I saw the familiar flash, and the long white feather of gunsmoke blow from the mounted quick-firer on the bows of the crash boat, and I heard the shell coming with a rushing sound like eagles” wings “Get down!” I shouted at Chubby, and threw myself flat amongst the rocks.
The shell burst in very close, with the bright hot glare like the brief opening of a furnace door. -Shrapnel and rock fragments trilled and whined around us, and I jumped to my feet.
“Run!” I yelled at Chubby, and we jinked back over the skyline just as the next shell passed over us, making us both flinch our heads at the mighty crack of passing shot.
Chubby was wiping a smear of blood from his forearm as we crouched behind the ridge.
“Okay?” I asked. “A scratch, that’s all. Bit of a rock fragment,“he growled. “Chubby, I’m going down to find out what happened to the others. No point both of us taking a chance. You wait here.”
“You’re wasting time, Harry, I’m coming with you. Let’s go.” He hefted the rifle and led the way down the peak. I thought of taking the FN away from him. In his hands it was about as lethal as a slingshot when fired with his closedeyes technique. Then I left it. It made him feel good.
We moved slowly, hugging any cover there was and searching ahead before moving forward. However, the island was silent except for the sough and clatter of the west wind in the tops of the palms and we saw nobody as we moved up the seaward side of the island.
I cut the spoor left by Angelo and Sherry as they crossed the saddle, above the camp. Their running footsteps had bitten deep into the fluffy soil, Sherry’s small slim prints were overlapped by Angelo’s broad bare feet.
We followed them down the slope, and suddenly they shied off the track. They had dropped the water-can here and, turning abruptly, had separated slightly, as though they had run side by side for sixty yards.
There we found Angelo, and he was never going to enjoy his share of the spoils. He had been hit by three of the soft heavy-calibre slugs. They had torn through the thin fabric of his shirt, and opened huge dark wounds in his back and chest.
He had bled copiously but the sandy soil had absorbed most of it, and already what was left was drying into a thick black crust. The flies were assembled, crawling gleefully into the bullet holes and swarming on the long dark lashes around his wide open and startled eyes.
Following her tracks I saw where Sherry had run on for twenty paces, and -then the little idiot had turned back and gone to kneel beside where Angelo lay. I cursed her for that. She might have been able to escape if she had not indulged in that useless and extravagant gesture.
They had caught her as she knelt beside the body and dragged her down through the palms to the beach. I could see the long slide marks in the sand where she had dug her feet in and tried to resist.
Without leaving the shelter of the trees, I looked down the smooth white sand, following their tracks to where the marks of the motorboat’s keel still showed in the sand of the water’s edge.
They had taken her out to the crash boat, and I crouched behind a pile of driftwood and dried palm fronds to stare out at the graceful little ship.
Even as I watched she weighed anchor, picked up speed and passed slowly down the length of the island to round the point and enter the inner lagoon where Mandrake was still lying at anchor.
I straightened up and slipped back through the grove to where I had left Chubby. He had laid the carbine aside and he sat with Angelo’s body in his arms, cradling the head against his shoulder. Chubby was weeping, fat glistening tears slid wearily down the seamed brown cheeks and fell from his jaw to wet the thick dark curls of the boy in his arms.
I picked up the rifle and stood guard over them while Chubby wept for both of us. I envied him the relief of tears, the outpouring of pain that would bring surcease. My own grief was as fierce as Chubby’s, for I had loved Angelo as much, but it was down deep inside where it hurt more.
“All right, -Chubby,” I said at last. “Let’s go, man.” He stood up with “the boy still in his arms and we moved back along the ridge.
In a gully that was choked with rank vegetation we laid Angelo in a shallow grave that we scraped with our hands, and we covered him with a blanket of branches and leaves that I cut with my baitknife before filling the grave. I could not bring myself to throw sand into his unprotected face, and the leaves made a gentler shroud.
Chubby wiped away his tears with the open palm of his hand and he stood up.
“They got Sherry,” I told him quietly. “She is aboard the crash boat.” “Is she hurt?” he asked.
“I don’t think so, not yet.”
“What do you want to do now, Harry?” he asked, and the question was answered for me.
Somewhere far off towards the camp, we heard a whistle shrill, and we moved up the ridge to a point where we could see down into the inner lagoon and landward side of the island.
Mandrake lay where I had last seen her and the Zinballa crash boat was anchored a hundred yards closer to the shore. They had seized the whaleboat and were using her to land men on the beach-They were all armed, and uniformed-They set off immediately into the palm trees and the whaleboat ran back to Mandrake.
I Put the binoculars on to Mandrake and saw that there were developments taking place there also. In the field of the glasses I recognized Manny Resnick in a white opens neck shirt and blue slacks as he climbed down into the whaleboat. He was followed by Lorna Page. She wore dark glasses, a Yellow scarf around her pale blonde hair and an emerald green slack suit. I felt hatred seethe in my guts as I recognized them.
Now something happened that puzzled me. The luggage that I had seen loaded into the Rolls at Curzon Street was brought out on to the deck by two of Manny’s thugs and it also was passed down into the whaleboat.
A uniformed crew member of Mandrake saluted from the deck, and Manny waved at him in a gesture of airy dismissal.
The whaleboat left Mandrake’s side and moved in towards the crash boat. As Manny, his lady friend, bodyguards and luggage were disembarked on to the deck of the crash boat, Mandrake weighed anchor, turned for the entrance of the bay, and set out in a determined fashion for the deep-water channel.
“She’s leaving,” muttered Chubby. “Why is she doing -,that?”
“Yes, she’s leaving,” I agreed. “Manny Resnick has finished with her. He’s got a new ally now, and he doesn’t need his vwn ship. She’s probably costing him a thousand nicker a day, - and Manny always was a shy man with a buck.”
I turned my glasses on to the crash boat again and saw -Manny and his entourage enter the cabin.
“There is probably another reason,” I muttered. “What’s that, Harry?”
“Manny Resnick and Suleiman Dada will want as few witnesses as possible to what they intend doing now.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean,“grunted Chubby.
“I think, my friend, that we are about to be treated to the kind of nastiness that will make what they did to Angelo seem kind, by comparison.”
“We’ve got to get Miss. Sherry off that boat, Harry.” Chubby was coming out of the daze of grief into which Angelo’s killing had thrown him. “We’ve got to do something, Harry.” “It’s a nice thought, Chubby, I agree. But we aren’t going to help her much by getting ourselves killed. My guess is that she will be safe until they get their hands on the treasure.”
His huge face creased up like that of a worried bulldog. “What we going to do, Harry?”
“Right now we are going to run again.”
“What do you mean?” “Listen,” I told him, and he cocked his head. There was the shrill of the whistle again and then faintly we heard voices carried up to us on the wind.
“Looks like their first effort will be brute strength. They’ve landed the entire goon squad, and they are going to drive the island and put us up like a brace of cock pheasant.”
“Let’s go down and have a go,” Chubby growled, and cocked the FN- “I got a message for them from Angelo.”
“Don’t be a fool, Chubby,” I snapped at him angrily.
“Now listen to me. I want to count how many men they have. Then, if we get a good chance, I want to try and get one of them alone and take his piece off him. Watch for an opportunity, Chubby, but don’t have a go yet. Play it very cautious, hear!” I didn’t want to refer to his markmanship in derogatory tones.
“Okay,” Chubby nodded.
“You stay this side of the ridge. Count how many of them come down this side of the island. I’ll cross over
