Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 25

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hundred miles westwards to French Somaliland.

The Hindu mate came down and whispered fearfully to his Captain.

"What troubles the fellow?" Gareth asked.

"He worries about the English blockade."

"A "So do I" Gareth answered. "Shouldn't we go up on deck? Deal,"said

Papadopoulos.

Below them they heard the steady thumping beat of the big diesel engine

begin, and the vibration of the propeller shaft spinning in its bed.

The mate had her under sail and power now, and the motion of the ship

changed immediately, the thrust of the propeller combining with the

push of the full spread of her canvas, and she flew towards the vivid

purple and pink flush of sky and piled cumulus cloud behind which the

sun was beginning to set.

The mate had set a course which would take him swiftly down the middle

of the Gulf, out of sight of Africa on his port side and Arabia on the

starboard. The HirondeUe was making twenty-five knots, for the sea

breeze was on her best point of sailing and a day and two nights would

see them in and out again. He sent one of his best men -to the

masthead with a telescope and he wondered which the English viewed more

sternly young black girls in chains or Vickers machine guns in wooden

cases. Mournfully he concluded that either of them would be lethal and

he shrilled at his masthead to keep a strict watch.

The sun was sinking with agonizing slowness, almost dead ahead and the

wind rose steadily, driving the Hirondelle on deeper into the gut.

Jake Barton wriggled out of the engine hatch of Miss Wobbly and grinned

at Vicky Camberwell who sat on the sponson above him swinging her long

legs idly, with the wind in her hair and the tan she had picked up in

the last few days gilding her arms and flushing at her cheeks. She had

lost the dark rings of worry and the paleness of fatigue, and looked

now like a schoolgirl, young and carefree and gay.

"That's the best I can do," said Jake, beginning to scour the black

grease from his arms with Scrubbs Ammonia.

"She's running so sweetly, I could take her out at Le Mans." Her knees

were at the level of Jake's eyes and her skirts had tucked up high. He

felt his heart stop as he glanced down the smooth length of her thigh.

Her skin had a lustre and sheen, as though made of some precious and

rare substance.

Vicky saw the direction of his gaze and brought her knees together

sharply, although a smile touched her lips. She jumped down lightly on

to the deck, steadying herself against the Hirondelle's rolling action

with a touch on the muscled hardness of his arm. Vicky thoroughly

enjoyed the admiration of an attractive male and Gareth had been

closeted in the Captain's cabin these last five days. She smiled up

at

Jake. He was tall but the bush of dark hair that curled around his

ears gave him the look of a small boy which was again quickly dispelled

by the strong jaw line and the fine networks of creases that radiated

from the outer corners of his eyes.

She realized suddenly that he was on the point of stooping to kiss her,

and she felt a delicious indecision the slightest encouragement would

set Jake on a violent collision course with Gareth and might seriously

endanger the whole expedition and the story she wanted so badly. At

that moment she noticed, as if for the first time, that

Jake's mouth was wide and rutI and his lips were delicately shaped for

the bigness and hairiness of him. His chin and cheeks were blued with

a day's growth of beard and she knew it would feel rough and electric

against her own peach-smooth cheeks. Suddenly she wanted to feel that,

and she lifted her chin slightly and knew that he would read that want

in the sparkle of her eyes.

The masthead shrieked like a startled gull and instantly the

Hirondelle was plunged into frantic activity. The Mohammedan mate

echoed his shrieks, but at a higher volume, and his grubby robes

flapped around him in the wind. His eyes rolled in his dark brown

skull and his toothless moutth opened so wide that Jake could see the

little pink glottis dangling in the back of his throat.

"What is it? "Vicky demanded, her hand still on Jake's arm.

"Trouble," he answered grimly, and they turned as the door of the poop

cabin flew open and Papadopoulos rushed out with his queue twitching

like the tail of a lioness and his single eye blinking rapidly. He

still clutched a fan of cards in his right hand.

"One more card and I make gin!" he howled bitterly, and threw the

cards into the wind and grabbed the mate by the front of his gown,

shouting into his open but now silent mouth.

The mate pointed aloft and Papadopoulos dropped him and hailed the

masthead in Arabic, and Jake listened to the swift exchange.

"A British destroyer sounds like "Dauntless"," he muttered.

"You speak Arabic?" Vicky asked, and Jake stilled the question

irritably and listened again.

"The destroyer has seen us. She's altering course to intercept."

Jake looked quickly at the smouldering globe of the sun, the crinkles

around his eyes puckering up thoughtfully as he listened to the heated

argument in Arabic taking place on the poop deck.

"Are you two having fun?" Gareth Swales asked, smiling but with a

glitter in his eyes as he glanced significantly at Vicky's hand still

on Jake's arm. He had come out of the cabin as silently as a

panther.

Vicky dropped her hand guiltily and immediately wished she had not. She

owed Gareth Swales no debts and she answered his stare defiantly,

before turning back to Jake and finding him gone.

"What is it, Papa?" Gareth called up at the poop-deck, and the

Captain snarled, "Your Royal mucking Navy that's what it is." And he

shook his fist at the northern horizon. "The Dauntless she based at

Aden, blockade for slavers."

"Where is she?" Gareth's expression changed swiftly and he strode to

the rail.

"She's coming fast masthead watching her. She'll be over the horizon

pretty damn quick." Papadopoulos turned from Gareth and roared a

series of orders at his crew.

Immediately they swarmed down on to the main deck and gathered about

the first car it was Priscilla the Pig swaying gently on her suspension

as the schooner plunged ahead.

"I say," Gareth exclaimed. "What are you up to?"

"They catch me with arms aboard, big trouble," Papadopoulos explained.

"No arms, no trouble," and he watched his men fall on the lines that

secured the big white-painted vehicle. "We do same trick with slaves,

they go down pretty damn fast with the chains."

"Now, just hold on a shake. I paid you a fortune to transport this

cargo."

"Where that fortune now,

Major?" Papadopoulos shouted down at him derisively. "I got nothing

in my pants how about you?" and the Captain turned away to urge his

men on.

The turret of Priscilla the Pig opened suddenly and from it emerged the

head and shoulders of Jake Barton with his hair blowing in the wind and

a Vickers machine gun in his arms. He braced himself in the turret

with the thick water jacketed barrel of the Vickers across the crook of

his left arm, and the pistol grip firmly enclosed in his other hand.

Across his shoulder was draped a heavy necklace of belted ammunition.

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