price from civilian buyers. Maybe Captain Fleck is in the legitimate ex-Government surplus stock disposal trade."
"Maybe Captain Fleck had his own private stock of stencils," Marie said skeptically. "How about the next one?"
I got the next one down. This was stencilled 'Binoculars' and binoculars it contained. The third box had again the Fleet Air Arm marking, semi-obliterated, and the stencil 'Inflatable Life-belts (Aircraft)', and again the stencil didn't lie: bright red life-belts with CO2 charges and yellow cylinders marked 'Shark repellent'.
"We're wasting our time," I said. Having to brace one's self against the heavy rolling of the schooner made the lifting and prying open of the boxes heavy work, the heat in the hold was building up as the sun climbed in the sky and the sweat was pouring down my face and back. "Just a common-or-garden second-hand dealer."
"Second-hand dealers don't kidnap people," she said tartly. "Just one more, please. I have a feeling."
I checked the impulse to say that it was easy enough to have a feeling when you didn't have to do the sweating, lugged a fourth and very heavy box off the steadily diminishing pile and lowered it beside the others. The 'same disposal stencils as before, contents marked 'Champion Spark Plugs, 2 gross'."
It took me five minutes and a two-inch strip of skin from the back of my right hand to get the lid off. Marie carefully avoided looking at me, maybe she was a mind-reader, maybe she was just getting good and seasick. But she turned as the lid came clear, peered inside then glanced up at me.
"Maybe Captain Fleck does have his own stencils," she murmured.
"Maybe he does at that," I acknowledged. The case was full of drums, but the drums weren't full of spark plugs: there was enough machine-gun belt ammunition inside the case to start off a fair-sized revolution. "This interests me strangely."
"Is-is it safe? If Captain Fleck-"
"What's Captain Fleck ever done for me? Let him come if he wants to." I lugged out a fifth case, sneered at the 'Spark plug' stencil, wrenched off the lid with a combination of leverage and a few well-chosen kicks, stared down at the writing on the heavy blue paper wrapped round the contents, then replaced the lid with all the gentle tenderness and reverent care of a Chicago gangster placing a wreath on the grave of his latest victim.
"Ammonal, 25% aluminium powder?" Marie, too, had glimpsed the writing. "What on earth is that?"
"A very powerful blasting explosive, just about enough to send the schooner and everybody aboard it into orbit." I lifted it gingerly back into position and fresh sweat came to my face when I thought of the elan with which I had hammered it open. "Damn tricky stuff, too. Wrong temperature, wrong handling, excessive humidity-well, it makes quite a bang. I don't like this hold so much any more." I caught up the ammunition crate and returned that also: thistledown never fell so light as that box did on top of the ammonal.
"Are you putting them all back?" There was a tiny frown between her eyes.
"What does it look like to you?"
"Scared?"
"No. Terrified. The next box might have had nitroglycerine or some such. That really would be something." I replaced all the boxes and battens, took the torch and went aft to see what else there was. But there wasn't much. On the port side, six diesel oil drums, all full, kerosene, D.D.T. and some five-gallon water drums shaped and strapped for carrying over the shoulders-Fleck, I supposed, would need these when he topped up water supplies in the more remote islands where there were no other loading facilities. On the starboard side there were a couple of square metal boxes half-full of assorted and rusted ship's ironmongery-nuts, bolts, eyebolts, blocks, tackles, bottle screws, even a couple of marlin spikes.
I eyed the spikes longingly but left them where they were: it didn't seem likely that Captain Fleck would have overlooked the possibility, but, even if he had, a
"Maybe Captain Fleck had his own private stock of stencils," Marie said skeptically. "How about the next one?"
I got the next one down. This was stencilled 'Binoculars' and binoculars it contained. The third box had again the Fleet Air Arm marking, semi-obliterated, and the stencil 'Inflatable Life-belts (Aircraft)', and again the stencil didn't lie: bright red life-belts with CO2 charges and yellow cylinders marked 'Shark repellent'.
"We're wasting our time," I said. Having to brace one's self against the heavy rolling of the schooner made the lifting and prying open of the boxes heavy work, the heat in the hold was building up as the sun climbed in the sky and the sweat was pouring down my face and back. "Just a common-or-garden second-hand dealer."
"Second-hand dealers don't kidnap people," she said tartly. "Just one more, please. I have a feeling."
I checked the impulse to say that it was easy enough to have a feeling when you didn't have to do the sweating, lugged a fourth and very heavy box off the steadily diminishing pile and lowered it beside the others. The 'same disposal stencils as before, contents marked 'Champion Spark Plugs, 2 gross'."
It took me five minutes and a two-inch strip of skin from the back of my right hand to get the lid off. Marie carefully avoided looking at me, maybe she was a mind-reader, maybe she was just getting good and seasick. But she turned as the lid came clear, peered inside then glanced up at me.
"Maybe Captain Fleck does have his own stencils," she murmured.
"Maybe he does at that," I acknowledged. The case was full of drums, but the drums weren't full of spark plugs: there was enough machine-gun belt ammunition inside the case to start off a fair-sized revolution. "This interests me strangely."
"Is-is it safe? If Captain Fleck-"
"What's Captain Fleck ever done for me? Let him come if he wants to." I lugged out a fifth case, sneered at the 'Spark plug' stencil, wrenched off the lid with a combination of leverage and a few well-chosen kicks, stared down at the writing on the heavy blue paper wrapped round the contents, then replaced the lid with all the gentle tenderness and reverent care of a Chicago gangster placing a wreath on the grave of his latest victim.
"Ammonal, 25% aluminium powder?" Marie, too, had glimpsed the writing. "What on earth is that?"
"A very powerful blasting explosive, just about enough to send the schooner and everybody aboard it into orbit." I lifted it gingerly back into position and fresh sweat came to my face when I thought of the elan with which I had hammered it open. "Damn tricky stuff, too. Wrong temperature, wrong handling, excessive humidity-well, it makes quite a bang. I don't like this hold so much any more." I caught up the ammunition crate and returned that also: thistledown never fell so light as that box did on top of the ammonal.
"Are you putting them all back?" There was a tiny frown between her eyes.
"What does it look like to you?"
"Scared?"
"No. Terrified. The next box might have had nitroglycerine or some such. That really would be something." I replaced all the boxes and battens, took the torch and went aft to see what else there was. But there wasn't much. On the port side, six diesel oil drums, all full, kerosene, D.D.T. and some five-gallon water drums shaped and strapped for carrying over the shoulders-Fleck, I supposed, would need these when he topped up water supplies in the more remote islands where there were no other loading facilities. On the starboard side there were a couple of square metal boxes half-full of assorted and rusted ship's ironmongery-nuts, bolts, eyebolts, blocks, tackles, bottle screws, even a couple of marlin spikes.
I eyed the spikes longingly but left them where they were: it didn't seem likely that Captain Fleck would have overlooked the possibility, but, even if he had, a
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