Once when he went to the strong-room he found the door standing open, and he experienced a shock such as a miser might feel on discovering the theft of his savings. For a moment he had the ridiculous idea that thieves had broken in and had stolen the gold. Then his brain started to work normally again. What thieves? A wreck stranded in the wastes of the ocean was free from that kind of intrusion.
He went into the strong-room and found Bristow with a chisel in his hand. Bristow was levering up the lid of another case.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Keeton demanded.
Bristow began to stammer. He looked at Keeton and he looked at the chisel in his hand. He seemed to be wishing he could hide it somewhere.
‘I was just looking. Checking up.’
Keeton felt a surge of resentment. ‘What right have you—’ he began, and then stopped.
Bristow was on the defensive. ‘As much right as you, I should think. You come down here often enough. I’ve seen you. This stuff’s half mine, don’t forget. I got a right to look at my half anyway.’
‘Your half! You don’t deserve half, you spineless—’
‘Now take it easy, Charlie,’ Bristow said. He gave Keeton a sharp glance in which apprehension was mingled with suspicion. ‘Here, you aren’t thinking of taking the lot for yourself, are you? Because that wouldn’t be honest, you know. Fair’s fair when all’s said and done. Besides, there’s enough for both of us to be rich.’
Keeton said: ‘Neither of us is going to be rich if we can’t get this stuff away.’ He was thinking how ridiculous it was to be arguing about the share-out of the gold when in all likelihood it would never be moved from its present resting-place.
‘That’s true enough,’ Bristow said. He looked at the gold and shook his head sadly. ‘It’s a crying shame, that’s what it is, a crying shame.’
‘You can cry if you like,’ Keeton said.
When the first storm hit the ship Bristow was scared. Keeton was uneasy too; he was afraid for the gold. For his own skin he no longer had any fears; it seemed to him that without the gold life would not be worth living anyway.
The wind stirred up the sea and flung it over the Valparaiso. Waves battered against her hull until she shuddered under the impact. Inside the ship Keeton could hear the keel grinding on the coral; it was an ominous sound.
‘She’s going to break up,’ Bristow muttered. He tried to draw courage from a bottle of brandy while Keeton looked at him with contempt he did not trouble to conceal.
‘The ship’s got a stouter heart than you. She’ll fight it out.’
The Valparaiso fought it out and the storm passed. The wind died away and the sea went down. The next day the sun shone hotly and the moisture on the decks evaporated and vanished as though it had never been.
‘You see,’ Keeton said. ‘She didn’t break up.’
Bristow was lying in his hammock with his stomach protruding like a well stuffed pillow. Seeing it, Keeton had the idea that perhaps Bristow was storing away a reserve of food in case of a future shortage. If famine came he would be able to feed for a time on the fat accumulated in his own body.
‘Not this time,’ Bristow admitted. ‘But maybe next time or the time after.’
‘We’ll worry about that when it comes.’
‘I’m worried about it now.’
‘You’re not just worried. You’re dead scared.’
‘All right, so I’m scared. So would anybody be what didn’t want his nut seeing to.’
‘I’m not scared.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ Bristow said.
Keeton painted the ship. It was something to pass the time; he hated to be idle. And while he painted he thought over his plan. He hated to let Bristow in on the plan, but he supposed it would be necessary. Unless something happened to Bristow.
Bristow thought painting was just another symptom of mental decay. ‘What good is a coat of paint going to do this ship? She’ll never sail anywhere again. Let her rust.’
‘I like painting,’ Keeton said.
‘You’re mad.’
‘Maybe I am. How do you fancy sharing quarters with a madman?’
Bristow looked uneasy. ‘It don’t do to joke about things like that. You never know.’
‘Who said I was joking?’ Keeton asked, and left Bristow to meditate on the question.
The months passed slowly. Time was meaningless. For the two men on the wreck the days were a monotonous and unending repetition. They had no news; they knew nothing of what was going on in the world. They had no knowledge of the rejoicings of VE day, no suspicion that in another part of the Eastern Hemisphere a bomb had been dropped that was to alter the entire course of history. On their iron island they were insulated, left alone and in ignorance of all that occurred in Europe and in Asia, and in the council chambers of the nations. They could not know that the war was over and that demobilization had started. They lived on in their splendid isolation, and while Keeton painted and fished and practised shooting the sun and the stars with Peterson’s sextant, Bristow lounged in a hammock and ate and drank and slept.
A hundred times Keeton decided that now was the time to get away; a hundred times he altered his decision and waited. Bristow made no attempt to persuade him to take this irrevocable step, for the open boat held no attraction for Bristow. Only when storms battered the wreck did he feel that perhaps it would have been better to have got away while the going was good.
Keeton’s own thoughts were centred on the gold and his plan for taking it. It was unfortunate that success depended on Bristow’s co-operation but he could see no way round this problem; and the plan itself was so simple in its essentials that he did not see how it could fail. Nevertheless, he put off revealing it to Bristow until the revelation could be put off no longer. He had decided that it was time to take the initial step, and that step was to get away from the Valparaiso.
So, with some reluctance, he broached the subject to the man who, unwelcome though he might be, must through force of circumstances become his partner.
‘Johnnie,’ he said, ‘I want to have a talk with you.’
Bristow looked surprised; since the rifle episode they had spoken to each other but they had not talked.
‘What would that be about, Charlie?’
‘Leaving.’
Bristow sat up. ‘You’re thinking of going?’ There was a trace of uneasiness in his voice and he did not look happy. Only when the Valparaiso was being shaken by rough seas did he feel any urge to leave the wreck. At other times the undoubted comforts of the ship were inclined to seem infinitely preferable to the hazards of an open boat.
‘Yes, Johnnie,’ Keeton said, ‘I’m thinking of going.’
Bristow pulled nervously at his straggling beard. ‘Oughtn’t we to hang on a bit longer? We might still be picked up.’
‘I don’t want to be picked up.’
‘You don’t want to? For Pete’s sake, why not?’
‘If we’re picked up we lose the gold. You want your share, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course I do, but—’
‘So we’ve got to get away.’
‘In that boat?’
‘How else? Now, listen; I’ve worked out a plan. First we make for the Fiji Islands.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if my calculations are correct they’re the nearest.’