‘You’d better go below,’ I told Monique.
But she shook her head. ‘I do not want to miss the fight,’ she said.
It was astonishing to me that she really wanted to see a fight. Perhaps that was one reason why I was in love with her. She was so very different from most of the girls I had known. She had no veneer of civilization. She was a strange mixture of the primitive and the innocent, and she had that naive confidence in the world that is usually lost with childhood. And of course she was by force of circumstances dependent upon me. I had never had anyone dependent upon me before.
My thoughts were interrupted by the Little Octopus’s sharp voice giving orders. The captain’s voice joined in and instantly there was pandemonium on the ship. Then the schooner shuddered as her bows struck the Trevedra at an angle as though trying to shoulder the heavy landing craft out of the way.
As the two vessels ground together, the Trevedra straining at her anchor chains, the crew of the schooner tumbled on to her decks with ropes and began to make fast.
A big man came down from the bridge. Two others appeared from the wheel-house. A heated argument began between them and the men from the schooner as to whether or not it was essential for us to moor alongside the landing craft. The Little Octopus, who was standing right beside me, watched the scene closely. I noticed how his own men were edging their way round behind the crew of the other ship.
Suddenly he put a whistle to his lips and blew a sharp low blast. Instantly his men produced black-jacks and slugged the two largest of the Trevedra’s crew from behind. They slumped to the deck and the third man was still staring at them in astonishment when the butt of an automatic struck him down.
It was all done so naturally and so easily. One minute there had been three husky men disputing the schooner’s right to berth alongside. And now they were inert, lying like sacks on the rusty steel of the decks.
We went aboard then.
“Ome sweet ‘ome,’ Boyd said. ‘I never thought I’d be glad to see a landing craft again. I wonder wot they’ve done with Jack and Mr McCrae?’
The Little Octopus took command now. He had the gangster’s slickness in organization. He posted Boyd and myself to the bridge and others to the various companionways. Then he stopped over the largest of the inert figures and slapped the man’s face until he came to.
A lighter flame flickered, showing his face cruel and aquiline. Then the tip of a cigarette showed red. One of his men stuffed a rag into the man’s mouth and then wound a handkerchief tight round his face so that he was effectually gagged.
I knew what he was up to and went down on to the deck. As I came up to the group around the squirming body of the man the smell of burning flesh was heavy in the night air.
I said, ‘What the hell do you want to do that for?’
The Little Octopus swung round on me. ‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘And leave me to handle this my own way. You’re getting your ship back, aren’t you?’ The tip of his cigarette glowed and threw his face into red relief. Then he bent again and the man squirmed like a lobster dropped into boiling water, his whole body contorting to express his stifled screams.
Then suddenly the big face with the wide frightened eyes nodded.
His torturer straightened up and the gag was removed from the wretched man’s mouth.
‘Well?’ the Little Octopus asked.
‘There is only Perroni. The two Englishmen are in the chain locker. They were alive when we battened them down.’
‘Where is Perroni?’
But before the man could reply, there was a shout from the bridge. Boyd must have been caught napping. No doubt he had been watching the scene on the deck. As a result a thick-set man, whom I had no difficulty in recognizing as the skipper of the Pampas, had him by the neck and was trying to throttle him.
The Little Octopus did not hesitate. He drew his pistol. I tried to stop him, but I was too late. A stab of flame, the soft plop of a silencer and Perroni jerked upright and rigid. Then he slowly keeled over and fell against the windbreaker of the bridge. The Little Octopus fired again and a hole appeared in the man’s forehead and Monique cried out as she was splashed by the ugly pulp that spread over the back of the man’s head, showing red in the moonlight.
‘That’s the lot then,’ said the Little Octopus to me. ‘I’ll look after this. You go and get your two men out of the chain locker.’
I felt slightly sick. It was so unnecessary — like burning that wretch with a cigarette end. But there it was. I called to Boyd to get Monique down off the bridge.
I met her at the foot of the port ladder. She was trembling like a leaf. Her hand slipped into mine like a kid that’s got into a world it does not understand.
We went aft into the galley and down into the bowels of the ship’s stern. Landing craft anchor from the stern and their chain lockers are therefore in a different place to other ships. We got the hatch of the locker up. I struck a match. It died for lack of air as soon as I thrust it through the hatch. But not before I had seen Stuart and Dugan, exhausted and wide-eyed, lying prostrate on the anchor chain.
‘You all right, Stuart?’ I asked.
‘It’s you, is it, David?’ he said. ‘Thank God!’ His voice was thick and blurred. ‘We’ve been here two days.’ The Black Hole couldn’t have been worse. The air was stale and smelt bad.
I climbed through and got first Dugan and then Stuart up through the hatch. They were in a bad way. ‘No water. No food.’ Stuart explained painfully. Lack of air and the heat had done the rest. We carried them up into the fresh air and put them to bed in the bunks in the bridge housings. Monique brought water and then I told Boyd to show her the galley and get some soup wanned up.
‘Is the cargo all right?’ Stuart asked.
I nodded. ‘I imagine so,’ I said. ‘She’s low enough in the water.’
He smiled happily. ‘How did you manage to get here?’
‘The story will keep,’ I said. ‘It’s none of my doing — just luck and the help of several people.’
‘I nearly gave you up,’ he said, and the water spilled on to the blankets as he sipped at the mug. ‘Thought you might think I’d welshed or something.’
‘I’m afraid we came pretty near to thinking that,’ I admitted. ‘We’ve been very lucky.’
At that moment the Little Octopus walked in. ‘Arrivederci, Signore,’ he said. ‘I’ve cleared the remains from your bridge. I suggest you start your motors and get under way. The sooner you are out of here the better.’
I said, ‘Stuart, this is the man who got the ship back from Perroni.’ Then to the Italian I said, ‘How can we repay you?’
He shrugged his shoulders with an expressive lift of his hands. ‘It was a pleasure,’ he said. ‘Doubtless you will return to Italy. And some day I may need help. That is all I ask.’
I was just about to thank him again when I noticed that Stuart had struggled into a sitting position. His eyes were narrowed dangerously. ‘Your name is Beni Jocomoni,’ he said. ‘The last time I saw you was up by Rimini nearly three years ago. You had just set fire to five houses in which you had locked the occupants. You were a partisan and on our side, but I would have shot you if you hadn’t escaped through the smoke.’
The Little Octopus turned down the corners of his lips. ‘Perhaps I am like this Beni Jocomoni. It is possible. But you are in no state, signore, to recognize people. It is a long time ago, three years. Much has happened. And at the moment I think you owe your life to me.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Stuart slumped back on to the pillows. ‘But to have saved my life is small consolation to the innocent people who died to make a bonfire for your amusement.’
The Little Octopus laughed and it was not a nice sound. ‘They would not give us food. Human life is cheap in a world where there is so much suffering. Arrivederci, Signori.’ He bowed with a jerky theatrical movement of his slim body and went out through the door.