I saw the stern clamp of Peace's jaw and I said quickly, Will he take us beyond Raphael?'
Andre made an expressive gesture which embraced the w h o l e a r c o f t h e s e a. A n y w h e r e – b u t n o t R a p h a e l. ' I glanced at Peace and he nodded. Bellatrix!
Say, our yacht-the one he admired so-is at sea maybe a hundred miles north of Raphael. That is where we wish to go.'
Andre in reply snatched up a bright red fish from the bottomboards-one of the veielles which haunt the sheltered lagoons and coral overhangs-and snapped it with a curious deft movement across his knee, handing one half to Peace and retaining the other.
It's a deal,' translated Adele.
Andre shoved the hardy little cutter clear. She was about
25 feet long with a broad beam and flared bow-the sort of boat which claims kinship with the New Bedford whalers, the longboats of Tristan and the flatbooms of the Skeleton Coast. All are built to ride and fight wicked seas. She was half-decked, with a peculiar lateen sail-heritage of some dead-and-gone dhow plying from Zanzibar to Calicut and blown far off course to Limuria. The first chop of the short s e a s h i t u s a s A n d r e h o i s t e d i t. I m a d e f o r t h e t i l l e r, b u t MKG said, This isn't going to be such a cinch-I know boats.'
We headed for the reef.
A n d r e g e s t u r e d t o P e a c e a n d m e t o c o n n t h e b o a t. T h e driving spray seemed thicker. The stern light was out and I c o u l d n o t s e e a h a n d b r e a d t h a h e a d, b u t A n d r e t a c k e d t o windward, turning now and again with a peculiar gesture of his left hand-his thumb like the tiller-head and the palm and fingers the tiller itself-to guide MKG. The Vice-Presi138 dent sat bareheaded, eyes screwed up in that peculiar mannerism of his. Andre let the sail go with a clatter. He gestured-hard sport. The cutter swung wildly on a stern roller for a moment before MKG caught her. Andre whipped up the sail again and the boat rushed into white water. The stern corkscrewed violently, the tiller kicking loose momentarily from MKG's hands until he snatched at it again. This was the place where the Indian Ocean roiled its guts on the first land for 2,000 miles. The seas boiled, foamed, thundered, caromed, dragged, volted. A mass of coral loomed. I yelled in fear to Andre. He gave her half a reef and we snaked by a plume of foam within a hand's touch. We broke into the main pass in a series of rapid turns, Andre using the sail to keep us ahead of the thrust and rush of the sea. There were kaleidoscopic close-up glimpses of yellow, red, pink and blue coral; barnacle-black rocks and white, savage water.
Time and again Peace and I crashed the heavy wooden oars against the coral to fend us off. Our oilskins were waterlogged. My first guess that we were well inside the barrier was due not to the lessening of the spray but to a peculiar silveriness which came over the boat and reef. We swept, apparently out of control, round a 12-foot-high buttress of yellow coral and for the first time the lash of the spray was out of my face. I turned. The stars were hard, defined, white in the west towards Raphael. The sail was silver-blue. The wild magic of the barrier reef was upon the boat. It deepened the grave abstraction of mKG's eyes; it laid beauty on beauty in Adele's face. It blurred the cruel line of Peace's mouth and overlaid Andre's mahogany with a patina of St Brandon's glory.
Andre dropped the sail. ' Oars!' passed on Adele. There was an engine, Peace had found, in good working order, but there was no petrol.
Peace and I clunked the oars home into home-made rowlocks. After a few dozen strokes we stripped off our oilskins, which began to steam from our sweat. On the horizon behind MKG appeared a long thin line of pearl.
I cried out, it was so exquisite. Adele, crouched on a thwart, looked towards me and said something softly in. Creole.
The spray was gone now and the sea, at our backs, grumbled. On every hand lay wet coral-yellow, red, pink, blue- stretching as far as our limited horizon would allow, and between were sea-threads of aquamarine, turquoise and
blue. To starboard, a dark, ill-defined green mass rose out of the sea-Raphael! We were safe.
MKG stretched himself stiffly. Eight days to go.'
Red-eyed from the spray, Peace spoke to Andre through
Adele. The weather-they say there's a cyclone coming?'
The old fisherman shook his head and pointed at the red coral. Not yet, not yet. When it is near, that turns dull.'
P e a c e u n r o l l e d t h e d a m p c h a r t. H e p o i n t e d t o a s p o t north-north-west of St Brandon. Andre, my yacht is somewhere here… The old man stared in blank incomprehension and rattled off a volley at Adele. He says he doesn't know what you are talking about, or what that thing is.' She indicated the chart.
I found the compass I had brought from the sub-I didn't like the look of the cutter's old compass, any more than MKG did. It hasn't been boxed since Old King Cole ordered the bowl,' he remarked.
Adele leaned over the chart. May I see? The islanders have their own names for places.
Peace pointed. 'Bellatrix will be a hundred miles northnorth-west of Raphael. Adele stared at the map and clapped her hands. There was a rapid-fire of Creole and Andre shrugged and laughed too.
What does he say?'
" Thank you, sweet Jesus, that I am unable to read and write, when all they mean is Purse-Fish Bank."
What is a purse-fish?' asked MKG.
She shot the question at Andre, who grinned and sketched a caricature with his expressive hands-a grotesque thing with mean eyes and a Roman nose and-Andre took in the whole compass of yellow coral-as garish as that.
Tell him to strike south of Raphael to start with,' said Peace. Now we've got a boat, I don't want the islanders to, see us any more than Andre himself wants to be spotted.'
T h e r e e f l o s t i t s v i o l e n c e. W e r o d e e a s i l y t h r o u g h t h e channels, Peace and I in the bows. Our course remained south of Raphael till the white guano fang of Siren Island lifted out of the waves. Then we swung north-north-west to intercept Bellatrix-I had drawn a straight line on the chart showing her course after I had left her to Trevor-Davis's charge. Under the steady bite of the trades on our beam, we snored along while MKG and I shared yachtsmen's appreciation of the cutter's sailing qualities. Despite the balminess of the morning, our enjoyment was
underlaid with unease, Had Tyler broken the news of the space-shot? Was the news of MKG'S disappearance public? M K G f i d d l e d w i t h t h e r a d i o t o g e t a V o i c e o f A m e r i c a newscast, while Peace waited a little impatiently for Adele to see what Tyler and the Seventh Fleet were up to. The newscast blared through. Nothing, beyond day-to-day events. M K G b r e a t h e d a s i g h o f r e l i e f. B u t h i s a n x i e t y w a s n o t allayed, for when Adele switched to the Navy wavelength and the quick groupings started to come in, he muttered, Now for the kicker.'
It wasn't long in coming. Peace read out the decoded signal Adele passed to him.
Willowtrack to Command intelligence Center, carrier Rio Grande x top secret x op-immed x repeat my request immediate assistance search Vice-President x' Admiral Thornton's reply was terse:
CIC to Willowtrack repeat to Chief Naval Operations x top secret x op-immed x entire Seventh Fleet on its way x deployed under my personal command as hunter-killer group x proceeding all speed St Brandon area x
Willowtrack to CIC x last contact with Vice-President aboard British submarine Devastation x no further con- tacts x
CIC to Willowtrack x Keep station x
'Hunter-killer group!' exclaimed Peace.
MKG was withdrawn, thoughtful. I can't make it out,' he said at length. The President had my signal last night. Why has he allowed this operation to be mounted?'
Because, I told myself secretly, he believes Tyler; he is under the impression that MKG has been kidnapped. Tyler's dramatic news came after MKG's signal, and the President himself had given the okay before learning it.