by Jack Higgins
He lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke steadily. 'I don't think he'll come dashing in again like that in a hurry,' he said. 'For one thing, that grenade must have shaken him, and anyway - he can't risk sinking us. That would mean no gold.' He walked out on deck and stared into the mist. 'No, we'll just have to wait for his next move and hope that O'Hara can mend that pipe.'
Visibility was still down to about thirty yards and the rain, which had slackened a little, suddenly increased. It was with a momentary sense of astonishment that he suddenly heard his name being called loudly from the mist. 'Captain Hagen! Why don't you give in? You can't get away.'
He reassured Rose. 'He's using a loud hailer.' He grinned tightly. 'I wonder what the bastard's playing at?' He raised his voice and called, 'Nothing doing, Kossoff!'
For a few moments there was silence and Hagen wondered whether his reply had been heard and then the Russian spoke again. 'Really, my friend, you are acting rather foolishly. Surely you don't wish the young lady to come to harm?'
Hagen said softly to Rose: 'There's something fishy going on. It sounds as if he's stalling for time. I wonder if he's got something up his sleeve.'
Again Kossoff's voice sounded. 'Come now, Captain.' There was a touch of impatience in his tone. 'Let us act sensibly. All I ask is the gold. You may have your lives.'
There was a slight bump against the hull of Hurrier, and Rose whirled round and screamed, 'Mark, look out behind you!'
Hagen pivoted and fired from the hip. The man who was already on deck was lifted back over the rail. The gun suddenly ceased firing and he dropped it with a curse and closed with the second soldier who half-fell as he scrambled over the rail. The man subsided with a groan and Hagen lifted his inanimate body and threw it into the sea. A small dinghy bobbed in the water and he quickly secured it with a length of rope to the rail.
The girl was white and frightened. Her voice trembled when she said, 'I can't take much more of this.'
Before Hagen could reply the engine of Kossoff's launch suddenly roared through the mist. As he turned, crouching, the launch cut across their prow and raked the deck with small-arms fire. He had only time to sweep Rose down beside the engine-room hatch and protect her with his body. The sound of the launch faded into the distance and he scrambled to his feet and lifted up the girl. 'Are you all right?'
'Yes, a bit shaken, but I'll manage.'
He moved quickly into the shattered wheelhouse to reload the sub-machine-gun and stopped short in the doorway and looked at the interior. The walls were riddled with bullet holes and the wheel was badly splintered. The instrument panel was shattered and for a moment fear gripped him, so that he could not move, and then he stepped forward and examined the controls. Rose said anxiously from the doorway, 'Is everything all right?'
He sighed with relief. 'The steering mechanism still works and that's the main thing.'
He moved out on to the deck again and slipped a fresh magazine into the gun. Rose said, 'We can't go on like this for much longer.'
There was a touch of fear in her tone and her voice trembled slightly. He turned to speak to her and then Kossoff's voice came through the rain again. 'Now then, Captain, have you come to your senses yet?' Hagen made no reply and the voice continued: 'It's obvious that you're incapable of moving, but I'll be generous. I'll give you fifteen minutes to think it over. Fifteen minutes, my friend. Think fast.' His voice died away and there was only the rain, hissing down into the water.
Hagen turned to the hatch and called down to O'Hara, 'How long now?'
The old man straightened up, a flaring torch in one hand, and wiped sweat from his face. 'I'm still brazing,' he said. 'Almost finished. Fifteen or twenty minutes. I can't be sure.'
Hagen turned slowly to the rail. It was too bad but a man's luck always ran out sooner or later. He should have remembered that. He stood staring out into the mist in the direction of Kossoff's launch, defeated and despairing, and then he remembered. He slammed his hand against the rail. 'We've got one chance,' he said and there was hope in his voice. 'It's a slim one but it might work.' He turned to Rose. 'Ask O'Hara for that spare coil of wire cable - it's in the engine-room somewhere - and be quick.'
He ran down into the cabin and when he reappeared he was carrying the box that contained his diving gear. As he opened the box Rose arrived with the cable. 'Is this what you want?' she said. Hagen nodded and pulled off his sweater. 'What are you going to do?' she said. 'You can't risk swimming out there.'
He slipped his arms through the straps of the aqua-lung. 'I haven't any choice,' he said.
For a moment he thought she would argue and then she smiled tightly and said: 'All right, Mark. Have it your own way.' She started to tighten his straps.
When he was ready Hagen stood up. 'Now listen carefully because there isn't any time for repeats. I'll tie the end of the cable around one wrist and you pay it out as I go. I've got a little of that plastic explosive left and I'm going to try and fix Kossoff once and for all.'
'God help you,' she said as he quickly fastened detonators to the cable and tied it round his right wrist and then buckled the belt of explosives about his waist.
He went over the side quickly. For a brief second he looked up at her and she shivered and forced a smile to her face, and then he adjusted his valves and sank beneath the surface.
He had only the rough direction of the launch to go on but he knew that it was not far away. Probably just out of range of visibility. He swam very fast, kicking strongly with his rubber flippers, and it only took him two or three minutes to penetrate the mist. He sounded slowly and looked about him. There was no sign of the launch, and then suddenly his luck changed again and Kossoff's voice boomed out of the mist very close at hand. 'You have only eight minutes, Captain. Eight minutes.'
Hagen quickly submerged again and changed direction slightly and then the keel of the launch loomed through the water, and a moment later he was working his way along to the stern. He quickly fixed the adhesive plastic to a spot on the hull just below the propellor. He tied the cable round the rudder itself and forced the detonators into the explosive. The whole operation had taken him only two or three minutes. He turned quickly and began to follow the line of cable back towards Hurrier.
In his excitement and fear he didn't notice the cold, and from some inner reserve he drew forth additional power that sent him forging through the water faster than he had ever done. The cable lifted and he was bumping against the hull of the boat and Rose reached down a hand and Hagen cried: 'No! Detonate it now.'
As he pulled himself over the rail she feverishly clipped the cable and inserted the ends in the detonating box. From somewhere in the mist Kossoff's voice said, 'I'm sorry, my friend, but my patience has run out.'
There was the sudden coughing of the launch's engines as they warmed into life and then Rose depressed the plunger. The explosion echoed through the rain, and mingled with it were the screams of the dying. For a long time debris continued to spatter down into the water and then there was silence. O'Hara emerged from the engine-room hatch and said in a shaky voice: 'Holy Mother of God. She must have gone down like a stone.'
Hagen slowly unfastened the straps of the aqua-lung. 'It must have blown the stern clean out,' he said. He pulled off his flippers and stood up. 'How are things below?'
O'Hara managed a tired grin. 'Not that it matters now, but I've finished it.'
Hagen nodded slowly. He felt inexpressibly weary and more than a little light-headed. He went below and dried himself and pulled on a sweater and then Rose called, 'Mark, come quickly!'
As he moved out on to the deck he heard his name being called faintly from the water. He went to the rail and at that moment Kossoff came swimming out of the mist. They all stood and watched the Russian approach and finally he floated in the water, bumping against the hull. His face looked yellow and old and he was half frozen. He managed a smile, and said, 'I always underestimated you, my friend.'
Hagen shook his head.
'I was lucky and you weren't,' he said. 'It was as simple as that.'
Kossoff gulped and swallowed a mouthful of water. When he finally managed to speak he said, 'You wouldn't leave me to drown?'
For a moment Hagen wanted to tell him to sheer off and then Rose touched his arm. 'Mark, we can't leave him.' He shrugged and reached a hand down to Kossoff and pulled him aboard.
The Russian sprawled on deck, coughing and gasping for breath. 'Thank you,' he managed to say. 'You'll never regret it.'
Hagen laughed shortly. 'I wonder,' he said and turned to move towards the wheelhouse.
Behind him there was a sudden flurry of movement and Rose screamed, 'Look out!' and threw herself against him so that he went sprawling on to the deck.
He scrambled to his feet and turned quickly. She stood between him and the Russian and suddenly she swayed and fell backwards. Hagen jumped forward and caught her in his arms and there was blood on her breast. Kossoff backed away, a knife in his right hand, and said calmly, 'Even at the end I seem to be fated to have bad luck with you, Captain.'
Before Hagen could make a move O'Hara appeared from the wheelhouse with the sub-machine-gun in his hands. 'You murdering bastard,' he cried. 'She was worth ten of you.' He pressed the trigger and a stream of bullets hammered Kossoff over the rail and into the water. When O'Hara relaxed his finger the gun was empty.
Hagen lifted her gently in his arms and carried her down into the cabin. He laid her on her bunk and slipped a pillow under her head. As he moved to leave she gripped his arm fiercely. 'No, don't go. Don't leave me.'
He released himself as gently as he could and reassured her. 'I'm only going for the first-aid box.' She subsided against the pillow and he went into the galley.
When he returned O'Hara was bending over her. 'She's passed out,' the old man said.
Hagen brushed him aside and sat on the edge of the bunk. With a pair of surgical scissors he carefully cut open her sweater and the shirt she wore beneath it. Gently he pulled away the blood-stained material and O'Hara gasped suddenly as the wound was bared. Hagen swabbed away the blood with a wad of cotton wool and examined the wound. 'She's lucky,' he said. 'The point bounced off her collar-bone.' The slash ran diagonally from her left shoulder down into the breast.
'It looks bad,' O'Hara said. 'It looks damned bad.'
Hagen wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. It was bad and the blood was pumping out of her at a frightening rate. He had to do something drastic before it was too late. 'Get on deck and start the engines,' he told O'Hara. 'I'll be up in a few minutes.'
The old man went without a word and Hagen packed the wound with pads of cotton wool and lint and bandaged it roughly, looping the bandage under her armpit and around her neck. She lay quietly and never stirred. For a moment he looked down at her and then he left the cabin.
The engines rumbled into life as he came on deck. The water was being whipped into white-caps by a strong east wind that blew steadily out to sea, carrying the mist before it, and visibility was becoming better minute by minute. He went into the wheelhouse and took over from O'Hara. 'We've got to move fast,' he said, 'or she'll bleed to death.'
'What do you intend to do?' O'Hara asked.
Hagen opened the throttle and took Hurrier forward in a surge of speed. 'There's that rocky island about a quarter of a mile from here,' he said. 'It has a good inlet. We'll anchor and I'll do a proper job on the shoulder.'
He took everything that the engines had to give him and the boat lifted out of the water like some great sea-bird. 'Starboard, lad, starboard!' O'Hara cried suddenly and Hagen spun the wheel and turned towards the island that was dimly visible through the mist and rain.
He cut the engines and let the boat run gently into the tiny inlet and O'Hara, waiting his chance, jumped on to the rocks as the boat bumped against them, and looped a line around a large boulder. Hagen braced himself and went below.
He put a kettle of water on the stove and then went quietly into the cabin and examined Rose. Blood was seeping through the bandages and he cursed softly and went back into the galley and lit a cigarette with hands that trembled slightly. He stood impatiently waiting for the kettle to boil and, when it was finally ready, poured the water into a basin which he carried into the cabin. He washed his hands carefully and bathed them in disinfectant, and O'Hara stood at the end of the bunk and said, 'What are you going to do?'
'Stitch it,' Hagen said briefly.
He sat down on the edge of the bunk and started to cut away the bandages and Rose slowly opened her eyes and smiled at him. 'Will I be all right, Mark?' she asked him.
He nodded. 'You're going to be fine, angel. Just leave everything to me.'
She closed her eyes again and O'Hara said, diffidently, 'Is there anything I can do?'
Hagen nodded. 'Wash your hands and then stand by my side. I want you to swab away the blood while I'm working.'
He carefully pulled away the last remnants of the bandages and wiped the wound clean and then he took out the glass ampoule that contained the needle and gut and broke it open. As blood welled brightly from the wound he said to O'Hara, 'Start swabbing.'
Rose opened her eyes. 'I love you, Mark,' she said.
Hagen smiled. 'I know and I'm going to hurt you.'
She shook her head. 'It doesn't matter. You've hurt me before.'
He nodded soberly. 'This will be the last time, I promise you.'
He leaned forward and examined the wound. For a moment he hesitated. She smiled weakly and said, 'Get on with it, darling,' and then she closed her eyes.
He wiped the sweat from his face and started. Mercifully, she fainted at the first touch of the needle. It took fifteen stitches to close that gaping wound, and when he had finished he was mentally and physically exhausted. He carefully looped round the last circle of bandage and fastened the ends in position with surgical tape. 'Well, that's it,' he sighed in relief.
'Will she be all right?' O'Hara demanded in a weak voice.
Hagen stood up. 'She's lost a lot of blood but she's young. She'll be fine.'
He took his binoculars and went up on deck. He jumped from the prow on to the boulder and scrambled up the rocks until he had reached a suitable vantage point and then he scanned the sea and the coastline through the binoculars. The mist had disappeared completely, blown to shreds by the strong wind. He could see Charlie's freighter coming from a long way off. It steamed slowly towards the position where Kossoff's launch had gone down, and through the binoculars Hagen could see the sailors lining the rail, peering down at the wreckage in the water as they passed. The freighter didn't decrease speed. It kept right on going in the direction of Macao and he watched it until it was almost out of sight. After a while there was a discreet cough and he turned to find O'Hara beside him. 'That was Charlie's boat?' the old man said.
Hagen nodded. 'That's right.' He scrambled down the rocks and O'Hara followed.
'Would I be right in supposing we're not returning to Macao at all?'
For a moment Hagen hesitated, but only for a moment. 'That's about the size of it,' he said. 'Do you mind?'
A grin split O'Hara's face wide open. 'She's a grand lass,' he said.
'Let's hope they thought that wreckage was all that was left of us,' Hagen said.
O'Hara nodded, suddenly sober. 'I hope so. Charlie has a long arm.'
Hagen went into the wheelhouse and started the engines. He reversed out of the inlet and then turned the wheel over to O'Hara. 'I think we can just about make Haiphong,' he said. 'You take over for a while. I'll relieve you later.'
He went below and sat by her bunk, smoking and looking at her, and after a while she opened her eyes and smiled at him. The cabin tilted as Hurrier lunged into the waves and she said weakly, 'We're moving again?' He nodded and she went on, 'Macao?'
He shook his head. 'Haiphong. We've got just enough fuel. We'll move on to Saigon from there.'
For a moment she lay watching him and the tears began to well slo
wly from her eyes. 'Oh, Mark, I love you so much.'
He leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. 'When I was patching you up,' he said, 'a funny thing happened. I forgot about the gold. In fact, I forgot about everything except you.'
'What about Charlie?' she said.
'To hell with Charlie. We'll turn over the gold and sell the boat and move on. I'm not afraid of Charlie.'
'Where will we go?' she said. 'Ireland?'
He nodded. 'Maybe; we'll talk about it.'
She smiled happily and he took her hand, and after a time she drifted into sleep. He sat there for a little while longer, and then he went up on deck and took over the wheel from O'Hara.
The wind had freshened even more and spray spattered against the shattered windows of the wheelhouse as the boat dipped over the waves. A gull flew low over the deck and skimmed the water with a shrill cry, and as the wheel kicked in his hand Hagen suddenly grinned. For the first time in his life he felt as if he was really breaking out of something.
A Biography of Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the pseudonym of Harry Patterson (b. 1929), the New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy thrillers, including The Eagle Has Landed and The Wolf at the Door. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Patterson grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. As a child, Patterson was a voracious reader and later credited his passion for reading with fueling his creative drive to be an author. His upbringing in Belfast also exposed him to the political and religious violence that characterized the city at the time. At seven years old, Patterson was caught in gunfire while riding a tram, and later was in a Belfast movie theater when it was bombed. Though he escaped from both attacks unharmed, the turmoil in Northern Ireland would later become a significant influence in his books, many of which prominently feature the Irish Republican Army. After attending grammar school and college in Leeds, England, Patterson joined the British Army and served two years in the Household Cavalry, from 1947 to 1949, stationed along the East German border. He was considered an expert sharpshooter.
