Run Before the Wind

by Stuart Woods

  Determined to adopt a direct assault, I drove to Kinsale, intending to beard the lioness in her den, but as I passed the Spaniard, I saw her car parked out front. The pub was filled with Sunday brunchers, most of whom had just fled mass and were now making a joyful noise unto the pint. I saw Connie sitting, alone, at a small table across the room; I headed for her. She did not look up until I had nearly reached her, and then someone else reached her a tiny moment sooner. He was tall and slender and had a shock of carrot-red hair; he sat down next to her, and then I noticed that there were two drinks on the table. I stopped short but too near to change my direction. “Hello, Connie,” I said, as bravely as I could. I had a terrible, hollow sensation.

  “Hello, Will.” There was a slight, polite smile; nothing more. “Have you met Terry? Terry, this is Will Lee.”

  “How are you?” I stuck out my hand.

  “Very well, thanks.” He took it.

  I knew immediately that he not only knew who I was but a great deal more about Connie Lydon and me. I had a flash of them curled up before the fireplace in her cottage on long, winter nights, Connie telling him about the American who had treated her so shabbily. I knew, of course, that she must have been seeing other people, but now, confronted with the fact, I was shocked. I felt as though I had just gotten a Dear John letter.

  “Are you all right these days?” I asked feebly.

  “Very well, thank you.” She paused and took a sip of her drink. “How’s the boat?”

  “It’s going well. We launch in a couple of weeks.”

  “Good.” She didn’t seem to want to say anything further.

  “Nice to have seen you,” I said and turned away. I walked to the bar, found a stool and ordered a pint. I wanted to flee the pub, but I could hardly walk in, say a few words to her and walk directly out. I was trapped there, and I had to make the best of it. I wasn’t doing it very well. I held onto the cool pint with both hands, afraid they would tremble if I removed them. I stared fixedly ahead, but I could still see her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. They chatted amiably. I shrank inside, and the cool lager didn’t seem to help. I felt mildly nauseated. I put my hand to my face and it came away cold and wet. I drank more of the lager. This was my first experience with serious jealousy. I seemed unable to form a coherent thought; my mind was one damp, squishy, emotional sponge; I wrestled to squeeze some rationality from it.

  I finally was able to ask myself a question. Why was I so upset? No reasonable answer. This was a girl I had spent some time with—well, all right, a lot of time with—who now preferred to spend her time with someone else. This wasn’t the first time that had happened, wouldn’t be the last. Not a big deal. A bigger deal than I had thought, though, else why were my hands too slippery to hold onto the pint? Was I jealous? Sure. Why? I evaded the question.

  Shortly, thank God, they got up and left, passing just behind me, laughing about something. About me? Not only jealous, paranoid. I waited until I heard her car drive away, then paid for my drink and left. I drove back to the cottage numb, stricken. By the time I reached home I was overwhelmingly sleepy, my mind seeming to cry out for unconsciousness. I flopped on the living room sofa and slept.

  I was awakened by a familiar noise, a bumping sound, and I did not identify it until I heard Mark curse and Annie laugh. Their voices were ghostly, coming from a distance, and I tried to shake off my grogginess and figure out what was happening. Then I heard the quiet chug of Toscana’s engine, and I knew they were back. The noise was the fiberglass dinghy bumping against the hull of the boat as they picked up the mooring in front of the cottage; it always annoyed Mark to have anything colliding with the shiny topsides of the little yacht. Their voices floated toward me over the water.

  They were just dragging the dinghy up on the foreshore when the telephone rang. I struggled to my feet and picked it up.

  “Is that you, Will?”

  The voice was distant and crackly. English accent. Female. “Jane? Is that you?” I was surprised to hear from her; we didn’t telephone much.

  “Yes. Will, there’s a problem with the boat.”

  I shook my head, still groggy. “No, there’s no problem here; everything is going great; we’re launching in a couple of weeks.”

  “No, you don’t understand. There’s a new problem, something we’ve just found out about.”

  “Hang on,” I said. Mark and Annie were just coming up from the river. “Mark, pick up the extension, will you? It’s Jane; she says there’s a problem.”

  I heard the click as he picked up the phone on his desk. “How are you, Jane? This is Mark Robinson.”

  I realized with some surprise that they’d never met. “Okay, what’s the problem?”

  “D.T. is in the midst of a legal battle over a building project in Dublin. I won’t go into detail, because it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are; all that matters is they’re going to try to take the boat.”

  “Take the boat? How can they do that?”

  “They’ve somehow identified it as an asset of D’s, and I’ve just learned that a solicitor is flying from London to Cork tomorrow morning to meet with a Cork solicitor who is going to file to attach the boat. It’s just harassment, really. This whole business is nothing to do with the boat.”

  Mark spoke up. “Well, can they do it? Can’t we fight it some way? Get a solicitor of our own?”

  “Of course, but I’m told the likelihood is that they’ll ask that the boat be impounded by the court pending settlement of the suit, and that could take months. And no work could be done on it in the meantime.”

  “So what should we do?” Mark asked. “Is there anything at all we can do?”

  “The only thing you can do is to get the boat out of Ireland before court convenes tomorrow morning; preferably to the Channel Islands. There’s apparently a very good yard in Jersey. The process could be stalled long enough there to let you finish the boat.”

  I covered the receiver and called out to Mark. “Jesus, would she be seaworthy enough for that?”

  “Not a hope,” he called back. His voice came on the line again. “Jane, what are our chances of hanging onto the boat long enough to finish her if we appear in court tomorrow and try to make our case?”

  “The best advice I can get is that you’d win in the long run and lose now; but if you can’t get the boat out of the country, I guess there’s no other choice.”

  All three of us were silent for a moment. Finally, Mark spoke. “Jane, we’re going to have to hang up now and see what we can do. We’ll call you tomorrow and let you know; are you in Paris?”

  “Mark, it would be better if I didn’t know anything. If I know, they might make a case that D. knows. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Mark replied.

  “All I can do is wish you luck, then.”

  We hung up, and I heard Mark dialing in the other room. I joined him. He waited impatiently for the phone to ring, then hung up. “No answer.”

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Finbar.”

  “Try the yacht club.”

  Mark hurriedly dialed the Royal Cork. Finbar was found.

  “Listen, Finbar, I can’t explain right now, but I need to meet you at the boatyard. Can you go over there right now? Good. Is Harry with you? Good, bring him, too. No, none of the other lads, just Harry. Will and I will meet you there as soon as possible.” He hung up and began flipping quickly through his address book while I watched dumbly. He dialed another number. I went and picked up the other phone.

  “Is that Mr. Mulcahy?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Mark Robinson, sir; we’ve met at the yacht club a couple of times.”

  “Yes, Captain Robinson, what can I do for you?”

  Mark quickly explained what was to happen the following morning.

  “Does this Mr. Thrasher, in fact, own the boat?”

  “That won’t be relevant if you will be able to do as I ask tomorrow morning
in court.”

  “What is that, Captain Robinson?”

  “I would like you to simply appear representing me and say that you have been given to understand that the yacht has left the Republic of Ireland.”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. “Has the yacht, in fact, left the country?”

  “It is my intention to move her tonight.”

  “I understood you would not be ready to launch until next month. Does the yacht even have a “mast in her?”

  “She has an engine, Mr. Mulcahy.”

  “I won’t presume to advise you on seamanship, Captain Robinson, but you must understand my position as a solicitor and an officer of the court. If I tell a judge that the yacht has left the country, then I must be able to tell him that truthfully, to my best knowledge.”

  “I understand that, Mr. Mulcahy; I promise you that the yacht will leave the country tonight, and that you will be able to tell the court that, in good conscience. If, for any reason, she does not leave the country, I will telephone you before ten o’clock tomorrow morning. You may … in fact, I suggest that you visit Cork Harbour Boatyard tomorrow morning and see for yourself that the yacht has gone.”

  “I think that would be a good idea, Captain Robinson. All right, I will follow your instructions.”

  “Thank you, sir. And if you can convince the judge that the yacht has gone, can you stop the opposition attaching it?”

  “The judge will not likely grant an attachment of property he has reason to believe is not in his jurisdiction.”

  They hung up, and Mark came into the living room, tossing my foul weather gear at me. “You’ll be needing this, Willie. The wind’s getting up out there.”

  I could hear rain starting to spatter down. “Mark,” I said, struggling into my parka, “you said a few minutes ago that the boat wasn’t seaworthy, and now you’re talking about taking her to the Channel Islands, with the wind getting up?”

  “We can’t get her to the Channel Islands, Willie,” he said, grinning at me and heading for the door, “but we can get her out of the country, and then we can make her disappear.”

  I followed him at a trot, wondering what the hell I was getting into, now.

  38

  FINBAR AND HIS SON, Harry, were waiting for us when we arrived at the yard.

  “Evening, Captain, Willie.” Finbar didn’t bother to ask what we were all doing there on a Sunday evening; he figured he would be told.

  “Evening, Finbar, Harry,” Mark said. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. We have to launch the boat tonight.”

  Finbar chewed on his pipe stem for a moment, apparently trying to figure out whether Mark was joking. “I don’t suppose you’re joking,” he said, finally.

  “I’m afraid not. It’s probably better if you don’t know all the details, but tomorrow morning we’re going to have a legal problem on our hands if the boat is still here. We have to get her in the water; that’s all of it.”

  “We’ll have a bit of work to do first, I expect,” Finbar said, scratching his head, “and we’ll need the other lads; I’d better call them.”

  “I’m sorry, Finbar, but it would be better if they knew nothing at all about this.”

  Finbar took the pipe out of his mouth and gazed at Mark, wide-eyed. “You mean for just four of us to get a sixty-foot boat out of that shed and into the water?”

  Mark nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve figured out a way we can do it, but first, we’ve got to be sure she’s watertight and then get all her gear aboard and get the mast lashed to the decks.”

  Finbar shrugged. “Well, I’d say we’d better get at it. High tide’s at one-thirty A.M., and if we don’t have her launched by half-tide, at four-thirty, there won’t be enough water in the creek; she’ll be high and dry until nearly noon tomorrow. Harry, ring your mother and tell her not to wait up for us.”

  We were shortly aboard the yacht and at work. “First thing, let’s get the through-hull fittings sorted out,” Mark said. “She may take something of a bashing tonight. Harry, you hook up the spray machine and get another coat of anti-fouling paint on her bottom.” The yacht had had her first coat on the Friday before, and her water-line was still masked for painting.

  Harry went to get the air compressor, and I got at the hull fittings. I attached the seacocks for the engine and toilet to the holes through the hull that had been prepared for them. The engine needed raw, salt water for cooling, and the two toilets, of course, would have to flush overboard when they were installed. Mark went to work taping and labeling all the loose wiring in the boat—and there was a lot of it—to avoid confusion when the instruments and other electrical gear were installed later. We were to have begun that job the following day. Soon, I heard the air compressor start up, and we all donned masks to protect us from the poisonous anti-fouling paint that Harry was applying to the bottom to keep marine life from growing there. Then I ran into a problem.

  “Mark, I can’t find the other seacock, the one for the galley sink drain.” We searched in vain for the fitting, and then Mark stopped us.

  “We can’t waste any more time on this. Just plug the hole for now, and let’s get on with it.”

  I found a conical, soft-wood plug, squirted some sealant on it and hammered it tightly into the hole under the sink with a wooden mallet. That would hold it until we could find the proper fitting. All holes sealed, we began to load gear. Locked in the storeroom were all the new interior fittings and instruments that were to have been installed during the two weeks prior to launching. There was an enormous amount of stuff—electronic instruments, radios, pots and pans, three anchors, several large spools of various-sized rope, the ship’s toilets, cushions, tools, spare parts for the engine, the galley stove, gas bottles, a diesel generator, a cabin heater, the saloon dining table, the yacht’s sails, neatly folded and bagged—all the gear that a new boat needs, and all made bulkier because much of it was still boxed. It was after two in the morning before all of it was aboard, and practically the whole interior volume of the boat was filled with the jumble of gear, only an area around the chart table left clear for maneuvering below. Heavy rain hammered on the tin roof of the shed, causing us to have to shout to be heard. We were now in a race with the tide, which was falling rapidly.

  We got the boom lashed to the deck, and then came the mast. This was like an eighty-foot, aluminum tree that had to be got off the floor of the shed, up on deck and securely lashed. It was managed with the chain hoist more easily than I had imagined it would be, but the process was time-consuming, and it was a quarter past four in the morning before it was safely aboard. Now all we had to do was launch a sixty-foot, heavily laden yacht with only four pairs of hands. We had fifteen minutes. I didn’t see how we could do it, but Mark was at it quickly.

  While I ripped the masking from the waterline, he and Harry cleated lines to strong points on deck and tossed the ends to the ground, where Finbar and I took hold. The boat’s keel already rested on a little car, and there were eighty yards of rails sloping down to the water’s edge, with only four of us to hold the big yacht in check. Mark and Harry lashed a huge block and tackle to a rafter of the shed, threaded one end of an enormous coil of rope through it, and made it fast to the yacht. This was his idea, and if it worked it would enable the two of them to let the yacht down to the water slowly, while Finbar and I, on opposite sides, helped keep the yacht upright in its cradle. I was terrified that it might topple on us; I had already had one experience with that hull looming over me, and I didn’t want another. We were ready. It was four-thirty. Half-tide. Now or never. It flashed through my mind that the whole project, all the work we had done, rested on what happened now. If we couldn’t handle the launch, and the yacht toppled, it was all over. And if we got her launched, and there wasn’t enough water in the creek, then Mulcahy the solicitor would arrive in a few hours to find her high and dry on the creekbed and he would have no position in court.

  Mark and
Harry climbed quickly down, Finbar and I rolled back the doors of the shed, and we all took hold of our lines. Harry stepped over to the car with a sledgehammer and knocked the chocks from under the car wheels. The yacht began to move; Finbar and I moved with it. It rolled slowly down the track for ten yards or so, Mark and Harry straining to pay out the line slowly through the block and tackle. Finbar and I held tightly to our lines, giving what puny support we could to the boat’s balance. We were about even with the shed doors, and the boat was halfway outside, when I heard a sharp snap. I looked up to see a strand of rope near the block waving in the breeze.

  “Oh, shit!” Harry yelled. “The bloody line’s going!”

  Even as he spoke, another strand went, and immediately after that, the third. The boat quickly began to move faster.

  “Quick, Harry,” Mark yelled, “let’s get some chocks under those wheels!”

  “No! No!” Finbar shouted. “She’ll pitchpole if she stops short! Leggo, Willie! Leggo!”

  I leggo. She was out of our hands, now. Disaster was seconds away. The big yacht trundled down the track, picking up speed, rocking from side to side. On each of the rocking motions, she went a bit further. Thirty yards; forty. In a moment she would either be shattered, on her side in the boatyard, or in the water, it was a tossup which. Her speed increased, and so did the rocking. I reckoned she must have been doing twenty miles an hour by then, and suddenly, I knew she wasn’t going to make it. She rocked crazily to the left and didn’t rock back; she began to go. But as she leaned over, the car hit the water and the boat continued forward, even as she fell.