by CL Skelton
‘Well, you needn’t be jealous,’ Sam said. ‘This is business. Not pleasure.’
‘The hell it is,’ Terry muttered, swinging another light punch.
Sam ducked and fended.
‘It is,’ he said. ‘It is.’
And it was. It evolved into the most exactingly businesslike weekend of Sam’s life. By half-way through dinner, an impromptu affair based, unsurprisingly, around tinned salmon, he had concluded that Pete Haines was more than correct in assessing the man’s experience. In a few short, hot, feverishly active weeks in Algiers, Jan Muller had had the kind of crash course in salvage that only military necessity can supply. Short of manpower, material and, most of all, time, he had, under the tutelage of true masters of the trade learned the kind of innovative improvisation that could make a small, shoe-string operation succeed where more conventional methods might, by sheer weight of responsible good sense, fail. Sam Hardacre, in charge of a new-born company operating on less than half a shoe-string, needed such a man, and with a single-mindedness that surprised himself he set out to get him.
In a very short while his intentions had escalated from merely getting Jan Muller aboard the Dainty Girl and over the wreck of the Louisa Jane for some first-hand observation and a gleaning of his valuable opinions, to inveigling him right into the company as a fully-working member. And that, considering Jan was a citizen of a foreign country with an established life far away, and a rapidly expiring visitor’s visa, was not going to be easy.
He decided to work in steps and the visa, with its necessary restrictions on time, was the first obstacle to be overcome. Not for the first time, he fell back upon the resources of the ever resourceful Jane Macgregor.
‘You want something,’ she said bluntly, when he cornered her in the hallway when she was about to retire with Hetty and Vanessa for after-dinner coffee.
‘Afraid so,’ he said, grinning as engagingly as possible.
‘You know, young man,’ she said, looking severely down her long fine nose, ‘you should realize by now that that gorgeous smile may work on twenty-five-year-olds, but not on ladies of sixty years.’
‘Oh, surely no more than fifty,’ he said, still grinning. ‘And that I’ll only accept because history demands it.’
‘You are pushing your luck,’ said Jane drily. ‘Well, what is it this time?’
‘A friend in the Home Office? Visas department?’
‘And who says I have a friend in the Home Office?’
‘Lady Macgregor, my beloved, you have friends everywhere.’
She had sniffed, lifting her still handsome chin with a slight twitching of smile. ‘My coffee will be cold,’ she said.
But he knew, as she strode off down the corridor, briskly adjusting her brief tweed jacket, that that much had been accomplished and official channels were now open. Now remained the much trickier task of the man himself.
Within half an hour of conversation Sam Hardacre had reached an important conclusion: Jan Muller was a man of action and, as such, would respond only to action. Words would invoke that pleasant European smile and ready agreement and neither would lead anywhere. Conversely, if he could just get the man on the wet, oily deck of the Dainty Girl, with the challenge of the North Sea all around, and the lure of the sunken ship below, the same excitement that charged him when he first saw the Louisa Jane would charge Jan as well. Which was why, without a word of consultation with either concerned party, Sam had volunteered to drive Jan to Bridlington in Jane Macgregor’s car, for a day’s reconnoitring of the salvage project, coupled with a dinner and overnight accommodation at The Rose at Kilham.
‘You don’t mind, Aunt Jane, do you?’ he said anxiously, as he accepted the Jaguar keys from Jane’s slightly imperious hand the next morning.
‘Mind? Why should I mind? At least we’re getting rid of you for the night.’ She tilted her head sideways, watching her great-nephew climbing into the driver’s seat, trying to conceal his eagerness to get her magnificent motor car on to the open road as he did so. ‘Prang it and I’ll have your head. I really will, Sam,’ she said firmly, and with a dry smile added, ‘I can’t wait to see the welcome you get from Emily. Have you told her yet?’
‘Shh,’ Sam said, for Jan was emerging from the front door of Hardacres, graciously making his thank-yous to Harry and to Noel, who had walked off in the middle.
Sam drove off docilely, down the long winding gravel drive, pointing out peacocks and the small inherited herd of fallow deer as they passed them. Once out on to the Driffield road, with Hardacres and Jane Macgregor thoroughly out of earshot, he put his foot down and let the XK 120 go. The surge of power satisfied all expectations.
‘A superb lady,’ said Jan Muller, thrown back in his seat by the acceleration.
‘A gem. A true gem,’ Sam whispered. ‘I’d give my eye teeth for a car like this.’
Jan laughed, over the rush of wind and roar of the engine. ‘No. Not the motor. I mean your Aunt Jane.’
‘Oh,’ Sam said, surprised. ‘Yes, rather, now that you mention it. Jolly good sport, anyhow. Super of her lending the car.’
Jan laughed again. ‘I think somehow she had little choice. You are a determined man, when your mind is on something.’
Sam glanced across at his companion, and back at the road. He drove on in silence, concentrating on the curving road and the rich pleasure of the Jaguar’s response. He had underestimated Jan Muller. The ruse of the weekend had in no way fooled him. At last he said, ‘That’s right. I am.’ He turned briefly, and grinned, his open, honest grin. ‘Consider yourself warned.’
Jan nodded. But if he put up any interior defences, Sam saw no outward sign. He only relaxed back against the grey leather seat as if there was nothing on his mind but the enjoyment of the drive on a lovely spring day.
In truth his mind was in Palestine, with Hannah, in the dusty dry sun, awaiting his return.
To gain time, Sam talked about the project so far and his satisfaction in retrieving, with the diver and two mechanical grabs, virtually all of the tinned goods he was contracted to raise, with the exception of the half dozen partially damaged cases they had retained as ‘perks’.
‘Trouble is,’ he said, negotiating a narrow blind bend by a tall brick wall as they passed through the village of Burton Agnes, ‘half the tins in the damaged crates had lost their labels. The sea water unstuck the glue, and then they were anyone’s guess. Of course they could still be resold as long as the structure was sound, but only at a fraction of value. Who’s going to buy half a crate of salmon that might turn out to be peaches?’ He shrugged. ‘Anyhow, we made a reasonable profit from the rest. We’re happy enough.’
‘But not,’ said Jan, ‘happy to stop while, who knows, you are still ahead?’
‘Do you think we’re making a mistake?’
‘What do the insurers think?’
‘They’re not involved. They’re out of it now. The contract was just for the cargo. The hulk was officially abandoned. She’s up for grabs.’
‘So,’ Jan said, ‘there is your answer.’ He touched the side of his forehead with a gesture that Sam interpreted as ‘a word to the wise’.
‘The insurers’ lack of interest doesn’t negate the absolute value of the wreck,’ Sam defended. ‘It’s maybe just not worth their while. There’s not much in it, the ship was old and she’s had a heavy mauling. I reckon they were content enough getting the cargo back.’ He heard uncertainty in his own voice and did his best to suppress it.
‘No risk to them,’ Jan pointed out logically, ‘if you were willing to take up the contract. No cure, no pay. That’s how it’s always done, am I not right?’ Sam nodded. Pete Haines had explained that all to him at the beginning. ‘However, supposing there was reason to assume that the wreck itself might become a nuisance. That’s a busy piece of water, I understand, a lot of fishing activity, small boats, holidaymakers. Supposing you shift her and she breaks loose under tow, or whatever, and blocks the shipping lanes or harbou
r entrance. The owner might be obliged then to raise her at any expense. Much more expense than she’s possibly worth.’ Sam nodded again. He hadn’t thought of that. Jan said, ‘When insurers wash their hands of something there’s bound to be a reason. They think with their purses, you see, not their hearts.’
Sam drove on in silence, feeling morose and faintly foolish. As they approached Bridlington, where Mick and Pete awaited them aboard the Dainty Girl in the harbour, he said, ‘I know you’re right. But somehow I think I’m right too. I’ve got a ready local market for her as scrap metal. I’ve got an abandoned slip in Whitby where we can tow her in and cut her up. Pete knows the scrap-metal business in this part of the world. He’s got a million connections. I think you’re right that she’s scarcely worth bothering with for anyone else, but we’re right here, on the spot, with all the facilities we need. I dare say I’d not travel half-way round Britain for her, but the Louisa Jane is on our doorstep.’ He glanced across at Jan Muller, who was listening politely. ‘And besides,’ he said, grinning in spite of himself as, upon approaching the Harbour Top in Jane Macgregor’s Jaguar, he caught sight of Mick Raddley watching with his jaw down to his ankles, ‘besides, damn it, if I stop now, that will be the end of it. Hardacre Salvage will end up with a neat profit and no future. Mick and Pete will go their own ways, and I’ll go mine, and in half a year the whole business will just be a queer episode in our lives we tell people about in the pub, or at dinner-parties. I don’t want it to end already. I want more.’ He was interrupted by a sudden loud burst of applause and looked up startled. It was Mick and Pete, and it was not his speech but his borrowed motor that they were applauding, but somehow the effect was the same. Jan Muller was watching with a faint, admiring smile, and Mick Raddley, approaching with an awed expression and his one hand extended to stroke one silken grey wing, spoke softly.
‘Eeh boss, you tell now where it wuz you swopped a crate uv yon salmon for this, and Pete and I’ll just be off to pick up ourn.’
Once aboard the Dainty Girl, the party fell at once instinctively under the leadership of Mick Raddley who, in his proper position of skipper once more, assumed a quiet but firm authority. Sam was glad to relinquish the continued seduction of Jan Muller to the old fisherman, and stood quietly beside the wheelhouse as, within, Mick could be heard shouting over the engine noise and the sea wind, pointing out one and another feature of the Harbour to their guest. Once out in the bay, the boat began to kick about in the rough uneven sea, and Sam was glad of a few moments’ solitude, balancing against the shifting deck. Something had happened there, in his conversation with Jan Muller, that had shaken him. It was not, as logically it might well have been, Jan’s cool-headed assessment of the financial risks of raising the Louisa Jane. Those were genuine problems, but already he sensed he could deal with them. At times like this, he found growing in him a shrewd intuition that no doubt came from his great-grandfather, the Herring King. He knew the odds were wrong and he knew as surely that he would win. It was perhaps superstition; but he did not care. He trusted it. But something else had grown upon him in latter weeks, as they struggled and then triumphed over the sunken cargo: an eagerness, a chafing at the bit, a desire for reaching further, and then further for an elusive goal. He had said it himself, without meaning to. He wanted ‘more’. More what? Money? Undoubtedly, he admitted ruefully, thinking of his hands on the wood-rimmed wheel of the Jaguar. But more something else, something addictive perhaps, excitement, or success, or a risky combination of both. He’d known a man in the Forces who was a drinker, the sort of hardened drinker who was heading unerringly towards alcoholism. He remembered the look that man’s face would take on at his first drink of an evening, a savouring, tantalizing look, as he held it a moment out of reach, secure in its nearness, but prolonging the delicious act of fulfilment as one prolongs the act of love. That look, that hungry excitement was, he realized now, the elusive yearning he felt when he had said he wanted more.
Chilled, Sam raised his eyes to the approaching white of the Flamborough headland. He thought of Terry, with an unaccountable feeling of distancing and separation. Not shame, as he thought would be sensible, having just admitted to a terribly earthly lust for wealth, but loneliness, as if an expanding physical distance was opening between him and the Benedictine monastery where Terry still remained. He huddled against the wheelhouse and was filled with a powerful desire to burst in, interrupt Mick’s long, descriptive monologue, thrust Jan Muller aside, and turn the Dainty Girl and run downwind for home. But Flamborough Head slipped past as he stood, unmoving, and in the distance he saw the familiar shoreline of the bay that held the Louisa Jane, and all his doubts flew and scattered like so much blown foam.
Sam Hardacre was discovering, like other men of business before him, that moral strictures were occasionally a luxury he would find difficult to afford. He did not like himself much in the discovering, but buried the thought under the concentration of talk and activity that the afternoon provided. They made fast to the same buoys they had used during the salvage operation, and Pete Haines launched into a detailed discussion of the size, condition and position of the stern half of the sunken ship. He brought out navigational charts and drew diagrams, and Jan stood on the tossing wet deck, nodding and listening and questioning and Sam saw, as he knew he would, casual polite curiosity strengthen into real interest, and harden into involvement and committed concern. By the time they cast off and headed back to the Harbour, Jan was oblivious to Sam Hardacre, wrapped up instead with Pete and Mick and the technical possibilities that lay before them. He seemed to have forgotten entirely that he was meant to be crossing the Channel in four days’ time.
But he hadn’t, as Sam discovered that evening after dinner at The Rose at Kilham. After their return to Bridlington Sam had taken the opportunity to telephone Emily, while Jan and Pete were still poring over diagrams in the wheelhouse of the Dainty Girl. He needed every ounce of the charm that had once won him WAACs at every turn, to persuade her not only to accept two uninvited, and unexpected guests, but to provide them with the sort of dinner one lays on to impress a would-be future business partner.
‘I will pay, of course,’ Sam said. ‘I mean, business is business.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Emily said morosely. ‘I can’t possibly let you after that lovely party and, what’s more, you know it.’
‘Aunt Emily, please, that’s not so at all. I insist on paying. I really do.’ He was about to say they wouldn’t come if he wasn’t allowed to pay, but realizing that just might suit Emily nicely, he refrained.
‘Oh, just shut up and come, Sam,’ Emily snapped, ‘before I change my mind.’
Sam hung up the phone, a little doubtful of what welcome he and Jan Muller could expect to receive, but with little he could do about it, considering that he had told Jan as early as that morning that the arrangements were all made.
‘She can’t wait to see us,’ he said cheerily, upon rejoining Jan aboard the Dainty Girl.
Considering its less than promising beginning, the evening was a remarkable success. Emily, after her initial reluctance, chose to regard the event as a family dinner-party of the kind she had once enjoyed so in London, and consequently threw herself with manic fervour into the preparations. The inn was, as usual, more or less empty, and for once this annoying state of affairs was a happy convenience. She prepared the best two of the three bedrooms and, over the whimpering protests of all three children, converted two of the inn’s squawking collection of hens into the makings of a luxurious coq au vin. She left a mortified Ruth gamely plucking both after the execution, and went into the kitchen to wash her hands with a certain satisfaction. Emily surprised herself at times with her own, albeit unwilling, adaptation to circumstances. It was an adaptation which her country-loving husband had not yet achieved. Philip always hid in the bar when a chicken or duckling was needed for the pot.
‘Are they dead yet?’ Olive mourned, looking up at her from under the kitchen table.
/> ‘As a doornail,’ Emily said grimly. ‘Go and pull some leeks. I’ll make broth from the feet.’
‘Yeeuk,’ Olive said, turning upon her mother a look appropriate to a murderess, and plodded out to the garden on dragging feet.
By the time the grey Jaguar, open-topped in the evening sunshine, pulled up in the narrow street before The Rose, the whole inn was imbued with a delicious mixture of scents, fresh bread, chicken in wine and subtleties of broth and spices, and Philip was standing in his plus-fours before the door.
Emily appeared behind him and, taking one look at Sam and his transport, said, as one would to a child with his big brother’s best toy, ‘Does Jane know you’ve got that?’
‘Emily, you positive darling,’ Sam declared, vaulting the door of the car. ‘How marvellous to see you. Come, you do remember Jan?’ He embraced his aunt with one arm, his uncle with the other, and led both across to meet his guest. After the politeness of greetings, with Philip leading Jan proudly off to his bar, she detached herself smoothly from Sam’s embrace and said only, echoing Jane, ‘You want something.’
‘Just your company,’ Sam declared honestly.
‘I’m to be charming, am I?’ Emily asked.
‘You’re always charming.’
‘I’m not, Sam,’ Emily said frankly. ‘Not these days. But for you,’ she relaxed into a small smile, ‘I’ll make an exception. What do you want from Jan Muller? Money?’
‘No, far from it,’ Sam answered at once. ‘If I want money from someone I just ask for it.’
‘Just like that,’ Emily said, sniffing. ‘You make it sound simple.’
‘It is simple, compared to this. Investment is just a question of figures, and a bit of trust. But I want more than that from Jan. I want a commitment.’
‘To what?’
‘To Hardacre Salvage. I’ve got one more day to convince him that he wants to go to work for me, or with me, instead of going home to Israel.’