Throughout the summer I had never known him so silent as during this trip to Guernsey. The gale had left a long sea behind it that did nothing to enhance our comfort aboard, and a sulky shipmate only added to my annoyance. By the time we reached St Peters Port I could have kicked him with the greatest goodwill in the world.
He cheered up a bit when we got in harbour, and I began to be sorry for him—with a little touch of contempt, perhaps—thinking that it was the roughish weather he had been suffering from. He worked well, as he always did now, getting out the ballast, but in the evening staggered me by announcing that he was leaving the Luck and Charity.
‘What on earth for?’ I asked, fairly taken aback.
‘That was our agreement, James, if you remember. I was to leave you where and when I pleased. Well, I please now and here.’
‘But why? Have I done anything?’
‘What haven’t you done? You picked me up out at elbows and starving, and you’ve put fresh life into me. That’s what you’ve done. And I’m going to repay you by deserting just as the winter’s coming on. I feel a sweep, old man, but I must go.’
‘Is it the winter you’re afraid of?’ I asked.
‘Call it that. I can’t give you a better reason or I would. Don’t make any more difficulties about it. I feel ashamed to leave you like this, but I tell you I must go. That’s all.’
‘What are you going to do? Have you enough money to get on with?’
‘No; I haven’t. That’s another thing I had qualms in tackling you about. Will you lend me forty or fifty quid? I can’t give you any security beyond my bare promise to repay.’
That was a surprise. Of course his pay hadn’t been large—only thirty bob a week—but, as I was doing well, I had considered it my place to make things easier for the other two. On weekly boats the men are expected to find themselves out of their weekly thirty shillings, but Voogdt had messed with me, and both he and ’Kiah had drawn good bonuses on each voyage. ’Kiah I knew had banked nearly twenty pounds, and I told Voogdt so.
‘You ought to have done as well,’ I said.
‘I’ve done better, if you want to know,’ he answered. ‘Thanks to you I’ve banked over twenty, but I want fifty more for a special purpose. Now don’t bother me with more questions, there’s a good chap, but just let me have the money and be gone.’
I grumbled a little, but drew a draft for fifty on the company’s agents, and Voogdt buttoned it up in his pocket.
‘That’s one more good turn I owe you,’ he said. ‘If I live through the winter you shall have a hundred per cent. on that loan. If I don’t you’ve lost your money and must grin and bear it. Goodbye, old chap. Keep all my loose traps and use what you want. I shall be with you again in the spring.’
We shook hands and he went on deck. I heard him shout to ’Kiah and say he was off on a holiday, and then his footsteps went over our plank gangway and he was gone. I had shipped him on a quayside without warning, and found him a good man throughout, and now I lost him in the same way on another quayside, and missed him more than I can say.
We took road metal from Guernsey. It really amounted to a trip out and back in ballast, but Voogdt wasn’t there to jeer, and I felt too low-spirited at his loss to think much about it. I shipped an islander in his place, a man by the name of Rance, a pilot who had lost his certificate. He was a smart sailor, but a quarrelsome little brute when in liquor, and as he drank heavily in port—which was, I suspect, the reason for his losing his ticket—we were no longer the happy family we had been.
The first night he came aboard he had a violent row with ’Kiah, and his trident snapping and squabbling drew me forward to see what was the matter. Looking down through the companion, I could see them both by the light of the hanging lamp. ’Kiah was in bed trying to sleep, his blankets drawn above his ears, and the new hand, a rather bow-legged little beast with an enormous moustache, stood in the middle of the fo’castle rating him in French and English and Guernsey patois mixed.
‘Cochon!’ he yelled. ‘English pig!’ But still ’Kiah lay inert. ‘You English pig! You dir-r-ty Topsham dab!’
Why the name of his birthplace should have roused ’Kiah I can’t tell, but it did. He put one bare leg over the side of his bunk and blinked at the gesticulating figure before him.
‘You say that again,’ he demanded.
‘Dir-r-ty Topsham dab. I will say eet twenty times. Dir-r-ty Topsham—’
’Kiah moved as slowly as a bear, but in his sluggish way he was immensely strong. He caught Rance by the feet and the man was on the floor on his back in an instant. Then, in a short shirt and nothing else he started to climb the ladder, dragging his adversary after him by his ankles. When he had got him on deck, open-mouthed and staring, I thought it was time to intervene.
‘What are you going to do with him, ’Kiah?’ I asked.
‘’Eave ’m auverboard,’ he said stolidly.
‘You mustn’t do that, man.’
‘’E caaled me a dirty Topsham dab,’ said ’Kiah placidly.
‘Well, he doesn’t know any better,’ I told him. ‘Now you’ve got him on deck, kick him down into the fo’castle again, and tell him we don’t allow quarrelling on this boat.’
’Kiah did as he was told, and Rance, stupefied with sheer funk, behaved comparatively well henceforth.
The winter trade in the Channel was no joke, and threading the shoals off the flat Dutch coast was worse. But we were well clothed and fed and earning good money, and remembering the last winter neither ’Kiah nor myself felt inclined for grumbling. Cheyne showed himself desirous of our comfort: our cargoes were lighter; a couple of additional men were hired at Terneuzen to help get extra ballast aboard, and we helped ourselves at will to as much coal as we wanted from the company’s stores.
Nothing happened. It was just one dreary, cold, wet voyage after another, with an occasional spell of idleness, waiting for the wind to shift or lull in our service. I even began to welcome the idea of reaching Terneuzen and having a decent meal and a talk with Cheyne at the end of each voyage.
‘That’s a new man,’ he said, when he first saw Rance. ‘Where’s that long, lean Cockney of yours gone?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘When he joined he said he might ship south for the winter.’
‘I don’t like changing men,’ Cheyne said, which rather surprised me, for I hadn’t given him credit for that much decency. ‘What’s this chap like?’
‘I don’t care for him. He’s a sailorman, though.’
‘Oh, is he?’ said Cheyne, and later had him ashore and gave him a drink or two.
After that Rance always spoke of him with great respect: ‘A tr-r-ue gentleman, Mr Cheyne.’ A good job somebody thought so; but, as I say, I was glad of the man’s company myself at that time.
We made pretty much the same round of voyages as we had been making through the summer: in and out of bleak, cold little ports, now deserted, that had been gay with summer visitors when we had seen them last.
One visitor seemed loth to leave the south coast, though, and that was Ward. I hadn’t seen either of the two girls since Miss Pamily boarded us at Dartmouth but Ward came aboard two or three times. Even in the winter he paid us a visit or two, and the more I saw of the man the better I liked him. It seemed a pity he should take so much interest in such an obviously rotten affair as this company; but it was none of my business to say so.
One day early in the new year as we were entering Terneuzen we found a big galliot, of Dutch build, but flying German colours, lying at anchor about a mile down the river-bank from our headquarters. It seemed a queer place for such a boat to anchor, and when we got ashore I asked Cheyne what she was doing there.
‘You’d better board her and ask,’ he said rudely. ‘I’ve enough to do minding my own business.’
Next day there was no reason to ask. The people aboard were broaching her cargo, apparently of deals, and floating them ashore. Cheyne got out a pair of very fine glass
es he had and spent most of the morning watching them, and in the afternoon he went for a stroll in their direction.
‘Do you know any German?’ he asked me next morning.
‘A few words.’
‘Then knock off for an hour and see if you can find out what those chaps are about down there. Looks to me as if they’re bringing some sort of portable house ashore, but I can’t understand German, and can’t make head or tail of what they say.’
I went down, dirty as I was, and fell in talk with the skipper of the galliot, a German Frieslander from Delfzyl. His cargo was building material, but he didn’t know what it was to be used for, so after a chat I went back to the A.T.C. offices, not much wiser than I went.
‘What is it?’ Cheyne asked. He tried to make the question sound casual, but he was obviously ill at ease.
‘Building material,’ I replied. ‘Deals and corrugated roofing principally. There are a lot of sheets of heavier iron plating, like boiler-iron.’
‘Yes—yes. I saw that myself. But what’s it for?’
‘The skipper didn’t know,’ I said.
‘Or you couldn’t understand his talk?’ Cheyne sneered. ‘I thought you said you understood German. I wouldn’t have wasted your time like that if I’d known you didn’t.’
‘I can talk it better than you,’ I said, inclined to lose my temper, like a fool.
‘That don’t say much. I told you I couldn’t speak the language at all. Now, come on; get that stuff out of her and don’t stand jawing here.’
Our next trip took us to Penzance, and we were away ten days. I’ve good cause to remember it, for it was very near being my last trip for the Axel Trading Company. When we got back to the Scheldt the galliot had gone, but another vessel was moored in her place, and ashore the deals and iron were materialising into one small shed and two larger ones.
Cheyne was fidgeting about like a cat on hot bricks, and when I asked him what the sheds were for, he fairly snarled at me, all pretence to civility gone.
‘Go and find out. Do, there’s a good chap. If you really can find out I’ll give you a fiver. I will, straight.’
I earned the fiver easily enough, for there was no difficulty this time in finding out what the sheds were for. A young dapper German in charge explained in pretty good English that they were the new premises of the Delfzyl Handeln Gesellschaft, and would be opened for general trading purposes at the end of the following week.
Cheyne almost foamed at the mouth when I told him. He wasn’t particular about his language at any time, but I never heard him blaspheme as he did then.
‘Well, what else can you expect?’ I said, when he’d done. ‘If you’re running a show like this you must expect competition. Good job for you they’re a mile farther from the town than you are. That’s one good thing in your favour. They’ll get fewer callers than you do, for certain.’
He turned on me, furious.
‘What the—do you know about it? In our favour? … Why, you born flaming fool, you don’t think our business is done over a—shop counter, do you?’
‘I don’t know how your business is done, and I don’t care.’
‘Don’t look as if you did, idling ashore here when you might be at your work. Get aboard, d’ye hear?’
‘Look here, Cheyne,’ I said. ‘You say two words more and I’ll see if I can’t manage to lay you out. You offer me a fiver to get you information, and when I come back with it you behave like the gutter-bred swine you are.’
I naturally expected the sack, after that, and I determined if I got it I’d kick him round his own wharf as a farewell, just to square up for past favours. However, instead of sacking me, he was a shade more civil than before, so I’d no reason to regret talking straight for once. But he never paid me the fiver, after all. In the excitement of the moment I forgot it, and when I remembered his promise we were at sea again and it was too late to bother about it.
For all his civility he was still uneasy in his mind about the new company. No one could help seeing that, and again I began to reconstruct my notions about him. I wondered whether he’d invested any money in the concern himself, but somehow couldn’t think him fool enough for that.
He was, though. That afternoon, when he came aboard, he apologised for his language of the morning, and then admitted he was a shareholder.
‘I lost my temper, Capt’n. I’m sorry. You must overlook it. Fact is, this new concern worries me. All my savings are in this venture, and naturally I was a bit upset to learn these other people were on our track.’
I said I’d find out all I could, and next afternoon came back with a pretty considerable budget for him. He took me into the office, shut the door, produced a bottle of whisky and told me to fire away; and I told him all I could.
‘The two big sheds are fifteen paces long by about seven wide—say forty feet by twenty. That’s as near as I could guess without its being noticed that I was pacing them out on purpose. They’re about eight feet high to eaves and thirteen to ridge. The small one’s half that size, say twenty by twelve. The man in charge is a clerk from the company’s head office in Delfzyl—a Frieslander. Van Noppen, he’s called.’
‘A smart chap?’
‘He seems so.’
‘Any machinery there?’
‘Didn’t see any. Why?’
‘What’s become of that boiler plating the galliot landed, then?’
‘I asked him that myself. He said it had been loaded again for Ghent.’
‘He’s a liar, then. I should have seen—But go on. What’s in the sheds? What’s that ship brought down there now?’
‘Some patent fertiliser or other—in bags. I couldn’t see into the sheds. The doors were closed, but the sills were clean and there’s no litter about, so I expect they’re empty yet.’
Cheyne nodded approvingly. ‘Skipper, you’ve got eyes in your head. Where’s this chap Van Noppen living?’
‘In one of the big sheds, I think. At least there’s a stove pipe at the end of one of ’em. The windows are high up under the eaves, and the little shed’s got no windows at all.’
‘Anybody there besides the manager?’
‘Half-a-dozen lumpers getting bags ashore and piling them on the bank.’
‘Lumpers? You mean hands off the vessel?’
‘No, I don’t. They weren’t sailors—not smart enough. Just clay-smeared shore lumpers, like your lot here.’
‘Where did they come from then?’
‘Terneuzen, I suppose.’
‘I should have seen them pass here if they did. What did that galliot sail with?’
‘Ballast, I suppose. I didn’t ask. They couldn’t get anything else from here, could they?’
‘Are they—are they digging out a wharf—like ours?’
‘They’ve made a start. The barrows and planks are lying about.’
‘What do they want barrows and planks for?’ he asked sharply.
‘They’re wheeling the stuff across the bank and dumping it down the slope inside.’
‘Inside?’
‘Yes, inside—inland. Away from the river. I suppose they’ve dumped fifty or sixty tons down over the grass on the inside of the bank. It’s sliding out over the field behind the sheds.’
‘Now—what—the—devil—is—that—for?’ said Cheyne, in a whisper to himself, pausing between every word. Upset? He couldn’t have looked more scared if he’d seen a ghost. I stared at him hard and he did his best to resume the conversation. But I’d done talking. No need of all Voogdt’s warnings to rush back into my mind; no need for me to warn myself that there was something fishy doing. Plain, honest business—even unprofitable business—don’t scare a man like that.
He cleared his throat and reached for the bottle. ‘What do you reckon that is for?’
‘What is what for?’
‘Why are they throwing the mud on the inside of the embankment?’
‘Where else can they put it?’ I asked.
‘Well—
we ship ours as ballast, as you know.’
‘Perhaps they’ve got more paying cargoes than ballast.’
‘Yes—yes. P’raps so. Very likely,’ said he, plainly unconvinced, and so I left him, wondering what on earth was up, and wishing more than ever that Voogdt hadn’t left me as he did.
What ever it was that worried Cheyne it didn’t interfere with business. He was up bright and early next morning, driving away as usual at the ballasting. The wind was strong, nor’-westerly, but he expected one of the other boats next tide, he said, and so sent us off to drop down with the ebb. ‘Anchor off Flushing, if you can’t get out,’ were his parting instructions.
We had to anchor, the wind being almost dead ahead and a lumpy sea outside, and next morning I was waked by the hooter of the Harwich daily boat. It struck me they’d be getting a dusting, so I went on deck to see her come in.
Sure enough they were getting it. The following run of sea made steering difficult, I suppose, for she was yawing about rather badly, and taking it green over her stern every now and then. Naturally there weren’t many passengers on deck—I pictured them all mighty sick in their berths, and pitied the stewards—but two people, a man and a girl, were standing a little way apart in the bows. For the moment the man reminded me of Voogdt, but as the steamer neared us he walked to the other side of the deck and I lost sight of him. The girl, wrapped to the chin and wearing a fur cap or toque, waved a hand cheerily as she passed. I waved back, as one does wave to a stranger’s greeting from a passing boat or train, and then went below to the warm stove, thinking she must be a hardy sort of girl to be on deck in such bitter weather.
The wind lulled in the day, and then shifted to the northward, so that we were able to get under way next morning, but we were past the West Hinder before her face came back to me as something quite familiar. Even then it took an hour of brain-racking before it came to me with a shock that she was Pamily Brand.
The Mystery of the Mud Flats Page 7