Best Kept Secret

its snail-like pace out of
London.

    ‘I can’t do Southampton in forty minutes, guv,’ said the cabbie.
    ‘Fair enough,’ said Giles, ‘but if you can get me to the dockside before the SS
South America
sails, I’ll still double your fare.’
    The taxi driver shot off like a thoroughbred out of the stalls, and did his best to overcome the rush-hour traffic, taking back doubles, going down side streets Giles hadn’t realized
existed, moving across into the oncoming lane before swerving back to run lights that had already turned red. But it still took over an hour before he emerged on to Winchester Road, only to find
that long stretches of roadworks restricted them to a single lane and the speed of its slowest driver. Giles looked out of the window and didn’t see that much road work in progress.
    He kept checking his watch, but the second hand was the only thing that kept a steady pace, and the chances of them making it to the docks before nine were looking more and more unlikely by the
minute. He prayed that the ship would be held up for just a few minutes, although he knew the captain couldn’t afford to miss the tide.
    Giles sat back and thought about Bruno’s words. Whatever you do, don’t tell my father I’ve spoken to you. Sebastian couldn’t have asked more of a friend. He looked at his
watch again: 7.30 p.m. How could the butler have made such a simple mistake when he said they were on their way to London Airport? 7.45 p.m. It clearly wasn’t a mistake, because the man had
addressed him as ‘Sir Giles’, although he had no way of knowing that he was about to turn up on his doorstep. Unless . . . 8 p.m. And when he said ‘
they
left for London
Airport’, who was the other person he was referring to? Bruno’s father? 8.15 p.m. Giles hadn’t been able to come up with a satisfactory answer to any of these questions by the
time the taxi swung off the Winchester Road and headed for the docks. 8.30 p.m. Giles set aside all his misgivings and began to think about what needed to be done if they arrived at the dockside
before the ship had raised its anchor. 8.45 p.m.
    ‘Faster!’ he demanded, although he suspected the driver already had his foot flat to the floor. At last he spotted the great liner, and as it grew larger and larger by the minute, he
began to believe that they just might make it. But then he heard a sound he had been dreading: three loud, prolonged blasts of a fog horn.
    ‘Time and tide wait for no man,’ said the driver. An observation Giles could have lived without at that particular moment.
    The taxi came to a halt by the side of the
South America
, but the passenger ramp had already been raised and the mooring ropes released to allow the vast ship to ease its way slowly
away from the dockside and out into the open sea.
    Giles felt helpless as he watched two tugs guide the ship out into the estuary, like ants leading an elephant to safer ground.
    ‘The harbourmaster’s office!’ he shouted, without any idea where that might be. The driver had to stop twice to ask for directions before he pulled up outside the only office
building that still had all its lights on.
    Giles jumped out of the taxi and charged into the harbourmaster’s office without knocking. Inside, he came face to face with three startled men.
    ‘Who are you?’ demanded a man dressed in a port authority uniform, displaying more gold braid than his fellow officers.
    ‘Sir Giles Barrington. My nephew is on board that ship,’ he said, pointing out of the window. ‘Is there any way of getting him off?’
    ‘I wouldn’t have thought so, sir, unless the captain is willing to stop the ship and allow him to be lowered on to one of our pilot boats, which I’d have thought was most
unlikely. But I’ll give it a try. What’s the passenger’s name?’
    ‘Sebastian Clifton. He’s still a minor, and I have his parents’ authority to get him off that ship.’
    The harbourmaster picked up a microphone and began twiddling some knobs on a control panel as he tried to get the captain on the line.
    ‘I don’t want to get your hopes up,’ he said, ‘but the captain and I did serve together in the Royal Navy, so . . .’
    ‘This is the captain of the SS
South America
,’ said a very English voice.
    ‘It’s Bob Walters, skipper. We’ve got a problem, and I’d be grateful for any assistance you can give,’ the harbourmaster said before passing on Sir Giles’s
request.
    ‘In normal