The Merciless Ladies (15 page)

I regarded her quizzically. ‘More religion? What's the matter with it?'

‘I don't know. It's like this beastly yacht, there one minute and not there the next. I've been dragged up in such an odd way, Bill. I've always been told the basic truth about everything. Truth in its component parts, so to speak. Food was so many calories and carbohydrates and proteins. Life began more or less with the slipper animalcule. The bloom on grapes had something to do with parasites or microbes. One had a bath in two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen. The reason beech leaves were such a glorious green was that they absorbed all the colours of the spectrum and rejected only blue and yellow. Father Christmas was a fairy story told to old-fashioned children to keep them good. Intelligent children didn't need such a bribe. Religion by definition seems the same sort of story to keep adults good, and intelligent adults don't need it.'

Just in time I rescued my egg, which had decided to slide off towards the fo'c'sle.

‘This comes of being tipped about in your bunk all night.'

Holly wrinkled her brows at me. ‘The funny part is, Mother's a good
Christian
in spite of it all. A really good one; even though she taught me little enough. And Daddy … I think he feels that on his death-bed in a moment of perfect insight he'll suddenly find himself able to express God in the terms of one pure, beautiful equation.'

‘I can't help you, Holly', I said, feeling depressed that I could not.

‘I know, Bill, nobody can. But I like talking to you. It's such a rest from being sick.'

‘You've not really changed, you know', I said. ‘ You're still the same horrid little girl who used to follow me about the place asking awkward questions when I came for holidays with Bertie and Leo.'

‘Aren't I?' she agreed with pleasure. ‘One doesn't alter much inside.' She went on: ‘I've always – ever since I can remember – I've always wanted to know where I was going, wanted an aim and a purpose, and never really had one. I suppose I was born awkward. Some people just don't seem troubled at all. Whereas Bertie seemed to find exactly what he wanted and go off to it without a thought. He doesn't know as much as I do, but I think he's much
wiser
.' She stopped and made a face. ‘I wish we didn't get so much of that going-down-in-a-lift feeling.'

‘The great thing is—'

The door from the forward cabin opened and Paul came staggering in. He looked distinguished but incongruous in a black silk dressing-gown which would have been more suitable among the exotic decorations of the
Normandie
.

‘Hullo', said-Holly. ‘Are you feeling better too?'

He shook his head. ‘I wish the damned ship would sink. I wish this damned infernal jigging and jerking would stop.'

‘Keep in your bunk', I said. ‘You'll get over it quicker that way.'

‘I heard Holly's voice.' He waved a foot-square piece of strawboard he was carrying. ‘ I finished this last night before the worst began. It's yours, Holly, both the responsibility and the result.'

She took the strawboard from him, looked at it and coloured.

‘Oh, Paul, how silly …' She half laughed. ‘ Thank you so much. I didn't mean you had to do one. Look, Bill.'

It was a crayon sketch. Against a background of blue leaves was a great green caterpillar. It was such a caterpillar as never had been seen on land or sea. However, one could not doubt its identity; the thing fairly crawled with life.

‘And now', said Paul, staring hard at my empty egg-shell, ‘ I'm going back to be sick.'

II

Before noon the wind had shifted to north of north-west, and it stayed there without a break for five days. At the beginning there were heavy hail showers, but these stopped later and conditions were that much less unpleasant. The wind never approached a gale, but there was always the danger of a gale developing.

The difficulty was to make any satisfactory headway without shipping green water. Most of the time we were beating into the wind, mainly on a north-easterly tack with three reefs in the mainsail, a reefed foresail and a storm jib. Two nights we hove to and lost some of the hard progress made during the day. And all this time there was the swell. Never a moment's cessation from movement, from climbing and railing, climbing and falling. An endless succession of millions of hills to be surmounted and defeated, high ridges all hurrying heedlessly away to pour themselves out over the edge of the world.

The main hatch, protected by both sliding and folding doors, was the one used by both passengers and crew during this period; the fo'c'sle hatch proved to be not entirely watertight and, even when we battened it down, continued to let water in.

On the fourth day Paul slipped in the saloon and sprained his wrist. On the sixth day about noon the sky began to clear and the wind shifted north-east. Sam Grimshawe took his sights – always an unsatisfactory business in a vessel plunging about like a cork – and said we were about two hundred and ten miles north-east of Madeira. As the wind was not so strong, we set all sail and altered course to a north-westerly tack, which we maintained all through that day and the next night, which was clearer and intermittently starlit.

Dawn broke quickly that morning and was over soon. The upper ridges of cloud in the east were lit with undreamed-of lights, mainly tangerine and chocolate brown. Round the horizon the broken clouds were edged with pink and orange above the dark, empty sea. Then in a space of seconds the warmth went out of the colour and the upper ridges split into a raw, vivid yellow.

I was up in time to help Dave Grimshawe take two reefs in the mainsail. We were doing this none too soon. The wind was becoming squally and the cutter was plunging too much in the steeper seas. We staggered to the mainmast as the cutter dipped. Sam Grimshawe at the wheel eased her up into the wind a little to spill the wind out of the sails.

I took a turn with the topping lift to take the weight of the boom. A hail of sea-spray swept over us.

‘Let go', said Dave.

I lowered the throat halliard and then the peak.

The wind roared through the rigging, but Dave took in no sail. As the gaff came down a few inches the sail slapped and slatted.

‘Go on!' I shouted.

Salt water dripped from Grimshawe's beard. ‘The blamed thing's stuck', he shouted back.

The mechanism which worked the roller reefing of the mainsail had jammed and the handle would not turn. I tightened the halliards again. Sam Grimshawe at the wheel saw something was wrong and luffed the cutter further up into wind hoping this would help to clear the trouble. She dipped more wildly than ever and water came aboard and nearly swept me off my feet.

‘I'll get … screwdriver', Dave shouted at me, and began to crawl back to the engine-hatch. Waiting a favourable moment, he dived down it, while I clung there with the sptay like a flail.

She was getting her nose into them now, and as I watched she hit head on into the tip of a wave, like butting into a milestone, as Sam afterwards put it. When I had rubbed the water from my eyes the deck was awash and the cutter was heavy in the water and was not rising as she normally did to the oncoming seas.

After what seemed an age Dave Grimshawe reappeared again and crawled forward with Sam shouting instructions after him. Fortunately at that juncture the first squall passed and we were able to make our adjustments before a second came up. But the cutter had taken in a lot of water, and it would be necessary to put somebody on the pump.

A few minutes later I found Sir Clement Lynn sitting in the saloon smoking a damp cigarette. He had a chair wedged under one end of the table so that it could not slide about, and his feet on the rail beside the cupboards. He had made very few appearances during the last days.

‘Sorry about all the water', I said.

He put out a rubber boot and stirred an eddying pool with his toe. ‘The important thing is to view minor discomforts in their true perspective. The immediate present in time is apt to loom too large. What one should do is get a pencil and make a dot and say, ‘‘There, that is me at this instant, no more and no less.'' What is the tobacco the Grimshawes smoke?'

‘Digger Plug.'

‘Hm. Do they cook all the food in it? Perhaps I imagine these flavours. I wish Ethel could see me now. She always says I eat too much.'

At that moment Holly and Paul came into the saloon. Holly actually looked better for her eight days at sea; she had recovered more quickly than the other two, and the constant wind had tanned her normally pale skin. Paul, his wrist bandaged and with a considerable growth of beard, had not come off so well, but I had a feeling that he was more content than he had been for years.

‘I'll clean this up in a few minutes', said Holly, looking at the water which was slopping about the floor of the saloon.

I followed Paul's eyes to the barometer. ‘I know', I said. ‘It's still low and we haven't made very good progress. We'll be six weeks on the passage at this rate.'

Paul said: ‘The Grimshawes want to make for Vigo. They say Sir Clement and Holly could travel overland from there.'

‘That would be admitting defeat', said Holly, taking off her mac and béret and shaking them.

‘And the weather may improve at any time', said her father.

‘I suppose we've plenty of food?' said Paul. ‘We shouldn't have used even our normal rations this week.'

‘Food's all right', I said. ‘The question, with the wind in this quarter, is how long would it take to make Vigo?' Paul draped his dripping coat over the end of the table, but said

nothing.
‘What of this court action of Stafford's?' asked Sir Clement. ‘ It's

– hm – the first of October tomorrow.'
Paul said: ‘It won't come off until about the fifteenth, and if I'm

not there they can postpone the darned thing until I am.'
‘Of course', I said, ‘the obvious resort would be to go about and

run before the wind back to Funchal.'
There was silence.
‘That
would
be admitting defeat', said Holly.
I patted her head.
‘Whom would it be admitting defeat to?' Paul asked.
‘Ourselves', she said. ‘They're the only people that matter.'
He looked at her. ‘Yes, you're perfectly right.'
Sir Clement climbed slowly to his feet, holding to a cupboard.

‘This change of position has done me good. I'll go back and do a

little work. That will complete the cure.' He rubbed the week's

growth on his chin. ‘I have seldom felt my kinship more with the

Anthropomorpha. One develops the simian desire to scratch.'
When he had gone I said: ‘ He's the one we have to consider.'
Holly nodded. ‘I know. And Paul's wrist. Don't be influenced by

me; turn back if you think it best.'
‘Let's see today out', suggested Paul. ‘ There's a good chance that

the weather will moderate. It should do on the law of averages.'

III

The law of averages is not one which has much influence on wind and weather. It blew steadily all that day, and we remained hove-to under reefed mainsail and small jib with a sheet to windward, bobbing up and down like a cork. With sails trimmed this way there is always a certain amount of drift, and some of our progress in the previous twenty-four hours was likely to be lost.

An hour before sunset, the wind having dropped, we sighted a tramp steamer. She was a biggish ship, eight or ten thousand tons, and was making heavy weather of it, burying her great blunt nose in the seas and spouting them across her decks. But her progress was steady and she rapidly came up with us. When she was about a mile away she signalled; but every few seconds she was hidden from us by the next wave and we couldn't read what she said. Dave Grimshawe got out a storm lantern and signalled IMI.

Through a flurry of rain we saw that she was approaching nearer and had again altered course with the apparent intention of making a circle round us. Both Holly and Paul had come on deck, and the five of us watched her with interest.

‘Wish she could give us a tow', said Paul.

‘She's all adrift if she thinks
we
want her help', said Sam Grimshawe.

With the glasses we were able to read
John Armitage
and
Liverpool
. Homeward bound. She made no further signal.

After a complete circle she came in suddenly, on our lee so as not to interfere with our wind, and soon we were barely two hundred yards apart. She was wallowing now, fairly wallowing in the sea like a great animal, scuppers under.

We saw a man on the raised deck beneath the bridge. He put a megaphone to his lips, but the words didn't carry. Holly waved as if to show appreciation. Then a man appeared on the bridge-deck and began to semaphore.

‘What is it?' I said.

Dave Grimshawe wiped the salt water from his mouth with the back of a hairy hand.

‘He says, we seem to be in trouble; can he be of any assistance?'

‘Looking for salvage', growled Sam. ‘Tell him, no. We're right 'nough.'

I said: ‘I suppose he's not used to seeing little cutters in this latitude. Thank him, Dave, and say that we're going on quite nicely. But', I added, ‘ask him if he can take off a woman passenger and two sick men.'

‘Bill!' said Holly. ‘ That's not fair! I—'

‘One sick man', said Paul.

‘Go on', I said to Dave. ‘ See what he says.'

I caught a glimpse of a smile under Dave's beard as he began to signal.

‘Bill,
why
should I go?' said Holly. ‘ I can see—'

‘Sh … he's answering. Well?'

‘He says the sea is too big at present, and it'll be dark in 'alf an hour. He says he'll try an' keep in contact with us tonight and see what the weather's like at dawn.'