Flying Dutch полностью

“You will be,” Danny retorted, slammed the received down and retrieved his phonecard from the jaws of the machine. It was pathetically simple, he said to himself. I’ll hire a boat myself. With my own money. Or, to be precise, put it on expenses. Alexander the Great, unable to untie the Gordian Knot, sliced through it with his sword. Similarly, Danny had reached the point where nothing was going to get between him and the story. When the time came for a documentary to be made about the making of this documentary, the actor portraying him would have plenty to work with in this scene. He strode out of the telephone booth and went in search of a boat.

It wasn’t much of a boat, when he found it, but then again, by modern standards neither was the Golden Hinde. It would do the job. He herded his camera crew onto it, indicated to the mariner in charge that it was time to go, and sat back to prepare himself.

About half an hour later, the mariner leaned across and said, “You sure it was here?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” said the mariner, with the authority of a pope, “it isn’t here now.”

“Then it must have moved,” Danny said. “I suggest you look for it.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” Danny snapped, “use your bloody imagination.” The mariner shrugged and fiddled with his engine. The camera crew exchanged glances of a variety unique to members of a powerful trade union who are on overtime and are getting wet. Among such specialised social units, language ceases to be necessary after a while.

Three quarters of an hour later, the mariner suggested that that just left West Bay. He said it in such a way as to suggest that West Bay was so unlikely a place to expect to find a ship that only a complete imbecile would bother looking, but Danny was too wrapped up in his own destiny to notice.

By sheer coincidence, Danny’s boat entered West Bay just as the Verdomde was leaving it. The Verdomde wasn’t the only one, at that; on shore, there was a sudden and unprecedented scrambling for cars and dropping of car keys. People were getting out in a hurry, because of the smell.

Jane, for reasons which will not need to be explained, couldn’t smell the smell; but everyone else could, including Vanderdecker. The effects of the enchanted seawater of Dounreay had worn off, about five minutes after the Verdomde had been declared seaworthy and money had changed hands, and thankfully the wind was in the right direction, at least for the purposes of navigation. Although Vanderdecker was extremely unhappy about setting off in broad daylight, he knew that he had no alternative except to take the chance. He might be conspicuous if he went, but he was going to be a great deal more so if he stayed. Once, in Puerto Rico, they had called out the fire brigade and turned the hoses on him, and that sort of experience leaves its mark on a man’s psyche.

In later years, Jane often asked herself why she stayed on the ship. Occasionally she tried to tell herself that she hadn’t yet given up hope of accomplishing her mission, but that was pure self-deception. Insofar as there was any rational explanation, it could only be that she couldn’t stand the thought of the adventure ending. In her own defence, she could argue that she only had a five-hundredth of a second to decide, and even the clearest brains are likely to be pushed to make momentous decisions in the time it takes for the shutter of a camera to fall. Anyway, she said, “Can I come with you?” and Vanderdecker had agreed. At least, she assumed he agreed. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her, being too busy giving orders to the crew. At any rate, she stayed.

Danny saw the ship about one second before he smelt the smell, but it must be borne in mind that he had a cold. Everyone else smelt the smell first. Then they told Danny about it, just in case he hadn’t noticed it for himself. They suggested that the smell was extremely unpleasant and that it might be prudent to go away. They expanded on this point. They threatened to put Danny in the sea. Finally they ignored him He shrieked at them for a while, but quite soon the sound of the ship’s engine being revved to death was so loud that he was quite inaudible.

♦

“That boat,” Jane said.

“What boat?” Vanderdecker said. “Not now, Sebastian. Take it off.”

Sebastian van Dooming untied the anchor chain from his leg and went back to his post, muttering.

“You were saying,” said Vanderdecker, “about a boat.” The Flying Dutchman had that harassed look again. It suited him by now, rather as a Savile Row three–piece with Jermyn Street socks suits its wearer. It looked right on him, somehow.

“I thought I recognised the man,” said Jane.

“Which man?” asked Vanderdecker.

“The man on the boat,” said Jane.

“Which boat?”

“Oh,” said Jane, “never mind. Where are we going?”

“The long-term itinerary,” said Vanderdecker “we can discuss later. Right now, would the statement “Out to sea” satisfy you?”

“No.”