DESMOND BAGLEY
The Golden Keel
COPYRIGHT
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 authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008211134
Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN 9780008211417
Version: 2016-11-21
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
The Golden Keel
Dedication
Book One: The Men
Chapter One: Walker
Chapter Two: Coertze
Book Two: The Gold
Chapter Three: Tangier
Chapter Four: Francesca
Chapter Five: The Tunnel
Chapter Six: Metcalfe
Chapter Seven: The Golden Keel
Book Three: The Sea
Chapter Eight: Calm and Storm
Chapter Nine: Sanford
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
THE GOLDEN KEELDEDICATION
For Joan who else?
BOOK ONE The MenONE: WALKER
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 thats another story; its 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 Id pick that one, I said. Shes big enough to be of use, but not too big for single-handed sailing.
He seemed pleased. Thats Gracia, he said. I built her.
She looks a good boat, I said. Shes 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. Id 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.
Therell be a boom now the wars over, he predicted. People will have money in their pockets, and theyll go in for yachting. Id like to expand my activities in that direction.
Presently he looked at his watch and nodded towards the yacht club. Lets go in and have a coffee, he suggested.
I hesitated. Im 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 names Tom Sanford.
Im Peter Halloran.
Youre English, he said. Been out here long?
I smiled. Three days.
Ive been out just a bit longer since 1910. He sipped his coffee and regarded me thoughtfully. You seem to know a bit about boats.
Ive 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.