“She is very fine ship.” Sergio actually used a more forceful adjective than very, one that suggested Kingfisher was capable of procreation, and Ruby’s lips curled with disgust. She ignored the question and lit a cigarette, swinging one leg impatiently, and turned her head to stare through the porthole.
Sergio was hurt by the rebuff, but he had no time to brood on it for Benedict van der Byl came to stand in the centre of the cabin with his hands clasped lightly behind his back.
“Mr. Caporetti-” he asked quietly. “How much do you like money?”
Sergio grinned, and pushed the grubby maritime cap to the back of his head. “I like it pretty good, I like it better than mother - and I
love my mother like my life he said.
“Would you like to become a rich man?” Benedict asked, and Sergio sighed wistfully.
“yes.” he nodded. “But it is the impossible thing. There is too much vino, too much lovely girls, and the cards they are cruel like
Sergio paused to find a suitable simile and glanced at Ruby, like a thin woman. No. Money she does not stay long, she comes and she goes.” “What would you do for 25,000 pounds?” Benedict asked.
“For twenty-five thousand - ” Sergio’s eyes were dark liquid and lovely as those of a dying gazelle or a woman in love,” - there is nothing I will not do.” Kingfisher sailed for Africa on the 4th of
October. As the representative of the owners, Benedict van der
Byl drove down from London to bid her bon voyage, and he spent an hour behind locked doors with Sergio Caporetti before the departure of the vessel.
Kingfisher made good time southwards on her first leg of the voyage, but the unscheduled delay of ten days at the island of Las
Palmas infuriated Johnny. His urgently cabled enquiries from Cape Town elicited the reply that there were teething troubles in Kingfisher’s engine room which were being attended to in the Las Palmas dockyards.
The voyage would be resumed as soon as the repairs had been effected.
The Japanese gentleman who welcomed Kingfisher to Las Palmas was named Kaminikoto. This was too much for Sergio’s tongue, so he called him
“Kammy’.
Sergio’s crew was sent ashore with the excuse that the work on
Kingfisher was dangerous. They were installed in the best tourist hotel and liberally supplied with intoxicating liquor. Sergio did not see them for the next ten days that he and Kamy were busy on the modifications to Kingfisher’s computer, and recovery equipment.
During those ten days Sergio and Kammy discovered that despite physical appearances they were brothers.
Kammy had mysterious packing-cases brought on board and they worked like furies from dawn until after dark each day. Then they relaxed.
Kammy was half Sergio’s size with a face like a mischievous monkey. At all times he wore a Homburg hat. On the one occasion that
Sergio saw him in his bath without his head-gear he discovered that Kammy was as bald as St. Peter’s dome. Kammy’s abundant tastes in women were identical to Sergio’s. This made the hiring of partners an easy matter, for what suited the one suited the other. Sergio took south with him fond memories of the little Japanese clad only in his Homburg hat, uttering bird-like cries of encouragement and excitement, while perched like a jockey on top of a percheron mare.
When at last Sergio shepherded his debauched crew back aboard
Kingfisher the only obvious sign of their labours was that the inspection hatch on the conveyor tunnel had been moved back twelve feet.
“It is my best work,” Kammy told Sergio. Already he was sad at the prospect of parting. They were brothers. “I signed my name. You will remember me when you see it.”
“You good guy, Kammy. The best!”
Sergio embraced him, lifting him off his feet and kissing him heartily on each cheek while Kammy clutched desperately at his Homburg.
They left him standing on the wharf, a forlorn and solitary figure, while Kingfisher butted out into the Atlantic and swung away southwards.
Duefully Johnny Lance glanced over at the mountain of empty champagne bottles beyond the barbecue pits. The bill for this little party would be in the thousands, but it was not an extravagance. The guest list included all Van Der Byl Diamond Company’s major creditors and their wives. Johnny Lance was showing them all what they were getting for their money. To appear prosperous was almost as reassuring to a creditor as being prosperous. He was going to stuff them full of food and champagne, show them over the Kingfisher and fly them back home, hoping sincerely that they would be sufficiently impressed to stop badgering him for a while - and let him get on with the business of taking the Company out into the clear.
Tracey caught his eye. Her humorous roll of the eyes was a plea for sympathy, for she was surrounded by a pack of middle-aged bankers and financiers whom champagne had made susceptible to her charms.
Johnny winked at her in reply, then glanced around guiltily to find
Ruby, and was relieved that she was in deep conversation with Benedict van der Byl in a far corner of the marquee.
He made his way out of the crowd to the edge of the dune, and lit a cigarette while he looked back across Cartridge Bay.
The chartered Dakotas that had flown the guests and caterers up from Cape Town were standing on the airstrip beyond the buildings.
The marquee was situated on the crest of a sand dune overlooking the narrow entrance to the bay. The dune had been bulldozed to accommodate the tent, the laden tables, and the barbecue pits around which whiteclad servants were busy, and the spitted carcasses of three sheep and a young ox were already browning crisply and emitting a cloud of fragrant steam.
Tracey watched Johnny standing out on the edge of the dune. He looked tired, she thought. The strain of the last few months had worn him down. Looking back on it now she realized that every few days had thrust a crisis upon him. The terrible worry of the court case that had won them Thunderbolt and Suicide had barely ended before Johnny had faced the delays in the construction of Kingfisher, the bullying of creditors, the sniping of Benedict and a hundred other worries and frustrations.
He was like a prize-fighter coming out to the bell of the last round, she thought tenderly, as she studied the profile of his face now staring out to sea. His stance was still aggressive, the big jaw pushed out and the hand with the missing finger that held the cigarette balled into a fist, but there were blue shadows under his eyes and lines of tension at the corners of his mouth.
Suddenly, there was an alertness in Johnny’s attitude, he shaded his eyes with a hand before turning back towards the marquee.
“All right, everyone!” he called, stilling the babble of their voices. “Here she comes.” Immediately the uproar was redoubled and the whole party trooped out into the sunlight, their excitement and the shrillness of their voices enhanced by the Pommery they had been walloping back since midmorning.
“Look! There she is!”
“Where? Where?”
“I can’t see her.”
“Just to the left of that cloud on the horizon.”
“Oh yes! Look! Look!” Tracey took a second glass of champagne from one of the waiters, and carried-it across to Johnny.
“Thanks.” He smiled at her with the ease that now existed between them.
“It’s taken her long enough to get here.” Tracey picked out the faraway speck on the green ocean that was Kingfisher. “When will she begin working?”
“Tomorrow.”
“How long will it be before we know - well, if it has come off?”
“A week.” Johnny turned to her. “A week to be certain, but we’ll know in a day or two how it’s shaping up.” They were silent then, staring out at the gradually approaching speck. The crowd lost interest quickly and drifted
