by Nevil Shute
He closed the bag and fell into step with Rawdon as he resumed his pacing up and down the deck. "What's your idea, then?" asked Rawdon.
"I haven't got one," said Morris. "Only it's—interesting. I don't mind telling you, I've been thinking a good bit about this matter of the navigator. We've been content to go on the assumption that it will be easy enough to get in an expert at the job when the time comes—and by the way, we ought to be thinking about that soon. That's a thing we ought to discuss with Sir David while we're here."
The older man glanced at him keenly. "I will be easy to get a good man," he said.
"Easy enough to get a good navigator," said Morris briefly. "Not so damned easy to get a good man." He stopped and faced Rawdon. "I know nothing about the sea," he said. "If we get into any trouble on the way and I only have some pie-faced theorist with me—we might very soon find ourselves in Queer Street. That's what I'm thinking about. The navigation itself is child's play—I could do it myself."
"I see," said Rawdon. He stood motionless for a little, meditatively caressing his chin with one great hand. "Well," he said at last. "You know you've got a free hand in that sort of thing. All Sir David cares about is getting the job done. That sort of detail is entirely our affair. Only—don't do anything in a hurry. We shall have to mention it to him before taking any definite steps in that matter."
They walked aft to the companion; Morris took the bag and went below to Dennison. The latter laid down his book as Morris entered.
"Ha!" he said. "Feeling twice the man I was. I'm going to get up this afternoon."
"Much better not," said Morris. "Here's your stuff. I brought off all that I thought was likely to get snaffled— glasses, sextant, chronometer, and a lot of odds and ends." He sat down and lit a cigarette.
Dennison peered into the bag. "And half a bottle of rum," he said. "It was nice of you to think of that."
Morris blew a long cloud of smoke, and laughed. "What do you use all those navigating instruments for?" he inquired. "You never go out of sight of land, do you?"
"Lord, yes," said Dennison. "Running down Channel. But you're quite right—one doesn't often need them. Last summer we went to the west of Ireland—we were four days from the longships to Cape Clear. I took a good many sights then—more for practice than anything else. Give me a fag."
"Did you make a good landfall?"
Dennison blew a long cloud. "Oh, yes," he said carelessly. "There's nothing in it, you know. We hit if off just about as I expected. It's not far, but we took long enough over it. Cat's-paws all the way across."
Morris gazed at him curiously. "I suppose you spend all your spare time doing this," he said. "Did you cruise at Easter?"
Dennison thrust his cigarette over the side of the bunk and flicked the ash on to the floor with a steady hand. "No," he said. "This Easter was the first I've missed since the war. I was staying with some people in Berkshire—a place called Little Tinney, just under the Downs. Do you know that part at all? Delightful country."
"I stayed a week-end down in that part of the world once," said Morris. "I forget exactly where Little Tinney is, but we weren't very far away. They fetched us from Didcot in a car; a chap who was at Oxford with me. People called Wallace."
Dennison glanced sharply at the lean man, and smiled queerly. "I was staying with the Wallaces," he said.
"No—really? Do you know them well?"
"Not very well," said Dennison. "I met them both—Wallace and his sister, about four years ago, but I'd rather lost touch with them till—till this Easter."
Morris nodded. "Funny," he said. "I knew Jimmie Wallace quite well up at Oxford after the war; I often meet him in Town. My wife and I went down there one weekend—oh, about eighteen months ago. Charming girl his sister is!"
"Yes, said Dennison dryly. They chatted for a little, discussing the Wallaces and the house at Little Tinney. Then came a bustle on deck of getting under way under motor power, and of taking the heve in tow. Morris went on deck, and Dennison was left to his own devices, to his newly awakened memories of Little Tinney and all that was there.
But one thing puzzled him, eluding all the efforts of his memory. He was nearly certain that at some time or other he had heard Sheila speak of a man called Morris, and that she had mentioned some peculiar and outstanding fact connected with him. Cudgel his brains as he might, he could not recall the occasion or what it was that she had mentioned as peculiar about Morris, what it was that differentiated him from other men. There was something; of that he was quite certain.
The morning was calm and hazy, the tide sweeping down through the roads in placid swirls and eddies. Both vessels weighed anchor and got under way under their engines; then a line was passed to the Irene and she was taken in tow, her engine being of little use against the tide. In the Clematis there sprang up a subdued, monotonous thudding that drove all coherent thought from the head and jingled the tumblers in the racks. She turned and stemmed the tide, and proceeded up the Solent, towing the Irene behind her in the manner of a dinghy.
It was nearly lunch-time when they dropped anchor in Cowes Roads. The Irene cast off her tow and motored up the river to Flanagan's, where she berthed temporarily against a quay. From the deck Sir David watched her in, then turned and went below to pay a visit to his guest.
"Your cutter's safely berthed in Flanagan's yard," he said. "I'll go ashore this afternoon and see Flanagan about her. How are you feeling?"
"Well enough to get up," said Dennison. "Mr. Morris tells me you've bought Chrysanthe, sir."
The baronet smiled happily, and sat down on Dennison's clothes. "We should get some good sport out of her," he said. "My brother George always intended to make a bid for her —but he died. And it's only lately that I have had leisure to think about racing. For a man who is still at work, cruising should come first. Don't you find that so?"
"Every time," said Dennison emphatically.
The baronet glanced round the cabin. "I've had some good cruises in this vessel," he said. "Not very ambitious—but good holidays. I wouldn't like to part with her. As for Chrysanthe, 1 shall sail her under her old rig this season. For one thing, there isn't time to change. But after that, I've been thinking of scrapping her gear and rerigging her Bermuda fashion. In a similar manner to Nyria."
They plunged into an animated discussion of the technical details of the plan, of the questions of sail area, mast position, ans seaworthy qualities of the Bermuda rig. They talked for twenty minutes; then a bell rang for lunch. The baronet rose.
"Of course," he said, "we really know very little about her. We shall learn a great deal this season. It's a little early to discuss it before we've had an opportunity to try her paces."
He passed into the saloon and sat down to lunch in silence. "He's perfectly right," he thought. "She would take more ballast forward. 1 hadn't thought or that."
Lunch over, they smoked a pipe in the saloon, then called for a dinghy and went ashore. Morris wandered off to make some purchases in Cowes; Sir David and Rawdon made their way to Flanagan's yard. They passed in at the gates and strolled to the quay where the Irene lay, inspected her closely, and turned away. In the background, the Chrysanthe lay on a slip, being painted, monstrous and ungainly.
The two men picked their wav across the litter to the ramshackle little offices. Sir David entered, knocked at a door, and went in, followed by Rawdon. At a roll-top desk was seated a stout middle-aged man in a suit of sad, plebeian grey, sipping a cup of tea, his feet up on a chair. At the sight of his visitors, he laid down the cup and rose ponderously to his feet.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said. "You'll have come to look over Chrysanthe? Getting along with her nicely now. Tell me, did you see the new hollow gaff has come in for her? 'Tis a beautiful gaff, and half again as light as the old one."
"I'd like to have a look at it," said the baronet. "As a matter of fact, I've brought a repair job. I ran down a small cutter in the Solent yesterday, I'm sorry to say, and took
the bowsprit out of her."
"Do you tell me that now!" said Flanagan.
Sir David nodded. "I want her got ready for sea again at once," he said. "At once. You can take men off Chrysanthe for her if necessary."
The stout man clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Deary me," he said. "Will we go out and see her?" He produced a dishevelled soft felt hat and crammed it on his head. "But it would be a terrible pity to take the men from Chrysanthe!"
They followed him from the office into the yard. He walked to the quay and glanced at the Irene. Then he turned to Sir David in obese amazement.
" 'Tis Mr. Dennison's little cutter!" he said.
"That's so. Mr. Dennison was slightly injured; he's with me in the Clematis now. I want his vessel got ready for him by the time he's fit to sail her."
With surprising agility, the stout man dropped down on to the deck of the Irene and made a quick examination. Then he lifted the hatch of the little forecastle and disappeared below. In a minute, he was up on deck again, and on the quay beside them.
" 'Tis no great matter," he said. "Will it do, now, if I have her ready for you by Friday night?"
"That will do excellently."
"Is Mr. Dennison hurt bad?" inquired Flanagan. "I'd be sorry if anything was to happen to him."
He was reassured. "Well, well, well," he said heavily. "And now, gentlemen, you'll be wanting to have a look round the Chrysanthe and in the big hangar?"
They walked in and out among the smaller, vessels to where the Chrysanthe lay upon the slip. " Tis here that old Mr. Dennison—Mr. Peter Dennison's father that was—fitted out before the war," he said reminiscently. "Hé was a fine sailor, he was. Do you mind the races they won in the Runagate, sir?" He laughed to mark the point. "They was a crew."
At the thought, the laughter died from his eyes; he walked a little closer to Sir David, and dropped his voice confidentially.
"Did you ever give Mr. Dennison the wheel on the Clematis}" he said, in a voice that was little more than a whisper.
"No. He's in bed, sick. He's only been on board since yesterday."
The stout man in the shabby grey suit stopped and caught the baronet by the arm.
"If I was you," he said earnestly, "if I was you I'd give him a try-out. Give him a try-out while you've got him aboard, sir. I mind him as a boy, the finest youngster that ever I saw, before or since. The most promising, you might say. I mind him on the Runagate."
He drew the other closer to him. "Get him for Chrysanthe, sir," he whispered. "You're after needing a helmsman; give him a chance, and you'll not regret it. Mind what I'm telling you now—you'll not regret it."
The baronet gazed at him steadily. "He's really good, is he?"
The stout man released his arm. "If I was to search from here to Ameriky," he said emphatically, "I'd not find you a better man." He dropped his voice again. "Give him a try-out round the buoys, sir, and judge for yourself. You'll not regret it."
They strolled on towards the Chrysanthe. "I'll think it over," said the baronet. "Thanks very much, Mr. Flanagan, for giving me the tip."
Chapter 5
Morris walked up from the slipway through the narrow little main street of West Cowes towards the castle, deep in thought. He was a man of moods and impulses, a man of quick decisions. He walked up to the castle and stood for a time gazing vacantly out to sea, to where the Clematis lay in the Roads, then turned about and went to find the post office.
On the steps of the office he hesitated for a moment, then went out again and bought a penny timetable at a stationer's. In the street he consulted this, then returned to the post office and sent off two telegrams. His business finished, he strolled back towards the landing, and met the others in the main street, returning from Flanagan's.
They returned on board for tea; Morris went down to speak to Dennison. Dennison had not got up; in point "of fact, he had fallen asleep after a very good lunch, and when he awoke he found that it was so nearly tea-time that he decided to take his medical advice and stay in bed for the day. He greeted Morris cheerfully.
"I m going to get up tomorrow," he said. "I'd have got up this afternoon, only I went to sleep after lunch."
"As a door upon its hinges," said Morris sententiously, "so turneth the sluggard upon his bed."
"I wish to hell he did," said Dennison grimly. "This old side of mine's been giving me gippo whenever I move. Did you hear anything of the Irene?"
"They're going to have her ready by Friday evening," said Morris. "Though I don't think there's a chance of you being able to sail her by then. Let's have a look at that thumb."
The thumb was still swollen, though it was rapidly becoming normal again. "You can't do anything with that yet," said Morris, and you'll have to be jolly careful that you don't go and put it out again, if you go messing about trying to do too much. You don't seem to realize that you've just shaved by what might have been a pretty sticky crash."
Comprehension came to Dennison in a wave with the words; he remembered now what it was that Sheila had said about Morris. "In any case," he said, "I don't suppose I shall do much more sailing just at present. I only intended to take ten days off, and it will be a week by the time I get on board again, I suppose."
They chatted for a time, then Morris left him and went to his tea. Dennison was left alone, pondering the information that had come to him. There was a mystery on board the Clematis; that was obvious even to him as he lay in his berth. There was something going on that was to be kept dark; Sir David was in it, and Rawdon and Morris, and probably Flanagan, from the way they had spoken of him. His curiosity was piqued; he had little else to interest him in his enforced idleness. He held this clue to the mystery; Morris was a pilot for experimental aeroplanes.
That was what Sheila had said.
Sir David paid him a visit after tea. Very soon, in some manner that he could not afterwards account for, Dennison found himself telling the baronet all about the Runagate and the four glorious seasons before the war when they had carried practically everything before them. Sir David fetched his bound volumes from the saloon, and they spent an hour and a half poring over the accounts of old regattas, recalling memories of the crack vessels of ten years before.
After dinner, he was left alone. It is painful to relate that he spent most of the evening endeavouring to interpret the confused murmur from the other side of the bulkhead, with little success. When the steward went in with the whisky, there was a lull in the conversation; Dennison learnt no more. Presently he dropped asleep, and was awakened by voices outside his door and the footsteps of the men as they went to their staterooms. He looked at his watch; it was half-past one in the morning.
Next morning when he awoke, Morris was gone, vanished away in the early hours to catch the paddle boat from Cowes. Rawdon came in to Dennison before breakfast, and explained the circumstances in his soft little voice, strangely out of keening with his red-haired bulk. Morris had had to go up to Town on business, he said, and would be back that evening.
"I think I'll get up after breakfast," said Dennison.
Morris caught the first boat from Cowes and proceeded to Southampton and London, breakfasting on the train. He reached Waterloo shortly after eleven and walked over Charing Cross bridge. On the Embankment, he paused for a moment before a hoarding on which a brand of face cream was advertised ,by the portrait of a girl in evening dress. It reminded him of his wife.
He made his way across Trafalgar Square and up Regent Street, loitering to kill time. Half-past twelve found him in Oxford Circus; he looked at his watch, and took the Tube to the City.
He turned out of the station, walked a hundred yards or so down a side street, and entered a large block of offices. On the first floor he turned in at a door labelled "Inquiries." A girl rose from a typewriter.
"Mr. Wallace?" said Morris.
The girl led him down a long corridor, knocked timidly at a door, and ushered him into an office in which the Great Man spent his
days behind a portentous desk.
"Cheer oh," said Jimmie. I won't keep you a minute. Get a chair. Miss Haynes! Get these sent along to Mr. Anderson. Tell him that if he'll endorse them, I'll get them off this afternoon." He handed her a sheaf of papers.
The door closed behind her. Wallace swept the litter on his desk to one side, and gazed critically at the door. "She's getting fat," he said. "You should have seen her when she came . . . The sedentary life, 1 suppose." He pushed aside his papers, checked, picked out one that had caught his eye, glanced it over, and threw it with the others. "Heigh-ho," he said. "Time for lunch—or near as dammit." He got up and fetched his hat from behind a screen. "Come on," he said. "There's a sort of eating club just round here that I usually go to. I got your wire yesterday."
They entered the club and sat down to lunch. Morris broached his subject with the soup.
"I say," he said. "You know a man called Dennison, don't you?"
He happened to be watching the other's face, and was vastly surprised to sec the effect that his question made upon the other. Wallace laid down his spoon and gazed at him in simple wonder. "Yes," he said, "I know a man called Dennison. But 1 had no idea he was a friend of yours."
Morris crumbled his bread. "I only met him recently," he said. "Two days ago, in point of fact. But he told me that he knew you and—well, frankly, I came up here because I wanted to find out one or two things about him."
Wallace wrinkled his brows in perplexity. "You want me to tell you about him?" he inquired.
"That's it." Morris paused to consider his words. "As a matter of fact, it's rather a curious story, and it's all mixed up with—with a business deal that I'm afraid I can't tell you very much about at present. But the main facts are these. I've been yachting in the Solent as a guest on a biggish vessel. The owner and my firm are acting together in this deal, and part of it means that I've got to chuck a stunt."