SECURITY PATROL,” it read.
Wild Goose lay on station, with her diesels throbbing softly, ticking over to hold her head into the wind. Even twenty miles out at sea the wind was searing hot and the occasional splatter of spray on
Hugo’s face was refreshing.
He stood in the corner of the bridge where he could watch the sea and the helmsman, but he was anxious. Wild Goose had been lying. on station for fifteen hours now, during ten of which the norther had howled dismally through her rigging.
He was always anxious at the beginning of a pick-up. There was so much that could have gone wrong, anything from a police sweep to a tiny electrical fault in the equipment.
“What time is it, Hansie?” he shouted and the helmsman glanced up at the chronometer above his head.
“Three minutes after six, skipper.”
“Dark in half an hour,” Hugo grunted disgustedly, slitted those pale-lashed eyes into the wind once more, then shrugged and ambled back into the bridge house.
He stopped at the console beside his chart table. Even to an experienced eye the machine was an ordinary
“Fishfinder’, an adaptation of the old wartime anti-submarine device, the ASDIC, to the more prosaic business of plotting als beneath the the depth and position of the pilchard sho surface.
However, this model had undergone a costly and specialized conversion. The Ring had flown an expert out from Japan to do the work.
Now that the set hummed softly, its control panel lit soft green by the internal light, but the sound was neutral, and the circular glass screen WAS blank.
“You want some Coffee, Hansie?” Hugo asked the old coloured man at the wheel. His crew were handpicked, loyal and trusted. They had to be - one loud mouth could blow a multi-million pound business.
Ja done, skipper.” The old man creased his weatherbattered face in appreciation, and Hugo shouted down the companionway to the galley.
“Cooky, how’s it for a pot of coffee?” But the reply was lost, for at that moment the console came to life dramatically. A row of lights blinked on above the control panel, the muted hum changed to a rapid beepbeep signal, and the screen glowed ghostly green.
“She’s up!” Hugo shouted his relief, and ran to the set.
His first mate rushed through from his cabin behind the bridge, tucking his shirt into unbuttoned trousers, his face puckered with sleep.
“About bloody time,“he blurted, groggily.
“Take over from Hansie,” Hugo told him, and he settled into the padded seat in front of the ASDtc set.
“Right, bring her round two points to port and open her up.
The Wild Goose swung her head into the sea, and her motion changed from easy swoop and glide to a crabbing butting lunge, and the spray burst over the glass of the bridge.
Sitting before the console Hugo was tracking the flight of the balloon and keeping Wild Goose on an interception course.
Driven by the forty-knot north the balloon crossed the coastline, climbing swiftly to three thousand feet. Hugo manipulated the knob on the console which sent the balloon a command to release gas and maintain attitude.
Her response was recorded immediately on the screen.
“Good,” Hugo whispered. “Good!” Then louder. “Bring her round a bit, Oscar - the balloon is drifting to the south.” For twenty minutes more they butted through the swells.
“Okay,” Hugo broke the silence. “I’m going to ditch her.” He twisted the knob clockwise slowly, expelling all the gas from the nylon balloon.
Ja. That’s it. She’s down.” He looked out of the window above the set. The dust-laden clouds had brought the night on prematurely.
It was dark outside, with a low black ceiling through which no star showed.
Hugo turned his attention back to the set.
“That’s it, Oscar. You’re right on course, Hold her there.” Then he glanced across at old Hansie and another younger crewman. They were sitting patiently on the bench against the far bulkhead. Both of them were clad in full oilskins, shiny yellow -plastic from head to ankle, with rnboots below that.
“Okay, Hansie,” Hugo nodded. “You can get up in the bows. We are only a mile or so away now They climbed down on to the wave-swept deck, and Hugo watched them scuttling forward between each green burst of water and crouching in the bows. Both of them ducking each time another sweel poured over the top of them, their yellow plastic suits showing clearly in the murky deck tights.
“I’m going to switch her on now,” Hugo warned the helm.
“We should have her on visual.”
Hugo flicked a switch “on the panel, commanding the balloon to turn on her guide light.
Almost immediately there was a shout from Oscar.
“There she is. Dead ahead!” Hugo jumped up and ran forward. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, then he made out the tiny red firefly of light ahead of them in the vast blackness of sea and sky.
It showed for a second then was gone in the trough of the next wave.
“I’ll take her.” Hugo replaced Oscar at the wheel. “You get on the spotlight.” The beam of the spotlight was a solid white shaft through the darkness. The fluorescent yellow paint of the cylinder glowed in the circle of the spot.
Hugo lay Wild Goose upwind of the cylinder, and then allowed her to drift down gently on it. Hansie and his assistant were ready with the twenty-foot boat-hook.
Delicately Hugo manoeuvred down over the bobbing yellow cylinder, and grunted with satisfaction as the boat-hook slipped through the recovery ring and the cylinder was hauled in over the bows.
He watched while the two dripping oilskin-clad figures clambered back up the ladder into the wheelhouse, and laid the cylinder on the chart table.
“Good! Good!” Hugo slapped their backs heartily. “Now, go and get dry - both of you!” They climbed down the companionway, and Hugo handed the wheel over to Oscar.
“Home!” he instructed him. “As quick as you like.” And he carried the cylinder through into his cabin.
Sitting at the fold-down table in his cabin, Hugo unscrewed the lower section of the cylinder and took out the plastic container. He opened it and spilled the contents out on the table top.
He whistled softly, and picked up the biggest stone.
Although he was no expert he knew instinctively that it was a brilliant of exceptional quality. Even the roughness of its exterior could not mask the fire in its depths.
To him it was worthless, there was nowhere he could market a stone like that. There was no temptation to take it out of the Ring - all it would mean for him was fifteen years at hard labour.
The Ring was based on this mutual reliance, no one part of it could function without all the others - yet each part was self-contained and watertight. Only one man knew all its parts, and nobody knew who that one man was.
From the drawer beside him Hugo took out his tools and set them on the table. He lit the spirit stove and set the pot of paraffin wax in the gimbal above it to heat.
Then he poured the diamonds into a shiny metal can. It was the type of ordinary commercial can used for packing and preserving foodstuffs.
Balancing against the ship’s motion, he lifted the pot from the stove, and poured the steaming liquid wax over the diamonds, filling the can to rim level.
The wax cooled and solidified quickly, turning opaque and white.
The stones were now incorporated in a cake of wax that would prevent them rattling, and would give the sealed can authentic weight.
Hugo lit a cigarette and crossed the cabin to look out into the wheelhouse. The helmsman winked at him and Hugo smiled.
He went back to the table, the can was cool enough to handle. He placed the circular lid over it, and moved to the portable jenny bolted to a chest of drawers. Carefully he clinched the lid into place, his eyes squinting at the smoke from the cigarette that dangled from his lips.
