Graves, grinning with relief, said, “Well done indeed, Mr Halfhyde–but what now?”
“On course for Sydney, sir—or the Aysgarth Falls as I hope.”
“But von Merkatz—”
“Oh, he’ll not follow—not yet at all events. He must stand by his ships in distress. Not even he would face his Emperor with less! You’ll see, sir. But that’s not to say he won’t try to pick us up again later. I suggest all possible speed short of rattling the paddles off her!”
Graves was in full agreement. With joy in his heart, Halfhyde waved what he hoped would be a long farewell to von Merkatz who, as forecast, did not attempt to follow. Within the next hour, the German ships were out of sight, vanished beneath the eastern horizon. The seas ahead were clear, and now all attention could be turned to the finding of the Aysgarth Falls.
Chapter 11
WITH CAPTAIN Graves, Halfhyde examined the chart, poring over it thoughtfully. By this time they were, by Graves’ reckoning from the noon sight, a little over a thousand miles out from Arica. That left nearly eight thousand miles to cover to Sydney Heads.
“It’s a lot of ocean,” Graves said. “Too much to hope for a sight of any individual ship. It’d be the sheerest chance if we picked her up.” He was less confident now.
“Yet some intelligent guesses might do the trick.”
Graves laughed and straightened from the chart-room table. “It would need an intelligence bordering on genius, Halfhyde! The vagaries of wind and sea, of individual masters even…no two masters think alike, you know, and no two masters take precisely identical tracks. Nevertheless, we’ll do our best. I don’t like to see fellow captains made into tools for evil-minded men, and this passenger of yours sounds criminal enough.” He paused. “Deserter, you said.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And diamonds. Well, now, I wonder.” Graves bent to the chart again, then pushed it aside and took another from the drawer beneath the table, the chart for the ocean approaches to the Australian coast. Frowning, he perused it for some minutes without saying anything further. Halfhyde waited. Graves ran a pencil along the New South Wales coast, and further until the tip was running up towards Queensland and the mouth of the Brisbane River, and on again, not far short of the numberless coral formations of the Great Barrier Reef. Then down again to the Brisbane River.
He said, “We can take it for granted, I think, that McRafferty won’t be taking this man into Port Jackson—that’s to say Sydney harbour.”
“A Sydney arrival is Captain McRafferty’s intention, sir.”
“Perhaps, but it won’t be the passengers’. Too many nosey authorities, police, customs, immigration. I think you’ll find McRafferty will be overruled. I believe you said his First Mate—”
“Is inclined to take charge—yes. Also that it was he who arranged the passage—”
“Hand in glove, then, with Cantlow?”
Halfhyde nodded. “I believe so; indeed I know that to be the case.”
“Then the passenger will not be put ashore in Sydney and McRafferty will find he has to make the best of it. The First Mate will have the whip hand. From the sound of it, McRafferty is already too deeply in his grasp.”
Halfhyde nodded. What Graves had said was probably true enough; by nature McRafferty was a hard and determined man, but already Halfhyde had noted those signs that Bullock had a hold over him. Moreover, McRafferty, whether or not any deviation interfered with his cargo schedule, would be bound to take what action was open to him to keep Cantlow well clear of the Australian port authorities for his own preservation; but before McRafferty was able to appreciate that, Bullock would need to reveal the truth about Sergeant Cantlow—and once that had been done, McRafferty would be one hundred per cent committed. Halfhyde asked, “Where, then, will Cantlow be landed, Captain?”
“Ah! That’s what we have to ponder.”
“So that we’ll be better able to assess McRafferty’s course?”
“Well, yes, to some extent. But chiefly for another purpose, Halfhyde.” Graves tapped the chart. “I think it would be better if we could decide where a landing is most likely—and then be there ahead of the Aysgarth Falls.”
“But we could be wildly out,” Halfhyde objected. “Then it would be too late.”
“True. But I happen to know the Australian coast well, very well. Before I joined PSNC, I sailed in the windjammers…Iredale and Porter, out of Liverpool for South America and Australia, with many voyages along the coast between Adelaide and Brisbane. Before that, I’d spent my time wholly on the coast, as far north as Rockhampton and Cairns in Queensland. I know it as well, almost, as any aborigine knows his own part of the interior. A lot depends, of course, on how well McRafferty knows it—or his First Mate. Have you any observations on that point?”
“None. I’ve no idea, beyond the fact they’ve both sailed to Australia for many years past.”
Graves nodded. “I’ll assume the First Mate, whats-isname—”
“Bullock.”
“I’ll assume Bullock’s taken pains to find out what he didn’t already know. And if I wanted to land a man secretly along the east coast, it wouldn’t be anywhere south of Brisbane.”
Halfhyde asked, “What about the south coast—west of Sydney?”
Graves shook his head. “Nowhere between Sydney and the Bight—if it was me, that is. None of the coastal areas apart from the towns and settlements are exactly populous down
