“Nothing. I’m not religious.”
“Nor am I. We’ll have to do something, read something.”
“Well, you have a Bible.”
“What about weights?”
“There’s some pig-iron in the ballast. The boy shouldn’t need so much. But there’s no spare tarpaulin.”
“We’ll use some flags from our collection. Not likely to see a use for the Latin Americans, are we?”
The two men sat smoking and deliberating as the “Zion” plunged on towards the outer sea. Nadeb finally leaned forward and, with a sharp movement of the wrist, snapped off the small identity discs. He sat holding them in his hand.
“Identity,” he said reflectively.
“Yes,” said Isaac shortly and surprised himself (for he was not, as far as he knew, of a philosophic turn of mind) by adding “It doesn’t seem to matter, to make much difference when you are dead, being a Jew or not. It’s while you’re alive, my boy.”
Nadeb grunted and busied himself in disposing the limbs of the corpses, lashing their ankles together and passing a cord round their breasts to pinion their arms securely. “About time,” he said sombrely. “The rigor is beginning to set in. Here, knot this one.”
They stood for a moment gazing down at their handiwork. The shaggy prophet from his nest of blankets amidships gave a sudden quavering cry and moaned: “And the Lord shall recognize his own.” They looked at one another and smiled grimly.
“We must move him below,” said Isaac slowly. “We can’t have him screaming once we are off the coast. Nadeb, there’s some morphia in the medical kit — it would give him some sleep. I’d like to radio the Agency about them, but I don’t see how we dare. We might give our position away.”
He padded back to the locker and busied himself with sorting flags. Nadeb called for a sail, needle and twine. “Well,” said Isaac at last, having made his selection. “One can be Brazilian and the other Chilean. It will puzzle their Creator. What else to do?”
They waited until darkness before performing their perfunctory and awkward ceremony and consigning the bodies to the sea. Then they carried the gaunt figure of the prophet below. Lastly, all hands fell to breaking up the remaining crates and shipping their contents — automatic weapons in glistening water-proof covers. That, at least, was a job with which they were familiar.
Night had fallen.
3. Arrival in Darkness
For two days and nights she lay in a pleasurable doze of exhaustion, lulled by the swing of the sea to healing sleep, or woken by the sudden shutting off of the engines and a silence punctuated by the thud of feet on the decks and the hoarse voices of the crew about their business. She had begun to recover not only her reason, but her self-possession: Isaac no longer wore a Nazi uniform when he came down to give her food by the dim light of a pocket torch. At first he had had to feed her, but now she could even sit up in the evil-smelling bunk, although she ached in every limb. The old man asked her no questions, though from time to time he placed a rough hand on her brow to reassure himself that she was no longer feverish. The touch of his calloused palm was delicious and reassuring. For her part, she only showed concern for the fate of her haversack, and a deep relief when Isaac turned the torch on it. “Give it to me,” she said in a hoarse but melodious voice, and placed it behind her head like a pillow. Isaac tended her silently and with concentration, like a gardener, and his pains were rewarded sooner than he had expected, for by the end of the second day she was able to reach out a hand and say: “I want to try and stand. Will you help?” To his delight she could not only do so, but could also walk.
“Nothing broken?” he asked anxiously.
“No. Just bruises. I must be blue all over.”
“They’ll go.”
“I know. When do we… arrive?”
Isaac gave the small ghost of a chuckle.
“Tonight. Very late.”
“Tonight?” She opened her dark eyes very wide and gazed at him. Isaac nodded.
“We are through the sea-blockade and on the coast now. Unless we are picked up by a patrol-boat we should… But he was too superstitious to complete the sentence, and simply contented himself with touching wood.
“What luck!” she said.
“Indeed.”
The news itself was intoxicating. She stretched her arms and yawned; then she tried out her newly formed legs once more.
“You see?” she said, “I can walk okay.”
“But now you are going to sleep. No noise please. I’ll wake you when the time comes. By the way, the man who calls himself Melchior. Is he a relation or a friend?”
“Never saw him before. I don’t know who he is. I hardly know… who I am any more. We were taken from the cellar of a house by a man. It is all very confusing. How they got me out of Germany I don’t know.”
Isaac nodded sympathetically, for the story was a familiar one. The girl sat down, reflectively, and considered the matter with her head on one side. “If you asked me, I couldn’t tell you. I’ve seen nothing but the inside of cattle-trucks, cellars and lorries for weeks.” Her lip trembled, but she recovered herself and smiled at him wanly.
“Good girl. Now drink this and sleep,” said Isaac in a voice of command. “Everything will be all right.”
She closed her eyes again, smiling. The phrase was both reassuring and richly ironic. Isaac padded back on deck with the empty cup and plate. “She’s all right,” he told Nadeb with satisfaction. “But the other chap… The prophet posed a problem, for he was still feverish and noisy despite the morphia. They decided that he would have to be strapped to a stretcher to be taken ashore.
Meanwhile “Zion”, at a reduced speed, was scouting the confines of the dark coast. Here and there shone small starlets of light from the distant villages. But the sea was deserted and calm. Once more Isaac had managed to sidle between the waiting ships and strike land; but he was now in an even more dangerous area, with the risk of mines and patrol-boats to think about. Yet something told him that the journey would be successful. If only the rendezvous worked out… He consulted the phosphorescent hands of his watch and turned the “Zion” a few points east, until they were running parallel to the long beaches, and close enough to hear the waves breaking on them. At four they discerned the faint etching of a fortress and a deserted sea-mole. Skirting it, the “Zion” switched off and lay wallowing in the shadow of the tall ruined structure, waiting for contact. In the silence they could hear the faint exclamations of the prophet below decks and the sound of their own anxious breathing. All was still.
Then a light blinked and the “Zion” answered with a pocket torch. A long silence and then came the sound of cars, and a boat pulled in alongside with a dark figure in it. Isaac whispered something and chuckled. “You are on time, at least,” said a gruff voice approvingly. Reassured, the crew began to talk in normal tones again.