The White Schooner

by Antony Trew

  As the Spaniard came through the door, slowly, like a stalking cat, his eyes were fixed on the Tribal Room, and there they were when Black’s cosh descended and Tomaso lost all further interest in the proceedings. Black looked unhappily at the prone figure twitching on the floor at his feet. He had no quarrel with Tomaso. ‘Definitely not first eleven,’ he sighed as he took the Spaniard’s automatic from a limp hand and slid it under a settee. He looked at the clock in the hall and then at his watch. It was seven minutes since he’d left the gallery. The others should be over the wall by now and making for the car, Helmut and Kamros carrying the stretcher while Francois covered them and brought along the girl.

  Black dragged Tomaso to the foot of the stairs and handcuffed him to the wrought-iron banisters. After a last look round, he ran through the hall, out on to the patio and on past the pool to the gallery. There he unlocked the doors and went in, locking them again behind him. He checked the Spaniards’ lashings and found them secure, but Juan’s gag had worked loose and this he tightened, warning the men that if they wanted to see the sun rise, they’d better play dead for the next few hours.

  That done, he went to the far screen and took the Cézanne water-mill picture from its frame, and with a heavy pocket knife lifted the tacks which secured the canvas to the stretchers. He rolled the canvas and thrust it inside his trousers, wedging it between belt and body. When he left the gallery he locked the doors, and in the subdued light from the patio made for the outbuildings. Beyond them and the screening clumps of figs and cacti, he found the wall and moved westward along it, checking the rough surface with the beam of a pencil torch. Soon the bottom of the nylon ladder showed up.

  Grasping it, he climbed to the top of the wall, pulled it up after him, dropping it over on the far side and climbed down.

  Moving as fast as he could in the darkness, he went along the side of the finca keeping to the wall, the top of which was outlined against the sky by the lights from the house. At the corner the wall turned east across the front of the property, and he left it and went into the trees. A few minutes later he came to the road and started down it. The night was cold and clear, the sky bright with stars, the light southerly breeze charged with the scent of almonds and lemons from the terraces.

  When he reached the S-bend, he followed it to the bottom of the ravine. There he went into the trees again and walked in a half-circle, sniffing the wind until he picked up the synthetic odour of petrol and oil and rubber. He followed it until he almost walked into the car.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Black’s dry throat made him hoarse.

  ‘Okay,’ said Helmut. ‘Bloody hard work carrying him, though. Even with the stretcher. And you?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Black. ‘I had to clobber Tomaso. He’s out for a bit. Handcuffed to the banisters.’

  ‘And the housekeeper?’

  ‘She’s lying low somewhere. Badly frightened, I’d say.’

  ‘What about the girl? Drop her here?’

  He had almost forgotten Manuela. ‘Not yet,’ he said, climbing into the driving seat. ‘All in?’ He turned but could see nothing in the darkness.

  Francois said, ‘Okay. He’s between me and Kamros. Stretcher’s in the boot. I’ve given him another shot.’

  Black started the engine and switched on the headlights. In the glow of the facia board he saw that Manuela was next to him. He touched her hand reassuringly, but she snatched it away. The car came clear of the trees and they turned south on to the dirt road, climbing the long slope out of the ravine. At the top he switched to sidelights and then, as they began the descent, he used the headlights again.

  ‘Time?’ he called.

  Helmut held his wrist against the dashlight. ‘Eighteen minutes past eleven.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Black. ‘It’s taken twenty-one minutes.’

  ‘Feels like twenty-one hours,’ said the German.

  Black said, ‘I’ll drive down at an easy pace. They’ll see and hear us before we reach the turn-off, but they won’t know whether it’s the Zephyr or the Land-Rover. They’ll reckon on stopping the car at the junction to check. We’ve got to reach the main road via the cattle track before they realise we’re by-passing the junction. When we reach the track we’ll give it stick.’

  Helmut said, ‘I wonder if that jeep’s serviceable yet?’

  A voice came from the back seat. ‘You’ll soon know.’ It was Kamros at his gloomiest.

  The lone olive tree showed up in the headlights and Black slowed down, his eyes straining for the cattle trade. He knew that the police, a few hundred yards ahead at the road junction, would long since have seen the Zephyr’s headlights although he’d kept them dipped. If they’d got the jeep going or requisitioned a passing vehicle, it would be a close thing.

  He saw the track and swung right. ‘Hold tight,’ he called. ‘It’ll be bumpy.’ To Helmut he said. ‘Keep a look-out for snags. Shout if you see anything.’

  With the car in second gear, he switched the headlights on and accelerated. Then began a wild dash through trees and scrub, the Zephyr swerving and bumping along the dry track, braking and skidding as unexpected hazards loomed up, then accelerating on to the next one, the car sometimes leaving the ground as it hit a furrow or grass hump. Twice it seemed to Black that they would go over as he fought skids with wheel and accelerator. Several times Helmut shouted warnings, once when the headlights dispersed a shadow cast by bushes and a yawning burrow showed up close ahead. Black wrenched the steering wheel and the car lurched dangerously, a rear wheel sliding and spinning as the rim of the hole collapsed.

  But somehow they kept going until Helmut shouted, ‘See that! Police maybe.’ Ahead and to their left the headlights of a car came sweeping up out of the darkness and they knew that they had almost reached the main road.

  ‘Christ!’ said Black, and as the Zephyr dry skidded round a bend on the cattle track, he switched off the lights and slammed on the brakes. Those in the back seat were thrown forward and the car juddered to a stop behind a clump of pines. The air was thick with dust, and from the wheels came the acrid smell of burning rubber.

  He switched off the engine. ‘Sorry to have stopped so untidily, but there’s good cover here. We’ll hold on.’

  The headlights of the other car disappeared. ‘Must’ve gone into a dip,’ he said. ‘They’ll slow up soon.’

  Before he’d finished speaking they appeared again, the beams reaching towards San José. In their lights, through gaps in the pines, Black could see the road ahead of and below them, no more than a hundred yards away. In the Zephyr the only sound was that of breathing, and even it seemed to stop as the other car swept up the main road, came opposite the thicket of pines, and raced on in the darkness.

  ‘Don’t think it could have been the police,’ he said. ‘That car must have seen our headlights before we stopped. If it’d been the police, they’d have slowed down to check.’

  ‘Unless they reckon we made the road ahead of them,’ suggested Helmut. ‘And went round the bend.’

  ‘We’ll probably do that anyway,’ said Black dryly. ‘Let’s give them a minute or two to get clear. Watch their headlights as long as you can. They may be aiming to stop ahead of us and wait.’

  Francois leant forward from the back seat. ‘Are you going to take the Ibiza direction?’

  ‘It’s tricky.’ Black took a deep breath. ‘Means going back on the main road past the junction—that’s past the jeep if it’s still there. I think we’d better take the San José route. Unless somebody has a better idea. Whatever we do is a gamble. But the San José route’ll get us to Cabo Negret quicker.’

  The minutes ticked away as they waited for the other car’s headlights to disappear. When they had, Black said, ‘They should be five or six kilometres away now.’ He started the engine, switched on the headlights, and they moved off down the track. It became rocky and rutted, growing steeper as they approached the main road where the line of the ditch was marked by a long shadow. At its edge,
Black stopped the car and was about to get out to examine it when Helmut leant across and grabbed his arm. ‘Look! Something coming down from Altomonte.’

  Black swung round to see distant fingers of light probing the darkness like antennae as a car made its way down the valley. ‘Must be the Land-Rover,’ he said.

  It seemed to him unlikely that Tomaso could have recovered in time to have been of much use. Anyway, he was handcuffed to the banisters. Techa must have overcome her fear, got into the gallery somehow, and released Pedro and Juan. But speculating didn’t help, it was the fact of the pursuit he had to deal with. ‘I reckon we’ve got five minutes’ start,’ he said. ‘And a lot more speed.’

  ‘D’you think the police will stop them at the junction. Then join in the chase?’ asked Helmut.

  ‘Could be. Now for this bloody ditch.’ He turned in the driving seat. ‘Everybody out. Get ready to shove. Not you,’ he said to Manuela gruffly as she began to move. Immediately contrite, he added, ‘You’re too light to make any difference.’

  She said nothing and he climbed down and had a good look at the ditch before engaging low gear and taking the Zephyr into it. The car moved ahead, meeting the ditch at an oblique angle, lurching first one way and then the other, its body groaning as the metal twisted and strained. It started up the slope towards the verge, hesitated, stopped, and the engine roared as the wheels spun. Black slipped the gear lever into reverse and backed. ‘Now! Shove as we try again,’ he called. It was not until the fourth attempt that the Zephyr staggered out of the ditch and Black pulled it up on the side of the road. They’d lost at least three minutes.

  The others ran up and climbed in, and he let the clutch out and accelerated through the gears until they were making for San José. On the straight stretches the speedometer needle hovered between the 120 and 130 kilometre notches, the roar of the wind drowned all other sounds, and the bends and undulations in the road made it difficult to see if they were being followed. Nothing was said, but Black knew that his men—and for quite other reasons, Manuela—were thinking of the police, expecting a road block round every corner, over the brow of each hill, looking back for the headlights of a pursuing car.

  The lights of San José showed up as the car breasted a hill, then disappeared as it descended into the valley. The next time they showed, Black said, ‘San José must be four or five kilometres. Look out for a turn to the right. Any time now. It’s a country road. Leads to Santa Gertrudis. Once on it, we’ll come to cross-roads after about five minutes. There we’ll turn east on to a really bad road. More of a track, actually. That’ll take us round behind and to the north of San José and San Augustin.’

  Shortly before they reached the turn-off to Santa Gertrudis, they saw headlights coming towards them. Tension in the car mounted, but Black kept the speedometer needle on the 140 kilometre mark. The lights flashed by and Francois and Helmut shouted ‘Truck’ simultaneously. Almost immediately afterwards the Zephyr topped the brow of a hill and Black slammed on the brakes. With tyres shrieking they swerved past a car which was backing out of a lay-by alongside a gravel pit. As they accelerated away, there were shouts from the roadside and the flash of torches. In the brief moment that the other car, standing half-way across the road, had been illuminated by their headlights, they’d seen the white letters GUARDIA CIVIL on the front door, and the big external roof lamp.

  ‘Police!’ shouted Black. ‘That was going to be a road block.’

  At the bottom of the hill the Santa Gertrudis road showed up. They slowed down and turned on to it. As the Zephyr gathered speed, Francois called out urgently, ‘They’re coming down the hill.’ Soon afterwards he said, ‘Now they’re turning on to this road. About a kilometre and a half behind.’ Black was silent, concentrating on the driving as they raced down the road skirting the hills which seemed to shut out the sky to the west. Conscious of the tension in the car he said, ‘The big hill on the left is Reco. Very good name I thought, first time I saw it. More than three hundred metres. Excellent for birds of prey. I’ve seen a Golden Eagle there.’

  ‘Must have been sick,’ said Francois. ‘They like two, three thousand metres at least.’

  ‘Are you doubting my word?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Francois. ‘Bird watchers are famous liars. I think we are drawing ahead. About two kilometres now.’

  Black smiled dourly in the darkness. He was enjoying the chase, every muscle and nerve stretched, the future balanced on a knife edge. That was life as it should be.

  The stars in the western sky showed the break beyond the big hill and then they were at the crossroads and the car swung left on to a stony track. He dimmed the headlights, turned the car off the road and ran it into the trees. ‘Now,’ he said quietly switching off the lights and engine. ‘It’s a three to one chance. They can go straight on, left or right.’

  They heard the noise of the engine first, then the trees and bushes by the crossroads reflected the lights of the approaching car, faintly at first, but with increasing intensity. It stopped at the crossroads and they heard, above the noise of its engine, the voices of men arguing. There followed the rising note of the engine, and they waited breathlessly as the car moved forward. Its lights traversed slowly right, and it bumped off down the road towards San Rafael—away from the direction they had taken.

  Black breathed deeply. ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Thank him for diversionary routes,’ said Helmut.

  They waited for a few minutes before reversing out of the trees and starting down towards the coast, the rough track which they had taken ascending and descending, winding through the hills and valleys. Soon after midnight they crossed the tarred road that ran from San José to San Antonio, and drove on in darkness. The country road curving steadily southwards was more suited to farm carts than motor cars, and Black had to reduce speed and brake often. The shadows of trees and bushes contrived strange shapes on the road, and at times he found himself avoiding things which were not there. It was then that he realised how tired he was. It was a night which seemed to have endured for an infinity, to stretch endlessly ahead, to hold no promise of finishing. Sleep before daylight was not on, and he doubted if any would be possible then. He fumbled in his coat pocket for the small bottle, found it, and passed it to Manuela.

  ‘Open it,’ he said. ‘Give me one.’

  She took the bottle and held it to the dashlight. ‘Here,’ her voice was hard. ‘I thought you didn’t approve of drugs?’ It was the first time she’d spoken since the journey’d begun.

  ‘Benzedrine,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t count. Anybody else like one? We won’t get any sleep for a long time.’

  Kamros was the only taker. Age, thought Black. We haven’t the stamina of these kids. Thirty-five. Christ, I’m old.

  They struck a pothole and the car bounced, coming down heavily on its springs. He thought he heard the exhaust pipe hit the road, and there was a muffled thud in the back seat, followed by a moan.

  ‘Who’s that?’ snapped Black.

  ‘Van Biljon,’ said Kamros.

  Francois said, ‘He’s okay. Bump knocked him off the seat.’

  There were sounds of exertion in the back, interrupted by the Zephyr hitting two more potholes, the second one so violently that they were thrown from the seats. Manuela let out a frightened, ‘For God’s sake!’

  Black braked and the car dry skidded. ‘Sorry,’ he said taking a deep breath and shaking his head to clear his eyes. ‘I’ll be more careful.’ After that he gave up trying to beat the road.

  The track curved left and dipped down between the hills, the rutted surface alternating with outcrops of rock which made steps over which the car bounced. At the foot of the hill, stone walls bordering olive groves showed up in the headlights, and presently the walls of a finca, white and ghostly, slid by. After that the road improved and he increased speed until they ran into clouds of dust from which a red light winked intermittently. It turned out to be a truck, lurching and rattling down the
hill, laden with vegetables beneath its green canopy. Black hooted several times before it pulled aside and let them pass. ‘Making for market,’ he said.

  Later, descending a hill to the road fork where they would turn east below San José, he felt the steering gear go and slammed on the brakes. There was a jarring metallic noise, and the car sheered over to the wrong side of the road before juddering to a stop. ‘My bloody oath,’ he said desperately.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ several voices inquired at once.

  ‘Steering’s gone.’

  They got out and he and Kamros examined the underside of the car. In the thin beam of the torch they saw the track rod hanging down asymmetrically between the toed-in front wheels.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ said Black.

  Helmut swore in German. ‘Must’ve been the smack that knocked the old bugger off the back seat.’

  No longer able to order his thoughts, overwhelmed by despair, Black could only mumble, ‘Christ.’ It was an expression, not of fear, but of the shock of failure at the very moment when success had seemed, if not assured, at least probable. In an instant the situation had become hopeless. They were at least ten kilometres from Cabo Negret. Even if it were physically possible in the time available—and it wasn’t—they couldn’t carry the old man through those hills and valleys without encountering someone, if not the police. The entire island was only about fifty by twenty-five kilometres, and now that the alarm had been given, every unit of the Guardia Civil would be out looking for them. He felt an overpowering sense of personal guilt. Why had he driven so recklessly? Once the police car had been shaken off, another ten, fifteen minutes on the journey would have been neither here nor there, and it would in all probability have meant the difference between success and failure. He had let excitement get the better of his judgment and he was appalled at the results.

  Thoughts of those he had let down ran through his mind: Kagan, the men on the operation with him, the people at ZID and, beyond all these, faceless and anonymous, the others—those vast uncountable numbers whose eternal muteness was in itself the ultimate reproach.