Firefly Gadroon (21 page)

I don’t even remember reaching the rocks or finding the rope. Maybe I blacked out or, knowing me, fainted from relief. Blokes shouting brought me to, a shout of directions and an insult.

‘Last case, Devvo.’

‘Thank Christ. I’m frigging frozen.’

‘Slowly, you stupid get.’

My boat. I couldn’t see it but there was a rope in my
hands, and I was sprawled on sea-washed rock. Only a terror-stricken idiot like me ties eleven knots in a single rope to moor a boat. I grasped it one-handed and tugged. Something out in the grey darkness nudged my leg. I just kept from screaming and leaping away. Surely to God after all this it had to be my boat and not a shark.

I stuck my foot out at the sea and hit something solid, but which moved as a body, undulating with the sea. Benign but definitely there. Like an ape, I swung one-handed, pulling like mad.

It made me remember sharks again. I splashed like a drowning rat, finally getting one leg over the brass rail and feeling my way back until I reached the glass windows. I was safe. Nearly frozen to death, but in my own boat. I should have danced with delighted relief. Instead I retched up the other half of the sea.

It can only have been a few minutes. I’d cut the ropes first with the ship’s knife and pushed away from the fort’s pillars before scrambling into some clothes. The sea drift seemed to be swirling past me away from the sound of Devvo’s men. I judged it would take me away from the fort pretty quickly without the engine. I was useless, unable to stop sicking up water and shivering.

I counted to five hundred before finding a handlamp and looking round the cabin. That was probably far enough. The engine caught first go. I don’t know why that’s always more astonishing than it would be in cars but it is. I found myself grinning in a kind of astonished ecstasy. I could simply go home if I wanted. I was free. Out and free. There was a quarter-bottle of brandy in a cupboard but I didn’t feel like celebrating that much. I let the engine idle while I did exercises to thaw out, and sussed out the radar. Fog means radar. The fort stands a good three miles from the
coastal sea lanes, and about five from the Sands lightship, so there was time despite the speed of the sea.

You switch on and a greenish radius appears, belting round and round this little telly screen. The whole cabin becomes ghostly, something out of a horror film. It leaves a faint green outline, the shape of the coast. You can alter the scale with a few knobs but I didn’t touch those after one hesitant go, scared to damage it and finish up blind in the fog. There were several extra dots about that weren’t on the map. I felt terrific, really proud of being in charge of my own destiny. I could head for the estuary, there on the screen, any time I wanted. But I didn’t.

I did a few turns, using minimal throttle for quietness and watching the small screen. It was quite simple. Turn one way and the screen stayed conscientiously drawing the coast always in one direction. By this time I’d identified one green mark as the fort. If I watched it carefully it would show Devvo’s boat too as it pulled away. I hadn’t a clue what I’d do then.

The centre of the radius on the greenish screen practically joined to the fort’s dot before I heard it, that terrible swooshing and slurping noise of the sea against the fort’s pillars. Cutting the engine down, so as to just about keep me stationary as far as I could tell, I settled down to wait. Warmer now, and thinking at last. Thinking and listening. Devvo couldn’t have left yet. I heard a couple of shouts from up ahead.

I honestly swear I intended no harm. Cross my heart. Honestly, I mean it. I was so thankful to have got out of that great monster I’d have been daft to go risking myself again, just for vengeance. Vengeance is a motive to be avoided. Too costly. Probably I was waiting to see what would happen to the antiques.

I found a score of plastic-wrapped pork pies in the
diminutive fridge, Terry’s boatyard’s idea of nautical cuisine. It was also mine. I wolfed six and polluted the North Sea with wrappers.

Sailors trust radar. I’d heard them talk about it often enough. So when I saw a small green dot leave the solitary larger dot I decided I’d have to follow across the oily sea. It could only be Devvo’s boat, loaded with its crated cargo. It stopped for a full five minutes, then moved a few hundred yards and stopped again. I followed it but cleverly kept at the same distance. The screen helped me to judge, and finally the dot began to move steadily. I couldn’t hear an engine, so they couldn’t hear mine. I followed, honestly still intending no harm. I’d be the perfect bystander.

I straightened up at last and settled on the same course towards the estuary. Say ten minutes and I would be in the mouth of the Barncaster creeks.

And so would Devvo, which would be his tough luck.

Time often has a will of its own. Some hours go like a bomb. Others trail past like clapped-out snails, like now. My boat was static. I’d been stuck in one position for hours, about a mile offshore as far as I could estimate.

Devvo’s boat had slowed down, then stopped. Naturally I’d stopped too, reversing to kill the speed, then holding her in neutral. A few times she needed a touch of the propeller to keep station but not often. Once I heard Devvo’s boat throttle up loudly and saw the radar dot move to stand offshore a furlong further or so. I instantly pulled out a similar distance. Maybe he was afraid of being swept in by that sinister rush of the dawn tide when it came.

To still the engine would leave me dawdling if Devvo shot off fast. Even then I wouldn’t lose him altogether but I wasn’t sure how our boats compared for speed. I’d risked too much to let him get away now. I remember thinking this quite clearly despite not knowing why I simply wasn’t trotting home to a hot meal.

Through the hours we had drifted steadily southwards along the coast in the thick fog. Now I was completely safe and a winner I couldn’t help gloating, believing Devvo was now in my hands, virtually my prisoner. Perhaps lulled by the reassuring sense of security I began to nod off. Every
now and then I caught myself snoring and frightened myself to death by jerking suddenly awake. When that happened I scanned the radar screen feverishly to make sure Devvo’s boat hadn’t given me the slip. I invented games to keep me awake, and very exciting they were. Counting foghorns, a real gripper. And seeing how many different tones I could detect – high, low, gravelly. Every now and then I gave the throttle a nudge just to keep the engine on its toes. Everything had to be ready for it, though what ‘it’ was I couldn’t imagine. Once I was pulled from a personal twilight by a deep muffled
crump
from seawards. I listened hard and peered blindly about but the sound didn’t recur. A single swollen wave lifted the boat a minute later, then was gone. Sleepily I put it down to an extra-super super-tanker passing and went back to waiting.

I’d hoped for the fog to clear as the night wore on, but if anything it grew thicker. Maybe the after-affects of my immersion and the fright I’d had were greater than I thought. Anyway I grew so cold towards dawn I went to sit inside the cabin for a few minutes. There was a kettle and one of those gas-burners, with clean water from plastic pipes. It took some time but I made hot water. Teeth chattering, I took it and a couple more pies back to the cockpit. Maybe I’d caught malaria from the sea, or was that polio? By then I’d ripped a blanket into an improvised poncho. I felt like nothing on earth. A sartorial mess, but drowsily confident. I nodded off a little, fell awake, checked the screen. Devvo was still there.

‘And, Devvo,’ I said quietly, ‘so am I.’

A seagull perching on the cabin roof gave me a momentary thrombus about an hour later.

‘Watch it,’ I told it laconically. ‘Stuffed case-mounted seabirds have gone up thirty-seven per cent.’ It eyed me hungrily and I chucked it some pie. Watching it go made
me realize I could see it. The elementary fact forced itself into my sleepy brain.
See?
Seagulls don’t fly much in fog. Therefore as I’d dozed the fog had started lifting. And dawn was coming.

I wearily rubbed my face to alert myself. My engine’s deep mutter sounded strong and quiet as ever. A few exercises standing up in the cockpit did nothing to help my stiffness so I stopped that and got some more hot water, hurrying back to watch the screen.

Gradually the darkness lessened. I knew that the boats tend to move about the estuary even in the early hours. Our few fishing vessels would be easy to spot on radar. They usually headed straight out, Indian file, and I knew from Joe there were only four in harbour.

As dawn came, today merely a sulphurous yellow version of darkness, I realized the boat was now rocking more than it had, perhaps some sign that the tide was on the turn. I was too tired to start looking tide tables up at this stage. I just wanted to get the whole thing over and done with, but exactly how I did not know.

At exactly six-thirty by the cockpit chronometer Devvo’s boat started up with a roar. It was too near for my comfort. Maybe my vigilance was going. I heard it quite clearly and moved sloppily into pursuit. Of course they didn’t know they were being followed so it wouldn’t seem to matter much. The screen showed them heading southwards, not steering into the estuary but going parallel to the coast. Maybe they were looking for their rendezvous. A freighter from Holland, perhaps? Or that big grey coaster which people rumoured made pick-ups for the Hamburg antiques trade? Port Felixstowe is rumoured to be cast-iron so it would have to be in one of the creeks. Probably Devvo had waited because he was early. Why, I wondered idly as I steered a following course south, was the stuff not
transferred out at sea? Easy enough when it was calm like this, and much less likely to be sussed out by the coastguards, fog or no fog. Two knots, I observed. They must have time to spare.

At this funeral speed keeping Devvo’s dot tracked was easy. By guesswork I was some three furlongs from him, hardly more than a stone’s throw. We seemed to be a half-mile off the estuary now. As the choppy water began to rock me unpleasantly side to side the sound of a bell came clearly across the harbour mouth. That would be one of the buoys which lined Barncaster’s lower reaches. Once I heard an engine start and the sound of a car’s horn. I even glimpsed a tall mast’s riding light. The screen wasn’t much use now. It had blurred into a haze of green. I didn’t much care, because any company meant safety.

The sky was lightening with every second. Dense fog everywhere still, but things were definitely looking up. Land and daylight. Those plus my – well, somebody’s – precious load of antiques equalled success. And my precious chunk of chrysoberyl, with private knowledge of a King Solomon’s mineful in my own private spot on the sea bed. With the loot I could easily hire a couple of professional divers . . .

I was gloating like this when I noticed a green blip moving quickly out from the green haze which indicated the crowded estuary. A shrill engine was audible, and getting nearer. Well, I thought resignedly, it’s about time Joe Poges showed up. I’d done nothing wrong so far, or so I thought. If anybody was in the clear it was me. Devvo would get ten years, richly deserved. The engine sounded closer. And the police would prevent anybody doing anybody else any GBH, right? Maybe it was all for the best.

Suddenly uneasy, I noticed Devvo’s boat had slowed. I cut speed, if you can call a slow drift speed. From the rate
at which he was now going it looked as if he’d slipped the engine altogether. After a hesitation I too went into neutral. The green blip from behind was coming on faster. My boat was between the two. And now Devvo’s boat was moving again –
northwards?
Towards me. Slowly, but definitely with deliberate intent. I could hear both, and see sod all. Worried, I looked up and swung my head to listen. Maybe I should try the radio now, raise Joe Poges and say what was going on but I didn’t know how, and wavelengths are Greek to me. I’d actually bent to fiddle with it when a boat hurtled at me out of the fog roaring with bows raised like it was taking off. I had a single second to shove the gear lever forward. The boat crumped against my boat’s side, flinging me off my feet with a numbing shock. I wobbled upright into a world abruptly gone mad and grabbed the throttle, bellowing in alarm.

The bloody boat was the same one I’d used to rescue Germoline, the big Yank’s estuary yacht, flying its commodore’s flag. I’d seen it all in a millisec as it loomed out of the fog. I yelled frantic insults and slammed some way into my boat. The quicker I was out of this the better. I glared around into the thinning fog but saw nothing. The boat had vanished. In my sudden fright it seemed to me that engines sounded from every direction. I was just taking off landwards when I saw on the screen that Devvo’s blip had gone. But between the estuary and me a steady blip was slowly circling, probably Devvo, waiting over there in case I ran for land. And another was closing swiftly at me. I shoved the throttle and headed for Devvo’s blip, cursing myself at the chances I’d now have to take.

How thick I’d been. It was so obvious. If my hired boat possessed one of these radar gadgets, it stood to reason Devvo’s would. Of course he’d have seen me on his radar and simply led me on. Then he’d waited until one of his
goons could row ashore – maybe on an inflatable dinghy of the sort my boat carried – and nick a boat, by merest chance the Yank’s again. Unless the Yank too was in on it?

The following blip was closing fast, now in earshot. I glared around into the fog like a cornered animal. Nothing. The sea was increasingly choppy now and I was finding standing difficult. The tide must have started. And Devvo’s blip was starting at me. There seemed no way home. Whichever way I steered I’d get trapped between the two of them, a bobbing walnut in the jaws of a seaborne nutcracker. My only advantage was that my boat was as big as the commodore’s. I risked a glance at the radar screen. My own engine’s sound dulled theirs, and I’d lost all sense of direction. Nobody would see us from the shore. Worse, the nearer we were to land the more blurred the screen. There’d be a real risk of running aground on one of those frigging sandbanks. I’d be a sitting duck. After all this.