The Golden Reef (1969)

by Pattinson, James

  ‘We shall have to shift‚’ Keeton said. ‘I’ve seen what happens when the sea piles up on that reef. If we don’t get clear before nightfall we’re likely to be in trouble.’

  Dring agreed. Valerie listened to the men discussing the situation, but she said nothing. They could hear waves slapping against the bows, and drifts of spray were coming over the yawl. Astern the long curving line of the reef showed white as a ridge of snow.

  ‘Right then‚’ Keeton said. ‘Let’s be getting out of it.’

  He started the engine while Dring went for’ard to haul up the anchor. The yawl moved away from the reef, heading for the safety of deep water.

  ‘Now how long is this going to last?’ Dring said. ‘We can’t operate in this weather.’

  Keeton made no answer. He was reflecting bitterly that every delay gave Rains just that much more time to arrive on the scene. And Rains was one man he did not wish to see. For this reason he was reluctant to go far away from the Valparaiso, and as soon as he felt it safe to do so he stopped the engine. Hove to, with a riding sail and sea anchor, the yawl was snug and dry with its head to the wind.

  Keeton shared the watches with Dring. The girl offered to take a turn also, but Keeton refused.

  ‘Four and four is no hardship. You get your sleep. Ben and I can manage.’

  But he could not persuade her to go to the other cabin. She insisted on staying where she could see what was going on.

  Keeton took the first watch himself and called Dring at midnight. The girl was still awake and had made cocoa and corned beef sandwiches. Dring sat up and drank cocoa, his eyes bleary with sleep.

  ‘Everything OK, Skipper?’

  ‘Fine and dandy.’

  Dring put his head on one side, listening. ‘That wind seems stronger.’

  ‘A little‚’ Keeton admitted. ‘It’s veered too, and it’s pretty gusty. You’d better take a look at the sea anchor warp now and then; it may chafe.’

  ‘Right‚’ Dring said. He put down the empty mug, slipped an oilskin coat over his clothes and went out of the cabin.

  Keeton lit a cigarette and stretched himself out on the settee. The oil lamp, swinging in its gimbals, shed a soft, yellow light and threw a shadow on the girl’s face as she peered at him across the table.

  ‘Don’t you want to sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I’m not tired.’

  ‘You’re lucky. I could sleep on a steel wire.’

  Yet, when he had finished the cigarette and closed his eyes, he did not fall asleep at once. He listened to the rising and falling note of the wind, and he could feel the yawl moving erratically. He thought what a small, fragile craft this was to contain so much wealth, and he thought of the girl with the shadow on her face, this girl who did not wish for any share of the gold. And thinking of her, he fell asleep and dreamed he was back on board the Valparaiso with the Japanese submarine shelling.

  He awoke to find a hand tugging at his shoulder. Dring’s voice was shouting in his ear, and Dring sounded alarmed.

  ‘Wake up, Skipper. We’re in trouble. You’d better come quickly.’

  Keeton did not wait to ask what trouble. He saw that Valerie was still awake. How long had he slept while she sat there? An hour? Two hours? It made no difference. He went out into the cockpit wearing only his shirt and trousers, and the rain met him and drenched him to the skin in a moment. But it was not the rain that threatened the safety of the yawl. The danger glimmered through the darkness; it seemed to be all around them; wherever he looked there was nothing but the white, churnedup water, the foam blowing over the coral.

  ‘The warp parted‚’ Dring yelled. ‘We’re driving on to the reef.’

  The yawl was out of control. The wind struck her on the beam and she heeled over, shipping water; the riding sail rattled like a drum.

  ‘I’ll start the engine‚’ Keeton shouted.

  It was the only chance they had of getting out of danger; but even this aid might come too late; at any moment the keel might grind on the coral and the bottom might be ripped out of the yawl. Crushed against the reef, she would be battered to pieces by the sea.

  The engine coughed, spluttered and relapsed into silence. Keeton tried again and it came to sudden life. Dring had already unlashed the tiller; Keeton pushed him aside and took charge of it himself. The propeller was churning, but now the white patches of foam were nearer, all around. It seemed as though the yawl had drifted into a maze out of which it was impossible to find a way.

  He heard Dring’s voice above the shrieking of the wind.

  ‘That way, Skipper.’ Dring was pointing, and where he pointed there seemed to be a patch of open water with no white foam warning of coral just below the surface. Keeton tried to bring the yawl into that open water, but almost immediately he felt the keel grinding. The yawl stopped moving forward and the propeller raced ineffectively. A burst of spray came over the cabin top and Keeton saw the girl appear at the head of the companionway.

  He yelled at her savagely: ‘Get back. You can’t help here.’ But she stayed where she was.

  He reversed the engine and tried to drag the yawl off with the propeller. The only effect was vibration, like a shudder of fear, passing through the timbers.

  ‘She’s aground sure enough‚’ Dring shouted.

  Keeton snarled back at him: ‘I know. Tell me something useful.’

  Dring was silent. The girl stood motionless, drenched by spray, staring at Keeton, waiting for him to get them out of this danger, relying on his strength, his experience.

  Again Keeton raced the engine and again the yawl shuddered but did not move. And then a wave did what he had been unable to do; it lifted the yawl off the coral, the propeller began to drag and they slid back into deeper water.

  Keeton let the yawl go astern for a short distance and then went ahead at slow speed, keeping clear of the place where they had grounded.

  He heard Dring’s voice in his ear: ‘Foam on the starboard bow, Skipper.’

  He shifted the helm and brought the yawl’s head a shade more to port, waiting for the shock of grounding.

  A little later Dring shouted: ‘On the port now. There!’

  Keeton put the helm over slightly and the yawl’s bows swung in answer. On the port side a churned-up cauldron of foam appeared like a ghostly face in the night; a wave hit the yawl; a spout of water gushed up and fell with a crash on the cabin top. The yawl seemed to hesitate for a second, like a horse refusing to jump, and Keeton felt the rasp of coral under the keel.

  And then they were through. The yawl rose on the back of a wave and slid down the other side, and there was nothing but deep water ahead. The reef was behind them.

  Keeton set Dring to work on the pump, and Valerie came and stood beside him at the helm.

  ‘You’re drenched‚’ he said. ‘You’d better go and change into dry clothes.’

  But she did not go, and he did not urge her. He listened to the stammer of the engine as he steered the yawl into the face of the wind.

  Chapter Nine

  Trouble

  They had lost two days because of the wind, and the yawl was leaking slightly after her encounter with the coral. It was not a bad leak; a few minutes’ work on the pump each day was enough to counteract it, and Keeton was not worried. He had examined the hull under water and had found some gashes but no serious damage.

  ‘We were lucky‚’ he told Dring. ‘We could have been really piled up on that reef. What happened? Did you go to sleep?’

  Dring flared up at the suggestion. ‘So it was my fault? If you’d given us enough sea room it would never have happened.’

  It was Valerie who smoothed things over. ‘Stop snapping at each other like children. Never mind who was to blame, let’s be thankful we’re still alive.’

  Dring grinned, his temper subsiding as quickly as it had risen. ‘The kid’s right. OK, Skipper? No hard feelings?’

  ‘No hard feelings‚’ Keeton said. ‘Let’s just curse the weath
er.’

  They resumed diving operations as soon as it was calm enough to do so. But now Keeton was even more acutely aware of the pressure of time. He wanted to have the gold on board and to get away. Each day added to his impatience.

  ‘Why don’t you take what you’ve got and leave it at that?’ Valerie suggested. ‘Surely there’s enough here. It’s tempting fate to keep going down.’

  Keeton shook his head. ‘We haven’t got the half of it yet. Not nearly half.’

  There was a fortune on board, cluttering the living space and weighing the yawl down low in the water, but he was not satisfied yet.

  ‘You’ll sink the boat with gold‚’ Valerie said. ‘You’ll end by losing it all.’

  Keeton and Dring had gone down into the Valparaiso so often that they could have found their way to the strongroom almost by instinct; the route down through the shell-hole and along the alleyway was like the entrance to a familiar building; each turning was known, each snag had been passed so many times that they were becoming over-confident, feeling that nothing whatever could go wrong now.

  And then something did go wrong.

  It happened inside the strong-room. Keeton was groping towards the pile of cases and thinking how much easier the salvage job had turned out to be than he had feared; so many things could have prevented them from getting the gold, but in the event it had been a relatively simple operation. And even the sharks had gone away after the first inquisitive reconnaissance.

  He felt for a box, and in the instant that he gripped it he knew that something had happened to his air supply. He could not breathe; he was suffocating. He released his grip and felt an intolerable pounding of blood in his temples. Everything seemed to be spinning round and blood began to pour from his nose.

  Then he felt Dring’s hands. He tried to fight Dring off; for suddenly the truth dawned upon him: Dring was trying to kill him. The Australian must have tampered with the air cylinders; he meant to leave Keeton dead in the wreck and get away with the gold. Not content with a quarter share, he intended to take it all.

  He struck feebly at Dring, but he knew that his own weakness was too great for him to do anything now. He could not even see Dring; the water had become cloudier, thicker, blacker. And then something burst inside Keeton’s brain and he was falling into a dark pit, deeper and deeper until the ink-black waters engulfed him utterly.

  *

  The sun cast brazen spears at the bleached deck of the yawl, and Keeton opened his eyes. The light struck at him and he groaned, his head hammering.

  ‘He’s coming round.’ It was the girl’s voice; but it seemed to come from a long way off.

  Then Dring’s voice sounded. ‘He’ll be all right. Tough boy, the Skipper.’

  Keeton could not understand how he came to be lying on the deck with the sun warming him, but he was glad of the warmth; it seemed to put life back into his body.

  ‘I thought I was dead‚’ he said, and his voice was a croak.

  Dring’s voice sounded louder. ‘You damn nearly were dead, Skipper.’

  Keeton began to remember things. ‘You tried to kill me‚’ he said; but there was no anger in him. He was too washed out for anger.

  He heard Dring laugh. ‘You thought that? Was that why you hit me? Maybe I should have let you drown, you ungrateful bastard.’

  Keeton realized that his head was resting on some kind of pillow. He could see Valerie’s face upside down, and it looked funny that way. He discovered that the pillow was her lap.

  He said, confiding in her: ‘He meant to get rid of me so he could have all the gold.’

  ‘You’re talking nonsense‚’ she said. ‘You’ve been diving too much. If it hadn’t been for Ben you’d have been dead by now.’

  ‘There was a blockage in the air valve‚’ Dring said, ‘You had me scared for a while. I got you up as fast as I could, but you had me scared.’

  ‘Me too‚’ Valerie said. ‘With your face all blood, you looked bad when we took your mask off.’

  Keeton’s mind was clearing. So he had jumped to the wrong conclusion and had made a fool of himself. Far from trying to kill him, Dring had in fact saved his life.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ben. I must be going crazy.’

  Dring put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Too much diving, Skipper, just like the kid said. How about calling it a day? Up anchor and get the hell out of this. It’s getting on my nerves too.’

  ‘There’s a devil of a lot of gold still down there. Far more than we’ve lifted.’

  ‘Let it stay. We can come back.’

  Keeton was silent for a while, thinking the matter over. They could hardly take much more gold anyway; the yawl was dangerously low in the water as it was. Perhaps it would be wise not to push the luck.

  ‘All right‚’ he said. ‘We’ll call it a day.’

  Now that the decision had been made, he was as eager as anyone to get away. In his mind this burial place of the ill-fated Valparaiso had assumed a sinister character. It was as though the dead ship were beckoning him, inviting him to return to the cool depths of the sea where he would become just one more grotesque and twisted piece of coral like the engineers trapped for ever in the gloomy wreck of the engine-room.

  ‘We’ll sail tonight‚’ he said.

  Dring nodded. ‘That suits me fine.’

  It was the girl who saw the vessel first. She had gone out to scrape some plates over the side, and it was there between the yawl and the horizon, away to the south-east.

  Keeton was smoking a cigarette when he heard her excited cry: ‘Charlie – Ben – come here. There’s a boat.’

  Keeton crushed out the cigarette with a savage jab of the hand. He beat Dring to the companionway by inches. Valerie was pointing over the starboard side.

  ‘There! Do you see?’

  Keeton saw it. ‘Get my binoculars. Quick!’

  She obeyed him. There was a note of authority in Keeton’s voice when he gave orders that permitted no disobedience. She came back with the binoculars, and Keeton took them without a word and focused them on the approaching craft.

  ‘What do you make of it?’ Dring asked.

  ‘A sea-going launch.’

  ‘Our friends?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind betting on it.’ He clenched his right fist in exasperation. ‘One more day and we’d have been gone. They could have looked for us until their eyes popped and they would never have found us. Now—’

  ‘Suppose we left now – at once‚’ Valerie suggested.

  ‘We couldn’t get away from that launch. Even without the load we’re carrying they could catch us long before nightfall. No: I’m not running from them. Now that they’ve found us I’m going to wait for them.’

  The girl looked worried. ‘Do you think they’ll use violence?’

  Keeton opened his shirt and pointed at the scars. ‘There’s your answer. To get this gold they’ll do anything. But I’ll see them in hell before they take it. Are you with me, Ben?’

  ‘I’m with you, Skipper. I’ve got a stake in this too, remember.’

  ‘Got your Luger handy?’

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  Dring went into the cabin. Keeton looked at the girl. ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘Yes‚’ she said.

  ‘There’s no need to be.’ He pressed her hand. ‘We can deal with Mr Rains and company. I know them and they’re all yellow when it comes to the push.’

  ‘Perhaps I am too.’

  ‘Not you‚’ he said.

  Dring came back with his automatic and Keeton’s revolver. ‘I thought you might want your gun too, Skipper.’

  ‘Thanks‚’ Keeton said. He saw that Dring had loaded the Colt. He slipped it into his belt.

  The launch had grown bigger. They could see the bow wave curling outward on each side of the sharp stem as it sliced through the water. The glass of the cabin top flashed when the sun caught it like the signal of a heliograph.

  ‘They know where they’re going‚’ Dring
said.

  The yawl heaved lazily and the two men and the girl reacted automatically to this movement as they watched the approaching launch. Keeton lifted his binoculars again and the launch expanded in his vision. He could see the white paint, the varnished woodwork and the polished brass. He could see a man.

  ‘It’s Rains sure enough.’

  The launch was bigger than the yawl, and as it came nearer they caught the thunder of its engine; it was a powerful sound.

  ‘Plenty of reserve there‚’ Dring said. ‘You were right, Skipper. No use running.’

  The launch came on without slackening speed, heading straight for the yawl. It looked almost as though the men in it were intent on slicing the smaller craft in two.

  ‘What are they up to?’ Dring sounded uneasy. ‘Do they mean to sink us?’

  Keeton shook his head. ‘Not likely. Not before they’ve found out what we have on board.’

  As if to confirm his words the engine of the launch suddenly quietened and she turned broadside on to the yawl. Three men were visible across the fifty yards that lay between the two vessels.

  ‘Doesn’t look as if they recruited any help‚’ Keeton said. ‘It’s natural. They wouldn’t want to split the take any further.’

  He heard Rains’s voice. ‘Ahoy there! Roomer ahoy! Enjoying your fishing, Keeton?’

  Keeton said nothing. He waited for Rains to go on. Rains did not waste time.

  ‘Got any gold on board?’

  Keeton shouted: ‘Get away from here, Rains. I’m warning you. Don’t make trouble or you may get more than you bargained for.’

  He heard Rains’s laugh and Smith’s high-pitched cackle like an echo. They seemed to be amused. Only Ferguson did not laugh.

  Keeton saw Rains go to the controls. With propeller and rudder he manoeuvred the launch alongside the yawl. They bumped sides gently with coir fenders squeaking, and Smith quickly looped a rope over the rail of the yawl.

  Rains looked down from the superior height of the deck of the launch. ‘Well, Mr Keeton; do we come aboard?’

  ‘You stay where you are‚’ Keeton said. ‘I’ve had you bastards on board my ship once too often already.’