Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 27

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close the telescope, climb stiffly from the crows-nest and begin the

long slow journey down the rigging to the deck below.

Papadopoulos greeted him like a brother, reaching up to hug him and

breathe garlic in his face, and Vicky had the chop-box open and the

primus stove hissing. She brought him an enamel mug of steaming black

coffee and looked at him with a new respect tinged with admiration.

Gareth opened the hatch of the turret from which during the whole night

he had commanded the crew with a loaded Vickers machine gun and came to

fetch the other mug of coffee from Vicky and gave Jake a cheroot as

they moved to the rail together.

"I keep underestimating you," he grinned, as he cupped his hands around

the flaring match he offered Jake. "Just because you are big I keep

thinking you are stupid."

"You'll get over it, "Jake promised him. Instinctively they both

glanced across the deck at where Vicky was breaking eggs into the pan

and they understood each other very clearly.

She shook them both awake a little before noon. They were sprawled on

their blankets in the shade under one of the cars trying to catch up on

the sleep they had missed that night. However, they followed Vicky

without protest to the bows and the three of them peered ahead at the

low lioncoloured coast line, upon which the surf creamed softly and

over which the hard aching blue shield of the sky blazed with an

intensity that hurt the eyes.

There was no clear dividing line between earth and sky.

It was blurred by the low mist of dust and heat that wavered and

rippled like the yellow mane of the lion. Vicky wondered whether she

had ever seen such an uninviting scene, and decided she had not. She

began to compose the words with which she would describe it to her tens

of thousands of readers.

Gregorius came up to join the group. He had discarded the western

dress and donned instead the traditional sham ma and tight breeches.

He had become the man of Africa once again, and the smooth

chocolate-brown face, with its halo of dark thick curls, was lit by the

passion of the returning exile.

"You cannot see the mountains the haze is too thick," he explained.

"But sometimes in the dawn when the air is cooler-" and he stared into

the west, with his longing expressed clearly in the liquid flashing

eyes and upon the full sculptured lips.

The schooner crept inshore, gliding over the shallows where the water

was like that of a mountain stream, so clear that they could make out

every detail of the reef thirty feet down and watch the shoals of coral

fish below like bejewelled clouds through the crystal waters.

Papadopoulos turned the HirondeUe to approach the shore at an oblique

angle so that the details of the coast resolved themselves gradually

and they saw the golden red beaches broken by headlands and points of

jagged rock, and beyond it the land rose gradually, barren and awful,

speckled only with the low scrubby spino Cristi and car riel grass.

For an hour they ran parallel with the shore, a thousand yards off, and

the group by the rail stood and stared at it with fascination.

Only Jake had left the group and was making the preparations to begin

unloading, but he also came back to the rail when abruptly a deep bay

opened ahead of them.

"The Bay of Chains," said Gregorius, and it was clear how it had got

its name, for, huddled under the cliffs of one headland and protected

from the prevailing winds and the run of the surf by the horn of land,

were the ruins of the ancient slave city of Month.

Gregorius pointed it out to them, for it did not look like a city.

It was merely an area of broken rock and stone blocks running down to

the water's edge. They were close enough now to make out the roughly

geometrical layout of smothered streets and roofless buildings.

Hirondeue dropped anchor and snubbed up gently. Jake finished his

final preparations for unloading and crossed to where Gareth stood by

the rail.

"One of us will have to swim a line ashore."

"Spin you for it,"

suggested Gareth, and before Jake could protest he had the coin in his

hand.

"Heads!" jake looked resigned.

"Bad luck, old son. Give the sharks my love." Gareth smiled and

stroked his mustache.

Jake balanced on the clumsy pontoon raft as it was lifted by the donkey

engine and lowered over the side, dangling on the heavy lines. and

floated alongside as It settled on to the surface un-gracefully as a

pregnant hippo.

Jake grinned up at Vicky who was leaning over the rail, watching with

interest.

"Unless you want to be blinded with splendour, you'd better close your

eyes." For a moment she did not understand, but then as he started to

strip off his shirt and unbutton his pants, she turned modestly away.

With the end of a coil of light line tied about his waist Jake plunged

naked into the sea and struck out for the shore. Vicky's curiosity got

the better of her at this stage, and she glanced slyly overboard. There

was something so childlike and defenceless about a man with his

trousers off, she thought, as she considered Jake's bobbing white

buttocks. She might develop that as a theme in one of her columns, she

thought, and then realized that Gareth Swales was watching her with one

mockingly raised eyebrow, as he paid out the coil of line that snaked

after Jake. She blushed pinkly under her tan and hurried away to make

sure her typewriter and personal duffel bag were packed away into Miss

Wobbly.

Jake touched bottom and waded ashore to secure the line to one of the

stone blocks, and already the first car was on on its wooden blocks,

and, with the winch clattering, was being lifted over the side.

With each man performing his own task skilfully, one at a time the cars

were lowered on to the bobbing raft. There its wheels were hastily

lashed and it was hauled carefully towards the beach by the land

line.

As soon as the raft ran aground on the sloping yellow sand, Jake

started the engine while Gregorius clamped the footboards into place.

Then with the engine revving noisily and the raft swaying dangerously,

it rolled over the footboards and up the slope to park well above the

high-water mark. Then the raft was hauled back alongside the schooner

for its next load.

Although they worked as swiftly as safety would allow, the hours sped

away just as swiftly, and it was late afternoon when the last load of

fuel drums and wooden cases, with Vicky Camberwell sitting on top of

the precarious load, made the short crossing to the beach.

Almost the instant it left the ship's side, the diesel thumped into

life, the anchor chain rattled in over the bows and Papadopoulos gave

the order to cast off the line of the raft.

By the time Vicky jumped down on the crunchy sand, the Hirondelle was

moving steadily out between the horns of the bay, and spreading her

wings of white canvas to the evening breeze. The four of them stood

upon the beach in the lowering dusk and watched her go. None of them

waved, and yet they all felt a loss at her going. Stinking slaver,

with a crew of pirates, yet she had been their link with the outer

world. HirondeUe cleared the cliffs and caught the full drive of the

wind, heeled eagerly and went away, with her wake leaving a long oily

slick across the surface long after she had disappeared into the

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