скачать книгу бесплатно
I said, ‘Sit down and I’ll tell you something about sailing boats you don’t know.’ Coertze sat uncomfortably on the edge of the starboard settee which had no mattress as yet, and waited for me to explain myself.
‘This boat displaces – weighs, that is – ten tons, and …’
Walker broke in. ‘I thought you said she was a 15-tonner.’
‘That’s Thames measure – yacht measure. Her displacement is different.’
Coertze looked at Walker. ‘Shut up and let the man speak.’ He turned to me. ‘If the boat weighs ten tons and you add another four tons, she’ll be pretty near sinking, won’t she? And where are you going to put it? It can’t be out in the open where the cops can see it.’
I said patiently, ‘I said I’d tell you something about sailing boats that you didn’t know. Now, listen – about forty per cent of the weight of any sailing boat is ballast to keep her the right way up when the wind starts to press on those sails.’
I tapped the cabin sole with my foot. ‘Hanging on the bottom of this boat is a bloody great piece of lead weighing precisely four tons.’
Coertze looked at me incredulously, a dawning surmise in his eyes. I said, ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
We went outside and I showed them the lead ballast keel. I said, ‘All this will be covered up next week because the boat will be sheathed to keep out the marine borers.’
Coertze was squatting on his heels looking at the keel. ‘This is it,’ he said slowly. ‘This is it. The gold will be hidden under water – built in as part of the boat.’ He began to laugh, and after a while Walker joined in. I began to laugh, too, and the walls of the shed resounded.
Coertze sobered suddenly. ‘What’s the melting point of lead?’ he asked abruptly.
I knew what was coming. ‘Four-fifty degrees centigrade,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a little foundry at the top of the yard where we pour the keels.’
‘Ja,’ he said heavily. ‘You can melt lead on a kitchen stove. But gold melts at over a thousand centigrade and we’ll need more than a kitchen stove for that. I know; melting gold is my job. Up at the smelting plant we’ve got bloody big furnaces.’
I said quickly, ‘I’ve thought of that one, too. Come up to the workshop – I’ll show you something else you’ve never seen before.’
In the workshop I opened a cupboard and said, ‘This gadget is brand new – just been invented.’ I hauled out the contraption and put it on the bench. Coertze looked at it uncomprehendingly.
There wasn’t much to see; just a metal box, eighteen inches by fifteen inches by nine inches, on the top of which was an asbestos mat and a Heath Robinson arrangement of clamps.
I said, ‘You’ve heard of instant coffee – this is instant heat.’ I began to get the machine ready for operation. ‘It needs cooling water at at least five pounds an inch pressure – that we get from an ordinary tap. It works on ordinary electric current, too, so you can set it up anywhere.’
I took the heart of the machine from a drawer. Again, it wasn’t much to look at; just a piece of black cloth, three inches by four. I said, ‘Some joker in the States discovered how to spin and weave threads of pure graphite, and someone else discovered this application.’
I lifted the handle on top of the machine, inserted the graphite mat, and clamped it tight. Then I took a bit of metal and gave it to Coertze.
He turned it in his fingers and said, ‘What is it?’
‘Just a piece of ordinary mild steel. But if this gadget can melt steel, it can melt gold. Right?’
He nodded and looked at the machine dubiously – it wasn’t very impressive.
I took the steel from his fingers and dropped it on to the graphite mat, then I gave Walker and Coertze a pair of welders’ goggles each. ‘Better put these on: it gets a bit bright.’
We donned the goggles and I switched on the machine. It was a spectacular display. The graphite mat flashed instantly to a white heat and the piece of steel glowed red, then yellow and finally white. It seemed to slump like a bit of melting wax and in less than fifteen seconds it had melted into a little pool. All this to the accompaniment of a violent shower of sparks as the metal reacted with the air.
I switched off the machine and removed my goggles. ‘We won’t have all these fireworks when we melt gold; it doesn’t oxidize as easily as iron.’
Coertze was staring at the machine. ‘How does it do that?’
‘Something like a carbon arc,’ I said. ‘You can get temperatures up to five thousand degrees centigrade. It’s only intended to be a laboratory instrument, but I reckon we can melt two pounds of gold at a time. With three of these gadgets and a hell of a lot of spare mats we should be able to work pretty fast.’
He said doubtfully, ‘If we can only pour a couple of pounds at a time, the keel is going to be so full of cracks and flaws that I’m not sure it won’t break under its own weight.’
‘I’ve thought of that one, too,’ I said calmly. ‘Have you ever watched anyone pour reinforced concrete?’
He frowned and then caught on, snapping his fingers.
‘We make the mould and put a mesh of wires inside,’ I said. ‘That’ll hold it together.’
I showed him a model I had made, using fuse wire and candle wax, which he examined carefully. ‘You’ve done a hell of a lot of thinking about this,’ he said at last.
‘Somebody has to,’ I said. ‘Or that gold will stay where it is for another fourteen years.’
He didn’t like that because it made him appear stupid; but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He started to say something and bit it short, his face flushing red. Then he took a deep breath and said, ‘All right, you’ve convinced me. I’m in.’
Then I took a deep breath – of relief.
III
That night we had a conference.
I said, ‘This is the drill. Sanford – my yacht – will be ready for trials next week. As soon as the trials are over you two are going to learn how to sail under my instruction. In under four months from now we sail for Tangier.’
‘Christ!’ said Walker. ‘I don’t know that I like the sound of that.’
‘There’s nothing to it,’ I said. ‘Hundreds of people are buzzing about the Atlantic these days. Hell, people have gone round the world in boats a quarter the size.’
I looked at Coertze. ‘This is going to take a bit of financing. Got any money?’
‘About a thousand,’ he admitted.
‘That gets tossed into the kitty,’ I said. ‘Along with my twenty-five thousand.’
‘Magtig,’ he said. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of money.’
‘We’ll need every penny of it,’ I said. ‘We might have to buy a small boatyard in Italy if that’s the only way we can cast the keel in secrecy. Besides, I’m lending it to the firm of Walker, Coertze and Halloran at one hundred per cent interest. I want fifty thousand back before the three-way split begins. You can do the same with your thousand.’
‘That sounds fair enough,’ agreed Coertze.
I said, ‘Walker hasn’t any money and once you’ve thrown your thousand in the kitty, neither have you. So I’m putting you both on my payroll. You’ve got to have your smokes and three squares a day while all this is going on.’
This bit of information perked Walker up considerably. Coertze merely nodded in confirmation. I looked hard at Walker. ‘And you stay off the booze or we drop you over the side. Don’t forget that.’
He nodded sullenly.
Coertze said, ‘Why are we going to Tangier first?’
‘We’ve got to make arrangements to remelt the gold into standard bars,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine any banker calmly taking a golden keel into stock. Anyway, that’s for the future; right now I have to turn you into passable seamen – we’ve got to get to the Mediterranean first.’
I took Sanford on trials and Walker and Coertze came along for the ride and to see what they were letting themselves in for. She turned out to be everything I’ve ever wanted in a boat. She was fast for a deep-sea cruiser and not too tender. With a little sail adjustment she had just the right amount of helm and I could see she was going to be all right without any drastic changes.
As we went into a long reach she picked up speed and went along happily with the water burbling along the lee rail and splashing on deck. Walker, his face a little green, said, ‘I thought you said a keel would hold this thing upright.’ He was hanging tightly on to the side of the cockpit.
I laughed. I was happier than I had been for a long time. ‘Don’t worry about that. That’s not much angle of heel. She won’t capsize.’
Coertze didn’t say anything – he was busy being sick.
The next three months were rough and tough. People forget that the Cape was the Cape of Storms before some early public relations officer changed the name to the Cape of Good Hope. When the Berg Wind blows it can be as uncomfortable at sea as anywhere in the world.
I drove Walker and Coertze unmercifully. In three months I had to turn them into capable seamen, because Sanford was a bit too big to sail single-handed. I hoped that the two of them would equal one able-bodied seaman. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds because in those three months they put in as much sea time as the average week-end yachtsman gets in three years, and they had the dubious advantage of having a pitiless instructor.
Shore time was spent in learning the theory of sail and the elements of marline-spike seamanship – how to knot and splice, mend a sail and make baggywrinkle. They grumbled a little at the theory, but I silenced that by asking them what they’d do if I was washed overboard in the middle of the Atlantic.
Then we went out to practise what I had taught – at first in the bay and then in the open sea, cruising coastwise around the peninsula at first, and then for longer distances well out of sight of land.
I had thought that Coertze would prove to be as tough at sea as apparently he was on land. But he was no sailor and never would be. He had a queasy stomach and couldn’t stand the motion, so he turned out to be pretty useless at boat handling. But he was hero enough to be our cook on the longer voyages, a thankless job for a sea-sick man.
I would hear him swearing below when the weather was rough and a pot of hot coffee was tossed in his lap. He once told me that he now knew what poker dice felt like when they were shaken in the cup. He wouldn’t have stood it for any lesser reason, but the lust for gold was strong in him.
Walker was the real surprise. Coertze and I had weaned him from his liquor over many protests, and he was now eating more and the air and exercise agreed with him. He put on weight, his thin cheeks filled out and his chest broadened. Nothing could replace the hair he had lost, but he seemed a lot more like the handsome young man I had known ten years earlier.
More surprisingly, he turned out to be a natural sailor. He liked Sanford and she seemed to like him. He was a good helmsman and could lay her closer to the wind than I could when we were beating to windward. At first I was hesitant to give him a free hand with Sanford, but as he proved himself I lost my reluctance.
At last we were ready and there was nothing more to wait for. We provisioned Sanford and set sail for the north on November 12, to spend Christmas at sea. Ahead of us was a waste of water with the beckoning lure of four tons of gold at the other side.
I suppose one could have called it a pleasure cruise!
BOOK TWO The Gold (#ulink_1cb117ba-1daa-527f-a5c2-4db92a0f93f4)
THREE: TANGIER (#ulink_322ba29d-d6fe-57e7-833d-ee8ade3cbf33)
Two months later we sailed into Tangier harbour, the ‘Q’ flag hoisted, and waited for the doctor to give us pratique and for the Customs to give us the once-over. To port of Sanford was the modern city with its sleek, contemporary buildings sharply outlined against the sky. To starboard was the old city – the Arab city – squat and low-roofed and hugging a hill, the skyline only broken by the up-flung spear of a minaret.
To port – Europe; to starboard – Africa.
This was nothing new to Walker and Coertze. They had sown a few wild oats in their army days, roistering in Cairo and Alexandria. On the voyage from Cape Town they had talked much about their army days – and all in Italian, too. We made it a rule to speak as much Italian as possible, and while the others were on a refresher course, I didn’t lag far behind even though I had to start from scratch.
We had settled on a good cover story to veil our activities in the Mediterranean. I was a South African boat builder on a cruise combining business with pleasure. I was thinking of expanding into the lucrative Mediterranean market and might buy a boatyard if the price and conditions were right. This story had the advantage of not departing too far from the truth and would serve if we really had to buy a yard to cast the golden keel.
Coertze was a mining man with medical trouble. His doctor had advised him to take a leisurely holiday and so he was crewing Sanford for me. His cover story would account for any interest he might take in derelict lead mines.
Walker, who proved to be something of an actor, was a moderately wealthy playboy. He had money but disliked work and was willing to go a long way to avoid it. He had come on this Mediterranean trip because he was bored with South Africa and wanted a change. It was to be his job to set things up in Tangier; to acquire a secluded house where we could complete the last stages of the operation.
All in all, I was quite satisfied, even though I had got a bit tired of Coertze on the way north. He didn’t like the way I seemed to be taking charge of things and I had to ram home very forcibly the fact that a ship can only have one skipper. He had seen the point when we ran into heavy weather off the Azores, and it galled him that the despised Walker was the better seaman.
Now we were in Tangier, he had recovered his form and was a bit more inclined to throw his weight around. I could see that I’d have to step on him again before long.
Walker looked about the yacht basin. ‘Not many sailing boats here,’ he commented.
That was true. There were a few ungainly-looking fishing boats and a smart ketch, probably bound for the Caribbean. But there were at least twenty big power craft, fast-looking boats, low on the water. I knew what they were.
This was the smuggling fleet. Cigarettes to Spain, cigarette lighters to France, antibiotics to where they could make a profit (although that trade had fallen off), narcotics to everywhere. I wondered if there was much arms smuggling to Algeria.
At last the officials came and went, leaving gouges in my planking from their hob-nailed boots. I escorted them to their launch, and as soon as they had left, Walker touched my arm.
‘We’ve got another visitor,’ he said.
I turned and saw a boat being sculled across the harbour. Walker said, ‘He was looking at us through glasses from that boat across there.’ He pointed to one of the motor craft. ‘Then he started to come here.’
I watched the approaching dinghy. A European was rowing and I couldn’t see his face, but as he dexterously backed water and swung round to the side of Sanford he looked up and I saw that it was Metcalfe.
Metcalfe is one of that international band of scallywags of whom there are about a hundred in the world. They are soldiers of fortune and they flock to the trouble spots, ignoring the danger and going for the money. I was not really surprised to see Metcalfe in Tangier; it had been a pirates’ stronghold from time immemorial and would be one of Metcalfe’s natural hang-outs.
I had known him briefly in South Africa but I didn’t know what he was at the time. All that I knew was that he was a damned good sailor who won a lot of dinghy races at Cape Town and who came close to winning the South African dinghy championship. He bought one of my Falcons and had spent a lot of time at the yard tuning it.
I had liked him and had crewed for him a couple of times. We had had many a drink together in the yacht club bar and he had spent a week-end at Kirstenbosche with Jean and myself. It was in the way of being a firmly ripening friendship between us when he had left South Africa a hop, skip and a jump ahead of the police, who wanted to nail him on a charge of I.D.B. Since then I had not seen him, but I had heard passing mentions and had occasionally seen his name in the papers, usually quoted as being in trouble in some exotic hot-spot.
Now he was climbing on to the deck of Sanford.
‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘So I got the glasses to make sure. What are you doing here?’
‘Just idly cruising,’ I said. ‘Combining business with pleasure. I thought I might see what the prospects in the Med. are like.’
He grinned. ‘Brother, they’re good. But that’s not in your line, is it?’
I shook my head, and said, ‘Last I heard of you, you were in Cuba.’
‘I was in Havana for a bit,’ he said. ‘But that was no place for me. It was an honest revolution, or at least it was until the Commies moved in. I couldn’t compete with them, so I quit.’
‘What are you doing now?’
He smiled and looked at Walker. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
I said, ‘This is Walker and this is Coertze.’ There was handshaking all round and Metcalfe said, ‘It’s good to hear a South African accent again. You’d have a good country there if the police weren’t so efficient.’
He turned to me. ‘Where’s Jean?’
‘She’s dead,’ I said. ‘She was killed in a motor smash.’
‘How did it happen?’
So I told him of Chapman’s Peak and the drunken driver and the three-hundred-foot fall to the sea. As I spoke his face hardened, and when I had finished, he said, ‘So the bastard only got five years, and if he’s a good boy he’ll be out in three and a half.’
He rubbed his finger against the side of his nose. ‘I liked Jean,’ he said. ‘What’s the bludger’s name? I’ve got friends in South Africa who can see to him when he comes out.’
‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘That won’t bring Jean back.’
