Coertze said, ‘I can’t see why you didn’t use the exisiting holes—the ones drilled for the old keel.’
‘It’s the difference in weight distribution,’ I said. ‘Gold is half as heavy again as lead and so this keel had to be a different shape from the old one. As it is, I had to juggle with the centre of gravity. With the ballast being more concentrated I think
Sanford
will roll like a tub, but that can’t be helped.’
I looked at
Sanford.
She was now worth not much short of a million and three-quarter pounds—the most expensive 15-tonner in history. I felt quite proud of her—not many yacht designers could boast of such a design.
When we had supper that night we were all very quiet and relaxed. I said to Francesca, ‘You’d better get the jewels out tonight—it may be your last chance before the fireworks start.’
She smiled. ‘That will be easy; Piero has cast them into concrete bricks—we are learning the art of disguise from you. They are outside near the new shed that Palmerini is building.’
I laughed. ‘I must see this.’
‘Come,’ she said. ‘I will show you.’
We went into the dark night and she flashed a torch on an untidy heap of bricks near the new shed. ‘There they are; the valuable bricks are spotted with whitewash.’
‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘Not bad at all.’
She leaned against me and I put my arms around her. It was not often we had time for this sort of thing, we were missing a lot that normal lovers had. After a moment she said quietly, ‘When are you coming back?’
‘As soon as I’ve sold the gold,’ I said. ‘I’ll take the first plane out of Tangier.’
‘I’ll be waiting,’ she said. ‘Not here—I’ll be in Milan with my father.’
She gave me the address which I memorized. I said, ‘You won’t mind leaving Italy?’
‘No, not with you.’
‘I asked your father to come with us, but he wouldn’t.’
‘Not after seventy years,’ she said. ‘It’s too much to ask an old man.’
I said, ‘I knew that, but I thought I’d make the offer.’
We talked for a long time there in the darkness, the small personal things that lovers talk about when they’re alone.
Then Francesca said that she was tired and was going to bed.
‘I’ll stay and have another cigarette,’ I said. ‘It’s pleasant out here.’
I watched her melt into the darkness and then I saw the gleam of light as she opened the door of the shed and slipped inside.
A voice whispered from out of the darkness, ‘Halloran!’
I started, ‘Who’s that?’ I flashed my torch about.
‘Put out that damned light. It’s me—Metcalfe.’
I clicked off the torch and stooped to pick up one of the concrete bricks. I couldn’t see if it had spots of whitewash on it or not; if it had, then Metcalfe was going to be clobbered by a valuable brick.
A dark silhouette moved closer. ‘I thought you’d never stop making love to your girlfriend,’ said Metcalfe.
What do you want, and how did you get here?’
He chuckled. ‘I came in from the sea—Torloni’s boys are watching the front of the yard.’
I know,’ I said.
There was surprise in his voice. ‘Do you, now?’ I saw the flash of his teeth. ‘That doesn’t matter, though; it won’t make any difference.’
‘It won’t make any difference to what?’
‘Hal, boy, you’re in trouble,’ said Metcalfe. ‘Torloni’s going to jump you—tonight. I tried to hold him in, but he’s got completely out of hand.’
‘Whose side are you on?’ I demanded.
He chuckled. ‘Only my own,’ he said. He changed his tone. ‘What are you going to do?’
I shrugged. ‘What can I do except fight?’
‘Be damned to that,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t have a chance against Torloni’s cut-throats. Isn’t your boat ready for launching?’
‘Not yet. She still needs sheathing and painting.’
‘What the hell?’ he said angrily. ‘What do you care if you get worm in your planking now? Is the new keel on?’
I wondered how he knew about that. ‘What if it is?’
‘Then get the stick put back and get the boat into the water, and do it now. Get the hell out of here as fast as you can.’ He thrust something into my hand. ‘I had your clearance made out. I told you I was a pal of the Port Captain.’
I took the paper and said, ‘Why warn us? I thought Torloni was your boy.’
He laughed gently. ‘Torloni is nobody’s boy but his own. He was doing me a favour but he didn’t know what was in the wind. I told him I just wanted you watched. I was sorry to hear about the old watchman—that was Torloni’s thugs, it wasn’t my idea.’
I said, ‘I thought hammering old men wasn’t your style.’
‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘Torloni knows the score now. It was that damn’ fool Walker who gave it away.’
‘Walker! How?’
‘One of Torloni’s men picked his pocket and pinched his cigarette case. It wasn’t a bad case, either; it was made of gold and had a nice tasteful inscription on the inside—
‘Caro Benito da parte di Adolf—Brennero—1940.’
As soon as Torloni saw that he knew what was up, all right. People have been scouring Italy for that treasure ever since the war, and now Torloni thinks he has it right in his greasy fist.’
I damned Walker at length for an incompetent, crazy idiot.
Metcalfe said, ‘I tried to hold Torloni, but he won’t be held any longer. With what’s at stake he’d as soon cut my throat as yours—that’s why I’m giving you the tip-off.’
‘When is he going to make his attack?’
‘At three in the morning. He’s going to move in with all his crowd.’
‘Any guns?’
Metcalfe’s voice was thoughtful. ‘No, he won’t use guns. He wants to do this quietly and he has to get the gold out. That’ll take some time and he doesn’t want the police breathing down his neck while he’s doing it. So there’ll be no guns.’
That was the only good thing I’d heard since Metcalfe had surprised me. I said, ‘Where are his men now?’
‘As far as I know they’re getting some sleep—they don’t like being up all night.’
‘So they’re in their usual hotels—all sixteen of them.’
Metcalfe whistled. ‘You seem to know as much about it as I do.’
‘I’ve known about it all the time,’ I said shortly. ‘We’ve had them tabbed ever since they moved into Rapallo—before that, too. We had your men spotted in every port in the Mediterranean.’
He said slowly, ‘I wondered about that ever since Dino was beaten up in Monte Carlo. Was that you?’
‘Coertze,’ I said briefly. I gripped the brick which I was still holding. I was going to clobber Metcalfe after all—he played a double game too often and he might be playing one now. I thought we had better keep him where we could watch him.
He laughed. ‘Yes, of course; that’s just his mark.’
I lifted the brick slowly. ‘How did you cotton on to us?’ I asked. ‘It must have been in Tangier, but what gave the game away?’ There was no answer.
I said, ‘What was it, Metcalfe?’ and raised the brick.
There was silence.
‘Metcalfe?’ I said uncertainly, and switched on my torch. He had gone and I heard a faint splashing from the sea and the squeak of a rowlock. I ought to have known better than to think I could outwit Metcalfe; he was too wise a bird for me.
As I went back to the shed I looked at my watch; it was ten o’clock—five hours to go before Torloni’s assault. Could we replace the mast and all the standing rigging in time?
I very much doubted it. If we turned on the floodlights outside the shed, then Torloni’s watchers would know that something unusual was under way and he would move in immediately. If we worked in the dark it would be hell’s own job—I had never heard of a fifty-five foot mast being stepped in total darkness and I doubted if it could be done.
It looked very much as though we would have to stay and fight.
I went in and woke Coertze. He was drowsy but he woke up fast enough when I told him what was happening. I omitted to mention Walker’s part in the mess—I still needed Walker and I knew that if I told Coertze about it I would have a corpse and a murderer on my hands, and this was not time for internal dissension.
Coertze said suspiciously, ‘What the hell is Metcalfe’s game?’
‘I don’t know and I care less. The point is that he’s given us the tip-off and if we don’t use it we’re fools. He must have fallen out with Torloni.’
‘Reg,’
said Coertze and swung himself out of his berth. ‘Let’s get cracking.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘What about the mast?’ I told him my estimate of the chance of replacing the mast in darkness.
He rubbed his chin and the bristles crackled in the silence. ‘I reckon we should take a chance and turn the lights on,’ he said at last. ‘That is, after we’ve made our preparations for Torloni. We know he’s going to attack and whether he does it sooner or later doesn’t matter as long as we’re ready for him.’
This was the man of action—the military commander—speaking. His reasoning was good so I left him to it. He roused Piero and they went into a huddle while Walker and I began to clear the shed and to load up
Sanford.
Francesca heard the noise and got up to see what was going on and was drawn into Coertze’s council of war.
Presently Piero slipped out of the shed and Coertze called me over. ‘You might as well know what’s going to happen,’ he said.
He had a map of Rapallo spread out, one of the giveaways issued by the Tourist Office, and as he spoke he pointed to the salient features on the map. It was a good plan that he described and like all good plans it was simple.
I think that if Coertze had not been taken prisoner at Tobruk he would have been commissioned as an officer sooner or later. He had a natural grasp of strategy and his plan was the classic military design of concentration to smash the enemy in detail before they could concentrate.
He said, ‘This is the holiday season and the hotels are full. Torloni couldn’t get all his men into the same hotel, so they’re spread around the town—four men here, six here, three here and the rest with Torloni himself.’ As he spoke his stubby forefinger pointed to places on the map.
‘We can call up twenty-five men and I’m keeping ten men here at the yard. There are four of Torloni’s men outside the yard right now, watching us, and we’re going to jump them in a few minutes—ten men should clean them up easily. That means that when we turn on the lights there’ll be no one to warn Torloni about it.’
‘That seems a good idea,’ I said.
‘That leaves us fifteen men we can use outside the yard as a mobile force. We have two men outside each hotel excepting this one, here, where we have nine. There are four of Torloni’s men staying here and when they come out they’ll get clobbered. That ought to be easy, too.’
‘You’ll have already cut his force by half,’ I said.
‘That’s right. Now, there’ll be Torloni and eight men moving in on the yard. He’ll expect to have sixteen, but he won’t get them. This may make him nervous, but I think not. He’ll think that there’ll only be four men and a girl here and he’ll reckon he can take us easily. But we’ll
have fourteen men in the yard—counting us—and I’ll bring in another fifteen behind him as soon as he starts anything.’
He looked up. ‘How’s that, ay?’
‘It’s great,’ I said. ‘But you’ll have to tell the Italians to move in fast. We want to nail those bastards quick before they can start shooting. Metcalfe said they wouldn’t shoot, but they might if they see they’re on the losing end.’
‘They’ll be quick,’ he promised. ‘Piero’s on the blower now, giving instructions. The orders are to clean up the four watchers here at eleven o’clock.’ He looked at his watch. ‘That’s in five minutes. Let’s go and see the fun.’
Francesca said, ‘I don’t see how anything can go wrong.’
Neither could I—but it did!
We were leaving the shed when I noticed Walker tagging on behind. He had been keeping in the background, trying to remain inconspicuous. I let the others go and caught his arm. ‘You stay here,’ I said. ‘If you move out of this shed I swear I’ll kill you.’
His face went white. ‘Why?’
‘So you had your wallet stolen,’ I said. ‘You damn’ fool, why did you have to carry that cigarette case?’
He tried to bluff his way out of it. ‘Wh…what cigarette case?’
‘Don’t lie to me. You know what cigarette case. Now stay here and don’t move out. I don’t want you underfoot—I don’t want to have to keep an eye on you all the time in case you make any more damn’ silly mistakes.’ I took him by the shirt. ‘If you don’t stay in here I’ll tell Coertze just why Torloni is attacking tonight—and Coertze will dismember you limb from limb.’
His lower lip started to tremble. ‘Oh, don’t tell Coertze,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t tell him.’
I let him go. ‘O.K. But don’t move out of this shed.’
I followed the others up to Palmerini’s office. Coertze said, ‘It’s all set.’
I said to Piero, ‘You’d better get Palmerini down here; we’ll need his help in rigging the mast.’
‘I have telephoned him,’ said Piero. ‘He will be coming at eleven-fifteen—after we have finished our work here.’ He nodded towards the main gate.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Do you think we shall see anything of what is happening?’
‘A little. One of Torloni’s men is not troubling to hide himself; he is under the street lamp opposite the main gate.’
We went up to the gate, moving quietly so as not to alarm the watchers. The gate was of wood, old, unpainted and warped by the sun; there were plenty of cracks through which we could see. I knelt down and through one of the cracks saw a man on the other side of the road, illuminated by the street lamp. He was standing there, idly smoking a cigarette, with one hand in his trouser-pocket. I could hear the faint click as he jingled money or keys.
Coertze whispered, ‘Any time now.’
Nothing happened for a while. There was no sound to be heard except for the sudden harsh cry of an occasional seabird. Piero said in a low voice, ‘Two have been taken.’
‘How do you know?’
There was laughter in his voice. ‘The birds—they tell me.’
I suddenly realized what had been nagging at my mind. Seagulls sleep at night and they don’t cry.
There was a faint sound of singing which grew louder, and presently three men came down the street bellowing vociferously. They had evidently been drinking because they wavered and staggered and one of them had to be helped by the others. The man under the lamp trod on the butt of his cigarette and moved back to the wall to let them pass. One of them waved a bottle in the air and
shouted, ‘Have a drink, brother; have a drink on my firstborn.’