I looked at it bitterly. I had been certain that Metcalfe must have lost us in the storm—he had the luck of the devil. He hadn’t found us by radar either, because the storm had made a clean sweep of the Fairmile’s upperworks—his radar antenna was gone, as also was the radio mast and the short derrick. It could only have been by sheer luck that he had stumbled upon us.
I said to Coertze, ‘Get below and start the engine. Francesca, you go below, too, and stay there.’
I looked across at the Fairmile. It was about a mile away and closing at about eight knots—a little over five minutes to make what futile preparations we could. I had no illusions about Metcalfe. Torloni had been bad enough but all he knew was force—Metcalfe used his brains.
The Fairmile was in no better shape, either. She staggered and wallowed as unexpected waves hit her and I could imagine the tumult inside that hull. She was an old boat, being war surplus, and her hull must have deteriorated over the years despite the care Metcalfe had lavished on her. Then there was the fact that when she was built her life expectancy was about five years, and wartime materials weren’t noted for their excessive quality.
I had the sudden idea that she couldn’t move any faster, and that Metcalfe was driving her as fast as he dared in those
heavy seas. Her engines were fine for twenty-six knots in calm water but if she was driven at much more than eight knots now she would be in danger of falling apart. Metcalfe might risk a lot for the gold, but he wouldn’t risk that.
As I heard the engine start I opened the throttle wide and turned
Sanford
away from the Fairmile. We had a biggish engine and I could still get seven knots out of
Sanford,
even punching against these seas. Our five minutes’ grace was now stretched to an hour, and maybe in that hour I’d get another bright idea.
Coertze came up and I handed the tiller over to him, and went below. I didn’t bother to tell him what to do—it was obvious. I opened the locker under my berth and took out the Schmeisser machine pistol and all the magazines. Francesca looked at me from the settee. ‘Must you do that?’ she asked.
‘I’ll not shoot unless I have to,’ I said. ‘Not unless they start shooting first.’ I looked round. ‘Where’s Walker?’
‘He locked himself in the fo’c’sle. He’s frightened of Coertze.’
‘Good. I don’t want him underfoot now,’ I said, and went back to the cockpit.
Coertze looked incredulously at the machine pistol. ‘Where the hell did you get that?’
‘From the tunnel,’ I said. ‘I hope it works—this ammo is damned old.’
I put one of the long magazines into the butt and clipped the shoulder rest into place. I said, ‘You’d better get your Luger; I’ll take the helm.’
He smiled sourly. ‘What’s the use? You threw all the bullets away.’
‘Damn! Wait a minute, though; there’s Torloni’s gun. It’s in the chart table drawer.’
He went below and I looked back at the Fairmile. As I thought, Metcalfe didn’t increase his speed when we turned
away. Not that it mattered—he had the legs of us by about a knot and I could see that he was perceptibly closer.
Coertze came back with the pistol stuck in his trouser waistband. He said, ‘How long before he catches up?’
‘Less than an hour,’ I said. I touched the Schmeisser. ‘We don’t shoot unless he does—and we don’t shoot to kill.’
‘Will he shoot to kill?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He might.’
Coertze grunted and pulled out the gun and began to examine the action.
We fell into silence; there was nothing much to talk about, anyway. I ruminated on the firing of a submachine-gun. It had been a long time since I had fired one and I began to go over the training points that had been drilled into me by a red-faced sergeant. The big thing was that the recoil lifted the muzzle and if you didn’t consciously hold it down most of your fire would be wasted in the air. I tried to think of other things I had learned but I couldn’t think of anything else so that fragment of information would have to do.
After a while I said to Coertze, ‘I could do with some coffee.’
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ he said, and went below. An Afrikaner will never refuse the offer of coffee; their livers are tanned with it. In five minutes he was back with two steaming mugs, and said, ‘Francesca wants to come up.’
I looked back at the Fairmile. ‘No,’ I said briefly.
We drank the coffee, spilling half of it as
Sanford
shuddered to a particularly heavy sea, and when we had finished the Fairmile was within a quarter of a mile and I could see Metcalfe quite clearly standing outside the wheelhouse.
I said, ‘I wonder how he’s going to go about it. He can’t board us in this sea, there’s too much danger of ramming us. How would you go about it, Kobus?’
‘I’d lay off and knock us off with a rifle,’ he grunted. ‘Just like at a shooting gallery. Then when the sea goes down he can board us without a fight.’
That seemed reasonable but it wouldn’t be as easy as in a shooting gallery—metal ducks don’t shoot back. I handed the tiller to Coertze. ‘We may have to do a bit of fancy manoeuvring,’ I said. ‘But you’ll handle her well enough without sail. When I tell you to do something, you do it damn’ quick.’ I picked up the Schmeisser and held it on my knee. ‘How many rounds are there in that pistol?’
‘Not enough,’ he said. ‘Five.’
At last the Fairmile was only a hundred yards away on the starboard quarter and Metcalfe came out of the wheelhouse carrying a Tannoy loud-hailer. His voice boomed across the water. ‘What are you running away for? Don’t you want a tow?’
I cupped my hands around my mouth. ‘Are you claiming salvage?’ I asked sardonically.
He laughed. ‘Did the storm do any damage?’
‘None at all,’ I shouted. ‘We can get to port ourselves.’ If he wanted to play the innocent I was prepared to go along with him. I had nothing to lose.
The Fairmile was throttled back to keep pace with us. Metcalfe fiddled with the amplification of the loud-hailer and it whistled eerily. ‘Hal,’ he shouted, ‘I want your boat—and your cargo.’
There it was—out in the open as bluntly as that.
The loud-hailer boomed, ‘If you act peaceable about it I’ll accept half, if you don’t I’ll take the lot, anyway.’
‘Torloni made the same offer and look what happened to him.’
‘He was at a disadvantage,’ called Metcalfe. ‘He couldn’t use guns—I can.’
Krupke moved into sight—carrying a rifle. He climbed on top of the deck saloon and lay down just behind the
wheelhouse. I said to Coertze, ‘It looks as though you called that one.’
It was bad, but not as bad as all that. Krupke had been in the army; he was accustomed to firing from a steady position even though his target might move. I didn’t think he could fire at all accurately from a bouncing platform like the Fairmile.
I saw the Fairmile edging in closer and said to Coertze, ‘Keep the distance.’
Metcalfe shouted, ‘What about it?’
‘Go to hell!’
He nodded to Krupke, who fired immediately, I didn’t see where the bullet went—I don’t think it hit us at all. He fired again and this time he hit something forward. It must have been metal because I heard a ‘spaang’ as the bullet ricochetted away.
Coertze dug me in the ribs. ‘Don’t look back so that Metcalfe notices you, but I think we’re in for some heavy weather.’
I changed position on the seat so that I could look astern from the corner of my eye. The horizon was black with a vicious squall—and it was coming our way. I hoped to God it would hurry.
I said, ‘We’ll have to play for time now.’
Krupke fired again and there was a slam astern. I looked over the side and saw a hole punched into the side of the counter. His aim was getting better.
I shouted, ‘Tell Krupke not to hole us below the waterline. We might sink, and you wouldn’t like that.’
That held him for a while. I saw him talking to Krupke, making gestures with his hand to indicate a higher elevation. I called urgently for Francesca to come on deck. Those nickeljacketed bullets would go through
Sanford
’s thin planking as though it was tissue paper. She came up just as Krupke fired his next shot. It went high and didn’t hit anything.
As soon as Metcalfe saw her he held up his hand and Krupke stopped firing. ‘Hal, be reasonable,’ he called. ‘You’ve got a woman aboard.’
I looked at Francesca and she shook her head. I shouted, ‘You’re doing the shooting.’
‘I don’t want to hurt anybody,’ pleaded Metcalfe.
‘Then go away.’
He shrugged and said something to Krupke, who fired again. The bullet hit the gooseneck with a clang. I grinned mirthlessly at Metcalfe’s curious morality—according to him it would be my fault if anyone was killed.
I looked astern. The squall was appreciably nearer and coming up fast. It was the last dying kick of the storm and wouldn’t last long—just long enough to give Metcalfe the slip, I hoped. I didn’t think that Metcalfe had seen it yet; he was too busy with us.
Krupke fired again. There was a thud forward and I knew the bullet must have gone through the main cabin. I had brought Francesca up just in time.
I was beginning to worry about Krupke. In spite of the difficulties of aiming, his shooting was getting better, and even if it didn’t, then sooner or later he would get in a lucky shot. I wondered how much ammunition he had.
‘Metcalfe,’ I called.
He held up his hand but not soon enough to prevent Krupke pulling the trigger. The cockpit disintegrated into matchwood just by my elbow. We all ducked low into the cockpit and I looked incredulously at the back of my hand—a two-inch splinter of mahogany was sticking in it.
I pulled it out and shouted, ‘Hey, hold it! That was a bit too close.’
‘What do you want?’
I noticed that the Fairmile was crowding us again so I told Coertze to pull out.
‘Well?’ Metcalfe’s voice was impatient.
‘I want to make a deal,’ I shouted.
‘You know my terms.’
‘How do we know we can trust you?’
Metcalfe was uncompromising. ‘You don’t.’
I pretended to confer with Coertze. ‘How’s that squall coming up?’
‘If you keep stringing him along we might make it.’
I turned to the Fairmile. ‘I’ll make a counter-proposition. We’ll give you a third—Walker won’t be needing his share.’
Metcalfe laughed. ‘Oh, you’ve found him out at last, have you?’
‘What about it?’
‘Nothing doing—half or all of it. Make your choice; you’re in no position to bargain.’
I turned to Coertze. ‘What do you think, Kobus?’
He rubbed his chin. ‘I’ll go along with anything you say.’
‘Francesca?’
She sighed. ‘Do you think this other storm coming up will help?’
‘It’s not a storm, but it’ll help. I think we can lose Metcalfe if we can hold him off for another ten minutes.’
‘Can we?’
‘I think so, but it might be dangerous.’
Her lips tightened. ‘Then fight him.’
I looked across at Metcalfe. He was standing by the door of the wheelhouse looking at Krupke who was pointing astern.
He had seen the squall!
I shouted, ‘We’ve been having a conference and the general consensus of opinion is that you can still go to hell.’
He jerked his hand irritably and Krupke fired again—another miss.
I said to Coertze, ‘We’ll give him another two shots. Immediately after the second, starboard your helm as though you are going to ram him, but for God’s sake don’t
ram him. Get as close as you can and come back on course parallel to him. Understand?’
As he nodded there was another shot from Krupke. That one hit
Sanford
just under the cockpit—Krupke was getting too good.
Metcalfe couldn’t know that we had a machine-gun.
Sanford
had been searched many times and machine-guns—even small ones—aren’t to be picked up on every street corner in Italy. There was the chance we could give him a fright. I said to Francesca, ‘When we start to turn get down in the bottom of the cockpit.’
Krupke fired again, missed, and Coertze swung the tiller over. It caught Metcalfe by surprise—this was like a rabbit attacking a weasel. We had something like twenty seconds to complete the manoeuvre and it worked. By the time he had recovered enough to shout to the helmsman and for the helmsman to respond, we were alongside.
Krupke fired again when he saw us coming but the bullet went wild. I saw him aim at me and looked right into the muzzle of his gun. Then I cut loose with the Schmeisser.
I had only time to fire two bursts. The first one was for Krupke—I must get him before he got me. Two or three rounds broke the saloon windows of the Fairmile and I let the recoil lift the gun. Bullets smashed into the edge of the decking and I saw Krupke reel back with both hands clasped to his face and heard a thin scream.
Then I switched to the wheelhouse and hosed it. Glass flew but I was too late to catch Metcalfe who was already out of sight. The Schmeisser jammed on a defective round and I yelled at Coertze, ‘Let’s get out of here,’ and he swung the helm over again.
‘Where to?’ he asked.
‘Back to where we came from—into the squall.’
I looked back at the Fairmile. Metcalfe was on top of the deck saloon bending over Krupke and the Fairmile was still
continuing on her original course. But her bows were swinging from side to side as though there was nobody at the helm. ‘This might just work,’ I said.
But after two or three minutes she started to turn and was soon plunging after us. I looked ahead and prayed we could get into the squall in time. I had never before prayed for dirty weather.
It was nip and tuck but we made it. The first gusts hit us when the Fairmile was barely two hundred yards behind, and ten seconds later she was invisible, lost in spearing rain and sea spume.
I throttled back the engine until it was merely ticking over; it would be suicide to try to butt our way through this. It was an angry bit of weather, all right, but it didn’t have the sustained ferocity of the earlier storm and I knew it would be over in an hour or so.
In that short time we had to lose Metcalfe.