kupi called, “Are you dressed?”

She came in carrying a mug of coffee and he took it gratefully. It was scalding hot and the fragrance seemed to put new life into him. “Best I ever tasted. Where’s Guilio?”

“He went up to the wheelhouse. Said something about charting the course.”

She opened the little box, gave him one of her Macedonian cigarettes and struck a match for him, holding it in her cupped hands like a man.

Chavasse blew out a cloud of smoke and looked at her shrewdly. “You like him, don’t you?”

“Guilio? Who wouldn’t?”

“He’s got twenty years on you, you know that?”

She shrugged and said calmly, “You know what they say about good wine.”

Chavasse slipped an arm about her shoulders. “You’re quite a girl, Liri. I’d say he was a lucky man.”

He swallowed the rest of his coffee, handed her the jug and went up the companionway. It started to rain as he went out on deck and the mist draped itself across everything in a gray shroud. Orsini and Carlo were leaning over the charts when he went into the wheelhouse.

“What’s the score?” he said.

Orsini shrugged. “I think we should try the main channel out. It’s quicker and we could stand a good chance of getting away with it. It’s Yugoslavian territory on the other side and Albanian boats don’t like going in too close. If we can get into the open, nothing they’ve got stands a chance of catching us.”

“I should have thought Kapo would count on us doing just that.”

“He very probably has. I say we go and find out.”

Chavasse shrugged. “That’s all right by me, but I think it might be an idea to break out a little hardware, just in case.”

“You and Carlo can handle that end. I’ll get things moving up here.”

Chavasse and the young Italian went below, opened the box seat and unpacked the weapons. There was still a submachine gun left, a dozen grenades and the old Bren. They went back on deck and laid the weapons out on the floor of the wheelhouse under the chart table, ready for action.

It was just after five
A
.
M
. when the engines shuddered into life and Orsini took the
Buona Esperanza
into the mist. Chavasse stood in the prow beside Liri and rain kicked into his face and the wind, blowing in from the sea, lifted the mist into strange shapes.

The girl stared into the grayness eagerly, lips parted, a touch of color in each cheek. “Are you glad to be going?” he said.

She shrugged briefly. “I’m leaving nothing behind.”

As the light grew stronger, the dark silver lances of the rain became visible, stabbing down through the mist, and somewhere a curlew called eerily. Once, twice, and he waited with bated breath, trapped by a childhood memory.
Once for joy, two for sorrow, three for a death
.

There was no third call, which left them with a little sorrow, but that he could bear. He turned and went back to the wheelhouse.

F
OR HALF AN HOUR THEY MOVED SLOWLY
along the broad channel, crossing from one lagoon into the other, changing direction only once. Visibility was down to twenty yards, but the reeds were falling away now and the channel was widening.

The water began to kick against the hull in long swelling ripples and Orsini grinned tightly. “The Buene. We’re about half a mile from the sea.”

The launch crept forward, the engines a low rumble that was almost drowned in the splashing of the heavy rain. Chavasse examined the chart. The estuary was a mass of sandbanks, and the main channel, the one that they had used on the way in, was no more than thirty yards. If Kapo was anywhere, it would be there.

A few moments later, Orsini cut the engines and they drifted with the current. He opened the side window and leaned out.

“We’re almost there. If they’re patroling, we’ll hear the engines.”

Chavasse went on deck and stood in the prow listening. Carlo and Liri joined him. At first there was nothing, only the wind and the sizzle of rain, then Carlo held up a hand.

“I think I hear something.”

Chavasse turned, signaling Orsini down, and the Italian swung the wheel, taking the boat in to where a low hog’s back of sand lifted from the sea. They grounded with a slight shudder and Chavasse ran back to the wheelhouse.

“Carlo thinks he heard something. No sense in running into anything we can avoid. We’ll take a look on foot.”

He stood on the rail and jumped, landing in a couple of inches of water. Carlo tossed the submachine gun to him, then followed, and they moved into the mist along the sandbank.

It stretched for several hundred yards, in some places water slopping across it so that they had to wade. The noise of an engine was by now quite unmistakable. At times it faded, then a minute or two later grew louder again.

“They must be patrolling the mouth of the channel,” Chavasse said.

Carlo pulled him down into the sand. The motor boat floated out of the mist no more than twenty yards away. They had a quick glimpse of a soldier crouching on the roof of the wheelhouse, a machine pistol in his hands, and then the mist swallowed it again.

They ran back along the sandbank and the sound of the motor boat faded behind them. The mist seemed to be a little thicker and the water was rising, flooding in across the dark spine of sand, tugging at their boots, and the
Buona Esperanza
loomed out of the gloom.

Chavasse waded into the water and Orsini reached down to give him a hand over the rail. “Are they there?”

Chavasse nodded and explained briefly what they had seen. “What happens now?”

They went back into the wheelhouse and Orsini leaned over the chart. “We could return to the marshes. There is a way through, certainly, but it would take many hours with a boat of this size and there is no guarantee. By that time, Kapo could have called in the Albanian navy, such as it is. They could give us trouble if we ran into them with no way round.”

“Have we any choice?”

Orsini traced a finger across the chart. “There’s a channel here. It runs a mile to the southwest, emerging at Cat Island. See where I mean?”

“What’s the snag? It looks good to me.”

“As I said earlier, the river isn’t used much these days because of the border dispute, and the channels, such as they are, have been allowed to silt up. There’s no knowing just how much water there is anymore. Probably shoaled up.”

“Are you willing to try?”

“If the rest of you are.”

There was really no question. Chavasse knew that as he glanced at Liri, and Orsini pressed the starter and reversed off the sandbank. The launch turned in a long sweeping curve and started back up the river.

Orsini leaned out of the side window, eyes narrowed into the mist, and after a while he gave a quick grunt and swung the wheel, taking them between low, humped sandbanks. He reduced speed to dead slow and the boat moved forward as cautiously as an old lady finding her way across a busy street.

Waves slapped hollowly against the bottom, a sure sign of shallow water, and once or twice there was a slight protesting jar and a scraping as they grazed a shoulder of sand. It was perhaps five minutes later that they ploughed to a halt.

Orsini reversed quickly. At first the launch refused to budge and then it parted the sand with an ugly sucking noise. Carlo vaulted over the side without a word to anyone. The water rose to his chest, and as he waded forward, it dropped to waist level.

He changed direction to the left and a moment later it lifted to his armpits again. He waved quickly and Orsini swung the wheel, taking the boat after him.

The young Italian swam forward into the shoals, sounding the bottom every few yards, and behind him the
Buona Esperanza
carefully followed his circuitous trail. And then a wave lifted out of the mist, swamping him, and he went under.

He surfaced and swam back to the launch, and when Chavasse pulled him in, there was a wide grin on his face. “Deep water. I couldn’t touch bottom. We’re through.”

Orsini waved from the wheelhouse and gave the engines more power, swinging the wheel to take them out of the estuary to sea. Fifty yards beyond the entrance, the dark bulk of Cat Island lifted out of the mist and he turned to port. As they rounded the point, the current pushing against them, engines roared into life and a gray naval patrol boat surged out of the rock inlet where she had been waiting.

As she swept across their bows, a heavy machine gun started to fire, bullets sweeping across the deck, shattering glass in the wheelhouse. Chavasse had a quick glimpse of Kapo at the rail, still wearing his hunting jacket with the fur collar, mouth open as he cried his men on.

Carlo appeared in the doorway of the wheelhouse, the submachine gun at his hip, firing as he crossed the deck to the rail. On the patrol boat, someone screamed and Kapo ducked out of sight.

Already Orsini was taking his engines to full power, and from the forward deck of the patrol boat another machine gun started to fire, tracer and cannon hammering into the hull of the
Buona Esperanza
, great shudders rushing through her entire frame as she reeled at the impact.

And then they were through, prow lifting over the waves as the patrol boat faded into the mist behind them. Chavasse picked himself up from the deck and gave a hand to Liri. There was blood on her face and she wiped it away quickly.

“Are you all right?” he said.

She nodded. “A flying splinter, that’s all.”

Carlo turned, the submachine gun hugged to his breast. For the first time since Chavasse had known him there was a smile on his face.

“I gave the bastards something to remember me by.”

Chavasse moved to the door of the wheelhouse. The windows were shattered, glass scattered across the floor, but Orsini seemed to be all in one piece.

“I got down quick,” he called above the roar of the engine. “Did you see Kapo?”

“For a moment there I thought he’d put one over on us. We should have reckoned on the possibility of him having both exits watched.”

“I hope the swine’s head rolls for this.”

As Orsini grinned savagely, the engines missed a couple of times, faltered, tried to pick up, then stopped completely.

The
Buona Esperanza
ploughed forward, her prow biting into a wave, slowed and started to drift with the current.