I slapped him on his back and asked him, “Is it true that you pass iced water - even in hot weather? and my attempt at humour made him look as cheerfal as an unemployed undertaker.
leave Chubby alone,” Sherry came to his rescue. Let’s go down again and try and find a break in the hull.” “We’ll take half an hour’s rest,” I said, “a smoke and a mug of coffee - then we’ll go take another look.”
We stayed down so long on the second dive that Chubby had to sound the triple recall signal - and when we surfaced the pool was boiling. The cyclone had left a legacy of high surf, and on the rising tide it was coming in heavily across the reef and pounding in through the gap, higher in the channel than we had ever known it.
We clung to the thwarts in silence as Chubby took us home on a wild ride, and it was only when we entered the quieter waters of the lagoon that we could continue the discussion.
“She’s as tight as the Chatwood lock on the national safe deposit,” I told them. “The one gun port is blocked by-the cannon, and I got into the other about four feet before I ran into part of the bulkhead which must have collapsed. It’s the den of a big old Moray eel that looks like a python - he’s got teeth on him like a bulldog and he and I aren’t friends.”
“What about the waist?” Chubby demanded.
“No,” I said, “she’s settled down heavily, and the coral has closed her up.”
Chubby put on an expression which meant that he had told us so. I could have beaten him over the head with a spanner, he was so smug - but I ignored him and showed them the piece of woodwork that I had prised off the hull with a crowbar.
“The coral has closed everything up solid. It’s like those old forests that have been petrified into stone. The Dawn light is a ship of stone, armour-plated with coral. There is only one way we will get into her - and that is to pop her open.
Chubby nodded, “That’s the way to do it,” and Sherry wanted to know: “But if you use explosive, won’t it just blow everything to bits?”
“We won’t use an atomic bomb,” I told her. We’ll start with half a stick in the forward gunport. just enough to kick out a chunk of that coral plating,” and I turned back to Chubby. “We need that gelignite right away, every hour is precious now, Chubby. We’ve got a good moon. Can you take us back to St. Mary’s tonight?” and Chubby did not bother to answer such a superfluous question. It was an indirect slur on his seamanship.
There was a homed moon, with a pale halo around it. The atmosphere was still full of dust from the big winds. The stars also were misty and very far away, but the cyclone had blown great masses of oceanic plankton into the channel so that the sea was a glowing phosphorescent mass wherever it was disturbed.
Our wake glowed green and long, spread behind us like a peacock’s tail, and the movement of fish beneath the surface shone like meteors. Sherry dipped her hand over the side and brought it out burning with a weird and liquid flame, and she cooed with wonder.
Later when she was sleepy she lay against my chest under the tarpaulin I had spread to keep off the damp and we listened to the booming of the giant manta rays out in the open water as they leaped high and fell to smack the surface of the sea with their flat bellies and tons of dead weight.
It was long after midnight when we raised the lights of St. -Mary’s like a diamond necklace around the throat of the island.
The streets were utterly deserted as we left the whaleboat at her moonngs and walked up to Chubby’s house. Missus Chubby opened to us in a dressing-gown that made Chubby’s pyjamas look conservative. She had her hair in large pink plastic curlers. I had never seen her without a hat before and I was surprised that she was not as bald as her spouse. They looked so alike in every other way.
She gave us coffee before Sherry and I climbed into the pick-up and drove to Turtle Bay. The bedclothes were damp and needed airing but neither of us complained.
I stopped at the Post Office in the early morning and’my box was half filled, mostly with fishing equipment catalogues and junk mail, but there were a few letters from old clients inquiring for charter - that gave me a pang - and one of the buff cable envelopes which I opened last. Cables have always borne bad news for me. Whenever I see one of those envelopes with my name peering out of the window like a long-term prisoner I have this queasy feeling in my stomach.
The message read: “MANDRAKE SAILED CAPETOWN OUTWARD BOUND ZANZIBAR 12.00 HOURS FRIDAY 16TH. STEVE.”
My premonitions of evil were confirmed. Mandrake had left Cape Town six days ago. She had made a faster passage than I would have believed possible. I felt like rushing to the top of Coolie Peak to search the horizon. Instead I passed the cable to Sherry and drove down to Frobisher Street.
Fred Coker was just opening the street door of his travel agency as I parked outside Missus Eddy’s store and sent Sherry in with a shopping list while I walked on down the street to the Agency.
Fred Coker had not seen me since I had dropped him moaning on the floor of his own morgue, and now he was sitting at his desk in a white shark-skin suit and wearing a necktie which depicted a Hula girl on a palm-lined beach and the legend
“Welcome to St. Mary’s! Pearl of the Indian Ocean.”
He looked up with a smile that went well with the tie, but the moment he recognized me his expression changed to utter dismay. He let out a bleat like an orphan lamb and shot out of his chair, heading for the back room.
I blocked his escape and he backed away before me, his goldrimmed glasses glittering like the sheen of nervous sweat that covered his face until the chair caught him in the back of his knees and he collapsed into it. Only then did I give him my big friendly grin - and I thought he would faint with relief.
“How are you, Mister Coker?” He tried to answer but his voice failed him. Instead he nodded his head so rapidly that I understood he was very well.
“I want you to do me a favour.”
“Anything,” he gabbled, suddenly recovering the power of speech.
“Anything, Mister Harry, you have only to ask.” Despite his protestations it took him only a few minutes to recover his courage and wits. He listened to my very reasonable request for three cases of high explosive, and went into a pantomime to impress me with the utter impossibility of compliance, He rolled his eyes, sucked in his cheeks and made clucking noises with his tongue.
“I want it by noon tomorrow - latest,” and he clasped his forehead as if in agony.
“And if it’s not here by twelve o’clock precisely, you and I will continue our discussion on the insurance premiums-” He dropped his hand and sat upright, his expression once more willing and intelligent.
“That’s not necessary, Mister Harry. I can get what you ask - but it will cost a great deal of money. Three hundred dollars a case.” “Put it on the slate,” I told him.
“Mister Harry!” he cried, “you know I cannot extend credit.”
I was silent, but I slitted my eyes, clenched my jaws and began to breathe deeply.
“Very well,” he said hurriedly. “Until the end of the month, then.”
“That’s very decent of you, Mister Coker.”
“It’s a pleasure, Mister Harry,” he assured me. “A very great pleasure.”
“There is just one other thing, Mr. Coker,” and I could see him mentally quail at my next request, but he braced himself like a hero.
“In the near future I expect to be exporting a small consignment to Zdrich in Switzerland.” He sat a little forward in his seat. “I do not wish to be bothered with customs formalities - you understand?”
“I understand, Mister Harry.”
“Do you ever have requests to send the body of one of your customers back to the near and dear?”
“I beg your pardon?” He looked confused.
“If a tourist were to pass away on the island - say of a heart attack - you would be called on to embalm his corpse for posterity and to ship it out in a casket. Am I correct?”
“It has happened before,“he agreed. “On three occasions.”
“Good, so you are familiar with the procedure?”
“I am, Mister Harry.”
“Mister Coker, lay in a casket and get yourself a pile of the correct forms. I’ll be shipping soon.”
“May I ask what you intend to export - in lieu of a cadaver?” He phrased the question delicately.
“You may well ask, Mister Coker.”
