The steward’s grin was like a wolf’s. ‘That’s right. We’d feel hurt if he didn’t let us kiss him good-bye.’
Keeton would not have worried about Rains and Smith if he had not been so close to sailing. A year earlier, even six months, he could have afforded to wait until the two became tired of watching him. But time had slipped away; he had the money he needed and he was ready to go. But he did not wish to sail away under the noses of these men; he wished to go unnoticed, dropping down channel as inconspicuously as an old cork or an empty bottle, slipping out of the minds of all who knew him as lightly as the memory of last week’s weather. But from the minds of Rains and Smith he knew there was no escape.
So he waited as April turned to May, as the long days of June came with good sailing weather; waited and fretted. He continued to work in the boatyard, earning good money, but thinking always of a million pounds’ worth of gold wedged on a reef in the Pacific. It seemed to call to him to make haste, to come before someone else discovered the wreck.
Smith would greet him in the street, cheerful, cocky.
‘How’s it going, Charles? Still at the old boat-building lark? But it won’t be long now, will it, boy? Not long before the balloon goes up.’
Keeton would look past Smith or through him. He would refuse to answer. But it made no difference. A man like Smith was impervious to snubbing.
One day he fell into step beside Keeton and began talking at once about the Valparaiso. ‘Remember when that gold came aboard? They put you and a fat sailor on guard. What was his name?’
‘I don’t know,’ Keeton said. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Of course you do. You must remember him. Red-haired; used to sweat a lot. Biscoe, was it? No, not that. Now I’ve got it — Bristow. That was the boy — Bristow.’
Keeton’s jaw knotted. He did not like to hear that name. It brought back memories sure enough, but not the ones that Smith was talking about. It brought back the picture of blood on a man’s head, of a body arched over a boat’s thwart, of a shark and a flurry in the water. Bitter memories.
‘He was the one that chased me with a rifle.’ Smith was staring up at Keeton’s face as if he would have read the secrets of Keeton’s mind.
‘I knew he was fooling, but I pretended to be scared. The boy for fooling, he was. Bristow. I wonder what happened to him?’
‘He’s dead,’ Keeton said. ‘Dead, like the rest.’
Smith’s eyes were hard and bright as polished glass. ‘How do you know that, Charles?’
‘They’re all dead, aren’t they? All except you and me and Rains.’
‘True enough,’ Smith agreed softly. ‘All dead except us three. We’re the heirs to great riches, as you might say. Very great riches.’
Keeton wondered what Rains and Smith lived on. They appeared to do no work. Perhaps they had brought back enough capital from their South American venture to keep them going for a time. Whatever the state of their finances, they made no move to leave the town; they hung about the streets and the harbour and the public houses; two men keeping an eye on a third who might be the key to an immense fortune.
And then one day they were gone. Keeton would not believe it at first; but when he had seen no sign of them for three days he went to their lodgings and made inquiries. The landlady gave him the information without pressing.
‘Oh, yes, they’ve gone. Last Wednesday, it was. Just said they were moving on and would I let them have the bill. I was sorry to see them go. Couldn’t ask for better lodgers. Quiet, well-mannered. Never no trouble with them.’
‘Did they say where they were going?’
‘No, they didn’t. Nor they didn’t leave any forwarding address. Not that they ever had any letters. But if you was to ask me, I’d say they’ve gone back to London. That’s where they all go, isn’t it—?’
‘Yes,’ Keeton said. ‘That’s where they all go.’
‘They were friends of yours then?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not friends.’
He made haste now. Rains and Smith had held him back long enough, too long in fact; but they had gone and he would go also. The yawl was already stocked with canned provisions; now he took on board everything else that he would probably need. He topped up the fuel tanks and filled the fresh water containers. In the drawer below the chart table in the corner of the saloon he had the necessary charts and instruments. There was a table in the centre of the saloon and settee bunks on each side. This was to be his home for many months. He had known worse.
He told the boat-builder: ‘I’m leaving. I shall not be coming back. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Robson said. ‘You’ve been a good worker. But I could see you had the itch in you. I was like that once. When it gets you, you just have to go; no two ways about it. I’ve grown too old for it now, but you’re young and that makes all the difference.’
‘Yes,’ Keeton said. ‘I’m young.’
‘If you ever come back and want a job, there’s one for you here. Remember that.’
‘I’ll remember it.’
‘Well, good luck to you.’
‘Thanks,’ Keeton said. ‘I may need the luck.’
His landlady too, was sorry to hear that he was leaving; she had come to look upon him as a permanency.
‘Going away in that boat of yours? Do you think it’s safe, Mr Keeton? All by yourself too. Why don’t you stay here? You’ve been comfortable, haven’t you? I’m sure I’ve done my best.’
‘You’ve been very kind to me, Mrs Kirby, and I’ve been perfectly comfortable. But I’ve got to go.’
‘You young men,’ Mrs Kirby said, ‘you’re restless. Mr Kirby was the same, and where’s he now? In a watery grave, poor man. His ship ran on a rock in the Pacific Ocean, so they said.’ She dried a tear with the edge of her apron and looked anxiously at Keeton. ‘You won’t be doing that, will you?’
‘Doing what, Mrs Kirby?’
‘Running on a rock in the Pacific.’
‘Who told you I was going to the Pacific?’ Keeton asked sharply.
Mrs Kirby was taken aback by his tone. ‘Nobody told me. I don’t know where you’re going. All I hope is you take care of yourself.’
‘I’ll take care. You needn’t worry about me.’
‘Well, I’m sure I hope so,’ Mrs Kirby said doubtfully. ‘But I never did trust boats.’
The yawl slipped away from her moorings in the early morning when few were awake to see her go. She went under engine power until the wind came to fill her sails and sweep her out of the Channel towards the great rollers of the Atlantic. And thus, quietly, without fuss or publicity, she dropped the coast of England astern and set out on the long voyage to where a fortune in gold bars beckoned seductively from a lonely reef in the heart of the wide Pacific.
Chapter Three
Limpets
When Keeton stepped ashore in Sydney he had a feeling that at last, after all the hazards and discomforts of the long drawn out voyage to the South Atlantic, round the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean, he was once again almost making contact with the treasure of the Valparaiso. For it was here that the ship had loaded her gold and from here that she had gone to her final resting place. In Sydney, if anywhere, the ghosts of the Valparaiso’s crew might be expected to walk, treading the hot pavements and gliding into the bars, the restaurants, the places of entertainment.
It was strange to think that here perhaps, walking these same streets, were women who had known those seamen and taken their money. Did any of them remember? Or had the crew of the Valparaiso slipped away into the forgotten past even as the ship had slipped away? Keeton hoped so. He wanted to stir no memory, cause no publicity.