Kansas’s pinnace. Smith answered: “Thunder!”
The American pinnace swung neatly on her heel to come around and foam alongside a dozen feet away. A boyish figure stood at her wheel, white face turned towards Smith, as were all the other faces in her. “What boat is that?” As if he doubted the evidence of his eyes.
Smith repeated cheerfully, “Thunder/”
For long seconds the two pinnaces ran side by side as the Americans peered fascinated at the bizarre parties in the opposite pinnace and whaler. Then the explosions came, muffled, dull thumps, seeming more physical vibrations than sounds. Smith saw the collier heave and then settle. Kennedy had blown the bottom out of her. Smoke and steam suddenly roared from her funnel and she began to list. Smith said, “Very effective, Mr. Kennedy.”
Kennedy did not answer and sat stone-faced.
A voice on Kansas’s pinnace cried, “Jee-sus!” And another: “What the hell?” She spun away and headed for Gerda. She was the last vessel they saw.
In the channel they met the flowing tide and the crew of the whaler spat on their hands and bent to their oars in earnest. With their efforts and the pinnace punching along at her best speed they passed the signalling station at Punta Negro before the dawn. Running without lights as they were it was unlikely that they would have been seen from the station but before they reached Stillwater Cove the mist swirled and curled thick and dirty yellow over the channel. They pushed through it, the look-out in the bow fanning at it mechanically as if he could cut a path for them. Now they used the compass.
The mist held them cocooned in a muffled, closed world for a half-hour, then the yellow turned pink shot with golden light as if they moved inside the silence of some church and the sun came at them through stained glass. Then they ran out of the mist and were clear of the estuary, on the open sea in the dawn’s light, and Thunder patrolled, cruising slowly across their course, a mile ahead. There was a ragged cheer and the men looked at each other, exhausted but exhilarated, grinning uncertainly at first but then broadly. In the light of day with their streaked faces and their hair matted and spiked where they thrust away the balaclavas now, they looked very odd. Even funny.
Someone said to Beckett, “There’s the old cow standing in for us.” Thunder had seen them.
Beckett had lain in a daze or a doze, he was not sure which. Now he stirred and sat up to stare at the ship. He looked back at Smith. “You should ha’ seen the old man run at that feller. Run right at him! And the bastard firing away like mad. But he never faltered, and you should ha’ seen the look on his face.” He would not forget it. “What daft bugger said he was windy?”
Thunder rounded to and the pinnace ran alongside. Smith stared back at the estuary and saw the mist already shredded to almost nothing, the sun sucking it up greedily, the wind rolling it away. He could see the signalling station and no doubt they were watching Thunder and wondering. They would know by now of the sinking of the Gerda. He could see no sign of pursuit in the estuary but it was too early for the authorities to have assessed the situation, much less to react. But they would.
He turned and said to Manton, “By God, Mid, I’m famished.” He was honestly surprised at the discovery. As he climbed aboard he knew he was very hungry and very tired and that before he ate or slept he had work to do. Garrick looked relieved to see him, but not overjoyed. Smith grinned wearily at him, and at Aitkyne behind him. “A course for Malaguay, pilot, and revolutions for fifteen knots.” And: “Pass the word to Miss Benson. I would be grateful if she could spare me a few minutes.”
He found cheerful words of congratulation for the crews of pinnace and whaler as the boats were swung in. He received Albrecht’s report that the bullet that hit Beckett had entered his back on the extreme left side, run along the ribs and out. He would be sore and his ribs bruised for some days and Albrecht was keeping him in the sick-bay for twenty-four hours. Then the messenger returned and said Miss Benson was ready to see him and Smith walked aft and below.
Garrick watched him go then shot a haggard glance at Aitkyne, who said, “He’s got his nerve. That’s one rumour nailed for a lie. By God, he’s got his nerve.” He shook his head over it. Smith had sunk a neutral ship in a neutral port. The enormity of the offence left them silent. It was unthinkable, except to Smith. He had done it.
It tempered the exuberance of the crew as they welcomed back the boarding-party but still there was a lot of backslapping and Gibb came in for his share. He had been the last to board the Gerda and he had seen neither shooting nor fighting. Still, he had been one of them and he blushed under the smeared soot.
Rattray took no part in this. A night spent in back-breaking labour under the cursing driving of a Stoker Petty Officer had left him exhausted and filthy. He had boasted of what he would do when he boarded Gerda and then Smith had humiliated him and taken that green squirt Gibb in his place. He had heard Smith tell Gibb that he had done well, as he told all of them.
Rattray would get even with both of them. He was not sure yet how he would get at high and mighty bloody Smith but he would start with Gibb.
Sarah had not needed to be wakened; she woke long before dawn. The previous night she had watched the boats leave. Now as Smith entered and she saw the strained, blood-shot eyes in the dirty face, the hair sweat-stuck flat to his head, she asked only the one question and that was almost a statement: “You sank the Gerda?”
“Yes.”
She sat up in the Captain’s bed, wrapped in a silk dressing gown lent by Aitkyne. It was too large and loose but her case had held no night-clothes.
He had expected her question and she expected his. “What can you tell me of Malaguay?” Another collier lay there.
They were polite to each other, business-like. There was a working truce to tide them over till their ways should part and that would be soon. Sarah shrugged and the robe slipped to reveal a glimpse of white shoulder and a lift of breast. She adjusted the robe absently. “Natural harbour between two headlands with a muddy river at the head of it and wharves on either bank of the river. But that’s not what you want from me; you’ve charts and sailing directions.
“Let’s see … A German gunboat was interned there late in 1914. She’s been tied up in the river since then. Disarmed of course, but otherwise untouched. Her crew live aboard and the Chileans have a guard on her. That’s only a gesture; there’s nowhere she could go.
“Strong German influence, a large German colony. Usual few British with the usual British club. Some Americans.
“Cherry sent me down there not long ago because a man called Medina, a Chilean, had applied for a licence to carry mails by air.”
Smith stared. “What?”
“Exactly. Everybody’s eyebrows went up and particularly because he didn’t have an aircraft. Besides, Cherry had him on the books as a German sympathiser. Soon after a new American arrived as an assistant to the local representative of a firm selling farm tools. In a couple of days everybody knew he had been a pilot with the United States Naval Air Service and handed in his commission because the money wasn’t good enough. He also hinted that his fondness for a gamble might have had something to do with it and he said he wasn’t pro-British nor pro-German just pro-Jim Bradley. Inside of a week he had a reputation as a gambler, winning and losing big sums but mostly winning, and everybody knew he could fly any God-damn aeroplane you cared to name, anytime, anywhere — if the money was right.