Part 8 (2/2)
”It'll be dark in twenty minutes Turn away, and make a stern chase of it until it is dark Papadopoulos rose uncertainly to his feet, and stood blinking his one eye rapidly andhis hands
”Kindly move your arse,” said Jake affably, and fired another burst of un bullets over his head
The Captain dropped once again to the deck, howling the orders to bring the HirondelLe around on a course directly away fro British warshi+p
As the schooner came around on to her new course, Jake called Gareth across to hiun ”I want this bunch of bastards covered while I ith the Greek You, Vicky and Greg can batten down the hatches on the cars in the un?” Gareth asked ”I thought they were all cased”
”I like to keep a little insurance at all tirinned, and Gareth selected two cheroots from his case, lit them both, and passed one up to Jake
”Co to knohy I picked you as a partner” Jake stuck the cheroot in the side of his rinned jauntily
”If you've got any pull with your Royal Navy, lad, then get ready to use it” Jake stood in the deep canvas crows-nest at the cross trees of the h the arc of the swinging rey silhouette that closed theh the warshi+p was only tendusk, for the sea breeze had chopped the surface to a wave-flecked i the watery horizon and throwing the east into ht prick of light began winking rapidly froent p query
”What shi+p?” and Jake grinned and tried to judge how conspicuous the schooner, with her mass of canvas, was to the destroyer, and to decide the moment when he would trade speed for invisibility
The destroyer was signalling again
”Heave to or I will fire upon you”
”bloody pirates,” Jake growled indignantly, and cupped his hand to bellon at the bridge
”Get the canvas off her” On the deck far below, he saw the Greek's face, pale in the dusk looking up at him, then heard his orders repeated and watched the lanced back towards the tiny dark shape of the destroyer on the liun bloom in the dark He remembered that flash so well and his skin craith the insects of fear as he waited out the long seconds while the shell clih into the sombre sky and then fell towards the schooner
He heard it co shriek, before it pitched into the sea half apillar of spray gleamed in the last rays of the sun like pink Carrara marble and then was bloiftly away on the wind
The crewe of the shot, and then suddenly they were galvanized into frantic babbling activity and the gleaoose furls its wings when it settles on the lake surface
Jake looked back at the destroyer and searched for seconds before he found her He wondered what they would ht believe the Hirondelle had obeyed the order to heave to, not guessing that she was under propeller power as well
Certainly she would have disappeared froer beaconed by the towering white pyramid of canvas He waited impatiently for the last few er visible fro down to the Greek the orders that sent Hirondelle swinging away into the wind and pounding back into the head sea along her original track, side-stepping the headlong charge of the destroyer
Jake held that course while the tropical night fell over the Gulf like a warm thick blanket, pricked only by the cold white stars He strained his eyes into the impenetrable blackness, chilled by ”the fear that the destroyer Captain uessed him and anticipated his turn At any e at close range froht and flood the schooner with the brilliant white bea peree of her bull horn
Then suddenly, with a violent lift of relief, he saw the cold white fingers of the lights far behind at least sixin sail The Captain had bought the du that Hirondelle had heaved to and waited for hihed with relief before he caught hi the schooner once again across the wind on the reciprocal of the warshi+p's course, and beginning the long delicate contest of skill in which the Hirondelle ducked and weaved on to her old course, while the warshi+p plunged blindly back and forth across the darkened Gulf, searching desperately with thehull of the slaver or switching the under full poith all her ports darkened in the hope of taking HirondeUe unawares
Once the destroyer Captain al phosphorescence of her boave a mile off Desperately he yelled at the Greek to heave to and they lay silent and unseen while the low greyhound-wasted warshi+p slid swiftly across their bows, her engines beating like a gigantic pulse, and ed once again by the night The nervous sweat that bathed Jake's shi+rt dried icy cold in the night wind as he put HirondeUe cautiously on course again
Two hours later he saw the lights of the destroyer again, a glohite light far astern, that pulsed like su as the arc lamps traversed back and forth
Then there was only the stars andsteadily and expanding the circle of the dark sea around the schooner
Chilled to the bone by the night wind and the long hours of inactivity, Jake swept the horizon back and forth as the light strengthened, and only when he knew that it was empty of any trace of the warshi+p did he close the telescope, cli slow journey down the rigging to the deck below
Papadopoulos greeted hiarlic in his face, and Vicky had the chop-box open and the pri black coffee and looked at hied with admiration
Gareth opened the hatch of the turret froht he had coun and caave Jake a cheroot as theyyou,” he grinned, as he cupped his hands around the flaringI keep thinking you are stupid”
”You'll get over it, ”Jake prolanced across the deck at where Vicky was breaking eggs into the pan and they understood each other very clearly
She shook them both awake a little before noon They were sprawled on their blankets in the shade under one of the cars trying to catch up on the sleep they had ht However, they followed Vicky without protest to the bows and the three of them peered ahead at the low lioncoloured coast line, upon which the surf crea blue shi+eld of the sky blazed with an intensity that hurt the eyes
There was no clear dividing line between earth and sky
It was blurred by the low mist of dust and heat that wavered and rippled like the yellow mane of the lion Vicky wondered whether she had ever seen such an uninviting scene, and decided she had not She began to compose the words hich she would describe it to her tens of thousands of readers
Gregorius caroup He had discarded the western dress and donned instead the traditional shaht breeches He had becoain, and the smooth chocolate-brown face, with its halo of dark thick curls, was lit by the passion of the returning exile
”You cannot see the mountains the haze is too thick,” he explained ”But sometimes in the dahen the air is cooler-” and he stared into the west, with his longing expressed clearly in the liquid flashi+ng eyes and upon the full sculptured lips
The schooner crept inshore, gliding over the shallohere the water was like that of a mountain stream, so clear that they could make out every detail of the reef thirty feet down and watch the shoals of coral fish below like bejewelled clouds through the crystal waters
Papadopoulos turned the HirondeUe to approach the shore at an oblique angle so that the details of the coast resolved theolden red beaches broken by headlands and points of jagged rock, and beyond it the land rose gradually, barren and awful, speckled only with the low scrubby spino Cristi and car riel grass
For an hour they ran parallel with the shore, a thousand yards off, and the group by the rail stood and stared at it with fascination
Only Jake had left the group and was , but he also came back to the rail when abruptly a deep bay opened ahead of theorius, and it was clear how it had got its name, for, huddled under the cliffs of one headland and protected fro winds and the run of the surf by the horn of land, were the ruins of the ancient slave city of Month
Gregorius pointed it out to them, for it did not look like a city
It wasdown to the water's edge They were close enough now to eos
Hirondeue dropped anchor and snubbed up gently Jake finished his final preparations for unloading and crossed to where Gareth stood by the rail
”One of us will have to swiested Gareth, and before Jake could protest he had the coin in his hand
”Heads!” jake looked resigned
”Bad luck, old son Give the sharks my love” Gareth smiled and stroked his mustache
Jake balanced on the cluine and lowered over the side, dangling on the heavy lines and floated alongside as It settled on to the surface un-gracefully as a pregnant hippo