Mistress and Commander

by Amelia Dalton

  But there was no way of wrapping it up. I tried to make it sound like just a brief setback, a bureaucratic error that I could fix quickly. Predictably he went to the pub and Kate went with him. I rang John. John said he would see what he could do to find a master mariner.

  Two days later, Kate and I were sitting in the wheelhouse waiting and watching. Cubby was sleeping, he’d simply opted out, and the Monaco was still in Troon, tied up at the main quay in the harbour. John, who’d handled the National Trust brilliantly, had persuaded them to give us time; they had postponed the first trip for three days.

  ‘There they are.’ I jumped down. ‘Come on, let’s go and meet them.’

  ‘You go. I’ll catch you later.’ It was all a mess and Kate was fed up too.

  Much to everyone’s surprise, Ian, our limp director, had come up trumps. Amongst the regulars at his local pub was a master mariner, a fellow propper-up of the bar who would be happy to stand in. Here they were, arriving in Ian’s white Mercedes. I wondered what he would be like. How would he get on with Cubby? Would Cubby even appear?

  I walked along the quay towards the Merc as Ian uncoiled himself from the driver’s seat. The passenger door opened and out popped our knight in shining armour: small, dark and hairy, with an unattractive-looking dark patch at the crotch of his trousers.

  ‘Hello, Ian. Good drive?’ I ventured.

  ‘Get this Welshman to a toilet, fast!’

  Not even a ‘hello,’ or an introduction. It seemed our knight was incontinent: he had peed on the white leather passenger seat of Ian’s pride and joy. The final part of the drive from Birmingham had been spent with him sitting on a newspaper: that was soggy too. I tried not to grin. This would cheer Cubby up no end. The Welsh knight smiled and held out his hand; he didn’t look like being much of a threat. We walked slowly down the quay to Monaco – after all, there were smart new electric loos on board. Our little Welsh saviour seemed totally unconcerned either by Ian’s ill humour or his wet trousers. Kate, managing to keep the grin off her face, took him below to one of the smart new cabins to change. Cubby, having heard footsteps on deck, was sitting in the little mess, mug of coffee in hand, roll-up in the other. He didn’t look very bright.

  I introduced the knight, who smiled tentatively.

  ‘Boyo, it’s a long way up here!’ I couldn’t believe he’d actually called Cubby ‘boyo’! Cubby grinned. As an opening gambit, the knight had chosen well and it looked as if it might just be OK. I needed to get Ian away and leave them together. An inspection of new cabins, deckhouse and all the bits his money had helped pay for seemed perfect, and after I’d patiently shown him round he left us to it.

  Our Welsh saviour asked for a copy of the Daily Mail so he could do the crossword and tucked himself into the corner of the mess. Cubby fired her up and quietly, with no one watching, Monaco slipped away from the quay. As I coiled up the ropes and tucked them safely away at the stern, Monaco began her journey north in the dying early May sunlight. A heavy thud somewhere further for’ard reminded me not everything was fixed for the sea; we still had so many bits to finish. But we were off. The grey houses of Troon slipped away astern. As Cubby remarked, ‘It’s been a hell of a four months,’ but a shiver of excitement raced through me. It was five years since my father had first introduced me to Scotland on that momentous trip to St Kilda. It felt like a lifetime ago but really we were only now at the beginning – even if we did have an incontinent Welshman on board to make things legal. It seemed all he wanted was a beer and the paper, no nonsense about being in charge. That would please Cubby.

  ‘Here you are! I never thought I’d find you in a bar!’ Kate teased our diminutive Welsh captain, a month later. He was still with us and whenever Monaco tied up, he’d be up the ladder and away to the nearest pub. Although our cheery master mariner was incontinent – he now had four pairs of trousers – he was no bother, and he kept us legal. But it couldn’t go on. Oban was a talkative port and what was rapidly becoming known as ‘the Monaco Lift’ amused the locals. Kate and I only had to walk into the pub and he’d wobble off the bar stool, swaying gently, hands on hips. We would each loop an arm through one of his and lift him, legs dangling, bringing him back on board to ensure we were not flouting the Department’s instructions.

  Potts had absolutely refused to explain and gave no reason for his change of mind. Nothing I could say made any difference; he was immoveable.

  ‘No, Mrs Dalton. Mr MacKinnon is not acceptable; he does not have a full licence, only “an exemption”, which is not sufficient for Monaco.’ But now, a month later, it seemed Cubby had a chance: it was agreed he could go to Glasgow the following day and have a test with someone called Captain Paul Grey.

  Cubby appeared, sauntering along the pier. I could tell even at a distance that he’d been to the pub – he was full of laughter and grins. He joked with the fish stall fellow and stopped to flirt with the girl in the CalMac ferry ticket office. He didn’t sway, not so much whisky as that, but with his test in Glasgow tomorrow, any was too much.

  ‘Hi, Cubby,’ I called.

  ‘Well, it’s yourself!’ Just a bit slurred, not too bad. ‘I’m celebratin’. The doctor’s signed my health form: it says I drink a wee bit, just socially!’

  ‘Well, that’s great.’ I sighed and ploughed on. ‘We’ll need to leave about seven tomorrow morning. That should give us plenty of time to get to Glasgow for a coffee before we meet Captain Grey. I thought we’d stop in Inveraray on the way back for supper. There’s a nice restaurant there beside the loch that does great fish.’ He always liked an outing and I hoped the bribe of a decent meal would distract him from the test. After all, it was his life, his livelihood, not mine. He looked at me, tapping the lid of his green tobacco tin. He pulled out a Rizla paper and began teasing out the tobacco. I realised it was hopeless.

  ‘Good morning, can I speak to Captain Grey, please?’ I was in the call box by the railway station.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Dalton. What can I do for you? I think we’re meeting shortly,’ replied a firm voice with a hint of an Irish accent.

  ‘Yes . . .’ I hunted for the right words. ‘I’m afraid Mr MacKinnon’s not well. I’m so sorry, but he won’t be able to come to Glasgow, Captain Grey. Could we try and make another date please?’ It had taken so many letters and phone calls to get the Department to agree Cubby could have a test, my exasperation possibly sounded in my voice. A long silence followed.

  ‘Mrs Dalton, would you call this a diplomatic illness?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’

  ‘Then I suggest we leave Mr MacKinnon’s test for the time being until he feels well enough to come to Glasgow.’

  Two days later Monaco went off again. Captain Incontinent sat on a wodge of newspapers doing the crossword and Cubby was in fine form. He’d won and was back at the wheel. All was fine in his eyes, we had passengers and he was getting away, out amongst the islands to the space he loved. But I knew he also felt guilty. He was being too nice to me: I didn’t need endless mugs of coffee or yet another biscuit. He was at his most charming, witty and entertaining. It was only Oban that was a threat, where someone from the Department might appear unexpectedly: they often did.

  We had a successful week, walking and exploring on Skye and once again the Monaco was back in Oban, tied up, cruise finished. Our happy passengers had left to catch the train, our Welshman was in the pub and the three of us were sitting in the saloon, mugs in hand, enjoying the end of another completed trip. No one heard the footsteps on deck. A man appeared in the saloon.

  ‘Good morning. I’m Captain Grey from the Department of Transport and I’m here to see Mr MacKinnon.’ Cubby, taken by surprise, stood up and slowly stretched out a hand.

  ‘That’ll be myself, Captain,’ he replied in his rich, soft west coast voice. I took a deep breath. Which way would this go?

  ‘Well, Mr MacKinnon, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last. Would you show me round your boat, please? I hear sh
e’s quite some machine.’ Captain Paul Grey was clearly no fool.

  Three hours later they were still in the wheelhouse. Door closed. Kate and I had run out of things to do. We’d stripped the beds, cleaned the cabins, hoovered the saloon, scrubbed the cookers and were standing in the galley, fidgeting. Cubby’s tousled head appeared round the door.

  ‘The Captain wants us out of the harbour. Can you do the ropes, please?’

  In the Sound of Mull, by Lismore Lighthouse, Captain Grey made us run through everything. It was not long since Potts had given Monaco her licence, but Captain Grey was leaving nothing to chance, nothing untried.

  Under his alert gaze we pumped up fire hoses, sprayed water on weather-tight door seals, put up emergency window covers, lowered the Zodiac, ran out the anchor and lifted it. He checked everything, from the engine room bilge pumps to the life rafts, the hydrostatic releases and lifebelts, and he made Cubby set course after course, chatting all the while. Everything worked, everything was greased and all was in order.

  ‘Well, Mrs Dalton, all seems to be fine here. I can’t find any reason why Mr MacKinnon should not be allowed to skipper your boat. He clearly knows the machinery and he’s worked on this coast for years: his qualifications are more than adequate. Monaco’s a fine machine and I wish you luck with the venture.’

  It all seemed strange but I was certainly not going to ask what was going on and why the Department had changed their minds: I even wondered if Potts had gone off-piste on a whim of his own.

  Nine

  The first season was nearly over. With Cubby proud of Monaco and happily working, we had had passengers virtually every week and as the autumn began, our advertising paid off and groups of scuba divers came to try the new boat on the west coast. Cubby, as ever in yellow oilskins, chatted while Hughie manned the huge BP tanker, poised on the edge of the quay. Diesel pumped and throbbed down the fat pipe snaking along the deck, coursing into Monaco’s fuel tanks.

  ‘Good morning down there!’ a voice shouted above the noise. The precise voice, with a hint of an Irish lilt sounded out of place in Oban. Captain Grey. It seemed an age since he had approved Cubby as skipper, but here he was again. I wondered if Cubby had heard the call above the tanker’s noise. His reaction to authority could result in anything, it just depended on his mood, and our group of divers was due any moment.

  ‘Well, hello there, Captain,’ Kate greeted him. ‘Will you come on board? The kettle’s just boiled.’ Welcoming as ever, she quickly set the tone. Cubby shrugged and, pulling the hose out of the tank, guided the clunky steel connector over Monaco’s gunwale and up onto the quay while Hughie reeled it in. Determinedly he turned towards the engine room.

  ‘The Captain’s having a coffee in the saloon, will you have one too?’ Kate shouted after him along the deck. He paused, wiping his hands on a rag and then slowly turned, making his way into the saloon. Spreading a newspaper to prevent his oilskins marking the seat, he sat down as far away from Grey as he could, eyeing him warily.

  ‘Well, it’s nice to see you all again,’ began Captain Grey. ‘I’m just passing through Oban and I thought I’d take a look to see if the Monaco was here. I’ve left the Department now, you know.’ He paused, looking round at us. ‘I’m no longer in their employ,’ he continued. We stared at him, unsure what our reactions should be. He was the Department’s top man, their senior inspector, head of the marine investigation section, a hugely important and influential position. Why had he left, I wondered.

  ‘This is a surprise, Captain,’ I ventured, thinking if he’s here socially it’s probably OK, it’s not an official visit.

  ‘I’m now representing the families affected by the Mary Anne disaster, so we’re fighting against the Navy,’ he went on. ‘You’ll have heard how the whole crew was lost. It’s possible her fishing gear was snagged by a submarine and she was simply pulled right under.’ He paused and I wondered what this had to do with us. Stretching out, he helped himself to a chocolate digestive biscuit; unusually they were arranged neatly on a plate. ‘It might interest you to know how it came to be me who tested you, Cubby.’ It had always been ‘Mr MacKinnon’ before. We were all agog. ‘It seems the west coast was not keen on an English red-headed outsider coming in with a bigger boat.’ He looked hard at Cubby. ‘So I decided to come up unannounced, to see for myself, see what was going on. But I couldn’t fault you. I had no reason to fail you. You know how to handle your boat and are familiar with these waters; you’ve plenty of experience at sea.’ He was not flattering Cubby, simply being factual.

  I watched Cubby as he studied his mug, twisting it round in his neat, strong hands. I held my breath. Eventually he looked up, ‘Captain, I thank you. I’m grateful to you.’

  Relief flooded through the saloon, Grey would be missed at the Department but no doubt the families, bereft of their menfolk, would benefit from his astute assessments. The talk flowed as the Captain asked about life in Oban, boats, ferries and fishing. He was interested in it all: and now, without the threat of departmental assessment, Cubby opened up. I could see they would become friends, if unlikely ones.

  ‘Katie, have we a spare cabin for the Captain on this trip, do you think? Could you fix it up if the Captain could join us?’ Kate and I were stunned. Grey looked even more surprised. Cubby, quick to assess a situation as ever, recognised that getting him on board could be useful but it would mean best behaviour all round and no hanky-panky amongst the divers if he were there. Kate and I left them to it, as there were beds to make and stores to stow. It would be best if I could find a galley slave, someone instead of me to help Kate if Grey were to be with us, leaving me free to chat to him.

  The divers came from Wales, coal miners and sparkies, good mates who knew each other well. They were a joyful bunch, singing tunefully about ‘the motion of the ocean’ as they roped down their bulky gear. Air bottles, weight belts, torches, dive bags bulging with dry suits, masks and fins: all came carefully onto the deck, followed by six large shovels. With everything carefully stowed, Monaco set off up the Sound of Mull with Grey at Cubby’s side in the wheelhouse. He was clearly revelling in being at sea rather than behind a desk; divers were a new world to him but he knew well enough to keep out of the way.

  Our usual practice was to make the first dive a nice easy one so Cubby could judge how able the group was, and check on our wiry Welshmen’s dive practices. He needed to know how strongly they finned back to get on board at the end of the dive and how able they were on the ladder when weighed down with all their dive kit. The site was an hour down the Sound, and the tide created patterns in the water round the parts of the wreck that virtually broke the surface, creating little eddies and swirling bubbles. Cubby had to get Monaco close up, judging the strength of the wind and drift of the tide which would affect Monaco and the divers differently. She needed to be in the right place to drop them off, immediately by the wreck, so they wouldn’t have to fin through the water, wasting air before they reached the spot to submerge. He was good at it, loved getting it just right and Monaco was a delight with her unusual manoeuvrability.

  The divers plopped over the side when he gave the nod out of the wheelhouse window. One by one stepping through the special gateway cut into Monaco’s bulwark, they dropped, shovels in hand, into the clear dark turquoise water. Cubby eased her astern, washing them gently right onto the marker buoy. Grey stood watching from beside the starboard life raft. I hoped he would be impressed. ‘What are the shovels for, Amelia?’ he asked as I stood on the top of the saloon deckhouse getting ready to hoist the ‘divers overboard’ flag. ‘Captain, I haven’t a clue! This wreck is the Shuna, quite a newly discovered wreck and I’ve no idea what they could want shovels for, but you never know with divers, they’re a law unto themselves.’

  The Monaco drew back, moving astern away from the dive area so we had a clear view of their air bubbles. I loved these moments, with time to look around and with the boat tranquil as we simply waited. Tucked into the north side of
the Sound, close to the shore, we watched for the divers to start to surface. The white papery trunks of scrubby silver birch trees caught the afternoon sun; the rowan berries were beginning to turn a ruddy orange. Oystercatchers called as they pottered about self-importantly turning over stones at the water’s edge, and an occasional nosy seal, whiskers glistening with bubbles, stuck its head up to stare at us with liquid eyes.

  A head bobbed up, close to a white sausage-shaped buoy. ‘Cubby! Diver up!’ I called to the wheelhouse but already the engine note had changed as Cubby, having seen the head sooner than me, put her into gear. Monaco began slowly to move towards the wreck. Kate was up in the bow, checking there were no bubbles ahead; it wouldn’t do to run someone over. As we neared the wreck, more heads appeared and Monaco quietly drifted to a stop beside the first. I leant out over the water, stretching down to take the shovel which the diver pushed up towards me, wondering again what he’d been doing with it under water. Breathing heavily through his regulator, he paused on the bottom rung of the ladder, pulling on a rope which was clipped to his waist. A bulky, lumpy bag was just visible lurking in the water below. Clambering up, rung after rung, he arrived on the deck, and after removing his fins he leant down and heaved up the bag. Water streamed off it, running through the freeing ports, covering the deck with black slime. Coal. One after the other each diver came up with his shovel and bag of coal.

  ‘Well, boys, that’ll pay for your trip,’ Cubby called down, amused in spite of the mess on his deck. Captain Grey was astonished by it all, he’d never seen anything like it: this really was the sharp end, not office stuff. He’d seen the Monaco at work, seen how well Cubby manoeuvred her and how professional Kate and I were on deck. Now we had a useful ally if we needed one and I almost felt sorry to see him go as he waved goodbye from the deck of the ferry next afternoon. His presence had brought out the best in Cubby but we didn’t need him around for too long. Time for a shower, the divers needed their tea and the Mishnish with its music, pints and drams was calling.