by Julia Jones
Mike and the others would back her up. She wasn’t on her own anymore.
Elsevier would be taken away and her mother would be sent to a hospital. Helen didn’t know where she would live or go to school. Nothing could be worse than these last months when the cockerel had been her only friend.
Reluctantly she eased herself round the edge of the spray hood and onto the narrow side deck. She did as Luke had done. She got down and crawled. The waves were growing wilder and less predictable. Maybe the tide had turned again or there could already be wash from the big ships travelling fast along the deep water lanes. Visibility was minimal in this rain-soaked air.
Helen had good balance. She was at ease with water from her rowing and she’d lived on Drie Vrouwen all summer. She’d already done this crossing once.
Her own fear shocked her as she inched forward.
The barge was at an angle to the swell. They couldn’t risk her getting across the waves again – as she had when Elsevier turned her eastwards.
Helen’s instinct had told her that they could make the most of her length, weight and comparative lack of resistance by skilful hand-steering. But the Kapitein had lashed the tiller and chosen to get drunk.
Drie Vrouwen’s sliding motion was becoming uncontrolled. It wouldn’t be long before she’d swivel broadside and lie trapped in a wave trough waiting for capsize.
There was the single guard wire on the seaward side of the deck, no sheets or jackstays lying along the flat surface and nothing to hold onto beyond the spray hood or the cabin structure. They had no life jackets, no harnesses and nothing to assist a rescue if anyone went over the side. The inflatable dinghy was hidden in the forepeak: Luke’s elderly kayak was wedged underneath the forward bulwarks. She’d pulled it on board to avoid leaving it abandoned in the Deben but it wouldn’t work as any sort of life raft. Not in these seas.
She had to reach her mother. She got down onto her stomach and wriggled.
The wind hit harder as she reached the low cabin top. There was some light here, leaking from the thick glass panels in the roof of the saloon. They’d been concealed beneath the tarpaulin but the tarpaulin had gone. The light gleamed crimson on the gloss paint of the carving and diffused upwards until it was lost in the night.
There was a low metal rail welded to the roof. Helen ran her hands along the rail as far as she could reach. The only cords she could feel had snapped or had been cut. They were attached to nothing.
She was glad of that rail. She gripped it tightly with her left hand while she pulled herself up and felt for the prize.
The barge lurched. The lion crashed across the cabin top. Helen whipped her fingers out of the way and flattened herself to the deck again. As she glanced upwards to check that it wasn’t coming all the way over, the light shone fleetingly on its strong, dark breastplate and the curve of its crimson tail where it tapered into sea-creature.
It looked alive and ready to attack.
Helen lay where she was until the barge plunged downwards once again and the monster slid in the opposite direction. She refused to believe that it had snarled.
Safe to sit up again? Hold onto the rail again and take another look?
The red lion had shifted from its crosswise position. It was working its way round to lie parallel to the ship’s movement. Once it reached that point it would have the freedom to roll instead of slide.
There was her mother’s leg in her clog and knitted sock and long wet dress. Further up and the light reflected off her mother’s stiff, black oilskin. She was, as Elsevier had said, riding the lion.
It was clear that there was nothing connecting the trophy to the barge except its own weight and that of her mother. Plus those low metal rails which it hit every time it slid sideways. Helen could see that the one closest to her was already buckled.
The cabin top started to tip in her direction once again as Drie Vrouwen heaved herself up the next big wave. Helen lay flat and wriggled forward as swiftly as she dared. Then she sat up again and gazed back at her mother.
Hendrike hadn’t noticed her. She was gripping the lion between her legs and holding out her arms like wings. Her white hair must surely be drenched yet, as the light caught it streaming in the wind and rain, it gleamed as pale as spindrift.
And she was singing. Helen had never heard her mother sing before. Chanting, drumming, wailing yes – but this sounded like something very old…and beautiful.
“Probably believes she’s been transformed into some kind of mythical water-creature,” thought Helen bitterly. It hurt to see her mother so blissful. There was so much to worry about. So many practical things: fuel levels, steering every wave correctly, crossing the shipping lanes in poor visibility with no navigation lights, the fate of their prisoners. Yet her mother was away with the sea-nymphs, riding the storm and singing.
Those tears again. Hot, angry tears that no-one would ever know she’d shed. Tears of impotence and rejection and despair. Tears of hatred, even. Her mother had forgotten that she was a woman with a teenage daughter who had loved her. She saw Helen, when she saw her at all, merely as an assistant. She had transferred her devotion to Elsevier, who fed her drugs and despised her. Elsevier, who had stolen Hendrike’s meticulous, misguided, historical research and was going to dump her as soon as they were back within range of a press conference.
Singing!
Te deum laudamus. Her mother was in ecstasy. She loved the lion of the Stavoren and all it represented. She was happier in this moment than she’d ever been in her life, probably. Happier, certainly, than she’d ever be again.
A huge wave hit them. Bigger than anything they’d felt yet.
They were near the deep water route. Some gigantic vessel must have passed unseen. This was its wash, first of the twin lines of cresting waves that had fanned out in its wake.
The lion slid backwards and hit the raised area of the cabin top, twisting with the force of its recoil.
Hendrike leaned forward and flung her arms around its neck. The figurehead swung parallel with the line of the boat. The low rails wouldn’t impede it any longer.
Drie Vrouwen hung on the brow of the wave.
Helen pulled herself as far out of the way as she could. Her eyes met her mother’s. They locked. There was recognition.
“Mother!” shouted Helen.
“Goodbye my daughter! May the Great God always bless you!” Hendrike shouted back.
Then she wrapped herself more tightly to the lion and stared out into the pit of the waves.
The barge plunged down the precipice. The lion and Hendrike flew off on a course of their own. Deep into the lightless ocean.
Drie Vrouwen’s bow hit the water as hard as if as if it were solid. There was spray cascading everywhere. Helen could only cling, white-knuckled. She couldn’t see at all.
There were crashes and dim screams from below deck.
Then she felt Drie Vrouwen climb the second wave. She didn’t think they could survive another.
There was water pooling everywhere. It had surged over the cabin top and down the side decks and was cascading back into the sea.
Helen dragged herself up and sprinted for the cockpit, her trainers splashing in the stream. She couldn’t be bothered with handholds. The hammering rain was no more that an irritant. She’d lost her fear.
The spray hood had been wrenched half-off by the force of the water pouring over the barge but there was Elsevier still. She was balanced on the aft deck using both hands to pull her ridiculous hat back on. She had made no effort to unlash the helm or turn the ship. Probably hadn’t even pressed the Man Overboard button.
“God damn the bloody cow,” she shouted when she saw Helen. “She’s lost my prize.”
Helen stopped. She remembered her mother as she’d last seen her.
In ecstasy.
She remembered that she
’d been recognised and blessed.
If that freak wave had been a big ship’s wash they would hit the far side in a moment. There’d be another huge, destabilising lurch. Even through the rain and the night she could see it coming, white water foaming along its crest.
Elsevier stood on the exposed aft deck shaking her fist after Hendrike. She was oblivious to danger. Helen stepped forward and pressed the Man Overboard button on the plotter. Then she turned to face the Kapitein.
There would be a body overboard – though it wouldn’t be a man’s.
***
The rain had stopped before sunrise. The wet sun struggled through torn clouds staining them blood red. There was a mast coming over the horizon – two masts, three masts with cream sails reefed from this night of heavy weather.
The people on board the sailing vessel were anxious. Where in the wide sea would they find a single motor barge? How fast would she be travelling? How far could she have gone?
The harbourmaster at the mouth of the River Deben had noticed a Dutch barge in trouble on the bar. He’d been about to go out in his launch and investigate when she’d freed herself and had set off northwards. The heaped shingle on the Bawdsey side made it impossible for him to see any more once she’d changed course by the Woodbridge Haven so he’d phoned a fisherman who lived further up the coast and asked him to keep an eye out to sea. People who were that reckless to set out over the Deben bar on a spring ebb, with the forecast as bad as it was, might, in the harbourmaster’s opinion, be so pig-ignorant that they’d try entering the River Ore against the tide – once they’d discovered how rough it were going to be around the corner there.
The fisherman rang back almost two hours later. The barge had come inside the Whiting Bank but had carried on past Orfordness despite the fading light and worsening conditions. The harbourmaster informed the coastguard who tried to make contact with the vessel using VHF. There was no response.
Enquiries at Fynn Creek, where there was now a police investigation, had established that the barge, Drie Vrouwen, had originally come from Amsterdam and was likely to be returning there. A confused old man had been trying to tell officers a story about something or somewhere named Stavoren. Police established that Stavoren was a small town off the IJsselmeer in northern Holland. The farmer who was caring for the old man expressed surprise that he’d managed to remember this single word. He wasn’t usually good on names.
If the barge was going north up the coast to Lowestoft she’d probably be all right unless she got herself into trouble on the shoals. If she was attempting to cross eastwards – either to Amsterdam or, indeed, further north towards the IJsselmeer – she was going to find conditions extremely challenging. The coastguard agreed to stand a listening watch and put out an alert to any other vessels in the area. No search operation was thought practicable before first light – especially as no request for help had been received.
The people on the sailing vessel couldn’t wait that long. They blamed themselves for not phoning ahead. They’d been planning to surprise their friend but they’d arrived too late to get into Fynn Creek. They’d anchored further down the river then had been shocked by a text message from his sister to tell them he was missing.
They’d seen the black Dutch barge, they realised. Waved to it even.
Donny, Maggi, Xanthe and Skye knew that they were trapped inside the River Deben for the rest of that tide but they sailed for Bawdsey anyway and talked to the harbourmaster.
It was easy to reef a sea-going junk and there were enough experienced sailors on board for them to organise a watch system. It was equally easy to shake some of the reefs out again and press ahead when they saw the barge they’d been searching for. She was lying head to wind and stationary. Or she could have been moving ahead very, very slowly.
After that single moment of relief, the anxiety was almost worse for the length of time it was taking them to reach her. They failed to get any response either by radio or phone. They wanted to shout or blow a foghorn but of course they were too far away.
The whole situation made them jumpy. Luke wouldn’t have set off for Holland on a whim, however much he wanted adventure. Or would he?
“He’s only twelve.”
“And a boy.”
“I resent that,” said Donny. “And anyway,” he added quickly, “Anna was certain he hadn’t written the text himself. Too coherent, she said.”
Xanthe and Maggi exchanged glances.
“We could maybe run up some flags? Use the dragon to get attention. If Luke’s on board he’ll understand.”
“And if he can’t? If he’s … some sort of prisoner?”
“Anyone else will simply think that we’re eccentric.”
“Eccentric?” exclaimed Xanthe, looking at their sturdy bamboo masts and the three broad battened sails, close-hauled to the morning breeze. “Doesn’t everyone sail pirate-built Chinese junks off the coast of Suffolk in November?”
“The person we saw earlier didn’t look like she’d have given us the time of day if we were the front page feature in Classic Boat.”
“Did you see her hat! And I think she might even have been wearing some sort of cloak. She was far worse than eccentric – she was skulduggerous!”
None of them really want to talk or make jokes. They were desperate to reach the barge and discover for themselves what had happened. Skye, Donny’s mother, had fetched an armful of flags from the cabin locker and was spreading them wordlessly on the bridge deck.
“Here’s the dragon,” said Maggi. “We’ll use that. Do we want add anything? Like a message?”
“Threaten them with U? Red and white quarters? ‘You are running into danger.’ What about X? Blue cross, white background? ‘Stop carrying out your intentions and wait for my signals.’”
“Yeah, brill, Xanthe, 100% guaranteed to make them push the throttle down if they’ve anything to hide. I don’t know why they’re dawdling atm but we deffo want them to stay that way.”
“Okay, okay, point taken. No need to go on. We’ll use K – yellow and blue vertical stripes – ‘I wish to communicate with you.’ Happy now? The International Code hasn’t got a flag for ‘pretty please’.”
They were all of them tense and trying not to snap. It was seven o’clock in the morning. The tide had turned an hour ago and the waves were large but smooth and regular again. The air felt wet and the sky was full of clouds.
Skye had the best eyesight of them all so she was concentrating on the barge. Donny was steering and the two girls were scanning the surface of the sea. It had become a habit. You never knew what you might come across; a baulk of timber, a breakaway length of net, a metal container …
They didn’t admit their fears. Not even to each other. Just kept that extra lookout.
Maggi moved towards her sister. She touched her arm and pointed. There was something in the distance being lifted up and over the swell. Something that disturbed the surface of the water but only rarely broke it.
Then Skye began signing. She was too fast for the girls to understand so Donny translated.
“She says there’s a kayak being launched from the barge. A child getting in.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sole Bay IV
Friday 7 November, first of the waxing crescent
Angel, Luke
Angel would never forget Helen’s call for help in the lightless early morning.
“Come quickly please. I need friends. They haf all gone.”
The three of them were hidden, waiting for Elsevier or Hendrike to come down the companion way. They were ready to jump them, hit them, push them into the side cabin and lock the door.
They were frightened. There’d been those two gut-wrenching leaps when lockers had burst open and plates had flown spinning from their racks. Then, just as they were picking themselves up and getting back into their pos
itions, there’d been a third destabilising crash.
Helen shouted again, desperation in her voice. “No more Royal Katherine. Help me. Please.”
The barge was surrounded by the deepest darkness Angel had ever known. Not even a hint of dawn visible through the driving rain. The spray hood had gone so there was no shelter. Nothing but the surging water either side and the thick rain pouring down.
Helen had switched on Drie Vrouwen’s navigation lights. They made puddles in the dark: red to port and green to starboard. There was some light from the open door of the cabin, some light from the compass and the chart-plotter. Enough to show them Helen’s blonde hair loose and whipping in the wind and her face so gaunt that Angel could see every bone of her skull.
“My mother and the lion. They haf flown into the sea. The Kapitein went after.”
It seemed terrible that she should have to say such things in a language that wasn’t her own.
“Gone overboard! We should be searching! Where are your torches?”
“I don’t think so. It’s too dark. And you look at the sea. We can’t come round in it.”
“Oh Helen!”
“You will help me?”
“That’s such a no-brainer,” rushed Angel.
“Of course we will,” said her father. “You can rely on us completely.”
Then Mike switched language and began to speak in Dutch and Helen began to cry. It was extraordinary how she stood there sobbing in the windy darkness, helming carefully into each oncoming wave – mainly by feel as she couldn’t see them until Drie Vrouwen’s bow was already reaching skywards. She’d slowed the engine revs right down, but those big waves kept coming and the cockpit was so open without the canvas cover.
Angel hung on to the nearest bit of solid boat and looked around her. She was trying to understand. There were two people out there in the cold sea. They must be dying or dead.
Her dad was still talking but she sensed he was probably repeating himself. What could anyone say that would be right in this situation?
“Helen,” said Luke. “I think I can steer. Just show me what you want.”