‘All we need is the fuel to get back.’
He descended the ladder. ‘My chaps’ll get it on by midnight. When I promise ’em a bonus they work like blacks.’ His face was bland, but his hands twitched. ‘I heard a plane nosing about this afternoon, so I want to be at sea by dawn. I’d get shot of the place as well, if I were you. I think you have rivals in your line of business.’
Bennett wasn’t made for talk, so Ellis had to provide his own, which seemed no hardship. ‘Funny thing but, do you know, we have a stowaway on board. God knows where he came from. Maybe a castaway. Took him on this afternoon. He was well fed and decently dressed.’
‘A castaway?’
‘Must have been. All he needed was drink. He’s drunk now, in fact. No sense in him – like Europe after the war.’
Nash was close by, and we both wanted to throttle him. He stopped, as if remembering. ‘He’s a Norwegian – came off one of their whalers. That’s all I got out of him, before my chief engineer put a keg of booze in his paws. Took ticket of leave, I suppose. Funny things happen, south of the Line.’
I looked out of the porthole, as if uninterested. Bennett’s frame unclenched. But he must have known. ‘Which reminds me,’ Ellis said, ‘maybe we should take a glass before we set to. I usually have a drop about this time.’
Bennett’s room was out of range. Engines vibrated from the nearby ship that seemed to own the fjord. The bridge was vacant, and I supposed the signaller was back in his cabin with a plate of supper. Nash came to the flight deck. ‘You heard what Captain Windbag said?’
‘Sure.’
‘And what did Wankers-doom with the magic flashlight say?’
‘The same. He’s over there, as pissed as a newt. They’ll keep it quiet, though.’
‘I hope he knows he’s left us in the lurch. I’d like to break his neck, but we can’t risk a shindy. Bennett’d want a drumhead court martial, and we haven’t got time.’
I’d have been a fool to keep such forebodings to myself. ‘Maybe Armatage sensed something.’
‘Don’t talk tripe. He just got the wind up.’
‘I thought blokes like him never did.’
‘You’re not worth much if you don’t. None of us were sworn in,’ he said by way of apology. ‘Not properly, anyway. Not this time.’
He didn’t want to go on, and neither did I.
Captain Ellis was merrier than when he stepped aboard, and less loquacious. Also, his briefcase weighed more. He shook Bennett’s hand, and passed the money to the man in the boat, advising him not to drop it if he valued his next hundred years’ pay. I watched them leave for their rusting but trusty ship, sharply visible against the side of the fjord.
So many tanks were filled that nothing less than a flying bowser would take to the air. For a few hours Rose and I were, as Appleyard said, superfluous to requirements. Barrels were derricked two by two over the side and brought across in a lifeboat whose motor smoked like a matelot’s briar. I went to the galley to make coffee, but Nash pushed me from the stove saying did I want to blow them all to kingdom come? I felt slightly less stupid when he laid into Appleyard who had pulled out a box of matches to light up between consignments. Nash raged that he had nothing but lunatics for a crew and, taking no chances, went into the rest room where Rose was lying on the bunk making smoke-rings from his repaired pipe.
On the flight deck I was hoping to get in touch with Armatage, to find out why he had committed an act which filled me with awe. To abandon what you had pledged to serve was to lose a world and go into the wilderness. Must one be sworn in before doing one’s duty? Couldn’t one live without taking an oath? It was imaginable, but frightening, and my feeling for him was of pity rather than condemnation.
There was no movement on board the Difda. All interest was on traffic between ship and flying boat. Perhaps Armatage was not drunk. Maybe Captain Ellis needed an extra man for his crew, which was why he had connived in keeping him there. He had rendered us more vulnerable than we cared to believe. With three people less, our flying boat seemed forlorn, so I sat at my receiver to imagine I was among company.
The mild antics of atmospherics on 500 kilocycles separated me from the surrounding industry. Then my call sign thumped all speculation aside, came as loud as if emitted from the nearby ship. My hand went forward to respond. I refrained. It was dangerous to doze. I might send without thinking. Someone kept a listening watch, and tapped my call sign in the hope that I would give myself away.
He called again. Please do, I said. Just as the postman always knocks twice, so a telegraphist will tap his request two or three times in the hope of getting through. By his bearing I could tell that their ship was coming north.
Bennett counted barrels by the hatchway as they swung over. I informed him of what I knew, and returned to my wireless. Those who listened so diligently for me could not know what happened on the four megacycle band where the fast steely morse of coded messages passed between Royal Navy ships to the north. On short wave such signals could be hundreds, even thousands of miles distant. I was tempted to retune and get in touch, resisting only because my signals might bleed onto the frequency of the other ship and give our presence away. If they already suspected where we were I had nothing to lose, but to introduce a new element into the equation might mean the end of our flying boat and its cargo of gold. I was beginning to believe that we were surrounded by enemies, and that they were closing in.
Bennett would decide what was to be done. I switched off the set, and slept with my head resting on the desk.
14
Nash and Appleyard reeked like leaking faglighters. We all did, said Rose. Whether we had worked or not. One spark, and the expedition would vanish. For a while anyone looking on would have thought we had swallowed a half bottle of whisky each, such were our high spirits as we larked about.
But a breeze cleared the air. Nash’s body flashed under the wingtip as he swam in circles, and he stuck up two fingers at Appleyard’s: ‘Come back! We don’t want to lose you as well!’
He pulled himself in and splashed us with cold water, then searched his kitbag for dry clothes because we were expected to spruce up for departure. I put on a clean shirt and shaved, and used half a tin of blacking on my shoes. Appleyard dipped his dental plate in the sea, and slotted it back with a shiver.
I was stationed on the flight deck with the signal lamp.
‘Tell them thank you,’ Bennett said. ‘And wish them good luck.’
I sent in full as their anchors rattled up.
‘SAME TO U,’ their operator replied. ‘WILL LOOK AFTER YOUR BLOKE.’
‘Look after who?’
I cursed his slow sending. Perhaps he hadn’t slept for days. ‘I asked him to remember me to a friend of mine.’
There were times when Bennett, able to do every crew member’s job, did not make things easier for himself or the rest of us. I moved aside, out of his bloodshot gaze. He pulled the lamp away. ‘Unofficial plain language is forbidden.’
Impossible to say what he suspected. His sensibility was sufficiently acute for him to know, and if he did, something stopped him taking action. ‘From now on, send only messages that originate from me.’ He thrust the lamp back. ‘Is that clear?’
Once around Black Cape, the fuel ship would be seen no more. I wanted to be with Armatage, looking back at our immobile crate that would stay behind as a decoy in the fulsome visibility of dawn.