The Moonspinners (33 page)

Reluctantly, she handed me her case, and took the bag and the torch. The beam of light looked brilliant after the unalleviated blackness; it threw the sand and rocks into such vivid relief that for the first few moments the sense of distance and proportion was almost annulled.

At least, that was how it seemed to me, and I must suppose that is what happened to Frances, for she had taken only three or four steps when, suddenly, with a bitten-off exclamation of pain, she seemed to lurch forward, then pitched down on to the sand as if shot. The darkness came down like a blanket as the torch flew from her hand, to be doused on the nearest rock with the ominous, the final sound of breaking glass.

I dropped the cases and was down beside her. ‘Frances! What is it? What happened?'

Such had been the havoc wrought on my nervous system during the last three days that I honestly believe that, for a mad moment, I expected to find her dead.

But she was very much alive, and swearing. ‘It's my blasted ankle. Did you ever
know
such a fool, and I had the torch, too. Is the bloody thing broken?'

‘I'm afraid so. But your foot—'

‘Oh, it's the same old ankle. It's all right, don't worry, it's only wrenched; the usual. If I sit here a moment and swear hard enough, it'll pass off. Hell, and I'm wet! You were right about the rock pools; the sand just seemed to shelve straight down into one, or something. I couldn't see. And now, if the torch has gone—' She broke off, aghast. ‘Nicky,
the torch!
'

‘Yes, I know. It can't be helped. He – he'll surely come close in to look for us, anyway, and we can hail him.'

‘If we see him.'

‘We'll hear, surely?'

‘My dear girl, he won't use his engine, will he?'

‘I don't know. He might; there are those other boats out fishing, it wouldn't be the sort of sound that people would notice. It'll be all right, Frances, don't worry.'

‘It'll have to be,' she said grimly. ‘because
our
boats are nicely burned. I can't see us trekking all that way back, somehow, not now.'

‘If the worst comes to the worst,' I said, falsely cheerful, ‘I'll stagger back with the cases and unpack, sharpish, then go and tell them we've been having a midnight swim, and will they please come out and collect you.'

‘Yes,' said Frances, ‘and then they'll come streaming along in force, and run into Mark and Co.'

‘Then it'd be over to Mark. He'd like that.'

‘Maybe. Well, it serves me right for not bringing you up better. If I'd taught you to mind your own business—'

‘And pass by on the other side?'

‘Yes, well, there it is. If we will be anti-social, and come to the god-forsaken corners of the earth in order to avoid our fellow trippers, I suppose we have to take what comes. You couldn't have done anything else, even to this horror-comic episode tonight. One can't touch murder, and not be terrified. We can't get out fast enough, in my opinion.
Damn
this ankle. No, don't worry, it's beginning to cool down a bit. What's the time?'

‘Nearly half-past one. Have you any matches?'

‘No, but there's my lighter. That might do it. I
am
sorry about the torch.'

‘You couldn't help it.'

‘Give me a hand now, and help me up, will you?'

‘There. Manage? Good for you. I'll tell you what, I'll dump the cases here, back against the cliff, and we'll get you along the “pier” if we can – as far as we can, anyway. Then I can come back for them . . . or maybe we'd better leave them till we see Mark coming in. Sure you can make it?'

‘Yes. Don't worry about me. Look, is that the torch?'

A tiny edge of starlight on metal showed where it lay. Eagerly I picked it up and tried it. Useless. When I shook it gently, there was the rattle of broken glass.

‘
Kaput?
' asked Frances.

‘Very
kaput
. Never mind. The luck couldn't run all the way all the time. Press on regardless.'

It was a slow, dreadful progress across the bay, our steps less certain than ever after the brief illumination and the fall. Frances hobbled along nobly, and I tried to seem unhurried, and perfectly confident and at ease; but the night was breathing on the back of my neck, and I was flaying myself mentally for having tried this final escapade at all. Perhaps I had been stupid to panic so, over the discovery of Josef's knife. Perhaps they hadn't even seen it; it had been in my pocket all the time. Perhaps Stratos' manoeuvre to get me to himself out in the light-boat had been no more than the host's anxiety to please, and there had never been any danger except in my own imagination. I need never have subjected Frances to this ghastly trek, this schoolboy's escapade that probably wouldn't even work. If I'd kept my head and waited till tomorrow . . . Tomorrow, we could have telephoned for a car, and then walked to it, in sunlight, through the public street.

But here we were in the dark, committed. It must have been all of thirty minutes more before I had got Frances out along the ridge of rock. With my help, she shuffled, half-crawling, along it, until she had found a place to sit, a few feet above deep water. She fetched a long sigh of relief, and I saw her bend, as if to massage her ankle.

‘You were marvellous,' I told her. ‘Will you give me the lighter now?'

She felt in her pocket, and passed it to me. I went a little further along the rock ridge. Its top sharpened presently into a hog's back, then dropped steeply to deep water, where the ridge had been broken and split by the sea. Ahead of me I could see the fangs of rock which marked the broken ridge, running straight out to sea, their bases outlined with ghostly foam, as the breeze freshened beyond the immediate shelter of the cliffs.

I found a flat place to stand, then, with the lighter ready in my hand, faced out to sea.

They should see the flame quite well. I remembered hearing how, in the blackout during the war, flyers at some considerable height could see the match that lit a cigarette. Even if I couldn't manage the pattern of flashes that we had agreed upon, surely a light, any light, from this bay at this time, would bring Mark in . . . ? And once he was near enough, a soft hail would do the rest.

I cupped a hand round the lighter, and flicked it. Flicked it again. And again . . .

When my thumb was sore with trying, I allowed myself to realize what had happened. I remembered the splash with which Frances had fallen, and the way she had wrung out the skirts of her coat. The lighter had been in the pocket. The wick was wet. We had no light at all.

I stood there, biting my lips, trying to think, straining eyes and ears against the darkness.

The night was full of sound. The sea whispered and hummed like a great shell held to the ear, and the dark air around me was alive with its noise. There were more stars now, and I thought I should even be able to see if any craft bore shorewards. The great space of the sea ahead looked almost light, compared with the thick blackness of the cliffs towering round me.

Then I heard it; or thought I did. The slap of water against a hull; the rattle of metal somewhere on board.

Stupidly, I was on tiptoe, straining forward. Then, some way out, well beyond the encircling arms of the bay, a light came past the point from my right, bearing eastward. A small boat, not using an engine, moving slowly and erratically across the black void, the light making a dancing pool on the water. One of the
gri-gri
, standing in nearer the shore; that was all. I thought I could see a figure outlined against the light, crouching down in the bows. At least, I thought, he wasn't likely to spot Lambis' caique, riding lightless somewhere out in the roads; but, with the light-boat so near, I dared not risk a hail for Mark to hear.

I went back to Frances, and told her.

‘Then we'll have to go back?'

‘I don't know. He'll have seen the light-boat, too. He may think we daren't flash our signal because of that. He – he may stand in to the bay, just to see.' I paused, in a misery of indecision. ‘I – I don't see how we
can
go back now, Frances. They may have found out – that man—'

‘Look!' she said sharply. ‘There!'

For a moment I thought she was just pointing at the light-boat, which, pursuing its slow course across the mouth of the bay, would soon be cut off from view by the eastern headland.

Then I saw the other boat, low down in the water; a shape, silent and black, thrown momentarily into relief as the light passed beyond it. The unlighted boat lay, apparently motionless, a little way outside the arms of the bay.

‘That's it!' My voice was tight in my throat. ‘That's him. He's not coming in. He's doing just what he said he would; waiting. There, the light-boat's out of sight; Mark would expect us to signal now, if we were here . . . And we can't afford to wait any longer to see if he will come in . . . It's ten past two already. Can't you do it, either?'

‘Afraid not.' She was working away at the lighter. ‘It's had a pretty fair soaking. I'm afraid it's no use – what
are
you doing, Nicola?'

I had dropped my coat on the rock beside her, and my shoes went to join it. ‘I'm going out after him.'

‘My dear girl! You can't do that! Look, can't we risk shouting? He'd hear us, surely?'

‘So would anyone else within miles, the way sound carries over water. I daren't. Anyway, we've no time to try: he'll be away in twenty minutes. Don't worry about me, he's well within range, and the water's like glass in the bay.'

‘I know, the original mermaid. But don't for pity's sake go beyond the headland. I can see the white-caps from here.'

My frock, and the jersey I had been wearing over it, went down on the pile. ‘All right. Now don't
worry
, I'll be okay. Heaven knows I'll be thankful to be doing something.' My petticoat dropped to the rock, then my socks, and I stood up in briefs and bra. ‘Not just the correct dress for calling on gentlemen, but highly practical. I've always longed to swim naked, and I dare say this is as near as I'll get. Here's my watch. Thanks. See you later, love.'

‘Nicky, I wish you wouldn't.'

‘Damn it, we've got to! We can't go back, and we can't stay here. Needs must – which is the only excuse for heroics. Not that these are heroics; if you want the truth, nothing could keep me out. I'm as sticky as all-get-out after that horrible walk. Keep working at that beastly lighter, it may yet function.
Adío, thespoinís
.'

I let myself down into the water without a splash.

The first shock of it was cold to my over-heated body, but then the silky water slid over the flesh with the inevitable shiver of pure pleasure. The filmy nylon I was wearing seemed hardly to be there. I thrust away from the rock into the smooth, deep water, shook the hair back from my eyes, and turned out to sea.

I swam steadily and strongly, making as little splash as I could. From this angle, the cliffs stood up even more massively against the night sky.

I headed straight out to sea, with the ridge of rock to my right as a guide, and soon drew level with the place where I had stood with the lighter. Beyond this spot, the ridge of rock was split and broken by the weather into a line of stacks and pinnacles. As I left the shelter of the inner bay, I could feel that the breeze had stiffened slightly: I could see foam creaming at the bases of the rock stacks, and now and again a white-cap slapped salt across my mouth. Where I swam, fairly near the rocks, the lift and fall of the water against them was perceptible.

Another fifty yards or so, and I paused, resting on the water, stilling my breathing as best I could, and trying to see and hear.

Now more than ever I was conscious of the fresh breeze blowing out from the land. It blew steadily across the water, bringing with it, over the salt surface, the tang of verbena, and the thousand sharp, sweet scents of the maquis. I wondered if it would set up any currents that might make it hard for me to get back, if I should have to . . .

From my position, low down in the water, I could no longer see the outline of the caique – if, indeed, I had ever seen it. It might, I told myself, have drifted inshore a little, until its black silhouette was merged in the dense blackness of the eastern headland; but this, with the offshore breeze, was unlikely. Even to keep her from drifting seawards, they would have to use anchor or oars.

I strained across the moving, whispering darkness. As before, it was full of sounds, far fuller than when, on the ridge, I had stood insulated by the air from the subdued and roaring life of the sea. Now, the humming was loud in my ears, drowning all other sounds, except the suck and slap of water against the rock stacks hard to my right . . .

Meanwhile, time was running out. And I had been right. Lambis was making no attempt to stand into the bay. Why should he, indeed? If I was to find the caique, I would have to leave the line of the ridge, and swim across the open bay, with the tip of the headland as a guide.

I hesitated there, treading water, strangely reluctant, all at once, to leave even the cold shelter of the stacks for the undiscovered darkness of the open bay. I suppose there is nothing quite so lonely as the sea at night. I know I hung there in the black water, suddenly frightened, doubtful, half-incredulous of the fact that I was there at all; conscious only that behind me was an alien country where I had behaved foolishly, and where folly was not tolerated; and that before me was the limitless, empty, indifferent sea.

But I was committed. I had to go. And, if they weren't there, I had to come back . . .