When Eight Bells Toll

salt-water cock, take to their own boat and lift their hats as the Firecrest goes down to join the helicopter. As far as the big wide innocent world is concerned, Hunslett and I will just have sailed off into the sunset.'

'And the gulfs will have washed you down,' Uncle Arthur nodded. 'You are very sure of this, Calvert?'

'You might say I'm absolutely certain.'

'Then why open those blasted curtains?'

'The scuttling party may be coining from anywhere and they may not come for hours. The best time to scuttle a boat in close waters is at slack tide, when you can be sure that it will settle exactly where you want it to settle, and slack tide is not until one o'clock this morning. But if someone comes panting hotfoot aboard soon after those curtains are opened, then that will be proof enough that the radio transmitter we're after, and our friends who are working the transmitter, are somewhere in this bay, ashore or afloat.'

'How will it be proof?' Uncle Arthur said irritably. 'Why should they come, as you say, panting hotfoot?'

'They know they have Hunslett. At least, I assume they have, I can't think of any other reason for his absence. They think they know I'm dead, but they can't be sure. Then they see the beckoning oil lamp in the window. What is this, they say to themselves, Calvert back from the dead? Or a third, or maybe even a third and a fourth colleague of Calvert and Hunslett that we wot not of? Whether it's me or my friends, they must be silenced. And silenced at once. Wouldn't you come panting hotfoot?'

'There's no need to treat the matter with levity,' Uncle Arthur complained.

'In your own words, sir, if you can believe that, you can believe anything.'

'You should have consulted me first, Calvert.' Uncle Arthur shifted in his seat, an almost imperceptible motion, though his expression didn't change. He was a brilliant administrator, but the more executive side of the business, the sand-bagging and pushing of people off high cliffs, wasn't exactly in his line. 'I've told you that I came to take charge.'

'Sorry, Sir Arthur. You'd better change that report, hadn't you? The bit about the best in Europe, I mean.'

'Touche, touche, touche,' he grumbled. 'And they're coming at us out of the dark, is that it? On their way now. Armed men. Killers. Shouldn't we - shouldn't we be preparing to defend ourselves? Dammit, man, I haven't even got a gun.'

'You won't need one. You may not agree with me.' I handed him the Luger. He took it, checked the indicator and that the safety catch moved easily, then sat there holding it awkwardly in his hand.

'Shouldn't we move, Calvert?   We're sitting targets here.'

'They won't be here for some time. The nearest house or boat is a mile away to 'the east. They'll be pushing wind and tide and they daren't use a motor. Whether they're rowing a boat or paddling a rubber dinghy they have a long haul ahead of them. Time's short, sir. We have a lot to do to-night. To get back to Loch Houron. The expedition's out, they couldn't pirate a dinghy, far less five ocean-going freighters. Our friend Donald MacEachern acts in a highly suspicious fashion, he's got the facilities there, he's dead worried and he might have had half a dozen guns at his back while he had his in my front. But it was all too good to be true, professionals wouldn't lay it on the line like that.'

'Maybe that's how professionals would expect a fellow-professional to react. And you said he's worried.'

'Maybe the fish aren't biting. Maybe he's involved, but not directly. Then there's the shark-fishers. They have the boats, the facilities and, heaven knows, they're tough enough. Against that, they've been based there for years, the place is littered with sharks - it should be easy enough to check if regular consignments of liver oil are sent to the mainland - and they're well known and well thought of along the coast. They'll bear investigating. Then there's Dubh Sgeir. Lord Kirkside and his lovely daughter Sue.'

'Lady Susan,' Uncle Arthur said. It's difficult to invest an impersonal, 'Inflectionless voice with cool reproach, but he managed it without any trouble. 'I know Lord Kirkside, of course'- his tone implied that it would be remarkable if he didn't - 'and while I may or may not be right about Sir Anthony, and I will lay you a hundred to one, in pounds, that I am, I'm convinced that Lord Kirkside is wholly incapable of any dishonest or illegal action.'

'Me, too. He's a very tough citizen, I'd say, but on the side of the angels.'

'And his daughter?  I haven't met her.'

'Very much a girl of to-day. Dressed in the modern idiom, speaks in the modern idiom, I'm tough and I'm competent and I can take care of myself, thank you. She's not tough at all, just a nice old-fashioned girl in new- fashioned clothes.'

'So that clears them.' Uncle Arthur sounded relieved. 'That leaves MS the expedition, in spite of your sneers, or MacEachern's place, or the shark-fishers. I go for the shark-fishers myself.'

I let him go for wherever he wanted to. I thought it was time I went to the upper deck and told him so.

'It won't be long now?'

'I shouldn't think so, sir. We'll put out the lights in the saloon here — it would look very odd if they peered in the windows and saw no one here. We'll put on the two sleeping-cabin lights and the stern light. That will destroy their night-sight. The after deck will be bathed in light. For'ard of that, as far as they are concerned, it will be pitch dark. We hide in the dark.'

'Where in the dark?' Uncle Arthur didn't sound very confident.

'You stand inside the wheelhouse. All wheelhouse doors are hinged for'ard and open outwards. Keep your hand on the inside handle. Lightly. When you feel it begin to turn, a very slow and stealthy turn, you can bet your boots, wait till the door gives a fraction, then kick the rear edge, just below the handle, with the sole of your right foot and with all the weight you have. If you don't break his nose or knock him overboard you'll at least set him in line for a set of false teeth. I'll take care of the other or others.'

'How?'

'I'll be on the saloon roof. It's three feet lower than the loom of the stern light even if they approach from the wheelhouse roof so they can't see me silhouetted against the loom of the stern light even if they approach from the bows.'