There was another pause. Neil said, ‘What exactly are you going to do when you get to the Protectorate?’
‘Catch General Guérin.’ He said it as though he were talking about landing a fish.
Neil nodded: ‘And how are you going to do that?’
Pol leant back and looked at the ceiling. Ignoring the question he said, ‘When Guérin is gone, the Secret Army is gone! Snuff out Guérin — the movement is finished, it dies like a snake without a head!’
‘Snakes go on living when you cut their heads off,’ said Neil.
‘They go on moving, not living. Without Guérin, the Secret Army will move for a little, it will pretend to live, but it will be doomed and dead! And Fascism in France will be doomed and dead with it!’ He laughed and came stumbling over with the bottle, refilling Neil’s glass; and Neil lay back, suddenly very tired, drinking Epernay ’55 and thinking of the quarter of a million people now swelling across Paris in protest against Fascism.
When the bottle was finished he went into the wardroom below and flopped out fully dressed on one of the canopied bunks.
CHAPTER 6
Neil woke suddenly. The cabin was dark and airless, throbbing to the rhythm of the diesels. He looked at his watch: he had been asleep for just under an hour. There was a shaft of light outside; a door opened and he heard a groan and a gush of water. He sat up, kicked on his shoes and went through to the passage. Pol was squeezed into the toilet, his huge frame crumpled over the lavatory, gasping, ‘Ah merde!’ between heaves and retches.
Neil got some Alka-Seltzer out of his rucksack: ‘Come on, drink this!’
Pol’s mighty head rose slowly, the skin a purplish-white streaked with sweat; the kiss curl had come unstuck and lay across his brow like a wet spider. His eyes tried to light up with a smile which the mouth resisted. ‘Too much to drink,’ he croaked, gulping the Alka-Seltzer.
‘Champagne on Greek whisky,’ said Neil, ‘you deserve to be ill!’ Pol turned miserably back to the lavatory. Neil left him there and went up on deck.
Van Loon was at the wheel, solid as a statue, his eyes on the horizon. He turned as Neil came up: ‘The fat fellow is pretty sick with drink, huh?’ He laughed quietly and looked back to sea. ‘That is the island of Aegina out there,’ he added, pointing to a few pricks of light far off to starboard.
The swell was rising and the bows beginning to dip giddily. Neil had always been a good sailor but he was worried about Pol: if the man were now to combine sea-sickness with the effects of whisky and champagne, he was going to be in poor shape to represent the French Republic in its showdown against Fascism.
Van Loon took Neil’s arm: ‘Look there, a good fast ship!’
Neil saw a sharp light moving swiftly behind them, about half a mile away. He guessed that it must be doing nearly thirty knots. He stood watching it grow closer, feeling the cool salt breeze on his face, and wondered what Caroline Tucker was doing at this moment. The thought was not a restful one. He tried to forget her at once, and went down to have another look at Pol. He was lying on one of the bunks, his breath hissing behind the velvet curtains. Neil was turning away when Van Loon shouted, ‘Hey, come quick!’
Neil clattered up to the wheelhouse. The Dutchman was staring out to starboard, just as a light swept round and dazzled them both. The motor-launch was heading directly towards them. When it was no more than twenty yards away, still coming at full speed, he cut the diesels and pulled the ‘Serafina’ over so that she was riding alongside the launch.
Neil hoped to see a Greek flag or police sign on the launch, but there was none. A man stood shadowed beside the spotlight, which was still trained on the wheelhouse. Van Loon waved, and the man waved back. The launch engines had died down and the two boats drifted towards each other.
It was a two-seater, high-speed motorboat with a covered cabin. It bumped gently against the ‘Serafina’, then sprang away, rising dangerously on the swell. When it touched again, two men stepped into the blaze of the spotlight.
Neil gripped the rail in front of him and a chill rippled over his skin. The man in front was Captain Jadot. He jumped nimbly across on to the ‘Serafina’s’ heaving deck, followed by the thick-set man with the black crewcut, who tied a rope from the launch to the deck rail.
Jadot looked round the wheelhouse, then said to Neil, almost casually: ‘Where is he?’
Neil stared at him, his mouth drying up.
‘Where is he?’ said Jadot again.
The thick-set man had stepped round in front of the wheel-house door. From inside his short belted raincoat he pulled out a machine-pistol. Neil gaped at it: it had an air-cooled barrel, perforated like a flute.
Van Loon had not moved.
‘Have you both lost your tongues?’ said Jadot. ‘You know who we want. Where is he? The fat man.’ He had taken off his dark glasses and his naked eyes were holes of black ice. He stood poised forward, fingers curled at his side like a professional fighter.
Neil said feebly, ‘I’ve told you, he’s not here. He’s in Athens — he’s gone away.’
Jadot pushed past him, through the wheelhouse into the galley. Neil whispered to Van Loon, ‘We’ve got to do something!’ The Dutchman nodded and said nothing.
Jadot went into the wardroom, glanced round at the empty champagne bottles, then turned towards the steps below. ‘The fat bastard’s down here!’ he shouted, with sudden
