The River of Diamonds

Zero!

Black Sophie Rock abeam!

The first drum exploded far to port of the enemy, almost among the breakers. The second, closer, followed almost at once. The boat shied like a Polaris breaking surface. The helm went over hard and she streaked for the gap between the Malgas and Black Sophie. Mary, Koeltas, Kim and I — and the rest of the crew — stood at the rails without a thought of the deadly twin muzzle's. They were swinging hard now, trying to regain their lost target. Four other drums exploded like a badly-timed broadside. The craft skidded sideways, hydrofoils fighting for a grip, away from the ragged detonations. She lay hard over on her starboard side: the loose torpedo jinked up and down. Fifty knots and a live torpedo hanging loose! Let her touch the trip-wire with that…

I never saw her die. One moment the superb craft was creaming along as fast as a torpedo itself, the next — the Malgas jerked on the end of the rope. There was a shattering roar, a blinding flash. The torpedo exploded. The gun-mounting cartwheeled high into the night, like a discarded space booster rocket. A foul dribble of obscenities dripped from Koeltas's mouth and the yellow skin was taut to whiteness over the high Tartar cheekbones.

Kim mouthed, 'Black Sophie! My beautiful bitch! My Beautiful bitch!'

I caught the flash of Johaar's knife blade waved in frantic glee. Then he took a flying header into the breakers and came ploughing across to us. He and Bob Sheriff's boat arrived simultaneously. The power cut and she sank on her hull, gliding to the schooner's side.

'Give us a light, blast you!'

I wasn't surprised at Sheriff's tone, standing outlined in the torch beam, capless, oilskins streaming.

'What the hell gives?' he demanded, jumping on to the deck. 'What sort of party is this, Tregard? I heard a couple of small explosions and then one hell of a big one. The other craft's disappeared…'

Kim said, aping the Royal Navy's accent. 'Simple matter of a trip-rope, old boy. Nothing simpler. Nothing at all, on my oath!'

Sheriff turned on him savagely. 'Who the hell are you anyway?'

I think Koeltas, Johaar and Kim would have torn him to pieces if I had not intervened. 'These are my pirates,' I said placatingly. 'They are capable of almost anything. Don't give them too many excuses.'

Sheriff shrugged and called across to the patrol boat, 'Watson, if there's any trouble aboard this ship, you know what to do.'

The bearded figure at the gun nodded. 'Aye, aye, sir.'

'Listen,' I said. 'That's not the sort of threat I care for, any more than your tone with these chaps. We have done your job — we sank her almost with our bare hands.'

'Christ!' he exploded. 'That's exactly what I'm bitching about! How the hell did you get here from the Mazy Zed?'

Mary laughed, and her voice eased the tension. 'We went into orbit.' She explained the torpedoing, our rescue, the canisters of dynamite, the trip-rope.

Sheriff listened in amazement and then laughed ruefully. 'Seems you boys know a lot about in-fighting that I don't.' He came over and gripped my arm, a sort of clubman's gesture, and said formally to Koeltas, 'Thank you for your invaluable assistance.'

Koeltas looked disconcerted. The vowels clicked and I translated. '"That's all right, we just buggered him up nicely."'

Kim leered. 'Man, he talks like a fancy love-boy, but underneath I think he's tough.'

Johaar refused to be left out of the accolades. 'I swim. I tie the rope.'

'Is this Man Friday or Long John Silver?' Sheriff asked.

I grinned. 'All of us have got scores to settle up the coast.' I gestured to the north. 'We intend going about it in our own way…'

'I hate to think what that might be.'

'If you'd like them on your side, you only have to offer them a ride in your speedboat.'

He laughed. 'Hell, of course! I have to report to the Mazy Zed anyway.'

Across the anchorage at the barge, a small emergency light had been rigged on the wrecked gantry.

'Come on, chaps, let's get going.'

It was too short a distance to the Mazy Zed to use the hydrofoils, although Koeltas begged a quick feel of the helm. Watson, the gunner, gazed at the lot of us with the sort of disapproval that only a former Chief Petty Officer of the Royal Navy can exude.

I found a windcheater for Mary, who had become very quiet. 'Cold?' I asked.

'Yes, John,' she replied. 'Cold inside. We seem to be being guided inexorably into violence and death. I fear Mercury and I fear your meeting Shelborne again. I like you both — terribly, and I can't bear it. It's like two express trains who believe the points are right but are racing for head-on collision.'

The small figure stood in a pool of sea water — torn, ragged, her hair astray. The swift passage of phosphorescence was reflected in her amber eyes. Once again, I was puzzled by my feelings for her — warmth, closeness, a curious intuition of her moods, but lacking in something. She looked at me, and I at her.

We bumped alongside the Mazy Zed.

Under the jury light I could see where the machine-gun bullets had stripped metal and rubber raw. A big section of hose was missing, probably the piece Mary and I had used as a raft. The hull had a hole about the size of a piano. For a radius of about twenty feet round it the plating was buckled. It did not seem too bad for me. The explosion had largely dissipated itself.

Rhennin was shouting orders when he caught sight of Mary and myself. He helped us aboard. 'Thank God! I thought you both had bought it up on deck… Venter! Get a couple of blankets! Rustle up a steward. I want hot drinks — rum. No, coffee and rum. Quick!'

'Don't thank me, Felix, thank my pirates.'

'You sank her?'

I told him briefly. He whistled at the name Mary had seen on the boat. 'Sookin Sin — know what that means?'

I shrugged.

'I do,' he said quietly. 'It's Russian. Sonofabitch. Pretty low class. Koeltas category.'

I too exclaimed. 'That Second Atlantic People's Fleet, or whatever it calls itself?'

'Could be. Hell on them! I don't want the Mazy Zed spotlighted in an international incident.'

I shrugged. 'She made the attack, not us. What is the Mazy Zed like below?'

'She shipped some water, but it was more a hell of a noise than anything. I thought we'd sucked up Davy Jones himself from his locker — bellowing!'

'And the machine-gunning?' Mary asked.

'They shot away the hoses, but we have hundreds of feet of it in reserve below. A couple of hours will see that fixed. And it's going to be fixed. The nozzles still look okay to me; no bullets penetrated.'

The electric power snapped on. The deck was white under the floodlights, set up for working twenty-four-hours-a-day shifts. Mary and I in our blankets were a couple of scarecrows in the general untidy picture of the deck"- twisted metal, scarred steel, blackened plating.

'I want a full damage assessment in half an hour,' Rhennin said to the chief engineer. He turned to Sheriff. 'See what clues you can find — bodies, flotsam of any sort. Slap it about, will you, Bob: we'll talk about the other part of it later.'

Sheriff glowered under his tan. 'I have yet to have a radar warning from those so-and-so's on Sinclair — I can't see in the dark.'

Rhennin went on, 'They won't risk a second attack — you can use your spotlight.'

'Aye, aye.'

Koeltas called to me. Rhennin waited until his rapid-fire request was done» 'Who is that, John?'

'Skipper Koeltas. He wants to go out to sea. There's a ship from which the boat came, he says — he smells it.'

'No,' he replied. 'It's been a costly enough night's work without endangering Bob again. Any survivors from our other boat?'

'All safe,' replied Sheriff. 'I pulled them out of the water. Walker, the engineer, is shot up — the burst caught her in the engine room. Went up like a ruddy Roman candle.'