DESMOND BAGLEY

The Golden Keel
AND
The Vivero Letter

COPYRIGHT

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This omnibus edition 2009

The Golden Keel first published in Great Britain by Collins 1963 The Vivero Letter first published in Great Britain by Collins 1968 Postscript first published in Great Britain by Collins 1979

Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1963, 1968, 1979

Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007304776

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007347643

Version: 2018-10-12

PRAISE

‘I’ve read all Bagley’s books and he’s marvellous, the best.’

ALISTAIR MACLEAN

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

The Golden Keel

Dedication

Book One: The Men

Chapter One: Walker

Chapter Two: Coertze

Book Two: The Gold

Chapter Three: Tangier

Chapter Four: Francesca

Chapter Five: The Tunnel

Chapter Six: Metcalfe

Chapter Seven: The Golden Keel

Book Three: The Sea

Chapter Eight: Calm and Storm

Chapter Nine: Sanford

The Vivero Letter

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Keep Reading

Postscript

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

THE GOLDEN KEEL

DEDICATION

For Joan – who else?

BOOK ONE The Men

ONE: WALKER

My name is Peter Halloran, but everyone calls me ‘Hal’ excepting my wife, Jean, who always called me Peter. Women seem to dislike nicknames for their menfolk. Like a lot of others I emigrated to the ‘colonies’ after the war, and I travelled from England to South Africa by road, across the Sahara and through the Congo. It was a pretty rough trip, but that’s another story; it’s enough to say that I arrived in Cape Town in 1948 with no job and precious little money.

During my first week in Cape Town I answered several of the Sit. Vac. advertisements which appeared in the Cape Times and while waiting for answers I explored my environment. On this particular morning I had visited the docks and finally found myself near the yacht basin.

I was leaning over the rail looking at the boats when a voice behind me said, ‘If you had your choice, which would it be?’

I turned and encountered the twinkling eyes of an elderly man, tall, with stooped shoulders and grey hair. He had a brown, weather-beaten face and gnarled hands, and I estimated his age at about sixty.

I pointed to one of the boats. ‘I think I’d pick that one,’ I said. ‘She’s big enough to be of use, but not too big for single-handed sailing.’

He seemed pleased. ‘That’s Gracia,’ he said. ‘I built her.’

‘She looks a good boat,’ I said. ‘She’s got nice lines.’

We talked for a while about boats. He said that he had a boatyard a little way outside Cape Town towards Milnerton, and that he specialized in building the fishing boats used by the Malay fishermen. I’d noticed these already; sturdy unlovely craft with high bows and a wheelhouse stuck on top like a chicken-coop, but they looked very seaworthy. Gracia was only the second yacht he had built.

‘There’ll be a boom now the war’s over,’ he predicted. ‘People will have money in their pockets, and they’ll go in for yachting. I’d like to expand my activities in that direction.’

Presently he looked at his watch and nodded towards the yacht club. ‘Let’s go in and have a coffee,’ he suggested.

I hesitated. ‘I’m not a member.’

‘I am,’ he said. ‘Be my guest.’

So we went into the club house and sat in the lounge overlooking the yacht basin and he ordered coffee. ‘By the way, my name’s Tom Sanford.’

‘I’m Peter Halloran.’

‘You’re English,’ he said. ‘Been out here long?’

I smiled. ‘Three days.’

‘I’ve been out just a bit longer – since 1910.’ He sipped his coffee and regarded me thoughtfully. ‘You seem to know a bit about boats.’

‘I’ve been around them all my life,’ I said. ‘My father had a boatyard on the east coast, quite close to Hull. We built fishing boats, too, until the war.’

‘And then?’

‘Then the yard went on to contract work for the Admiralty,’ I said. ‘We built harbour defence launches and things like that – we weren’t geared to handle anything bigger.’ I shrugged. ‘Then there was an air-raid.’

‘That’s bad,’ said Tom. ‘Was everything destroyed?’

‘Everything,’ I said flatly. ‘My people had a house next to the yard – that went, too. My parents and my elder brother were killed.’

‘Christ!’ said Tom gently. ‘That’s very bad. How old were you?’

‘Seventeen,’ I said. ‘I went to live with an aunt in Hatfield; that’s when I started to work for de Havilland – building Mosquitos. It’s a wooden aeroplane and they wanted people who could work in wood. All I was doing, as far as I was concerned, was filling in time until I could join the Army.’

His interest sharpened. ‘You know, that’s the coming thing – the new methods developed by de Havilland. That hot-moulding process of theirs – d’you think it could be used in boat-building?’

I thought about it. ‘I don’t see why not – it’s very strong. We did repair work at Hatfield, as well as new construction, and I saw what happens to that type of fabric when it’s been hit very hard. It would be more expensive than the traditional methods, though, unless you were mass-producing.’

‘I was thinking about yachts,’ said Tom slowly. ‘You must tell me more about it sometime.’ He smiled. ‘What else do you know about boats?’

I grinned. ‘I once thought I’d like to be a designer,’ I said. ‘When I was a kid – about fifteen – I designed and built my own racing dinghy.’

‘Win any races?’

‘My brother and I had ’em all licked,’ I said. ‘She was a fast boat. After the war, when I was cooling my heels waiting for my discharge, I had another go at it – designing, I mean. I designed half a dozen boats – it helped to pass the time.’

‘Got the drawings with you?’

‘They’re somewhere at the bottom of my trunk,’ I said. ‘I haven’t looked at them for a long time.’

‘I’d like to see them,’ said Tom. ‘Look, laddie; how would you like to work for me? I told you I’m thinking of expanding into the yacht business, and I could use a smart young fellow.’

And that’s how I started working for Tom Sanford. The following day I went to the boatyard with my drawings and showed them to Tom. On the whole he liked them, but pointed out several ways in which economies could be made in the building. ‘You’re a fair designer,’ he said. ‘But you’ve a lot to learn about the practical side. Never mind, we’ll see about that. When can you start?’

Going to work for old Tom was one of the best things I ever did in my life.

II

A lot of things happened in the next ten years – whether I deserved them or not is another matter. The skills I had learned from my father had not deserted me, and although I was a bit rusty to begin with, soon I was as good as any man in the yard, and maybe a bit better. Tom encouraged me to design, ruthlessly correcting my errors.

‘You’ve got a good eye for line,’ he said. ‘Your boats would be sweet sailers, but they’d be damned expensive. You’ve got to spend more time on detail; you must cut down costs to make an economical boat.’

Four years after I joined the firm Tom made me yard foreman, and just after that, I had my first bit of luck in designing. I submitted a design to a local yachting magazine, winning second prize and fifty pounds. But better still, a local yachtsman liked the design and wanted a boat built. So Tom built it for him and I got the designer’s fee which went to swell my growing bank balance.

Tom was pleased about that and asked if I could design a class boat as a standard line for the yard, so I designed a six-tonner which turned out very well. We called it the Penguin Class and Tom built and sold a dozen in the first year at £2000 each. I liked the boat so much that I asked Tom if he would build one for me, which he did, charging a rock-bottom price and letting me pay it off over a couple of years.

Having a design office gave the business a fillip. The news got around and people started to come to me instead of using British and American designs. That way they could argue with their designer. Tom was pleased because most of the boats to my design were built in the yard.

In 1954 he made me yard manager, and in 1955 offered me a partnership.

‘I’ve got no one to leave it to,’ he said bluntly. ‘My wife’s dead and I’ve got no sons. And I’m getting old.’

I said, ‘You’ll be building boats when you’re a hundred, Tom.’

He shook his head. ‘No, I’m beginning to feel it now.’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘I’ve been going over the books and I find that you’re bringing more business into the firm than I am, so I’ll go easy on the money for the partnership. It’ll cost you five thousand pounds.’

Five thousand was ridiculously cheap for a half-share in such a flourishing business, but I hadn’t got anywhere near that amount. He saw my expression and his eyes crinkled. ‘I know you haven’t got it – but you’ve been doing pretty well on the design side lately. My guess is that you’ve got about two thousand salted away.’

Tom, shrewd as always, was right. I had a couple of hundred over the two thousand. ‘That’s about it,’ I said.

‘All right. Throw in the two thousand and borrow another three from the bank. They’ll lend it to you when they see the books. You’ll be able to pay it back out of profits in under three years, especially if you carry out your plans for that racing dinghy. What about it?’

‘O.K., Tom,’ I said. ‘It’s a deal.’

The racing dinghy Tom had mentioned was an idea I had got by watching the do-it-yourself developments in England. There are plenty of little lakes on the South African highveld and I thought I could sell small boats away from the sea if I could produce them cheaply enough – and I would sell either the finished boat or a do-it-yourself kit for the impoverished enthusiast.

We set up another woodworking shop and I designed the boat which was the first of the Falcon Class. A young fellow, Harry Marshall, was promoted to run the project and he did very well. This wasn’t Tom’s cup of tea and he stayed clear of the whole affair, referring to it as ‘that confounded factory of yours’. But it made us a lot of money.

It was about this time that I met Jean and we got married. My marriage to Jean is not really a part of this story and I wouldn’t mention it except for what happened later. We were very happy and very much in love. The business was doing well – I had a wife and a home – what more could a man wish for?

Towards the end of 1956 Tom died quite suddenly of a heart attack. I think he must have known that his heart wasn’t in good shape although he didn’t mention it to anyone. He left his share of the business to his wife’s sister. She knew nothing about business and less about boat-building, so we got the lawyers on to it and she agreed to sell me her share. I paid a damn sight more than the five thousand I had paid Tom, but it was a fair sale although it gave me financier’s fright and left me heavily in debt to the bank.

I was sorry that Tom had gone. He had given me a chance that fell to few young fellows and I felt grateful. The yard seemed emptier without him pottering about the slips.

The yard prospered and it seemed that my reputation as a designer was firm, because I got lots of commissions. Jean took over the management of the office, and as I was tied to the drawing board for a large proportion of my time I promoted Harry Marshall to yard manager and he handled it very capably.

Jean, being a woman, gave the office a thorough spring cleaning as soon as she was in command, and one day she unearthed an old tin box which had stayed forgotten on a remote shelf for years. She delved into it, then said suddenly, ‘Why have you kept this clipping?’

‘What clipping?’ I asked abstractedly. I was reading a letter which could lead to an interesting commission.

‘This thing about Mussolini,’ she said. ‘I’ll read it.’ She sat on the edge of the desk, the yellowed fragment of newsprint between her fingers. ‘“Sixteen Italian Communists were sentenced in Milan yesterday for complicity in the disappearance of Mussolini’s treasure. The treasure, which mysteriously vanished at the end of the war, consisted of a consignment of gold from the Italian State Bank and many of Mussolini’s personal possessions, including the Ethiopian crown. It is believed that a large number of important State documents were with the treasure. The sixteen men all declared their innocence.”’

She looked up. ‘What was all that about?’

I was startled. It was a long time since I’d thought of Walker and Coertze and the drama that had been played out in Italy. I smiled and said, ‘I might have made a fortune but for that news story.’

‘Tell me about it?’

‘It’s a long story,’ I protested. ‘I’ll tell you some other time.’

‘No,’ she insisted. ‘Tell me now; I’m always interested in treasure.’

So I pushed the unopened mail aside and told her about Walker and his mad scheme. It came back to me hazily in bits and pieces. Was it Donato or Alberto who had fallen – or been pushed – from the cliff? The story took a long time in the telling and the office work got badly behind that day.

III

I met Walker when I had arrived in South Africa from England after the war. I had been lucky to get a good job with Tom but, being a stranger, I was a bit lonely, so I joined a Cape Town Sporting Club which would provide company and exercise.

Walker was a drinking member, one of those crafty people who joined the club to have somewhere to drink when the pubs were closed on Sunday. He was never in the club house during the week, but turned up every Sunday, played his one game of tennis for the sake of appearances, then spent the rest of the day in the bar.

It was in the bar that I met him, late one Sunday afternoon. The room was loud with voices raised in argument and I soon realized I had walked into the middle of a discussion on the Tobruk surrender. The very mention of Tobruk can start an argument anywhere in South Africa because the surrender is regarded as a national disgrace. It is always agreed that the South Africans were let down but from then on it gets heated and rather vague. Sometimes the British generals are blamed and sometimes the South African garrison commander, General Klopper; and it’s always good for one of those long, futile bar-room brawls in which tempers are lost but nothing is ever decided.

It wasn’t of much interest to me – my army service was in Europe – so I sat quietly nursing my beer and keeping out of it. Next to me was a thin-faced young man with dissipated good looks who had a great deal to say about it, with many a thump on the counter with his clenched fist. I had seen him before but didn’t know who he was. All I knew of him was by observation; he seemed to drink a lot, and even now was drinking two brandies to my one beer.

At length the argument died a natural death as the bar emptied and soon my companion and I were the last ones left. I drained my glass and was turning to leave when he said contemptuously, ‘Fat lot they know about it.’

‘Were you there?’ I asked.

‘I was,’ he said grimly. ‘I was in the bag with all the others. Didn’t stay there long, though; I got out of the camp in Italy in ’43.’ He looked at my empty glass. ‘Have one for the road.’

I had nothing to do just then, so I said, ‘Thanks; I’ll have a beer.’

He ordered a beer for me and another brandy for himself and said, ‘My name’s Walker. Yes, I got out when the Italian Government collapsed. I joined the partisans.’

‘That must have been interesting,’ I said.

He laughed shortly. ‘I suppose you could call it that. Interesting and scary. Yes, I reckon you could say that me and Sergeant Coertze had a really interesting time – he was a bloke I was with most of the time.’

‘An Afrikaner?’ I hazarded. I was new in South Africa and didn’t know much about the set-up then, but the name sounded as though it might be Afrikaans.

‘That’s right,’ said Walker. ‘A real tough boy, he was. We stuck together after getting out of the camp.’

‘Was it easy – escaping from the prison camp?’

‘A piece of cake,’ said Walker. ‘The guards co-operated with us. A couple of them even came with us as guides – Alberto Corso and Donato Rinaldi. I liked Donato – I reckon he saved my life.’

He saw my interest and plunged into the story with gusto. When the Government fell in 1943 Italy was in a mess. The Italians were uneasy; they didn’t know what was going to happen next and they were suspicious of the intentions of the Germans. It was a perfect opportunity to break camp, especially when a couple of the guards threw in with them.

Leaving the camp was easy enough, but trouble started soon after when the Germans laid on an operation to round up all the Allied prisoners who were loose in Central Italy.

‘That’s when I copped it,’ said Walker. ‘We were crossing a river at the time.’

The sudden attack had taken them by surprise. Everything had been silent except for the chuckling of the water and the muffled curses as someone slipped – then suddenly there was the sound of ripped calico as the Spandau opened up and the night was made hideous by the eerie whine of bullets as they ricocheted from exposed rocks in the river.

The two Italians turned and let go with their sub-machine-guns. Coertze, bellowing like a bull, scrabbled frantically at the pouch pocket of his battle-dress trousers and then his arm came up in an overarm throw. There was a sharp crack as the hand grenade exploded in the water near the bank. Again Coertze threw and this time the grenade burst on the bank.

Walker felt something slam his leg and he turned in a twisting fall and found himself gasping in the water. His free arm thrashed out and caught on a rock and he hung on desperately.

Coertze threw another grenade and the machine-gun stopped. The Italians had emptied their magazines and were busy reloading. Everything was quiet again.

‘I reckon they thought we were Germans, too,’ said Walker. ‘They wouldn’t expect to be fired on by escaping prisoners. It was lucky that the Italians had brought some guns along. Anyway, that bloody machine-gun stopped.’

They had stayed for a few minutes in midstream with the quick cold waters pulling at their legs, not daring to move in case there was a sudden burst from the shore. After five minutes Alberto said in a low voice, ‘Signor Walker, are you all right?’

Walker pulled himself upright and to his astonishment found himself still grasping his unfired rifle. His left leg felt numb and cold. ‘I’m all right,’ he said.

There was a long sigh from Coertze, then he said, ‘Well, come on. Let’s get to the other side – but quietly.’

They reached the other side of the river and, without resting, pressed on up the mountainside. After a short time Walker’s leg began to hurt and he lagged behind. Alberto was perturbed. ‘You must hurry; we have to cross this mountain before dawn.’

Walker stifled a groan as he put down his left foot. ‘I was hit,’ he said. ‘I think I was hit.’

Coertze came back down the mountain and said irritably, ‘Magtig, get a move on, will you?’

Alberto said, ‘Is it bad, Signor Walker?’

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Coertze, not understanding the Italian.

‘I have a bullet in my leg,’ said Walker bitterly.

‘That’s all we need,’ said Coertze. In the darkness he bulked as a darker patch and Walker could see that he was shaking his head impatiently. ‘We’ve got to get to that partisan camp before daylight.’

Walker conferred with Alberto, then said in English, ‘Alberto says there’s a place along there to the right where we can hide. He says that someone should stay with me while he goes for help.’

Coertze grunted in his throat. ‘I’ll go with him,’ he said. ‘The other Eytie can stay with you. Let’s get to it.’

They moved along the mountainside and presently the ground dipped and suddenly there was a small ravine, a cleft in the mountain. There were stunted trees to give a little cover and underfoot was a dry watercourse.

Alberto stopped and said, ‘You will stay here until we come for you. Keep under the trees so that no one will see you, and make as little movement as possible.’

‘Thanks, Alberto,’ said Walker. There were a few brief words of farewell, then Alberto and Coertze disappeared into the night. Donato made Walker comfortable and they settled down to wait out the night.

It was a bad time for Walker. His leg was hurting and it was very cold. They stayed in the ravine all the next day and as night fell Walker became delirious and Donato had trouble in keeping him quiet.

When the rescuers finally came Walker had passed out. He woke up much later and found himself in a bed in a room with whitewashed walls. The sun was rising and a little girl was sitting by the bedside.

Walker stopped speaking suddenly and looked at his empty glass on the bar counter. ‘Have another drink,’ I said quickly.

He needed no encouraging so I ordered another couple of drinks. ‘So that’s how you got away,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘That’s how it was. God, it was cold those two nights on that bloody mountain. If it hadn’t been for Donato I’d have cashed in my chips.’

I said, ‘So you were safe – but where were you?’

‘In a partisan camp up in the hills. The partigiani were just getting organized then; they only really got going when the Germans began to consolidate their hold on Italy. The Jerries ran true to form – they’re arrogant bastards, you know – and the Italians didn’t like it. So everything was set for the partisans; they got the support of the people and they could begin to operate on a really large scale.

‘They weren’t all alike, of course; there was every shade of political opinion from pale blue to bright red. The Communists hated the Monarchists’ guts and vice versa and so on. The crowd I dropped in on were Monarchist. That’s where I met the Count.’

Count Ugo Montepescali di Todi was over fifty years old at that time, but young-looking and energetic. He was a swarthy man with an aquiline nose and a short greying beard which was split at the end and forked aggressively. He came of a line which was old during the Renaissance and he was an aristocrat to his fingertips.

Because of this he hated Fascism – hated the pretensions of the parvenu rulers of Italy with all their corrupt ways and their money-sticky fingers. To him Mussolini always remained a mediocre journalist who had succeeded in demagoguery and had practically imprisoned his King.

Walker met the Count the first day he arrived at the hill camp. He had just woken up and seen the solemn face of the little girl. She smiled at him and silently left the room, and a few minutes later a short stocky man with a bristling beard stepped through the doorway and said in English, ‘Ah, you are awake. You are quite safe now.’

Walker was conscious of saying something inane. ‘But where am I?’

‘Does that really matter?’ the Count asked quizzically. ‘You are still in Italy – but safe from the Tedesci. You must stay in bed until you recover your strength. You need some blood putting back – you lost a lot – so you must rest and eat and rest again.’

Walker was too weak to do more than accept this, so he lay back on the pillow. Five minutes later Coertze came in; with him was a young man with a thin face.

‘I’ve brought the quack,’ said Coertze. ‘Or at least that’s what he says he is – if I’ve got it straight. My guess is that he’s only a medical student.’

The doctor – or student – examined Walker and professed satisfaction at his condition. ‘You will walk within the week,’ he said, and packed his little kit and left the room.

Coertze rubbed the back of his head. ‘I’ll have to learn this slippery taal,’ he said. ‘It looks as though we’ll be here for a long time.’

‘No chance of getting through to the south?’ asked Walker.

‘No chance at all,’ said Coertze flatly. ‘The Count – that’s the little man with the bokbaardjie – says that the Germans down south are thicker on the ground than stalks in a mealie field. He reckons they’re going to make a defence line south of Rome.’

Walker sighed. ‘Then we’re stuck here.’

Coertze grinned. ‘It is not too bad. At least we’ll get better food than we had in camp. The Count wants us to join his little lot – it seems he has some kind of skietkommando which holds quite a bit of territory and he’s collected men and weapons while he can. We might as well fight here as with the army – I’ve always fancied fighting a war my way.’

A plump woman brought in a steaming bowl of broth for Walker, and Coertze said, ‘Get outside of that and you’ll feel better. I’m going to scout around a bit.’

Walker ate the broth and slept, then woke and ate again. After a while a small figure came in bearing a basin and rolled bandages. It was the little girl he had seen when he had first opened his eyes. He thought she was about twelve years old.

‘My father said I had to change your bandages,’ she said in a clear young voice. She spoke in English.

Walker propped himself up on his elbows and watched her as she came closer. She was neatly dressed and wore a white, starched apron. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

She bent to cut the splint loose from his leg and then she carefully loosened the bandage round the wound. He looked down at her and said, ‘What is your name?’

‘Francesca.’

‘Is your father the doctor?’ Her hands were cool and soft on his leg.

She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said briefly.

She bathed the wound in warm water containing some pungent antiseptic and then shook powder on to it. With great skill she began to rebandage the leg.

‘You are a good nurse,’ said Walker.

It was only then that she looked at him and he saw that she had cool, grey eyes. ‘I’ve had a lot of practice,’ she said, and Walker was abashed at her gaze and cursed a war which made skilled nurses out of twelve-year-olds.

She finished the bandaging and said, ‘There – you must get better soon.’

‘I will,’ promised Walker. ‘As quickly as I can. I’ll do that for you.’

She looked at him with surprise. ‘Not for me,’ she said. ‘For the war. You must get better so that you can go into the hills and kill a lot of Germans.’

She gravely collected the soiled bandages and left the room, with Walker looking after her in astonishment. Thus it was that he met Francesca, the daughter of Count Ugo Montepescali.

In a little over a week he was able to walk with the aid of a stick and to move outside the hospital hut, and Coertze showed him round the camp. Most of the men were Italians, army deserters who didn’t like the Germans. But there were many Allied escapees of different nationalities.

The Count had formed the escapees into a single unit and had put Coertze in command. They called themselves the ‘Foreign Legion’. During the next couple of years many of them were to be killed fighting against the Germans with the partisans. At Coertze’s request, Alberto and Donato were attached to the unit to act as interpreters and guides.

Coertze had a high opinion of the Count. ‘That kêrel knows what he’s doing,’ he said. ‘He’s recruiting from the Italian army as fast as he can – and each man must bring his own gun.’

When the Germans decided to stand and fortified the Winterstellung based on the Sangro and Monte Cassino, the war in Italy was deadlocked and it was then that the partisans got busy attacking the German communications. The Foreign Legion took part in this campaign, specializing in demolition work. Coertze had been a gold miner on the Witwatersrand before the war and knew how to handle dynamite. He and Harrison, a Canadian geologist, instructed the others in the use of explosives.

They blew up road and rail bridges, dynamited mountain passes, derailed trains and occasionally shot up the odd road convoy, always retreating as soon as heavy fire was returned. ‘We must not fight pitched battles,’ said the Count. ‘We must not let the Germans pin us down. We are mosquitoes irritating the German hides – let us hope we give them malaria.’

Walker found this a time of long stretches of relaxation punctuated by moments of fright. Discipline was easy and there was no army spit-and-polish. He became lean and hard and would think nothing of making a day’s march of thirty miles over the mountains burdened with his weapons and a pack of dynamite and detonators.

By the end of 1944 the Foreign Legion had thinned down considerably. Some of the men had been killed and more elected to make a break for the south after the Allies had taken Rome. Coertze said he would stay, so Walker stayed with him. Harrison also stayed, together with an Englishman called Parker. The Foreign Legion was now very small indeed.

‘The Count used us as bloody pack horses,’ said Walker. He had ordered another round of drinks and the brandy was getting at him. His eyes were red-veined and he stumbled over the odd word.

‘Pack horses?’ I queried.

‘The unit was too small to really fight,’ he explained. ‘So he used us to transport guns and food around his territory. That’s how we got the convoy.’

‘Which convoy?’

Walker was beginning to slur his words. ‘It was like this. One of the Italian units had gone to carve up a German post and the job was being done in co-operation with another partisan brigade. But the Count was worried because this other mob were Communists – real treacherous bastards they were. He was scared they might renege on us; they were always doing that because he was a Monarchist and they hated him worse than they did the Germans. They were looking ahead to after the war and they didn’t do much fighting while they were about it. Italian politics, you see.’

I nodded.

‘So he wanted Umberto – the chap in charge of our Italians – to have another couple of machine-guns, just in case, and Coertze said he’d take them.’

He fell silent, looking into his glass.

I said, ‘What about this convoy?’

‘Oh, what the hell,’ he said. There’s not a hope of getting it out. It’ll stay there for ever, unless Coertze does something. I’ll tell you. We were on our way to Umberto when we bumped into this German convoy driving along where no convoy should have been. So we clobbered it.’

They had got to the top of a hill and Coertze called a halt. ‘We stay here for ten minutes, then we move on,’ he said.

Alberto drank some water and then strolled down to where he could get a good view of the valley. He looked first at the valley floor where a rough, unmetalled road ran dustily, then raised his eyes to look south.

Suddenly he called Coertze. ‘Look,’ he said.

Coertze ran down and looked to where Alberto was pointing. In the distance, where the faraway thread of brown road shimmered in the heat, was a puff of dust. He unslung his glasses and focused rapidly.

‘What the hell are they doing here?’ he demanded.

‘What is it?’

‘German army trucks,’ said Coertze. ‘About six of them.’ He pulled down the glasses. ‘Looks as though they’re trying to slip by on the side roads. We have made the main roads a bit unhealthy.’

Walker and Donato had come down. Coertze looked back at the machine-guns, then at Walker. ‘What about it?’

Walker said, ‘What about Umberto?’

‘Oh, he’s all right. It’s just the Count getting a bit fretful now the war’s nearly over. I think we should take this little lot – it should be easy with two machine-guns.’

Walker shrugged. ‘O.K. with me,’ he said.

Coertze said, ‘Come on,’ and ran back to where Parker was sitting. ‘On your feet, kêrel,’ he said. ‘The war’s still on. Where the hell is Harrison?’

‘Coming,’ called Harrison.

‘Let’s get this stuff down to the road on the double,’ said Coertze. He looked down the hill. ‘That bend ought to be a lekker place.’

‘A what?’ asked Parker plaintively. He always pulled Coertze’s leg about his South Africanisms.

‘Never mind that,’ snapped Coertze. ‘Get this stuff down to the road quick. We’ve got a job on.’

They loaded up the machine-guns and plunged down the hillside. Once on the road Coertze did a quick survey. ‘They’ll come round that bend slowly,’ he said. ‘Alberto, you take Donato and put your machine-gun there, where you can open up on the last two trucks. The last two, you understand. Knock ’em out fast so the others can’t back out.’

He turned to Harrison and Parker. ‘Put your gun over here on the other side and knock out the first truck. Then we’ll have the others boxed in.’

‘What do I do?’ asked Walker.

‘You come with me,’ Coertze started to run up the road, followed by Walker. He ran almost to the bend, then left the road and climbed a small hillock from where he could get a good sight of the German convoy. When Walker flopped beside him he already had the glasses focused.

‘It’s four trucks not six,’ he said. ‘There’s a staff car in front and a motor-cycle combination in front of that. Looks like one of those BMW jobs with a machine-gun in the side-car.’

He handed the glasses to Walker. ‘How far from the tail of the column to that staff car?’

Walker looked at the oncoming vehicles. ‘About sixty-five yards,’ he estimated.

Coertze took the glasses. ‘O.K. You go back along the road sixty-five yards so that when the last truck is round the bend the staff car is alongside you. Never mind the motor-cycle – I’ll take care of that. Go back and tell the boys not to open up until they hear loud bangs; I’ll start those off. And tell them to concentrate on the trucks.’

He turned over and looked back. The machine-guns were invisible and the road was deserted. ‘As nice an ambush as anyone could set,’ he said. ‘My oupa never did better against the English.’ He tapped Walker on the shoulder. ‘Off you go. I’ll help you with the staff car as soon as I’ve clobbered the motor-cycle.’

Walker slipped from the hillock and ran back along the road, stopping at the machine-guns to issue Coertze’s instructions. Then he found himself a convenient rock about sixty yards from the bend, behind which he crouched and checked his sub-machine-gun.

It was not long before he heard Coertze running along the road shouting, ‘Four minutes. They’ll be here in four minutes. Hold your fire.’

Coertze ran past him and disappeared into the verge of the road about ten yards farther on.

Walker said that four minutes in those conditions could seem like four hours. He crouched there, looking back along the silent road, hearing nothing except his own heart beating. After what seemed a long time he heard the growl of engines and the clash of gears and then the revving of the motor-cycle.

He flattened himself closer to the rock and waited. A muscle twitched in his leg and his mouth was suddenly dry. The noise of the motor-cycle now blanked out all other sounds and he snapped off the safety catch.

He saw the motor-cycle pass, the goggled driver looking like a gargoyle and the trooper in the sidecar turning his head to scan the road, hands clutching the grips of the machine-gun mounted in front of him.

As in a dream he saw Coertze’s hand come into view, apparently in slow motion, and toss a grenade casually into the sidecar. It lodged between the gunner’s back and the coaming of the sidecar and the gunner turned in surprise. With his sudden movement the grenade disappeared into the interior of the sidecar.

Then it exploded.

The sidecar disintegrated and the gunner must have had his legs blown off. The cycle wheeled drunkenly across the road and Walker saw Coertze step out of cover, his sub-machine-gun pumping bullets into the driver. Then he had stepped out himself and his own gun was blazing at the staff car.

He had orientated himself very carefully so that he had a very good idea of where the driver would be placed. When he started firing, he did so without aiming and the windscreen shattered in the driver’s face.

In the background he was conscious of the tac-a-tac of the machine-guns firing in long bursts at the trucks, but he had no time or desire to cast a glance that way. He was occupied in jumping out of the way of the staff car as it slewed towards him, a dead man’s hand on the wheel.

The officer in the passenger seat was standing up, his hand clawing at the flap of his pistol holster. Coertze fired a burst at him and he suddenly collapsed and folded grotesquely over the metal rim of the broken windscreen as though he had suddenly turned into a rag doll. The pistol dropped from his hand and clattered on the ground.

With a rending jar the staff car bumped into a rock on the side of the road and came to a sudden stop, jolting the soldier in the rear who was shooting at Walker. Walker heard the bullets going over his head and pulled the trigger. A dozen bullets hit the German and slammed him back in his seat. Walker said that the range was about nine feet and he swore he heard the bullets hit, sounding like a rod hitting a soft carpet several times.

Then Coertze was shouting at him, waving him on to the trucks. He ran up the road following Coertze and saw that the first truck was stopped. He fired a burst into the cab just to be on the safe side, then took shelter, leaning against the hot radiator to reload.

By the time he had reloaded the battle was over. All the vehicles were stopped and Alberto and Donato were escorting a couple of dazed prisoners forward.

Coertze barked, ‘Parker, go up and see if anyone else is coming,’ then turned to look at the chaos he had planned.

The two men with the motor-cycle had been killed outright, as had the three in the staff car. Each truck had carried two men in the cab and one in the back. All the men in the cabs had been killed within twenty seconds of the machine-guns opening fire. As Harrison said, ‘At twenty yards we couldn’t miss – we just squirted at the first truck, then hosed down the second. It was like using a howitzer at a coconut-shy – too easy.’

Of the seventeen men in the German party there were two survivors, one of whom had a flesh wound in his arm.

Coertze said, ‘Notice anything?’

Walker shook his head. He was trembling in the aftermath of danger and was in no condition to be observant.

Coertze went up to one of the prisoners and fingered the emblem on his collar. The man cringed.

‘These are S.S. men. All of them.’

He turned and went back to the staff car. The officer was lying on his back, half in and half out of the front door, his empty eyes looking up at the sky, terrible in death. Coertze looked at him, then leaned over and pulled a leather briefcase from the front seat. It was locked.

‘There’s something funny here,’ he said. ‘Why would they come by this road?’

Harrison said, ‘They might have got through, you know. If we hadn’t been here they would have got through – and we were only here by chance.’

‘I know,’ said Coertze. ‘They had a good idea and they nearly got away with it – that’s what I’m worrying about. The Jerries aren’t an imaginative lot, usually; they follow a routine. So why would they do something different? Unless this wasn’t a routine unit.’

He looked at the trucks. ‘It might be a good idea to see what’s in those trucks.’

He sent Donato up the road to the north to keep watch and the rest went to investigate the trucks, excepting Alberto who was guarding the prisoners.

Harrison looked over the tailboard of the first truck. ‘Not much in here,’ he said.

Walker looked in and saw that the bottom of the truck was filled with boxes – small wooden boxes about eighteen inches long, a foot wide and six inches deep. He said, ‘That’s a hell of a small load.’

Coertze frowned and said, ‘Boxes like that ring a bell with me, but I just can’t place it. Let’s have one of them out.’

Walker and Harrison climbed into the truck and moved aside the body of a dead German which was in the way. Harrison grasped the corner of the nearest box and lifted. ‘My God!’ he said. ‘The damn’ thing’s nailed to the floor.’

Walker helped him and the box shifted. ‘No, it isn’t, but it must be full of lead.’

Coertze let down the tailboard. ‘I think we’d better have it out and opened,’ he said. His voice was suddenly croaking with excitement.

Walker and Harrison manhandled a box to the edge and tipped it over. It fell with a loud thump to the dusty road. Coertze said, ‘Give me that bayonet.’

Walker took the bayonet from the scabbard of the dead German and handed it to Coertze, who began to prise the box open. Nails squealed as the top of the box came up. Coertze ripped it off and said, ‘I thought so.’

‘What is it?’ asked Harrison, mopping his brow.

‘Gold,’ said Coertze softly.

Everyone stood still.

Walker was very drunk when he got to this point of his story. He was unsteady on his feet and caught the edge of the bar counter to support himself as he repeated solemnly, ‘Gold.’

‘For the love of Mike, what did you do with it?’ I said. ‘And how much of it was there?’

Walker hiccoughed gently. ‘What about another drink?’ he said.

I beckoned to the bar steward, then said, ‘Come on; you can’t leave me in suspense.’

He looked at me sideways. ‘I really shouldn’t tell,’ he said. ‘But what the hell! There’s no harm in it now. It was like this …’

They had stood looking at each other for a long moment, then Coertze said, ‘I knew I recognized those boxes. They use boxes like that on the Reef for packing the ingots for shipment.’

As soon as they had checked that all the boxes in that truck were just as heavy, there was a mad rush to the other trucks. These were disappointing at first – the second truck was full of packing cases containing documents and files.

Coertze delved into a case, tossing papers out, and said, ‘What the hell’s all this bumph?’ He sounded disappointed.

Walker picked up a sheaf and scanned through it. ‘Seems to be Italian Government documents of some sort. Maybe this is all top-secret stuff.’

The muffled voice of Harrison came from the bowels of the truck. ‘Hey, you guys, look what I’ve found.’

He emerged with both hands full of bundles of lire notes – fine, newly printed lire notes. ‘There’s at least one case full of this stuff,’ he said. ‘Maybe more.’

The third truck had more boxes of gold, though not as much as the first, and there were several stoutly built wooden cases which were locked. They soon succumbed to a determined assault with a bayonet.

‘Christ!’ said Walker as he opened the first. In awe he pulled out a shimmering sparkle of jewels, a necklace of diamonds and emeralds.

‘What’s that worth?’ Coertze asked Harrison.

Harrison shook his head dumbly. ‘Gee, I wouldn’t know.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Not my kind of stone.’

They were ransacking the boxes when Coertze pulled out a gold cigarette case. ‘This one’s got an inscription,’ he said and read it aloud. ‘“Caro Benito da parte di Adolfe – Brennero – 1940.”’

Harrison said slowly, ‘Hitler had a meeting with Mussolini at the Brenner Pass in 1940. That’s when Musso decided to kick in on the German side.’

‘So now we know who this belongs to,’ said Walker, waving his hand.

‘Or used to belong to,’ repeated Coertze slowly. ‘But who does it belong to now?’

They looked at each other.

Coertze broke the silence. ‘Come on, let’s see what’s in the last truck.’

The fourth truck was full of packing cases containing more papers. But there was one box holding a crown.

Harrison struggled to lift it. ‘Who’s the giant who wears this around the palace?’ he asked nobody in particular. The crown was thickly encrusted with jewels – rubies and emeralds, but no diamonds. It was ornate and very heavy. ‘No wonder they say “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,”’ cracked Harrison.

He lowered the crown into the box. ‘Well, what do we do now?’

Coertze scratched his head. ‘It’s quite a problem,’ he admitted.

‘I say we keep it,’ said Harrison bluntly. ‘It’s ours by right of conquest.’

Now it was in the open – the secret thought that no one would admit except the extrovert Harrison. It cleared the air and made things much easier.

Coertze said, ‘I suppose we must bring in the rest of the boys and vote on it.’

‘That’ll be no good unless it’s a unanimous vote,’ said Harrison almost casually.

They saw his point. If one of them held out in favour of telling the Count, then the majority vote would be useless. At last Walker said, ‘It may not arise. Let’s vote on it and see.’

All was quiet on the road so Donato and Parker were brought in from their sentry duty. The prisoners were herded into a truck so that Alberto could join in the discussion, and they settled down as a committee of ways and means.

Harrison needn’t have worried – it was a unanimous vote. There was too much temptation for it to be otherwise.

‘One thing’s for sure,’ said Harrison. ‘When this stuff disappears there’s going to be the biggest investigation ever, no matter who wins the war. The Italian Government will never rest until it’s found, especially those papers. I’ll bet they’re dynamite.’

Coertze was thoughtful. ‘That means we must hide the treasure and the trucks. Nothing must be found. It must be as though the whole lot has vanished into thin air.’

‘What are we going to do with it?’ asked Parker. He looked at the stony ground and the thin soil. ‘We might just bury the treasure if we took a week doing it, but we can’t even begin to bury one truck, let alone four.’

Harrison snapped his fingers. ‘The old lead mines,’ he said. ‘They’re not far from here.’

Coertze’s face lightened. ‘Ja,’ he said. ‘There’s one winze that would take the lot.’

Parker said, ‘What lead mines – and what’s a winze, for God’s sake?’

‘It’s a horizontal shaft driven into a mountain,’ said Harrison. ‘These mines have been abandoned since the turn of the century. No one goes near them any more.’

Alberto said, ‘We drive all the trucks inside …’

‘… and blow in the entrance,’ finished Coertze with gusto.

‘Why not keep some of the jewels?’ suggested Walker.

‘No,’ said Coertze sharply. ‘It’s too dangerous – Harrison is right. There’ll be all hell breaking loose when this stuff vanishes for good. Everything must be buried until it’s safe to recover it.’

‘Know any good jewel fences?’ asked Harrison sardonically. ‘Because if you don’t how would you get rid of the jewels?’

They decided to bury everything – the trucks, the bodies, the gold, the papers, the jewels – everything. They restowed the trucks, putting all the valuables into two trucks and all the non-valuables such as the documents into the other two. It was intended to drive the staff car into the tunnel first with the motor-cycle carried in the back, then the trucks carrying papers and bodies, and lastly the trucks with the gold and jewels.

‘That way we can get out the stuff we want quite easily,’ said Coertze.

The disposal of the trucks was easy enough. There was an unused track leading to the mines which diverged off the dusty road they were on. They drove up to the mine and reversed the trucks into the biggest tunnel in the right order. Coertze and Harrison prepared a charge to blow down the entrance, a simple job taking only a few minutes, then Coertze lit the fuse and ran back.

When the dust died down they saw that the tunnel mouth was entirely blocked – making a rich mausoleum for seventeen men.

‘What do we tell the Count?’ asked Parker.

‘We tell him we ran into a little trouble on the way,’ said Coertze. ‘Well, we did, didn’t we?’ He grinned and told them to move on.

When they got back they heard that Umberto had run into trouble and had lost a lot of men. The Communists hadn’t turned up and he hadn’t had enough machine-guns.

I said, ‘You mean the gold’s still there.’

‘That’s right,’ said Walker, and hammered his fist on the counter. ‘Let’s have another drink.’

I didn’t get much out of him after that. His brain was pickled in brandy and he kept wandering into irrelevancies, but he did answer one question coherently.

I asked, ‘What happened to the two German prisoners?’

‘Oh, them,’ he said carelessly. ‘They were shot while escaping. Coertze did it.’

IV

Walker was too far gone to walk home that night, so I got his address from a club steward, poured him into a taxi and forgot about him. I didn’t think much of his story – it was just the maunderings of a drunk. Maybe he had found something in Italy, but I doubted if it was anything big – my imagination boggled at the idea of four truck loads of gold and jewels.

I wasn’t allowed to forget him for long because I saw him the following Sunday in the club bar gazing moodily into a brandy glass. He looked up, caught my eye and looked away hastily as though shamed. I didn’t go over and speak to him; he wasn’t altogether my type – I don’t go for drunks much.

Later that afternoon I had just come out of the swimming pool and was enjoying a cigarette when I became aware that Walker was standing beside me. As I looked up, he said awkwardly, ‘I think I owe you some money – for the taxi fare the other night.’

‘Forget it,’ I said shortly.

He dropped on one knee. ‘I’m sorry about that. Did I cause any trouble?’

I smiled. ‘Can’t you remember?’

‘Not a damn’ thing,’ he confessed. ‘I didn’t get into a fight or anything, did I?’

‘No, we just talked.’

His eyes flickered. ‘What about?’

‘Your experiences in Italy. You told me rather an odd story.’

‘I told you about the gold?’

I nodded. ‘That’s right.’

‘I was drunk,’ he said. ‘As shickered as a coot. I shouldn’t have told you about that. You haven’t mentioned it to anyone, have you?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ I said. ‘You don’t mean it’s true?’ He certainly wasn’t drunk now.

‘True enough,’ he said heavily. ‘The stuffs still up there – in a hole in the ground in Italy. I’d not like you to talk about it.’

‘I won’t,’ I promised.

‘Come and have a drink,’ he suggested.

‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m going home now.’

He seemed depressed. ‘All right,’ he said, and I watched him walk lethargically up to the club house.

After that, he couldn’t seem to keep away from me. It was as though he had delivered a part of himself into my keeping and he had to watch me to see that I kept it safe. He acted as though we were partners in a conspiracy, with many a nod and wink and a sudden change of subject if he thought we were being overheard.

He wasn’t so bad when you got to know him, if you discounted the incipient alcoholism. He had a certain charm when he wanted to use it and he most surely set out to charm me. I don’t suppose it was difficult; I was a stranger in a strange land and he was company of sorts.

He ought to have been an actor for he had the gift of mimicry. When he told me the story of the gold his mobile face altered plastically and his voice changed until I could see the bull-headed Coertze, gentle Donato and the tougher-fibred Alberto. Although Walker had normally a slight trace of a South African accent, he could drop it at will to take on the heavy gutturals of the Afrikaner or the speed and sibilance of the Italian. His Italian was rapid and fluent and he was probably one of those people who can learn a language in a matter of weeks.

I had lost most of my doubts about the truth of his story. It was too damned circumstantial. The bit about the inscription on the cigarette case impressed me a lot; I couldn’t see Walker making up a thing like that. Besides, it wasn’t the brandy talking all the time; he still stuck to the same story, which didn’t change a fraction under many repetitions – drunk and sober.

Once I said, ‘The only thing I can’t figure is that big crown.’

‘Alberto thought it was the royal crown of Ethiopia,’ said Walker. ‘It wouldn’t be worn about the palace – they’d only use it for coronations.’

That sounded logical. I said, ‘How do you know that the others haven’t dug up the lot? There’s still Harrison and Parker – and it would be dead easy for the two Italians; they’re on the spot.’

Walker shook his head. ‘No, there’s only Coertze and me. The others were killed.’ His lips twisted. ‘It seemed to be unhealthy to stick close to Coertze. I got scared in the end and beat it.’

I looked hard at him. ‘Do you mean to say that Coertze murdered them?’

‘Don’t put words in my mouth,’ said Walker sharply. ‘I didn’t say that. All I know is that four men were killed when they were close to Coertze.’ He ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Harrison was the first – that happened only three days after we buried the loot.’

He tapped a second finger. ‘Next came Alberto – I saw that happen. It was as near an accident as anyone could arrange. Then Parker. He was killed in action just like Harrison, and, just like Harrison, the only person who was anywhere near him was Coertze.’

He held up three fingers and slowly straightened the fourth. ‘Last was Donato. He was found near the camp with his head bashed in. They said he’d been rock-climbing, so the verdict was accidental death – but not in my book. That was enough for me, so I quit and went south.’

I thought about this for a while, then said, ‘What did you mean when you said you saw Alberto killed?’

‘We’d been on a raid,’ said Walker. ‘It went O.K. but the Germans moved fast and got us boxed in. We had to get out by the back door, and the back door was a cliff. Coertze was good on a mountain and he and Alberto went first, Coertze leading. He said he wanted to find the easiest way down, which was all right – he usually did that.

‘He went along a ledge and out of sight, then he came back and gave Alberto the O.K. sign. Then he came back to tell us it was all right to start down, so Parker and I went next. We followed Alberto and when we got round the corner we saw that he was stuck.

‘There were no hand holds ahead of him and he’d got himself into a position where he couldn’t get back, either. Just as we got there he lost his nerve – we could see him quivering and shaking. There he was, like a fly on the side of that cliff with a hell of a long drop under him and a pack of Germans ready to drop on top of him, and he was shaking like a jelly.

‘Parker shouted to Coertze and he came down. There was just room enough for him to pass us, so he said he’d go to help Alberto. He got as far as Alberto and Alberto fell off. I swear that Coertze pushed him.’

‘Did you see Coertze push him?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Walker admitted. ‘I couldn’t see Alberto at all once Coertze had passed us. Coertze’s a big bloke and he isn’t made of glass. But why did he give Alberto the O.K. sign to go along that ledge?’

‘It could have been an honest mistake.’

Walker nodded. ‘That’s what I thought at the time. Coertze said afterwards that he didn’t mean that Alberto should go as far as that. There was an easier way down just short of where Alberto got stuck. Coertze took us down there.’

He lit a cigarette. ‘But when Parker was shot up the following week I started to think again.’

‘How did it happen?’

Walker shrugged. ‘The usual thing – you know how it is in a fight. When it was all over we found Parker had a hole in his head. Nobody saw it happen, but Coertze was nearest.’ He paused. ‘The hole was in the back of the head.’

‘A German bullet?’

Walker snorted. ‘Brother, we didn’t have time for an autopsy; but it wouldn’t have made any difference. We were using German weapons and ammo – captured stuff; and Coertze always used German guns; he said they were better than the British.’ He brooded. ‘That started me thinking seriously. It was all too pat – all these blokes being knocked off so suddenly. When Donato got his, I quit. The Foreign Legion was just about busted anyway. I waited until the Count had sent Coertze off somewhere, then I collected my gear, said goodbye and headed south to the Allied lines. I was lucky – I got through.’

‘What about Coertze?’

‘He stayed with the Count until the Yanks came up. I saw him in Jo’burg a couple of years ago. I was crossing the road to go into a pub when I saw Coertze going through the door. I changed my mind; I had a drink, but not in that pub.’

He shivered suddenly. ‘I want to stay as far from Coertze as I can. There’s a thousand miles between Cape Town and Johannesburg – that ought to be enough.’ He stood up suddenly. ‘Let’s go and have a drink, for God’s sake.’

So we went and had a drink – several drinks.

V

During the next few weeks I could see that Walker was on the verge of making me a proposition. He said he had some money due to him and that he would need a good friend. At last he came out with it.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘My old man died last year and I’ve got two thousand pounds coming when I can get it out of the lawyer’s hands. I could go to Italy on two thousand pounds.’

‘So you could,’ I said.

He bit his lip. ‘Hal, I want you to come with me.’

‘For the gold?’

‘That’s right; for the gold. Share and share alike.’

‘What about Coertze?’

‘To hell with Coertze,’ said Walker violently. ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with him.’

I thought about it. I was young and full of vinegar in those days, and this sounded just the ticket – if Walker was telling the truth. And if he wasn’t telling the truth, why would he finance me to a trip to Italy? It seemed a pleasantly adventurous thing to do, but I hesitated. ‘Why me?’ I asked.

‘I can’t do it myself,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t trust Coertze, and you’re the only other chap who knows anything about it. And I trust you, Hal, I really do.’

I made up my mind. ‘All right, it’s a deal. But there are conditions.’

‘Trot them out.’

‘This drinking of yours has to stop,’ I said. ‘You’re all right when you’re sober, but when you’ve got a load on you’re bloody awful. Besides, you know you spill things when you’re cut.’

He rearranged his eager face into a firm expression. ‘I’ll do it, Hal; I won’t touch a drop,’ he promised.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘When do we start?’

I can see now that we were a couple of naïve young fools. We expected to be able to lift several tons of gold from a hole in the ground without too much trouble. We had no conception of the brains and organization that would be needed – and were needed in the end.

Walker said, ‘The lawyer tells me that the estate will be settled finally in about six weeks. We can leave any time after that.’

We discussed the trip often. Walker was not too much concerned with the practical difficulties of getting the gold, nor with what we were going to do with it once we had it. He was mesmerized by the millions involved.

He said once, ‘Coertze estimated that there were four tons of gold. At the present price that’s well over a million pounds. Then there’s the lire – packing cases full of the stuff. You can get a hell of a lot of lire into a big packing case.’

‘You can forget the paper money,’ I said. ‘Just pass one of those notes and you’ll have the Italian police jumping all over you.’

‘We can pass them outside Italy,’ he said sulkily.

‘Then you’ll have to cope with Interpol.’

‘All right,’ he said impatiently. ‘We’ll forget the lire. But there’s still the jewellery – rings and necklaces, diamonds and emeralds.’ His eyes glowed. ‘I’ll bet the jewels are worth more than the gold.’

‘But not as easily disposed of,’ I said.

I was getting more and more worried about the sheer physical factors involved. To make it worse, Walker wouldn’t tell me the position of the lead mine, so I couldn’t do any active planning at all.

He was behaving like a child at the approach of Christmas, eager to open his Christmas stocking. I couldn’t get him to face facts and I seriously contemplated pulling out of this mad scheme. I could see nothing ahead but a botched job with a probably lengthy spell in an Italian jail.

The night before he was to go to the lawyer’s office to sign the final papers and receive his inheritance I went to see him at his hotel. He was half-drunk, lying on his bed with a bottle conveniently near.

‘You promised you wouldn’t drink,’ I said coldly.

‘Aw, Hal, this isn’t drinking; not what I’m doing. It’s just a little taste to celebrate.’

I said, ‘You’d better cut your celebration until you’ve read the paper.’

‘What paper?’

‘This one,’ I said, and took it from my pocket. ‘That little bit at the bottom of the page.’

He took the paper and looked at it stupidly. ‘What must I read?’

‘That paragraph headed: “Italians Sentenced”.’

It was only a small item, a filler for the bottom of the page.

Walker was suddenly sober. ‘But they were innocent,’ he whispered.

‘That didn’t prevent them from getting it in the neck,’ I said brutally.

‘God!’ he said. ‘They’re still looking for it.’

‘Of course they are,’ I said impatiently. ‘They’ll keep looking until they find it.’ I wondered if the Italians were more concerned about the gold or the documents.

I could see that Walker had been shocked out of his euphoric dreams of sudden wealth. He now had to face the fact that pulling gold out of an Italian hole had its dangers. ‘This makes a difference,’ he said slowly. ‘We can’t go now. We’ll have to wait until this dies down.’

‘Will it die down – ever?’ I asked.

He looked up at me. ‘I’m not going now,’ he said with the firmness of fear. ‘The thing’s off – it’s off for a long time.’

In a way I was relieved. There was a weakness in Walker that was disturbing and which had been troubling me. I had been uneasy for a long time and had been very uncertain of the wisdom of going to Italy with him. Now it was decided.

I left him abruptly in the middle of a typical action – pouring another drink.

As I walked home one thought occurred to me. The newspaper report confirmed Walker’s story pretty thoroughly. That was something.

VI

It was long past lunch-time when. I finished the story. My throat was dry with talking and Jean’s eyes had grown big and round.

‘It’s like something from the Spanish Main,’ she said. ‘Or a Hammond Innes thriller. Is the gold still there?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t read anything about it in the papers. For all I know it’s still there – if Walker or Coertze haven’t recovered it.’

‘What happened to Walker?’

‘He got his two thousand quid,’ I said. ‘Then embarked on a career of trying to drink the distilleries dry. It wasn’t long before he lost his job and then he dropped from sight. Someone told me he’d gone to Durban. Anyway, I haven’t seen him since.’

Jean was fascinated by the story and after that we made a game of it, figuring ways and means of removing four tons of gold from Italy as unobtrusively as possible. Just as an academic exercise, of course. Jean had a fertile imagination and some of her ideas were very good.

In 1959 we got clear of our indebtedness to the bank by dint of strict economy. The yard was ours now with no strings attached and we celebrated by laying the keel of a 15-tonner I had designed for Jean and myself. My old faithful King Penguin, one of the first of her class, was all right for coastal pottering, but we had the idea that one day we would do some ocean voyaging, and we wanted a bigger boat.

A 15-tonner is just the right size for two people to handle and big enough to live in indefinitely. This boat was to be forty feet overall, thirty feet on the waterline with eleven feet beam. She would be moderately canvased for ocean voyaging and would have a big auxiliary diesel engine. We were going to call her Sanford in memory of old Tom.

When she was built we would take a year’s leave, sail north to spend some time in the Mediterranean, and come back by the east coast, thus making a complete circumnavigation of Africa. Jean had a mischievous glint in her eye. ‘Perhaps we’ll bring that gold back with us,’ she said.

But two months later the blow fell.

I had designed a boat for Bill Meadows and had sent him the drawings for approval. By mishap the accommodation plans had been left out of the packet, so Jean volunteered to take them to Fish Hoek where Bill lives.

It’s a nice drive to Fish Hoek along the Chapman’s Peak road with views of sea and mountain, far better than anything I have since seen on the Riviera. Jean delivered the drawings and on the way back in the twilight a drunken oaf in a high-powered American car forced her off the road and she fell three hundred feet into the sea.

The bottom dropped out of my life.

It meant nothing to me that the driver of the other car got five years for manslaughter – that wouldn’t bring Jean back. I let things slide at the yard and if it hadn’t been for Harry Marshall the business would have gone to pot.

It was then that I tallied up my life and made a sort of mental balance sheet. I was thirty-six years old; I had a good business which I had liked but which now I didn’t seem to like so much; I had my health and strength – boat-building and sailing tend to keep one physically fit – and I had no debts. I even had money in the bank with more rolling in all the time.

On the other side of the balance sheet was the dreadful absence of Jean, which more than counter-balanced all the advantages.

I felt I couldn’t stay at the yard or even in Cape Town, where memories of Jean would haunt me at every corner. I wanted to get away. I was waiting for something to happen.

I was ripe for mischief.

VII

A couple of weeks later I was in a bar on Adderley Street having a drink or three. It wasn’t that I’d taken to drink, but I was certainly drinking more than I had been accustomed to. I had just started on my third brandy when I felt a touch at my elbow and a voice said, ‘Hallo, I haven’t seen you for a long time.’

I turned and found Walker standing next to me.

The years hadn’t dealt kindly with Walker. He was thinner, his dark, good looks had gone to be replaced by a sharpness of feature, and his hairline had receded. His clothes were unpressed and frayed at the edges, and there was an air of seediness about him which was depressing.

‘Hallo,’ I said. ‘Where did you spring from?’ He was looking at my full glass of brandy, so I said, ‘Have a drink.’

‘Thanks,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll have a double.’

That gave me a pretty firm clue as to what had happened to Walker, but I didn’t mind being battened upon for a couple of drinks, so I paid for the double brandy.

He raised the glass to his lips with a hand that trembled slightly, took a long lingering gulp, then put the glass down, having knocked back three-quarters of the contents. ‘You’re looking prosperous,’ he said.

‘I’m not doing too badly.’

He said, ‘I was sorry to hear of what happened to your wife.’ He hurried on as he saw my look of inquiry. ‘I read about it in the paper. I thought it must have been your wife – the name was the same and all that.’

I thought he had spent some time hunting me up. Old friends and acquaintances are precious to an alcoholic; they can be touched for the odd drink and the odd fiver.

‘That’s finished and best forgotten,’ I said shortly. Unwittingly, perhaps, he had touched me on the raw – he had brought Jean back. ‘What are you doing now?’

He shrugged. ‘This and that.’

‘You haven’t picked up any gold lately?’ I said cruelly. I wanted to pay him back for putting Jean in my mind.

‘Do I look as though I have?’ he asked bitterly. Unexpectedly, he said, ‘I saw Coertze last week.’

‘Here – in Cape Town?’

‘Yes. He’d just come back from Italy. He’s back in Jo’burg now, I expect.’

I smiled. ‘Did he have any gold with him?’

Walker shook his head. ‘He said that nothing’s changed.’ He suddenly gripped me by the arm. ‘The gold’s still there – nobody’s found it. It’s still there – four tons of gold in that tunnel – and all the jewels.’ He had a frantic urgency about him.

‘Well, why doesn’t he do something about it?’ I said. ‘Why doesn’t he go and get it out? Why don’t you both go?’

‘He doesn’t like me,’ said Walker sulkily. ‘He’ll hardly speak to me.’ He took one of my cigarettes from the packet on the counter, and I lit it for him, amusedly. ‘It isn’t easy to get it out of the country,’ he said. ‘Even Sergeant High-and-Mighty Coertze hasn’t found a way.’

He grinned tightly. ‘Imagine that,’ he said, almost gaily. ‘Even the brainy Coertze can’t do it. He put the gold in a hole in the ground and he’s too scared to get it out.’ He began to laugh hysterically.

I took his arm. ‘Take it easy.’

His laughter choked off suddenly. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Buy me another drink; I left my wallet at home.’

I crooked my finger at the bartender and Walker ordered another double. I was beginning to understand the reason for his degradation. For fourteen years the knowledge that a fortune in gold was lying in Italy waiting to be picked up had been eating at him like a cancer. Even when I knew him ten years earlier I was aware of the fatal weakness in him, and now one could see that the bitterness of defeat had been too much. I wondered how Coertze was standing up to the strain. At least he seemed to be doing something about it, even if only keeping an eye on the situation.

I said carefully, ‘If Coertze was willing to take you, would you be prepared to go to Italy to get the stuff out?’

He was suddenly very still. ‘What d’you mean?’ he demanded. ‘Have you been talking to Coertze?’

‘I’ve never laid eyes on the man.’

Walker’s glance shifted nervously about the bar, then he straightened. ‘Well, if he … wanted me; if he … needed me – I’d be prepared to go along.’ He said this with bravado but the malice showed through when he said, ‘He needed me once, you know; he needed me when we buried the stuff.’

‘You wouldn’t be afraid of him?’

‘What do you mean – afraid of him? Why should I be afraid of him? I’m afraid of nobody.’

‘You were pretty certain he’d committed at least four murders.’

He seemed put out. ‘Oh that! That was a long time ago. And I never said he’d murdered anybody. I never said it.’

‘No, you never actually said it.’

He shifted nervously on the bar stool. ‘Oh, what’s the use? He won’t ask me to go with him. He said as much last week.’

‘Oh, yes, he will,’ I said softly.

Walker looked up quickly. ‘Why should he?’

I said quietly, ‘Because I know of a way of getting that gold out of Italy and of taking it anywhere in the world, quite simply and relatively safely.’

His eyes widened. ‘What is it? How can you do it?’

‘I’m not going to tell you,’ I said equably. ‘After all, you wouldn’t tell me where the gold’s hidden.’

‘Well, let’s do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you where it is, you get it out, and Bob’s your uncle. Why bring Coertze into it?’

‘It’s a job for more than two men,’ I said. ‘Besides, he deserves a share – he’s been keeping an eye on the gold for fourteen years, which is a damn’ sight more than you’ve been doing.’ I failed to mention that I considered Walker the weakest of reeds. ‘Now, how will you get on with Coertze if this thing goes through?’

He turned sulky. ‘All right, I suppose, if he lays off me. But I won’t stand for any of his sarcasm.’ He looked at me in wonder as though what we were talking about had just sunk in. ‘You mean there’s a chance we can get the stuff out – a real chance?’

I nodded and got off the bar stool. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

‘Where are you going?’ he asked quickly.

‘To phone the airline office,’ I said. ‘I want a seat on tomorrow’s Jo’burg plane. I’m going to see Coertze.’

The sign I had been waiting for had arrived.

TWO: COERTZE

Air travel is wonderful. At noon the next day I was booking into a hotel in Johannesburg, a thousand miles from Cape Town.

On the plane I had thought a lot about Coertze. I had made up my mind that if he didn’t bite then the whole thing was off – I couldn’t see myself relying on Walker. And I had to decide how to handle him – from Walker’s account he was a pretty tough character. I didn’t mind that; I could be tough myself when the occasion arose, but I didn’t want to antagonize him. He would probably be as suspicious as hell, and I’d need kid gloves.

Then there was another thing – the financing of the expedition. I wanted to hang on to the boatyard as insurance in case this whole affair flopped, but I thought if I cut Harry Marshall in for a partnership in the yard, sold my house and my car and one or two other things, I might be able to raise about £25,000 – not too much for what I had in mind.

But it all depended on Coertze. I smiled when I considered where he was working. He had a job in Central Smelting Plant which refined gold from all the mines on the Reef. More gold had probably passed through his hands in the last few years than all the Axis war-lords put together had buried throughout the world.

It must have been tantalizing for him.

I phoned the smelting plant in the afternoon. There was a pause before he came on the line. ‘Coertze,’ he said briefly.

I came to the point. ‘My name’s Halloran,’ I said. ‘A mutual friend – Mr Walker of Cape Town – tells me you have been experiencing difficulty in arranging for the delivery of goods from Italy. I’m in the import-export business; I thought I might be able to help you.’

A deep silence bored into my ear.

I said, ‘My firm is fully equipped to do this sort of work. We never have much trouble with the Customs in cases like these.’

It was like dropping a stone into a very deep well and listening for the splash.

‘Why don’t you come to see me,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to take up your time now; I’m sure you’re a busy man. Come at seven this evening and we’ll discuss your difficulties over dinner. I’m staying at the Regency – it’s in Berea, in …’

‘I know where it is,’ said Coertze. His voice was deep and harsh with a guttural Afrikaans accent.

‘Good; I’ll be expecting you,’ I said, and put down the phone.

I was pleased with this first contact. Coertze was suspicious and properly so – he’d have been a fool not to be. But if he came to the hotel he’d be hooked, and all I had to do would be to jerk on the line and set the hook in firmly.

I was pretty certain he’d come; human curiosity would see to that. If he didn’t come, then he wouldn’t be human – or he’d be superhuman.

He came, but not at seven o’clock and I was beginning to doubt my judgement of the frailty of human nature. It was after eight when he knocked on the door, identified me, and said, ‘We’ll forget the dinner; I’ve eaten.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘But what about a drink?’ I crossed the room and put my hand on the brandy bottle. I was pretty certain it would be brandy – most South Africans drink it.

‘I’ll have a Scotch,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘Thanks,’ he added as an afterthought.

As I poured the drinks I glanced at him. He was a bulky man, broad of chest and heavy in the body. His hair was black and rather coarse and he had a shaggy look about him. I’d bet that when stripped he’d look like a grizzly bear. His eyebrows were black and straight over eyes of a snapping electric blue. He had looked after himself better than Walker; his belly was flat and there was a sheen of health about him.

I handed him a drink and we sat down facing each other. He was tense and wary, although he tried to disguise it by over-relaxing in his chair. We were like a couple of duellists who have just engaged blades.

‘I’ll come to the point,’ I said. ‘A long time ago Walker told me a very interesting story about some gold. That was ten years ago and we were going to do something about it, but it didn’t pan out. That might have been lucky because we’d have certainly made a botch of the job.’

I pointed my finger at him. ‘You’ve been keeping an eye on it. You’ve probably popped across to Italy from time to time just to keep your eye on things in general. You’ve been racking your brains trying to think of a way of getting that gold out of Italy, but you haven’t been able to do it. You’re stymied.’

His face had not changed expression; he would have made a good poker player. He said, ‘When did you see Walker?’

‘Yesterday – in Cape Town.’

The craggy face broke into a derisive grin. ‘And you flew up to Jo’burg to see me just because a dronkie like Walker told you a cock-and-bull story like that? Walker’s a no-good hobo; I see a dozen like him in the Library Gardens every day,’ he said contemptuously.

‘It’s not a cock-and-bull story, and I can prove it.’

Coertze just sat and looked at me like a stone gargoyle, the whisky glass almost lost in his huge fist.

I said, ‘What are you doing here – in this room? If there was no story, all you had to do was to ask me what the hell I was talking about when I spoke to you on the phone. The fact that you’re here proves there’s something in it.’

He made a fast decision. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What’s your proposition?’

I said, ‘You still haven’t figured a way of moving four tons of gold out of Italy. Is that right?’

He smiled slowly. ‘Let’s assume so,’ he said ironically.

‘I’ve got a foolproof way.’

He put down his glass and produced a packet of cigarettes. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m not going to tell you – yet.’

He grinned. ‘Walker hasn’t told you where the gold is, has he?’

‘No, he hasn’t,’ I admitted. ‘But he would if I put pressure on him. Walker can’t stand pressure; you know that.’

‘He drinks too much,’ said Coertze. ‘And when he drinks he talks; I’ll bet that’s how he came to spill his guts to you.’ He lit his cigarette. ‘What do you want out of it?’

‘Equal shares,’ I said firmly. ‘A three-way split after all expenses have been paid.’

‘And Walker comes with us on the job. Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Coertze moved in his chair. ‘Man, it’s like this,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you’ve got a foolproof way of getting the gold out or if you haven’t. I thought I had it licked a couple of times. But let’s assume your way is going to work. Why should we take Walker?’

He held up his hand. ‘I’m not suggesting we do him down or anything like that – although he’d think nothing of cheating us. Give him his share after it’s all over, but for God’s sake keep him out of Italy. He’ll make a balls-up for sure.’

I thought of Harrison and Parker and the two Italians. ‘You don’t seem to like him.’

Coertze absently fingered a scar on his forehead. ‘He’s unreliable,’ he said. ‘He almost got me killed a couple of times during the war.’

I said, ‘No, we take Walker. I don’t know for certain if three of us can pull it off, and with two it would be impossible. Unless you want to let someone else in?’

He smiled humourlessly. ‘That’s not on – not with you coming in. But Walker had better keep his big mouth shut from now on.’

‘Perhaps it would be better if he stopped drinking,’ I suggested.

‘That’s right,’ Coertze agreed. ‘Keep him off the pots. A few beers are all right, but keep him off the hard-tack. That’ll be your job; I don’t want to have anything to do with the rat.’

He blew smoke into the air, and said, ‘Now let’s hear your proposition. If it’s good, I’ll come in with you. If I don’t think it’ll work, I won’t touch it. In that case, you and Walker can do what you damn’ well like, but if you go for that gold you’ll have me to reckon with. I’m a bad bastard when I’m crossed.’

‘So am I,’ I said.

We grinned at each other. I liked this man, in a way. I wouldn’t trust him any more than I’d trust Walker, but I had the feeling that while Walker would stick a knife in your back, Coertze would at least shoot you down from the front.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s have it.’

‘I’m not going to tell you – not here in this room,’ I saw his expression and hurried on. ‘It isn’t that I don’t trust you, it’s simply that you wouldn’t believe it. You have to see it – and you have to see it in Cape Town.’

He looked at me for a long moment, then said, ‘All right, if that’s the way you want it, I’ll play along.’ He paused to think. ‘I’ve got a good job here, and I’m not going to give it up on your say-so. There’s a long week-end coming up – that gives me three days off. I’ll fly down to Cape Town to see what you have to show me. If it’s good, the job can go hang; if it isn’t, then I’ve still got the job.’

‘I’ll pay for your fare,’ I said.

‘I can afford it,’ he grunted.

‘If it doesn’t pan out, I’ll pay for your fare,’ I insisted. ‘I wouldn’t want you to be out of pocket.’

He looked up and grinned. ‘We’ll get along,’ he said. ‘Where’s that bottle?’

As I was pouring another couple of drinks, he said, ‘You said you were going to Italy with Walker. What stopped you?’

I took the clipping from my pocket and passed it to him. He read it and laughed. ‘That must have scared Walker. I was there at the time,’ he said unexpectedly.

‘In Italy?’

He sipped the Scotch and nodded. ‘Yes; I saved my army back-pay and my gratuity and went back in ’48. As soon as I got there all hell started popping about this trial. I read about it in the papers and you never heard such a lot of bull in your life. Still, I thought I’d better lie low, so I had a lekker holiday with the Count.’

‘With the Count?’ I said in surprise.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I stay with the Count every time I go to Italy. I’ve been there four times now.’

I said, ‘How did you reckon to dispose of the gold once you got it out of Italy?’

‘I’ve got all that planned,’ he said confidently. ‘They’re always wanting gold in India and you get a good price. You’d be surprised at the amount of gold smuggled out of this country in small packets that ends up in India.’

He was right – India is the gold sink of the world – but I said casually, ‘My idea is to go the other way – to Tangier. It’s an open port with an open gold market. You should be able to sell four tons of gold there quite easily – and it’s legal, too. No trouble with the police.’

He looked at me with respect. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t know much about this international finance.’

‘There’s a snag,’ I said. ‘Tangier is closing up shop next year; it’s being taken over by Morocco. Then it won’t be a free port any more and the gold market will close.’

‘When next year?’

‘April 19,’ I said. ‘Nine months from now. I think we’ll just about have enough time.’

He smiled. ‘I never thought about selling the gold legally; I didn’t think you could. I thought the governments had got all that tied up. Maybe I should have met you sooner.’

‘It wouldn’t have done you any good,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t the brains then that I have now.’

He laughed and we proceeded to kill the bottle.

II

Coertze came down to Cape Town two weeks later. I met him at the airport and drove him directly to the yard, where Walker was waiting.

Walker seemed to shrink into himself when I told him that Coertze was visiting us. In spite of his braggart boasts, I could see he didn’t relish close contact. If half of what he had said about Coertze was true, then he had every reason to be afraid.

Come to think of it – so had I!

It must have been the first time that Coertze had been in a boatyard and he looked about him with keen interest and asked a lot of questions, nearly all of them sensible. At last, he said, ‘Well, what about it?’

I took them down to the middle slip where Jimmy Murphy’s Estralita was waiting to be drawn up for an overhaul. ‘That’s a sailing yacht,’ I said. ‘A 15-tonner. What would you say her draft it – I mean, how deep is she in the water?’

Coertze looked her over and then looked up at the tall mast. ‘She’ll need to be deep to counterbalance that lot,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know how much. I don’t know anything about boats.’

Considering he didn’t know anything about boats, it was a very sensible answer.

‘Her draft is six feet in normal trim,’ I said. ‘She’s drawing less now because a lot of gear has been taken out of her.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I’d have thought it would be more than that,’ he said. ‘What happens when the wind blows hard on the sails? Won’t she tip over?’

This was going well and Coertze was on the ball. I said, ‘I have a boat like this just being built, another 15-tonner. Come and have a look at her.’

I led the way up to the shed where Sanford was being built and Coertze followed, apparently content that I was leading up to a point. Walker tagged on behind.

I had pressed to get Sanford completed and she was ready for launching as soon as the glass-fibre sheathing was applied and the interior finished.

Coertze looked up at her. ‘They look bloody big out of the water,’ he commented.

I smiled. That was the usual lay reaction. ‘Come aboard,’ I said.

He was impressed by the spaciousness he found below and commented favourably on the way things were arranged. ‘Did you design all this?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘You could live in here, all right,’ he said, inspecting the galley.

‘You could – and you will,’ I said. ‘This is the boat in which we’re going to take four tons of gold out of Italy.’

He looked surprised and then he frowned. ‘Where are you going to put it?’

I said, ‘Sit down and I’ll tell you something about sailing boats you don’t know.’ Coertze sat uncomfortably on the edge of the starboard settee which had no mattress as yet, and waited for me to explain myself.

‘This boat displaces – weighs, that is – ten tons, and …’

Walker broke in. ‘I thought you said she was a 15-tonner.’

‘That’s Thames measure – yacht measure. Her displacement is different.’

Coertze looked at Walker. ‘Shut up and let the man speak.’ He turned to me. ‘If the boat weighs ten tons and you add another four tons, she’ll be pretty near sinking, won’t she? And where are you going to put it? It can’t be out in the open where the cops can see it.’

I said patiently, ‘I said I’d tell you something about sailing boats that you didn’t know. Now, listen – about forty per cent of the weight of any sailing boat is ballast to keep her the right way up when the wind starts to press on those sails.’

I tapped the cabin sole with my foot. ‘Hanging on the bottom of this boat is a bloody great piece of lead weighing precisely four tons.’

Coertze looked at me incredulously, a dawning surmise in his eyes. I said, ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

We went outside and I showed them the lead ballast keel. I said, ‘All this will be covered up next week because the boat will be sheathed to keep out the marine borers.’

Coertze was squatting on his heels looking at the keel. ‘This is it,’ he said slowly. ‘This is it. The gold will be hidden under water – built in as part of the boat.’ He began to laugh, and after a while Walker joined in. I began to laugh, too, and the walls of the shed resounded.

Coertze sobered suddenly. ‘What’s the melting point of lead?’ he asked abruptly.

I knew what was coming. ‘Four-fifty degrees centigrade,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a little foundry at the top of the yard where we pour the keels.’

‘Ja,’ he said heavily. ‘You can melt lead on a kitchen stove. But gold melts at over a thousand centigrade and we’ll need more than a kitchen stove for that. I know; melting gold is my job. Up at the smelting plant we’ve got bloody big furnaces.’

I said quickly, ‘I’ve thought of that one, too. Come up to the workshop – I’ll show you something else you’ve never seen before.’

In the workshop I opened a cupboard and said, ‘This gadget is brand new – just been invented.’ I hauled out the contraption and put it on the bench. Coertze looked at it uncomprehendingly.

There wasn’t much to see; just a metal box, eighteen inches by fifteen inches by nine inches, on the top of which was an asbestos mat and a Heath Robinson arrangement of clamps.

I said, ‘You’ve heard of instant coffee – this is instant heat.’ I began to get the machine ready for operation. ‘It needs cooling water at at least five pounds an inch pressure – that we get from an ordinary tap. It works on ordinary electric current, too, so you can set it up anywhere.’

I took the heart of the machine from a drawer. Again, it wasn’t much to look at; just a piece of black cloth, three inches by four. I said, ‘Some joker in the States discovered how to spin and weave threads of pure graphite, and someone else discovered this application.’

I lifted the handle on top of the machine, inserted the graphite mat, and clamped it tight. Then I took a bit of metal and gave it to Coertze.

He turned it in his fingers and said, ‘What is it?’

‘Just a piece of ordinary mild steel. But if this gadget can melt steel, it can melt gold. Right?’

He nodded and looked at the machine dubiously – it wasn’t very impressive.

I took the steel from his fingers and dropped it on to the graphite mat, then I gave Walker and Coertze a pair of welders’ goggles each. ‘Better put these on: it gets a bit bright.’

We donned the goggles and I switched on the machine. It was a spectacular display. The graphite mat flashed instantly to a white heat and the piece of steel glowed red, then yellow and finally white. It seemed to slump like a bit of melting wax and in less than fifteen seconds it had melted into a little pool. All this to the accompaniment of a violent shower of sparks as the metal reacted with the air.

I switched off the machine and removed my goggles. ‘We won’t have all these fireworks when we melt gold; it doesn’t oxidize as easily as iron.’

Coertze was staring at the machine. ‘How does it do that?’

‘Something like a carbon arc,’ I said. ‘You can get temperatures up to five thousand degrees centigrade. It’s only intended to be a laboratory instrument, but I reckon we can melt two pounds of gold at a time. With three of these gadgets and a hell of a lot of spare mats we should be able to work pretty fast.’

He said doubtfully, ‘If we can only pour a couple of pounds at a time, the keel is going to be so full of cracks and flaws that I’m not sure it won’t break under its own weight.’

‘I’ve thought of that one, too,’ I said calmly. ‘Have you ever watched anyone pour reinforced concrete?’

He frowned and then caught on, snapping his fingers.

‘We make the mould and put a mesh of wires inside,’ I said. ‘That’ll hold it together.’

I showed him a model I had made, using fuse wire and candle wax, which he examined carefully. ‘You’ve done a hell of a lot of thinking about this,’ he said at last.

‘Somebody has to,’ I said. ‘Or that gold will stay where it is for another fourteen years.’

He didn’t like that because it made him appear stupid; but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He started to say something and bit it short, his face flushing red. Then he took a deep breath and said, ‘All right, you’ve convinced me. I’m in.’

Then I took a deep breath – of relief.

III

That night we had a conference.

I said, ‘This is the drill. Sanford – my yacht – will be ready for trials next week. As soon as the trials are over you two are going to learn how to sail under my instruction. In under four months from now we sail for Tangier.’

‘Christ!’ said Walker. ‘I don’t know that I like the sound of that.’

‘There’s nothing to it,’ I said. ‘Hundreds of people are buzzing about the Atlantic these days. Hell, people have gone round the world in boats a quarter the size.’

I looked at Coertze. ‘This is going to take a bit of financing. Got any money?’

‘About a thousand,’ he admitted.

‘That gets tossed into the kitty,’ I said. ‘Along with my twenty-five thousand.’

‘Magtig,’ he said. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of money.’

‘We’ll need every penny of it,’ I said. ‘We might have to buy a small boatyard in Italy if that’s the only way we can cast the keel in secrecy. Besides, I’m lending it to the firm of Walker, Coertze and Halloran at one hundred per cent interest. I want fifty thousand back before the three-way split begins. You can do the same with your thousand.’

‘That sounds fair enough,’ agreed Coertze.

I said, ‘Walker hasn’t any money and once you’ve thrown your thousand in the kitty, neither have you. So I’m putting you both on my payroll. You’ve got to have your smokes and three squares a day while all this is going on.’

This bit of information perked Walker up considerably. Coertze merely nodded in confirmation. I looked hard at Walker. ‘And you stay off the booze or we drop you over the side. Don’t forget that.’

He nodded sullenly.

Coertze said, ‘Why are we going to Tangier first?’

‘We’ve got to make arrangements to remelt the gold into standard bars,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine any banker calmly taking a golden keel into stock. Anyway, that’s for the future; right now I have to turn you into passable seamen – we’ve got to get to the Mediterranean first.’

I took Sanford on trials and Walker and Coertze came along for the ride and to see what they were letting themselves in for. She turned out to be everything I’ve ever wanted in a boat. She was fast for a deep-sea cruiser and not too tender. With a little sail adjustment she had just the right amount of helm and I could see she was going to be all right without any drastic changes.

As we went into a long reach she picked up speed and went along happily with the water burbling along the lee rail and splashing on deck. Walker, his face a little green, said, ‘I thought you said a keel would hold this thing upright.’ He was hanging tightly on to the side of the cockpit.

I laughed. I was happier than I had been for a long time. ‘Don’t worry about that. That’s not much angle of heel. She won’t capsize.’

Coertze didn’t say anything – he was busy being sick.

The next three months were rough and tough. People forget that the Cape was the Cape of Storms before some early public relations officer changed the name to the Cape of Good Hope. When the Berg Wind blows it can be as uncomfortable at sea as anywhere in the world.

I drove Walker and Coertze unmercifully. In three months I had to turn them into capable seamen, because Sanford was a bit too big to sail single-handed. I hoped that the two of them would equal one able-bodied seaman. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds because in those three months they put in as much sea time as the average week-end yachtsman gets in three years, and they had the dubious advantage of having a pitiless instructor.

Shore time was spent in learning the theory of sail and the elements of marline-spike seamanship – how to knot and splice, mend a sail and make baggywrinkle. They grumbled a little at the theory, but I silenced that by asking them what they’d do if I was washed overboard in the middle of the Atlantic.

Then we went out to practise what I had taught – at first in the bay and then in the open sea, cruising coastwise around the peninsula at first, and then for longer distances well out of sight of land.

I had thought that Coertze would prove to be as tough at sea as apparently he was on land. But he was no sailor and never would be. He had a queasy stomach and couldn’t stand the motion, so he turned out to be pretty useless at boat handling. But he was hero enough to be our cook on the longer voyages, a thankless job for a sea-sick man.

I would hear him swearing below when the weather was rough and a pot of hot coffee was tossed in his lap. He once told me that he now knew what poker dice felt like when they were shaken in the cup. He wouldn’t have stood it for any lesser reason, but the lust for gold was strong in him.

Walker was the real surprise. Coertze and I had weaned him from his liquor over many protests, and he was now eating more and the air and exercise agreed with him. He put on weight, his thin cheeks filled out and his chest broadened. Nothing could replace the hair he had lost, but he seemed a lot more like the handsome young man I had known ten years earlier.

More surprisingly, he turned out to be a natural sailor. He liked Sanford and she seemed to like him. He was a good helmsman and could lay her closer to the wind than I could when we were beating to windward. At first I was hesitant to give him a free hand with Sanford, but as he proved himself I lost my reluctance.

At last we were ready and there was nothing more to wait for. We provisioned Sanford and set sail for the north on November 12, to spend Christmas at sea. Ahead of us was a waste of water with the beckoning lure of four tons of gold at the other side.

I suppose one could have called it a pleasure cruise!

BOOK TWO The Gold

THREE: TANGIER

Two months later we sailed into Tangier harbour, the ‘Q’ flag hoisted, and waited for the doctor to give us pratique and for the Customs to give us the once-over. To port of Sanford was the modern city with its sleek, contemporary buildings sharply outlined against the sky. To starboard was the old city – the Arab city – squat and low-roofed and hugging a hill, the skyline only broken by the up-flung spear of a minaret.

To port – Europe; to starboard – Africa.

This was nothing new to Walker and Coertze. They had sown a few wild oats in their army days, roistering in Cairo and Alexandria. On the voyage from Cape Town they had talked much about their army days – and all in Italian, too. We made it a rule to speak as much Italian as possible, and while the others were on a refresher course, I didn’t lag far behind even though I had to start from scratch.

We had settled on a good cover story to veil our activities in the Mediterranean. I was a South African boat builder on a cruise combining business with pleasure. I was thinking of expanding into the lucrative Mediterranean market and might buy a boatyard if the price and conditions were right. This story had the advantage of not departing too far from the truth and would serve if we really had to buy a yard to cast the golden keel.

Coertze was a mining man with medical trouble. His doctor had advised him to take a leisurely holiday and so he was crewing Sanford for me. His cover story would account for any interest he might take in derelict lead mines.

Walker, who proved to be something of an actor, was a moderately wealthy playboy. He had money but disliked work and was willing to go a long way to avoid it. He had come on this Mediterranean trip because he was bored with South Africa and wanted a change. It was to be his job to set things up in Tangier; to acquire a secluded house where we could complete the last stages of the operation.

All in all, I was quite satisfied, even though I had got a bit tired of Coertze on the way north. He didn’t like the way I seemed to be taking charge of things and I had to ram home very forcibly the fact that a ship can only have one skipper. He had seen the point when we ran into heavy weather off the Azores, and it galled him that the despised Walker was the better seaman.

Now we were in Tangier, he had recovered his form and was a bit more inclined to throw his weight around. I could see that I’d have to step on him again before long.

Walker looked about the yacht basin. ‘Not many sailing boats here,’ he commented.

That was true. There were a few ungainly-looking fishing boats and a smart ketch, probably bound for the Caribbean. But there were at least twenty big power craft, fast-looking boats, low on the water. I knew what they were.

This was the smuggling fleet. Cigarettes to Spain, cigarette lighters to France, antibiotics to where they could make a profit (although that trade had fallen off), narcotics to everywhere. I wondered if there was much arms smuggling to Algeria.

At last the officials came and went, leaving gouges in my planking from their hob-nailed boots. I escorted them to their launch, and as soon as they had left, Walker touched my arm.

‘We’ve got another visitor,’ he said.

I turned and saw a boat being sculled across the harbour. Walker said, ‘He was looking at us through glasses from that boat across there.’ He pointed to one of the motor craft. ‘Then he started to come here.’

I watched the approaching dinghy. A European was rowing and I couldn’t see his face, but as he dexterously backed water and swung round to the side of Sanford he looked up and I saw that it was Metcalfe.

Metcalfe is one of that international band of scallywags of whom there are about a hundred in the world. They are soldiers of fortune and they flock to the trouble spots, ignoring the danger and going for the money. I was not really surprised to see Metcalfe in Tangier; it had been a pirates’ stronghold from time immemorial and would be one of Metcalfe’s natural hang-outs.

I had known him briefly in South Africa but I didn’t know what he was at the time. All that I knew was that he was a damned good sailor who won a lot of dinghy races at Cape Town and who came close to winning the South African dinghy championship. He bought one of my Falcons and had spent a lot of time at the yard tuning it.

I had liked him and had crewed for him a couple of times. We had had many a drink together in the yacht club bar and he had spent a week-end at Kirstenbosche with Jean and myself. It was in the way of being a firmly ripening friendship between us when he had left South Africa a hop, skip and a jump ahead of the police, who wanted to nail him on a charge of I.D.B. Since then I had not seen him, but I had heard passing mentions and had occasionally seen his name in the papers, usually quoted as being in trouble in some exotic hot-spot.

Now he was climbing on to the deck of Sanford.

‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘So I got the glasses to make sure. What are you doing here?’

‘Just idly cruising,’ I said. ‘Combining business with pleasure. I thought I might see what the prospects in the Med. are like.’

He grinned. ‘Brother, they’re good. But that’s not in your line, is it?’

I shook my head, and said, ‘Last I heard of you, you were in Cuba.’

‘I was in Havana for a bit,’ he said. ‘But that was no place for me. It was an honest revolution, or at least it was until the Commies moved in. I couldn’t compete with them, so I quit.’

‘What are you doing now?’

He smiled and looked at Walker. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

I said, ‘This is Walker and this is Coertze.’ There was handshaking all round and Metcalfe said, ‘It’s good to hear a South African accent again. You’d have a good country there if the police weren’t so efficient.’

He turned to me. ‘Where’s Jean?’

‘She’s dead,’ I said. ‘She was killed in a motor smash.’

‘How did it happen?’

So I told him of Chapman’s Peak and the drunken driver and the three-hundred-foot fall to the sea. As I spoke his face hardened, and when I had finished, he said, ‘So the bastard only got five years, and if he’s a good boy he’ll be out in three and a half.’

He rubbed his finger against the side of his nose. ‘I liked Jean,’ he said. ‘What’s the bludger’s name? I’ve got friends in South Africa who can see to him when he comes out.’

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘That won’t bring Jean back.’

He nodded, then slapped his hands together. ‘Now you’re all staying with me at my place; I’ve got room enough for an army.’

I said hesitantly, ‘What about the boat?’

He smiled. ‘I see you’ve heard stories about the Tangier dock thieves. Well, let me tell you they’re all true. But that doesn’t matter; I’ll put one of my men on board. Nobody steals from my men – or me.’

He rowed back across the harbour and presently returned with a scar-faced Moroccan, to whom he spoke in quick and guttural Arabic. Then he said, ‘That’s all fixed. I’ll have the word passed round the docks that you’re friends of mine. Your boat’s safe enough, as safe as though it lay in your own yard.’

I believed him. I could believe he had a lot of pull in a place like Tangier.

‘Let’s go ashore,’ he said. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘So am I,’ said Coertze.

‘It’ll be a relief not to do any more cooking for a while, won’t it?’ I said.

‘Man,’ said Coertze, ‘I wouldn’t mind if I never saw a frypan again.’

‘That’s a pity,’ said Metcalfe. ‘I was looking forward to you making me some koeksusters; I always liked South African grub.’ He roared with laughter and slapped Coertze on the back.

Metcalfe had a big apartment on the Avenida de España, and he gave me a room to myself while Coertze and Walker shared a room. He stayed and chatted while I unpacked my bag.

‘South Africa too quiet for you?’ he asked.

I went into my carefully prepared standard talk on the reasons I had left. I had no reason to trust Metcalfe more than anyone else – probably less – judging by the kind of man he was. I don’t know whether he believed me or not, but he agreed that there was scope in the Mediterranean for a good boatyard.

‘You may not get as many commissions to build,’ he said. ‘But there certainly is room for a good servicing and maintenance yard. I’d go east, towards Greece, if I were you. The yards in the islands cater mostly for the local fishermen; there’s room for someone who understands yachts and yachtsmen.’

‘What have you got a boat for?’ I asked banteringly. ‘Hiring it out for charter cruises?’

He grinned. ‘Aw, you know me. I carry all sorts of cargoes; anything except narcotics.’ He pulled a face. ‘I’m a bad bastard, I know, but I draw the line at drugs. Anything else I’m game for.’

‘Including guns to Algeria,’ I hazarded.

He laughed. ‘The French in Algiers hate my guts – they tried to do me down a couple of months ago. I’d unloaded a cargo into some fishing boats and then I ran into Algiers to refuel. I was clean, see! they couldn’t touch me – my papers were in order and everything.’

‘I let the crew go ashore for a drink and I turned in and had a zizz. Then something woke me up – I heard a thump and then a queer noise that seemed to come from underneath the boat. So I got up and had a look around. When I got on deck I saw a boat pulling away and there seemed to be a man in the water, swimming alongside it.’

He grinned. ‘Well, I’m a careful and cautious man, so I got my snorkel and my swim-fins and went over the side to have a look-see. What do you think those French Security bastards had done to me?’

I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘They’d put a limpet mine on my stern gear. They must have reckoned that if they couldn’t nail me down legally they’d do it illegally. If that thing went off it would blow the bottom out of my stern. Well, I got it off the boat and did a bit of heavy thinking. I knew they wouldn’t have timed it to blow up in harbour – it wouldn’t have looked nice – so I reckoned it was set to blow after I left.

‘I slung it round my neck by the cord and swam across the harbour to where the police patrol boat was lying and stuck it under their stern. Let them have the trouble of buying a new boat.

‘Next day we left early as planned and, as we moved out, I heard the police boat revving up. They followed us a long way while I was taking it nice and easy, cruising at about ten knots so they wouldn’t lose me. They hung on to my tail for about thirty miles, waiting for the bang and laughing to themselves fit to bust, I suppose. But they didn’t laugh when the bang came and blew the arse off their own boat.

‘I turned and picked them up. It was all good clean fun – no one was hurt. When I’d got them out of the water I took them back to Algiers – the noble rescuer. You ought to have seen the faces of the Security boys when I pitched up. Of course, they had to go through the motions of thanking me for rescuing those lousy, shipwrecked mariners. I kept a straight face and said I thought it must have been one of the antisubmarine depth charges in the stern that had gone off. They said it couldn’t have been that because police boats don’t carry depth charges. And that was that.’

He chuckled. ‘No, they don’t like me in Algiers.’

I laughed with him. It was a good story and he had told it well.

I was in two minds about Metcalfe; he had his advantages and his disadvantages. On the one hand, he could give us a lot of help in Tangier; he knew the ropes and had the contacts. On the other hand, we had to be careful he didn’t get wind of what we were doing. He was a hell of a good chap and all that, but if he knew we were going to show up with four tons of gold he would hijack us without a second thought. We were his kind of meat.

Yes, we had to be very careful in our dealings with Mr Metcalfe. I made a mental note to tell the others not to let anything drop in his presence.

I said, ‘What kind of boat have you got?’

‘A Fairmile,’ he said. ‘I’ve re-engined it, of course.’

I knew of the Fairmiles, but I had never seen one close up. They had been built in the hundreds during the war for harbour defence. The story was that they were built by the mile and cut off as needed. They were 112 feet overall with powerful engines and could work up over twenty knots easily, but they had the reputation of being bad rollers in a cross sea. They were not armoured or anything like that, being built of wood, and when a few of them went into St Nazaire with the Campbelltown they got shot up very badly.

After the war you could buy a surplus Fairmile for about five thousand quid and they had become a favourite with the smugglers of Tangier. If Metcalfe had re-engined his Fairmile, he had probably gone for power to outrun the revenue cutters and his boat would be capable of at least twenty-six knots in an emergency. Sanford would have no chance of outrunning a boat like that if it came to the push.

‘I’d like to see her sometime,’ I said. There was no harm in looking over a potential enemy.

‘Sure,’ said Metcalfe expansively. ‘But not just yet. I’m going out tomorrow night.’

That was good news – with Metcalfe out of the way we might be able to go about our business undisturbed. ‘When are you coming back?’ I asked.

‘Some time next week,’ he said. ‘Depending on the wind and the rain and suchlike things.’

‘Such as those French Security bastards?’

‘That’s right,’ he said carelessly. ‘Let’s eat.’

II

Metcalfe made us free of his flat and said we could live there in his absence – the servants would look after us. That afternoon he took me round town and introduced me to several people. Some were obviously good contacts to have, such as a ship’s chandler and a boat builder. Others were not so obviously good; there was a villainous-looking café proprietor, a Greek with no discernible occupation and a Hungarian who explained volubly that he was a ‘Freedom Fighter’ who had escaped from Hungary after the abortive revolution of 1956. I was particularly cynical about him.

I think that Metcalfe was unobtrusively passing the word that we were friends of his, and so immune to any of the usual tricks played on passing yachtsmen. Metcalfe was not a bad man to have around if he was your friend and you were a yachtsman. But I was not a yachtsman and that made Metcalfe a potential bomb.

Before we left the flat I had the chance to talk to Coertze and Walker privately. I said, ‘Here’s where we keep our mouths shut and stick to our cover story. We don’t do a damn’ thing until Metcalfe has pushed off – and we try to finish before he gets back.’

Walker said, ‘Why, is he dangerous?’

‘Don’t you know about Metcalfe?’ I explained who he was. They had both heard of him; he had made quite a splash in the South African Press – the reporters loved to write about such a colourful character.

‘Oh, that Metcalfe,’ said Walker, impressed.

Coertze said, ‘He doesn’t look much to me. He won’t be any trouble.’

‘It’s not Metcalfe alone,’ I said. ‘He’s got an organization and he’s on his own territory. Let’s face it; he’s a professional and we’re amateurs. Steer clear of Metcalfe.’

I felt like adding ‘and that’s an order,’ but I didn’t. Coertze might have taken me up on it and I didn’t want to force a showdown with him yet. It would come of its own accord soon enough.

So for a day and a half we were tourists in Tangier, rubbernecking our way about the town. If we hadn’t had so much on our minds it might have been interesting, but as it was, it was a waste of time.

Luckily, Metcalfe was preoccupied by his own mysterious business and we saw little of him. However, I did instruct Walker to ask one crucial question before Metcalfe left.

Over breakfast, he said, ‘You know – I like Tangier. It might be nice to stay here for a few months. Is the climate always like this?’

‘Most of the time,’ answered Metcalfe. ‘It’s a good, equable climate. There’s lots of people retire here, you know.’

Walker smiled. ‘Oh, I’m not thinking of retiring. I’ve nothing to retire from.’ He was proving to be a better actor than I had expected – that touch was perfect. He said, ‘No, what I thought was that I might like to buy a house here. Somewhere I could live a part of the year.’

‘I should have thought the Med. would be your best bet,’ said Metcalfe. ‘The Riviera, or somewhere like that.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Walker. ‘This seems to be as good a place as any, and the Riviera is so crowded these days.’ He paused as though struck by a sudden thought. ‘I’d want a boat, of course. Could you design one for me? I’d have it built in England.’

‘Sure I could,’ I said. ‘All you have to do is pay me enough.’

‘Yes,’ said Walker. ‘You can’t do without the old boat, can you?’

He was laying it on a bit too thick and I could see that Metcalfe was regarding him with amused contempt, so I said quickly, ‘He’s a damned good sailor. He nearly ran off with the Cape Dinghy Championship last year.’

That drew Metcalfe as I knew it would. ‘Oh,’ he said with more respect, and for a few minutes he and Walker talked boats. At last Walker came out with it. ‘You know, what would be really perfect would be a house on the coast somewhere with its own anchorage and boat-shed. Everything self-contained, as it were.’

‘Thinking of joining us?’ asked Metcalfe with a grin.

‘Oh, no,’ said Walker, horrified. ‘I wouldn’t have the nerve. I’ve got enough money, and besides, I don’t like your smelly Fairmiles with their stinking diesel oil. No, I was thinking about a real boat, a sailing boat.’

He turned to me. ‘You know, the more I think about it the better I like it. You could design a 10-tonner for me, something I could handle myself, and this place is a perfect jumping-off place for the Caribbean. A transatlantic crossing might be fun.’

He confided in Metcalfe. ‘You know, these ocean-crossing johnnies are all very well, but most of them are broke and they have to live on their boats. Why should I do that? Think how much better it would be if I had a house here with a boat-shed at the bottom of the garden, as it were, where I could tune the boat for the trip instead of lying in that stinking harbour.’

It was a damned good idea if you were a wealthy playboy with a yen to do a single-handed Atlantic crossing. I gave Walker full credit for his inventive powers.

Metcalfe didn’t find it unreasonable, either. He said, ‘Not a bad idea if you can afford it. I tell you what; go and see Aristide, a friend of mine. He’ll try to rent you a flat, he’s got dozens empty, but tell him that I sent you and he’ll be more reasonable.’ He scribbled an address on a piece of paper and handed it to Walker.

‘Oh, thanks awfully,’ said Walker. ‘It’s really very kind of you.’

Metcalfe finished his coffee. ‘I’ve got to go now; see you tonight before I leave.’

When he had gone Coertze, who had sat through all this with no expression at all on his face, said, ‘I’ve been thinking about the go …’

I kicked his ankle and jerked my head at the Moroccan servant who had just come into the room. ‘Tula,’ I said. ‘Moenie hier praat nie.’ Then in English, ‘Let’s go out and have a look round.’

We left the flat and sat at a table of a nearby café. I said to Coertze, ‘We don’t know if Metcalfe’s servants speak English or not, but I’m taking no chances. Now, what did you want to say?’

He said, ‘I’ve been thinking about bringing the gold in here. How are we going to do it? You said yesterday that bullion has to be declared at Customs. We can’t come in and say, ‘Listen, man; I’ve got a golden keel on this boat and I think it weighs about four tons.’

‘I’ve been thinking of that myself,’ I said. ‘It looks as though we’ll have to smuggle it in, recast it into standard bars, smuggle it out again a few bars at a time, then bring the bars in openly and declare them at Customs.’

‘That’s going to take time,’ objected Coertze. ‘We haven’t got the time.’

I sighed. ‘All right; let’s take a good look at this time factor. Today is 12th January and Tangier shuts up shop as far as gold is concerned on 19th April – that’s – let me see, er – ninety-seven days – say fourteen weeks.’

I began to calculate and to allocate this time. It would be a week before we left Tangier and another fortnight to get to Italy. That meant another fortnight coming back, too, and I would like a week spare in case of bad weather. That disposed of six weeks. Two weeks for making preparations and for getting the gold out, and three weeks for casting the keel – eleven weeks altogether, leaving a margin of three weeks. We were cutting it fine.

I said, ‘We’ll have to see what the score is when we get back here with the gold. Surely to God someone will buy it, even if it is in one lump. But we don’t say anything until we’ve got it.’

I began to have some visions of sailing back to Egypt or even India like some sort of modern Flying Dutchman condemned to sail the seas in a million pound yacht.

Walker did not go much for these planning sessions. He was content to leave that to Coertze and me. He had been sitting listening with half an ear, studying the address which Metcalfe had given him.

Suddenly he said, ‘I thought old Aristide would have been an estate agent, but he’s not.’ He read the address from the slip of paper. ‘“Aristide Theotopopoulis, Tangier Mercantile Bank, Boulevard Pasteur.” Maybe we could ask him something about it.’

‘Not a chance,’ I said derisively. ‘He’s a friend of Metcalfe.’ I looked at Walker. ‘And another thing,’ I said. ‘You did very well with Metcalfe this morning, but for God’s sake, don’t put on that phoney Oxford accent, and less of that “thanks awfully” stuff. Metcalfe’s a hard man to fool; besides, he’s been to South Africa and knows the score. You’d have done better to put on a Malmesbury accent, but it’s too late to change now. But tone it down a bit, will you?’

Walker grinned and said, ‘O.K, old chappie.’

I said, ‘Now we’ll go and see Aristide Theoto-whatever-it-is. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if we hired a car, too. It’ll help us get around and it adds to the cover. We are supposed to be rich tourists, you know.’

III

Aristide Theotopopoulis was a round man. His girth was roughly equal to his height, and as he sat down he creased in the middle like a half-inflated football bladder. Rolls of fat flowed over his collar from his jowls and the back of his neck. Even his hands were round – pudgy balls of fat with the glint of gold shining from deeply embedded rings.

‘Ah, yes, Mr Walker; you want a house,’ he said. ‘I received a phone call from Mr Metcalfe this morning. I believe I have the very thing.’ His English was fluent and colloquial.

‘You mean you have such a house?’ inquired Walker.

‘Of course! Why do you suppose Mr Metcalfe sent you to me? He knows the Casa Saeta.’ He paused. ‘You don’t mind if it’s an old house?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Not at all,’ replied Walker easily. ‘I can afford any alterations provided the house suits me.’ He caught my eye, then said, hastily, ‘But I would like to suggest that I rent it for six months with an option to buy.’

Aristide’s face lengthened from a circle to an ellipse. ‘Very well, if that is what you wish,’ he said dubiously.

He took us up the north coast in a Cadillac with Coertze following in our hired car. The house looked like something from a Charles Addams’ cartoon and I expected to see Boris Karloff peering from a window. There was no Moorish influence at all; it was the most hideous Victorian Gothic in the worst possible taste. But that didn’t matter if it could give us what we wanted.

We went into the house and looked cursorily over the worm-eaten panelling and viewed the lack of sanitation. The kitchen was primitive and there was a shaggy garden at the back of the house. Beyond was the sea and we looked over a low cliff to the beach.

It was perfect. There was a boat-house big enough to take Sanford once we unstepped the mast, and there was a crude slip badly in need of repair. There was even a lean-to shed where we could set up our foundry.

I looked at everything, estimating how long it would take to put in order, then I took Coertze on one side while Aristide extolled the beauties of the house to Walker.

‘What do you think?’ I asked.

‘Man, I think we should take it. There can’t be another place like this in the whole of North Africa.’

‘That’s just what I was thinking,’ I said. ‘I hope we can find something like this in Italy. We can get local people to fix up the slip, and with a bit of push we should be finished in a week. We’ll have to do some token work on the house, but the bulk of the money must go on essentials – there’ll be time to make the house livable when we come back. I’ll tip Walker off about that; he’s good at thinking up wacky reasons for doing the damnedest things.’

We drifted back to Walker and Aristide who were still going at it hammer and tongs, and I gave Walker an imperceptible nod. He smiles dazzlingly at Aristide, and said, ‘It’s no use, Mr Theotopopoulis, you can’t talk me out of taking this house. I’m determined to have it at once – on a six months’ rental, of course.’

Aristide, who hadn’t any intention of talking anyone out of anything, was taken aback, but making a game recovery, said, ‘You understand, Mr Walker, I can give no guarantees …’ His voice tailed off, giving the impression that he was doing Walker a favour.

‘That’s all right, old man,’ said Walker gaily. ‘But I must have a six months’ option on the house, too. Remember that.’

‘I think that can be arranged,’ said Aristide with spurious dubiety.

‘Won’t it be fun, living in this beautiful house?’ said Walker to me. I glared at him. That was the trouble with Walker; he got wrapped up in his part too much. My glare went unnoticed because he had turned to Aristide. ‘The house isn’t haunted, or anything like that?’ he demanded, as though he equated ghosts with dead rats in the wainscotting.

‘Oh, no,’ said Aristide hurriedly. ‘No ghosts.’

‘A pity,’ said Walker negligently. ‘I’ve always wanted to live in a haunted house.’

I saw Aristide changing his mind about the ghosts, so I spoke hastily to break up this buffoonery. I had no objection to Aristide thinking he was dealing with a fool, but no one could be as big a damn’ fool as Walker was acting and I was afraid that Aristide might smell a rat.

I said, ‘Well, I suggest we go back to Mr Theotopopoulis’s office and settle the details. It’s getting late and I have to do some work on the boat.’

To Coertze, I said, ‘There’s no need for you to come. We’ll meet you for lunch at the restaurant we went to last night.’

I had watched his blood pressure rising at Walker’s fooleries and I wanted him out of the way in case he exploded. It’s damned difficult working with people, especially antagonistic types like Walker and Coertze.

We went back to Aristide’s office and it all went off very well. He stung us for the house, but I had no objection to that. No one who splashed money around like Walker could be anything but an honest man.

Then Walker said something that made my blood run cold, although afterwards, on mature consideration, I conceded that he had built up his character so that he could get away with it. He said to Aristide, ‘Tangier is a funny place. I hear you’ve got bars of gold scattered about all over the place.’

Aristide smiled genially. He had cut his pound of flesh and was willing to waste a few minutes in small talk; besides, this idiot Walker was going to live in Tangier – he could be milked a lot more. ‘Not scattered, exactly,’ he said. ‘We keep our gold in very big safes.’

‘Um,’ said Walker. ‘You know, it’s a funny thing, but I’ve lived all my life in South Africa where they mine scads of gold, and I’ve never seen any. You can’t buy gold in South Africa, you know.’

Aristide raised his eyebrows as though this was unheard of.

‘I’ve heard you can buy gold here by the pound like buying butter over the counter. It might be fun to buy some gold. Imagine me with all my money and I’ve never seen a gold bar,’ he said pathetically. ‘I’ve got a lot of money, you know. Most people say I’ve got too much.’

Aristide frowned. This was heresy; in his book no one could have too much money. He became very earnest. ‘Mr Walker, the best thing anyone can do in these troubled times is to buy gold. It’s the only safe investment. The value of gold does not fluctuate like these unstable paper currencies.’ With a flick of his fingers he stripped the pretentions from the U.S. dollar and the pound sterling. ‘Gold does not rust or waste away; it is always there, always safe and valuable. If you want to invest, I am always willing to sell gold.’

‘Really?’ said Walker. ‘You sell it, just like that?’

Aristide smiled. ‘Just like that.’ His smile turned to a frown. ‘But if you want to buy, you must buy now, because the open market in Tangier is closing very soon.’ He shrugged. ‘You say that you have never seen a bar of gold. I’ll show you bars of gold – many of them.’ He turned to me. ‘You too, Mr Halloran, if you wish,’ he said off-handedly. ‘Please come this way.’

He led us down into the bowels of the building, through grilled doors and to the front of an immense vault. On the way down, two broad-shouldered bodyguards joined us. Aristide opened the vault door, which was over two feet thick, and led us inside.

There was a lot of gold in that vault. Not four tons of it, but still a lot of gold. It was stacked up neatly in piles of bars of various sizes; it was boxed in the form of coins; it was a hell of a lot of gold.

Aristide indicated a bar. ‘This is a Tangier standard bar. It weighs 400 ounces troy – about twenty-seven and a half pounds avoirdupois. It is worth over five thousand pounds sterling.’ He picked up a smaller bar. ‘This is a more convenient size. It weighs a kilo – just over thirty-two ounces – and is worth about four hundred pounds.’

He opened a box and let coins run lovingly through his pudgy fingers. ‘Here are British sovereigns – and here are American double eagles. These are French napoleons and these are Austrian ducats.’ He looked at Walker with a gleam in his eye and said, ‘You see what I mean when I say that gold never loses its value?’

He opened another box. ‘Not all gold coins are old. These are made privately by a bank in Tangier – not mine. This is the Tangier Hercules. It contains exactly one ounce of fine gold.’

He held the coin out on the palm of his hand and let Walker take it. Walker turned it in his fingers and then passed it to me reluctantly.

It was then that this whole crazy, mad expedition ceased to be just an adventure to me. The heavy, fatty feel of that gold coin turned something in my guts and I understood what people meant when they referred to gold lust. I understood why prospectors would slave in arid, barren lands looking for gold. It is not just the value of the gold that they seek – it is gold itself. This massive, yellow metal can do something to a man; it is as much a drug as any hell-born narcotic.

My hand was trembling slightly when I handed the coin back to Aristide.

He said, tossing it, ‘This costs more than bullion of course, because the cost of coining must be added. But it is in a much more convenient form.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘We sell a lot to political refugees and South American dictators.’

When we were back in his office, Walker said, ‘You have a lot of gold down there. Where do you get it from?’

Aristide shrugged. ‘I buy gold and I sell gold. I make my profit on both transactions. I buy it where I can; I sell it when I can. It is not illegal in Tangier.’

‘But it must come from somewhere,’ persisted Walker. ‘I mean, suppose one of the pirate chaps, I mean one of the smuggling fellows, came to you with half a ton of gold. Would you buy it?’

‘If the price was right,’ said Aristide promptly.

‘Without knowing where it came from?’

A faint smile came to Aristide’s eyes. ‘There is nothing more anonymous than gold,’ he said. ‘Gold has no master; it belongs only temporarily to the man who touches it. Yes I would buy the gold.’

‘Even when the gold market closes?’

Aristide merely shrugged and smiled.

‘Well, now, think of that,’ said Walker fatuously. ‘You must get a lot of gold coming into Tangier.’

‘I will sell you gold when you want it, Mr Walker,’ said Aristide, seating himself behind his desk. ‘Now, I assume that, since you are coming to live in Tangier, you will want to open a bank account.’ He was suddenly all businessman.

Walker glanced at me, then said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I’m on this cruise with Hal here, and I’m taking care of my needs with a letter of credit that was issued in South Africa. I’ve already cashed in a lot of boodle at one of the other banks here – I didn’t realize I would have the good fortune to meet a friendly banker.’ He grinned engagingly.

‘We’re not going to stay here long,’ he said. ‘We’ll be pushing off in a couple of weeks, but I’ll be back; yes, I’ll be back. When will we be back, Hal?’

I said, ‘We’re going to Spain and Italy, and then to Greece. I don’t think we’ll push on as far as Turkey or the Lebanon, although we might. I should say we’ll be back here in three or four months.’

‘You see,’ said Walker. ‘That’s when I’ll move into the house properly. Casa Saeta,’ he said dreamily. ‘That sounds fine.’

We took our leave of Aristide, and when we got outside, I said furiously, ‘What made you do a stupid thing like that?’

‘Like what?’ asked Walker innocently.

‘You know very well what I mean. We agreed not to mention gold.’

‘We’ve got to say something about it sometime,’ he said. ‘We can’t sell gold to anyone with saying anything about it. I just thought it was a good time to find out something about it, to test Aristide’s attitude towards gold of unknown origin. I thought I worked up to it rather well.’

I had to give him credit for that. I said, ‘And another thing: let’s have less of the silly ass routine. You nearly gave me a fit when you started to pull Aristide’s leg about the ghosts. There are more important things at stake than fooling about.’

‘I know,’ he said soberly. ‘I realized that when we were in the vault. I had forgotten what gold felt like.’

So it had hit him too. I calmed down and said, ‘O.K. But don’t forget it. And for God’s sake don’t act the fool in front of Coertze. I have enough trouble keeping the peace as it is.’

IV

When we met Coertze for lunch, I said, ‘We saw a hell of a lot of gold this morning.’

He straightened. ‘Where?’

Walker said, ‘In a bloody big safe at Aristide’s bank.’

‘I thought …’ Coertze began.

‘No harm done,’ I said. ‘It went very smoothly. We saw a lot of ingots. There are two standard sizes readily acceptable here in Tangier. One is 400 ounces, the other is one kilogram.’ Coertze frowned, and I said, ‘That’s nearly two and a quarter pounds.’

He grunted and drank his Scotch. I said, ‘Walker and I have been discussing this and we think that Aristide will buy the gold under the counter, even after the gold market closes – but we’ll probably have to approach him before that so he can make his arrangements.’

‘I think we should do it now,’ said Walker.

I shook my head. ‘No! Aristide is a friend of Metcalfe; that’s too much like asking a tiger to come to dinner. We mustn’t tell him until we come back and then we’ll have to take the chance.’

Walker was silent so I went on. ‘The point is that it’s unlikely that Aristide will relish taking a four-ton lump of gold into stock, so we’ll probably have to melt the keel down into ingots, anyway. In all probability Aristide will fiddle his stock sheets somehow so that he can account for the four extra tons, but it means that he must be told before the gold market closes – which means that we must be back before April 19.’

Coertze said, ‘Not much time.’

I said, ‘I’ve worked out all the probable times for each stage of the operation and we have a month in hand. But there’ll be snags and we’ll need all of that. But that isn’t what’s worrying me now – I’ve got other things on my mind.’

‘Such as?’

‘Look. When – and if – we get the gold here and we start to melt it down, we’re going to have a hell of a lot of ingots lying around. I don’t want to dribble them to Aristide as they’re cast – that’s bad policy, too much chance of an outsider catching on. I want to let him have the lot all at once, get paid with a cast-iron draft on a Swiss bank and then clear out. But it does mean that we’ll have a hell of a lot of ingots lying around loose in the Casa Saeta and that’s bad.’

I sighed. ‘Where do we keep the damn’ things? Stacked up in the living room? And how many of these goddammed ingots will there be?’ I added irritably.

Walker looked at Coertze. ‘You said there was about four tons, didn’t you?’

‘Ja,’ said Coertze. ‘But that was only an estimate.’

I said, ‘You’ve worked with bullion since. How close is that estimate?’

He thought about it, sending his mind back fifteen years and comparing what he saw then with what he had learned since. The human mind is a marvellous machine. At last he said slowly, ‘I think it is a close estimate, very close.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘So it’s four tons. That’s 9000 pounds as near as dammit. There’s sixteen ounces to the pound and …’

‘No,’ said Coertze suddenly. ‘Gold is measured in troy ounces. There’s 14.58333 recurring ounces troy to the English pound.’

He had the figures so pat that I was certain he knew what he was talking about. After all, it was his job. I said, ‘Let’s not go into complications; let’s call it fourteen and a half ounces to the pound. That’s good enough.’

I started to calculate, making many mistakes although it should have been a simple calculation. The mathematics of yacht design don’t have the same emotional impact.

At last I had it. ‘As near as I can make out, in round figures we’ll have about 330 bars of 400 ounces each.’

‘What’s that at five thousand quid a bar?’ asked Walker.

I scribbled on the paper again and looked at the answer unbelievingly. It was the first time I had worked this out in terms of money. Up to this time I had been too busy to think about it, and four tons of gold seemed to be a good round figure to hold in one’s mind.

I said hesitantly, ‘I work it out as £1,650,000!’

Coertze nodded in satisfaction. ‘That is the figure I got. And there’s the jewels on top of that.’

I had my own ideas about the jewels. Aristide had been right when he said that gold is anonymous – but jewels aren’t. Jewels have a personality of their own and can be traced too easily. If I had my way the jewels would stay in the tunnel. But that I had to lead up to easily.

Walker said, ‘That’s over half a million each.’

I said, ‘Call it half a million each, net. The odd £150,000 can go to expenses. By the time this is through we’ll have spent more than we’ve put in the kitty.’

I returned to the point at issue. ‘All right, we have 330 bars of gold. What do we do with them?’

Walker said meditatively, ‘There’s a cellar in the house.’

‘That’s a start, anyway.’

He said, ‘You know the fantastic thought I had in that vault? I thought it looked just like a builder’s yard with a lot of bricks lying all over the place. Why couldn’t we build a wall in the cellar?’

I looked at Coertze and he looked at me, and we both burst out laughing.

‘What’s funny about that?’ asked Walker plaintively.

‘Nothing,’ I said, still spluttering. ‘It’s perfect, that’s all.’

Coertze said, grinning, ‘I’m a fine bricklayer when the rates of pay are good.’

A voice started to bleat in my ear and I turned round. It was an itinerant lottery-ticket seller poking a sheaf of tickets at me. I waved him away, but Coertze, in a good mood for once, said tolerantly, ‘No, man, let’s have one. No harm in taking out insurance.’

The ticket was a hundred pesetas, so we scraped it together from the change lying on the table, and then we went back to the flat.

V

The next day we started work in earnest. I stayed with Sanford, getting her ready for sea by dint of much bullying of the chandler and the sailmaker. By the end of the week I was satisfied that she was ready and was able to leave for anywhere in the world.

Coertze and Walker worked up at the house, rehabilitating the boat-shed and the slip and supervising the local labour they had found through Metcalfe’s kind offices. Coertze said, ‘You have no trouble if you treat these wogs just the same as the Kaffirs back home.’ I wasn’t so sure of that, but everything seemed to go all right.

By the time Metcalfe came back from whatever nefarious enterprise he had been on, we were pretty well finished and ready to leave. I said nothing to Metcalfe about this, feeling that the less he knew, the better.

When I’d got Sanford shipshape I went over to Metcalfe’s Fairmile to pay my promised visit. A fair-haired man who was flushing the decks with a hose said, ‘I guess you must be Halloran. I’m Krupke, Metcalfe’s side-kick.’

‘Is he around?’

Krupke shook his head. ‘He went off with that friend of yours – Walker. He said I was to show you around if you came aboard.’

I said, ‘You’re an American, aren’t you?’

He grinned. ‘Yep, I’m from Milwaukee. Didn’t fancy going back to the States after the war, so I stayed on here. Hell, I was only a kid then, not more’n twenty, so I thought that since Uncle Sam paid my fare out here, I might as well take advantage of it.’

I thought he was probably a deserter and couldn’t go back to the States, although there might have been an amnesty for deserters. I didn’t know how the civil statute limitations worked in military law. I didn’t say anything about that, though – renegades are touchy and sometimes unaccountably patriotic.

The wheelhouse – which Krupke called the ‘deckhouse’ – was well fitted. There were two echo sounders, one with a recording pen. Engine control was directly under the helmsman’s hand and the windows in front were fitted with Kent screens for bad weather. There was a big marine radio transceiver – and there was radar.

I put my hand on the radar display and said, ‘What range does this have?’

‘It’s got several ranges,’ he said. ‘You pick the one that’s best at the time. I’ll show you.’

He snapped a switch and turned a knob. After a few seconds the screen lit up and I could see a tiny plan of the harbour as the scanner revolved. Even Sanford was visible as one splotch among many.

‘That’s for close work,’ said Krupke, and turned a knob with a click. ‘This is maximum range – fifteen miles, but you won’t see much while we’re in harbour.’

The landward side of the screen was now too cluttered to be of any use, but to seaward, I saw a tiny speck. ‘What’s that?’

He looked at his watch. ‘That must be the ferry from Gibraltar. It’s ten miles away – you can see the mileage marked on the grid.’

I said, ‘This gadget must be handy for making a landfall at night.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘All you have to do is to match the screen profile with the chart. Doesn’t matter if there’s no moon or if there’s a fog.’

I wished I could have a set like that on Sanford but it’s difficult installing radar on a sailing vessel – there are too many lines to catch in the antenna. Anyway, we wouldn’t have the power to run it.

I looked around the wheelhouse. ‘With all this gear you can’t need much of a crew, even though she is a biggish boat,’ I said. ‘What crew do you have?’

‘Me and Metcalfe can run it ourselves,’ said Krupke. ‘Our trips aren’t too long. But usually we have another man with us – that Moroccan you’ve got on Sanford.’

I stayed aboard the Fairmile for a long time, but Metcalfe and Walker didn’t show up, so after a while I went back to Metcalfe’s flat. Coertze was already there, but there was no sign of the others, so we went to have dinner as a twosome.

Over dinner I said, ‘We ought to be getting away soon. Everything is fixed at this end and we’d be wasting time if we stayed any longer.’

‘Ja,’ Coertze agreed. ‘This isn’t a pleasure trip.’

We went back to the flat and found it empty, apart from the servants. Coertze went to his room and I read desultorily from a magazine. About ten o’clock I heard someone coming in and I looked up.

I was immediately boiling with fury.

Walker was drunk – blind, paralytic drunk. He was clutching on to Metcalfe and sagging at the knees, his face slack and his bleared eyes wavering unseeingly about him. Metcalfe was a little under the weather himself, but not too drunk. He gave Walker a hitch to prevent him from falling, and said cheerily, ‘We went to have a night on the town, but friend Walker couldn’t take it. You’d better help me dump him on his bed.’

I helped Metcalfe support Walker to his room and we laid him on his bed. Coertze, dozing in the other bed, woke up and said, ‘What’s happening?’

Metcalfe said, ‘Your pal’s got no head for liquor. He passed out on me.’

Coertze looked at Walker, then at me, his black eyebrows drawing angrily over his eyes. I made a sign for him to keep quiet.

Metcalfe stretched and said, ‘Well, I think I’ll turn in myself.’ He looked at Walker and there was an edge of contempt to his voice. ‘He’ll be all right in the morning, barring a hell of a hangover. I’ll tell Ismail to make him a prairie oyster for breakfast.’ He turned to Coertze. ‘What do you call it in Afrikaans?’

‘’n Regmaker,’ Coertze growled.

Metcalfe laughed. ‘That’s right. A Regmaker. That was the first word I ever learned in Afrikaans.’ He went to the door. ‘See you in the morning,’ he said, and was gone.

I closed the door. ‘The damn fool,’ I said feelingly.

Coertze got out of bed and grabbed hold of Walker, shaking him. ‘Walker,’ he shouted. ‘Did you tell him anything?’

Walker’s head flapped sideways and he began to snore. I took Coertze’s shoulder. ‘Be quiet; you’ll tell the whole household,’ I said. ‘It’s no use, anyway; you won’t get any sense out of him tonight – he’s unconscious. Leave it till morning.’

Coertze shook off my hand and turned. He had a black anger in him. ‘I told you,’ he said in a suppressed voice. ‘I told you he was no good. Who knows what the dronkie said?’

I took off Walker’s shoes and covered him with a blanket. ‘We’ll find out tomorrow,’ I said. ‘And I mean we. Don’t you go off pop at him, you’ll scare the liver out of him and he’ll close up tight.’

‘I’ll donner him up,’ said Coertze grimly. ‘That’s God’s truth.’

‘You’ll leave him alone,’ I said sharply. ‘We may be in enough trouble without fighting among ourselves. We need Walker.’

Coertze snorted.

I said, ‘Walker has done a job here that neither of us could have done. He has a talent for acting the damn’ fool in a believable manner.’ I looked down at him, then said bitterly, ‘It’s a pity he can be a damn’ fool without the acting. Anyway, we may need him again, so you leave him alone. We’ll both talk to him tomorrow, together.’

Coertze grudgingly gave his assent and I went to my room.

VI

I was up early next morning, but not as early as Metcalfe, who had already gone out. I went in to see Walker and found that Coertze was up and half dressed. Walker lay on his bed, snoring. I took a glass of water and poured it over his head. I was in no mood to consider Walker’s feelings.

He stirred and moaned and opened his eyes just as Coertze seized the carafe and emptied it over him. He sat up spluttering, then sagged back. ‘My head,’ he said, and put his hands to his temples.

Coertze seized him by the front of the shirt. ‘Jou gogga-mannetjie, what did you say to Metcalfe?’ He shook Walker violently. ‘What did you tell him?’

This treatment was doing Walker’s aching head no good, so I said, ‘Take it easy; I’ll talk to him.’

Coertze let go and I stood over Walker, waiting until he had recovered his wits. Then I said, ‘You got drunk last night, you stupid fool, and of all people to get drunk with you had to pick Metcalfe.’

Walker looked up, the pain of his monumental hangover filming his eyes. I sat on the bed. ‘Now, did you tell him anything about the gold?’

‘No,’ cried Walker. ‘No, I didn’t.’

I said evenly, ‘Don’t tell us any lies, because if we catch you out in a lie you know what we’ll do to you.’

He shot a frightened glance at Coertze who was glowering in the background and closed his eyes. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said. ‘It’s blank; I can’t remember.’

That was better; he was probably telling the truth now. The total blackout is a symptom of alcoholism. I thought about it for a while and came to the conclusion that even if Walker hadn’t told Metcalfe about the gold he had probably blown his cover sky high. Under the influence, the character he had built up would have been irrevocably smashed and he would have reverted to his alcoholic and unpleasant self.

Metcalfe was sharp – he wouldn’t have survived in his nefarious career otherwise. The change in character of Walker would be the tip-off that there was something odd about old pal Halloran and his crew. That would be enough for Metcalfe to check further. We would have to work on the assumption that Metcalfe would consider us worthy of further study.

I said, ‘What’s done is done,’ and looked at Walker. His eyes were downcast and his fingers were nervously scrabbling at the edge of the blanket.

‘Look at me,’ I said, and his eyes rose slowly to meet mine. ‘I think you’re telling the truth,’ I said coldly. ‘But if I catch you in a lie it will be the worse for you. And if you take another drink on this trip I’ll break your back. You think you’re scared of Coertze here; but you’ll have more reason to be scared of me if you take just one more drink. Understand?’

He nodded.

‘I don’t care how much you drink once this thing is finished. You’ll probably drink yourself to death in six months, but that’s got nothing to do with me. But just one more drink on this trip and you’re a dead man.’

He flinched and I turned to Coertze. ‘Now, leave him alone; he’ll behave.’

Coertze said, ‘Just let me get at him. Just once,’ he pleaded.

‘It’s finished,’ I said impatiently. ‘We have to decide what to do next. Get your things packed – we’re moving out.’

‘What about Metcalfe?’

‘I’ll tell him we want to see some festival in Spain.’

‘What festival?’

‘How do I know which festival? There’s always some goddam festival going on in Spain; I’ll pick the most convenient. We sail this afternoon as soon as I can get harbour clearance.’

‘I still think I could do something about Metcalfe,’ said Coertze meditatively.

‘Leave Metcalfe alone,’ I said. ‘He may not suspect anything at all, but if you try to beat him up then he’ll know there’s something fishy. We don’t want to tangle with Metcalfe if we can avoid it. He’s bigger than we are.’

We packed our bags and went to the boat, Walker very quiet and trailing in the rear. Moulay Idriss was squatting on the foredeck smoking a kif cigarette. We went below and started to stow our gear.

I had just pulled out the chart which covered the Straits of Gibraltar in preparation for planning our course when Coertze came aft and said in a low voice, ‘I think someone’s been searching the boat.’

‘What the hell!’ I said. Metcalfe had left very early that morning – he would have had plenty of time to give Sanford a good going over. ‘The furnaces?’ I said.

We had disguised the three furnaces as well as we could. The carbon clamps had been taken off and scattered in tool boxes in the forecastle where they would look just like any other junk that accumulates over a period. The main boxes with the heavy transformers were distributed about Sanford, one cemented under the cabin sole, another disguised as a receiving set complete with the appropriate knobs and dials, and the third built into a marine battery in the engine space.

It is doubtful if Metcalfe would know what they were if he saw them, but the fact that they were masquerading in innocence would make him wonder a lot. It would be a certain clue that we were up to no good.

A check over the boat showed that everything was in order. Apart from the furnaces, and the spare graphite mats which lined the interior of the double coach roof, there was nothing on board to distinguish us from any other cruising yacht in these waters.

I said, ‘Perhaps the Moroccan has been doing some exploring on his own account.’

Coertze swore. ‘If he’s been poking his nose in where it isn’t wanted I’ll throw him overboard.’

I went on deck. The Moroccan was still squatting on the foredeck. I said interrogatively, ‘Mr Metcalfe?’

He stretched an arm and pointed across the harbour to the Fairmile. I put the dinghy over the side and rowed across. Metcalfe hailed me as I got close. ‘How’s Walker?’

‘Feeling sorry for himself,’ I said, as Metcalfe took the painter. ‘A pity it happened; he’ll probably be as sick as a dog when we get under way.’

‘You leaving?’ said Metcalfe in surprise.

I said, ‘I didn’t get the chance to tell you last night. We’re heading for Spain.’ I gave him my prepared story, then said, ‘I don’t know if we’ll be coming back this way. Walker will, of course, but Coertze and I might go back to South Africa by way of the east coast.’ I thought that there was nothing like confusing the issue.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Metcalfe. ‘I was going to ask you to design a dinghy for me while you were here.’

‘Tell you what,’ I said. ‘I’ll write to Cape Town and get the yard to send you a Falcon kit. It’s on me; all you’ve got to do is pay for the shipping.’

‘Well, thanks,’ said Metcalfe. ‘That’s decent of you.’ He seemed pleased.

‘It’s as much as I can do after all the hospitality we’ve had here,’ I said.

He stuck out his hand and I took it. ‘Best of luck, Hal, in all your travels. I hope your project is successful.’

I was incautious. ‘What project?’ I asked sharply.

‘Why, the boatyard you’re planning. You don’t have anything else in mind, do you?’

I cursed myself and smiled weakly. ‘No, of course not.’ I turned to get into the dinghy, and Metcalfe said quietly, ‘You’re not cut out for my kind of life, Hal. Don’t try it if you’re thinking of it. It’s tough and there’s too much competition.’

As I rowed back to Sanford I wondered if that was a veiled warning that he was on to our scheme. Metcalfe was an honest man by his rather dim lights and wouldn’t willingly cut down a friend. But he would if the friend didn’t get out of his way.

At three that afternoon we cleared Tangier harbour and I set course for Gibraltar. We were on our way, but we had left too many mistakes behind us.

FOUR: FRANCESCA

When we were beating through the Straits Coertze suggested that we should head straight for Italy. I said, ‘Look, we’ve told Metcalfe we were going to Spain, so that’s where we are going.’

He thumped the cockpit coaming. ‘But we haven’t time.’

‘We’ve got to make time,’ I said doggedly. ‘I told you there would be snags which would use up our month’s grace; this is one of the snags. We’re going to take a month getting to Italy instead of a fortnight, which cuts us down to two weeks in hand – but we’ve got to do it. Maybe we can make it up in Italy.’

He grumbled at that, saying I was unreasonably frightened of Metcalfe. I said, ‘You’ve waited fifteen years for this opportunity – you can afford to wait another fortnight. We’re going to Gibraltar, to Malaga and Barcelona; we’re going to the Riviera, to Nice and to Monte Carlo; after that, Italy. We’re going to watch bullfights and gamble in casinos and do everything that every other tourist does. We’re going to be the most innocent people that Metcalfe ever laid eyes on.’

‘But Metcalfe’s back in Tangier.’

I smiled thinly. ‘He’s probably in Spain right now. He could have passed us any time in that Fairmile of his. He could even have flown or taken the ferry to Gibraltar, dammit. I think he’ll keep an eye on us if he reckons we’re up to something.’

‘Damn Walker,’ burst out Coertze.

‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘But that’s water under the bridge.’

I was adding up the mistakes we had made. Number one was Walker’s incautious statement to Aristide that he had drawn money on a letter of credit. That was a lie – a needless one, too – I had the letter of credit and Walker could have said so. Keeping control of the finances of the expedition was the only way I had of making sure that Coertze didn’t get the jump on me. I still didn’t know the location of the gold.

Now, Aristide would naturally make inquiries among his fellow bankers about the financial status of this rich Mr Walker. He would get the information quite easily – all bankers hang together and the hell with ethics – and he would find that Mr Walker had not drawn any money from any bank in Tangier. He might not be too perturbed about that, but he might ask Metcalfe about it, and Metcalfe would find it another item to add to his list of suspicions. He would pump Aristide to find that Walker and Halloran had taken an undue interest in the flow of gold in and out of Tangier.

He would go out to the Casa Saeta and sniff around. He would find nothing there to conflict with Walker’s cover story, but it would be precisely the cover story that he suspected most – Walker having blown hell out of it when he was drunk. The mention of gold would set his ears a-prick – a man like Metcalfe would react very quickly to the smell of gold – and if I were Metcalfe I would take great interest in the movements of the cruising yacht, Sanford.

All this was predicated on the fact that Walker had not told about the gold when he was drunk. If he had, then the balloon had really gone up.

We put into Gibraltar and spent a day rubber-necking at the Barbary apes and looking at the man-made caves. Then we sailed for Malaga and heard a damn’ sight more flamenco music than we could stomach.

It was on the second day in Malaga, when Walker and I went out to the gipsy caves like good tourists, that I realized we were being watched. We were bumping into a sallow young man with a moustache everywhere we went. He sat far removed when we ate in a sidewalk café, he appeared in the yacht basin, he applauded the flamenco dancers when we went to see the gipsies.

I said nothing to the others, but it only went to confirm my estimate of Metcalfe’s abilities. He would have friends in every Mediterranean port, and it wouldn’t be difficult to pass the word around. A yacht’s movements are not easy to disguise, and he was probably sitting in Tangier like a spider in the centre of a web, receiving phone calls from wherever we went. He would know all our movements and our expenditure to the last peseta.

The only thing to do was to act the innocent and hope that we could wear him out, string him on long enough so that he would conclude that his suspicions were unfounded, after all.

In Barcelona we went to a bullfight – the three of us. That was after I had had a little fun in trying to spot Metcalfe’s man. He wasn’t difficult to find if you were looking for him and turned out to be a tall, lantern-jawed cut-throat who carried out the same routine as the man in Malaga.

I was reasonably sure that if anyone was going to burgle Sanford it would be one of Metcalfe’s friends. The word would have been passed round that we were his meat and so the lesser fry would leave us alone. I hired a watchman who looked as though he would sell his grandmother for ten pesetas and we all went to the bullfight.

Before I left I was careful to set the stage. I had made a lot of phoney notes concerning the costs of setting up a boatyard in Spain, together with a lot of technical stuff I had picked up. I also left a rough itinerary of our future movements as far as Greece and a list of addresses of people to be visited. I then measured to a millimetre the position in which each paper was lying.

When we got back the watchman said that all had been quiet, so I paid him off and he went away. But the papers had been moved, so the locked cabin had been successfully burgled in spite of – or probably because of – the watchman. I wondered how much he had been paid – and I wondered if my plant had satisfied Metcalfe that we were wandering innocents.

From Barcelona we struck out across the Gulf of Lions to Nice, giving Majorca a miss because time was getting short. Again I went about my business of visiting boatyards and again I spotted the watcher, but this time I made a mistake.

I told Coertze.

He boiled over. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ he demanded.

‘What was the point?’ I said. ‘We can’t do anything about it.’

‘Can’t we?’ he said darkly, and fell into silence.

Nothing much happened in Nice. It’s a pleasant place if you haven’t urgent business elsewhere, but we stayed just long enough to make our cover real and then we sailed the few miles to Monte Carlo, which again is a nice town for the visiting tourist.

In Monte Carlo I stayed aboard Sanford in the evening while Coertze and Walker went ashore. There was not much to do in the way of maintenance beyond the usual housekeeping jobs, so I relaxed in the cockpit enjoying the quietness of the night. The others stayed out late and when they came back Walker was unusually silent.

Coertze had gone below when I said to Walker, ‘What’s the matter? The cat got your tongue? How did you like Monte?’

He jerked his head at the companionway. ‘He clobbered someone.’

I went cold. ‘Who?’

‘A chap was following us all afternoon. Coertze spotted him and said that he’d deal with it. We let this bloke follow us until it got dark and then Coertze led him into an alley and beat him up.’

I got up and went below. Coertze was in the galley bathing swollen knuckles. I said, ‘So you’ve done it at last. You must use your goddamn fists and not your brains. You’re worse than Walker; at least you can say he’s a sick man.’

Coertze looked at me in surprise. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I hear you hit someone.’

Coertze looked at his fist and grinned at me. ‘He’ll never bother us again – he’ll be in hospital for a month.’ He said this with pride, for God’s sake.

‘You’ve blown it,’ I said tightly. ‘I’d just about got Metcalfe to the point where he must have been convinced that we were O.K. Now you’ve beaten up one of his men, so he knows we are on to him, and he knows we must be hiding something. You might just as well have phoned him up and said, “We’ve got some gold coming up; come and take it from us.” You’re a damn’ fool.’

His face darkened. ‘No one can talk to me like that.’ He raised his fist.

‘I am talking to you like that,’ I said. ‘And if you lay one finger on me you can kiss the gold goodbye. You can’t sail this or any other boat worth a damn, and Walker won’t help you – he hates your guts. You hit me and you’re out for good. I know you could probably break me in two and you’re welcome to try, but it’ll cost you a cool half-million for the pleasure.’

This showdown had been coming for a long time.

He hesitated uncertainly. ‘You damned Englishman,’ he said.

‘Go ahead – hit me,’ I said, and got ready to take his rush.

He relaxed and pointed his finger at me threateningly. ‘You wait until this is over,’ he said. ‘Just you wait – we’ll sort it out then.’

‘All right, we’ll sort it out then,’ I said. ‘But until then I’m the boss. Understand?’

His face darkened again. ‘No one bosses me,’ he blustered.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Then we start going back the way we came – Nice, Barcelona, Malaga, Gibraltar. Walker will help me sail the boat, but we won’t do a damn’ thing for you.’ I turned away.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Coertze and I turned back. ‘All right,’ he said hoarsely. ‘But wait till this is over; by God, you’ll have to watch yourself then.’

‘But until then I’m the boss?’

‘Yes,’ he said sullenly.

‘And you take my orders?’

His fists tightened but he held himself in. ‘Yes.’

‘Then here’s your first one. You don’t do a damn’ thing without consulting me first.’ I turned to go up the companionway, got half-way up, then had a sudden thought and went below again.

I said, ‘And there’s another thing I want to tell you. Don’t get any ideas about double-crossing me or Walker, because if you do, you’ll not only have me to contend with but Metcalfe as well. I’d be glad to give Metcalfe a share if you did that. And there wouldn’t be a place in the world you could hide if Metcalfe got after you.’

He stared at me sullenly and turned away. I went on deck.

Walker was sitting in the cockpit. ‘Did you hear that?’ I said.

He nodded. ‘I’m glad you included me on your side.’

I was exasperated and shaking with strain. It was no fun tangling with a bear like Coertze – he was all reflex and no brain and he could have broken me as anyone else would break a matchstick. He was a man who had to be governed like a fractious horse.

I said, ‘Dammit, I don’t know why I came on this crazy trip with a dronkie like you and a maniac like Coertze. First you put Metcalfe on our tracks and then he clinches it.’

Walker said softly, ‘I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t think I told Metcalfe anything.’

‘I don’t think so either, but you gave the game away somehow.’ I stretched, easing my muscles. ‘It doesn’t matter; we either get the gold or we don’t. That’s all there is to it.’

Walker said, ‘You can rely on me to help you against Coertze, if it comes to that.’

I smiled. Relying on Walker was like relying on a fractured mast in a hurricane – the hurricane being Coertze. He affected people like that; he had a blind, elemental force about him. An overpowering man, altogether.

I patted Walker on the knee. ‘O.K. You’re my man from now on.’ I let the hardness come into my voice because Walker had to be kept to heel, too. ‘But keep off the booze. I meant what I said in Tangier.’

II

The next stop was Rapallo, which was first choice as our Italian base, provided we could get fixed up with a suitable place to do our work. We motored into the yacht basin and damned if I didn’t see a Falcon drawn up on the hard. I knew the firm had sold a few kits in Europe but I didn’t expect to see any of them.

As we had come from a foreign port there were the usual Customs and medical queries – a mere formality. Yachtsmen are very well treated in the Mediterranean. I chatted with the Customs men, discussing yachts and yachting and said that I was a boat designer and builder myself. I gave the standard talk and said that I was thinking of opening a yard in the Mediterranean, pointing to the Falcon as a sample of my work.

They were impressed at that. Anyone whose product was used six thousand miles from where it was made must obviously be someone to be reckoned with. They didn’t know much about local conditions but they gave me some useful addresses.

I was well satisfied. If I had to impress people with my integrity I might as well start with the Customs. That stray Falcon came in very handy.

I went ashore, leaving Walker and Coertze aboard by instruction. There was no real need for such an order but I wanted to test my new-found ascendancy over them. Coertze had returned to his old self, more or less. His mood was equable and he cracked as few jokes as usual – the point being that he cracked jokes at all. But I had no illusions that he had forgotten anything. The Afrikaner is notorious for his long memory for wrongs.

I went up to the Yacht Club and presented my credentials. One of the most pleasant things about yachting is that you are sure of a welcome in any part of the world. There is a camaraderie among yachtsmen which is very heartening in a world which is on the point of blowing itself to hell. This international brotherhood, together with the fact that the law of the sea doesn’t demand a licence to operate a small boat, makes deep-sea cruising one of the most enjoyable experiences in the world.

I chatted with the secretary of the club, who spoke very good English, and talked largely of my plans. He took me into the bar and bought me a drink and introduced me to several of the members and visiting yachtsmen. After we had chatted at some length about the voyage from South Africa I got down to finding out about the local boatyards.

On the way round the Mediterranean I had come to the conclusion that my cover story need not be a cover at all – it could be the real thing. I had become phlegmatic about the gold, especially after the antics of Walker and Coertze, and my interest in the commercial possibilities of the Mediterranean was deepening. I was nervous and uncertain as to whether the three of us could carry the main job through – the three-way pull of character was causing tensions which threatened to tear the entire fabric of the plan apart. So I was hedging my bet and looking into the business possibilities seriously.

The lust for gold, which I had felt briefly in Aristide’s vault, was still there but lying dormant. Still, it was enough to drive me on, enough to make me out-face Coertze and Walker and to try to circumvent Metcalfe.

But if I had known then that other interests were about to enter the field of battle I might have given up there and then, in the bar of the Rapallo Yacht Club.

During the afternoon I visited several boatyards. This was not all business prospecting – Sanford had come a long way and her bottom was foul. She needed taking out of the water and scraping, which would give her another halfknot. We had agreed that this would be the ostensible reason for pulling her out of the water, and a casual word dropped in the Yacht Club that I had found something wrong with her keel bolts would be enough excuse for making the exchange of keels. Therefore I was looking for a quiet place where we could cast our golden keel.

I was perturbed when I suddenly discovered that I could not spot Metcalfe’s man. If he had pulled off his watchdogs because he thought we were innocent, then that was all right. But it seemed highly unlikely now that Coertze had given the game away. What seemed very likely was that something was being cooked up – and whatever was going to happen would certainly involve Sanford. I dropped my explorations and hurried back to the yacht basin.

‘I wasn’t followed,’ I said to Coertze.

‘I told you my way was best,’ he said. ‘They’ve been frightened off.’

‘If you think that Metcalfe would be frightened off because a hired wharf rat was beaten up, you’d better think again,’ I said. I looked hard at him. ‘If you go ashore to stretch your legs can I trust you not to hammer anyone you might think is looking at you cross-eyed?’

He tried to hold my eye and then his gaze wavered. ‘O.K.,’ he said sullenly. ‘I’ll be careful. But you’ll find out that my way is best in the end.’

‘All right; you and Walker can go ashore to get a bite to eat.’ I turned to Walker. ‘No booze, remember. Not even wine.’

Coertze said, ‘I’ll see to that. We’ll stick close together, won’t we?’ He clapped Walker on the back.

They climbed on to the dockside and I watched them go, Coertze striding out and Walker hurrying to keep pace. I wondered what Metcalfe was up to, but finding that profitless, I went below to review our needs for the next few days. I stretched on the port settee and must have been very tired, because when I woke it was dark except for the lights of the town glimmering through the ports.

And it was a movement on deck that had wakened me!

I lay there for a moment until I heard another sound, then I rose cautiously, went to the companionway very quietly and raised my head to deck level. ‘Coertze?’ I called softly.

A voice said, ‘Is that Signor Halloran?’ The voice was very feminine.

I came up to the cockpit fast. ‘Who is that?’

A dark shape moved towards me. ‘Mr Halloran, I want to talk to you.’ She spoke good English with but a trace of Italian accent and her voice was pleasantly low and even.

I said, ‘Who are you?’

‘Surely introductions would be more in order if we could see each other.’ There was a hint of command in her voice as though she was accustomed to getting her own way.

‘O.K.,’ I said. ‘Let’s go below.’

She slipped past me and went down the companionway and I followed, switching on the main cabin lights. She turned so that I could see her, and she was something worth looking at. Her hair was raven black and swept up into smooth wings on each side of her head as though to match the winged eyebrows which were dark over cool, hazel eyes. Her cheekbones were high, giving a trace of hollow in the cheeks, but she didn’t look like one of the fashionably emaciated models one sees in Vogue.

She was dressed in a simple woollen sheath which showed off a good figure to perfection. It might have been bought at a local department store or it might have come from a Parisian fashion house; I judged the latter – you can’t be married to a woman for long without becoming aware of the price of feminine fripperies.

She carried her shoes in her hand and stood in her stockinged feet, that was a point in her favour. A hundred-pound girl in a spike heel comes down with a force of two tons, and that’s hell on deck planking. She either knew something about yachts or …

I pointed to the shoes and said, ‘You’re a pretty inexperienced burglar. You ought to have those slung round your neck to leave your hands free.’

She laughed. ‘I’m not a burglar, Mr Halloran, I just don’t like shoes very much; and I have been on yachts before.’

I moved towards her. She was tall, almost as tall as myself. I judged her to be in her late twenties or possibly, but improbably, her early thirties. Her lips were pale and she wore very little make-up. She was a very beautiful woman.

‘You have the advantage of me,’ I said.

‘I am the Contessa di Estrenoli.’

I gestured at the settee. ‘Well, sit down, Contessa.’

‘Not Contessa – Madame,’ she said, and sat down, pulling the dress over her knees with one hand and placing the shoes at her side. ‘In our association together you will call me Madame.’

I sat down slowly on the opposite settee. Metcalfe certainly came up with some surprises. I said carefully, ‘So we are going to be associated together? I couldn’t think of a better person to be associated with. When do we start?’

There was frost in her voice. ‘Not the kind of association you are obviously thinking of, Mr Halloran.’ She went off at a tangent. ‘I saw your … er … companions ashore. They didn’t see me – I wanted to talk to you alone.’

‘We’re alone,’ I said briefly.

She gathered her thoughts, then said precisely, ‘Mr Halloran, you have come to Italy with Mr Coertze and Mr Walker to remove something valuable from the country. You intend to do this illicitly and illegally, therefore your whole plan depends on secrecy; you cannot – shall we say ‘operate’ – if someone is looking over your shoulder. I intend to look over your shoulder.’

I groaned mentally. Metcalfe had the whole story. Apparently the only thing he didn’t know was where the treasure was hidden. This girl was quite right when she said that it couldn’t be lifted if we were under observation, so he was coming right out and asking for a cut. Walker really must have talked in Tangier if Metcalfe could pinpoint it as close as Rapallo.

I said, ‘O.K., Contessa; how much does Metcalfe want?’

She raised her winged eyebrows. ‘Metcalfe?’

‘Yes, Metcalfe; your boss.’

She shook her head. ‘I know of no Metcalfe, whoever he is. And I am my own boss, I assure you of that.’

I think I kept my face straight. The surprises were certainly piling up. If this Estrenoli woman was mixed up with Metcalfe, then why would she deny it? If she wasn’t then who the devil was she – and how did she know of the treasure?’

I said, ‘Supposing I tell you to jump over the side?’

She smiled. ‘Then you will never get these valuables out of Italy.’

There seemed to be a concession there, so I said, ‘And if I don’t tell you to jump over the side, then we will get the stuff out of the country, is that it?’

‘Some of it,’ she compromised. ‘But without my cooperation you will spend a long time in an Italian prison.’

That was certainly something to think about and when I had time. I said, ‘All right; who are you, and what do you know?’

‘I knew that the news was out on the waterfront to watch for the yacht Sanford. I knew that the yacht was owned by Mr Halloran and that Mr Coertze and Mr Walker were his companions. That was enough for me.’

‘And what has the Contessa di Estrenoli got to do with waterfront rumours? What has an Italian aristocrat got to do with the jailbirds that news was intended for?’

She smiled and said, ‘I have strange friends, Mr Halloran. I learn all that is interesting on the waterfront. I realize now that perhaps your Mr Metcalfe was responsible for the circulation of those instructions.’

‘So you learned that a yacht and three men were coming to Rapallo, and you said to yourself, “Ah, these three men are coming to take something out of Italy illegally,”’ I said with heavy irony. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Contessa.’

‘But you see, I know Mr Coertze and Mr Walker,’ she said. ‘The heavy and clumsy Mr Coertze has been to Italy quite often. I have always known about him and I always had him watched.’ She smiled. ‘He was like a dog at a rabbit hole who yelps because it is too small and he cannot get in. He always left Italy empty-handed.’

That did it. Coertze must have shown his hand on one of his periodic trips to Italy. But how the devil did she know Walker? He hadn’t been to Italy recently – or had he?

She continued. ‘So when I heard that Mr Coertze was returning with Mr Walker and the unknown Mr Halloran, then I knew that something big was going to happen. That you were ready to take away whatever was buried, Mr Halloran.’

‘So you don’t know exactly what we’re after?’

‘I know that it is very valuable,’ she said simply.

‘I might be an archaeologist,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘No, you are not an archaeologist, Mr Halloran; you are a boat-builder.’ She saw the surprise in my eyes, and added, ‘I know a lot about you.’

I said, ‘Let’s quit fencing; how do you know about whatever it is?’

She said slowly, ‘A man called Alberto Corso had been writing a letter to my father. He was killed before the letter was finished, so there was not all the information that could be desired. But there was enough for me to know that Mr Coertze must be watched.’

I snapped my fingers. ‘You’re the Count’s little daughter. You’re … er … Francesca.’

She inclined her head. ‘I am the daughter of a count.’

‘Not so little now,’ I said. ‘So the Count is after the loot.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, no. My father knows nothing about it. Nothing at all.’

I thought that could do with a bit of explanation and was just going to query the statement when someone jumped on deck. ‘Who is that?’ asked the Contessa.

‘Probably the others coming back,’ I said, and waited. Perhaps there were to be some more surprises before the evening was out.

Walker came down the companionway and stopped when he saw her. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I hope I’m not butting in.’

I said, ‘This is the Contessa di Estrenoli – Mr Walker.’ I watched him to see if he recognized her, but he didn’t. He looked at her as one looks at a beautiful woman and said, in Italian, ‘A pleasure, signora.’

She smiled at him and said, ‘Don’t you know me, Mr Walker? I bandaged your leg when you were brought into the hill camp during the war.’

He looked at her closely and said incredulously, ‘Francesca!’

‘That’s right; I’m Francesca.’

‘You’ve changed,’ he said. ‘You’ve grown up. I mean … er …’ he was confused.

She looked at him. ‘Yes, we’ve all changed,’ she said. I thought I detected a note of regret. They chatted for a few minutes and then she picked up her shoes. ‘I must go,’ she said.

Walker said, ‘But you’ve only just got here.’

‘No, I have an appointment in twenty minutes.’ She rose and went to the companionway and I escorted her on deck.

She said, ‘I can understand Coertze, and now I can understand Walker; but I cannot understand you, Mr Halloran. Why are you doing this? You are a successful man, you have made a name in an honourable profession. Why should you do this?’

I sighed and said, ‘I had a reason in the beginning; maybe I still have it – I don’t know. But having come this far I must go on.’

She nodded, then said, ‘There is a café on the waterfront called the Three Fishes. Meet me there at nine tomorrow morning. Come alone; don’t bring Coertze or Walker. I never liked Coertze, and now I don’t think I like Walker any more. I would prefer not to talk to them.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there.’

She jumped lightly on to the jetty and swayed a little as she put her shoes on. I watched her go away, hearing the sharp click of her heels long after the darkness had swallowed her. Then I went below.

Walker said, ‘Where did she come from? How did she know we were here?’

‘The gaff has been blown with a loud trumpeting noise,’ I said. ‘She knows all – or practically all – and she’s putting the screws on.’

Walker’s jaw dropped. ‘She knows about the gold?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I’m not going to talk about it till Coertze comes. No point in going over it twice.’

Walker protested, but swallowed his impatience when I made it clear that I wasn’t going to talk, and sat wriggling on the settee. After half an hour we heard Coertze come on board.

He was affable – full of someone else’s cooking for a change, and he’d had a few drinks. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘these Italians can cook.’

‘Francesca was here,’ I said.

He looked at me, startled. ‘The Count’s daughter?’

‘Yes.’

Walker said, ‘I want to know how she found us.’

‘What did the stuck-up bitch want?’ asked Coertze.

I raised my eyebrows at that. Apparently the dislike between these two was mutual. ‘She wants a cut of the treasure,’ I said bluntly.

Coertze swore. ‘How the hell did she get to know about it?’

‘Alberto wrote a letter before he was killed.’

Coertze and Walker exchanged looks, and after a pregnant silence, Coertze said, ‘So Alberto was going to give us away, after all.’

I said, ‘He did give you away.’

‘Then why is the gold still there?’ demanded Coertze.

‘The letter was incomplete,’ I said. ‘It didn’t say exactly where the gold is.’

Coertze sighed windily. ‘Well, there’s not too much damage done.’

I fretted at his stupidity. ‘How do you suppose we’re going to get it out with half of Italy watching us?’ I asked. ‘She’s been on to you all the time – she’s watched you every time you’ve been in Italy and she’s been laughing at you. And she knows there’s something big under way now.’

‘That bitch would laugh at me,’ said Coertze viciously. ‘She always treated me like dirt. I suppose the Count has been laughing like hell, too.’

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. ‘She says the Count knows nothing about it. Tell me about him.’

‘The Count? Oh, he’s an old no-good now. He didn’t get his estates back after the war – I don’t know why – and he’s as poor as a church mouse. He lives in a poky flat in Milan with hardly enough room to swing a cat.’

‘Who supports him?’

Coertze shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe she does – she can afford it. She married a Roman count; I heard he was stinking rich, so I suppose she passes on some of the housekeeping money to the old boy.’

‘Why don’t you like her?’

‘Oh, she’s one of these stuck-up society bitches – I never did like that kind. We get plenty in Houghton, but they’re worse here. She wouldn’t give me the time of day. Not like her old man. I get on well with him.’

I thought perhaps that on one of his visits to Italy Coertze had made a pass at her and been well and truly slapped down. A pass from Coertze would be clumsy and graceless, like being propositioned by a gorilla.

I said, ‘Was she around often during the times you were in Italy?’

He thought about that, and said, ‘Sometimes. She turned up at least once on every trip.’

‘That’s all she’d need. To locate you, I mean. She seems to have a circle of pretty useful friends and apparently they’re not the crowd you’d think a girl like that would mix with. She picked up Metcalfe’s signals to the Mediterranean ports and interpreted them correctly, so it looks as though she has brains as well as beauty.’

Coertze snorted. ‘Beauty! She’s a skinny bitch.’

She had got under his skin. I said, ‘That may be, but she’s got us cold. We can’t do a damn’ thing while she’s on our necks. To say nothing of Metcalfe, who’ll be on to us next. Funny that he hasn’t shown his hand in Rapallo yet.’

‘I tell you he’s scared off,’ growled Coertze.

I let that pass. ‘Anyway, we can’t do any heavy thinking about it until we find out exactly what she wants. I’m seeing her tomorrow morning, so perhaps I’ll be able to tell you more after that.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Coertze instantly.

‘She wants to see me, not you,’ I said. ‘That was something she specified.’

‘The bloody little bitch,’ exploded Coertze.

‘And for God’s sake, think up another word; I’m tired of that one,’ I said irritably.

He glowered at me. ‘You falling for her?’

I said wearily, ‘I don’t know the woman – I’ve seen her for just fifteen minutes. I’ll be better able to tell you about that tomorrow, too.’

‘Did she say anything about me?’ asked Walker.

‘No,’ I lied. There wasn’t any point in having both of them irritated at her – it was likely that we’d all have to work closely together, and the less friction the better. ‘But I’d better see her alone.’

Coertze growled under his breath, and I said, ‘Don’t worry; neither she nor I know where the gold is. We still need you – she and I and Metcalfe. We mustn’t forget Metcalfe.’

III

Early next morning I went to find the Three Fishes. It was just an ordinary dockside café, the kind of dump you find on any waterfront. Having marked it, I went for a stroll round the yacht basin, looking at the sleek sailing yachts and motor craft of the European rich. A lot were big boats needing a paid crew to handle them while the owner and his guests took it easy, but some were more to my taste – small, handy sailing cruisers run by their owners who weren’t afraid of a bit of work.

After a pleasant hour I began to feel hungry so I went back to the Three Fishes for a late breakfast and got there on the dot of nine. She wasn’t there, so I ordered breakfast and it turned out better than I expected. I had just started to eat when she slid into the seat opposite.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said.

‘That’s O.K.’

She was wearing slacks and sweater, the kind of clothes you see in the women’s magazines but seldom in real life. The sweater suited her.

She looked at my plate and said, ‘I had an early breakfast, but I think I’ll have another. Do you mind if I join you?’

‘It’s your party.’

‘The food is good here,’ she said, and called a waiter, ordering in rapid Italian. I continued to eat and said nothing. It was up to her to make the first move. As I had said – it was her party.

She didn’t say anything, either; but just watched me eat. When her own breakfast arrived she attacked it as though she hadn’t eaten for a week. She was a healthy girl with a healthy appetite. I finished my breakfast and produced a packet of cigarettes. ‘Do you mind?’ I asked.

I caught her with her mouth full and she shook her head, so I lit a cigarette. At last she pushed her plate aside with a sigh and took the cigarette I offered. ‘Do you know our Espresso?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I know it.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot that it must have penetrated even your Darkest Africa. It is supposed to be for after dinner, but I drink it all the time. Would you like some?’

I said that I would, so she called out to the waiter, ‘Due Espressi,’ and turned back to me. ‘Well, Mr Halloran, have you thought about our conversation last night?’

I said I had thought about it.

‘And so?’

‘And so,’ I repeated. ‘Or more precisely – so what? I’ll need to know a lot more about you before I start confiding in you, Contessa.’

She seemed put out. ‘Don’t call me Contessa,’ she said pettishly. ‘What do you want to know?’

I flicked ash into the ashtray. ‘For one thing, how did you intercept Metcalfe’s message? It doesn’t seem a likely thing for a Contessa to come across – just like that.’

‘I told you I have friends,’ she said coldly.

‘Who are these friends?’

She sighed. ‘You know that my father and I were rebels against the Fascist Government during the war?’

‘You were with the partisans, I know.’

She gestured with her hand. ‘All right, with the partisans, if you wish. Although do not let my friends hear you say that – the Communists have made it a dirty word. My friends were also partisans and I have never lost contact with them. You see, I was only a little girl at the time and they made me a sort of mascot of the brigade. After the war most of them went back to their work, but some of them had never known any sort of life other than killing Germans. It is a hard thing to forget, you understand?’

I said, ‘You mean they’d had a taste of adventure, and liked it.’

‘That is right. There was plenty of adventure even after the war. Some of them stopped killing Germans and started to kill Communists – Italian Communists. It was dreadful. But the Communists were too strong, anyway. A few turned to other adventures – some are criminals – nothing serious, you understand; some smuggling, some things worse, but nothing very terrible in most cases. Being criminals, they also know other criminals.’

I began to see how it had been worked; it was all very logical, really.

‘There is a big man in Genoa, Torloni; he is a leader of criminals, a very big man in that sort of thing. He sent word to Savona, to Livorno, to Rapallo, to places as far south as Napoli, that he was interested in you and would pay for any information. He gave all your names and the name of your boat.’

That was the sort of pull Metcalfe would have. Probably this Torloni owed him a favour and was paying it off.

Francesca said, ‘My friends heard the name – Coertze. It is very uncommon in Italy, and they knew I was interested in a man of that name, so I was told of this. When I also heard the name of Walker I was sure that something was happening.’ She shrugged. ‘And then there was this Halloran – you. I did not know about you, so I am finding out.’

‘Has Torloni been told about us?’

She shook her head. ‘I told my friends to see that Torloni was not told. My friends are very strong on this coast; during the war all these hills belonged to us – not to the Germans.’

I began to get the picture. Francesca had been the mascot and, besides, she was the daughter of the revered leader. She was the Lady of the Manor, the Young Mistress who could do no wrong.

It looked also as though, just by chance, Metcalfe had been stymied – temporarily, at least. But I was landed with Francesca and her gang of merry men who had the advantage of knowing just what they wanted.

I said, ‘There’s another thing. You said your father doesn’t know anything about this. How can that be when Alberto Corso wrote him a letter?’

‘I never gave it to him,’ she said simply.

I looked at her quizzically. ‘Is that how a daughter behaves to her father? Not only reading his correspondence, but withholding it as well.’

‘It was not like that at all,’ she said sharply. ‘I will tell you how it was.’ She leaned her elbows on the table. ‘I was very young during the war, but my father made me work, everyone had to work. It was one of my tasks to gather together the possessions of those who were killed so that useful things could be saved and anything personal could be passed on to the family.

‘When Alberto was killed on the cliff I gathered his few things and I found the letter. It was addressed to my father and there were two pages, otherwise it was unfinished. I read it briefly and it seemed important, but how important it was I did not know because I was very young. I put it in my pocket to give to my father.

‘But there was a German attack and we had to move. We sheltered in a farmhouse but we had to move even from there very quickly. Now, I carried my own possessions in a little tin box and that was left in the farmhouse. It was only in 1946 that I went back to the farm to thank those people – the first chance I had.

‘They gave me wine and then the farmer’s wife brought out the little box and asked it if was mine. I had forgotten all about it and I had forgotten what was in it.’ She smiled. ‘There was a doll – no, not a doll; what you call an … Eddy-bear?’

‘A Teddy-bear.’

‘That is right; a Teddy-bear – I have still got it. There were some other things and Alberto’s letter was there also.’

I said, ‘And you still didn’t give it to your father. Why not?’

She thumped the table with a small fist. ‘It is difficult for you to understand the Italy of just after the war, but I will try to explain. The Communists were very strong, especially here in the north, and they ruined my father after the war. They said he had been a collaborationist and that he had fought the Communist partisans instead of fighting the Fascists. My father, who had been fighting the Fascists all his life! They brought up false evidence and no one would listen to him.

‘His estates had been confiscated by the Fascist Government and he could not get them back. How could he when Togliatti, the Vice-Premier of the Government, was the leader of the Italian Communist Party? They said, ‘No, this man was a collaborator, so he must be punished. But even with all their false evidence they dared not bring him to trial, but he could not get back his estates, and today he is a poor man.’

Francesca’s eyes were full of tears. She wiped them with a tissue and said, ‘Excuse me, but my feeling on this is strong.’

I said awkwardly, ‘That’s all right.’

She looked up and said, ‘These Communists with their fighting against the Fascists. My father fought ten times harder than any of them. Have you heard of the 52nd Partisan Brigade?’

I shook my head.

‘That was the famous Communist Brigade which captured Mussolini. The famous Garibaldi Brigade. Do you know how many men were in this so-famous Garibaldi Brigade in 1945?’

I said, ‘I know very little about it.’

‘Eighteen men,’ she said contemptuously. ‘Eighteen men called themselves the 52nd Brigade. My father commanded fifty times as many men. But when I went to Parma for the anniversary celebrations in 1949 the Garibaldi Brigade marched through the street and there were hundreds of men. All the Communist scum had crawled out of their holes now the war was over and it was safe. They marched through the streets and every man wore a red scarf about his neck and every man called himself a partisan. They even painted the statue of Garibaldi so that it had a red shirt and a red hat. So my friends and I do not call ourselves partisans, and you must not call us by that word the Communists have made a mockery of.’

She was shaking with rage. Her fists were clenched and she looked at me with eyes bright with unshed tears.

‘The Communists ruined my father because they knew he was a strong man and because they knew he would oppose them in Italy. He was a liberal, he was for the middle of the road – the middle way. He who is in the middle of the road gets knocked down, but he could not understand that,’ she said sombrely. ‘He thought it was an honourable fight – as though the Communists have ever fought honourably.’

It was a moving story and typical of our times. I also observed that it fitted with what Coertze had told me. I said, ‘But the Communists are not nearly as strong today. Is it not possible for your father to appeal and to have his case reviewed?’

‘Mud sticks, whoever throws it,’ she said sadly. ‘Besides, the war was a long time ago – people do not like to be reminded about those times – and people, especially officials, never like to admit their mistakes.’

She was realistic about the world and I realized that I must be realistic too. I said, ‘But what has this got to do with the letter?’

‘You wanted to know why I did not give the letter to my father after the war; is that so?’

‘Yes.’

She smiled tightly. ‘You must meet my father and then you would understand. You see, whatever you are looking for is valuable. I understood from Alberto’s letter that there are papers and a lot of gold bars. Now, my father is an honourable man. He would return everything to the Government because from the Government it came. To him, it would be unthinkable to keep any of the gold for himself. It would be dishonourable.’

She looked down at the backs of her hands. ‘Now, I am not an honourable woman. It hurts me to see my father so poor he has to live in a Milan slum, that he has to sell his furniture to buy food to eat. He is an old man – it is not right that he should live like that. But if I can get some money I would see that he had a happy old age. He does not need to know where the money comes from.’

I leaned back in my chair and looked at her thoughtfully. I looked at the expensive, fashion-plate clothing she was wearing, and she coloured under my scrutiny. I said softly, ‘Why don’t you send him money? I hear you made a good marriage; you ought to be able to spare a little for an old man.’

Her lips twisted in a harsh smile. ‘You don’t know anything about me, do you, Mr Halloran? I can assure you that I have no money and no husband, either – or no one that I would care to call my husband.’ She moved her hands forward on the table. ‘I sold my rings to get money to send to my father, and that was a long time ago. If it were not for my friends I would be on the streets. No, I have no money, Mr Halloran.’

There was something here I did not understand, but I didn’t press it. The reason she wanted to cut in didn’t matter; all that mattered was she had us over a barrel. With her connections we could not make a move in Italy without falling over an ex-partisan friend of hers. If we tried to lift the gold without coming to terms with her she would coolly step in at the right time and take the lot. She had us taped.

I said, ‘You’re as bad as Metcalfe.’

‘That is something I wanted to ask you,’ she said. ‘Who is this Metcalfe?’

‘He’s up to the same lark that you are.’

Her command of English was not up to that. ‘Lark?’ she said in mystification. ‘That is a bird?’

I said, ‘He’s one of our mutual competitors. He’s after the gold, too.’ I leaned over the table. ‘Now, if we cut you in, we would want certain guarantees.’

‘I do not think you are in a position to demand guarantees,’ she said coldly.

‘Nevertheless, we would want them. Don’t worry, this is in your interest, too. Metcalfe is the man behind Torloni and he’s quite a boy. Now, we would want protection against Metcalfe and anything he could throw against us. From what you’ve said, Torloni carries a bit of weight, and if he hasn’t got enough, Metcalfe can probably drum up some more. What I want to know is – can you give us protection against that lot?’

‘I can find a hundred men, any time I want,’ she said proudly.

‘What kind of men?’ I asked bluntly. ‘Old soldiers on pension?’

She smiled. ‘Most of my wartime friends live quietly and go about their work. I would not want them to be mixed up in anything illegal or violent, although they would help if they had to. But my …’ she hesitated for a word, ‘… my more unsavoury friends I would willingly commit to this affair. I told you they are adventurous and they are not old men – no older than you, Mr Halloran,’ she ended sweetly.

‘A hundred of them?’

She thought a little. ‘Fifty, then,’ she compromised. ‘My father’s hill fighters will be more than a match for those dockland gangsters.’

I had no doubt about that – if they fought man to man. But Metcalfe and Torloni could probably whip up every thug in Italy, and would do for a stake as large as this.

I said, ‘I want further guarantees. How do I know we won’t be double-crossed?’

‘You don’t,’ she said meagrely.

I decided to go in for some melodramatics. ‘I want you to swear that you won’t double-cross us.’

She raised her hand. ‘I swear that I, Francesca di Estrenoli, promise faithfully not to trick, in any way, Mr Halloran of South Africa.’ She smiled at me. ‘Is that good enough?’

I shook my head. ‘No, it isn’t enough. You said yourself that you were a dishonourable woman. No, I want you to swear on your father’s name and honour.’

Pink anger spots burned on her cheeks and I thought for a moment that she was going to slap my face. I said gently, ‘Do you swear?’

She dropped her eyes. ‘I swear,’ she said in a low voice.

‘On your father’s name and honour,’ I persisted.

‘On my father’s name and on his honour,’ she said, and looked up. ‘Now I hope you are satisfied.’ There were tears in her eyes again.

I relaxed. It wasn’t much but it was the best I could do and I hoped it would hold her.

The man from behind the counter came over to the table slowly. He looked at me with dislike and said to Francesca, ‘Is everything all right, madame?’

‘Yes, Giuseppi, everything is all right.’ She smiled at him. ‘Nothing is wrong.’

Giuseppi smiled back at her, gave me a hard look and returned to the counter. I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. I had the feeling that if Francesca had said that everything was not all right I would have been a candidate for a watery dockside grave before the week was out.

I cocked my thumb at the counter. ‘One of your soldier friends?’

She nodded. ‘He saw you had hurt me, so he came over to see what he could do.’

‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ I said.

‘You shouldn’t have come here. You shouldn’t have come to Italy. What is it to you? I can understand Coertze and Walker; they fought the Germans, they buried the gold. But I cannot understand you.’

I said gently, ‘I fought the Germans, too, in Holland, and Germany.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘That’s all right. As for the rest …’ I shrugged. ‘Somebody had to plan – Coertze and Walker couldn’t do it. Walker is an alcoholic and Coertze is all beef and no – subtlety. They needed someone to get behind and push.’

‘But why is it you who has to push?’

‘I had a reason once,’ I said shortly. ‘Forget it. Let’s get some things straightened out. What about the split?’

‘The split?’

‘How do we divide the loot?’

‘I hadn’t thought of that – it will need some thinking about.’

‘It will,’ I agreed. ‘Now, there’s the three of us, there’s you and there’s fifty of your friends – fifty-four in all. If you’re thinking along the lines of fifty-four equal shares you can forget about it. We won’t have it.’

‘I can’t see how we can work this out when we don’t know how much money will be involved.’

‘We work it on a percentage basis,’ I said impatiently. ‘This is how I see it – one share each for the three of us, one share for you and one share to be divided among your friends.’

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s not fair. You have done nothing about this, at all. You are just a plunderer.’

‘I thought you’d take that attitude,’ I said. ‘Now, listen, and listen damned carefully because I’m not going to repeat this. Coertze and Walker are entitled to a share each. They fought for the gold and they disposed of it carefully. Besides, they are the only people who know where it is. Right?’

She nodded agreement.

I smiled grimly. ‘Now we come to me whom you seem to despise.’ She made a sudden gesture with her hand and I waved her down. ‘I’m the brains behind this. I know a way of getting the stuff out of Italy and I’ve arranged a sale for it. Without me this whole plan would flop, and I’ve invested a lot of time and money in it. Therefore I think I’m entitled to an equal share.’

I stabbed my finger at her. ‘And now you come along and blackmail us. Yes, blackmail,’ I said as she opened her mouth to protest. ‘You’ve done nothing constructive towards the plan and you complain about getting an equal share. As for your friends, as far as I’m concerned, they are hired muscle to be paid for. If you don’t think they’re being paid enough with one-fifth between them you can supplement it out of your own share.’

‘But it will be so little for them,’ she said.

‘Little!’ I said, and was shocked into speechlessness. I recovered my breath. ‘Do you know how much is involved?’

‘Not exactly,’ she said cautiously.

I threw discretion to the winds. ‘There’s over £1,500,000 in gold alone – and there’s probably an equal amount in cut gem-stones. The gold alone means £300,000 for a fifth share and that’s £6,000 each for your friends. If you count the jewels you can double those figures.’

Her eyes widened as she mentally computed this into lire. It was an astronomical calculation and took her some time. ‘So much,’ she whispered.

‘So much,’ I said. I had just had an idea. The gems had been worrying me because they would be hot – in the criminal sense. They would need recutting and disguising and the whole thing would be risky. Now I saw the chance of doing an advantageous deal.

‘Look here,’ I said generously. ‘I’ve just offered you and your friends two-fifths of the take. Supposing the jewels are worth more than two-fifths – and I reckon they are – then you can take the lot of them, leaving the disposal of the gold to the three of us. After all, gems are more portable and easily hidden.’

She fell for it. ‘I know a jeweller who was with us during the war; he could do the valuation. Yes, that seems reasonable.’

It seemed reasonable to me, also, since I had been taking only the gold into my calculations all the time. Coertze, Walker and myself would still come out with half a million each.

‘There’s one other thing,’ I said.

‘What’s that?’

‘There’s a lot of paper money in this hoard – lire, francs, dollars and so on. Nobody takes any of that – there’ll be records of the numbers lodged with every bank in the world. You’ll have to control your friends when it comes to that.’

‘I can control them,’ she said loftily. She smiled and held out her hand. ‘It’s a deal, then, as the Americans say.’

I looked at her hand but didn’t touch it. I shook my head. ‘Not yet. I still have to discuss it with Coertze and Walker. They’ll take a hell of a lot of convincing – especially Coertze. What did you do to him, anyway?’ She withdrew her hand slowly and looked at me strangely.‘Almost you convince me that you are an honest man.’

I grinned at her cheerfully. ‘Out of necessity, that’s all. Those two are the only ones who know where the gold is.’

‘Oh, yes, I had forgotten. As for Coertze, he is a boor.’

‘He’d be the first to agree with you,’ I said. ‘But it means something different in Afrikaans.’ I had a sudden thought. ‘Does anyone else know what you know – about Alberto’s letter and all that?’

She started to shake her head but stopped suddenly, deciding to be honest. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘One man, but he can be trusted – he is a true friend.’

‘O.K.,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to be sure that no one else will try to pull the same stunt that you’ve just pulled. The whole damn’ Mediterranean seems to be getting into the act. I wouldn’t tell your friends anything you don’t have to – at least, not until it’s all over. If they are criminals, as you say, they might get their own ideas.’

‘I haven’t told them anything so far, and I’m not going to tell them now.’

‘Good. But you can tell them to watch for Torloni’s men. They’ll be keeping an eye on Sanford when they get round to finding where she is.’

‘Oh, yes, Mr Halloran; I’ll certainly tell them to keep a watch on your boat,’ she said sweetly.

I laughed. ‘I know you will. When you’ve got things organized drop in and see us anytime – but make it quick, there’s a time limit on all this.’

I got up from the table and left her. I thought she might as well pay for the breakfast since we were partners – or, as she had put it, ‘in association’.

IV

She came that afternoon, accompanied by a man even bigger than Coertze, whom she introduced as Piero Morese. He nodded civilly enough to me, ignored Walker and regarded Coertze watchfully.

I had had trouble with Coertze – he had taken a lot of convincing and had reiterated in a bass growl, ‘I will not be cheated, I will not be cheated.’

I said wearily, ‘O.K. The gold is up in those hills somewhere; you know where it is. Why don’t you go and get it? I’m sure you can fight Torloni and Metcalfe and the Contessa and her cut-throats single-handed; I’m sure you can bring back the gold and take it to Tangier before April 19. Why don’t you just go ahead and stop bothering me?’

He had calmed down but was not altogether happy and he rumbled like a volcano which does not know whether to erupt again or not. Now he sat in the cabin looking at the Contessa with contempt and the big Italian with mistrust.

Morese had no English so the meeting came to order in Italian, which I could understand if it was not spoken too quickly. The Contessa said, ‘It is all right to speak in front of Piero, he knows everything that I know.’

‘I know you: you were with Umberto,’ said Coertze in mashed Italian.

Morese gave a quick nod but said nothing. The Contessa said, ‘Here is where we talk seriously.’ She looked at me. ‘Have you talked this over?’

‘We have.’

‘Do they accept the terms?’

‘They do.’

‘Very well, where is the gold?’

There was a growl from Coertze which I covered with a quick burst of laughter. ‘Contessa, you’ll be the death of me,’ I said. ‘I’ll die laughing. You don’t suppose we’ll tell you that, do you?’

She smiled acidly. ‘No – but I thought I would try it. All right, how do we go about this?’

I said, ‘First of all, there’s a time limit. We’ll want the gold delivered to Rapallo by the 1st of March at the latest. We also want a place where we can work undisturbed with this boat; either a private boat-shed or a boatyard. That must be arranged for now.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why the 1st of March?’

‘That is of no consequence to you, but that is the way it must be.’

Morese said, ‘That does not leave much time. The first of the month is in two weeks.’

‘True,’ I said. ‘But that is the way it must be. The next thing is that only the five of us here will go to the gold. There must be no one else. We will unseal the place where it is hidden, pack what we want into strong boxes and move it out. Then we will seal the hidden place again. After that, and only after that, will we need the help of anyone else, and even then, only for lifting and transport to the coast. There is no need to have too many people knowing what we are doing.’

‘That is well thought of,’ said Morese.

I said, ‘Everything will be brought to the boat-shed – everything, including the jewels. We five will live together for one month while my friends and I do what we have to do. If you want the jewels valued you must bring your valuer to the jewels – not vice versa. The final share-out will be decided when the stones have been valued, but will not take place until the boat is in the water.’

‘You talk as though you do not trust us,’ said Morese.

‘I don’t,’ I said bluntly. I jerked my thumb at the Contessa. ‘Your friend here is blackmailing us into all this, so I don’t see where the trust comes in.’

His face darkened. ‘That is unworthy of you.’

I shrugged. ‘Say, rather, it is unworthy of her. She started all this and those are the facts.’

The Contessa put her hand on Morese’s shoulder and he subsided. Coertze barked a short laugh. ‘Magtig, but you have taken her measure.’ He nodded. ‘You’ll have to watch her, she a slim meisie.’

I turned to him. ‘Now it’s up to you. What will you need to get the gold?’

Coertze leaned forward. ‘When I was here last year nothing had changed or been disturbed. The place is in the hills where no one goes. There is a rough road so we can take a lorry right up to the place. The nearest village is four miles away.’

‘Can we work at night?’ I asked.

Coertze thought about that. ‘The fall of rocks looks worse than it is,’ he said. ‘I know how to blast and I made sure of that. Two men with picks and shovels will be able to get through in four hours – longer at night, perhaps – I would say six hours at night.’

‘So we will be there at least one whole night and probably longer.’

‘Ja,’ he said. ‘If we work at night only, it will take two nights.’

The Contessa said, ‘Italians do not walk the hills at night. It will be safe to have lights if they cannot be seen from the village.’

Coertze said, ‘No lights can be seen from the village.’

‘All the same, we must have a cover,’ I said. ‘If we have to hang around in the vicinity for at least one day then we must have a sound reason. Has anyone got any ideas?’

There was a silence and suddenly Walker spoke for the first time. ‘What about a car and a caravan? The English are noted for that kind of thing – camping and so on. The Italians don’t even have a word for it, they use the English word. If we camp out for a couple of nights we’ll be only another English crowd as far as the peasants are concerned.’

We all thought about that and it seemed a good idea. The Contessa said, ‘I can arrange for the car and the caravan and a tent.’

I started to tick off all the things we would need. ‘We want lights.’

‘We use the headlights of the car,’ said Coertze.

‘That’s for outside,’ I said. ‘We’ll need lights for inside. We’ll need torches – say a dozen – and lots of torch cells.’ I nodded to Morese. ‘You get those. We need picks and shovels, say four of each. We’ll need lorries. How many to do the job in one haul?’

‘Two three-tonners,’ said Coertze with certainty. ‘The Germans had four, but they were carrying a lot of stuff we won’t want.’

‘We’ll have to have those standing by with the drivers,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll need a lot of timber to make crates. The gold will need re-boxing.’

‘Why do that when it’s already in boxes?’ objected Coertze. ‘It’s just a lot of extra work.’

‘Think back,’ I said patiently. ‘Think back to the first time you saw those boxes in the German truck. You recognized them as bullion boxes. We don’t want any snooper doing the same on the way back.’

Walker said, ‘You don’t have to take the gold out, and it wouldn’t need much timber. Just nail thin pieces of wood on the outside of the bullion boxes to change their shape and make them look different.’

Walker was a real idea machine when he wasn’t on the drink. He said, ‘There must be plenty of timber down there we can use.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘We use new wood. I don’t want anything that looks or even smells as though it’s come from a hole in the ground. Besides, there might be a mark on the wood we could miss which would give the game away.’

‘You don’t take any chances, do you?’ observed the Contessa.

‘I’m not a gambler,’ I said shortly. ‘The timber can go up in the trucks,’ I looked at Morese.

‘I will get it,’ he said.

‘Don’t forget hammers and nails,’ I said. I was trying to think of everything. If we slipped up on this job it would be because of some insignificant item which nobody had thought important.

There was a low, repeated whistle from the dockside. Morese looked at the Contessa and she nodded almost imperceptibly. He got up and went on deck.

I said to Coertze, ‘Is there anything else we ought to know – anything you’ve forgotten or left out?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

Morese came back and said to the Contessa, ‘He wants to talk to you.’

She rose and left the cabin and Morese followed her on deck. Through the open port I could hear a low-voiced conversation.

‘I don’t trust them,’ said Coertze violently. ‘I don’t trust that bitch and I don’t trust Morese. He’s a bad bastard; he was a bad bastard in the war. He didn’t take any prisoners – according to him they were all shot while escaping.’

‘So were yours,’ I said, ‘when you took the gold.’

He bridled. ‘That was different; they were escaping.’

‘Very conveniently,’ I said acidly. It galled me that this man, whom I had good reason to suspect of murdering at least four others, should be so mealy-mouthed.

He brooded a little, then said, ‘What’s to stop them taking it all from us when we’ve got it out? What’s to stop them shooting us and leaving us in the tunnel when they seal it up again?’

‘Nothing that you’d understand,’ I said. ‘Just the feeling of a girl for her father and her family.’ I didn’t elaborate on that; I wasn’t certain myself that it was a valid argument.

The Contessa and Morese came back. She said, ‘Two of Torloni’s men are in Rapallo. They were asking the Port Captain about you not ten minutes ago.’

I said, ‘Don’t tell me that the Port Captain is one of your friends.’

‘No, but the Chief Customs Officer is. He recognized them immediately. One of them he had put in jail three years ago for smuggling heroin; the other he has been trying to catch for a long time. Both of them work for Torloni, he says.’

‘Well, we couldn’t hope to hide from them indefinitely,’ I said. ‘But they mustn’t connect you with us – not yet, anyway – so you’ll have to wait until it’s dark before you leave.’

She said, ‘I am having them watched.’

‘That’s fine, but it’s not enough,’ I said. ‘I want to do to Metcalfe what he’s been doing to us. I want Torloni watched in Genoa; I want the docks watched all along this coast for Metcalfe’s boat. I want to know when he comes to Italy.’ I gave her a detailed description of Metcalfe, of Krupke and the Fairmile. ‘Can you do all that?’

‘Of course. You will know all about this Metcalfe as soon as he sets foot in Italy.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then what about a drink?’ I looked at Coertze. ‘It seems you didn’t scare Metcalfe off, after all.’ He looked back at me with an expressionless face, and I laughed. ‘Don’t look so glum. Get out the bottle and cheer up.’

V

We didn’t see the Contessa or Morese after that. They stayed out of sight, but next morning I found a note in the cockpit telling me to go to the Three Fishes and say that I wanted a watchman for Sanford.

I went, of course, and Giuseppi was more friendly than when I had last seen him. He served me personally and, as he put down the plate, I said, ‘You ought to know what goes on on the waterfront. Can you recommend a watchman for my boat? He must be honest.’

‘Ah, yes, signor,’ he said. ‘I have the very man – old Luigi there. It’s a pity; he was wounded during the war and since then he has been able to undertake only light work. At present he is unemployed.’

‘Send him over when I have finished breakfast,’ I said.

Thus it was that we got an honest watchman and old Luigi became the go-between between the Contessa and Sanford. Every morning he would bring a letter in which the Contessa detailed her progress.

Torloni was being watched, but nothing seemed to be happening; his men were still in Rapallo watching Sanford and being watched themselves; the trucks had been arranged for and the drivers were ready; the timber was prepared and the tools had been bought; she had been offered a German caravan but she had heard of an English caravan for sale in Milan and thought it would be better – would I give her some money to buy it as she had none.

It all seemed to be working out satisfactorily.

The three of us from Sanford spent our time sightseeing, much to the disgust of Torloni’s spies. I spent a lot of time in the Yacht Club and it was soon noised about that I intended to settle in the Mediterranean and was looking for a suitable boatyard to buy.

On our fifth day in Rapallo the morning letter instructed me to go to the boatyard of Silvio Palmerini and to ask for a quotation for the slipping and painting of Sanford. ‘The price will be right,’ wrote the Contessa. ‘Silvio is one of my – our – friends.’

Palmerini’s yard was some way out of Rapallo. Palmerini was a gnarled man of about sixty who ruled his yard and his three sons with soft words and a will of iron. I said, ‘You understand, Signor Palmerini, that I am a boat-builder, too. I would like to do the job myself in your yard.’

He nodded. It was only natural that a man must look after his own boat if he could; besides, it would be cheaper.

‘And I would want it under cover,’ I said. ‘I fastened the keel in an experimental way and I may want to take it off to see if it is satisfactory.’

He nodded again. Experimental ways were risky and a man should stick to the old traditional ways of doing things. It would be foolish, indeed, if milord’s keel dropped off in the middle of the Mediterranean.

I agreed that I should look a fool, and said, ‘My friends and I are capable of doing the work and we shall not need extra labour. All that is required is a place where we can work undisturbed.’

He nodded a third time. He had a large shed we could use and which could be locked. No one would disturb us, not even himself – certainly no one outside his family – he would see to that. And was milord the rich Englishman who wanted to buy a boatyard? If so, then perhaps the milord would consider the boatyard Palmerini, the paragon of the Western Mediterranean.

That brought me up with a jerk. Another piece of polite blackmail was under way and I could see that I would have to buy the yard, probably at an exorbitant price – the price of silence.

I said diplomatically, ‘Yes, I am thinking of buying a yard, but the wise man explores every avenue.’ Dammit, I was falling into his way of speech. ‘I have been to Spain and France; now I am in Italy and after Italy I am going to Greece. I must look at everything.’

He nodded vigorously, his crab-apple head bobbing up and down. Yes, the milord was indeed wise to look at everything, but in spite of that he was sure that the milord would unfailingly return to the boatyard Palmerini because it was certainly the best in the whole Mediterranean.

Pah, what did the Greeks know of fine building? All they knew were their clumsy caiques. The price would be reasonable for milord since it appeared that they had mutual friends, and such a price could be spread over a period provided the proper guarantees could be given.

From this I understood the old rascal to say that he would wait until the whole job was completed and I had fluid capital, if I could prove that I would keep my word.

I went back to Sanford feeling satisfied that this part of the programme was going well. Even if I had to buy Palmerini’s yard, it would not be a bad thing and any lengthening of the price could be written off as expedition expenses.

On the ninth day of our stay in Rapallo the usual morning letter announced that all was now ready and we could start at any time. However, it was felt that, since the next day was Sunday, it would be more fitting to begin the expedition inland on Monday. That gave an elevating tone to the whole thing, I thought; another crazy aspect of a crazy adventure.

The Contessa wrote: ‘Torloni’s men will be discreetly taken care of, and will not connect their inability to find you with any trickery on your part. They will have no suspicions. Leave your boat in the care of Luigi and meet me at nine in the morning at the Three Fishes.’

I put a match to the letter and called Luigi below. ‘They say you are an honest man, Luigi; would you take a bribe?’

He was properly horrified. ‘Oh no, signor.’

‘You know this boat is being watched?’

‘Yes, signor. They are enemies of you and Madame.’

‘Do you know what Madame and I are doing?’

He shook his head. ‘No, signor. I came because Madame said you needed my help. I did not ask any questions,’ he said with dignity.

I tapped on the table. ‘My friends and I are going away for a few days soon, leaving the boat in your charge. What will you do if the men who are watching want to bribe you to let them search the boat?’

He drew himself up. ‘I would slap the money out of their hands, signor.’

‘No, you won’t,’ I said. ‘You will say it is not enough and you will ask them for more money. When you get it, you will let them search the boat.’

He looked at me uncomprehendingly. I said slowly, ‘I don’t mind if they search – there is nothing to be found. There is no reason why you should not make some money out of Madame’s enemies.’

He laughed suddenly and slapped his thigh. ‘That is good, signor; that is very good. You want them to search.’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘But don’t make it too easy for them or they will be suspicious.’

I wanted, as a last resort, to try to fool Metcalfe as I had fooled him in Barcelona, or rather, as I had hoped to fool him before Coertze put his foot in it. I wrote a letter to the Contessa telling her what I was doing, and gave it to Luigi to pass on.

‘How long have you known Madame?’ I asked curiously.

‘Since the war, signor, when she was a little girl.’

‘You would do anything for her, wouldn’t you?’

‘Why not?’ he asked in surprise. ‘She has done more for me that I can ever repay. She paid for the doctors after the war when they straightened my leg. It is not her fault they could not get it properly straight – but I would have been a cripple, otherwise.’

This was a new light on Francesca. ‘Thank you, Luigi,’ I said. ‘Give the letter to Madame when you see her.’

I told Coertze and Walker what was happening. There was nothing else to do now but wait for Monday morning.

FIVE: THE TUNNEL

On Monday morning I again set the stage, leaving papers where they could easily be found. On the principle of the Purloined Letter I had even worked out a costing for a refit of Sanford at Palmerini’s boatyard, together with some estimates of the probable cost of buying the yard. If we were seen there later we would have good reason.

We left just before nine, saying goodbye to Luigi, who gave me a broad wink, and arrived at the Three Fishes on time. The Contessa and Morese were waiting and we joined them for breakfast. The Contessa wore clothing of an indefinably English cut of which I approved; she was using her brain.

I said, ‘How did you get rid of Torloni’s boys?’

Morese grinned. ‘One of them had an accident with his car. The other, who was waiting for him at the dock, got tired of waiting and unaccountably fell into the water. He had to get a taxi to his hotel so that he could change his clothes.’

‘Your friend Metcalfe arrived in Genoa last night,’ said the Contessa.

‘You’re sure.’

‘I’m certain. He went straight to Torloni and stayed with him for a long time. Then he went to a hotel.’

That settled that. I had wondered for a long time if my suspicions of Metcalfe hadn’t been just a fevered bit of imagination. After all, my whole case against Metcalfe had been built up of supposition and what I knew of his character.

‘You’re having him watched?’

‘Of course.’

Breakfast arrived and all conversation stopped until Giuseppi went back to his counter. Then I said, ‘All right, friend Kobus, this is where you tell us where the gold is.’

Coertze’s head came up with a jerk. ‘Not on,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you there, but I’m not telling first.’

I sighed. ‘Look, these good people have laid on transport. How can they tell the trucks to rendezvous unless we know where we’re going?’

‘They can telephone back here.’

‘From where?’

‘There’ll be a phone in the village.’

‘None of us is going anywhere near that village,’ I said. ‘Least of all one of us foreigners. And if you think I’ll let one of these two go in alone, you’re crazy. From now on we don’t let either of them out of our sight.’

‘Not very trusting, are you?’ observed the Contessa.

I looked at her. ‘Do you trust me?’

‘Not much.’

‘Then we’re even.’ I turned back to Coertze. ‘Any telephoning the Contessa is going to do is from that telephone in the corner there – with me at her elbow.’

‘Don’t call me the Contessa,’ she snapped.

I ignored her and concentrated on Coertze. ‘So, you see, we have to know the spot. If you won’t tell us, I’m sure that Walker will – but I’d rather it was you.’

He thought about it for quite a while, then he said, ‘Magtig, but you’ll argue your way into heaven one day. All right, it’s about forty miles north of here, between Varsi and Tassaro.’ He went into detailed explanations and Morese said, ‘It’s right in the hills.’

I said, ‘Do you think you can direct the trucks to this place?’

Francesca said, ‘I will tell them to wait in Varsi. We will not need them until the second night; we can go to Varsi and direct them from there tomorrow.’

‘O.K.,’ I said. ‘Let’s make that phone call.’

I escorted her to the corner and stood by while she gave the instructions, making sure she slipped nothing over. A trustful lot, we were. When we got back to the table, I said, ‘That does it; we can start at any time.’

We finished breakfast and got up to go. Francesca said, ‘Not by the front; Torloni’s men will be back now and they can see this café. We go this way.’

She led us out by the back door into a yard where a car was standing with an Eccles touring caravan already coupled. She said, ‘I stocked up with enough food for a week – it might be necessary.’

‘It won’t,’ I said grimly. ‘If we don’t have the stuff out by tomorrow night we’ll never get it – not with Metcalfe sniffing on our trail.’

I looked at our party and make a quick decision. ‘We look English enough, all except you, Morese; you just don’t fit. You travel in the caravan and keep out of sight.’

He frowned and looked at Francesca. She said, ‘Get into the caravan, Piero; do as Mr Halloran says,’ and then turned to me. ‘Piero takes his instructions from no one but me, Mr Halloran. I hope you remember that in future.’

I shrugged and said, ‘Let’s go.’

Coertze was driving because he knew the way. Walker was also in front and Francesca and I shared the back seat. No one did much talking and Coertze drove very slowly because he was unaccustomed to towing a caravan and driving on the right simultaneously.

We left Rapallo and were soon ascending into the hills – the Ligurian Apennines. It looked poor country with stony soil and not much cultivation. What agriculture there was was scattered and devoted to vines and olives, the two trees which look as though they’ve been tortured to death. Within the hour we were in Varsi, and soon after that, we left the main road and bounced along a secondary country road, unmetalled and with a poor surface. It had not rained for some days and the dust rose in clouds.

After a while Coertze slowed down almost to a stop as he came to a corner. ‘This is where we shot up the trucks,’ he said.

We turned the corner and saw a long stretch of empty road. Coertze stopped the car and Walker got out. This was the first time he had seen the place in fifteen years. He walked a little way up the road to a large rock on the right, then turned and looked back. I guessed it was by that rock that he had stood while he poured bullets into the driver of the staff car.

I thought about the sudden and dreadful slaughter that had happened on that spot and, looking up the shaggy hillside, I visualized the running prisoners being hunted and shot down. I said abruptly, ‘No point in waiting here, let’s get on with it.’

Coertze put the car into gear and drove forward slowly until Walker had jumped in, then he picked up speed and we were on our way again. ‘Not far now,’ said Walker. His voice was husky with excitement.

Less than fifteen minutes later Coertze pulled up again at the junction of another road so unused that it was almost invisible. ‘The old mine is about a mile and a half up there,’ he said. ‘What do we do now?’

Francesca and I got out of the car and stretched our stiffened legs. I looked about and saw a stream about a hundred yards away. ‘That’s convenient,’ I said. ‘The perfect camp site. One thing is certain – none of us so much as looks sideways at that side road during the hours of daylight.’

We pulled the caravan off the road and extended the balance legs, then we put up the tent. Francesca went into the caravan and talked to Morese. I said, ‘Now, for God’s sake, let’s act like innocent tourists. We’re mad Englishmen who prefer to live uncomfortably rather than stay at a hotel.’

It was a long day. After lunch, which Francesca made in the little galley of the caravan, we sat about and talked desultorily and waited for the sun to go down. Francesca stayed in the caravan most of the time keeping Morese company; Walker fidgeted; Coertze was apparently lost in contemplating his navel; I tried to sleep, but couldn’t.

The only excitement during the afternoon was the slow approach of a farm cart. It hove into sight as a puff of dust at the end of the road and gradually, with snail-like pace, came near enough to be identified. Coertze roused himself enough to make a number of small wagers as to the time it would draw level with the camp. At last it creaked past, drawn by two oxen and looking like a refugee from a Breughel painting. A peasant trudged alongside and I mustered my worst Italian, waved and said, ‘Buon giorno.’

He gave me a sideways look, muttered something I did not catch, and went on his way. That was the only traffic on the road the whole time we were there.

At half past four I roused myself and went to the caravan to see Francesca. ‘We’d better eat early,’ I said. ‘As soon as it’s dark we’ll be taking the car to the mine.’

‘Everything is in cans,’ she said. ‘It will be easy to prepare. We will want something to eat during the night, so I got two of these big vacuum containers – I will cook the food before we go and it will keep hot all night. There are also some vacuum flasks for coffee.’

‘You’ve been spending my money well,’ I said.

She ignored that. ‘I will need some water. Will you get me some from the stream?’

‘If you will come with me,’ I said. ‘You need to stretch a bit.’ I had a sudden urge to talk to her, to find out what made her tick.

‘All right,’ she said, and opening a cupboard, produced three canvas buckets. As we walked towards the stream, I said, ‘You must have been very young during the war.’

‘I was. We took to the hills, my father and I, when I was ten years old.’ She waved at the surrounding mountains. ‘These hills.’

‘Not a very pleasant life for a little girl.’

She considered that. ‘It was fun at first. Everyone likes a camping holiday and this was one long holiday for me. Yes, it was fun.’

‘When did it stop being fun?’

Her face was quietly sad. ‘When the men started to die; when the fighting began. Then it was not fun, it became a serious thing we were doing. It was a good thing – but it was terrible.’

‘And you worked in the hospital?’

‘Yes. I tended Walker when he came from the prison camp. Did you know that?’

I remembered Walker’s description of the grave little girl who wanted him to get better so he could kill Germans. ‘He told me,’ I said.

We reached the stream and I looked at it doubtfully. It looked clear enough, but I said, ‘Is it all right for drinking?’

‘I will boil the water; it will be all right,’ she said, and knelt to dig a hole in the shallows. ‘We must have a hole deep enough to take a bucket; it is easier then.’

I helped her make a hole, reflecting that this was a product of her guerilla training. I would have tried to fill the buckets in drips and drabs. When the hole was big enough we sat on the bank waiting for the sediment to settle, and I said, ‘Was Coertze ever wounded?’

‘No, he was very lucky. He was never wounded beyond a scratch, although there were many times he could have been.’

I offered her a cigarette and lit it. ‘So he did a lot of fighting?’

‘All the men fought,’ she said, and drew on the cigarette reflectively. ‘But Coertze seemed to like fighting. He killed a lot of Germans – and Italians.’

‘What Italians?’ I said quickly. I was thinking of Walker’s story.

‘The Fascists,’ she said. ‘Those who stuck by Mussolini during the time of the Salo Republic. There was a civil war going on in these mountains. Did you know that?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ I said. ‘There’s a lot about Italy that I don’t know.’

We sat quietly for a while, then I said, ‘So Coertze was a killer?’

‘He was a good soldier – the kind of man we needed. He was a leader.’

I switched. ‘How was Alberto killed?’

‘He fell off a cliff when the Germans were chasing Umberto’s section. I heard that Coertze nearly rescued him, but didn’t get there in time.’

‘Um,’ I said. ‘I heard it was something like that. How did Harrison and Parker die?’

She wrinkled her brow. ‘Harrison and Parker? Oh yes, they were in what we called the Foreign Legion. They were killed in action. Not at the same time, at different times.’

‘And Donato Rinaldi; how was he killed?’

‘That was a funny thing. He was found dead near the camp with his head crushed. He was lying under a cliff and it was thought he had been climbing and had fallen off.’

‘Why should he climb? Was he a mountaineer or something like that?’

‘I don’t think so, but he was a young man and young men do foolish things like that.’

I smiled, thinking to myself; not only the very young are foolish; and tossed a pebble into the stream. ‘It sounds very like the song about the “Ten Little Niggers”. “And then there were Two.” Why did Walker leave?’

She looked up sharply. ‘Are you saying that these men should not have died? That someone from the camp killed them?’

I shrugged. ‘I’m not saying anything – but it was very convenient for someone. You see, six men hid this gold and four of them came to a sudden end shortly afterwards.’ I tossed another pebble into the water. ‘Who profits? There are only two – Walker and Coertze. Why did Walker leave?’

‘I don’t know. He left suddenly. I remember he told my father that he was going to try to join the Allied armies. They were quite close at that time.’

‘Was Coertze in the camp when Walker left?’

She thought for a long time, then said, ‘I don’t know; I can’t remember.’

‘Walker says he left because he was frightened of Coertze. He still is, for that matter. Our Kobus is a very frightening man, sometimes.’

Francesca said slowly, ‘There was Alberto on the cliff. Coertze could have …’

‘… pushed him off? Yes, he could. And Walker said that Parker was shot in the back of the head. By all accounts, including yours, Coertze is a natural-born killer. It all adds up.’

She said, ‘I always knew that Coertze was a violent man, but …’

‘But? Why don’t you like him, Francesca?’

She threw the stub of her cigarette into the water and watched it float downstream. ‘It was just one of those things that happen between a man and a woman. He was … too pressing.’

‘When was this?’

‘Three years ago. Just after I was married.’

I hesitated. I wanted to ask her about that marriage, but she suddenly stood up and said, ‘We must get the water.’

As we were going back to the caravan I said, ‘It looks as though I’ll have to be ready to jump Coertze – he could be dangerous. You’d better tell Piero the story so that he can be prepared if anything happens.’

She stopped. ‘I thought Coertze was your friend. I thought you were on his side.’

‘I’m on nobody’s side,’ I said shortly. ‘And I don’t condone murder.’

We walked the rest of the way in silence.

For the rest of the afternoon until it became dark Francesca was busy cooking in the caravan. As the light faded the rest of us began to make our preparations. We put the picks and shovels in the boot of the car, together with some torches. Piero had provided a Tilley pressure lamp together with half a gallon of paraffin – that would be a lot better than torches once we got into the tunnel. He also hauled a wheelbarrow out of the caravan, and said, ‘I thought we could use this for taking the rock away; we must not leave loose rock at the entrance of the tunnel.’

I was pleased about that; it was something I had forgotten.

Coertze examined the picks with a professional air, but found no fault. To me, a pick is a pick and a spade is a bloody shovel, but I suppose that even pick-and-shovelling has its more erudite technicalities. As I was helping Piero put the wheelbarrow into the boot my foot turned on a stone and I was thrown heavily against Coertze.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Don’t be sorry, be more careful,’ he grunted.

We got the wheelbarrow settled – although the top of the boot wouldn’t close – and I said to Coertze in a low voice, ‘I’d like to talk to you … over there.’

We wandered a short distance from the rest of the party where we were hidden in the gathering darkness. ‘What is it?’ asked Coertze.

I tapped the hard bulge under the breast of his jacket, and said, ‘I think that’s a gun.’

‘It is a gun,’ he said.

‘Who are you thinking of shooting?’

‘Anyone who gets between me and the gold.’

‘Now listen carefully,’ I said in a hard voice. ‘You’re not going to shoot anyone, because you’re going to give that gun to me. If you don’t, you can get the gold yourself. I didn’t come to Italy to kill anybody; I’m not a murderer.’

Coertze said, ‘Klein man, if you want this gun you’ll have to take it from me.’

‘O.K. You can force us all up to the mine at pistol point. But it’s dark and you’ll get a rock thrown at your head as soon as you turn your back – and I’d just as soon be the one who throws it. And if you get the gold out – at pistol point – what are you going to do besides sit on it? You can’t get it to the coast without Francesca’s men and you can’t get it out of Italy without me.’

I had him cornered in the same old stalemate that had been griping him since we left South Africa. He was foxed and he knew it.

He said, ‘How do we know the Contessa’s partisans aren’t hiding in these damned hills waiting to jump us as soon as the tunnel is opened?’

‘Because they don’t know where we are,’ I said. ‘The only instruction that the truck drivers had was to go to Varsi. Anyway, they wouldn’t try to jump us; we have the Contessa as hostage.’

He hesitated, and I said, ‘Now, give me the gun.’

Slowly he put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out the gun. It was too dark to see his eyes but I knew they were filled with hate. He held the gun pointed at me and I am sure he was tempted to shoot – but he relaxed and put it into my outstretched hand.

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