“So, Lieutenant Halfhyde,” he said, sitting in the police chief’s chair with his Flag Lieutenant in attendance. “You are no longer in your Queen’s service—”
“I am on the half-pay list, sir. As such I am still a naval officer, and answerable to Her Majesty.”
Von Merkatz smiled. “Let us not split hairs. You are now Second Mate aboard a sailing ship—and you are in Arica, and your ship is not. I am told that your ship is the Aysgarth Falls, now bound for Sydney. I am sorry to deprive your Captain of one of his officers, but you are coming with me to Germany, and without delay.” He glanced up at his Flag Lieutenant, who gave a tight bow and went to the door where he gave an order. On the heels of it, a German naval guard entered, four men with rifles and fixed bayonets under a petty officer. At another word from the Flag Lieutenant, two of the seamen stepped forward and laid hold of Halfhyde, while the other two fell in behind. Von Merkatz waved a hand towards the door. “Take him away,” he said.
Smith took a step forward; so did the police chief. “One moment, señor,” the latter said. “I—”
“Yes. You are concerned for your payment. The sum has been agreed—you have my promise of payment, which will be delivered to you through the good offices of our Embassy in Santiago. I have insufficient gold with me to pay you now—”
“But on board your flagship, señor—”
“Which is not here in this room,” von Merkatz said rudely, “but out in the port, and I do not wish to delay. You have seen the weather for yourself, and you know the signs. You must take it or leave it, and whichever you do, be sure I shall take Lieutenant Halfhyde.” He had risen to his feet by this time and was moving for the door, back straight, head high, looking disdainfully down his nose at the Chileans.
Smith said, “Just a minute. That’s not good enough—”
“It is good enough because I say it is. If you dispute further, I shall take you as well, even if only to feed later to the sharks in the Pacific.” Von Merkatz looked at the chief of police, who was almost in tears and was distractedly twisting his hands in front of his body. “You, policeman. If there is any attempt to hinder me and my seamen, the town will suffer. I have many guns. On my order, they will open and shatter your stinking little port into small fragments. And now good day to you all, gentlemen.”
Von Merkatz stalked out, followed by the Flag Lieutenant with Halfhyde in the hands of the escort. As he was marched out, Halfhyde turned and grinned at Smith. Smith was looking murderous, strongly doubting that he would ever see his reward. In spite of his situation, the man’s furious face was pleasing to Halfhyde, something to remember during the days ahead. Smith was not going to find the police chief so friendly henceforward, either, and he might well find himself in bad odour down south in Iquique despite past bribes.
Outside, the rain had not abated. Not just yet; but, with the same suddenness that it had started, it stopped just as the party was marching behind the Admiral along the jetty where the flagship’s steam picquet-boat was secured. When it stopped, there was an intense, eerie silence; then the wind was felt again, warm, moist, and there was a vivid crackle of lightning that arrowed down towards the flagship at anchor offshore. Her compass platform, her fighting tops, and her guns stood for a moment clearly visible; when the lightning had gone, the darkness was intense. There was a rumble that might have been thunder but was almost certainly not: following upon the close lightning, Halfhyde would have expected a very sharp crack or a full-bodied crash of rolling sound.
So would von Merkatz. He snapped at his Flag Lieutenant. “Hurry! I think the earthquake is upon us.” He moved ahead at the double, lifting his sword scabbard clear of the ground. The party doubled up behind him and had almost reached the picquet-boat when the jetty began to shake and tremble beneath their feet. The section that contained the bollards to which the picquet-boat was made fast cracked away and lurched downwards, taking the boat sideways so that she took on an alarming list inwards. There were shouts from the midshipman in command, and the seamen ran to cut the mooring ropes. As von Merkatz reached the edge of the cracked section and began shouting furiously, the picquet-boat drifted clear and regained her trim in the water. Smoke came from her brass bell-mouthed funnel, and under helm, she turned away, stern to the jetty, and circled outwards.
Von Merkatz waved a fist and shouted, almost screamed into the heavy rumbling sound that came apparently from the bowels of the earth. “Come back in at once, you young blackguard, or by God, I’ll have you in irons the moment you and I are aboard my flagship!”
As von Merkatz watched for the picquet-boat to come in again, there was another heave and the jetty started to break up along its whole length. Halfhyde gave an involuntary shiver: twice in the last twenty years, the port of Iquique had been razed to the ground. The same could happen here in Arica.
Chapter 8
WITH THE others, Halfhyde was cast into the water. Like the wind, it felt warm, as though something beneath was heating it as a kettle would be heated. Flinging water from his eyes, he looked around. Von Merkatz was being grappled
