Red Fever (4 page)

He took a deep breath and then swung into action, racing to the top of the ladder and scanning the long quayside for his father and Sylvie. He saw his dad first, coming out of a semi-derelict shed carrying two heavy-looking jerrycans. Then he saw Sylvie who was stumbling along the quay, picking up small pebbles from the ground and stuffing them into her pyjama pockets.

Toby waved frantically. He didn’t dare shout. The pirates’ inflatable dinghy was some way away but he couldn’t take a chance. He bobbed down behind a large buoy that sat crookedly on the concrete, and then signalled to his dad.

Luckily, just at the right moment, his dad looked up and saw him. Toby gesticulated towards the harbour. His dad understood immediately and dropped to his knees. He started to whistle quietly. It was the whistle he always used to get their attention when they were playing outside. It was only four notes but whistled in a way that they knew it was him.

Sylvie lifted her head from gazing at the ground.
She smiled and tried to run towards him but fell to the ground. Toby watched in terror as his dad crawled along the gritty floor, grabbed her and pulled her and the jerrycans back inside the shed. The door closed.

Now he must act. He unwound the rope from the bollard that held the boat to the quay. Judging by the speed they were going, the pirates would arrive in a few minutes. Had he time to hide the
Lucky Lady
? He knew he had to try. The freshly painted
Lady
stuck out from the rest of the boats, like a rose in a garden of weeds. If the pirates saw her they would know that someone must be nearby. Toby couldn’t let that happen.

Toby threw himself down the ladder and leapt on to the deck. He dashed into the wheelhouse and grabbed at the ignition key on the control panel. The engine turned over the first time and he gently eased the throttle forward.

Where? Where can I hide her?
Toby thought desperately.
Ah!

He had spotted two big old-fashioned fishing boats right in front of him, their hulls encrusted with barnacles and rust. They towered over the
Lucky Lady
but between them was a space where a small boat could nestle and be completely hidden from the harbour side and the quayside. The only problem was that if they moved, the small
Lucky Lady
would be crushed between them. It would be like a walnut in the grip of a nutcracker. Once
mangled,
Lady
would sink like a stone into the putrid waters of the harbour.

We’ll have to give it a go, I’m afraid
, Lady.

Toby eased the throttle back so that the small boat crept forward into the gap. Her wireless antennae sticking up above the wheelhouse snagged on the heavy metal chains that hung from one of the fishing boats across to the other. Toby heard the antennae snap and break as
Lady
passed under the chains. The antennae were of no use anyway. There had been no radio stations for years.

Toby turned the engine off and ran to the stern to drop the anchor. He prayed that it wouldn’t get caught up in the debris that must be littering the floor of the harbour. But he had no choice. He couldn’t take the chance of the
Lady
drifting out into the harbour and being seen. Once she was secured, he ran to the bow and dragged an old grey tarpaulin out of the storage box. He draped it over the stern and the deckhouse, climbing up on to the roof. The canvas sheet was huge, smelly and heavy, and it took Toby all his strength to pull it up and over the roof.

Quick! Quick! Must get this on quickly!

He tugged and yanked it into place. It seemed to take him ages. But by the time he had finished it covered most of the back of the boat. If the pirates did get a view of the
Lucky Lady
, she would look like all the other old heaps sat sadly rusting away in the harbour.

Toby resisted the temptation to go and take a look to see where the pirates were. That would be stupid. They might be right behind him. He snuck under the tarpaulin and lay there, listening to the
thump, thump, thump
of his heart.

Before too long he heard the distant drone of an outboard motor. It got louder and louder. The pirates were coming into the smaller harbour at speed. He could make out the same deep male voices shouting out. They sounded in a good mood. There were screams and shrieks of laughter as the engine noise got nearer. It sounded to Toby like they were racing the boat towards something solid and then swerving around in a handbrake turn at the last second. As the boat swerved, great howls of laughter and whooping rent the air.

They’re playing chicken! How long are they going to keep this up?
wondered Toby. The heat under the tarpaulin was beginning to build up, stifling him. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and into the hollow at the base of his throat. His mouth felt dry and cracked.

As the pirates continued with their game, the wash from their boat got bigger and bigger. The waves spread across the harbour, rocking the jumble of boats tangled there. Toby could feel the swell going up and down, up and down underneath him. The ups got higher and the downs got deeper, as the water slapped up the walls of
the quay and bounced back against the boats. The pirates loved it. They were having a ball.

Toby lay listening to them having fun but then he heard something else — the heavy groaning and creaking of the rusty boats on either side of him. As the waves increased, the bigger boats started to move with them. He could now feel the boat on the right of him butting up against the
Lucky Lady
, nudging her over to the left where she scraped against the other fishing boat, which had also begun to roll and pitch, bouncing to the right and glancing into
Lady
. Toby felt a grinding bump as
Lady
lurched back to the right, thudding up against the first boat.

Poor Lady! She won’t be able to withstand much of this
, he thought desperately.

Toby wondered if he should get her out now while he could. He would have to back
Lady
out of the gap between the two boats. But the chances of not being seen seemed slim, as the pirates zoomed around the harbour. His cover would be blown. He tried to think what his dad would do.

He would stay put, and wait it out. “When in doubt do nothing,” was what he said once before. Maybe that applies to this situation. I must keep my nerve. Stay here and hope they go away soon. With any luck they might have that attention deficit disorder thing that Robbie Gant at school had. He couldn’t stay interested in anything for very long.

But just then Toby heard the engine noise slowing but getting louder: the pirates were coming nearer. Could they have seen the
Lucky Lady?

“Oi, Jim! That boat tucked in there — look familiar to you? It’s the same make and model as the boat from yesterday.”

Toby struggled to keep the panic from rising in his throat.

“Nah, can’t be. We’d have passed them if they’d come this way. Looks clean compared with most of these rusty heaps though. See if there’s anything worth having on board then we’ll scarper …”

Toby froze.
Stay calm, stay calm
. He crept as far into the shadows as he could and curled into a tight ball. He couldn’t bear to think what the pirates would do to him if they caught him.

He soon heard someone scrabbling aboard the
Lucky Lady
, then he felt the thud of heavy footsteps on the deck.

“Hurry up, Jim — the Captain’s going to flail us alive if we don’t get back soon!” Toby heard the rest of the crew guffaw loudly.

“Yeah! Come on, Jim!” someone shouted. “Get moving! Don’t want the Captian to get mad now, do we?”

Toby sensed the man hesitate as he approached the tarpaulin. Suddenly the tarpaulin was lifted and Toby was blinking into bright sunlight. As his eyes adjusted
he realised that he was looking straight into the eyes of a pirate.

“Please don’t tell them I’m here,” whispered Toby frantically. “Please …”

He stared, terrified, into the dark face of a man whose wild hair lay matted around his shoulders, and his thick black beard hung heavy with grease. The man’s piercing blue eyes stared back at the thin exhausted-looking boy, lying huddled in a corner of the tarpaulin. For one moment Toby thought the man was going to call out to his pirate mates, but then the man put his finger to his lips to hush Toby.

“Quiet, lad,” he whispered. “I’ve nae seen you.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you so much …” Toby whispered tearfully back.

“Aye, well, I had a lad of my own once …” the pirate whispered back. “Now, stay clear of this lot. Get as far from here as you can. They’re trouble!”

And with that, he dropped the tarpaulin back down. “Just a load of old junk!” he shouted across to the waiting pirates. “Enough of these games. Let’s head back to the ship, quick!”

Toby, his heart still racing, lay listening to the retreating footsteps as the pirate returned to the dinghy.

In a few minutes, the waves in the harbour steadied and dropped to a gentle bobbing. The pirates had gone
back to their warship. The boats stopped their ghastly groaning and quiet fell again in the harbour.

Toby heaved himself up on to shaky legs that tingled with pins and needles. He knew he must find the others and get away from the harbour. He stumbled to the back of the boat and tugged at the anchor. It was stuck; it was really stuck, embedded in something on the seabed. He pulled and pulled with all his strength, but it wouldn’t budge. There was only one thing for it: he had to cut the rope. It would mean the loss of the anchor, but he needed to find his dad and Sylvie quickly. He had a horrible feeling that the pirates hadn’t had all their fun from Peterhead harbour. He was sure that they would come back, and soon.

Once he had cut the rope, he swung the boat back to the quay to where it had been before. Sprinting up the ladder and along the quay to the shed, he knocked tentatively on the door.

“Dad? You still there?” he cried. “You can come out now, they’ve gone.”

There was no answer.

Toby carefully opened the door. Inside the shed it was dark and cobwebby. He bent down to pick something off the floor. It was a teddy. It was Sylvie’s teddy, but where was Sylvie?

He crept further into the shed. It had been a fisherman’s
bothy where he would have stored ropes, provisions, nets and nylon for mending them. There was a stack of dusty lobster creels in one corner, and in another corner a tarpaulin lay draped over something lumpy.

Toby flinched with fright.

“Dad?” he gasped. Toby edged forward slowly, and nudged the lump with his foot. Nothing.

Toby grabbed the corner of the tarpaulin and yanked it off whatever lay underneath.

“Oh, what a fright you gave me!” he cried. There, cuddled up in the corner on a pile of old sheeting, were his dad and Sylvie. They were both fast asleep.

“Dad! Come on! We must go!” Toby was enjoying being the one in charge now.

“Huh?” groaned his dad sleepily. Toby shook him vigorously.

“Dad, come on, wake up. They might be back. One of them saw me — but he let me go … and then I thought I was going to get crushed! Come on, quick, and I’ll tell you all about it!”

“I must’ve been tired. I can’t believe I slept through all of that … They saw you?” said his father, shaking his head in disbelief as he bent down to scoop up the sleepy Sylvie.

“Wait a minute,” cried Toby. “I’m going to bring a couple of these with me. They might come in handy.” He
grabbed a couple of the dusty lobster pots from the pile in the corner and, struggling out the door, made his way back to the boat.

The three of them were soon back on board the
Lucky Lady
. Toby struggled to stow the heavy jerrycans on deck, whilst his father took Sylvie back to her bed. After lashing two of the cans safely together and emptying the other one into the fuel tank, Toby went to find his dad. He was washing all the dust and grit from Sylvie’s face and hands.

“We’d better get going, Dad,” said Toby breathlessly. “Are we going home now?”

“Yep, we’ve just enough fuel and supplies to get back now,” he replied. “You finish off here. I’ll get us out of here.” He pecked Sylvie on the cheek, and dashed from the cabin.

“Are we going home now?” asked Sylvie, snuggling down her bed.

“Yeah, won’t that be great?” replied Toby. “I’m worn out by all this excitement. I want to sleep for a week in my comfy bed.”

“What were those men doing?” she asked.

“Oh, just having a bit of fun, I suppose,” said Toby. “Come on, let’s get you out of those pyjamas. They’re filthy.”

Once he’d made sure Sylvie was clean and comfortable, Toby went up on deck to talk to his father. His dad
looked hollow eyed and sunken faced. The tension of the last few days had taken its toll on him, and he looked a lot older than his forty years.

“Can we risk going home?” Toby asked him.

“We’ll have to,” he replied. “We can’t keep this up. It’s too stressful for all of us, especially Sylvie. We need to get home and get some proper sleep and food. Anyway, the chickens will starve if we don’t go back soon.”

“D’you think the pirates will come looking for us?”

“I’m not sure,” said his dad. “They may be more interested in what they can scavenge from Peterhead now. It looked like there was still a lot of stuff lying around. There may be some fuel left in the big tanks up by the breakwaters. And there’s probably some fuel to be siphoned out of all those little boats in the fishing harbour. Depends how desperate they are.”

“We’re not far from home here, are we?” asked Toby.

“No, not far at all.”

“Dad,” blurted Toby, “do you think Sylvie has red fever?” He just had to ask; he’d been worrying about it so long.

“Let’s not talk about that now, son,” sighed his dad. “Let’s get her home. We’ll be there soon, don’t worry. Now, tell me about what happened in the harbour. A pirate saw you — and he didn’t let on?”

“Yes, it was weird. He could have told the others I was hiding under the tarpaulin but instead he told me he’d
had a son once and then warned me to get away from the others — said they were trouble. Why do you think that was?”

“It just shows that people get involved in some terrible things when they’re desperate to survive. Sounds like he’s not a bad man — he’s obviously lost his son.”

Toby told his dad about how scared he’d been when the boats started bobbing around and he thought the
Lucky Lady
was going to be crushed.

“You did well to get us out of that scrape, son, but we still need to be on our guard. You’d better go and keep watch.”

Toby went out into the afternoon sunshine and scanned the horizon. He watched the waves foaming beside them as the
Lucky Lady
cruised across the harbour and out into the ocean. It was a beautiful sunny day. It was hard to believe that the world could be such a dangerous place on a lovely day like this. The boat swung right under the headland where the tall white prison building stood. There was no sign of the dogs. The boat struck out towards the cliffs at Buchan Ness. It felt good to have the sun on his face and the wind rippling his hair. He really must get his dad to cut it; the long straggles had reached his shoulders. He went inside to get his woolly hat; even on a sunny day the sea breeze made his ears tingle with cold.

Back on deck, Toby watched his dad expertly handling the boat as it scudded across the sea.

“Dad?” Toby asked. “What happened to all the prisoners in the jails when the sickness came?”

“I’m not sure,” answered his dad. “I suppose they died like so many did. Any infection would spread like wildfire in a place like that. I heard various stories at the time. Horrible stories, I’d rather not repeat.”

“D’you think a lot of them escaped?”