"We'd better get out of here," said Allen. "Not yet," Craig whispered. "They can't see us. We'll wait till they go." "But—"
"Keep your voice down," whispered Craig again. "Sound travels at sea."
And at that moment Calvet returned to consciousness and yelled.
Calvet was a Ukrainian. He spoke Ukrainian, Russian, and French—all three as if they were his mother tongue—and his German, English, and Spanish were near perfect, but all he produced then as he struggled from the blackness of Craig's blow into the blackness of the boat's cockpit was a high-pitched yet very masculine scream: a scream compounded of fear and horror of terrible things that had happened to him, to Calvet, and which he could neither control, understand, nor, at that moment—and here was the real terror—even remember. So Calvet screamed, and the scream died almost at once, crushed out beneath Craig's fingers, but it warned the men on the cliff, and a spotlight on their car snapped on almost at once, its long accusing finger probing out to sea, searching for the sleek twin-screwed cruiser that lay too far out for the light to touch.
Again Allen wanted to go, and again Craig made him wait, until at last the car revved up and went, and then the cruiser's motors too could fire, the twin propellers chop the water into foam. Craig took the small, neat wheel in his hands and set course for Gibraltar. As he let in the throttle, he could feel the twin engine's thrust. Allen must have been sober when he bought this one, he thought. She's just about perfect. He let in more throttle and the speedometer moved to fifteen knots.
"Let's put on the searchlight—see where we're going," Allen said.
"No," said Craig.
"But she'll do five knots better than this if we see where we're going." "No," said Craig.
The cruiser forged on, and the false dawn came, a pink smudge across the horizon, pink and yet cold. The cruiser moved on, and Craig strained his ears for the sound of other boats. There had to be other boats, and if the land police had done their job they would pick them up soon.
Twice he thought he heard them and throttled back the engine—his hands were still steady, but they were wet, now, and he was breathing more quickly than he had need—but when at last it came, he was in no doubt. It was a low-pitched, drumming note, deep and steady, and when he heard it he could look, and when he looked he could see the two sets of red and green riding lights, tiny and brilliant. Even as he saw them, the other boats' lights switched on, and began to pierce the darkness section by section, their beams crossing then engaging, like the swords of duelists. At once Craig gave his boat more throttle, and she screamed her eagerness to go. The speedometer needle moved, faster, faster, from fifteen to twenty to twenty-two. Slowly then it dragged on to twenty-five, but still Craig could sense behind him the drum note of bigger engines, the thrust of wider propellers. It was ridiculous, of course: no other noise could survive when Allen's cruiser hit full power, and yet Craig knew the pursuing ships were there, so that when their lights snapped on again and stroked the blackness of the sea to a cold, pure, silvery blue, Craig almost sighed his relief—until one searchlight flicked him, and he began to fling the cruiser all over the water to lose those sure, serene lights that probed the blackness of the sea.
And then one brushed the side of the cruiser from the right, lighting up Craig at the wheel, and Allen crouched beside him. Craig swerved again, but the boat on his left found him, hesitated, and then held until the one from the right could bore through the dark once more, and Craig struggled to find a course in the blinding, silver light. A voice over the loud hailer boomed out in Spanish, and Craig tried the throttle again. There were no more revs in the engines. The boats behind nosed up closer— Jesus, they must be big —and again the loud hailer voice boomed out, and Allen was gibbering with fear, and Craig too busy to understand a word. He tried to swerve again, and there was a crackle of gunfire, a stream of tracers drifting across the black sky to disappear at last into the black sea, twenty yards from the boat. Craig threw the port engine into neutral, then into reverse, and the cruiser's weight lunged viciously as she swerved to the right across the bows of the pursuer, then Craig swerved again and tried in vain to coax out more revs. The cruiser's speedometer read twenty-seven knots, and there it stuck. There just wasn't any more.
Craig risked another look behind at the searchlights criss-crossing the sea. The false dawn had faded. Daylight was only minutes away, and those minutes were vital.
"Do you carry a gun aboard?" he yelled.
''You bloody fool," Allen screamed back, "that's Spanish navy stuff chasing us."
"Do you have a gun?"
"Just a rifle," Allen said. "A Lee-Enfield."
"Get it," said Craig. Allen made no move.
"Have you ever been in a Spanish prison?" asked Craig.
Allen sighed, and fetched the rifle, then Craig made him take the wheel. He lay down in the stern of the boat, checked the rifle, and waited. The Lee-Enfield was old—ten years at least—but it seemed in good nick, and Craig was used to it. The standard service weapon of the Second World War, it was the first of the long series of rifles, carbines, pistols, revolvers, and automatic weapons that had passed through his hands. He had learned its care and maintenance when he was seventeen years old, and he had not forgotten. Magazine, bolt, safety catch were all working well. The barrel, all the rifle parts were clean, bright, and slightly oiled, the way the manual said they should be. It seemed that Allen loved a weapon as much as he loved his cruiser.
Craig waited, knowing that this time it wouldn't be for long, while the Spanish navy flogged the sea with their searchlights, then came at them again. Craig snuggled down, the rifle steady against his shoulder. The leading pursuer came up from behind, and its searchlights pointed an accusing finger of light. He fired down its beam, and the light went out. Allen swung the cruiser as he had seen
Craig do, across the bows of the other boat. They made it with yards only to spare, but the other searchlight found them, two machine guns chattered, arid Allen watched in horror as lumps of varnished decking flew past his head. Craig fired again, but the cruiser veered too much and the light clung on to him, pitiless. He had to hit it with his next shot: his eyes would be blinded soon.
"Hold her steady," he yelled to Allen, and worked the bolt of the Lee-Enfield. The cruiser settled down on the easy sea, and Craig fired again. Again the light went out; again there were no screams—and, he hoped to God, no casualties. An act of war wouldn't exactly fill Loomis with joy: a wounded Spaniard would drive him demented. Craig looked at Allen by the wheel, then took off the Lee-Enfield magazine. The smell of cordite increased, whipped past him by the cruiser's slipstream, as his fingers fumbled the bullets free and dropped them into his pocket. He took the wheel from Allen again, and held course for Gibraltar.
Allen said, "They got bloody close."
"Good radar," said Craig.
"Think they'll find us again?"
Craig said nothing. There was no way of knowing. When he did know he would act. Until then, his whole being was concentrated on coaxing one extra knot—half a knot—out of the cruiser. As dawn came up they were doing twenty-eight and a half knots, and Allen was ashen. The sun grew brighter, kinder, and two miles away they could see their pursuers, hull down. Ahead of them lay Gibraltar. Craig reckoned that they could just about do it.
"Congratulations," he said to Allen. "We just defeated the armada again."
Allen was looking at what two Vickers machine guns had done to his deck.
"This'll cost a fortune," he said.