The Key of the Chest

by Neil M. Gunn

‘Jolly good idea!’ cried Michael. ‘What do you say, Gwynn?’

  But the engine replied for Mr. Gwynn with a distinctly sarcastic cough. The effect was very dramatic. Their faces froze and waited. The engine coughed again, spluttered, picked up, spluttered, and stopped.

  Michael dived upon it through the door, for it lay bedded on the threshold of the cabin. He tickled the carburettor, caught the starting handle and swung it round and round. The engine went off with a roar. The doctor got the boat straightened up and was hesitating which side of the islands to head away for, lest it happened again, when it happened. This time Michael’s wild swinging had no effect.

  ‘It’s either the plugs or a choke in the petrol feed,’ said the doctor, joining Michael at the engine.

  Michael was white and wildly erratic. ‘She’s never done this before!’ he cried across the engine. ‘Damnation!’

  The doctor was trying to flood the carburettor when the Stormy Petrel, having lost way and broached to, was lifted on a wave and thrown bodily. Michael pitched right across the engine and yelled as his bare hands came against hot metal. The doctor, thrown on his back, could not help him. Mr. Gwynn was rolling on the floor of the cockpit, having bashed his head against the side of the door through which he had been staring. As she righted herself, the boat threw Michael off the engine.

  ‘Take a hold!’ yelled the doctor, back at the carburettor. It would not flood. ‘The feed is choked. Where’s your tools?’

  As she was flung wildly again, Michael this time held on, though his feet were thrown against the engine. He got round to a locker on the doctor’s side. Suddenly they were facing each other.

  ‘Your petrol tank?’ asked the doctor in a level searching voice.

  The petrol tank, painted white, was pinned flat against the wooden wall, on the port side of the door. Michael turned to it and rapped it. It rang like an empty drum. It was empty.

  ‘Have you a spare tin?’

  Forward through the cabin staggered Michael, followed by the doctor, past the tiny galley and lavatory, into the bow of the Stormy Petrel.

  ‘Christ!’ cried Michael. ‘He’s taken it out of her!’

  There were odds and ends of gear but no petrol tin.

  ‘The blasted fool! The damned idiot!’ His invective grew. His rage consumed him.

  ‘Have you a bit of sail?’ asked the doctor sharply.

  The boat threw them. They collided. ‘Have you no sail?’

  There had been a triangular sail that could be laced to the mast. But it had been getting mouldy. For several weeks it had been drying in one of the outhouses. It had never, in the life of the boat, been needed.

  There was no sail.

  Nothing, thought the doctor, as he stared at Michael, could now save them from being smashed on the cliff walls. Nothing.

  Michael left him, in a wild mad energy, to search lockers, to do something. The doctor stood where he was, his eyes going over the useless junk in that narrow heaving space. A steep sea, catching her at an awkward angle, might fill the open cockpit at any moment. She was top heavy for this game.

  He turned and a noisy snore in the lavatory drew his eyes. This white porcelain lavatory, with its pump handle and seawater flush, had had an extraordinary attraction for the local youth. They had never seen anything like it. The very thought of it made them laugh. Many of them had visited it in the dead of night when Erchie was fast asleep. The lavatory boat!

  The doctor found Michael stretched on the floor. He had cracked his head, but he was squirming, he was getting up. The doctor helped him. The crack, however, had only increased his wrath. He was in a vile temper. The doctor saw that the desire to destroy, to smash what had brought this upon them was now psychopathological. It usurped the fear of death. It drew for a moment a blind anger across the doctor’s own eyes, but he steadied himself, and turned away.

  As he got to the cockpit a wash of green water came over the square stern. Mr. Gwynn was working back and fore the handle of the round pump. The sight eased the doctor’s mood, but when he turned to the Stormy Isles, they seemed to have come much nearer, their cliffs rising out of the sea, curtains of foam, ever renewed, hanging in the air, the skerries boiling. Half an hour away at the outside.

  ‘Can’t you get her right?’ called Mr. Gwynn.

  The doctor, hanging on as they got thrown into the trough, looked down into Mr. Gwynn’s eyes. ‘No petrol.’

  The eyes looked back. There was no humour in them now. But they were steady.

  The doctor nodded, then turned away to look on the seas behind, as Michael lurched out.

  It happens sometimes that one may catch sight of such a boat coming through seas in a dream. The up-jut of bow, lost, then rising again, lost, but coming on, the peak of sail dark as the fin of a basking shark.

  The sight of it, less than half a mile away, had a powerful effect on the doctor, somehow powerful and piercing sweet, like music.

  They followed his look and saw the lobster boat, creaming on the wave top, falling away, but coming again, coming.

  Mr. Gwynn got to his feet. No one spoke.

  ‘What’ll she do?’ cried Michael.

  ‘I don’t know,’ answered the doctor.

  ‘They can never take us off.’

  ‘No, they can’t take us off.’

  ‘Well, what the hell! What can we do?’

  The doctor turned from that wild voice to stare at the Stormy Isles. There was sea-room yet.

  Norman. Norman at the helm. William and Angus. They made no sign as they drew near. Their faces were quiet and impassive, their eyes on the Stormy Petrel, on her white pitching bulk.

  The calm faces, the steady eyes, the silence among the three men. The music went over the doctor again and stung his eyes. It was a lovely thing to watch. His own people, the men of the sea, with seamanship in them. He could have yelled to them in heart’s greeting. He could go down with them.

  The wave that lifted the three men, left them, rushed on the Stormy Petrel and threw her. There could be no nearness, no precision. All a mad wallowing and tossing. Danger in nearness, fatal danger.

  They were coming straight for them, straight at the cockpit where they sat, gripping the gunnel.

  Then Norman must have spoken, for Angus, the slow-witted youth with the big bones and the ginger hair, whom Betsy loved, took up an end of rope and passed it under his armpits.

  They were coming for them, right down on them. Norman turned his head slowly over his shoulder, looking back at the seas. Angus twisted round and faced the Stormy Petrel, crouching. William lay back, a rope fender between his knees.

  Norman had the sheet, which passed through a wooden purchase hole, in one hand, the tiller in the other.

  They rose to be thrown at them, and fell away. Then they were coming. They were coming now. Listing over, seething, the sheet eased, the tiller pressing slowly against Norman’s side, racing, racing in on the Stormy Petrel’s stern, but already easing away, Angus crouching on his feet, no word spoken, nothing cried, and then Angus is up, he leaps, the Venture dips from his foot, but his open hands just reach the cockpit edge and grip, the doctor dives at him, so does Michael, Mr. Gwynn gets a hold, and Angus wet to the neck is in over, smiling to them in his awkward way, even while he is already laying on the rope with strong hands.

  William, from the Venture, raises a hand in salute and smiles. A neat bit of work, desperately tried in a desperate moment.

  Hand over fist, in comes the rope, the Venture’s mizzen sail tied to the end of it. Angus throws a glance at the Stormy Petrel’s twelve-foot mast. Near its top there is an opening, like an eye in a needle. He nods to the doctor and says, ‘I’ll take the mast down and maybe you could shove this end through?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the doctor. The fellow looked as if he were asking a difficult favour on a quiet afternoon. But the doctor had hardly gripped the rope-end, when Angus was on top of the deck, flat against the skylight as she heaved over, then on to the mast.
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  It was stuck, he couldn’t loosen it, couldn’t get it free. It came suddenly and at the wrong moment. It fell with a crash and, as the boat heeled over, Angus was swept away. But he had seen the small iron posts, set far apart, with the thin wire rope threaded through them and running right round the edge of the high deck. Even as he fetched up against an iron post he dived for the mast and held on. As the boat righted herself, mast and man were swung the opposite way. Angus grabbed the skylight. The doctor got hold of the mast-top and threaded the rope through the eye over the single wheel. Before he had finished, Angus was spreadeagled, ready.

  At the balanced moment he rose to his feet, light as a dancer, and stepped the mast in a trice, then was down again, busy with his ropes. All at once the wet sail flapped out, enveloping him. The Stormy Petrel began to nose round. The doctor leapt to the tiller. She was coming alive, rising out of her sickness, staggering a little, but rising, shaking herself, shaking the waves from her. Angus crawled aft, taking the sheet with him, slid off his stomach into the cockpit and trimmed his sail. Then he turned to the doctor. ‘You can feel her?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered the doctor. ‘Here, come and take it.’

  ‘Och, it’s all right,’ said Angus, but he took the tiller.

  ‘Think you have plenty of room?’ Angus did not reply for half a minute. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘She’s doing better than I thought.’ Then he added,

  ‘Though I wouldn’t like to have to try and sail her into a wind!’

  The doctor laughed, easing the pressure in his breast. Angus looked modestly pleased.

  ‘What brought you out?’

  ‘Someone saw you,’ replied Angus. ‘And someone said that Erchie said last night he was going this morning for petrol to the merchant’s at Badloan. So we wondered.’

  ‘I see,’ said the doctor.

  ‘It’s taking off,’ said Angus. ‘It will be a good evening yet.’

  ‘Where are we going now?’

  ‘She can’t do much but run before it. So we could just fetch Glaspool by keeping on. I suppose it’s the petrol you’re out of?’

  ‘It is,’ said the doctor.

  ‘We’d get it there,’ said Angus.

  He took the outside passage, following the Venture, and as Mr. Gwynn stared at the cliff wall of the first island, spouting its white plumes on the air, he realized the merciless nature of what would have been their end. Michael was on the other side of the cabin door, also looking, with a slight congestion in his face, a stormy moodiness in his eye.

  Mr. Gwynn called to him: ‘I think your deiseil worked after all!’

  Michael’s mouth twisted. ‘I shouldn’t have given it the chance,’ he muttered.

  ‘This business of getting them to save you is becoming chronic.’ Mr. Gwynn laughed. He was full of mocking exhilaration. He could see Michael was having his difficult moment. So he prodded him again, taunted him.

  Michael began to react. ‘It would have been a cleaner end, a damned sight cleaner, than some of you deserve.’ His teeth flashed, but the colour deepened in his face.

  ‘Is the Roaring Cave far yet?’ inquired Mr. Gwynn, with mirthful satire.

  Meantime the doctor and Angus, both of whom Michael ignored, were seated by the tiller.

  ‘It’s not like Erchie,’ Angus was saying. ‘He’s very canny and he knows the sea. Did you look everywhere?’

  ‘All over her. He used to carry a spare tin for’ard in the bows. It’s not there.’

  ‘He would have taken it up to the house likely. Though why?’

  ‘Why? as you say.’

  ‘You’re quite sure?’

  ‘You mean you’d like to look yourself? Go ahead.’

  ‘Oh no. I don’t mean that.’

  ‘Go on.’ The doctor took the tiller.

  Angus somewhat shame-faced but with his light-blue eyes clear as sea-water, got up. A comfortably broad seat ran right round the cockpit. A wooden skirting dropped from its outer edge to the floorboards. Angus tried the skirting with a sharp kick from his toe that drew the attention of Michael and Mr. Gwynn. The skirting was nailed into position. All three watched him as his eye ran along it and came to rest on a simple swivel catch, painted the same colour as the wood. He stooped and with difficulty turned it. A section of wood fell out. Slipping to his knees, he removed from its carefully wedged position a two-gallon tin of petrol.

  ‘I felt sure he would have it somewhere,’ said Angus smiling.

  No one moved for some time.

  Michael caught the tin, weighed it in his hands. It was full. ‘God!’

  The doctor kept staring at the tin. Then he lifted his eyes to Angus’s face. ‘Did you know it was there?’

  ‘No,’ answered Angus.

  ‘A bad business, Angus. We’d have gone to glory – with that tin there.’

  ‘But why did he shift it?’ asked Mr. Gwynn.‘He always kept the tin forward in the bow. Didn’t he, Michael?’

  ‘Always,’ answered Michael. ‘Forget him, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Angus.

  Michael paused and looked at him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It will not be the same tin. The one that he kept in the peak for’ard will be up at the house right enough. This will be the one that he will have hidden on himself.’

  It was as if he gave all Erchie’s character there, and the humour of it got hold of them and released them. It weakened them, too. They sat down and swayed in a mirth of nonsense and friendliness.

  Then Michael dived into the cabin and came out with the petrol filler. The doctor screwed off the cap of the tank and together they emptied the tin into it.

  ‘How far will that take us?’ asked Angus.

  Michael turned at the cabin door. ‘That’s a thought, isn’t it?’

  The doctor looked at Angus. ‘Like Erchie, you want to have something up your sleeve – in case?’

  ‘Maybe it would be as well,’ suggested Angus.

  They laughed and held a meeting.

  ‘I am wondering,’ said Angus, ‘what they are going to do. So long as they keep going ahead, we can follow at our leisure for a bit.’

  The others had forgotten the Venture in their excitement. When Angus was questioned as to Norman’s intentions, he answered, ‘He may run for Glaspool, too, and then maybe you could tow us home?’

  ‘Splendid!’ cried Michael, coming to full life.

  ‘It’s the tide,’ said Angus. ‘It’s with us just now. If it wasn’t it would have been a different story.’

  ‘How?’ Michael looked at him.

  ‘If the tide had been going against that sea…’ He smiled.

  ‘You seem to have run us into a few risks, Doctor,’ said Michael.

  The doctor smiled and looked at Angus.

  Thus encouraged, Angus said, ‘He was also wanting to have a look at the Roaring Cave.’

  ‘Was he?’ Michael’s voice was unexpectedly quiet and piercing.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Angus. ‘He’s making in now.’

  Their heads shot round. They were past the first island and coming abreast of the second. The Venture was now running on a course that would give her a fair view of the tail-end of the third island and the Roaring Cave. As Angus drew clear of the second island, he made no effort to follow. Angus was waiting for the moment when the Venture would fall away on her southerly course. She did not fall away. She was coming round in a sweep.

  ‘She may be seeing something,’ he muttered out of a drawn expression.

  Michael went white, unable to speak.

  ‘Start her up,’ said Angus.

  When the engine was going, Angus handed the tiller to the doctor, leapt from the seat to the top deck, ran along it nimbly, and in no time had the sail secured. Back in the cockpit he at once took the tiller from the doctor. He never spoke. He had forgotten them. Round in a slow sweep came the Stormy Petrel. The Venture had passed from view beyond a vast lump of cliff and seething skerry.

 
‘Stand by her,’ said Angus.

  ‘Right!’ called Michael, by gear lever and throttle.

  As they came round, they saw the Venture, sail down, with William and Norman on the oars, pulling for the narrow beach of the Roaring Cave. To one side of it, on a shelf of black rock, they saw a boat.

  ‘That’s Charlie’s boat,’ said Angus.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Angus ran the Stormy Petrel up towards the Venture, slowing the engine with a flattening gesture from his hand. At his final gesture, Michael slid the lever into neutral. It was sheltered here, but there was a heavy heave in the water.

  ‘What now?’ shouted Angus.

  ‘Hold her there,’ answered Norman.

  They stared at the abandoned boat. There was no sign of life.

  ‘Come with us, Doctor,’ cried Norman.

  William fended off as the doctor changed boats.

  ‘We’re wasting petrol,’ said Angus to Michael. ‘I’ll try for bottom.’

  As Angus got a hold with the anchor, the Venture drew near the beach. Landing was a nasty business and for a little while the two men hung on the oars. Then William took both oars, and, when the bow touched for a moment, Norman and the doctor leapt. As the water came surging about Norman’s thighs, he heaved against the Venture, then waded ashore. As they lifted their eyes, Charlie appeared in the Cave’s mouth, clad in a torn shirt and trousers.

  They all saw him and Charlie saw them. He put a hand against the rock and stared out of his clay-grey face.

  None of them spoke. No one called. Norman and the doctor went up the slithering stones.

  ‘Charlie,’ said Norman, in a slow voice, warm with affection, ‘I’m glad to see you, boy.’

  Charlie did not answer. He turned and went into the cave, staggering on the stones.

  They followed him until he stopped. Lying under a ledge was the body of Flora, covered to the chin with the sail of Charlie’s boat. The doctor got down on his knees. She was not dead.

  The doctor got up and looked directly at Charlie. ‘She’s sleeping.’

  Charlie looked back at the doctor, but in a moment his eyes seemed to lose their focus. ‘I think so,’ he said.