The Dark Crusader (4 page)

What with the lack of sleep and the bewildering turn of events my mind wasn't working any too well that night, but it did seem pretty obvious that Captain Fleck hadn't brought us down to the Suva docks to set us aboard a K.L.M. plane for Australia. I made to speak, but he cut me off at once, flicked a pencil torch at two cases that Krishna had carefully placed in a deep puddle of dirty and oily water, picked up the other two cases himself and told me softly to do the same and follow him. There was nothing soft about the confirmatory jab in the ribs from Rabat's twelve-bore. I was getting tired of Rabat and his ideas as to what constituted gentle prods, Fleck probably fed him on a straight diet of American gangster magazines.

Fleck had either better night eyes than I had or he had a complete mental picture of the whereabouts of every rope, hawser, bollard and loose cobble on that dockside, but we didn't have far to go and I hadn't tripped and fallen more than four or five times when he slowed down, turned to his right and began to descend a flight of stone stairs. He took his tune about it and risked using his flash and I didn't blame him: the steps were green-scummed and greasy and there was no handrail at all on the seaward side. The temptation to drop one of my cases on top of him and then watch gravity taking charge was strong but only momentary; not only Were there still two guns at my back but my eyes were now just sufficiently accustomed to the dark to let me make out the vague shape of some vessel lying alongside the low stone jetty at the foot of the steps. If he fell now, all Fleck would suffer would be considerable bruising and even greater damage to his pride which might well make him pass up his desire for silence and secrecy in favour of immediate revenge. He didn't look like the kind of man who would miss so I tightened my grip on the cases and went down those steps with all the care and delicate precision of a Daniel picking his way through a den of sleeping lions. And there wasn't all that difference here, just that the lions were wide awake. A few seconds later Marie Hopeman and the two Indians were on the jetty behind me.

We were now only about eight feet above water level and I peered at the vessel to try to get a better idea of her shape and size, but the backdrop of that rain-filled sky was scarcely less dark than that of the land and sea. Broad-beamed, maybe seventy feet long-although I could have been twenty feet out either way-a fairly bulky midships superstructure and masts, whether two or three I couldn't be sure. That was all I had time to see when a door in the superstructure opened and a sudden flood of white light completely destroyed what little night sight I'd been able to acquire. Someone, tall and lean, I thought, passed quickly through the bright rectangle of light and closed the door quickly behind him.

"Everything O.K., boss?" I'd never been to Australia but I'd met plenty of Australians: this one's accent was unmistakable.

"O.K. Got 'em. And watch that damned light. We're coming aboard."

Boarding the ship was no trick at all. The top of the gunwale, amidships where we were, was riding just level with the jetty and all we had to do was jump down the thirty inches to the deck below. A wooden deck, I noticed, not steel. When we were all safely down Captain Fleck said: "We are ready to receive guests, Henry?" He sounded relaxed now, relieved to be back where he was.

"Stateroom's all ready, boss," Henry announced. His voice was a hoarse and lugubrious drawl. "Shall I show them to their quarters?"

"Do that. I'll be in my cabin. All right, Bentall, leave your grips here. I'll see you later."

Henry led the way aft along the deck, with the two Indians close behind. Once clear of the superstructure, he turned right, flicked on a torch and stopped before a small square raised hatch. He bent down, slipped a bolt, heaved the hatch-cover up and back and pointed down with his torch.

"Get down there, the two of you."

I went first, ten rungs on a wet, clammy and vertical steel ladder, Marie Hopeman close behind. Her head had hardly cleared the level of the hatch when the cover slammed down and we heard the scraping thud of a bolt sliding home. She climbed down the last two or three steps and we stood and looked round our stateroom.

It was a dark and noisome dungeon. Well, not quite dark, there was a dim yellow glowworm of a lamp behind a steel-meshed glass on the deckhead, enough so that you didn't have to paw your way around, but it was certainly noisome enough. It smelled like the aftermath of the bubonic plague, stinking to high heaven of some disgusting odour that I couldn't identify. And it was all that could have been asked for in the way of a dungeon. The only way out was the way we had come in. Aft, there was a wooden bulkhead clear across the width of the vessel. I located a crack between two planks and though I couldn't see anything I could sniff diesel oil: the engine-room, without a doubt. In the for'ard bulkhead were two doors, both unlocked: one led to a primitive toilet and a rust-stained wash-basin supplied by a tap that gave a good flow of brown and brackish water, not sea-water: the other opened on to a tiny six by four cabin where nearly all the floor space was occupied by a low made-up bunk without sheets but with what seemed, in the sputtering light of a match, to be fairly clean blankets. Near the two for'ard corners of the hold were six-inch diameter holes in the deckhead: I peered up those, but could see nothing. Ventilators, probably, and they could hardly have been called a superfluous installation: but on that windless night and with the ship not under way they were quite useless.

Heavy spaced wooden battens, held in place by wooden slots in deck and deckhead, ran the whole fore-and-aft length of the hold. There were four rows of those battens, and behind the two rows nearest the port and starboard sides wooden boxes and open-sided crates were piled to the very top, except where a space had been left free for the air from the ventilators to find its way in. Between the outer and inner rows of battens other boxes and sacks were piled half the height of the hold: between the two inner rows, extending from the engine-room bulkhead to the two small doors in the for'ard bulkhead, was a passage perhaps four feet wide. The wooden floor of this alleyway looked as if it had been scrubbed about the time of the Coronation.

I was still looking slowly around, feeling my heart making for my boots and hoping that it was not too dark for Marie Hopeman to see my carefully balanced expression of insouciance and intrepidity, when the overhead light dimmed to a dull red glow and a high-pitched whine came from aft: a second later an unmistakable diesel engine came to life, the vessel began to vibrate as it revved up, then as it slowed again I could just hear the patter of sandalled feet on the deck above-casting off, no doubt-just before the engine note deepened as gear was engaged. It didn't require the slight list to starboard as the vessel sheered off from the jetty wall to tell us that we were under way.

I turned away from the after bulkhead, bumped into Marie Hopeman in the near darkness and caught her arm to steady her. The arm was goose-fleshed, wet and far too cold. I fumbled a match from a box, scratched it alight and peered at her as she screwed her eyes almost shut against the sudden flare. Her fair bedraggled hair was plastered over her forehead and one cheek, the saturated thin silk of her dress was a clammy cocoon that clung to every inch and she was shivering constantly. Not until then did I realise just how cold and dank it was in that airless hole. I waved the match to extinction, removed a shoe, started hammering the after bulkhead and, when that had no effect, climbed a few steps Up the ladder and started beating the hatch.

"What on earth do you imagine you're doing?" Marie Hopeman asked.

"Room service. If we don't get our clothes soon I'm going to have a pneumonia case on my hands."

"Wouldn't it suit you better to look round for some kind of weapon?" she said quietly. "Has it never occurred to you to ask
why
they've brought us out here?"

"To do us in? Nonsense." I tried out my carefree laugh to see how it went, but it didn't, it sounded so hollow and unconvincing that it lowered even my morale. "Of course they're not going to knock us off, not yet, at least. They didn't bring me all the way out here to do that-it could have as easily been done in England. Nor was it necessary to bring
you
that I should be knocked off. Thirdly, they didn't have to bring us out on this boat to do it-for instance that dirty canal we passed and a couple of heavy stones would have been all that was needed. And, fourthly, Captain Fleck strikes me as a ruffian and a rogue, but no killer." This was a better line altogether, if I repeated it about a hundred times I might even start believing it myself. Marie Hopeman remained silent, so maybe she was thinking about it, maybe there was something in it after all.

After a couple of minutes I gave the hatch up as a bad job, went for'ard into the tiny cabin and hammered against the bulkhead there. Crew quarters must have been on the other side for I got reaction within half a minute. Someone heaved open the hatch-cover and a powerful torch shone down into the hold.

"Will you kindly quit that flamin' row?" Henry didn't sound any too pleased. "Can't you sleep, or somethin'?"

"Where are our cases?" I demanded. "We must have dry clothes. My wife is soaked to the skin."

"Comin’, comin'," he grumbled. "Move right for'ard, both of you."

We moved, he dropped down into the hold, took four cases from someone invisible to us then stepped aside to make room for another man to come down the ladder. It was Captain Fleck, equipped with a torch and gun, and enveloped in an aroma of whisky. It made a pleasant change from the fearful stink in that hold.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," he boomed cheerfully. "Locks on those cases were a mite tricky. So you weren't carrying a gun after all, eh, Bentall?"

"Of course not," I said stiffly. I had been, but k was still under the mattress of my bed back in the Grand Pacific Hotel. "What's the damnable smell down here?"

"Damnable? Damnable?" Fleck sniffed the foul atmosphere with the keen appreciation of a connoisseur bent over a brandy glass of Napoleon. "Copra and shark's fins. Mainly copra. Very health-giving, they say."

"I dare say," I said bitterly. "How long are we to stay in this hell-hole?"

"There's not a finer schooner-" Fleck began irritably, then broke off. "We'll see. Few more hours, I don't know. You'll get breakfast at eight." He shone his torch around the hold and went on apologetically: "We don't often have ladies aboard, ma'am, especially not ones like you. We might have cleaned it up more. But there's a bunk there, quite clean. Don't either of, you sleep with your shoes off."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Cockroaches," he explained briefly. "Very partial to the soles of the feet." He flicked the torch beam suddenly to one side and picked up a couple of brown monstrous beetle-like insects at least a couple of inches in length that scuttled out of sight almost immediately.

"As-as big as that?" Marie Hopeman whispered.

"It's the copra and diesel oil," Henry explained lugubriously. "Their favourite food, except for D.D.T. We give them gallons of that. And them were only the small ones, their parents know better than to come out when there are people around."

"That's enough," Fleck said abruptly. He thrust the torch into my hand. "Take this. You'll need it. See you in the morning."

Henry waited till Fleck's head was clear of the hatch, then pushed back some of the sliding battens that bordered the central aisle. He nodded at the four foot high platform of cases exposed by this.

"Sleep here," he said shortly. "There's more than cockroaches down this hold. And keep that light on."

"Why? What is there here that-"

"I don't know," he interrupted. "I've never spent the night here. There's not enough money to pay me to." With that he was gone and moments later the hatch shut to behind him.

"Spreads sweetness and light wherever he goes, doesn't he?" I asked. "I wonder what he
does
mean? But I'd take any money they're not hired assassins. Murderers don't-"

"Do you mind?" she interrupted. "My suitcase. I'd like to change."

"Sorry." I passed it to her, along with the torch. "Did you pack any slacks?" She nodded.

"Then wear them." I rummaged in one of my own cases, brought out a couple of pairs of socks. "Pull these over them. Anti-cockroach. You can change up in the cabin there."

"You didn't think I was going to do it here," she said coldly. No gratitude. I grinned at her, but no answering smile. She closed the cabin door behind her, not gently.

I'd finished changing by the faint glow of the overhead light and was tapping a cigarette out of its packet when a sudden scream of pure terror from the cabin froze me immobile for a second. But only for a second: four steps and I was at the cabin door just as it was torn violently open and Marie Hopeman came stumbling frantically out, struck her head a glancing blow against the low overhead doorway and literally fell into my arms. She grabbed me and clung on desperately, a young koala bear stranded on its first eucalyptus tree had nothing on Marie Hopeman at that moment. At any other time it would have been very pleasant but just then it wasn't getting us anywhere.

"What happened?" I demanded quickly. "What on earth is it?"

"Take me away from here!" she sobbed. She twisted in my arms and looked over her shoulder with wide horror-filled eyes. "Please. At once! Away." Her eyes widened still further, she took that deep breath that is so often prelude to a scream, so I picked her up hurriedly, walked the ten feet to where Henry had pushed the battens aside and sat her there, her back propped up against the inner battens.

"What was it?" I asked urgently. "Quickly."

"It was horrible, horrible!" She didn't know what I was saying, her breath was coming in long quivering gasps and she was trembling violently. She felt me straightening and sunk her fingers deep into my arms. "Don't leave me. Don't!"

"I'll only be a moment," I said soothingly. I pointed to where a beam of light lay angled across the floor of the cabin. "I want that torch."