Mistress and Commander
Page 19
The deck was smooth, the scrubbed planking a bleached silvery white as I wandered towards her stem, past the shiny white Viking life rafts one on each shoulder, past the neatly coiled orange plaited ropes Cubby had found washed up on the west side of Skye. The hatch with its brass portholes letting light and air into accommodation was propped open: no vile stench came wafting out, the picture was still clear in my mind of Cubby breaking the planking with the fire axe so long ago in Troon.
I ducked into the engine room for a reassuring check. Here was my friendly red dragon steadily chugging away; I adjusted the lever to keep the dragon at the right temperature and casually glanced across the top of the engine as I climbed back up the ladder. It was just habit now to check the nearest sight glass.
Clear!
CLEAR!
How could it be clear? The other three were clear too. Not a hint of pinkness. No diesel.
In a moment, the engine would stop.
I ran headlong through the crew mess into the wheelhouse shouting, ‘Watch out! The engine’s going to stop! There’s no fuel!’
The phlegmatic Dane, turned, looking at me he carried on chewing. Trying to impress the urgency on him, I continued more quietly, ‘There’s no fuel. Nothing showing in the sight glasses. They’re all clear, nothing. Not a hint of fuel. I don’t understand it as there’s never been the slightest falter or problem since Colin altered the pipework,’ I finished desperately.
Monaco swept on at a steady ten knots, she creamed through the slight swell without a murmur. To port, quite close, was a small rocky island. Didn’t he understand there was no FUEL? He pushed the wodge of tobacco into the corner of his cheek.
‘Må ikke ballade, det er OK.’ What was he on about? He knew I didn’t speak Danish!
‘Don’t worry,’ came the heavily accented English, ‘it’s OK. In Ireland there’s no such thing as pink diesel, it’s all clear!’
Yet one more fright. Another link in the chain of my steadily growing conviction. If my life had to change, if John and I really had come to an end, I would not spend the rest of my life struggling with huge machinery, stinking diesel and wayward skippers, with gales and cold winter weather exacerbated by dicey finances. However, I would need a job. I knew I would have to make my own way in the world and I would need income.
More than that, I needed to be someone, not just a has-been in a pretty cottage propping up hollyhocks. But I knew Monaco was not the answer. Like seaweed swirling round a buoy, a new thought floated around in my mind. I knew the west coast’s islands, the beaches and cliff paths from Barra Head to the Butt of Lewis. From the twists of West Loch Tarbert cutting through Jura to the stacs of St Kilda, I knew them all. I knew the orchids and puffin colonies, I knew who lived in that tiny white croft, where they set their creels, what their dog was called and where they went to gather the best tatties and sneak a salmon. I determined to make something out of it all. My ‘ticket’, knowledge of the sea and struggles had been too hard fought to be wasted; they must be worth something.
First the whole business and Monaco had to be sold. Did the agent in Southampton have any idea what he was getting? Ocean Village was populated by glossy fiberglass yachts which rarely moved, providing their Ralph Lauren-clad owners with an immaculate posing platform where Yachting Monthly could lounge nonchalantly amongst the morning croissants. An eighty-five-foot solid-oak trawler with a thumping two-stroke diesel engine coming nosing through the pontoons would cause a stir. We’d better make sure it was a Saturday morning for maximum effect. But first the Scillies; I wanted to slip into the anchorage between Tresco and Bryher very quietly in the dark. I wanted my friends to wake up to find Monaco amongst the French yachts.
The dragon purred on.