The Golden Keel
The first action thriller by the classic adventure writer, set in Italy.When the Allies invaded southern Italy in 1943, Mussolini’s personal treasure was moved north to safety under heavily armed guard. It was never seen again. Now, an expedition plans to unearth the treasure and smuggle it out of Italy. But their reckless mission is being followed – by enemies who are as powerful and ruthless as they are deadly…
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DESMOND BAGLEY
The Golden Keel
HARPER
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1963
Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1963
Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008211134
Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN 9780008211417 Version: 2016-11-21
CONTENTS
For Joan – who else?
My name is Peter Halloran, but everyone calls me ‘Hal’ excepting my wife, Jean, who always called me Peter. Women seem to dislike nicknames for their menfolk. Like a lot of others I emigrated to the ‘colonies’ after the war, and I travelled from England to South Africa by road, across the Sahara and through the Congo. It was a pretty rough trip, but that’s another story; it’s enough to say that I arrived in Cape Town in 1948 with no job and precious little money.
During my first week in Cape Town I answered several of the Sit. Vac. advertisements which appeared in the Cape Times and while waiting for answers I explored my environment. On this particular morning I had visited the docks and finally found myself near the yacht basin.
I was leaning over the rail looking at the boats when a voice behind me said, ‘If you had your choice, which would it be?’
I turned and encountered the twinkling eyes of an elderly man, tall, with stooped shoulders and grey hair. He had a brown, weather-beaten face and gnarled hands, and I estimated his age at about sixty.
I pointed to one of the boats. ‘I think I’d pick that one,’ I said. ‘She’s big enough to be of use, but not too big for single-handed sailing.’
He seemed pleased. ‘That’s Gracia,’ he said. ‘I built her.’
‘She looks a good boat,’ I said. ‘She’s got nice lines.’
We talked for a while about boats. He said that he had a boatyard a little way outside Cape Town towards Milnerton, and that he specialized in building the fishing boats used by the Malay fishermen. I’d noticed these already; sturdy unlovely craft with high bows and a wheelhouse stuck on top like a chicken-coop, but they looked very seaworthy. Gracia was only the second yacht he had built.
‘There’ll be a boom now the war’s over,’ he predicted. ‘People will have money in their pockets, and they’ll go in for yachting. I’d like to expand my activities in that direction.’
Presently he looked at his watch and nodded towards the yacht club. ‘Let’s go in and have a coffee,’ he suggested.
I hesitated. ‘I’m not a member.’
‘I am,’ he said. ‘Be my guest.’
So we went into the club house and sat in the lounge overlooking the yacht basin and he ordered coffee. ‘By the way, my name’s Tom Sanford.’
‘I’m Peter Halloran.’
‘You’re English,’ he said. ‘Been out here long?’
I smiled. ‘Three days.’
‘I’ve been out just a bit longer – since 1910.’ He sipped his coffee and regarded me thoughtfully. ‘You seem to know a bit about boats.’
‘I’ve been around them all my life,’ I said. ‘My father had a boatyard on the east coast, quite close to Hull. We built fishing boats, too, until the war.’
‘And then?’
‘Then the yard went on to contract work for the Admiralty,’ I said. ‘We built harbour defence launches and things like that – we weren’t geared to handle anything bigger.’ I shrugged. ‘Then there was an air-raid.’
‘That’s bad,’ said Tom. ‘Was everything destroyed?’
‘Everything,’ I said flatly. ‘My people had a house next to the yard – that went, too. My parents and my elder brother were killed.’
‘Christ!’ said Tom gently. ‘That’s very bad. How old were you?’
‘Seventeen,’ I said. ‘I went to live with an aunt in Hatfield; that’s when I started to work for de Havilland – building Mosquitos. It’s a wooden aeroplane and they wanted people who could work in wood. All I was doing, as far as I was concerned, was filling in time until I could join the Army.’
