swimmer’s wide rangy shoulders and powerful arms. I knew instantly who was to use the diving equipment.
He carried a big green canvas kitbag over one shoulder. He carried it easily, though I could see that it was weighty, and he chatted gaily with his two companions who answered him in monosyllables. They flanked him like a pair of guards.
He looked up at me as they came level and I saw that he was young and eager. There was an excitement, an anticipation, about him, that reminded me sharply of myself ten years previously.
“Hi,” he grinned at me, an easy friendly grin, and I realized that he was an extremely good-looking youngster. “Greetings,” I replied, liking him from the first and intrigued as to how he had found a place with the wolf pack. Under my direction they took in the mooring lines and, from this brief exercise, I learned that the youngster was the only one of them familiar with small boats.
As we cleared the harbour, he and Materson came up on to the flying bridge. Materson had coloured slightly and his breathing was raggedy from the mild exertion. He introduced the newcomer.
“This is Jimmy,” he told me, when he had caught his breath. We shook hands and I put his age at not much over twenty. Close up I had no cause to revise my first impressions. He had a level and innocent gaze from seagrey eyes, and his grip was firm and dry.
“She’s a darling boat, skipper,” he told me, which was rather like telling a mother that her baby is beautiful.
“She’s not a bad old girl.”
“What is she, forty-four, forty-five feet?” “Forty-five,” I said, liking him a little more.
“Jimmy will give you your directions,” Materson told me. “You will follow his orders.” “Fine,” I said, and Jimmy coloured a little under his tan. “Not orders, Mr. Fletcher, I’ll just tell you where we want to go. “Fine, Jim, I’ll take you there.”
“Once we are clear of the island, will you turn due west.”
“Just how far in that direction do you intend going?” I asked.
“We want to cruise along the coast of the African mainland,” Materson. cut in.
“Lovely,” I said, “that’s great. Did anybody tell you that they don’t hang out the welcome mat for strangers there?”
“We will stay well offshore.” I thought a moment, hesitating before turning back to Admiralty Wharf and packing the whole bunch ashore-* “Where do you want to go - north or south of the rivermouth?” North said Jimmy, and that altered the proposition for the good.
South of the river they patrolled with helicopters and were very touchy about their territorial waters. I would not go in there during daylight.
In the north there was little coastal activity. There was a single crash boat at Zinballa, but when its engines were in running order, which was a few days a week, then its crew were mostly blown out of their minds with the virulent palm liquor brewed locally along the coast. When crew and engines were functioning simultaneously, they could raise fifteen knots, and Dancer could turn on twenty-two any time I asked her.
The final trick in my favour was that I could run Dancer through the maze of’offshore reefs and islands on a dark night in a roaring monsoon, while it was my experience that the crash boat commander avoided this sort of extravagance. Even on a bright sunny day and in a flat calm, he preferred rhe quiet and peace of Zinballa Bay. I had heard that he suffered acutely from sea sickness, and held his present appointment only because it was far away from the capital, where as a minister of the government the commander had been involved in a little unpleasantness regarding the disappearance of large amounts of foreign aid.
From my point of view he was the ideal man for the job.
“All right,” I agreed, turning to Materson. “But I’m afraid what you’re asking is going to cost you another two-fifty dollars a day - danger money.”
“I was afraid it might,“he said softly.
I brought Dancer around, close to the light on Oyster Point.
It was a bright morning with a high clear sky into which the stationary clouds that marked the position of eacch group of islands towered in great soft columns of blinding white.
The solemn Progress of the trade winds across the ocean was interrupted by the bulwark of the African continent on which they broke. We were getting the backlash here in the inshore channel, and random squalls and gusts of it spread darkly across the pale green waters and flecked the surface chop with white. Dancer loved it, it gave her an excuse to flounce and swish her bottom.
“You looking for anything special - or just looking?” I asked casually, and Jimmy turned to tell me all about it. He was itchy with excitement, and the grey eyes sparkled as he opened his mouth.
“Just looking,” Materson interrupted with a ring in his voice and a sharp warning in his expression, and Jimmy’s mouth closed.
“I know these waters. I know every island, every reef. I might be able to save you a lot of time - and a bit of money.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Materson thanked me with heavy irony.
“However, I believe we can manage.”
“You are paying,” I shrugged, and Materson. glanced at Jimmy, inclined his head in a command to follow and led him down into the cockpit. They stood together beside the stern rail and Materson spoke to him quietly but earnestly for two minutes. I saw Jimmy flush darkly, his expression changing from dismay to boyish sulks and I guessed that he was having his ear chewed to ribbons on the subject of secrecy and security.
When he came back on to the flying bridge he was seething with anger, and for the first time I noticed the strong hard line of his jaw. He wasn’t just a pretty boy, I decided.
Evidently on Materson’s orders, Guthrie, the muscle, came out of the cabin and swung the big padded fighting chair to face the bridge. He lounged in it, even in his relaxation charged-with the promise of violence like a resting leopard, and he watched us, one leg draped over the arm rest and the linen jacket with the heavy weight in its pocket folded in his lap.
A happy ship, I chuckled, and ran Dancer out through the islands, threading a fine course through the clear green waters where the reefs lurked darkly below the surface like malevolent monsters and the islands were fringed with coral sand as dazzling white as a snowdrift, and crowned with dark thick vegetation over which the palm stems curved gracefully, their tops shaking in the feeble remnants of the trade.
It was a long day as we cruised at random and I tried to get some hint of the object of the expedition. However, still smarting from Materson’s reprimand, Jimmy was tight mouthed and grim. He asked for changes of course at intervals, after I had pointed out our position on the large, scale admiralty chart which he produced from his bag.
Although there were no extraneous markings on his chart, when I examined it surreptitiously I was able to figure that we were interested in an area fifteen to thirty miles north of the multiple mouths of the Rovuma River, and up to sixteen miles offshore. An area containing perhaps three hundred islands varying in size from a few acres to many square miles - a very big haystack in which to find his needle.
I was content enough to perch up on Dancer’s bridge and run quietly along the seaways, enjoying the feet of my darling under me and watching the activity of the sea animals, and birds.
In the fighting chair Mike Guthrie’s scalp started to show through the thin cover of hair like strips of scarlet neon lighting.
Cook, you bastard,” I thought happily, and neglected to warn him about the tropical sun until we were running home in the dusk. The next day he was in agony with white goo smeared over his bloated and incarnadined features and a wide cloth hat covering his head, but his face flashed like the port light of an ocean-goer.
By noon on the second day I was bored. Jimmy was poor company for although he had recovered a little of his good humour he was so conscious of security that he even thought for thirty seconds before accepting an offer of coffee.
It was more for something to do than because I wanted fish for my dinner that when I saw a squadron of small kingfish charging a big shoal of sardine ahead of us, I gave the wheel to Jimmy.
“Just keep her on that heading,” I told him and dropped down into the cockpit. Guthrie watched me warily from his swollen crimson face as I glanced into the cabin and saw that Materson had my bar open and was mixing himself a gin and tonic. At seven hundred and fifty a day I didn’t grudge it to him. He hadn’t emerged from the cabin in two days.
