by Nevil Shute
I filled the little tank with paraffin from a can and set it in the lamp. ‘See here, Miss Stevenson,’ I said, ‘I know you think I’m playing some funny business on you. Well, I’m not. I don’t know what it is that you think I’m up to, but whatever it is, I’m not doing it. That’s the first thing. The second thing is this. I’d better see Compton this evening. I suppose your trouble is that you can’t tell me about Mattani till you’ve seen him. Is that it?’
‘That’s it,’ she said.
‘Well, don’t let that worry you,’ I remarked. ‘I’ll see him this evening and we’ll have a chat about things.’
She hesitated. ‘I think you ought to know, Mr. Stenning,’ she said, ‘that he carries a pistol—as a precautionary measure.’
I laughed.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘I hope he’s got a licence for it.’
On deck one of the halliards was flapping merrily against the mast; through the planking of the hull I could hear the water tinkling along the topsides. I finished cleaning the second lamp and deposited them both in the forecastle.
‘Cheer up, Miss Stevenson,’ I said. ‘Really, I’m only a sheep in wolf’s clothing, though I don’t expect you to believe me.’
‘I believe you now,’ she said. ‘At first I thought you must be one of Mattani’s people.’
I laughed. ‘Well, don’t you go taking any chances,’ I said. ‘You say Compton arrives by the afternoon boat. I’ll be on the look-out for him on the beach there any time after six o’clock. Then he can tell me what’s happening if he wants to, or else—well, anyhow, he’ll let me know what he wants to do. Will that be all right?’
‘That will do, I think,’ she said. ‘He’ll have to come here, anyway.’
‘You might tell him to keep his finger off the trigger,’ I observed. ‘Nasty dangerous things—I never did hold with them. Though it would be almost worth while being punctured to find out what it is that you find so interesting about this place.’
She moved out of the saloon and went up on deck into the little cockpit. I followed her. On deck she stood for a moment looking over towards Marazan.
‘It’s quite shallow over there, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘I think so,’ I replied. ‘A small boat can get about in it all right.’
‘Not a steamer?’
‘It depends how big she was.’
‘Seven hundred tons.’
‘Good Lord, no. I suppose a seven-tonner could get in at high tide, but she couldn’t lie there when the tide fell. It’s no earthly use as a harbour, if that’s what you mean.’
‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘That’s what the boatman told me. I didn’t believe him till I saw it. But we know that it has a use. Mattani uses it, because it’s so quiet, I suppose, so desolate.’
I wrinkled my brows a bit over this. ‘What does he use it for?’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But Denis may have found out by this time.’
I turned and looked out over the pool, mellow and rippling in the morning light. ‘He could have a pretty good bathe in it, anyway,’ I remarked, ‘if he’s that way inclined. Fishing, too—I bet those rocks outside are full of conger. Birds … study of wild life.’ I knocked out my pipe upon the rail and turned to face her. ‘I don’t think we shall do much good discussing it till I’ve had a talk with your cousin. But I’d like you to know that whatever he has to say, you can count me in on this.’
She turned away. ‘I don’t see why we should drag you into our—our family dissensions,’ she muttered.
I got the dinghy up and rowed her ashore to the beach. She walked up over the island towards her boat; I sat in the dinghy rocking gently in the shallows and watched her till she was out of sight. Then I put back to the vessel. She was lying quietly to her anchor; as a precautionary measure I let out a little more chain. After that I furled the mainsail. Then I sat down for a moment in the cockpit, and stared absently down into the saloon. Apparently the urgent necessity for me to lie low was over; I was beset by an uneasy feeling that there was a storm of some sort brewing that was going to burst before the police had time to get upon my track. I’ve never been a man to go about looking for trouble; I’m not like that. This time it seemed to me tolerably clear that I’d gone and got myself mixed up in some unpleasantly violent and illegal business that was intimately connected with my present anchorage. I didn’t like it a bit.
Joan Stevenson had warned me that Compton was carrying arms. That worried me; half unconsciously I began to cast about for weapons of defence on the Irene. I only succeeded in unearthing a battered and unreliable-looking fire extinguisher. This I rejected.
It struck me that it would be a good plan if I were to go and have a look at Marazan for myself. There was no reason why I shouldn’t go ashore during the afternoon and walk along the beach; if necessary I could explore the Sound in the dinghy. I thought I should see just as much from the shore, though, as from the dinghy. As it happened, I saw more.
I went ashore in the afternoon after washing up and left the dinghy on the sand opposite the vessel. The whole of the north side of Pendruan is a sandy beach on either side of the point of rocks that juts out opposite the Crab Pot. I climbed over this point and began to walk along the southern shore of Marazan. I saw nothing in any way out of the ordinary. The place was very desolate; a broad stretch of water, roughly circular, about three-quarters of a mile in diameter, lying between low islands almost destitute of vegetation. The sun was bright, and all over the lagoon I could see the pale green image of bare granite very close beneath the surface, or the glassy calm over a patch of weed. I judged that there was very little to hinder a boat that drew not more than three feet of water; for a larger craft the Sound seemed to me to be impossible.
I went on to the end of Pendruan and the little strait that separates Pendruan from White Island. I expected to find a heavy sea breaking up against the western side of the islands with the south-westerly wind, but to my surprise the swell was not heavy and it would have been easily possible to row an open boat out from the entrance to the Sound without shipping a drop. I learned later that the set of the tide round the islands renders the entrance relatively calm in the worst weathers, a point that would be more appreciated by the islanders if it were possible to anchor a boat in Marazan.
I came to the conclusion that there was nothing to be seen at the entrance and started to walk back along the beach, half with an idea to take the dinghy and row about the Sound. I was only a hundred yards or so from the entrance when I saw something on the beach that I took to be a dead bird. I don’t know what impulse of curiosity it was that made me go and examine it—idleness, I suppose. I turned it over with my foot, and then I stooped to examine it more closely. It wasn’t a dead bird at all. It was a mass of oily mutton cloth, such as mechanics use. It was heavy to lift; as I turned it over out fell a pair of engineer’s pliers.
I spent a long time examining these. The cloth was covered with blown sand upon the outside, but the fabric was good and undamaged by weather, delicate though it was. The oil on it was still moist and amber-coloured; I must say that puzzled me no end. I came to the conclusion that the rag could not have been there longer than two, or at the most three, months. It could not, for example, have been there all the winter. The pliers, too, were in quite good condition, a little rusty but by no means seriously so. I was turning these over when it struck me that there was something curious about the sand on which they had been lying. It was above high-water mark and the sand was loose and powdery, but where the rag had lain the sand was heavy and discoloured. I set to work and cleared off the loose sand to the depth of an inch or two over an area of about six feet square. And then it was obvious; indeed, I had already suspected as much. The sand immediately around the spot where I had found the rag had been soaked in oil.
That was all I found. The place was where the sand sloped gently down into the water. It seemed to me that they must have used the beach at some time for the p
urpose of repairing a motor-boat. It would be possible, I thought, to haul a small motor-boat out of the water there and slide her above high-water mark—if anyone wanted to carry out repairs in this outlandish spot. I even went so far as to climb up on to the bank above the beach to try to discover traces of any block and tackle with which they might have hauled her from the water.
Looking back upon that now, I am amazed that I could have been such a fool.
I walked back to the dinghy and rowed off to the vessel, taking the cloth and the pliers with me. I deposited them in a corner of the engine locker and began to overhaul the gear on deck. During the afternoon I cooked intermittently; that is to say, I put on things to boil and forgot about them while I was on deck. In this way I amassed a considerable quantity of boiled potatoes and a leathery and unappetising suet pudding. The pudding turned my mind to matrimony. It is at sea, I thought, that a wife is really a necessity—and here I may say at once that I belong to that stern school of yachtsmen who hold that a woman’s place is in the forecastle. I suppose almost any woman can make a suet pudding on dry land. A woman who can make a suet pudding over a Primus stove in the forecastle of a six-tonner on an ocean passage is worth marrying.
I supped upon bully and suet pudding garnished with treacle, smoked a pipe, washed up the supper things, and saw that the lamps were in order. There was still no sign of Compton. The light was failing fast; it was about half-past nine. I made all square below and went up on deck and sat in the cockpit, waiting for something to happen. At about ten o’clock I heard the sound of a motor at the entrance to White Sound, and soon afterwards a small boat came into sight, the same that had brought Joan to Pendruan earlier in the day. There were two men in it, one in a heavy ulster and a soft hat that I knew was Compton.
I stood up as the boat came alongside and helped to fend her off. He had a small bag at his feet; it seemed that he was coming aboard for the night at least.
‘Cheer-oh,’ I said. ‘I’ve been on the look-out for you since six.’
‘Sorry,’ he replied absently. ‘I got hung up in Hugh Town.’
He spoke to the man in the boat, who touched his cap, pushed off, started his engine again, and headed away towards the entrance. Compton and I remained standing in the cockpit, and watched the boat as she drew towards the point, leaving a long smooth wash behind her, watched her till she vanished behind the land. Then I turned to him.
‘Had any dinner?’ I inquired.
I had only seen him at Stokenchurch before. I had thought then, if I had thought about it at all, that I had seen him in unfavourable circumstances, as a man who was a fugitive. One doesn’t expect a man to look his best then. But now, meeting him again only a week later, I was shocked at the change that seemed to have come over him in that short time. I knew that he was about the same age as myself, if anything a little younger, but the man that stood with me in the cockpit was already old. His face was lined and grey. There was no spring about his carriage; he moved with the unsteadiness of age—I think with something of the dignity of age as well. I was suddenly most frightfully sorry for him. Whatever he’d been doing during the week, he’d had a pretty tough time of it.
He turned forward. ‘I had dinner in Hugh Town with Joan,’ he said. ‘She told me that I should find you here. I didn’t think about you having to call in for water. You couldn’t have picked a better place.’
‘It’s very desolate,’ I said.
He glanced at me, and nodded. ‘Very,’ he said quietly.
We went down into the saloon. I had no drink on board to offer him; the best I could do was to put on the Primus for some coffee. When I came back from the forecastle he had taken off his coat.
He refused a cigarette, but lit a pipe. ‘Joan tells me,’ he said, ‘that you got a note that was meant for me—at Exeter, was it?’
I told him about it.
‘What day was that?’
‘Thursday evening—the evening of the day I started.’ He nodded. ‘That was before I had seen Roddy,’ he said.
I resented the intrusion of another character. ‘I expect Miss Stevenson told you my position,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where I am in this matter. There seems to be a lot more in it than I thought. I thought it was just a simple matter of getting you out of the country. Apparently it’s not quite like that. Tell me, what are your plans now? I can put you in France the day after to-morrow if you like.’
He didn’t answer directly; in the dim light of the cabin I thought I saw him looking at me curiously. ‘I wonder what brought you into this?’ he said at last. ‘It might have been anyone.’
He roused himself. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to cut off abroad. I’m taking your advice.’
‘My advice?’ I said vaguely.
‘I’m giving myself up to the police.’
It was nearly dark outside. Framed by the coaming of the hatch, I could see the stars beginning to show in a deep blue evening sky, without a cloud. There would be a moon presently, I thought.
‘I’m damn glad to hear it,’ I said. ‘When are you going to do it?’
‘The sooner the better,’ he replied. ‘Before they get me—they must be on my track by now. Perhaps to-morrow—or the day after. I’ve done all that I wanted to now—all except the one point that isn’t clear. Anyway, I’ve got enough information now to break Roddy and his crowd if ever they try to run another cargo.’
I think I was very patient. All I said was: ‘Who the hell may Roddy be?’
‘Rodrigo Mattani,’ he said quietly. ‘My stepbrother.’
He leaned back into a corner of the settee and began to talk. I close my eyes and I can see him now through a haze of smoke against a background of charts, blankets, and flannel trousers, half seen in the dim light from the cabin lamp, pale, tired, and a little bitter. I don’t know what I had expected to find at the bottom of this business—Romance, Adventure perhaps—I can’t say. I only know that whatever I had expected, I was disappointed.
He told me that his mother had been a Fortescue, and had married a Baron Mattani. There was one child, Rodrigo, born in Milan about forty years ago. The Baron died a year or so later, and his wife went on living quietly in her palazzo in Milan till Antony Compton sought her out and married her. Then the trouble started. It had been the father’s wish that his son should be brought up as an Italian and a Catholic; Compton was neither and the Baroness’s Catholicism was nothing to write home about. What happened was inevitable. Rodrigo was left largely in the care of the Italian relations, paying occasional visits to his mother in England; the Baroness returned to the country that she never should have left. Compton himself was born, and a sister who was married. His father and mother were still alive and lived somewhere in Surrey, not very far from Guildford. He said that they were very old.
It was a common enough story of a mixed marriage. There was nothing romantic about it, nothing to stir one up, merely rather a pitiful story of misunderstandings with the foreign relatives, of irreconcilable points of view. Estrangements grew up as they were bound to do, till at the outbreak of war they were lucky if they heard of Rodrigo once in six months. He was a journalist in Milan.
‘He carried a fiery cross all the war, Dago fashion,’ said Compton, a little sardonically. ‘You know the way they carry on. He was in the ranks, of course—the infantry, I believe he did damn well, as a matter of fact. But Lord—the stuff he used to write! He was the star turn of his paper and they gave him space for as much patriotic drivel as he could hock up. They made him editor while he was at the Front—the silly mutts. You never saw such drivel.…’
He mused a little. ‘It was all about Italia Irridenta, and Avanti—Bravissimo—all the rest of it. You know how they go on.’
Mattani, it appeared, had been with D’Annunzio in Fiume after the war, but it was under Il Duce that he found his destiny. He was useful to Il Duce and became a Ras. I wondered how he was useful, but Compton enlightened me only by his silence. Certainly, in Mattani Il
Duce found a man of exceptional ability, considerable wealth, and peculiar resources. He was the owner of a little tramp steamer and used to run cargoes regularly from Genoa across the Atlantic, cargoes of wines and spirits for the consumption of our thirsty brethren across the way.
It would have been better if his enterprise had stopped at alcohol. A bootlegging organisation, however, once set up, can deal with other commodities than alcohol; from the first Mattani found himself dealing with a considerable passenger traffic of those who were prepared to pay treble fare for the privilege of entering the United States by the back door. Moreover, very soon he found himself conducting an increasing and profitable trade in several varieties of dope.
I don’t know what it is about dope, but it gets me just where I live. I don’t know if it was always like that; I think I always had the wind up of the stuff even before I saw what it did. I dare say that’s instinctive, but—there was a Flossie that I used to take about a good bit just after the war. A most awfully pretty kid. I’d never seen it in action before, and I had no idea that she was taking it till she tried to pass it on to me. That is an old story now, and one that I don’t much care about remembering—and one, I dare say, that the Belgian doesn’t care about remembering that I threw clean through the window of Les Trois Homards on to the roof of a taxi-cab out in the street, and his dope after him. If I’d known that it was going to kill her in the end I’d have—I don’t know what I’d have done. But I never saw him again.
I don’t know when it was that it occurred to Mattani that England wanted dope just as badly as America, but he had already run two cargoes into England when Compton got wind of the business. He told me that he had tumbled on it while he was in Genoa on business of his own, quite by chance. There was no secret in Genoa about the destination of the little tramp with the peculiar equipment of lifeboats and davits—two whacking great motor-boats each as big as a Navy pinnace, each with a couple of hundred horse-power in her. The Genoese were rather proud of the venture and used to stand about in a little crowd on the quay watching the cranes loading the stuff into her, perhaps in the faint hope that they might one day drop one of the crates and break it open. He learned in Genoa that the vessel sometimes made a detour from the true course for America, but it was left to Mattani himself, in an expansive moment, to let his stepbrother into a portion of the secret of the new enterprise. One of his golden rules, apparently, was never to tell the whole truth to anyone, and all that Compton really learned of any consequence was the name Marazan. There, Mattani told him, it was transhipped and taken to England in a way that was—oh, so clever. Just like that.
