When eight bells toll Read Online Free PDF

be, they're no fools. They'll have figured out by this time that I could have approached only by dinghy. They'll know damn' well that it was no nosey-parker local prowling about the ship -local lads in search of a bit of fun don't go aboard anchored ships in the first place. In the second place the locals wouldn't go near Beul nan Uamh - the mouth of the grave - in daylight, far less at night time. Even the Pilot says the place has an evil reputation. And in the third place no local lad would get aboard as I did, behave aboard as I did or leave as I did. The local lad would be dead."
    "I shouldn't wonder.  And?"
    "So we're not locals. We're visitors. We -wouldn't be staying at any hotel or boarding-house — too restricted, couldn't move. Almost certainly we'll have a boat. Now, where would our boat be? Not to the north of Loch Hourort for with a forecast promising a south-west Force 6 strengthening to Force 7, no boat is going to be daft enough to hang about a lee shore in that lot. The only holding ground and shallow enough sheltered anchorage in the other direction, down the Sound for forty miles, is in Torbay — and that's only four or five miles from where the Nantesville was lying at the mouth of Loch Houron, Where would you look for us?"
    "I'd look for a boat anchored in Torbay. Which gun do you want?"
    "I don't want any gun. You don't want any gun. People like us don't carry guns,"
    "Marine biologists don't carry guns," he nodded. "Employees of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries don't carry guns. Civil Servants are above reproach. So we play it clever. You're the boss."
    "I don't feel clever any more. And I'll take long odds that I'm not your boss any more. Not after Uncle Arthur hears what I have to tell him."
    "You haven't told me anything yet." He finished tying the bandage round my leg and straightened. "How's that feel?"
    I tried it. "Better. Thanks. Better still when you've taken the cork from that bottle. Get into pyjamas or something. People found fully dressed in the middle of the night cause eyebrows to go up." I towelled my head as vigorously as my tired arms would let me. One wet hair on my head and eyebrows wouldn't just be lifting, they'd be disappearing into hairlines. "There isn't much to tell and all of it is bad."
    He poured me a large drink, a smaller one for himself, and added water to both. It tasted the way Scotch always does after you've swum and rowed for hours and damn' near got yourself killed in the process.
    "I got there without trouble. I hid behind Carrara Point till it was dusk and then paddled out to the Bogha Nuadh. I left the dinghy there and swam underwater as far as the stern of the ship. It was the Nantesville all right. Name and flag were different, a mast was gone and the white superstructure was now stone — but it was her all right. Near as dammit didn't make it - it was close to the turn of the tide but ittook me thirty minutes against that current. Must be wicked at the full flood or ebb."
    "They say it's the worst on the West Coast - worse even than Coirebhreachan."
    "I'd rather not be the one to find out. I had to hang on to the stern post for ten minutes before I'd got enough strength back to shin up that rope."
    "You took a chance."
    "It was near enough dark. Besides," I added bitterly, "there are some precautions intelligent people don't think to take about crazy ones. There were only two or 'three people in the after accommodation. Just a skeleton crew aboard, seven or eight, no more. All the original crew have vanished completely."
    "No sign of them anywhere?"
    "No sign. Dead or alive, no sign at all. I had a bit of bad luck. I was leaving the after accommodation to go to the bridge when I passed someone a few feet away. I gave a half wave and grunted something and he answered back, I don't know what. I followed him back to the quarters. He picked up a phone in the crew's mess and I heard him talking to someone, quick and urgent. Said that one of the original