“You know, Billy,” the man on the porch said slowly, “I have a feeling I’d feel better about the whole affair if I was to go along with you. Not that I don’t trust you, you understand...”
“Well, you can trust me or not, but I go alone. We’ve been through that on the plane, and there’s an end to it! Just see you have some money for me tomorrow night. Hear?”
“All right, but try and make sure somebody doesn’t pinch your packet of jewelry out of your pocket before you get back...” He seemed to suddenly realize he might have gone a bit far with anyone of McNeil’s size and temperament. He changed the subject. “Be careful. I still wish you had scuba gear.”
“Afraid I’ll drown? Well, I won’t. I’ll be back tomorrow night. Late.”
The man above came to his feet. He cleared his throat. “And if you’re not?”
There was a long pregnant pause as if McNeil were wondering whether to lose his temper at the other’s question. Then he chuckled.
“I won’t cheat you, mon. If I’m not back I won’t be coming back. And it won’t be my fault. My word!”
“And where will that leave me?”
The chuckle grew. “Same place I been for the past fifteen years, mon. Up the creek...”
The chuckle faded as McNeil stepped into the darkness; a moment and he had disappeared as silently as he had appeared. The man on the porch seated himself once again in the creaking chair, thinking. A few moments later he chuckled himself and came to his feet. He walked into the house and flicked on the light, glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall. Plenty of time. Because it had just occurred to him that there was a very good way to insure the good faith of his co-conspirator...
6
The sea was warm, comfortable as a woman’s arms, soft as her hair; the sky was moonless but clear, the bowl of stars overhead swinging rhythmically with each powerful stroke of his thick arms. The horizon was black before him; behind him a few rare twinkles of light in some huts: a sick man or a crying child, for fishermen rise early in Brighton and cherish their rest. Far down the beach a glow where the lights of the cluster of hotels at Bathsheba lit the night. Midnight there was just another hour in the tourist lounges and the open-air bars beside spot-lit swimming pools, and not a very late hour at that; rest was a thing to be avoided as long as possible by the visitors on vacation.
McNeil swam a sidestroke, his head resting on the sea as on a pillow, his powerful legs scissoring regularly, his long arms pulling the water past him effortlessly, pleasurably. There was a sensual feeling to swimming in the almost viscous warmth; he had not realized how much he had missed the sea while in prison. It was not just the caress of the water on his skin; it was the complete freedom of it, he thought, the dependence upon his own strength and skill to stay afloat, alive, and on the vastness and mystery of the arena of the sea. In prison it had taken strength and skill to stay alive, but there certainly had been no joy in it. And tonight, of course, there was the fact that at the end of the journey lay a goal waiting to be attained for more than fifteen years. And then, after that, Diana: warmer than the ocean, more beautiful than the star-studded sky, more fiery than the phosphorescence that flashed from time to time as some dolphin or bonito broke the smooth surface to disappear again, slipping silently back into the depths.
He paused to tread water, wiping the drops from his face, breathing deeply, studying the land behind him and then turning to peer forward in the darkness toward the invisible horizon. The boat should become apparent soon; the flasher on the buoy to the north, anchored short yards off the rocky Plymouth Point, was now visible about the spit of land, roughly where he had calculated it would be when he reached his destination. He leaned back in the water a moment, enjoying it, floating on his back, the salt taste a bracing, enlivening, satisfying tang on his tongue; then he rolled over and continued swimming.
The boat loomed before him suddenly, rocking slightly, phosphorescence along its waterline outlining the hull. He swam about it slowly, feeling for the Jacob’s ladder, finding it in the darkness at last. He reached up, pulling himself to the bottom wooden rung, and then climbed the few rungs to the railing, rolling over it to fall lightly on his hands and knees on the warm deck and then letting himself sit and finally to fall back, his arms out-thrust, spread-eagled, watching the stars swing back and forth above his head, the warm breeze drying his skin. How long had it been since he had been in a boat? A long, long time — not since he had hidden the stones. And the others who had waited for him to return to Brighton that night — all gone! Michaels, Kerrigan, Corbett... Grand lads, and could they play the drums! But it didn’t really seem like fifteen years now; those tedious, endless days in Bordeirinho had suddenly slipped away, lost in the warmth of the familiar salt water, the smooth remembered feeling of a pegged deck beneath him, in the feeling of joy and freedom, of living and adventure. The others were all gone — all but the man on the porch — and the years could not be called back, but he was here, and the jewelry was where he had hidden it fifteen years before, never discovered by the many searchers. He laughed aloud in pure enjoyment, well aware that the breeze would blow the sound to sea as it would the later sound of the engines, safe in the distance he was from shore, then sat erect in one lithe movement, twisted, and came lightly to his feet. There was still a distance to go and work to be done.
The engines started instantly under the goading of the self-starter; the twin exhausts behind him burbled lightly, the promise of power implied in their even throb. He threw the lever sending power to the anchor-winch and waited, hearing the cable scrape through the haweshole, waiting for the slight bump as the anchor touched the hull, and instantly pulled the lever to its neutral position. The boat, freed from the coral sea-bed, swung with the slight tide, turning, drifting. McNeil increased the engine speed, taking the wheel firmly, turning the boat in a wide curve to an easterly direction, feeling the powerful thrust beneath him as he accelerated. Above him the stars glittered, the only things alive in his newly rediscovered universe; he put the polestar over his left shoulder, holding it there, grinning at the feel of the wind in his face. In a short time Barbados would disappear completely against the horizon behind him and he could safely light the lamp over the compass bowl for any corrections to his course. Danger of being seen by any passing vessel was slight; the waters to the immediate east of Barbados were on no shipping lanes — they were as isolated as any in the Atlantic.
The boat bucked through the light wash of the ocean evenly, sweetly, cutting the low waves almost contemptuously. It was a good boat, and he did not push the engines more than necessary; there was ample time before dawn, time and to spare. And where he also had not liked to rush the schedule, now that he was on his way he was resolved that unnecessary lack of patience would be avoided, all possible risks guarded against. He waited a full half hour before switching on the lamp, and then was pleased to find he had to correct less than a degree, a temporary correction until he could lay his course on the chart inside, but one he was sure would be very close.
He locked the wheel and walked inside the small roundhouse with its two bunks, the small galley and head, and the chart table before the keel bulkhead. The lantern there was lit, his course calculated for the time he had run from the speed and time, and laid out. The line alongside the triangle continued through the heart of his target. He grinned to think he had lost none of his seamanship in prison, happy with the accuracy of the course as augering well for his mission. He turned down the lamp above the chart table and lit a second one on the wall over one of the bunks. He smiled as he twisted latches and pulled on the bunk; as he knew it would, it unfolded out of the way revealing a rug whose cut edge fit so neatly with the balance of the carpeting as to be almost invisible. The rug was pulled to one side; the sunken ring revealed in the cabin decking was pulled back. He reached beneath the floor in the cavern exposed, taking a flashlight from a clip there, pushing the switch, swinging it about. The hidden lazaret, remembered from other long past days, was still as dry and snug as the day the boat had been built. He grinned, checked it again, and replaced the hinged door and the rug, dropped the bunk back in place over the secret entrance, and padded to the galley. The safety cans of gasoline were there, and tins of oil. Several bottles of rum shared one shelf in the lockers with the remains of a sausage. He took the sausage, bit into’ it with his strong teeth, munching as he returned to the wheel. The wind blew from behind him, whipping his hair. He unlatched the wheel and took control of the boat once again, running his free hand in contentment over the smooth spokes, eating the sausage in large bites. The rum would have gone well, but that would have to wait. Afterward, yes. Afterward a bottle of the stuff for sure! My word!