“What have you in mind?” Graves asked.
Halfhyde laid a hand on his shoulder. “The chart, sir. Let us take a close look at the chart and the Admiralty “Pilot.” I noticed that there is another entry channel to Breakup Island, and another entry means another exit at the same time.”
Graves blew out his cheeks. “Good God! Are you referring to Disaster Passage by any chance?”
“Yes, sir, I am. Let us take that look at the chart.”
ALL HANDS were at their stations as dusk came down. Graves had agreed to move out, though with reluctance. He had made the exit through Disaster Passage once before, when Mate of a pearling vessel that had had to sail at a time when a disabled wool ship had drifted towards Breakup Island and had gone aground in the main channel and blocked the narrow fairway. Disaster Passage was well named, he said: ships never used it if it could be avoided. So far as he knew, he and his former shipmates had been the only seafarers to use it almost within living memory. He said, and this was confirmed by the Sailing Directions, that its name derived from the fate of a barquentine that had tried to make the passage some seventy years earlier. Her master and crew had been overpowered by escaped convicts who had seen a direct run out by sea as being their best bet. There had been a government cutter patrolling out from the Brisbane River, so they had decided to use Disaster Passage to elude its attentions in much the same way as Halfhyde meant to elude von Merkatz: Disaster Passage would take them out to sea well south of the proper entry and exit channel outside which von Merkatz was lying. Those convicts had never come out from the Passage; their bodies, and those of the barquentine’s crew had eventually been found still aboard the vessel which had piled up on some jagged rocks. There had been indications that the men had prepared to swim to the mainland with such possessions as they had with them, but they had been attacked first. Their wounds had been appalling, and the theory was that they had been set upon by Aborigines in enough strength for the whole lot to be slaughtered to a man. “I can tell you,” Graves said, “we were all praying last time I went through.”
“We shall pray again,” Halfhyde said. He intended taking upon himself the task of going away in a ship’s boat ahead of the steamer with a lead and line, to take soundings and call back directions to Graves; and he was about to embark and be lowered to the water when there was a shout from the lookout, now withdrawn from the island and positioned at the crosstrees below the fore royal mast.
“Boat in sight, sir!”
“What’s her heading?” Halfhyde called back, cupping his hands.
“Entering the channel, sir, with a party aboard. I reckon they’re Huns, sir.”
Halfhyde grinned through gathering dusk at Graves. “It’s time we were away, sir!”
“And if we’re spotted?”
Halfhyde shrugged. “It’s in the lap of the gods now.” He turned for the ladder and went down fast towards the boat’s falls. As he did so, there was another shout from the fore royal mast: the boat was coming round the island and was making no attempt to put men ashore. That looked as though von Merkatz intended to board direct. It also meant a stern chase, which would be far from funny in the dangerous shoals that dotted Disaster Passage.
Chapter 15
AS THE Tacoma got under way in increasing darkness, there was a shout in German from astern followed by the crack of a rifle when the shout was unanswered. After that there was no more firing; it seemed likely that the German had settled for no more than a shadowing manoeuvre, as von Merkatz had done across half the Pacific Ocean already. Halfhyde, constantly casting his lead line from the boat ahead, reflected that von Merkatz was showing an unusual sensitivity: he seemed to have no desire to flaunt international practices too far, at any rate not to the point of keeping up a constant rifle fire to harass the British ship’s crew.
After a while, the German boat withdrew, which was even stranger. Halfhyde puzzled over the matter: why send the boat in the first place? Then he reflected that when he had sent the boat off, von Merkatz wouldn’t have known the Tacoma was getting under way. The fact that she had now been seen to be moving into Disaster Passage was enough, no doubt, for von Merkatz. He would refer to his chart and then go to sea himself, waiting off the exits farther south for his quarry to reappear.
Halfhyde swore to himself. There was no escape from a lion that merely moved to close the escape route. But all he could do now was to go on. There could be no turning back even if he wanted to. Heaving his lead line ahead again, waiting for it to come up-and-down as his boat moved on, Halfhyde sang out the depth of water. Behind him, the Tacoma moved dead slow through the shoals and past the jags of rocks. There was a long way to go; there were several possible exits, some safer than others; they could take their choice. That aspect might be of some help in avoiding von Merkatz, who couldn’t watch all the exits all the time. But that was a frail thread upon which to base any solid hope; von Merkatz, steaming up and down the coast, would be sure
