by Jack Higgins
They surfaced by the small ladder suspended over the side, and Anne went up first. Mallory followed her, pulled off his mask and turned to give Fiona a hand. She squatted on the deck, taking the pieces of pottery from her bag one by one and laying them out carefully.
Raoul Guyon had set up an easel next to the wheelhouse and was sketching Hamish Grant, who sat in the bows. The Frenchman put down his pencil and moved across to join them.
The General turned his head sharply. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Fiona’s found some pottery,’ Anne said.
Guyon turned to Mallory, a strange, alien-looking figure in his webbed feet and black rubber suit. ‘What’s it like down there?’
‘Interesting,’ Mallory said. ‘You should try it.’
‘Perhaps later. I’d like to get my sketches of the General finished and the light is just right.’
Fiona unstrapped her aqualung, squatted down on the deck again and started to sort through the pieces of pottery, completely absorbed by her task.
Anne turned to Mallory. ‘That’s the last we’ll see of her today.’
‘Do you want to go down again?’
She shook her head. ‘I’d like to try out the aquamobiles. You take one and I’ll have the other. We’ll go round the point to the St Pierre reef. I’ll show you the Middle Passage and there’s at least one interesting wreck.’
Guyon helped Mallory bring the two aquamobiles up from the saloon. They were bullet-shaped underwater scooters driven by battery-operated propellers, designed to operate at depths of up to one hundred and fifty feet. They carried their own spotlights for use when visibility was bad.
Anne and Mallory went over the side and Guyon passed down the heavy scooters. Anne moved away at once, running on the surface, and Mallory went after her.
The sea was calm, the sun bright on the face of the water, but as they approached the great finger of rock jutting out into the sea at the western end of the island Mallory became aware of cross-currents tugging at his body. Anne raised an arm in a quick signal and disappeared.
The sensation of speed underwater was extraordinary. To Mallory it seemed as if he were hurtling through space as he chased the yellow-clad figure in front of him and yet his effective speed was not much more than three knots.
The red nose of the scooter whipped through the blue-green water, pulling him across a jumbled mass of black rocks. For a moment currents seemed to pull his body in several directions at once and then he was round the point and into calmer water.
They surfaced by a weed-covered shoulder of rock and Anne sat on its slope half out of the water and pulled up her mask. On either side, and stretching across to St Pierre, was white water, surf breaking everywhere over the jagged rocks which made up the central reef mass.
‘At low tide most of the reef is twenty feet above water,’ she said. ‘Stretching all the way to St Pierre like a giant’s causeway.’
‘Could it be crossed on foot?’
She looked dubious. ‘I wouldn’t like to try. It’s only clear for an hour. Something to do with another flood which moves in this way from the Atlantic.’
A mile away the great, jagged rock of St Pierre lifted out of the sea. The castle was perched on the ultimate edge of the cliffs, its strange, pointed Gothic towers in sharp relief against the blue sky. The sea creamed over rocks two hundred feet below.
‘What do you think of it?’ she said.
‘It must have cost a fortune to build even on the golden tide of Victorian prosperity.’ He shaded his eyes and frowned. ‘I can’t see a jetty.’
‘It’s under the island. If you look carefully beyond the last line of rocks you’ll see the entrance in the cliffs. At high water there’s only ten-or twelve-foot clearance.’
‘Is the water very deep in there?’ he said casually.
She nodded. ‘Even at low water there’s a good ten fathoms. There’s a fault in the seabed which splits the reef along the centre. It runs right under St Pierre.’
‘Would that be your famous Middle Passage?’
‘That’s right, and it’s well worth seeing.’
She clamped her rubber mouthpiece between her teeth, pulled down the mask and eased herself back into the water. Visibility was still good and Mallory could see the great boulders of the reef four or five fathoms beneath, and then quite suddenly Anne tilted her scooter over a shelf of granite and went down into space.
They moved through a misty tunnel of rock, sunlight slanting through fissures and cracks in the roof in wavering bands of light. In places the passage was reminiscent of a cathedral nave, the rock arched up on either side to support the roof, and then the dimness brightened and they moved into a section which was open to the sea.
Anne was twenty or thirty feet in front and she paused, waiting for him. When he approached she jack-knifed. Mallory went after her, the scarlet nose of his scooter cleaving the water, fish crowding to either side. At ten fathoms he moved into a mysterious green dusk with visibility considerably reduced.
Beneath him she had paused, hovering over a ledge. When he joined her he saw, to his astonishment, a three-ton Bedford truck wedged on its side in a large fissure. The canvas tilt had long since disappeared, but when he moved in close he saw painted on the side the white star which all Allied vehicles had carried on D-Day and after.
They moved away again and a moment later the outline of a ship’s stern loomed out of the gloom. Every rail, every line, was festooned with strange submarine growths and he followed the curving side to where a ragged torpedo hole gaped darkly at him. Beneath, tilted into a crevasse, was a Churchill tank, beyond it, the shapes of trucks, a solitary field-gun’s barrel slanting towards the surface.
Mallory followed Anne across the deck to the wheelhouse. The open door swung gently in the current, the deck around it smashed and broken as if by some internal explosion. The wheel was still intact and also the compass in its mounting, encrusted with scales. When Mallory moved inside he had a strange sensation that someone should be there, that something was missing. A bad end for a good ship, he thought, and moved out again. She tapped him on the shoulder, and together they rose towards the luminosity that was the surface.
They hauled themselves on to the flat top of a large rock, dry in the sun, and Anne pulled up her mask and breathed deeply several times.
‘What’s the story?’ Mallory said.
She shrugged. ‘One of the D-Day armada that never made it. She was torpedoed near Guernsey. When her engines stopped the tide carried her straight in across the reef. Apparently, the crew got away earlier in the lifeboats.’
‘Where did you get the story?’
‘From Owen Morgan. There are plenty of wrecks in these waters and Owen knows them all – and their histories. Something of a hobby with him.’
‘Interesting,’ Mallory said. ‘I’d like to take another look. Feel up to it?’
‘I don’t think so. I’ll wait for you here. Don’t stay too long. When the tide starts turning there’s quite an undercurrent through the passage.’
He was aware of it almost at once like an invisible hand pushing him to one side as he went down over the edge of the reef. The pressure of the water clawed at his mask as the scooter pulled him down and he swerved as a steel mast pierced the gloom.
He hovered over the tilting deck, considering his next move. The sight of the black, gaping entrance to a companionway decided him. He moved inside, switching on the spot which was mounted on top of the scooter.
He moved along the angled corridor and opened the first door he came to. It fell inwards slowly, the room beyond it dark and he was aware of a strange, irrational fear. He pushed forward boldly, and the light, spreading through the water, showed him a table bolted to the floor, a bunk against one wall and bottles and assorted debris floating against the ceiling.
He swam out and moved further along the corridor to where it disintegrated into a twisted mass of metal, electric wires draped from the roof and, most poignant
sight of all, the broken remnants of a human skeleton crushed beneath a girder.
He moved back along the corridor quickly and, the moment he emerged from the companionway, struck up towards the reef. At twenty feet he paused to decompress for several minutes, aware of the current tugging at his body. He surfaced a few yards from the rock and found Anne Grant waist-deep on the edge of the reef, adjusting her equipment.
‘We’ll have to get moving,’ she shouted, as he approached and pushed up his mask. ‘It must be later than I thought. I can feel the tide moving already.’
‘Is that bad?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Even the aquamobiles aren’t going to do us much good with a five-knot current flowing the other way.’
She moved off at once and he went after her. Behind them the entire length of the reef was surging into breakers and he could feel the relentless pressure of the current. He started to flutter-kick with all his strength, and gradually the point grew nearer. Anne turned, gave him a quick wave and they went down.
He could see the weeds on the sea-bed beneath him leaning over on one side, pointing back towards the reef, and the pressure was now a solid wall that he was trying to break through. He kicked again, was dimly aware of the black rocks passing beneath him and then they were round into calm water and his aquamobile seemed to leap forward with a surge of power.
He surfaced and saw Anne at once, over to the right and some distance in front of him. He raised a hand, urging her on, and followed. When he rounded the final point of rock she was perhaps fifty yards in front of him and moving strongly towards Foxhunter.
A speedboat was moored beside the ladder, the sunlight gleaming on its scarlet trim, and someone sat in a canvas chair next to General Grant, a tall, distinguished-looking man in dark glasses and linen jacket who stood up and moved to the rail, shading his eyes as Anne approached.
She reached the ladder and he moved to give her a hand. When she climbed up on deck Mallory was still twenty or thirty yards away and he reduced speed.
As he came in under the counter of the speedboat the man who was sitting at the wheel turned to look down at him. He was a large, dangerous-looking individual with a hard face, a jagged scar bisecting the right cheek. Mallory recognised him at once from the photograph he had been shown at his briefing.
He pushed up his mask. ‘Hello there.’
Jacaud looked down at him calmly, nodded, then turned away. Mallory pulled himself to the bottom of the ladder where Raoul Guyon was already waiting, a hand outstretched for the aquamobile.
Mallory went over the rail, squatted on deck and took off his aqualung. Anne Grant was standing a yard or two away, an attractive figure in her yellow diving suit as she talked to the man in the linen jacket.
There was little doubt who he was. The handsome aristocratic face, the easy poise, spoke of a man who was supremely aware of the fact that God had created the de Beaumonts first.
‘Such a nice surprise,’ she was saying.
‘Pure luck that I passed, I assure you. I was trying out my new speedboat.’ De Beaumont raised her hand to his mouth. ‘My dear Anne, you grow more delightful each time I see you.’
She coloured charmingly and the General cut in: ‘And now that we’ve got you you won’t get away so easily. You must come to dinner tonight. It’s been far too long.’
‘Please do,’ Anne said.
He shrugged, still holding her hand. ‘How can I refuse?’
Raoul Guyon was standing with Fiona beside the deckhouse and Anne turned towards him. ‘Have you met Monsieur Guyon?’
‘I have indeed,’ de Beaumont said. ‘I’ve been looking at these delightful sketches he’s done of the General. If he can spare the time perhaps you could persuade him to come across to St Pierre one day and sketch me?’
‘A pleasure,’ Guyon said.
Anne turned towards Mallory. ‘And this is Mr Neil Mallory. He’s running the boat for us for a month or two till Fiona and I get used to things.’
De Beaumont stood for a moment, looking towards Mallory, and then he slowly removed his sun-glasses. His eyes were a strange, metallic blue and very cold, no warmth in them at all, and yet something moved there, something that instantly put Mallory on the alert.
‘Mr Mallory.’ De Beaumont held out his hand.
Mallory took it and the grip tightened. The Frenchman looked into his eyes for a long moment, then turned back to Anne.
‘And now I must go. At what time this evening?’
‘Seven,’ she said. ‘We’ll look forward to seeing you.’
He went down the ladder into the speedboat and nodded to Jacaud. The engine roared into life and the boat turned away in a surge of power.
De Beaumont raised his hand in farewell, took a gold cigarette case from an inner pocket, selected a cigarette and lit it.
‘Shall I tell Marcel to be ready to run you across tonight?’ Jacaud said.
De Beaumont nodded. ‘And Pierre, but I shall also require you, Jacaud.’
‘Something interesting?’
‘I have just seen a ghost,’ de Beaumont said calmly. ‘A ghost from the past, and ghosts are always interesting.’
He settled back in the seat and Jacaud spun the wheel in his hands and took the speedboat round the point, his face quite expressionless.
Mallory stood at the wheel of Foxhunter thinking about de Beaumont. There had been something there, of that he was sure, but what could it possibly be? They had certainly never met.
The door clicked open behind him and Raoul Guyon came in and leaned against the chart table, lighting a cigarette.
‘What did you think of him?’
Mallory shrugged. ‘Very charming, very elegant. Seems soft until you look in his eyes. Are you dining with them tonight?’
Guyon shook his head. ‘I’ve been invited for drinks afterwards. What was it like on the reef? Anything interesting?’
Mallory told him everything that had happened. When he had finished Guyon nodded. ‘From the sound of it, this cavern under the island would seem like an adequate hiding place for L’Alouette.’
‘That’s what we’ll have to find out.’
‘And how do we do that?’
‘We’ll use the aquamobiles. Try the Middle Passage approach I told you about.’
‘Straight into the cavern. Do you think they’ll let us?’
‘That’s what we’ll have to find out. We’ll go in sometime tonight. The forecast’s good and there’s a moon. If the weather holds it shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ll go round the point in the dinghy. That should give us a good start.’
Guyon sighed. ‘Legrande told me this one would be interesting. Little did he know. I’ll see you later.’
The door closed behind him and Mallory increased speed. The strange thing was that as Foxhunter ran back towards the jetty he wasn’t thinking of the danger that lay ahead, of the long swim through the dark night. He was thinking of two metallic blue eyes and wondering what it was that he had seen in them.
8
The Man from Tangiers
Through the french windows the lawn shimmered palely and the great beeches were silhouetted against the evening sky. Beyond was the timeless sad sough of the sea.
Inside, the room was warm and comfortable, the light softly diffused and a log hissed and spluttered on the hearth-stone. There was a grand piano in one corner, two old comfortable couches drawn to the fire and a print or two on the walls.
It was a room that was lived in, a quiet, comfortable place, and the five people gathered loosely about the fire talked quietly to each other, Fiona Grant’s occasional laugh breaking to the surface like a bubble of air in a quiet pool.
De Beaumont and his host wore dinner jackets and the Frenchman looked elegant, completely at his ease as he talked to Anne Grant and the General.
Fiona was wearing a simple green dress in some heavy silk material and sat on the arm of an old tapestry chair. Guyon stood beside her smoking a cigarette, one hand on the
high mantelpiece. He was not in evening dress, but a well-cut suit of dark blue fitted his wiry figure to perfection, giving him a touch of distinction.
He leaned close to Fiona, muttered something in her ear, and she chuckled and stood up. ‘Raoul and I are going for a little walk. Anyone feel like joining us?’
‘And what would you do if we said yes?’ her father demanded.
‘Brain you!’ She kissed him affectionately and moved to the door. ‘I’ll get a coat, Raoul. It could turn chilly.’
Raoul smiled at de Beaumont. ‘Will I see you again before you leave, Colonel?’
De Beaumont shook his head. ‘Unlikely, I’m afraid. I keep early hours these days. Strict instructions from my doctor.’
Guyon held out his hand. ‘For the present, then.’
‘And don’t forget about that portrait,’ de Beaumont reminded him. ‘I meant what I said.’
The young Frenchman nodded to the others and walked across to the door quickly as Fiona called from the hall.
‘Seems a nice enough young chap,’ the General observed.
‘Fiona obviously thinks so,’ Anne said. ‘And he’s certainly talented. He was in the army in Algeria for several years before he took up painting.’
‘He’s remarkably talented,’ de Beaumont said. ‘He’ll make a name for himself with little difficulty.’
The General turned his head as Jagbir came in and handed round drinks from a tray. ‘Any sign of Mr Mallory yet?’
‘No, General.’
The General opened a silver box at his elbow and took out a long black cheroot. ‘I wonder what’s happened to him?’
‘Probably something to do with the boat,’ Anne said. ‘And he is walking, remember.’
De Beaumont fitted a cigarette into a silver holder and said carefully, ‘Have you known him long?’
Hamish Grant shook his head. ‘Anne picked him up in Southampton. As a matter of fact, he got her out of a rather nasty scrape.’
‘And this is the basis upon which you hired him?’
