Operation Piracy

by Paul Somers

  It was all gruesomely businesslike and efficient. Afterwards, Mellor took a bucket and a mop and swabbed down the cockpit, while Thornton stood by with a torch. There must have been a lot of blood, because it took them quite a while to clear up. Once, Thornton looked into the saloon and said, “Okay, Tony?” and Blake said “Yes.” Otherwise there wasn’t much talking not till they’d finished. Then Thornton and Mellor came back into the saloon.

  “Right,” said Thornton, “now let’s have that drink.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  We had a ghastly night. The few hours left till dawn seemed interminable. The shock of Harris’s cold-blooded killing, the callously efficient way in which his body had been disposed of, weighed on us like lead. The certainty that, short of a miracle, a similar fate was in store for us weighed even more heavily, and there was nothing to divert our minds from the grim prospect. I certainly couldn’t have cared less at that moment about the story that we’d taken such idiotic risks to get. Neither of us had any great desire to discuss the part that Harris had played in it. There was only one question of interest for the time being, and that was whether we could do anything about our situation. Sitting close together on Mollie’s bunk, and talking in whispers, we considered such possibilities as there were—but none offered any real hope. The three men in the saloon were so utterly committed that any one of them would shoot us without a second thought. Another quarrel among them was too much to look for. If there were a sudden, violent change in the weather it might disturb or delay their purpose, perhaps, but the weather seemed as settled as it had been all week. No miracle was likely from that quarter. We talked round and round the problem, and got nowhere.

  Sleep, of course, was out of the question. I kept a pretty constant eye on the saloon, just in case some unexpected opportunity should arise—but they were taking no chances. Through the four or five hours till daylight, they mounted an hourly watch. While two of them dozed, or appeared to doze, one sat upright in the lighted saloon with a gun in his lap. Once, during a change-over, Mollie asked for water, and Blake passed some in in a plastic beaker. There was no sadism in any of them; they would dispatch us, I felt sure, when the convenient moment came, with neither pleasure nor pain. We were in the way, and that was all there was to it. It was a situation that left us no room for manoeuvre. We had nothing to offer, nothing to bargain with. On any dispassionate view, we were as good as dead.

  Dawn began to break around five and soon they were all on the move. Through the crack in the panel, I could see Mellor lighting the galley stove and starting to make coffee. When it was ready, Blake passed some in to us, with a couple of hunks of bread and butter. He didn’t talk to us, and neither did anyone else. They weren’t even talking much among themselves. Whatever plans they had were already made, and their only concern was to carry them out smoothly and get away.

  As soon as it was full daylight, Thornton and Blake prepared for their dive. We saw them examining the aqualungs, making sure no harm had come to them during the saloon fight, testing the masks. Blake remarked that conditions should be good. I looked out of the port-hole, and the sea was as smooth as pewter. The tide was falling. The cliffs were deserted. We watched the two men strap on their aqualungs and check the pressure gauges and I heard Thornton say that he had enough air for about forty minutes. Then they adjusted their masks and went out into the cockpit and climbed overboard. By the time Curlew had swung on her chain sufficiently for us to get a view from the porthole, they’d disappeared in a swirl of bubbles.

  Mollie said, in a low voice, “It’s now or never, isn’t it?”

  She was right, of course. If we couldn’t turn the tables while we were alone in the boat with Mellor, we certainly couldn’t hope to do it when the others got back. But the same thought had obviously occurred to Mellor. Through the crack, I saw that he’d taken up his position on one of the berths in the saloon and was facing us, his finger resting lightly on the trigger of his gun.

  Apparently he could see me, too. “Relax, Curtis,” he he said quietly, “you haven’t a chance. The moment you push on that door I shall shoot you both.”

  “If you don’t shoot us now,” I said, “someone will later. What’s the odds?”

  “Life is sweet,” he said. “Why hasten things?”

  I moved back a little and whispered to Mollie, “The door opens outwards—there’s just a chance I could rush him. I think it’s the only hope.”

  “No!” she said. “No—wait! If only we could distract his attention in some way!”

  “I could tell him some people have come to the beach for a swim,” I said. “He probably wouldn’t believe it, but he’d have to look …”

  “It’s too dangerous—it wouldn’t take him a moment …”

  “Thornton wasn’t very quick on the trigger last night,” I said.

  “No, but I’m sure Mellor is … We need something that will really worry him.” She gazed agitatedly around. “What about setting fire to the mattresses?”

  I lifted one of them, and examined it. It was stuffed with flock. If we could set it alight, which I doubted, it would smoke like a bonfire. I shook my head. “It would worry us much more—if he didn’t shoot us, we’d suffocate.”

  “Yes, you’re probably right … But there must be some way of taking his mind off us.” She continued to gaze around. “I suppose there’s no way of letting water into the boat, is there?”

  I looked at her for a moment. Then I got up and went forward into the toilet compartment. I shut the door behind me in case Mellor was peering through the crack, and took a quick glance round. I’d once known a boat where there was a seacock in the toilet. But there wasn’t one here. I got down on my knees and examined the water inlet pipe. If I could get that loose it wouldn’t be long before the boat began to fill. Mellor would probably realise what had happened, of course, and come in and plug the hole. But he might not—there were plenty of other places where a leak might start. In any case, his attention would certainly be diverted when water began to lap around his feet. If he thought there was any danger of the boat sinking and leaving him without an escape route, he might hesitate to shoot us. It seemed worth a try. I grasped the pipe with both hands and wedged my foot against the side of the ship and heaved with all my strength. Cracks appeared in the white paint and the gland at the point of entry began to weep slightly. I heaved again, straining every muscle, hoping the whole thing would come away in my hands—but I couldn’t move it any more. I gave one more heave, without success, and then went back into the cabin.

  “There’s a pipe I could loosen if I had some tools,” I whispered, “but I can’t do anything without …”

  Mollie looked round blankly. We’d already searched the cabin, and we knew there was nothing. Then she suddenly said, “What’s in that little cupboard—we didn’t look there,” and pointed through the toilet to the forepeack.

  I shook my head. “They wouldn’t keep anything there—it’s the chain locker.” All the same, I went and had a look. There weren’t any tools. There wasn’t anything except the end of the galvanised anchor chain where it joined the bitts. The whole of the chain was out—and, with surprise, I saw that the few feet between the bitts and the hawse hole were quite taut. It looked as though whoever had anchored the boat the evening before had just let the chain run out to the end without bothering to take a turn round the capstan post on neck. There’d probably been a bit of a flap, of course, with our bubbles showing on the water and Mellor signalling from the shore …

  With quickening pulse, I examined the chain where it joined the bitts. Sometimes chains were made fast, so that the anchor couldn’t be slipped. Sometimes they weren’t. This one wasn’t. The last link was looped over an iron hook in the capstan post, and the chain was tied to the post with a length of strong line. That was all—and I thought I could get it free.

  I motioned Mollie to stay outside, and pushed the door shut again, and began to work on the knot: It had been tied a long time,
and was very stiff, and though I broke my nails on it I couldn’t loosen it at all. If only, I thought, they hadn’t taken my knife away …! After a moment I stock my head out of the door and beckoned Mollie. “Have you got anything in your bag I can cut with?” I whispered.

  She fetched the bag and opened it, and began to go go through the contents. “Is a nail file any good?”

  “Better than nothing.”

  “Or a mirror?”

  “That’s better still!” I took the little rectangle from her and put it on the floor and tapped it gently with my heel. One of the broken pieces had a good cutting edge, and in a matter of seconds I’d cut through the line. It came apart then very easily. I unwound it until there was nothing holding the end of the chain but the hook. The tension was too tight for me to lift the link off the hook. I put my hand up near the hawse hole and heaved gently on the chain and pulled it in, an inch at a time. If there’d been any wind or tide to speak of outside I’d never have been able to do it, but in a near calm it was only the weight of the chain itself that kept it taut and I had no difficulty with it. When I’d pulled in about six inches I lifted the link off the hook and let the chain go free.

  For a moment, the end of it just hung down in the chain locker. Then, link by link, it began to slip through the hawse-hole. It made much more noise going out than it had when I’d slowly pulled it in, and the noise lasted longer. Each link seemed to take an age slipping through and there was nothing I could do to hurry it. Then grating was frightful in my ears—and not only in mine. Suddenly the cabin door burst open and Mellor looked in, the gun pointing at us. He took in the situation in a flash. I was all set to exploit any slip he made, but he didn’t make one—he kept out of reach, and the gun didn’t waver. “On to that bunks, both of you!” he shouted. “Quick!”

  He jerked the gun at Mollie, and she slid on to the bunk.

  I lay down beside her. Mellor edged past us, still covering us, still out of reach, to the chain locker. But he was too late. As he got to it, the last few links of the chain ran out with a rush, and I heard the splash as they went into the sea.

  Mellor turned on us savagely. The look on his face wasn’t in the least debonair now. In fact, I thought he was going to kill us out of hand.

  I said, “You’re adrift, Mellor. If you shoot us now, you may land up somewhere you don’t want to be with the bodies of two people you’ve personally killed. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  For a second, he hesitated. Then he said, “Stay where you are!” and rushed out.

  I sat up and looked out of the porthole. We hadn’t moved far, but we’d moved. The bubbles over the wreck of Mary Ann were ten yards away on the landward side. We were drifting very slowly out of the cove.

  I peered through the cracked panel again. Mellor had gone through into the cockpit, closing the outer door of the saloon behind him. Suddenly I heard the whirr of the electric starter as he tried to get the engine going. It whirred for several seconds, but the engine didn’t start. Mellor, of course, wasn’t familiar with it—and marine engines are notoriously temperamental. I heard him remove the wooden cover. I slipped my shoes off and opened the cabin door. Mollie said “Careful!” and I nodded. I crept silently across to the saloon door. There was a revolving ventilator in one of the panels, partly open, and I looked through it. Mellor was kneeling on the boards, his left hand fiddling with the carburettor, his right still holding the gun. He kept glancing up at the door as he worked. In an interval between glances I gently tried the handle—but he’d locked the door behind him. I could probably break it open, as I’d broken open the other, but he’d still be able to shoot me before I could rush him.

  Then I remembered the second gun. Thornton obviously hadn’t dived with it, so it must be still aboard Curlew. Perhaps he’d left it in his jacket. I looked quickly round the saloon and spotted the jacket hanging from a peg and went through the pockets. But there was no gun. I tried the trousers. Still no gun. He might have put it in one of the cockpit lockers, of course, for safety—or given it to Mellor to take care of … I just didn’t knowl. Feverishly I picked up Blake’s coat and searched that … Then my eye fell on the harpoon guns, stowed lengthways at the back of one of the berths.

  The starter whirred again. The engine sprang to life, ran for a few seconds, coughed, and died. I picked up one of the harpoon guns and slipped the harpoon in the muzzle and loaded the gun against the floor the way I’d seen it done at Fox’s place. Then I crept back to the door. Mellor was bending over the engine again. I poked the harpoon an inch or so through the ventilator slit and held it there. I had to stand so far away from the door to do it that it was difficult to line up the target, but I couln’t afford to be fussy. Mellor was getting up to try the starter again. I aimed at his right shoulder, and pressed the trigger.

  I missed him completely. I saw the harpoon flash by him and bury its head in the after bulkhead. But the harpoon line, snaking in its wake, looped itself over his right hand, and as I jerked back and pulled it taut his automatic clattered from his grasp into the bilge.

  I dropped the harpoon gun and hurled myself against the door. It burst open and I rushed out. Mellor was just retrieving the gun from under the engine. I flung myself at him, and as we both fell with a crash on to the boards the gun flew up into the air in a graceful parabola and dropped into the sea.

  We fought with all we had, then, and a bloody business it was. Mellor was no weakling, and he knew all the tricks. As for me, I’d been spoiling for this chance for hours, and I fairly tore into him. As we rolled and jabbed and punched, splinters from the deck gouged into our hands and knees, and sharp edges of seat and bulkhead and engine cover threatened us impartially with sudden and final disaster. Once Mellor broke loose and ripped the harpoon from the wood where it had lodged and came at me with it, holding it like a spear. I dived for his legs and he made a wild stab at me as he went down and missed me by millimetres. I grabbed the harpoon and clung on to it, and for a moment or two we were completely tangled up in the line, Then I landed a lucky blow on his ear and tore myself away from him, and as he staggered up I caught him flush on the chin with a left that had all my weight behind it. His head jerked back, and he dropped like a log.

  I drew a deep breath, and looked around for Mollie. She was standing by the saloon door her face white. I could well imagine it had been worse for her than for me. She said, “Oh, Hugh!—are you all right?” in the sort of tone I could have borne to hear oftener from her.

  “I’m fine,” I said, “I think!” I glanced around the cove. Curlew was still drifting slowly out towards the open sea. There was no sign of the divers. We were quite safe. I pulled a silver of wood from the back of my hand and stanched the blood with a handkerchief and Mollie tied it up for me.

  “See if you can find some rope,” I said, as she finished. “I’ll watch Mellor.”

  She looked in several lockers and finally found a whole coil. Mellor was just beginning to come round, but there wasn’t any fight left in him. We lashed him up and half dragged, half carried him into the saloon, and dumped him on one of the bunks. I checked through his pockets to see if he had Thornton’s gun on him, but he hadn’t.

  Next I set to work to get the engine started. It was a four-cylinder job, of a make I’d never handled, but I didn’t think there could be much wrong with it. I fiddled a bit with the throttle and choke, but it still wouldn’t go. Then I found a plug spanner, and cleaned the plugs, and when I’d put them back it fired at the first touch of the starter and ran perfectly.

  “Now what?” Mollie said.

  I hesitated, scanning the cove. At any moment, Thornton and Blake would be surfacing. We certainly couldn’t risk taking them back on board, but I didn’t want to lose sight of them, either.

  I said, “I think you’d better take the dinghy ashore and fetch the police. I’ll stooge around and try and keep an eye on the other two when they come up. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. That was one thing a
bout Mollie—she was always ready enough to talk me into trouble, but at least she never argued in a crisis.

  I put the gear in and headed the boat back into the cove. I steered for a point midway along the beach and shut the engine off just before we reached the shallows. As we lost way, Mollie hauled in the towed dinghy and prepared to climb aboard. At that moment. I saw a masked face break the surface about thirty yards away.

  “Quick!” I cried. “They’re up.”

  She clambered nimbly over the stern and dropped into the dinghy and I cast her off. “Better bring plenty of chaps!” I called. “There may be quite a hunt.”

  “I will,” she said. “Look after yourself.”

  I turned and saw that the divers had submerged again. They’d obviously spotted us, and realised what had happened. I wondered what they’d do next. They certainly couldn’t hope to recapture the boat—with the ladder up, they wouldn’t even be able to climb aboard. They couldn’t hope to throw me off their track by swimming out to sea, because of the bubbles they’d leave—and in any case their air must be almost exhausted. Probably they were already making for the shore. I opened up the engine and steered round the edge of the cove. Almost at once I saw their bubbles. They were swimming in—but they were still well to seaward of me. I slowed the boat and waited. They were coming straight for me. Then one of them surfaced again—Blake, I thought. He took a quick look in my direction, and immediately dived. At once they changed their course, swimming parallel to the beach and abreast of me. They seemed to be making for the rocks that formed one of the horns of the cove. I couldn’t understand why they were so reluctant to land anywhere near me, considering that they were two to one—and then I suddenly realised. No doubt they thought I had Mellor’s gun. I wished I had.