Neil watched, feeling cold and weak; the muzzle of the machine-pistol was barely two feet away, covering them both. He looked again at Van Loon, who was staring at Jadot as though he did not fully grasp what was happening. Neil closed his eyes for a moment, and had an image of Pol waddling over to a white telephone with a triple whisky in his hand: now lying in the dark, sick as a dog under a velvet canopy, while Jadot went down to kill him, from less than one metre.
The Frenchman’s head disappeared below. And then Van Loon moved. He moved faster than any human being Neil had ever seen. His long legs snapped apart like a pair of scissors, caught the thick-set man in the groin and lifted him a full inch off the deck. At the same moment he chopped down at the man’s neck with the ridges of his great square hands. The machine-pistol clattered on to the deck and he kicked it gently into the sea.
The man sagged backwards over the rail, his rubbery face quite green. Van Loon hit him again, without effort, the man’s head jerked backwards with a crack and he went over the side. Part of the body hit the edge of the drifting motor-launch, then plopped into the water and vanished.
The Dutchman whipped round, his big feet as fast as a dancer’s. He was halfway across the wheel-house when the shot came: a single blasting roar, then silence, and they could hear the sea lapping against the boat.
Van Loon started down the steps; Neil followed, dazed. The light was on in the lower wardroom. Pol sat in his stockinged feet on the bunk. Captain Jadot was sitting on the floor; his head was sinking slowly and he was making a soft sucking noise. He had been shot through the throat.
Pol had a small black gun in his hand, which he put away inside his coat when he saw Neil and Van Loon. ‘What happened to the other one?’ he asked.
‘I killed him,’ said Van Loon.
Pol nodded: ‘Jadot was getting careless. He shouldn’t have shouted like that. He woke me up. Besides, he had to switch on the light first.’
‘Is he dead?’ said Neil.
‘Almost.’ Pol stood up and tottered across the floor: ‘We must get him out of here. I don’t want Biaggi’s carpets messed up.’
Jadot’s head was resting on his knees now.
‘Give me a hand,’ said Pol. Van Loop took the man under the armpits and pulled him towards the steps. Thick dark blood was pumping out over his shirt and trousers. Neil felt sick. The man looked very small, as Van Loon began to haul him up the steps. His legs dangled like a puppet’s legs, the trousers rumpled up round the knees. Neil noticed he was wearing blue and white chequered socks.
Van Loon dragged him out on to the deck, propped him against the rail and tipped him over. There was a splash, then the sea was empty, dimpled silver and shiny-black under the moon. ‘What about the bloody boat?’ he asked.
‘Sink her,’ said Pol, ‘if anyone finds her drifting out here we’ll have every patrol in the Mediterranean hunting for us.’
‘She will take perhaps one hour to go down,’ said Van Loon, jumping aboard the motor-launch.
‘We’ll have to take a chance on that.’
Van Loon turned off the spotlight and began opening the seacocks: ‘Hey, what about the bodies?’
‘They won’t float up for at least three days,’ Pol chuckled, ‘then the current could carry them anywhere. They might even turn up on the beach at Cannes!’ He took Neil by the arm and began to lead him into the wardroom.
‘You know,’ said Neil, ‘I’ve never heard a shot fired in anger before.’
‘Ah, my dear Ingleby, you’ll hear plenty in the next few days!’ He shouted over his shoulder to Van Loon, ‘When you’ve finished, better start washing some of the blood off before it dries!’
Neil said, ‘I think I could do with some more champagne.’
PART 3: REVOLT
CHAPTER 1
The city came out of the sea-fog, tall and salt-white, rising in a great curve along the margin of the water, with the small square houses of the Casbah climbing on one another’s shoulders into the hills beyond.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon of the second day. Van Loon cut the throttle until they were almost drifting. There was no sound now except for the chugging of the diesels. ‘It is like a ghost city,’ he said, gazing at the sea-front less than a quarter of a mile away.
‘There’s a general strike,’ said Neil.
During the trip they had followed the developing crisis on radio news bulletins from all over Europe. The night before, Guérin had ordered a general strike from dawn till midnight to commemorate the Secret Army’s dead in clashes with the security forces during the last forty-eight hours. The French High Command, under a General Metz, had responded by extending the night curfew throughout the day. The city was now in a state of total paralysis.
‘Even the seagulls are on strike,’ said Van Loon, as they watched the empty wharves grow closer, with the ocean liners and cargo ships lying like coffins among the cranes.
They could now see the white flecks of the CRS police sashes, standing at intervals along the Front de Mer. The ‘Serafina’ chugged across the dark water under the sea-wall and was less than thirty yards away before they were challenged.
Three CRS men, in blue uniforms with machine-pistols strapped to the hip, came down the steps and stood waiting for them to tie up. There was an officer in front: a small straight man with a tanned face creased with tiny furrows that showed white against his brown skin when he spoke. The metal of
