Caravan to Vaccares

by Alistair MacLean

  They cast off, went aboard and the fisherman started the engines while Bowman peered casually aft. The sound of the power-boat’s engines was very close now. Bowman turned and watched the fisherman push the throttles forward as he gave the wheel a turn to starboard. The fishing boat began to move slowly away from the quayside.

  ‘It doesn’t seem too difficult,’ Bowman observed. ‘To handle it, I mean.’

  ‘To you, no. But it takes a lifetime of knowledge to handle such a vessel.’

  ‘Could I try now?’

  ‘No, no. Impossible. Perhaps when we get to the sea – ’

  ‘I’m afraid it will have to be now. Please.’

  ‘In five minutes – ’

  ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’ Bowman produced his pistol, pointed with it to the starboard for’ard corner of the wheel-house. ‘Please sit down there.’

  The fisherman stared at him, relinquished the wheel and moved across to the corner of the wheel-house. He said quietly, as Bowman took over the wheel: ‘I knew I was a fool. I like money too much, I think.’

  ‘Don’t we all.’ Bowman glanced over his shoulder. The power-boat was less than a hundred yards from the bridge. He opened the throttles wide and the fishing boat began to surge forward.

  Bowman dug into his pocket, came up with the last three thousand francs of Czerda’s money that he had on him and threw it across to the man. ‘This will make you even more foolish.’

  The fisherman stared at the notes, made no attempt to pick them up. He whispered: ‘When I am dead, you will take it away. Pierre des Jardins is not a fool.’

  ‘When you are dead?’

  ‘When you kill me. With that pistol.’ He smiled sadly. ‘It is a wonderful thing to have a pistol, no?’

  ‘Yes.’ Bowman reversed hold on his pistol, caught it by the barrel and threw it gently across to the fisherman. ‘Do you feel wonderful too, now?’

  The man stared at the pistol, picked it up, pointed it experimentally at Bowman, laid it down, picked up and pocketed the money, picked up the pistol a second time, rose, crossed to the wheel and replaced the pistol in Bowman’s pocket. He said: ‘I’m afraid I am not very good at firing those things, m’sieur.’

  ‘Neither am I. Look behind you. Do you see a power-boat coming up?’

  Pierre looked. The power-boat was no more than a hundred yards behind. He said: ‘I see it.

  I know it. My friend Jean – ’

  ‘Sorry. Later about your friend.’ Bowman pointed ahead to where a freighter was riding out in the gulf. ‘That’s the freighter Canton. A Communist vessel bound for China. Behind us, in the power-boat, are evil men who wish to put aboard that vessel people who do not wish to go there. It is my wish to stop them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If you have to ask why I’ll take this pistol from my pocket and make you sit down again.’ Bowman looked quickly behind him: the powerboat was barely more than fifty yards behind.

  ‘You are British, of course?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are an agent of your government?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What we call your Secret Service?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are known to our government?’

  ‘I am to your Deuxième Bureau. Their boss is my boss.’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Chief. Chef.’

  Pierre sighed. ‘It has to be true. And you wish to stop this boat coming up?’ Bowman nodded. ‘Then please move over. This is a job for an expert.’

  Bowman nodded again, took the gun from his pocket, moved to the starboard side of the wheelhouse and wound down the window. The powerboat was less than ten feet astern, not more than twenty feet away on a parallel course and coming up fast. Czerda was at the wheel now, with Le Grand Duc by his side. Bowman raised his pistol, then lowered it again as the fishing boat leaned over sharply and arrowed in on the power-boat. Three seconds later the heavy oaken bows of the fishing boat smashed heavily into the port quarter of the other vessel.

  ‘That was, perhaps, more or less what you had in mind, m’sieur?’ Pierre asked.

  ‘More or less,’ Bowman admitted. ‘Now please listen. There is something you should know.’

  The two boats moved apart on parallel courses. The power-boat, being the faster, pulled ahead, inside its cabin there was considerable confusion.

  ‘Who was that madman?’ Le Grand Duc demanded.

  ‘Bowman!’ Czerda spoke with certainty.

  ‘Guns out!’ Le Grand Duc shouted. ‘Guns out!

  Get him!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? No? You dare countermand – ’

  ‘I smell petrol. In the air. One shot – poof.

  Ferenc, go and check the port tank.’ Ferenc departed and returned within ten seconds.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The tank is ruptured. At the bottom. The fuel is nearly gone.’ Even as he spoke the port engine faltered, spluttered and stopped. Czerda and Le Grand Duc looked at each other: nothing was said.

  Both boats had by now cleared the harbour and were out in the open sea of the Gulf of AiguesMortes. The power-boat, on one engine now, had dropped back until it was almost parallel with the fishing boat. Bowman nodded to Pierre, who nodded in turn. He spun the wheel rapidly, their vessel angled in sharply, they made violent contact again in exactly the same place as previously, then sheered off.

  ‘God damn it all!’ Aboard the power-boat Le Grand Duc was almost livid with fury and making no attempt to conceal it. ‘He’s holed us! He’s holed us! Can’t you avoid him?’

  ‘With one engine, it is very difficult to steer.’ Under the circumstances, Czerda’s restraint was commendable. He was in no way exaggerating. The combination of a dead port engine and a holed port quarter made the maintenance of a straight course virtually impossible: Czerda was no seaman and even with his best efforts the powerboat was now pursuing a very erratic course indeed.

  ‘Look!’ Le Grand Duc said sharply. ‘What’s that?’

  About three miles away, not more than halfway towards Palavas, a large and very old fashioned freighter, almost stopped in the water, was sending a message by signalling lamp.

  ‘It’s the Canton!’ Searl said excitedly. He so far forgot himself as to stop rubbing the now padded flesh wound on top of his shoulder. ‘The Canton! We must send a recognition signal. Three long, three short.’

  ‘No!’ Le Grand Duc was emphatic. ‘Are you mad? We musn’t get them involved in this. The international repercussions – look out!’

  The fishing boat was veering again. Le Grand Duc and Ferenc rushed to the cockpit and loosed off several shots. The windows in the wheelhouse of the fishing boat starred and broke, but Bowman and Pierre had already dropped to the deck which Le Grand Duc and Ferenc had to do at almost exactly the same moment as the heavy oaken stern of the fishing boat crashed into the port quarter at precisely the spot where they were standing.

  Five times inside the next two minutes the manoeuvre was repeated, five times the powerboat shuddered under the crushing assaults. By now, at Le Grand Duc’s orders, all firing had ceased: ammunition was almost exhausted.

  ‘We must keep the last bullets for when and where they will do the most good.’ Le Grand Duc had become very calm. ‘Next time – ’

  ‘The Canton is leaving!’ Searl shouted. ‘Look, she has turned away.’

  They looked. The Canton was indeed turning away, beginning to move with increasing speed through the water.

  ‘What else did you expect?’ Le Grand Duc asked. ‘Never fear, we shall see her again.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Czerda demanded.

  ‘Later. As I was saying – ’

  ‘We’re sinking!’ Searl’s voice was almost a scream. ‘We’re sinking!’ He was in no way exaggerating: the power-boat was now deep in the water, the sea pouring in through gaps torn in the hull by the bows of the fishing boat.

  ‘I am aware of that,’ Le Grand Duc said. He turned to Czerda. ‘Th
ey’re coming again. Hard a starboard – to your right, quickly. Ferenc, Searl, El Brocador, come with me.’

  ‘My shoulder,’ Searl wailed.

  ‘Never mind your shoulder. Come with me.’

  The four men stood just inside the doorway of the cabin as the fishing boat came at them again.

  But this time the power-boat, though sluggish and far from responsive because of its depth in the water, had succeeded in turning away enough to reduce the impact to the extent that the two boats merely grazed each other. As the wheel-house of the fishing boat passed by the cabin of the powerboat, Le Grand Duc and his three men rushed out into the cockpit. Le Grand Duc waited his moment then, with that speed and agility so surprising in a man of his bulk, stood on the gunwale and flung himself on to the poop of the fishing boat. Within two seconds the others had followed.

  Ten seconds after that Bowman turned round sharply as the port door of the wheel-house opened abruptly and Ferenc and Searl stood framed there, both with guns in their hands.

  ‘No.’ Bowman spun again to locate the voice behind him. He hadn’t far to look. The guns of Le Grand Duc and El Brocador were less than a foot from his face. Le Grand Duc said: ‘Enough is enough?’

  Bowman nodded. ‘Enough is enough.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Fifteen minutes later, with the first shades of evening beginning to fall, the fishing boat, a curiously unperturbed Pierre des Jardins at the wheel, moved placidly up the Canal du Rhône à Sète. The three scientists and their womenfolk, the last of whom had been hauled aboard only seconds before the power-boat had sunk, were seated on the foredeck under the concealed guns of the gypsies, for all the world like vacation trippers enjoying a leisurely cruise in the warm summer evening. All the glass had been knocked out from the broken windows and the few bullet holes in the woodwork of the wheel-house were discreetly camouflaged by El Brocador and Masaine, who were leaning negligently against the starboard side of the structure. Pierre apart, the only two other occupants of the wheel-house were Bowman and Le Grand Duc, the latter with a gun in his hand.

  A few kilometres up the canal they passed by the tractor and trailor that had so abruptly left the road when the shooting contest between the Rolls and the powerboat had begun. The tractor was as it had been, a front wheel still over-hanging the canal: clearly and understandably, the driver had deemed it wiser to wait for assistance rather than risk a watery grave for his tractor by trying to extricate it under its own power. The driver, oddly enough, was still there, pacing up and down with a legitimately thunderous look on his face.

  Czerda joined the three men in the wheelhouse. He said worriedly: ‘I do not like it, I do not like it at all. It is much too quiet. Perhaps we are going to some kind of trap. Surely some person – ’

  ‘Does that make you feel happier?’ Le Grand Duc pointed in the direction of Aigues-Mortes: two black police cars, sirens wailing and blue lights flashing, were approaching at high speed. ‘Something tells me that our friend the tractor driver has been complaining to someone.’

  Le Grand Duc’s guess proved to be correct. The police cars swept by and almost at once started slowing as the tractor driver stood in the middle of the road and frantically waved his arms. They stopped and uniformed figures jumped out of the car and surrounded the gesticulating tractor driver who was obviously retelling his story with a great deal of verve and gusto.

  ‘Well, if the police are bothering somebody else, they can’t very well be bothering us at the same time,’ Le Grand Duc observed philosophically. ‘Happier now, Czerda?’

  ‘No,’ Czerda said and looked as if he meant it. ‘Two things. Dozens of people, hundreds for all I know, must have seen what was happening out in the gulf. Why did no one stop us on the way in? Why did no one report what was happening to the police?’

  ‘Quite frankly, I don’t know,’ Le Grand Duc said thoughtfully. ‘I can guess, though. Same thing happens time and again – when large numbers of people see something happening they invariably leave it to someone else to do something about it. Why, there have been cases of pedestrians watching a man being beaten to death in the street and not lifting a hand to help. Mankind is curiously apathetic about that sort of thing. Maybe it’s a natural reluctance to step into the limelight. I do not profess to know. All that matters is that we came up the harbour without causing an eyebrow to be lifted. Your other question? You had two?’

  ‘Yes,’ Czerda was grim. ‘What in God’s name are we going to do now?’

  ‘That is no problem.’ Le Grand Duc smiled. ‘Did I not tell you that we would see the good ship Canton again?’

  ‘Yes, but how – ’

  ‘How long will it take us to drive to Port le Bouc?’

  ‘Port le Bouc?’ Czerda furrowed his brow. ‘With the caravan and truck?’

  ‘How else?’

  ‘Two and a half hours. Not more than three.

  Why?’

  ‘Because that’s where the Canton has instructions to await us if any difficulty arose at the Palavas rendezvous. It will remain there until tomorrow – and we will be there tonight. Don’t you know by now, Czerda, that I always have another string to my bow? Many strings, in fact. And there, tonight, the scientists and their women will be taken aboard. So will Bowman. And so, to eliminate any possibility of risk whatsoever, will the two young ladies and, I’m afraid, this unfortunate fisherman here.’ Pierre des Jardins glanced at Le Grand Duc, lifted an eyebrow, then concentrated on his task again: it was a minuscule reaction for a man listening to what was virtually a death sentence. ‘And then, Czerda, you and your men will be as free as the air for when Bowman and his three friends arrive in China they will simply disappear and never be heard of again. The only witnesses against you will be gone for ever and no breath of suspicion will ever attach itself to you or your men on either side of the Iron Curtain.’

  ‘If I have ever questioned you in the past, I apologize.’ Czerda spoke slowly, almost reverently. ‘This is genius.’ He looked as a man might look after the Forth Bridge had been lifted off his back.

  ‘Elementary, elementary.’ Le Grand Duc waved a disparaging hand. ‘Now, then. We shall be in sight of the jetty shortly and we don’t want to give the young ladies any shocks to their delicate nervous systems, the kind of shock, for instance, that might prompt them to drive away at speed with the truck and caravan before we even reach the jetty. Everybody into the fish-hold now and to keep out of sight till the word is given. You and I will remain here – seated, of course – while Bowman takes the vessel alongside. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’ Czerda looked at him admiringly. ‘You think of everything!’

  ‘I try,’ Le Grand Duc said modestly. ‘I try.’

  The three girls with a youngster seated on a scooter were at the head of the jetty as Bowman, apparently alone, brought the boat alongside. They ran down, secured the ropes he threw them and jumped aboard. Cecile and Lila were halfsmiling, half-prehensive, wondering what news he bore: Carita remained in the background, aloof and rather remote.

  ‘Well?’ Cecile demanded. ‘Well, tell us. What happened?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Bowman said. ‘Things have gone wrong.’

  ‘Not for us,’ Le Grand Duc said jovially. He stood up, gun in hand, accompanied by Czerda, similarly equipped, and beamed at the girls. ‘Not really, I must say. How nice to see you again, my dear Carita. Had a pleasant time with the two young ladies?’

  ‘No,’ Carita said shortly. ‘They wouldn’t speak to me.’

  ‘Prejudice, sheer prejudice. Right, Czerda, everyone on deck and in the caravan inside a minute.’ He looked towards the head of the jetty. ‘And who is that youth with the scooter?’

  ‘That’s José!’ Czerda was as near a mood of excited anticipation as it would ever be possible for him to achieve. ‘The boy I sent to get the money that Bowman stole from me – from us, I mean.’ He stepped out on deck and waved an arm. ‘José! José!’

  José swung his leg over the scooter,
came down the jetty and jumped aboard. He was a tall thin youth with an enormous shock of black hair, beady eyes and a prematurely knowing expression.

  ‘The money?’ Czerda asked. ‘You have the money?’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘Of course, of course. To you, only a brown paper parcel.’ Czerda smiled indulgently. ‘But it was the right key?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ José’s mental processes quite evidently knew nothing about the intelligent expression on his face.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

  ‘I don’t know whether it was the right key or the wrong key,’ José explained patiently. ‘All I know is that there are no safe-deposit boxes in the railway station in Aries.’

  There was a fairly lengthy silence during which a number of thoughts, none of them particularly pleasant, passed through the minds of several of those present, then Bowman cleared his throat and said apologetically: ‘I’m afraid this is all rather my fault. That was the key to my suitcase.’

  There was another silence, more or less of the same length, then Le Grand Duc said with immense restraint: ‘The key to your suitcase. I would have expected nothing else. Where are the eighty thousand francs, Mr Bowman?’

  ‘Seventy thousand. I’m afraid I had to deduct a little of it. Current expenses, you know.’ He nodded to Cecile. ‘That dress alone cost me – ’

  ‘Where are they?’ Le Grand Duc shouted. He was through with restraint for the day. ‘The seventy thousand francs?’

  ‘Ah yes. Well, now.’ Bowman shook his head. ‘There’s so much happened since last night – ’

  ‘Czerda!’ Le Grand Duc was back on balance again but it was a close thing. ‘Put your pistol to Miss Dubois’s head. I shall count three.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Bowman said. ‘I left it at the Les Baux caves. By Alexandre.’

  ‘By Alexandre?’

  ‘I’m not an idiot,’ Bowman said tiredly. ‘I knew the police might be there this morning. Rather, would be there and might find Alexandre. But it’s close by.’