Seagulls in My Soup (6 page)

“Oh, yes,” replied Shiner. “I'm glad you followed my lead about your boats being in Gibraltar.” He looked at me craftily over his brandy glass. “The less these blokes know about your assets and their whereabouts, the better, eh?”

“Yeah,” I replied as Tony peered at the pair of us.

“Anyway,” continued Shiner, “how do you feel about the money side, Tris?”

“Great. It looks like Tony and I, and our crews, will be set up for the whole winter.”

“Well, as soon as Pierre mentioned his problem to me . . . he's an acquaintance of a friend . . . I thought about you and the way you've been scrounging around to stay afloat and make a living. So I put in a good word for you.”

“Thanks, mate. I'll remember that when I see some good beach-front property for sale cheap, somewhere that's ripe for development,” I offered.

Shiner grinned. “Hope to Christ it's not in Greenland!”

Tony the Specs laughed out loud at this. Then the three of us adjourned to the bar and spent an hour or two cracking yarns.

As I fell asleep that night I reminded myself to ask Reynaud for a fifty-percent advance on the delivery fee the next day, so I could send some of it to
Cresswell
and Nelson and Sissie, to cheer them up.

When Tony and I met Reynaud at the hotel in the morning he was dressed much less formally, but still all in black. He wore a black leather jacket over a black shirt and pants, and calf-length black leather boots. As we approached him he sailed up so brightly that I was afraid he might grab us and kiss us on both cheeks in the habitual French way. Instead he shook our hands and hurried us out of the hotel, onto the street, and into a taxi. In rapid, fluent Spanish he ordered the driver to head for the airport
“A toda velocidad”
—with all speed—a phrase I have never been able to forget. Ever since, whenever I have been consciously heading or foolishly following others into risk and hazard, those Spanish words always pop up in my head.
A toda velocidad.
Fools rush in . . .

At Algiers airport we quickly passed through customs, aided by a friendly police officer who greeted Reynaud as an old friend. Once out of the airport and headed for the railway station Reynaud could hardly contain an anti-Arab bigotry so virulent that it seemed to bounce off the walls and pavement around him. In fluent English, under his breath, all the way to the station and through it, to the ticket booths, along the platform, in a low monotone directed mainly toward me, he ranted and raved about “heathens” and “dirty Algerians” and “stinking whores.”

As in crowded railway stations in all big cities there were beggars and seedy-looking people. Of course there were those who no one in his right mind would trust in any circumstances, but as far as I could tell, the people in the Algiers station were little different from people anywhere—a mixture of rogues and would-be angels. To hear Reynaud you would have thought you were in the Ninth Circle of Hell. But I needed his money, and so I grinned at him and took no notice.

In the train Reynaud bribed the guard to allow us into a locked, evidently ex-first-class compartment. I thought of all the good Arabs I had known—all the decent ones, many affectionate ones, even a few very loving ones, among the lights of my life, as well as all the ordinary, every-day uncitified Arabs I had encountered throughout the Middle East, but I said nothing about them and Reynaud eventually tired of ranting and railing against them in a low voice (always in English). Besides, I was too fascinated, watching the other passengers as they left the train, wondering about their lives. Then, too, I was helping Tony solve the crossword puzzle in a copy of the overseas
Times
of London, which he had eagerly swooped on in the Málaga airport.

I was surprised to see that there was still the usual complement of beggars and little ragamuffins at practically every halt. But the little ones, despite their rags, seemed to be having a high old time, laughing and shouting and waving at the passengers. The boys avoided our compartment, though, which made me a bit sad, because even with my rusty version of Arabic it was usually great fun to exchange badinage with them, no matter where. A couple of years later, when I traveled to London mostly by train, I watched the disinterested faces of young people in England as the train passed them, thinking they probably wished they were back in front of the goggle-box; and I remembered, as I do now, the faces of these children of the Riff. They were enjoying life. They were
living
life, and they weren't yet jaded by familiarity with frenetic mediocrity.

It was about eight o'clock when, at last, the train pulled slowly into Algiers. We made our way through the bustling crowds in the mezzanine, which was crawling with armed soldiers in pairs, to the station entrance. There Reynaud anxiously gaped around, then sighed slightly with relief as a gray van pulled up right in front of us. It was driven by a chubby, middle-aged Algerian, who said absolutely nothing the whole time he was with us. The only noise he made was a grunt when Reynaud gave him some money at the end of the ride.

In complete silence we drove through the city streets, directly to the port gates, where we were stopped by a sergeant. Reynaud handed the sergeant an envelope and spoke rapidly in Maghreb Arab—far too fast for me to understand. Then the sergeant waved us through.

The van passed through the dockyard, under the brilliant pools of light under the cranes, which were all silent and still. “I thought we were going to a hotel,” I said to Reynaud.

“It's better if we go straight onboard,” he said quietly. “The weather's very good for leaving tonight.”

Tony spoke up. “What about fuel and stores?”

Reynaud grunted. “Everything is taken care of.”

“Are you sure that this is on the level?” I asked.

Reynaud grinned. “It is for me, my friend. We all might just as well get on with it. You can't leave the . . . job now. If the authorities find out you've come over here to work, without a work permit . . .
pouf!”

Just then the van stopped and we all piled out of the back doors. I turned to Reynaud. “Well, thanks a lot. You could have told us about this in Málaga.”

Reynaud took my arm. “Look, Mr. Jones,” he whispered, “I've told you, everything is all right. The boat is all ready for sea. I have good friends over here. All we have to do is leave.”

“And what about when we get to France, with no exit permit from Algiers?” enquired Tony anxiously. “You know how bloody sticky the French customs are.”

“Pas de problème,
Mr. Rankin,” said Reynaud. “I've got plenty of friends in high places there. They'll probably give you a medal!”

“Jesus,” I exclaimed in a low voice. Then I saw, out in the middle of the eastern end of the great harbor basin, under the sliver of a moon in the calm, windless night, the low profile of a whole flotilla of craft, all rafted together.

For a moment I hesitated. Then I looked at Tony. “What do you think, mate? What he says is true. If we go to the authorities for a permit to sail . . .”

Tony's face, in the wan light, was serious. By now the van had left. Below where we stood, at the edge of the jetty, a small motor launch bobbed against the pier ladder. “I just don't know, Tris . . . I'll do whatever you think best.”

“Oh, shit. Well, in for a penny . . .” I picked up my seabag; “ . . . in for a bloody pound!” I dropped my bag into the launch.

Soon we were alongside
Aries,
which was rafted up on the outside of a collection of about thirty pleasure boats of all shapes, sizes, and conditions. There were little eighteen-foot sloops, forty-foot yawls, ninety-foot ex-motor-gunboats . . . It looked a bit like the Dunkirk rescue fleet.

Aries
seemed huge to me. Casting my eye over her upperworks I saw that she was splendidly accoutered with radar scanner, shortwave aerials, and searchlights. All her fittings were first-class. She was moored to small buoys fore and aft, and also tied up to the next vessel, which was almost as large.

Reynaud climbed onboard first. As I waited for Tony to clamber up the boarding ladder I looked up and saw a young Algerian soldier, with a machine pistol slung over his shoulder, talking in low tones with Reynaud. Just as I reached the top of the ladder myself I saw Reynaud pass yet another envelope. The soldier grinned and saluted; then, after I had plonked down my seabag on the deck, he descended into the launch and disappeared in the direction of the main quay.

“Vite, vite . . .
Quick! There is not a lot of time. Put your gear in the wheelhouse. Tony, you come with me . . .”

“Where're you off to?” I asked. I knew that Reynaud realized that I had seen that the soldier had not taken his machine pistol with him, even though it wasn't anywhere around. My brain was by now working away ten to the dozen, trying to figure out a way of getting Tony and me out of this pickle all in two pieces. By now it was quite obvious, from the look of Reynaud's face, that he was a very determined man indeed. A man who would stop at nothing—probably not even murder—to achieve his own ends. The only thin thread of hope for us was to go along with him, at least until we were on our own ground—way out at sea.
Then we would see.

“We're going to check the engine—lube oil and fuel levels,” replied Reynaud. “There's no point in your trying to get ashore. If you do, the sentries will know what to do . . .”

“I've no intention of doing that,” I replied. “All I want to do is check the wheelhouse and the charts and then get the hell out of here.”

“Good. Naturally.” Reynaud, with Tony in tow, passed aft from the wheelhouse.

I quickly scanned through the navigation desk, noting that the charts for the western Mediterranean and the Gulf of Lions were lying atop a pile of other charts, and drew off a course from Algiers to Marseilles direct. The course passed very close to the island of Menorca. Then I studied a chart of Algiers harbor, which was lying on the desk, and noted that the position of
Aries'
berth had been marked. Also drawn in was the line of a barrier chain which was strung across the small-craft harbor every night to prevent entry and exit. All this was done by the dim light of a tiny torch which had been lying on the navigation table.

Soon Reynaud was back in the wheelhouse, with Tony behind him looking nonplused. “How is it?” he asked in a low voice.

“OK. The best thing we can do is unshackle the mooring cables fore and aft, push her right off from that next bloody scow, and let her go. Hopefully the engines run . . .”

Reynaud smiled. “No problem,” he said.

“ . . . and there's enough fuel to get us at least to Menorca.”

“There's enough to take us to Paris, if need be,” he replied.

“Right, let's go then. I've got the line of the barrier chain. Slip the mooring lines.”

Soon we were clear of the other boats, floating free in the dead calm harbor under the pale moonlight. Reynaud came into the wheelhouse. I watched both him and the heading of the boat as he pushed the engine starter buttons. From below there was the low rumble of power restrained.

“Brace yourselves,” I said. “Here goes bugger-all!”

I slipped the engine gear lever into “Ahead.” As the boat started to move I rammed the speed lever to “Full.” The roar from the engines was deafening. The stern dropped suddenly, the bow lifted, and we were speeding at twenty knots, straight for the barrier cable. We were about thirty yards off the barrier, which I could now dimly see, when the machine guns opened up.

There were two lofty ships from old England came,

Chorus:
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we!

One was
Prince of Luther
and the other
Prince of Wales,

Chorus:
All a cruising down the coasts of the High Barbaree!

Aloft there, aloft, our bully bosun cried,

Look ahead, look astern, look to weather and a-lee!

There's naught upon the stern, sir, and naught upon our lee,

But there's a lofty ship to windward and she's sailing fast and free.

O hail her, O hail her! our gallant captain cried,

Are you a man o' war or privateer? cried he.

O, no I'm not a man o' war, nor privateer, cried he,

But I'm a salt-sea pirate, all a-looking for my fee!

For broadside, for broadside, a long time we lay,

Till at last the
Prince of Luther
shot the pirates' mast away.

O quarter, O quarter! those pirates they did cry,

But the quarter that we gave 'em was to sink 'em in the sea.

“High Barbaree” is a capstan or halyard chantey. It is very old, probably dating from the early seventeenth century. High Barbaree was the old name for the Riff Coast—specifically the coast of what is now Algeria.

I never knew whether
Aries
went
through
the barrier cable or
over
it. In the several minutes of chaos that followed the first splattering zing of bullets on her steel hull, everything seemed to happen all at once. One round shattered the starboard windscreen, splintering it into a thousand opaque slivers of plexiglass. By that time we were, all three of us, heads-down—Tony and Reynaud flat on the wheelhouse deck and me squatting low, holding the steering wheel steady on course. I remember that I shut my eyes, until the thought flashed to me that it would not prevent my being shot. I opened them again and stared like a madman at the wheelspokes in front of me as, with a terrifying rumbling noise, the hull slowed down. There was a seeming eternity of straining and wrenching, with the engines now screaming in protest and the propellers grinding and whizzing in a high pitch. It was as if the boat were suspended on a high-wire. Suddenly she lurched forward so violently that my head was banged against the steering wheel. This knocked into me the presence of mind to raise myself high enough to just peep over the lower edge of the windscreen. The only light on the inside of the wheelhouse was the dim pink glow of the compass.

As far as I could see, when I glanced around, we were being fired upon from every direction except the dark gap of the wide harbor mouth. I kept the compass lined up with the course and assured myself that the throttle could be rammed no farther forward. We raced toward the harbor exit and, in a matter of what must have been no more than two minutes, we shot through the exit like a bullet—although to me it seemed a funereal pace.

By now, with the spray slashing over the bow, the windscreen was completely wet, and, as I didn't know where the wiper switch was, the view was totally obscured. I was steering blindly by compass alone. As we roared past the mole-heads a machine gun on each side of us fired away. Every window on the superstructure sides was shattered, but few bullets actually penetrated the inch-gauge steel hull and upperworks. The row from ricocheting bullets inside the cabins and wheelhouse was ear-shattering, even above the screaming of the propeller shafts and the roar of the engines. It was an almost paralyzing pandemonium of nerve-jangling noise, and the only thing that kept me holding onto the helm, I think, was the realization that this
bastard
Reynaud had really set us up; that he was a maniacal psychopath, and that he would probably finish Tony and me off before we reached Marseilles—and that I was going to make damn sure he didn't get either the chance or the excuse. Besides, I couldn't leave this world without making sure
Cresswell
was all right—and Nelson.

I peered out as best I could through the spray and splintered plexiglass of the windshields. The course ahead seemed to be clear. There were patches of pale moonlight here and there as clouds moved over the thin, weak scimitar of the new moon.

When the firing grew fainter I called to Tony. “Get the hand-bearing compass—it's in the navigation table drawer. Put in on the deck below my feet.”

This he did quickly, keeping his head low. When he reached me he was panting hard, both with exertion and fear. I realized that I was, too. Reynaud ran, crouching, over to the starboard wheelhouse door, where he peeped aft around the bulkhead, watching for pursuers.

“What's that for?” breathed Tony as he put the compass below me.

“In case the bastards start firing again—so I can keep my head down.” I bent toward him. “This sod is dangerous,” I said.

Tony turned his spectacles toward me and gave me a sad grin. “The understatement of the year, old chap.”

“There's a wheel-lashing lanyard in the second drawer of the navigation desk. Get it out as quietly as you can and keep it in your pocket. As soon as he goes into any compartment, lash the bas . . . but wait 'til I give the word.”

“Right, got you.” Tony went straight away and pulled the length of thin line, with a noose at one end, out of the drawer, all the while glancing at Reynaud, who still had his back to us, peering aft into the dark, tracer-streaked night.

I stood up straight now. It had been several minutes since the last bullet had zinged against the hull. (Tony later told me that
Aries
must have been a good two miles offshore before the firing from the harbor moles finally stopped.)

The boat was now cutting her way through the slight, smooth swell, into the blackness, with her stern well down and her bows streaming spray aft like a firehose. The sound of the seawater now drumming on the forward bulkhead of the wheelhouse was even noisier than the scream of the engines.

Suddenly Reynaud came to me. “I think we're being followed. I saw a dark shape pass in front of the harbor entrance lights.”

“Bloody great,” said I, as I again tried to push the throttle lever even farther forward. Reynaud's face was serious as he sidled over again toward his look-out post at the starboard door. Shortly Tony came to the wheel and told me the same thing.

“That prick has got a machine pistol onboard,” I said in a low voice.

“I know,” replied Tony.

“Do you know where he put it?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.”

“Oh, crikey,” he muttered.

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Yes, oh crikey. You know what it might mean, right?”

“You don't mean . . .”

“I do indeed.”

“Oh, crikey!”

“I don't trust that toe-rag any farther than I can see him.”

“What'll we do?” asked Tony in a high, plaintive voice.

“I'll put this bugger on a course for . . .” I got no further. Reynaud, his back wet with spray, strode over to my side. Tony headed back to his post by the port door. I noticed that Reynaud, unlike either Tony or me, was as steady as a rock. You would have imagined he was out for a moonlight cruise along the Seine in a
bateau-mouche.

“All right?” he asked, almost absentmindedly.

“Are you sure we've got enough fuel?” I asked, thinking ‘My God, what a time to ask
that
question.'” My hands still shook as I tried to hold the helm steady.

“The tanks are full,” he replied. “I told you, everything was arranged.” He peered into the compass binnacle. “Have we the right course?”

“We're on course for Marseilles—northeast by north—but I think that's a mistake. Those characters back there know where you'll head for. They'll just keep on our tail until daybreak. Then we'll be for the high jump.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Reynaud asked.

“Well, we should aim away from the course to France. We should head due north. That'll bring us to . . .”

I thought for a second or two, envisioning the chart I had studied before all hell had been let loose. “ . . . to Cabrera, right on the southern tip of Majorca. By daylight, if we maintain full speed, we'll be within visual range of Cabrera light. We'll know by then if we're still being chased, and if we are, we can head into Spanish territorial waters, maybe even into Palma itself. They can't follow us in there.”

Reynaud looked at me with his green eyes. There was a different look in them now—something of a degree of respect. Not much, but it was definitely there. He went over to the chart table, where I'd laid out the chart for the western Mediterranean. He bent over it, using the penlight I had left on the table, and studied the chart. A minute or two later he was back again. “I see what you mean,” he said, straining his voice above the noise of the engines and the drumming of the spray.

“The range of the Cabrera light—that's a small island—is twenty-five miles. That means we'll pick it up after we've made a hundred thirty miles from Algiers. Let's see . . . If we stay at twenty knots all night we should just about see the light at six in the morning. How do you think the engines will hold up?”

“They are in first-class condition. How do you say—A1 at Lloyd's?”

“I wish I were at Lloyd's right now,” said I under my breath. Aloud I said, “We'll have to check the lube oil every hour.”

“Of course.”

“And the circulating water, too. We don't want any fuck-ups on this little run, do we?”

Reynaud nodded, his face grim.

“Why don't you and Tony check the engines every hour,” I went on. “You can alternate and rest in between checks. He can make the first check at midnight.”

“What about you . . . Won't you be tired?”

“Oh, I'll be all right. I'm used to long hours at the helm, and I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway.”

“Well, it sounds reasonable. Will you tell Tony?”

“Yes, and you check below at one, three, and five, OK?”

“OK.”

“Pierre . . . What are we going to do if they catch up with us?”

“Leave that to me,” replied Reynaud darkly. “You just keep the boat on course.”

“Right.”

All through the windless night we roared over the slight swell, showing no lights. At about two in the middle watch the clouds uncovered the moon. I suggested to Reynaud that we heave-to for a moment, so we could reduce the engine noise and try to check if we were being chased. This he agreed to, and as
Aries
wallowed away, slowly rocking this way and that, we all three stood on the bow and searched the southern horizon, straining our ears in the semi-silent night. We saw nothing, and Reynaud seemed pleased—but I noticed that he took great care never to turn his back on either Tony or me, nor to come too close to us when we were on deck.

I passed over to the port side and gazed steadily to the southeast, where a dark mass obscured the horizon. It was a rain squall, and even then a slight breeze was rising from the direction of the clouds.

“We'd better wait for this squall to pass over,” I called to Tony and Reynaud.

The Frenchman rushed over to my side, then shuffled away out of arm's reach. “Where?” he asked.

I pointed to the blacker blackness in the black.

“There,” I said. Then, as my eyes adjusted completely to the darkness, I forgot the threatening evil so close to me; forgot all thoughts of overpowering Reynaud, and watched the beauty of inanimate things—water and wind—turn to life. Soon the sound of the steadily increasing wind, like a huge beast drawing greater breaths, a sound sorrowful and startling at the same time, passed over
Aries
as she wallowed in the now-deepening troughs. I found myself searching with one hand, in the dark, for something to steady myself against. The sound traveled toward us across the starless space between the rain and
Aries,
passed directly above us, then ceased for a moment, just as suddenly as it had begun. As if the sea, too, had drawn an anxious breath of apprehension, a long, slow movement lifted and let down the waters under us.

Very shortly a mini-chaos was let loose on the surface of the sea. It seemed to leap out of the darkness between water and sky onto the backs of the slowly heaving swells; then it lifted upon the crests a livid opacity of foam, as if it were driving a multitude of pale ghosts before it—and the squall was upon
Aries
in a spitting, spluttering welter of rain and spray.

Aries,
for a moment, remained jolt-upright, like a duchess whose bottom has been pinched by a footman. Then she suddenly lay over, away from the hard blast of the squall. Then it was that I wished we were under sail; for a sailboat, reefed down, would have laid to that wind and scooted ahead like a jack-rabbit. But all
Aries
did was shiver and shake from aerials to keel, like a felled mastodon, a great, stupid ox, a grounded leviathan.

By this time we were all three wet through with spray and rain, but although Tony retreated to the wheelhouse, Reynaud and I stayed out on deck—awed, possibly, by the holiness of what was happening. I swallowed mouthfuls of cool water, which the wind drove at my face. Everywhere around
Aries
water streamed and swept in cataracts lashed ragged as they shot to leeward. It was as if half the sky had fallen down upon us, and half the sea were rising up to meet it.

The awesome deluge seemed to last forever. Then, just as it all became unbearable, and I started to haul myself along the handrail to the wheelhouse, it stopped. It stopped instantly. All became quiet except for the low mumble of the idling engines. In a matter of a second it was as if the squall had never been, except for a diminishing excitement—a slight agitation on the moonlit faces of the swells. In a moment the natural forces of the world had abandoned us once more to the petty details of human existence; we were again deprived of the revelation of grandeur, released from unthinking, uncaring eternal beauty, and cast down again into our own private pits of human anxiety.

For a few moments we had been, all three of us, bound together inexorably. It was as if we had become one in some ineffable, inexpressible way. It was as if the universe had judged us and found us wanting.

Halfway to the wheelhouse door I stopped in the sudden silence and stared again at the southern edge of the black blanket of the night sky. Three lights appeared on the horizon. My heart jolted and I focused intently on the lights until I discerned that they were, in fact, three low stars, leaping and falling between the crests of the waves. Then I turned again and said to Reynaud, who still stood, sodden, looking south, “I may be wrong, but I think there's something there.” I thought it just as well to keep him worried.

He started, surprised, and leaned forward to stare more intently. “Are you sure?
Vous êtes sûr?”

“No, I'm not, but I thought I saw something just now, way out over the horizon, more to the southeast. It could be that they're searching for us on the track to Marseilles . . . But look, you're wet through—why don't you go down to the engine room and dry out.”

Reynaud merely grunted at this, and then said, “Let's get going.”