The farther south they got, the worse the weather seemed to become. They saw scores of telegraph poles down along the route, and one or two big trees, and floods were starting too as the rain sliced into the earth and swelled the streams and rivers.
It was a little after noon that the car turned off the main road from Fish Creek to Darby where it ran along Corner Inlet behind the Promontory. After going along a rough track leading to a small cove off the inlet, the car pulled into some scrub and stopped.
Dr Tien ordered Shaw out of the car. The place was deserted; there was no sign of James’s security people, and Shaw’s heart sank, though he knew it would have been a phenomenal piece of luck if they’d fetched up at this particular spot. Karstad rammed a gun into Shaw’s back as he got out, and kept it there. Dr Tien took a length of thin rope from the boot and tied his hands tightly behind his back. He was told to march and, leaving the Chinese driver
in the car, the party went ahead down a pathway running right to the water. The wind was blowing very strongly, whipping up in the cove. Spray came up along the wind, drenched them. It was heavy going across that rough ground and in the teeth of the gale; but they moved as fast as possible and soon afterwards they came to a makeshift jetty built along the shores of a tiny creek. Even here in the creek the water was surging up the shoreline and almost over the planks of the jetty at times as the sea rode in, piled up by the distant waves lashing past Snake Island.
Passing farther along from the jetty they came to a group of boathouses, shacks built of wood and corrugated iron, and Shaw was marched towards one of them. Tien unlocked a door and Shaw was prodded forward. In the boathouse, rising and falling to the surging sea, lay a powerful-looking, high-speed motor-boat, a big, roomy job with a cabin amidships. It seemed a pretty modern craft and in good trim but Shaw, realizing now that they meant actually to meet the New South Wales at sea and that Lubin’s set must be aboard this boat, asked:
“Surely you’re not intending to take this thing out into deep water on a day like this, are you?”
Karstad said tensely, “The boat’s all right, perfectly seaworthy. We’ll be safe enough.” The man’s tone, Shaw thought, didn’t bear out the confidence of his words; Karstad was white and shaky now; he was obviously scared. Shaw himself was fearful — until, with a sickening lurch of his heart, it came back to him that it wouldn’t make any difference now. But he said, “You’re mad!”
They took no notice; Lubin pushed past almost apologetically — so far he hadn’t opened his mouth once since leaving Sydney — and jumped down into the cockpit aft in the sternsheets, ducked down a short ladder into the cabin, and disappeared. Karstad pushed Shaw with the gun, ramming it hard into his kidneys; he hadn’t forgotten what Shaw had done to him the day before. He snapped, “Get in.”
Shaw stepped into the boat as it rose on a surge of water; Dr Tien and Karstad got in behind him. Karstad made his way for’ard along the narrow walkway beside the cabin ports, jumped down into the midship cockpit. Lubin, going through the for’ard door of the cabin, also climbed into the midship cockpit and went to the wheel. Karstad started the motor. There was a roar, and a cloud of blue smoke came from the exhaust, kicking up a spray of water. The engine-sound was sweet enough, Shaw noticed. She was in first-class condition all right.
The craft edged out from the boathouse, with Tien and Lubin bearing off as she cannoned into the sides of the structure, and then Lubin went back to the wheel and Tien ordered Shaw into the cabin. Keeping a small automatic levelled, the Chinese followed him in, slipped another rope round his bound hands and hitched the end to a stanchion near a settee, telling Shaw to sit down.
The boat went slow down the creek into the wider waters of the main cove, and then into Corner Inlet proper. Faster then, and on into the broad sweep of water behind Snake Island. Here the weather really met her and she rolled and pitched violently, the wind tearing across her cabin and the cockpits, shrieking horribly. Shaw began to feel seasick. Dr Tien seemed unmoved, taking the weather in his stride. It became worse as the boat headed eastwards and met the gale funnelling up the Franklin Channel. For a time the wind and sea were on her beam, and she corkscrewed madly, seemed about to turn right over. Lubin, fighting the wheel, brought her round the Mount Hunter end of the Promontory to head into the wind, steering her along the channel for the open sea beyond. When she was headed into the wind and sea Lubin opened her up a little, cautiously. She forged on, banging and jerking and heaving, sending up great spouts of solid water over her head, water which tore backward into the open cockpits and flooded up against the cabin doors. All the time Tien kept Shaw covered with his automatic.
As a trickle of water came under the after door, Tien got up and found a thick towel which he wedged in the crack. Then he opened a panel in the deck, slid it aside and examined something beneath. He looked satisfied, slid the panel into place again. But just before he did so, Shaw, craning forward, had seen what was beneath it.
A large instrument, all dials and knobs. A radio? He asked, “Is that the transmitter?”
“Yes.”
If only he could get that out of action before they met the New South Wales, heading up from Port Phillip… all it would need would be a boot or a good dollop of seawater… Tien laughed aloud, and moved towards him, said: “I know what is in your mind, my dear Shaw.” He unhitched the rope from the stanchion. “Get up, please.”
Shaw obeyed, steadying himself against the for’ard bulkhead. Tien’s gun was aimed at his ribs and the hand was firm. Tien said, “Move straight backwards.” As he spoke he pressed a button in the bulkhead beside him and a panel slid open in the woodwork right behind Shaw, on the port side of the entry into the midship cockpit. “Inside, please.”
Shaw hesitated. Tien repeated the order sharply and Shaw realized that the Chinese wouldn’t hold back if he tried anything now. And there was nothing useful that he could do anyway with his hands tied… he stepped back and found himself in a small, cupboardlike space, a kind of store probably. Tien pressed the button again and the panel slid across.
Shaw, in complete darkness, felt round with his shoulders.
The compartment was steel-lined all the way round, even on the sliding panel. Air was blown in by a miniature fan whirring in a tiny aperture in one corner of the deckhead and that was the only opening.
They pressed on through the wind-blown seas, heading south for Cape Wellington to run down between the mainland and the group of off-shore islands. Then, after a while, Shaw deduced from the motion and the changed engine-beat that Lubin was heaving her to, letting her ride the gale with just enough power to keep her in position, head to wind and sea. The motion was shocking. The cupboard flew up into the air constantly and came down again in a shuddering series of jerks ending in a swoop, and then up, up again… Shaw’s stomach was playing him up badly in the stuffiness of the cupboard; his old trouble had hit him hard. Vomit was on his clothes, on the deck, slippery. He shook all over, felt white and weak and cold, deadly cold. The bile rose up to sting the back of his throat after his stomach was empty of food, and he sagged back against the steel-lined panel. Every now and then he heard movements in the cabin beyond; after a time he heard some one coming through the door from the midship cockpit into the cabin.