In the silence which followed, Vivian could hear someone struggling with a cabin door. All right Cooper, he thought savagely, you’re next, if you want it that way!
Morrie slumped as he had fallen, a look of complete bewilderment on his features, and his mouth opening and shutting noiselessly.
‘Jeeze! What the hell d’you think you two are up to?’ Cooper’s voice was harsh, and still heavy with sleep. He was without his jacket, and his narrow shoulders, and bright yellow braces, seemed almost indecent.
Vivian noted with relief that he was, apparently, without his pistol.
‘Keep calm!’ he answered coldly. ‘I want a few answers out of you, and I want them now!’
Cooper’s eyes suddenly fell on the dismantled radio, and they widened with shocked surprise, but quickly he recovered himself, and his normal look of cunning made his eyes dark once more.
‘Well now, Cap’n, you’ve certainly done it this time.’ He seemed to be breathing with difficulty.
In three steps, Vivian crossed the saloon, and with a jerk, seized the little man by the throat. Then, as a feeling of cold satisfaction crept over him, he began to shake him, as he had seen his cat shake a rat.
Cooper had gone deathly white, and his hands lashed the air helplessly, while his eyes bulged from their sockets.
‘Now then, you little bastard!’ his voice was calm, yet filled with meance, which Cooper was quick to appreciate. ‘Give me the story of the drugs in that tin! Or,’ he shook his doubled fist inches from the other man’s nose, ‘I’ll give you the biggest beating you’ve had in your life!’
‘For Chrissakes!’ spluttered Cooper, his uneven teeth wet with saliva. ‘It’s not my fault. I’ve just had to obey orders.’
‘Who gave the orders?’
Even as he asked, he saw Karen’s frightened face behind Cooper, her hand over her mouth.
‘Well?’ His eyes were hard, like steel.
‘Mr. Mason!’ he gasped. ‘He’s always run this side of the business! Now please let me go!’ His voice rose in a whine.
Vivian saw the quick shadow of relief cross the girl’s face. She had been afraid, as he had. He felt a fresh wave of fury making his arm tremble.
‘When was the last load shipped across?’ He could almost feel the rise of tension in the cabin, and Cooper writhed unhappily.
‘You brought it!’ He swallowed heavily, as the grip on
his
neck tightened. ‘You remember? The two oil drums you picked up in Calais. That was a goddam big load!’
Vivian flung Cooper from him in disgust and horror, as if he had been handling something unclean.
‘God! What an infernal mess!’ he choked, and his eyes fell on Karen, taking in her torn stockings and bare feet, and above all, the look of anxiety on her face. He shot her a quick glance of encouragement.
‘Sorry about all this,’ he gestured at the two sprawled figures. ‘I’ve just been getting a few home truths.’
The boat swerved, and rolled sickeningly, and he saw the angry wavetops rise level with the wheelhouse door.
‘Can you steer, Karen?’
She nodded her head. ‘Yes, Philip. Don’t worry, I’ll be all right now. I was afraid my uncle was behind all this.’ She paused, uncertain of how to go on.
‘Yes, I know,’ he said quietly. ‘I was, too.’
He took her to the wheel, and helped her to get the boat back on course, watching her small hands gripping the spokes with sudden firmness and confidence. Then he went back to the saloon, where Cooper was watching him anxiously, and Morrie sat broodingly in the corner.
‘Now see here, you two, we don’t want any more trouble. At the moment, the biggest job is to get home safely, and I’m the only one who can do that.’ He let the words sink in. ‘So you, Morrie, get an oilskin on, and get up on the flying bridge, and keep a good lookout.’
The big man scrambled to his feet, and shambled out on deck, dragging an oilskin behind him like a flag.
‘As for you, Cooper,’ he turned coldly to the other man, ‘keep away from the girl, and from me!’ he added meaningly.
‘Gee, it’s not my fault,’ Cooper began.
‘Maybe, maybe not. I’ll find all that out, in my own good
time.
Right now, you can try to make some tea, and knock up a few sandwiches.’
The little man darted a quick, anxious glance at the gleaming metal box, which lay where it had been thrown on the sofa.
‘Well, what are you gonna do with that? Mr. Mason was banking on that load,’ he added hastily, as if eager to be dissociated with the arrangement.
‘It’s going overboard! And the so-called portable radio is going with it,’ he said grimly. ‘Unless you have any objection?’
Cooper shrugged his narrow shoulders sulkily. ‘I dunno, I dunno, I’m sure,’ was all that he could say.
Vivian picked up the two articles, and walked deliberately to the wheelhouse door. As he slid back the door, the girl watched him gravely.
He smiled briefly, thinking how lovely she managed to look under these appalling conditions and circumstances, then, with a heave, he sent the tin spinning into the boiling wake, closely followed by the radio. He dusted his hands together, and breathed deeply.
‘Well, that’s that. I feel a bit better, now that we’ve got rid of that stuff.’
From the galley, he heard the sound of Cooper struggling with the kettle, and having made sure that Morrie, too, was safely occupied, he took up his position by the girl’s side, and began to fill his pipe, allowing his wiry body to swing easily, as the boat creamed over each line of waves.
‘Where are we making for?’ she asked, after a while.
He tamped the tobacco down in the bowl carefully, his brows set in a frown.
‘I think it’ll have to be Ramsgate,’ he answered at length. ‘At least, I can’t think of a better place at the moment. If Muir and his merry men are really going out of
their
way to catch me, there’s no point in doing anything foolish.’
‘What will you say to the Customs men, if they board you?’
She lifted her troubled eyes from the compass, as he answered.
‘Well, as I’m supposed to be taking our two friends here on a fishing trip, I’ll have to say that I’ve been lying off the coast until this gale has blown itself out. After all, nobody is supposed to know I’ve left British waters at all,’ he permitted himself a brief grin, ‘whatever they might really think.’
‘There’s the problem of you, that I’ve not quite settled.’
‘Me, Philip? How do you mean?’
‘You’re not supposed to be here! And I don’t want you to get mixed up with this business, now that we’ve got this far,’ his voice was firm.
‘Perhaps it will be all right. Perhaps no one will stop us.’
But as their eyes met, they knew this to be unlikely.
‘That reminds me, I’d better get the fishing gear laid out, just in case. I’d forgotten all about the need for deception!’
For the first time, she laughed, her blue eyes dancing. ‘You will never make a proper smuggler, Philip!’
He patted her arm, gaining strength from the brief contact. ‘I’m learning fast! Will you be all right if I leave you on the wheel for a bit?’
‘I’m all right, when I know you’re not too far away.’ She paused. ‘I would not like to be alone with that man Cooper.’ She shivered.
He frowned. ‘I shan’t be sorry to see the back of him, either.’
As he busied himself with the fishing gear, which he always kept aboard for his paying guests, he wondered how
much
longer he would be able to cope with the steadily mounting web of complications. Thank God it would soon be over. Perhaps then he would be able to find out what chance he stood with Karen.
He returned to the wheelhouse, as Cooper, his face pinched with the first twinge of seasickness, staggered up the steps, a tray of tea in his grasp.
‘I guess I’ll go and lie down for a bit,’ he groaned. ‘I don’t feel so good.’
‘All right, but be ready to put on your act when I call you.’
With a gulp, Cooper fled below, and Vivian stood the steaming mugs on the chart table.
‘Here, I’ll take over now. You have a drink.’
For some moments they stood in silence, watching the sea, and the scudding clouds, and enjoying the warmth of the drink.
‘You will have to get me some shoes when we get in to port,’ she said suddenly. ‘One shoe is hardly sufficient for a girl’s morale!’
He smiled at her, allowing his face to relax.
‘Ah, that’s better, Philip, you were looking so very grim!’
‘Sorry, I’m afraid I’m not much of a companion.’
‘On the contrary, I enjoy your company very much. Considering that I know so little about you,’ she finished with a secret smile.
As he flushed, and stared uncomfortably ahead over the bows, she hurried on: ‘It’s hardly fair, you know. After all, you know all about me, but all I know of you is that you are in love with your boat, and you have what I believe is known as a chip on your shoulder!’
In a manner which was rare to him, he found himself telling her the whole story of his mixed and unusual career, and as his pent-up feelings poured out, he was amazed that
he
was able to speak so casually of things which, hitherto, had been his own careful secrets. He paused at one stage, to dart a quick glance at her, but found, to his astonishment, that she appeared to be genuinely interested. When he had finished, he felt suddenly exhausted and tired.
‘I’m afraid there’s not so much to know after all,’ he said lamely.
She was looking at him in her quiet, serious way.
‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said simply. ‘I feel better for knowing more about you.’
His heart gave an upward bound.
‘But what I really wanted to say …’ he stammered, ‘what I really meant was to tell you what it means to me to have you with me like this.’ He halted, confused.
‘I think I know what you mean.’ She laid her hand on his wrist. ‘But we must not talk of it now.’ Then seeing his crestfallen expression, she smiled, and shook her hair off her cheek. ‘But we will talk of it later, if you still want to. Now,’ she continued briskly, ‘tell me about your cat. Why do you call him Coley?’
Vivian’s face softened. ‘Poor old Coley, he’ll be wondering what’s happened to me, I expect. But I’ll collect him soon.’ He grinned. ‘Coley? Well, it means a sort of catfish, and as he’ll eat nothing else, I thought it would suit him.’
She threw back her head and laughed, and he marvelled at her freshness, after what she had just endured.
‘We are so much alike, you and I. You have no family, but a big cat. I have only Uncle Nils to worry about, and he turns out to be, not a nice, quiet, old gentleman, but a nice, quiet, old smuggler! And you,’ she dropped her eyes shyly, ‘are not quite what you would have people believe. In fact, you are really rather nice.’
He reached out, and held her arm, his voice husky.
‘Thank
you, Karen. And there is a lot I want to tell you, when we are free from all this!’
A shaft of watery sunlight began to explore the interior of the wheelhouse, and through the clouds, patches of bright blue sky began to show.
‘It’s going to be a fine morning, after all,’ was all he said, but for each of them, it had a new meaning.
There was a sudden sliding of feet overhead, from the flying bridge, and then Morrie’s heavy face appeared through the glass panel.
‘Boat comin’ up astern!’ he shouted.
Vivian raised his glasses, and peered out of the door, the powerful lenses distorting the white wave-caps to frightening proportions. After a while, he caught a glimpse of a low, dark blue hull, shining with spray, and throwing off a creaming bow wave from the sharp, plunging stem.
‘Customs boat!’ he muttered. Then over his shoulder, ‘Morrie, get Cooper up, and both of you get into oilskins, and start mucking about with the fishing gear. And for God’s sake, try to look as if you’re enjoying it!’
He turned to the girl, a worried frown in his eyes, ‘You keep out of sight up forward.’ He thought rapidly. ‘Could you get into the chain locker?’ In his mind’s eye he visualized that tiny, cramped space, right against the bows, where the anchor chain was housed, and for a moment he was tempted to change his mind.
‘I know it,’ she answered. And before he could say any more, ‘I will be like a mouse, so don’t worry!’ And with that, she was gone, her bare feet padding down through the forward cabin.
After a quick look at the other craft, which was rapidly gaining on them, he swept the chart off the table, and replaced it with another, identical one. Identical, but for the pencilled course, which now showed that they had kept
within
the three-mile limit. He took a rapid glance round. Well, here we go, he thought desperately. He gently slackened speed, and a sudden movement on deck caught his eye, as Morrie began to unwind a heavy fish-line.
Keeping out of sight in the wheelhouse, he trained the glasses on the Customs boat, now barely a cable’s length away.
Pursuit
, the name was clearly visible on the bows. He wondered if he would get such a friendly visit this time. Then he stiffened, as the glasses moved to the bridge. He caught a brief glimpse of one of the white faces behind the screen. It was David Muir.
He swore under his breath. This would be interesting. No point in telling Cooper, he decided, it would make his surprise all the more genuine.
He eased the throttles lower, and
Seafox
laboured unhappily in the deep troughs. As the Customs boat bore down on him, he waved casually from the door, to show that he was waiting for them.
Morrie lumbered over to the starboard side, and lowered the rope fenders in readiness, while on the other boat, two seamen were standing by with their lines.
Both helmsmen watched carefully, judging the distance, and as Vivian felt the gentle nudge, as the two hulls bumped, he heard the thud on deck, announcing the arrival of his visitors. The lines were then released, and
Pursuit
moved away, but remained within easy reach.
The wheelhouse was suddenly crowded with figures. First through the door was the broad, red-faced boarding officer he had seen before, followed by two younger men, their brass buttons and white caps giving an air of authority to the scene. David Muir entered last, his handsome face serious and troubled.