The Golden Rendezvous (2 page)

of Savannah, some nine hours after the crime had been committed, but less than an hour after it had been discovered, which showed pretty smart police work on someone's part. And it had been just our evil luck that the S.S. Campari had called in at Savannah on the afternoon of the day the crime had been committed. Within an hour of the discovery of the two dead guards in the research establishment, all interstate and foreign air and sea traffic in the southeastern united states had been halted. As from seven o'clock in the morning all planes were grounded until they had been rigorously searched; as from seven o'clock police stopped and examined every truck crossing a state border; and, of course, everything larger than a rowing boat was forbidden to put out to sea. Unfortunately for the authorities in general and us in particular, the S.S. Campari had sailed from Savannah at six o'clock that morning.

Automatically the Campari became very, very "hot," the number one suspect for the getaway. The First radio call came through at 8.30 A.M.

Would captain Bullen return immediately to Savannah? the captain, no beater about the bush, asked why the hell he should. He was told that it was desperately urgent that he return at once. Not, replied the captain, unless they gave him a very compelling reason indeed. They refused to give him a reason and captain Bullen refused to return.

Deadlock. Then, because they hadn't much option, the federal authorities, who had already taken over from the state, gave him the facts. Captain Bullen asked for more facts. He asked for a description of the missing scientist and weapon, and he'd soon find out for himself whether or not they were on board. Followed a fifteen-minute delay, no doubt necessary to secure the release of top classified information, then the descriptions were reluctantly given. There was a curious similarity between the two descriptions. Both the Twister and Dr.

Caroline were exactly seventy-five inches in length. Both were very thin, the weapon being only eleven inches in diameter. The doctor weighed 180 pounds, the Twister 280. The Twister was covered in a one piece sheath of polished anodised aluminum, the Doctor in a two-piece grey gabardine. The Twister's head was covered by a grey pyroceram nose

cap, the doctor's by black hair with a telltale lock of grey in the centre. The orders for the Doctor were to identify and apprehend, for the Twister to identify but do not, repeat, do not touch. The weapon should be completely stable and safe, and normally it would take one of the only two experts who were as yet sufficiently acquainted with it at least ten minutes to arm it; but no one could guess what effect might have been had upon the Twister's delicate mechanism by the jolting it might have suffered in transit. Three hours later captain Bullen was able to report with complete certainty that neither the missing scientist nor weapon was aboard. Intensive would be a poor word to describe that search; every square foot between the chain locker and steering compartment was searched and searched again. Captain Bullen had radioed the federal authorities and then forgotten about it, or would have forgotten about it were it not that twice in the following two nights our radarscope had shown a mysterious vessel, without navigation lights, closing up from astern, then vanishing before dawn.

And then we arrived at our most southerly port of call, Kingston, in Jamaica. And in Kingston the blow had fallen. We had no sooner arrived than the harbour authorities had come on board requesting that a search party from the American destroyer lying almost alongside be allowed to examine the Campari. Our friend on the radarscope, without a doubt.

The search party, about forty of them, was already lined up on the deck of the destroyer. They were still there four hours later. Captain Bullen, in a few simple, well-chosen words that had carried far and clear over the sunlit waters of Kingston harbour, had told the authorities that if the United States Navy proposed, in broad daylight, to board a British mercantile marine vessel in a British harbour, then they were welcome to try. They were also welcome, he had added, to suffer, apart from the injuries and the loss of blood they would incur in the process, the very heavy penalties which would be imposed by an international court of maritime law arising from charges ranging from assault, through piracy, to an act of war, which maritime court, captain Bullen had added pointedly, had its seat, not in Washington, D.C., but in the Hague, Holland. This stopped them cold. The authorities withdrew to consult with the Americans. Coded cables, we learnt later, were exchanged with Washington and London. Captain Bullen remained adamant. Our passengers, 90 per cent of them Americans, gave him their

enthusiastic support. Messages were received from both the company head

office and the Ministry of Transport requiring captain Bullen to co-operate with the United States Navy. Pressure was being brought to bear. Bullen tore the messages up, seized the offer of the local marconi agent to give the radio equipment an overdue checkup as a heaven-sent excuse to take the wireless officers off watch, and told the quartermaster at the gangway to accept no more messages. And so it had

continued for all of thirty hours. And, because troubles never come singley, it was onh the morning following our arrival that the Harrisons and Curtises, related families who occupied the forward two suites on

"a" deck, received cables with the shocking news that members of both families had been fatally involved in a car crash and left that afternoon. Black gloom hung heavy over the Campari. Towards evening the deadlock was broken by the skipper of the American destroyer, a diplomatic, courteous, and thoroughly embarrassed commander by the name

of Marsi. He had been allowed aboard the Campari, been gruffly asked into Bullen's day cabin, accepted a drink, been very apologetic and respectful, and suggested a way out of the dilemma. He said he knew how

intolerable it must be for a senior captain to have doubt thrown not only on his word but his ability to carry out a proper search; for his own part of it, he was thoroughly disgusted with the whole assignment.

He had, Commander Marsi had pointed out almost despairingly, to carry out his orders, but how would it be if he and captain Bullen put their own interpretation on those orders? how would it be if the search were carried out, not by his own men, but by British customs officials in the regular course of their duty, with his men present solely in the capacity of observers and under the strictest instructions not to touch anything? captain Bullen, after much outraged humming and hawing, had finally agreed. Not only did this suggestion save face and salvage honour to a certain degree, but he was in an impossible position anyway, and he knew it. Until the search was completed, the Kingston authorities refused medical clearance, and until he had this clearance, it would be impossible to unload the six hundred tons of food and machinery he had for delivery there. And the port officials could also make things very difficult indeed by refusing clearance papers to sail.

And so what seemed like every customs official in Jamaica was routed out

and the search began at 9 P.M. It lasted until 2 A.M. The following morning. Captain Bullen fumed as steadily and sulphurously as a volcano about to erupt. The passengers fumed, partly because of having to suffer the indignity of having their cabins so meticulously searched, partly because of being kept out of their beds until the early hours of the morning. And, above all, the crew fumed because, on this occasion, even the normally tolerant customs were forced to take note of the hundreds of bottles of liquor and thousands of cigarettes uncovered by their search. Nothing else, of course, was found. Apologies were offered and ignored. Medical clearance was given and unloading began: we left Kingston late that night. For all of the following twenty-four hours captain Bullen had brooded over the recent happenings, then had sent off a couple of cablegrams, one to the head office in London, the other to the Ministry of Transport, telling them what he, captain Bullen, thought of them. I had seen the cables and they really had been something: not very wise, perhaps, but better than having the threatened

apoplectic seizure. And now, it seemed, they in turn had told captain Bullen what they thought of him. I could understand his feelings about Dr. Slingsby Caroline, who was probably in China by this time. A high-pitched shout of warning brought us both sharply to the present and

what was going on around us. One of the two chain slings round the big crate now poised exactly over the hatchway to number four hold had suddenly come adrift, one end of the crate dropping down through an angle of 600 and bringing up with a jerking jolt that made even the big jumbo derrick shake and quiver with the strain. The chances were good that the crate would now slip through the remaining sling and crash down on to the floor of the hold far below, which is probably what would have happened if two of the crew holding on to a corner guiding rope hadn't been quick-witted enough to throw all their weight on to it and so prevent the crane from tilting over at too steep an angle and sliding free. But even as it was it was still touch and go. The crate swung back towards the side of the ship, the two men on the guide rope still hanging on desperately. I caught a glimpse of the stevedores on the quayside below, their faces twisted into expressions of frozen panic: in the new people's democracy, where all men were free and equal, the penalty for this sort of carelessness was probably the firing squad; nothing else could have accounted for their otherwise inexplicably genuine terror. The crate began to swing back over the hold. I yelled to the men beneath to run clear and simultaneously gave the signal for emergency lowering. The winchman, fortunately, was as quick-witted as he was experienced, and as the wildly careening crate swung jerkily back to dead centre he lowered away at two or three times the normal speed, braking just seconds before the lowermost corner of the crate crunched and splintered against the floor of the hold. Moments later the entire length of the crate was resting on the bottom. Captain Bullen fished a handkerchief from his drills, removed his gold-braided cap, and slowly mopped his sandy hair and sweating brow. He appeared to be communing with himself. "This," he said finally, "is the bloody end. Captain Bullen in the doghouse. The crew sore as hell. The passengers hopping mad. Two days behind schedule. Searched by the Americans from truck to

keelson like a contraband runner. Now probably carrying contraband. No sign of the latest bunch of passengers. Got to clear the harbour bar by six. And now this band of madmen trying to send us to the bottom. A man can stand so much, First, just so much." he replaced his cap.

"Shakespeare had something to say about this, First."

"A sea of troubles, sir?"

"No, something else. But apt enough." he sighed. "Get the second officer to relieve you. Third's checking stores. Get the fourth o, not that blithering nincompoop get the bo'sun-he talks spanish like a native anyway to take over on the shore side. Any objections and that's the last piece of cargo we load. Then you and I are having lunch, First."

"I told Miss Beresford that I wouldn't "if you think," captain Bullen interrupted heavily, "that i'm going to listen to that bunch jangling their moneybags and bemoaning their hard lot from hors d'oeuvres right through to coffee, you must be out of your mind. We'll have it in my cabin." and so we had it in his cabin. It was the usual Campari meal, something for even the most blase epicure to dream about, and captain Bullen, for once and understandably, made an exception to his rule that neither he nor his officers should drink with lunch. By the time the meal was over he was feeling almost human again and once went so far as to call me "Johnny-me-boy." it wouldn't last. But it was all pleasant enough, and it was with reluctance that I finally quit the air-conditioned coolness of the captain's day cabin for the blazing sunshine outside to relieve the second officer. He smiled widely as I approached number four hold. Tommy wilson was always smiling. He was a

dark, wiry welshman of middle height, with an infectious grin and an immense zest for life, no matter what came his way. Nothing was too much trouble for tommy and nothing ever got him down. Nothing, that is, except mathematics: his weakness in that department had already cost him

his master's ticket. But he was that rare combination of an outstanding seaman and a tremendous social asset on a passenger ship, and it was for these reasons that captain Bullen had insisted on having him aboard.

"How's it going?" I asked. "You can see for yourself." he waved a complacent hand towards the pile of stacked crates on the quayside, now diminished by a good third since I had seen it last. "Speed allied with efficiency. When wilson is on the job let no man ever "the bo'sun's name is macdonald, not wilson," I said. "So it is." he laughed, glanced down to where the bo'sun, a big, tough, infinitely competent hebridean islander was haranguing the bearded stevedores, and shook his head admiringly. "I wish I could understand what he's saying."

"Translation would be superfluous," I said, drily. "I'll take over. Old man wants you to go ashore."

"Ashore?" his face lit up; in two short years the second's shore-going exploits had already passed into the realms of legend. "Let no man ever say that wilson ignored duty's call. Twenty minutes for a shower, shave and shake out the number ones "the agent's offices are just beyond the dock gates," I interrupted. "You can go as you are.

Find out what's happened to our latest passengers. Captain's beginning to worry about them; if they're not here by five o'clock he's sailing without them. Way he's feeling now, he'd just as soon do that. If the agent doesn't know, tell him to find out. Fast." wilson left. The sun started westering, but the heat stayed as it was. Thanks to macdonald's competence and uninhibited command of the spanish language, the cargo on

the quayside steadily and rapidly diminished. Wilson returned to report no sign of our passengers. Their baggage had arrived two days previously and, although only for five people, was enough, wilson said, to fill a couple of railroad trucks. About the passengers, the agent had been very nervous indeed. They were very important people, senor, very, very important. One of them was the most important man in the whole province of camafuegos. A jeep had already been dispatched westwards along the coast road to look for them. It sometimes happened,