“That’s fog,” he said. “It’s a long way off.”
He unwrapped the oars and began rowing hard while I waved him port or starboard, keeping him on the channel light. I looked back over my shoulder. I could see car lights coming down Chapman’s Hill; down, down, then all at once they vanished.
“It’s fog all right.”
Johnno didn’t answer. He was sending the boat skimming along easily. The sound of the rowlocks and of the swishing water were all we could hear. He said, between breaths, “So long as we can see the other side we’re right.”
I looked unhappily ahead. Gyp was still in the bows, ears flapping and nose raised, every hair of him clear in the moonlight. The sight of him kept reminding me of home. He expected, I supposed, to go for a row then come back and go to his bed under the house. A few hundred yards beyond him was the channel light and many miles beyond that the few lights of the other side.
“Pull left,” I said. My voice sounded unreal.
“How far to the channel?”
“You’re nearly there.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. The fog didn’t look any nearer. It was deeper perhaps, but still a long way off. It was pale grey in the moonlight and away above it were the stars. There was no sign of the town; it had gone completely.
The light on top of the piles was lighting the boat now with a reddish glare.
“That’s three miles,” said Johnno as we came up to it. “How long has it taken?”
“I don’t know,” I said. It seemed like hours. Neither of us had watches. “About an hour, I suppose.”
“We could make the other side before sunrise.”
“There’s the fog,” I said.
He stopped rowing again and we both looked at it.
“It’s nearer, I think.”
He agreed reluctantly. “But it might stop at that.”
“I don’t reckon.”
We sat undecidedly for a moment.
“What’s that sound?”
“It’s a foghorn somewhere.”
“Not that—a sound like a creek running.”
He peered around us, listening carefully. “It’s the tide—it’s running between the piles under the light. I suppose it’s starting to go out.”
It was a faint, but somehow threatening sound.
“Maybe we should tie up to the piles till we see what the fog does.”
“In the morning they’d find us,” he said. “There we’d be, picked up in everyone’s binoculars, then the motor-boats would come out.”
This didn’t seem such a terrible prospect.
“If we need to tie up,” he went on, “we can make for one of the lights in the channel on the other side.” He began rowing again.
“We’d better angle a bit to allow for the current,” I suggested.
“Yes, I hadn’t thought of it.”
He swung the boat round a little while I lined him up on a light on the other side of the bay. Then he rowed solidly for half a mile or more.
“I’ll give you a rest.”
He was breathing hard, but he shook his head. “Both of us had better row.”
I went and sat next to him and we took an oar each. The red light astern had a misty look about it. We tried to keep it at an angle to the right, but gradually we swung round and had to correct ourselves. Then the light disappeared altogether.
“Maybe if you sit in the stern and guide me—”
“I’ll have a go at the rowing,” I said.
He went back reluctantly and put me on course, then bathed his face again. The blood still trickled from the corner of his mouth and his eyes were ghastly to look at.
To myself I said, “Forward, back. Forward, back,” breathing rhythmically.
It was still bright moonlight and still the phosphorus glittered at the tips of the oars. Once or twice I forgot the fog and even forgot we were running away. The rhythm of the rowing and the aching of my arms and back stopped much thinking at all, but then Gyp licked my neck and woke me again to our situation.
The fog crept on us unawares. We could see the western lights and the stars above us, then in less than a minute, nothing; nothing at all. A white void closed in so that I even saw Johnno all shrouded in mist. His voice came to me dismally, “What do we do now?”
I rested on the oars. Overhead we could still see the moon. It had been at an angle to our left. If we kept it that way, I said, maybe we could keep going. When we had agreed, I began rowing again, but I had little faith that we’d reach the other side.
The fog deepened and the moon became less distinct. Far off still we could hear the foghorn. Gyp gave an impatient whimper.
“Shut up!” I said.
He pushed against me as if apologizing and I noticed that his fur was wet with mist.
“Sit!” I exclaimed between breaths. He sighed and curled himself behind me. In the stern Johnno was hunched miserably. Somehow the fog made his face look terrible—as if he were looking through a parted curtain at something that horrified him.
“It’s no good,” I said at last. “I can’t see it.”
Johnno lifted his head and looked above us, then let his glance fall dismally to the bottom of the boat. He said like a small boy, “I don’t want to go back.”
The foghorn answered him dolefully, still far off.
“We can’t get anywhere,” I said. “We’ve got nothing left to guide us.”
The boat was rocking a little, very little.
“Give me a go,” he said.
“You can if you like—but which way?”
It didn’t seem to matter to him just then; mainly he needed something to do. He rowed for fifteen minutes or more, sometimes glancing hopelessly around him. Watching him I felt we could easily enough be going in circles. Now and then the mists thinned and once broke overhead. The moon was on our left, which meant we were rowing towards home. Johnno furrowed his brow. “Hell, I’m sorry.” He lined up quickly, but then the moon was gone. It’s useless, I thought.
“What’s that sound?” asked Johnno.
“What sound?”
We listened together, aware all at once of the stillness and the damp. There was a deep, slow, drumming sound in the water itself. We listened a long time, but it didn’t vary. Then the foghorn sounded. It was a good deal closer.
“I don’t know—”
“It’s a ship,” said Johnno, “and it’s sounding its foghorn.”
I ought to have known the sound of a ship’s engines anywhere. We had heard them often through the water when we were in swimming. “She’s travelling slowly,” he said.
“We might be in her track.”
Johnno brightened at this. ‘She might pick us up! She might take us—”
“She’d hand us over to the pilot and the pilot would hand us to the police.”
For a time he didn’t answer, then he said wearily, “I dare say.”
The drumming was clearer and the foghorn much louder, but it was hard to tell from which side the sounds came. In the bows Gyp was listening with his ears cocked, moving his head this way and that, making small worried sounds in his throat.
What did it matter if we were picked up, anyhow? Even Moloney was beginning to seem reasonable.
The drumming and the foghorn were growing louder. Gyp whined suddenly.
“Lie down,” cried Johnno. “Hell, Charlie, they might give us to the police!”
“I don’t reckon it matters much, anyhow.”
“I can’t go back. I’d rather swim for it.”
We sat undecidedly while Gyp moved about in his small space. The moon uncovered again. It was behind us now. We didn’t even bother to alter direction.
“It might run us down,” I said.
But Johnno didn’t care about that. All he could th
ink of was the risk of being caught.
Gyp whined softly and shivered and crept close to Johnno’s back. Johnno sat with the oars raised, his face strained, the corner of his mouth oozing blood, his eyes like black caverns. Now and then he dipped an oar feebly. “We’re done for all right; done cold.”
A few minutes more and the sound was all round us—a rhythmical drumming, like monstrous heart-beats, then the foghorn cry.
Gyp began whimpering.
“Oh, hell—shut up!” begged Johnno.
“It’s that way,” I said, pointing into the fog.
It was coming loudly, but still slowly and deliberately. I had to raise my voice above the drumming of it and when the foghorn came we were deafened.
“It’s damn’ close.”
Gyp whined loudly. Suddenly the fog was cut apart and there, as high as a cliff, rose the bows of a liner. We stood up together.
“She’s got us.”
“Sit down,” cried Johnno. He grabbed an oar and as the stem passed to one side of us, he pushed us away. Rows of portholes passed like moons over our heads. Somewhere an orchestra was pounding, all out of time with the drum, drum of the engines. The foghorn blasted violently all around us.
Johnno went to push again, but the oar must have slipped. In a second he was on his back in the bottom of the boat and we were bumping the liner’s side. I pushed with my hands and felt her rounded rivet heads on my palms. The next minute she was past and we were swirling and bobbing in her wake. I looked up and saw MALOJA — BELFAST on her stern, then the fog swallowed her and the drumming and hooting retreated.
Johnno regained his seat and we sat without speaking, half paralyzed with fright.
All at once Johnno sprang up. “The oars—we’ve lost both of them!”
We began looking about the small area of surface we could see in the fog, but there was nothing.
“I’m going over to look,” said Johnno stripping off his trousers.
“No,” I said in a shaky voice, “No; we’d get separated.”
He put his face close to mine. “You know what’ll happen if we don’t get them? We’ll get washed through the Heads clean out to sea.”
I said quickly, “We mightn’t be anywhere near the Heads.”
“We’ve been rowing for hours and all the time the tide’s been going out.”
“If we’re near the Heads we’d hear the surf.”
We listened, but all we could hear was the retreating drum, drum of the ship and the blasting of its foghorn.
“There’s a second foghorn,” said Johnno suddenly. “Do they have one at the Heads?”
“I don’t know,” I said huskily.
“We’ve got to find the oars.”
I said, “There’s a rope in the locker—I could hang on to you.”
I took it out, about twenty feet of it. He tied it round his waist and went over the stern. I played the line out and watched him disappear in the fog. Gyp stood in the bows, his head tilted this way and that, whimpering quietly. The day’s happenings were tumbling through my mind—Johnno’s composition, the inkpot, the crunch of Moloney’s spectacles, Eileen coming . . . .
Distinctly I heard two foghorns.
“Charlie!”
“Yes?”
The rope had swung in a semicircle.
“I see an oar. Give us more rope.”
“You’ve got it all.” I leant out over the bows, jammed against Gyp.
“I touched it. No, no; it’s gone, Charlie, it’s moving fast . . . no good; I’m coming back.”
I began pulling the rope, but it was like pulling dead weight.
“Johnno—you okay, Johnno?”
He panted something I couldn’t hear. I drew harder and in a moment he appeared out of the fog, swimming strongly. He caught hold of the stern, and hung there panting, his lips drawn over his teeth.
“It’s no good, Charlie. We’re in a hell of a current.”
He had hardly said it when a puff of wind came and all at once we were under stars with shore lights winking off to the left. A wall of shallow fog lay astern and the moon stood far down to the west. Ahead of us, about two miles off, was the Maloja, standing between two lights, one high and flashing white and red, the other steady white. We stared at them, not saying a word. “It’s the Rip,” I thought, “Nepean and Lonsdale, Nepean and Lonsdale, Nepean—”
“We’d stand a chance swimming—” began Johnno suddenly.
“No,” I said.
He went on quickly without listening, “That place a bit behind us would be Portsea. We could angle across to allow for the current—”
“We’d never make it—”
“We could give it a go.” He was standing up now. “If we don’t we’ll get washed clean out to sea.”
Always, whatever happened in the water, Johnno was sure he could get out of it by swimming.
“We’d go through, anyhow. If we stick with the boat we’ve got a chance.”
“What do we row with?”
I glanced round at the glittering sea, hoping wildly that an oar would drift alongside.
“We’ve got to swim, Charlie. Listen, I’ll go in again and see what it’s like swimming across the current—”
“You nearly got washed away before—”
“But across the current.”
He waited no longer, but dived in without the rope and struck towards the shore, heading for the Portsea lights. Ten yards out he turned and trod water. When he did this I saw straight beyond his head a light flashing white and green on the shore. The two were lined up, his head and the light, then in a second they were apart, the light moving left and Johnno’s head right.
“It’s no good,” I shouted. “You’re drifting too fast.”
He said nothing, but began swimming back. If I kept my eyes on him he looked to be going well, but when I looked beyond him, the few shore lights were slipping by quickly. I helped him over the stern again, his white barrel of a chest heaving in the moonlight.
“We’ve got to ride it out,” he agreed hopelessly.
The boat now was rocking under us with quick, turning motions, the water hissing quietly along our sides.
“We’re turning in a circle.”
I looked and it was true. Slowly we swung away from the lights to the left, till we faced Point Lonsdale, then round farther till we faced the retreating fog, then right round back to Portsea. We circled slowly, then began again. I glanced back anxiously at Johnno. The sight of his face made me feel more than ever in a nightmare. The moon was full on him so that his blackened eyes looked like sockets. Naked as he was, his body wet, his hair matted, he looked like no one I had ever seen.
“We’re going to miss Point Nepean.”
“We could yell,” I said.
“You do it.”
“No—together.”
We yelled for help a couple of times, then, bad as things were, we felt ashamed.
“I’d sooner drown,” said Johnno bitterly.
The drumming of the Maloja had gone, but there was another sound, a sound like thunder a long way off. It was broken regularly by the blaring of the Lonsdale foghorn.
“I’m not scared of the surf,” said Johnno, half to himself. “It’s getting through the Rip.”
“The Cheviot,” I thought, “and the Alert and the Corsair—”
We were turning again, more swiftly now. The moon shone on great whorls of water to either side of us. In the bows Gyp began whimpering.
“Shut up,” I begged. He came and licked my face. I pushed him away irritably.
Lonsdale swung past and the lights of Queenscliff, then the retreating fog up the bay. We completed the circle again, but this time more quickly. The water was almost silent except for the far noise of surf. Round again—Lonsdale, Queenscliff—
> “Can a rowing-boat get through the Rip?”
When I tried to answer, saliva rose in my mouth and suddenly I was vomiting. I hung over the side unable to move, aware of Johnno behind me and of sudden peaks of water rising and subsiding around us, hissing in the moonlight and then of surf breaking on the very tip of Nepean. I gave up hope at that and clung whimpering to the side of the boat.
As I crouched there water burst over me, sending me sprawling backwards. At the same instant the boat rose on its beam ends.
“This is it, Charlie. Hang on to her!”
It was as if we were suspended in air, as if the Rip was deciding how to finish us. The moment ended with a tremendous jolt and water rushing in and the hissing of waves, much louder.
“Bale, Charlie!”
I was scrabbling for the tin when Johnno shouted, “Gyp’s in!”
I forgot our danger; I forgot everything, I struggled to my knees and saw him swimming not far off, being twisted this way and that. I picked up the rope and flung an end to him, but it was too far off. He had his eyes on us, his head up high.
“Johnno, I’m going in.”
“No!” shouted Johnno.
“He’ll drown!”
“You can’t—you wouldn’t have a hope.”
I stood up. “It’s getting better; we’re nearly through—”
But at that I found myself on my back in the bottom of the boat in sloshing water and Johnno standing over me, panting, “Jesus, Charlie, you couldn’t live in it. We’ve got to bale!”
He picked up the tin and started at it frantically, but I struggled to my knees and looked back.
“He’s still there,” I said.
He still had his head up, but we were separating fast.
“He’s gone—we’ll never get him!”
“He’ll swim to the beach.”
“He’ll try to follow me—he’d follow me anywhere.”
I could see him only faintly now, then not at all, then a glimpse of him as the water turned him.
“He’s gone, Johnno.”
A faint bark followed my words, then nothing. I lay in the bottom of the boat with Johnno baling beside me and I cried and vomited and cried and vomited.
All the Green Year Page 16