Even above our own engines I heard the Allisons give tongue, and from out of the reed-screened mouth of the Salsa tore a long deadly shape.

Even by starlight, I recognized her immediately, the widely flared. bows, and the lovely thrusting lines, greyhound waisted and the square chopped-off stern - one of the Royal Navy crash boats who had spent her best days in the Channel and now was mouldering into senility on this fever coast.

The darkness was kind to her, covering the rust stains and the streaky paintwork, but she was an old woman now. Stripped of her marvellous Rolls marines - and underpowered with the more economical Allisons. In a fair run Dancer would toy with her - but this was no fair run and she had all the speed and power she needed as she charged into the channel to cut us off, and when she switched on her battle lights they hit us like something solid. Two glaring white beams, blinding in their intensity so I had to throw up my hand to protect my eyes.

She was dead ahead now, blocking the channel, and on her foredeck I could see the shadowy figures of the gun crew crouching around the three-pounder on its wide traversing plate. The muzzle seemed to be looking directly into my left nostril - and I felt a wild and desperate despair.

It was a meticulously planned and executed ambush. I thought of ramming her, she had a marine ply wooden hull, probably badly rotted, and Dancer's fibregla.s.s bows might stand the shock - but with the current against her Dancer was not making sufficient speed through the water.

Then suddenly a bull-horn bellowed elecamically from the dark behind the dazzling battle lights.

"Heave to, Mr. Fletcher. Or I shall be forced to fire upon you.

One sh.e.l.l from the three-pounder would chop us down, and she was a quick firer. At this range they would smash us into a blazing wreck within ten seconds.

I closed down the throttles.

"A wise decision, Mr. Fletcher - now kindly anchor where you are," the bull-horn squawked.

Okay, Angelo," I called wearily, and waited while he rigged and dropped the spare anchor. Suddenly my arm was very painful again - for the last few hours I had forgotten about it.

"I said we should have brought that piece," Chubby muttered beside me.

"Yeah, I'd love to see you shooting it out with that dirty great cannon, Chubby. That would be a lot of laughs."

The crash boat manoeuvred alongside inexpertly, with gun and lights still trained on us. We stood helplessly in the blinding illumination of the battle lights and waited. I didn't want to think, I tried to feel nothing - but a spiteful inner voice sneered at me.

"Say good-bye to Dancer, Harry old sport, this is where the two of you part company."

There was more than a good chance that I would be facing a firing squad in the near future - but that didn't worry me as much as the thought of losing my boat. With Dancer I was Mister Harry, the d.a.m.nedest fellow on St. Mary's and one of the top billfish men in the whole c.o.c.keyed world. Without her, I was just another punk trying to scratch his next meal together. I'd prefer to be dead.

The crash boat careered into our side, bending the rail and sc.r.a.ping off a yard of our paint before they could hook on to us.

"Motherless b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," growled Chubby, as half a dozen armed and uniformed figures poured over our side, in a chattering undisciplined rabble. They wore navy blue bell bottoms and b.u.m-freezers with white flaps down the back of the neck, white and blue striped vests, and white berets with red p.o.r.n-poms on the top - but the cut of the uniform was Chinese and they brandished long AK.47 automatic a.s.sault rifles with forward-curved magazines and wooden b.u.t.ts.

Fighting amongst themselves for a chance to get in a kick or a shove with a gun b.u.t.t, they drove the three of us down into the saloon, and knocked us into the bench seat against the for'ard bulkhead. We sat there shoulder to shoulder while two guards stood over us with machine-guns a few inches from our noses, and fingers curved hopefully around the triggers.

"Now I know why you paid me that five hundred dollars, boss," Angelo tried to make a joke of it, and a guard screamed at him and hitt him in the face with the gun b.u.t.t. He wiped his mouth, smearing blood across his chin, and none of us joked again.

The other armed seamen began to tear Dancer to pieces. I suppose it was meant to be a search, but they raged through her accommodation wantonly smashing open lockers or shattering the panelling.

One of them discovered the liquor cabinet, and although there were only one or two bottles, there was a roar of approval. They squabbled noisily as seagulls over a sc.r.a.p of offal, then went on to loot the galley stores with appropriate hilarity and abandon. Even when their commanding officer was a.s.sisted by four of his crew to make the hazardous journey across the six inches of open s.p.a.ce that separated the crash boat from Dancer, there was no diminution in the volume of shouting and laughter and the crash of shattering woodwork and breaking gla.s.s.

The commander wheezed heavily across the c.o.c.kpit and stooped to enter the saloon. He paused there to regain his breath.

He was one of the biggest men I had ever seen, not less than six foot six tall and enormously gross - a huge swollen body with a belly like a barrage balloon beneath the white uniform jacket. The jacket strained at its bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and sweat had soaked through at the armpits. Across his breast he wore a glittering burst of stars and medals, and amongst them I recognized the American Naval Cross and the 1918 Victory Star.

His head was the shape and colour of a polished black iron pot, the type they traditionally use for cooking missionaries, and a naval cap, thick with gold braid, rode at a jaunty angle upon it. His face ran with rivers of glistening sweat, as he struggled noisily with his breathing and mopped at the sweat, staring at me with bulging eyes.

Slowly his body began to inflate, swelling even larger, like a great bullfrog, until I grew alarmed - expecting him to burst.

The purple-black lips, thick as tractor tyres, parted and an unbelievable volume of sound issued from the pink cavern of his mouth.

"Shut up!" he roared. Instantly his crew of wreckers froze into silence, one of them with his gun b.u.t.t still raised to attack the panelling behind the bar.

The huge officer trundled forward, seeming to fill the entire saloon with his bulk. Slowly he sank into the padded leather seat. Once more he mopped at his face, then he looked at me again and slowly his whole face lit up into the most wonderfully friendly smile, like an enormous chubby and lovable baby; his teeth were big and flawlessly white and his eyes nearly disappeared in the rolls of smiling black flesh.

"Mr. Fletcher, I can't tell you what a great pleasure this is for me." His voice was deep and soft and friendly, the accent was British upper cla.s.s - almost certainly acquired at some higher seat of learning. His English was better than mine.

"I have looked forward to meeting you for a number of years."

"That's very decent of you to say so, Admiral." With that uniform he could not rank less.

"Admiral," he repeated with delight, "I like that," and he laughed. It began with a vast shaking of belly and ended with a gasping and straining for breath. "Alas, Mr. Fletcher, you are deceived by appearances," and he preened a little, touching the medals and adjusting the peak of his cap. "I am only a humble Lieutenant Commander."

"That's really tough, Commander."

"No. No, Mr. Fletcher - do not waste your sympathy on me. I wield all the authority I could wish for." He paused for deep breathing exercises and to wipe away the fresh ooze of sweat. "I hold the powers of life and death, believe me." "I believe you, sir," I told him earnestly. "Please don't feel you have to prove your point."

He shouted with laughter again, nearly choked, coughed up something large and yellow, spat it on to the floor and then told me, "I like you, Mr. Fletcher, I really do. I think a sense'of humour is very important. I think you and I could become very close friends." I doubted it, but I smiled encouragingly.

"As a mark of my esteem you may use the familiar form when addressing me - Suleiman Dada."

"I appreciate that - I really do, Suleiman Dada, and you may call me Harry." "Harry," he said. "Let's have a dram of whisky together." At that moment another man entered the saloon. A slim boyish figure, dressed not in his usual colonial police uniform but in a lightweight silk suit and lemon-coloured silk shirt and matching tie, with alligator-skin shoes on his feet.

The light blond hair was carefully combed forward into a cow's lick, and the fluffy, moustache was trim as ever, but -he walked carefully, seeming to favour an injury. I grinned at him.

"So, how does the old ball-bag feel now, Daly?" I asked kindly, but he did not answer and went to sit across from Lieutenant Commander Suleiman Dada.

Dada reached out a huge black paw and relieved one of his men of the Scotch whisky bottle he carried, part of my previous stock, and he gestured to another to bring gla.s.ses from the shattered liquor cabinet.

When we all had half a tumbler of Scotch in our hands, Dada gave us the toast.

"To lasting friendship, and mutual prosperity." We drank, Daly and I cautiously, Dada deeply and with evident pleasure. While his head was tilted back and his eyes closed, the crew man attempted to retrieve the bottle of Scotch from the table in front of him.

Without lowering the gla.s.s Dada hit him a mighty openhanded clout across the side of the head, a blow that snapped his head back and hurled him across the saloon to crash into the shattered liquor cabinet. He slid down the bulkhead and sat stunned on the deck, shaking his head dazedly. Suleiman Dada, despite his bulk, was a quick and fearsomely. powerful man, I realized.

He emptied the gla.s.s, set it down, and refilled it. He looked at me now, and his expression changed. The clown had disappeared, despite the ballooning rolls of flesh, I was confronting a shrewd, dangerous and utterly ruthless opponent.

"Harry, I understand that you and Inspector Daly were interrupted in the course of a recent discussion," and I shrugged.

"All of us here are reasonable men, Harry, of that I am certain." I said nothing, but studied the whisky in my gla.s.s with deep attention.

"This is very fortunate - for let us consider what might happen to an unreasonable man in your position." He paused, gargled a little with a sip of whisky. Sweat had formed like a rash of little white blisters on his nose and chin. He wiped it away. "First of all, an unreasonable man might watch while his crew were taken out one at a time and executed. We use pickaxe handles here. It is a gruelling business, and Inspector Daly a.s.sures me that you have a special relationship with these two men." Beside me Chubby and Angelo shifted uneasily in their seats. "Then an unreasonable man would have his boat taken in to Zinballa Bay. Once that happened there would be no way in which it would ever be returned to him. It would be officially confiscated, out of my humble hands." He paused, and showed me the humble hands, stretching them towards me. They would have fitted a bull gorilla. We both stared at them for a moment. "Then the unreasonable man might find himself in Zinballa jail - which, as you are probably aware, is a maximum security political prison."

I had heard of Zinballa prison, as had everyone on the coast.

Those who came out of it were either dead or broken in body and spirit.

They called it the "Lion Cage.

"Suleiman Dada, I want you to know that I am one of nature's original reasonable men," I a.s.sured him, and he laughed again.

"Iwas certain of it," he said. "I can tell one a mile off," then again he was serious. "If we leave here immediately, before the turn of the tide we can be out of the insh.o.r.e channel before midnight."

"Yes," I agreed, "that we could."

"Then you could lead us to this place of interest, wait while we satisfy ourselves as to your good faith - which I for one do not doubt one moment - you and your crew will then be free to sail away in your magnificent boat and you could sleep tomorrow night in your own bed."

"Suleiman Dada - you are a generous and cultivated man. I also have no reason to doubt your good faith," - no more than that of Materson and Guthrie, I silently qualified the statement - "and I have a peculiarly intense desire to sleep tomorrow night in my own bed."

Daly spoke for the first time, snarling quietly under his little moustache. "I think you should know that a turtle fisherman saw your boat anch.o.r.ed in the lagoon across the channel from the Old Men and Gunfire Reef on the night before the shooting incident - we will expect to be taken that way."

"I have nothing against a man who takes a bribe, Daly G.o.d knows I have done so myself - but then where is the honour among thieves that the poet sings of? I was very. disappointed in Daly, but he ignored my recriminations.

"Don't try any more of your tricks,"he warned me.

"You really are a champion t.u.r.d, Daly. I could win prizes with you."

"Please, gentlemen." Dada held up his hands to halt my flow of rhetoric. "Let us all be friends. Another small gla.s.s of whisky - and then Harry will take us all on a tour of interest." Dada topped up our gla.s.ses, and paused before drinking again. "I think I should warn you, Harry - I do not like rough water. It does not agree with me. If you take me into rough water I shall be very very angry. Do we understand each other?"

"Just for you I shall command the waters to stand still, Suleiman Dada," I a.s.sured him, and he nodded solemnly, as though it was the very least he expected.

The dawn was like a lovely woman rising from the couch of the sea, soft flesh tones and pearly light, the cloud strands like her hair tresses flowing and tousled, gilded blonde by the early sunlight.

We ran northwards, hugging the quieter waters of the insh.o.r.e channel. Our order of sailing placed Wave Dancer in the van, she ambled along like a blood filly mouthing the snaffle, while half a mile astern the crash boat waddled and wallowed, as the Allisons tried to push her up on to the plane. We were headed for the Old Men and Gunfire Reef.

On board Dancer I had the con, standing alone at the wheel upon the open bridge. Behind me stood Peter Daly, and an armed seaman from the crash boat.

In the saloon below us, Chubby and Angelo still sat on the bench seat and three more seamen, armed with a.s.sault rifles, kept them there.

Dancer had been looted of all her galley stores, so none of us had breakfasted, not even a cup of coffee.

The first paralysing despair of capture had pa.s.sed - and I was now thinking frenetically, trying to plot my way out of the maze in which I was trapped.

I knew that if I showed Daly and Dada the break at Gunfire Reef they would either explore it and find nothing - which was the most likely for whatever had been there was now packaged and deposited at Big Gull Island - or they would find some other evidence at the break. In both cases I was in for unpleasantness - if they found nothing Daly would have the very great pleasure of connecting me up to the electrical system in an attempt to make me talk.

If they found something definite my presence would become superfluous and a dozen eager seamen would vie for the job of executioner. I didn't like the sound of pick-handles it promised to be a messy business.

Yet the chances of escape seemed remote. Although she was half a mile astern the three-pounder of the foredeck of Dada's crash boat kept us on an effective leash, and we had aboard Daly and four members of the goon squad.

I lit my first cheroot of the day and its effect was miraculous, almost immediately I seemed to see a pinp.r.i.c.k of light at the end of the long dark tunnel. I thought about it a little longer, puffing quietly on the black tobacco, and it seemed worth a try - but first I had to talk to Chubby.

Daly," I turned to speak over my shoulder. "You had better get Chubby up here to take the wheel, I have got to go below." why? he demanded suspiciously. "What are you going to do?"

"Let's just say that whatever it is happens every morning at this time, and n.o.body'else can do it for me. If you make me say more, I shall blush."

"You should have been on the stage, Fletcher. You really slay me. V "Funny you should mention that. It had crossed my mind."

He sent the guard to fetch Chubby from the saloon, and I handed the con to him.

"Stick around, I want to talk to you later," I muttered out of the side of my mouth and clambered down into the c.o.c.kpit. Angelo brightened a little when I entered the saloon, and flashed a good imitation of the old bright grin, but the three guards, clearly bored, turned their weapons on me enthusiastically and I raised my hands hurriedly.

"Easy, boys, easy," I soothed them and sidled past them down the companionway. However, two of them followed me. When I reached the heads they would have entered with me and kept me company. "Gentlemen," I protested, "if you continue to point those things at me during the next few critical moments you will probably pioneer the sovereign cure for constipation." They scowled at me uncertainly and as I closed the door firmly upon them I added, "But you really don't want a n.o.bel prize - do you?"

When I opened it again they were waiting in exactly the same att.i.tudes, as though they had not moved. With a conspiratory gesture I beckoned them to follow. Immediately they showed interest, and I led them to the master cabin. Below the big double bunk I had spent many hours building in a concealed locker. It was about the size of a coffin, and was ventilated. It would accommodate a man lying p.r.o.ne. During the time when I was running human cargo it had been a hidey hole in case of a search but now I used it as a store for valuables and illicit or dangerous cargo. It contained at the present time five hundred rounds of ammunition for the FN, a wooden crate of hand grenades, and two cases of Chivas Regal Scotch whisky.

With exclamations of delight the two guards slung their machine-guns on their shoulder straps and dragged out the whisky cases. They had forgotten about me and I slipped away and returned to the bridge. I stood next to Chubby, delaying the moment of take-over.

"You took your time," growled Daly.

"Never rush a good thing," I explained, and he lost interest and strolled back to stare across our wake at the following gunboat.

"Chubby," I whispered. "Gunfire Break. You told me once there was a pa.s.sage through the reef from the landward side."

"At high springs, for a whaleboat and a good man with a steady nerve,"he agreed. "I did it when I was a crazy kid."

"It's high spring in three hours. Could I run Dancer through?" I asked.

Chubby's expression changed. "Jesus!" he whispered, and turned to stare at me in disbelief.

"Could I do it?" I insisted quietly, and he sucked his teeth noisily, looking away at the sunrise, scratching the bristles of his chin.

Then suddenly he reached an opinion, and spat over the side. "You might, Harry - but n.o.body else I know could."

"Give me the bearings, Chubby, quickly."

"It was a long time ago, but," sketchily he described the approach, and the pa.s.sage of the break, "there are three turns in the pa.s.sage, left right then left again, then there is a narrow neck, brain coral on each hand - Dancer might just get through but she'll leave some paint behind. Then you are into the big pool at the back of the main reef. There is room to circle there and wait for the right sea before you shoot the gap out into the open water."

"Thanks, Chubby," I whispered. "Now go below. I let the guards have the spare whisky. By the time I start my run for the break they will be blasted right out through the top of their skulls. I will signal three stamps on the deck, then it will be up to you and Angelo to get those pieces away from them and wrap them up tightly."

The sun was well up, and the triple-peaked silhouette of the Old Men was rising only a few miles dead ahead when I heard the first raucous shout of laughter and crash of breaking furniture below. Daly ignored it and we ran on over the quiet insh.o.r.e waters towards the reverse side of Gunfire "Reef. Already I could see the jagged line of the Reef, like the black teeth of an*ancient shark. Beyond it the tall oceanic surf flashed whitely as it burst, and beyond that lay the open sea.

I edged in towards the reef, and eased open the throttles a fraction. Dancer's engine beat changed, but not enough to alert Daly. He lounged against the rail, bored and unshaven and probably missing his breakfast. I could distinctly hear the boom of the surf on coral now, and from below, the sounds of revelry became continuous. Daly noticed at last, frowned and told the other guard to go below and investigate. The guard, also bored, disappeared below with alacrity and never returned.

I glanced astern. My increase in speed was slowly opening the gap between Dancer and the crash boat, and steadily we edged in closer to the reef. " I was looking ahead anxiously, trying to pick up the marks and bearings that Chubby had described to me. Gently I touched the throttles, opening them another notch. The crash boat fell a little farther astern.

Suddenly I saw the entrance to Gunfire Break a thousand yards ahead. Two pinnacles of old weathered coral marked it, and I could see the colour difference of clear sea water pouring through the gap in the coral barrier.

Below there was another screech of wild laughter, and one of the guards reeled drunkenly into the c.o.c.kpit. He reached the rail only just in time and vomited copiously into the wake. Then his legs gave way and he collapsed on to the deck and lay in an abandoned huddle.

Daly let out an angry exclamation and raced down the ladder. I took the opportunity to push the throttles open another two notches.

I stared ahead, gathering myself for the effort. I must try and open the gap between Dancer and her escort a little more, every inch would help to confound her gunners.

I planned to come up level with the channel, and then commit Dancer to it under full power, risking the submerged coral fangs rather than test the aim of the gunners aboard the crash boat. It was half a mile of narrow, tortuous channel through the coral before we reached the open sea. For most of it, Dancer would be partially screened by coral outcrops, and the weaving of the channel would help to confuse the range of the threepounder. I was hoping also that the surf working through the gap would give Dancer plenty of up-and-down movement, so that she would heave and weave unpredictably like one of those little ducks in a shooting gallery.

One thing was certain: that intrepid mariner, Lieutenant Commander Suleiman Dada, would not risk pursuit through the channel, so I could give his gun layer a rapidly increasing range to contend with.