The Dangerous Islands Page 8

  ‘Can you take over for a couple of minutes?’ Reeder said to Jamieson, who was sitting with him in the cockpit. ‘Keep straight on this course till you pick up the lighthouse—but I shall be up again before then.’

  Below he hunted in vain for the seasick remedy which they usually carried for Edina.

  ‘Must have forgotten it, I suppose,’ he said vexedly. ‘All right, my dear’—he held his wife’s damp forehead while she again retched, now fruitlessly, over the basin. But he was worried by her state; between the gulping spasms she leant back, quite exhausted, against the pillows.

  ‘Bring my brandy-flask—it’s in the locker under my bunk,’ he commanded Julia. She brought the flask and a small glass, and Edina took a little sip—which she instantly brought up again. Philip took the basin and emptied it in the lavatory opposite his bunk; in the narrow passage-way he called to Julia.

  ‘I think I must stay with her for a bit,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You’d better go up to that man; if he wants to ask any questions you can come down to me. The chart’s in the starboard locker and take up the Light’s List, so that you can check on the lighthouse—it’s on the table in the saloon. Don’t let it get wet! Put on your oilskin; there’s a lot of water coming on board.’

  Julia took her oilskin off a hook in the companion-way where these dripping objects habitually hung, and tied her sou’wester over her head; then she went and collected the Admiralty List of Lights, stuffed it down the front of her jersey, and scrambled up the companion-ladder. She shut the hatch carefully behind her, and ran unsteadily aft along the wet deck, collapsing into the cockpit as the yacht gave a sudden lurch.

  ‘Where’s the Skipper?’ Jamieson asked.

  ‘Staying with his Missis—she’s quite bad. He sent me up so that you’d have a messenger if you wanted one.’

  ‘I shall have a nice companion, anyhow,’ the Colonel said. ‘But we may want the chart.’

  ‘It’s in the locker over there—and I’ve brought up the Light’s List.’

  The cockpit of a yacht at night is a curious microcosm, centred on the illuminated compass in front of the steersman—around is darkness or semi-darkness, and the noise of waters. To steer in heavy waves and tides it is necessary on old-fashioned boats to stand, holding the wheel behind one’s back, watching the faintlylit compass dial on the binnacle in front; it is most useful to have a second person with a torch to spread out the chart from time to time, let alone to consult the Light’s List, which gives such indications as: ‘Flashing alternate red and white, at intervals of seven seconds.’ For studying the second-hand of one’s watch to interpret these a torch is still more necessary, and Julia had forgotten hers; she went below again to fetch it.

  ‘What’s up?’ Reeder asked.

  ‘We want my torch for the chart.’ She pulled the object out of her locker and stuffed it in the pocket of her oilskin.

  ‘All O.K.?’ Reeder asked a little anxiously.

  ‘Yes, fine.’ She bent over her cousin. ‘My poor dear, how do you feel?’

  ‘Ghastly,’ Edina murmured. ‘Your chum couldn’t sink us, could he?’ she asked with the ghost of a grin.

  ‘We’ll try!’ Julia said, reassured by the grin, and went on deck again.

  In that small, dark, wet world of the yacht’s cockpit she sat down, pulled out her torch, and then got the chart from the locker; in the strong wind it was difficult to keep it spread out, and Jamieson took one hand from the wheel to help to hold it flat—his hand partly covered hers.

  ‘Now the torch.’ She turned it on the chart, and he peered over it at the binnacle.

  ‘Yes, dead on course. All we have to do is to pick up that light. Can you see anything?’

  With the wind had come up clouds and rain, masking the red band that should have stretched along the northern horizon linking sunset with sunrise; it was very dark. Julia peered intently through the murk and the driving rain, forward and to starboard. ‘No—not a thing.’

  ‘Oh well—keep your eyes open. Do you like this night sailing?’

  ‘I’ve never done it before. Gosh!’ the girl exclaimed, as they shipped a big wave; water came pouring into the cockpit, and with it the halyards, which had been neatly piled in coils at the foot of the mast, were washed clean aft, right along the deck.

  ‘Are you wet?’ the man asked.

  ‘One’s always wet sailing,’ Julia replied cheerfully, rolling up the chart. But she didn’t replace it in the locker; she unfastened her oilskin, and stuffed it down the front of her jersey along with the Light’s List. ‘Locker’s probably got water in it now,’ she explained, sitting down again.

  In the darkness, amid the rushing noise of the waves and the wind, a curiously close sympathy came into being between these two people, though they spoke very little. Jamieson admired the girl’s coolness and common-sense in a slightly tense, or at least anxious, situation; Julia liked his handling of the boat. Presently the squall cleared away eastwards, and the sunrise-red began to show again, encouragingly—with the rain gone, Julia could see a distant winking from the lighthouse; she took out the List and checked the flashes on her watch with the torch, aloud.

  ‘That’s it all right,’ Jamieson said. ‘Just give it plenty of clearance, and round we go.’

  There were steep confused seas round the Butt of Lewis; at one point the Skipper came up to see that all was well with his precious boat, and then returned below—Edina was still being sick, he said. When he had gone both Julia and Jamieson were aware of a renewal of that closeness of feeling which his appearance had interrupted. But after they had rounded the point and were in the shelter of the island the sea quietened down; they sailed along with a gentle favourable breeze. The light grew, spreading over sea and sky from that low horizon-band; the northern dawn, never far away in midsummer, was coming. They both had a happy sense of having triumphed together over difficulties—a very uniting feeling.

  ‘I think we ought to toast the sun when it does rise,’ Jamieson said. ‘Could you go down and get something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whatever drink you can find in the lockers. Hell’s bells, we’ve been on deck all night!’

  Julia, burbling her warm laugh, went below; when she reappeared the front of her blue jersey was bulging; she drew out of it two small glass mugs, a bottle of gin, and a bottle of Vermouth.

  ‘This do?’ she asked. ‘Philip must have hidden the whisky.’

  ‘Do perfectly. Take the wheel while I put out the lights, will you?’

  Julia adored taking the wheel—it gives to almost any human being a wonderful sense of power to be in control of the motions of that vivid entity, a ship, large or small. The Colonel unhooked the lamps, blew them out, and stowed them in one of the cockpit lockers.

  ‘Philip keeps them in the fo’c’sle,’ she told him.

  ‘Yes—I’ll take them down later. We don’t want to disturb those poor sick miseries.’ While Julia laughed he filled the glass mugs; at the very moment when the round red ball of the sun appeared the horizon he handed Julia one of them, and took the other.

  ‘Here’s tae us! Wha’s like us? Damn few!’ he said, using the old Scottish toast.

  ‘I’ve never drunk a cocktail at 3 a.m. in the open air before,’ Julia said. ‘It’s a splendid notion.’

  ‘You’re rather in tune with splendour, aren’t you?’ Jamieson said.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He looked slightly embarrassed; Julia said nothing. On the surrounding waters, curled up like silver-and-black sofa-cushions, enormous birds floated, apparently fast asleep.

  ‘Goodness! Can those be gannets?’ she asked, pointing.

  ‘We’ll soon see.’ The Colonel was a little frightened at having said so much, and was glad of the distraction. ‘Could you take the wheel, and steer close to one of them?’

  Julia did so, while the Colonel armed himself with the boat-hook, and went up and knelt in the bows. As the yacht passed close by one of the sofa-
cushions he gave it a prod; a huge beak and head, with pale goose-grey eyes, drew out from under the plumage; the black-tipped wings were slowly unfolded, the great feet clawed at the water, and laboriously, clumsily, a gannet took to the air after its sea-borne sleep. ‘I never knew they slept on the water,’ the girl said.

  ‘I imagine very few people have ever seen them doing it,’ Jamieson answered.

  About 5 a.m., off Stornoway harbour, they saw another thing unfamiliar to most people—trawlers racing in with their night’s catch of herring to be first in the market. They shot round the big bulge in the land at tremendous speed, some literally with ‘flames coming out of the top’.

  Reeder had been so disgusted by the all-pervading stench of herring in Stornoway—it has to be smelt to be believed—that he had decided to anchor in Loch Erisort, some miles to the south; during his brief midnight appearance on deck he had ordained that he was to be ‘knocked up’ to take the yacht in, and at 7.30 a.m. they dropped anchor in a sweet sheltered place. Julia went down and made tea, of which she took a cup to her cousin.

  ‘You sup that—I’ll get the breakfast,’ she said. ‘Feeling better?’

  ‘Yes—quite all right now. Once we got into calm water I slept like a log. You are lucky, never to be seasick.’

  ‘Yes, aren’t I?’ Julia responded blithely.

  After breakfast everyone went to bed and slept till two, when Edina produced lunch. Then they motored into Stornoway on the engine, to collect mail and enquire for news of the new boom. Julia could hardly be dragged to the Post Office, she was so fascinated by the scene on the quay, where scores of young women in white Wellington boots and rubber aprons stood gutting the shiny silvery fish with accomplished deftness and at lightning speed, tossing them into wooden barrels; every so often they flattened out the fish in the barrels and strewed coarse salt over the surface—then they went on slitting more herrings open. The smell was appalling; Philip became impatient.

  ‘Do come on, Julia.’

  ‘Where do the barrels go?’ Julia asked, as they made for the Post Office.

  ‘Used to be to Germany—I believe a lot go to Poland now.’

  At the Post Office there was something for everyone. Colin fastened greedily on letters from his young wife Aglaia, Edina on one from her factor at Glentoran, giving news of the cows; Julia happily pocketed another in Mrs. Hathaway’s familiar handwriting, and the Colonel took over a type-written envelope with a grunt of satisfaction. ‘When does the next post go out?’ he enquired of the girl at the counter.

  ‘Tomorrow, with the steamer.’

  For Philip there was a telegram from Aberdeen, informing him that the boat bringing his new boom was due some time the following day.

  ‘I think I’d better go and see their agents about this,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to stay in this stink a moment longer than we can help.’

  ‘Where shall we meet, then?’

  ‘Oh, at the hotel. You can have tea—I want to see that ship’s carpenter.’ He strode away.

  The hotel suited all the others very well. The Colonel, in particular, wanted to write a report to his London office—since he had been on deck all night he had had no chance to do this. When tea came the party broke up, taking their cups with them to different parts of the room to write their letters. Jamieson had brought a block in his pocket, and before he even read his communication from London he wrote out an account of what he had found at Callernish, referring to his notebook for the compass-bearings which gave the exact position. Then he fetched a second cup of tea, returned to the table where he had been writing, and studied what London was able to tell him about the Swedish boat. ‘Registered in Sweden, but the crew are believed to be English-speaking Russians,’ he read. ‘If you come across her again it might be useful if you could contact them and verify this.’

  The whole of Stornoway in summer reeks of herring, it penetrated even into the hotel, it was in the Post Office when Julia and the Colonel walked back there together to post their letters—his to his office, hers to Mrs. Hathaway. The man took both to put into the box, and saw the name on her envelope—he paused.

  ‘Have you said anything to the old lady about our having met the Professor?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. But not a word about his being under a cloud, nor how odd he was.’

  ‘Good. But in what way was he odd?’

  ‘I’d rather not tell you.’ As so often, Julia regretted her careless words. They stood together in the small street outside the Post Office, the man still holding the letters in his hand, and stared at one another, almost with hostility.

  ‘Nonsense, Julia—you’ve got to tell me. You’re in on this; you must see that you have a responsibility. What was odd about Burbage? Come on—cough it up.’

  No man had ever spoken to Miss Probyn with such brusque authority before—and she was not insensible to his suddenly calling her Julia.

  ‘Come on,’ he repeated, as she hesitated.

  ‘Well—’ rather haltingly, she told Jamieson of the Professor’s pertinacious enquiries about him and Colin, and how these had disturbed her. ‘But of course he’s very old,’ she ended.

  ‘Oh dear! This doesn’t look too good,’ the Colonel said. The real sadness in his voice shook the girl more than anything else. He pushed the two letters into the box. As they walked back he told her what he had learned about the Swedish boat.

  At the hotel they found Philip, triumphant because the boat with his new boom was reported by her agents as being certainly due in the following day. ‘So now let’s get out of this,’ he said.

  Next day, once more on the engine, they returned to Stornoway to deal with the new boom. A large coaster lay at anchor in the harbour—‘Ah, she’s in. Good,’ Philip Reeder said. But while he was seeking a buoy to which to moor his yacht he spotted something else; Philip was very observant.

  ‘Julia!—come here. Isn’t that that Swedish boat that fouled us in the Sound of Mull, and then came down after us to the Erinish Islands? You wrote her number down.’

  ‘I’ll get it.’ Julia hurried below and fetched her engagement-diary.

  ‘Yes—here we are.’ She read: ‘Y.J.631.’ Those letters and numbers stared at them, large and white, from the motor-cruiser.

  ‘Could we go alongside and see if anyone is on board?’ Jamieson asked the skipper, in an undertone.

  ‘Yes. Did you get anything on her yesterday?’

  ‘Only a little—not to her credit!’

  Philip steered the Mary Hathaway alongside the Swedish boat, and hailed her, ‘Ship Ahoy!’—an international summons. There was no response.

  ‘They must all be ashore,’ Philip said, and continued his search for a mooring for his own yacht. They found one, and made fast.

  ‘Now, who comes ashore?’ Reeder asked.

  ‘I don’t,’ his wife replied.

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Colin—he had by no means finished an enormous letter which he was inditing to his wife. Reeder, the Colonel, and Julia scrambled into the dinghy, and rowed off to the herring-stinking quay.

  ‘How soon shall we meet you?—and where?’ Jamieson asked his host; even Philip was struck by the Colonel’s calm use of the word ‘we’.

  ‘Oh, at the hotel—in about an hour and a half; maybe a bit later.’ He hurried off to confirm all his arrangements—Julia and Jamieson were left standing on the quay.

  ‘Where do we go from here?’ the girl asked.

  ‘I should very much like to find the crew of that boat, the Y.J. whatever it is, and give them the once-over,’ the Colonel replied.

  ‘Oh, well let’s potter about.’

  But in Stornoway the three men in berets were not to be seen at all; tired of pottering, the couple went in to a rather small humble pub, and ordered drinks. ‘Do your local stuff,’ the Colonel muttered in Julia’s ear.

  Obediently, Julia asked in Gaelic of the landlord whether he had seen anything of three men in berets, off a motor-boat. The man saluted her knowledge o
f his native tongue with satisfaction, but gave the substance of his reply in his own form of English.

  ‘Ach, those Rooshians! Yes, they were in here twice for drinks. Ah’m hearing they took Johnnie Macleod’s hire-car to drive over to Callernish the day.’

  Julia asked the landlord why he thought they were Russians.

  ‘They were speaking together, and one or two lads was in here that had been to Rooshia with the Navy, when our ships put in to some port; they knew a little of the language, and spoke to those three men in it.’

  ‘And did they understand?’

  ‘They did, right enough; but ’twas in English that they answered—and from then out they were speaking English, even to one another; rather middling English. Ah’m thinking they’re spies of some sort,’ the landlord said, and repeated what the woman at Rodel had said about poaching by Russian trawlers. ‘Keeping an eye out for the patrol-boat, and letting the trawlers know—that is my notion,’ the man said.

  Julia had quite another notion; the idea that they should be driving to Callernish made her very unhappy. When the landlord turned away—‘Got all you want?’ she murmured to Jamieson.

  ‘Yes—splendid. Let’s go.’

  Outside—‘Ought we to follow them?’ Julia asked unhappily.

  ‘To Callernish? No, I hardly think so—there won’t be time, and we should be showing our hand too much. But we might try a check at the garage—did he say Johnnie Macleod?’ In the Long Island at least half the inhabitants are called Macleod.

  They found Johnnie Macleod’s establishment, which hardly amounted to a garage—he had exactly two ancient cars for hire. Julia made her usual easy contact in Gaelic, and established that three men had hired one of the cars to be driven to Callernish and back, that morning; Mr. Macleod also expressed the opinion that they were ‘Rooshians’.

  ‘My dear, I’m sorry about this for you,’ the Colonel said, as they walked back to the hotel to meet Philip Reeder.

  ‘We can’t be sure,’ Julia said, rather desperately.

  ‘No. Let us cling to not being sure,’ the man said. ‘All the same, when we come in to have the boom fixed tomorrow I shall want you to ask Mr. Macleod’s driver exactly what the “Rooshians” did at Callernish.’