Chapter Twenty
After breakfast McBride decided they needed to start plotting their journey. He left Ben at the helm, and went to the chart table and started to open the drawers. He noticed the small brass plates fastened to each drawer front contained a white card, indicating the contents of that drawer. From top drawer to bottom, the charts were in order west to east, north to south, covering the whole Baltic area.
McBride guessed they were somewhere off the Swedish coast below Stockholm, unless the compass had lied, or they had drifted. So he started with the chart immediately south of Stockholm; clipped it to the table. He looked at the co-ordinates, then glanced up at the GPS screen.
“Bang on,” he said to himself. He reached for the pencil in a holder on the wall. He traced the latitude reading, leaving his finger on it, and then read the longitude from the GPS. He traced the intersection with his finger. He marked the point with the pencil. Stood erect surveying the chart, letting his eyes drift here and there.
They were thirty miles off shore, and no further south than he had reckoned. He left the cabin.
“Hey, Ben. Go and have a look at the chart I’ve just put our position on it. In pencil, about thirty miles from the Swedish coast just south of Stockholm.”
Ben bobbed his head inside the cabin, turned back.
“Amazing. We did that almost blindfold, what two and a half days?”
“Just a little over. But we’ve had good weather. We’ll turn south when we get five miles offshore, and follow the coastline. That will take us round the southern tip of Sweden, then in a northerly direction up to Skagen.”
There were a few more boats about, leaving and entering Stockholm mostly, though some larger boats following the Swedish coast north, freighters mostly, although they saw a container ship in the distance. McBride was keeping an eye on the GPS screen, and an hour and a half later he moved over to the helm, stood behind Ben.
“Right. This is where you turn south. Just before you do, when you change direction, the boom is going to swing across. So to control the speed of the change, I get hold of the sheet and pull it taut and then I can control the swing. If the boom rockets across it can damage things. One, two three, change course.”
Ben slowly turned the wheel, and the boom swung over. McBride paid out the sheet, and the majesty of the sail was now fully visible from the cockpit.
“For visibility’s sake, Ben, we will leave the jib where it is. If we were in a race, we would have the jib set to port, and the boat would be swooping along like a gull. But we are going fast enough, and at least you can see ahead.”
“We don’t seem to be going as fast. It’s quieter.”
“Of course. We are running along with any current being stirred up by the wind. Everything going in the same direction. If you don’t believe me, look at your instruments.”
“Oh, yes. Fifteen knots.”
“That is a very respectful speed, and probably understates the actual speed.”
McBride went below to make tea. When he returned with two mugs in his hand, he glanced astern, watching the wake. Straight as an arrow, Ben really had the makings of a sailor. He saw a motor launch, maybe half a mile or more away, creating quite a bow wave. Somebody in a hurry. Heading in their direction.
“How long has that motor launch been following us?”
Ben craned his neck. “I don’t know. I only saw it just after you went to make the tea.”
“I reckon it will overtake us in about half an hour, even less perhaps. It just might be the SVR. Remember what Nigel told us?”
“But we haven’t set foot in any port. How do they know it is us?”
“Shouldn’t think they do. Unless they recognise the yacht, and they are a bit too far away for that. We can’t stop them catching up, they’ve got a lot more speed. Even resetting the jib won’t add more than a couple of knots.”
“So what shall we do?”
“Well, for a start, you go below. They might think I’m a single-handed sailor, and they are expecting two. Secondly I look less like I did, because I’ve shaved my beard off, and my hair has grown. In the photos Nigel had, I was a skin-head. So, all in all, it might throw them. Unless they have details of the yacht.”
That was something he didn’t want to worry Ben with. It was a real possibility. After all the yacht was registered to an MI6 man, and they would have details tucked away in the files somewhere in the Kremlin.
Ben went below. McBride sat sideways on the helmsman’s seat, so that he didn’t have to turn his head to watch the approaching launch. He glanced at the radar. There was only one blob on the screen. The motor launch. And the land mass to the west. Pity, that. If there had been a bit of traffic about, they might be careful about boarding the yacht.
The launch had put on speed and was approaching faster. About ten minutes to go. McBride didn’t think they would ram the yacht. Too dangerous for them. They might damage their own boat and even sink themselves. More like take a pot shot at him, then come alongside. This was the time he wished he was wearing a Kevlar vest rather than a life vest. Five minutes to go.
Suddenly the boat was near enough for him to read the inscription on the side of the hull. It read: CUSTOMS Sverige.
Never had McBride been so happy reading just two words. The sound of the launch’s powerful twin inboard diesels drowned out the sound of the waves slapping on the Belinda hull. Then the yacht was rising to meet the wash of the custom’s boat as it swept a large circle to starboard to return from where it had come. McBride raised a hand to the departing vessel, and saw a sailor on the stern return the salute. They had obviously had a tip off, and Belinda was the wrong one. Or they were just having a practice run.
“You can come out now,” McBride shouted down to the cabin.
A pale-faced Ben emerged, then watched the launch disappearing rapidly behind them.
“What happened?”
“Case of mistaken identity, on both parts. Us for getting our knickers in a twist. Them for mistaking us for someone else. I think. It was a Swedish Customs boat. I read the logo when it was just about to pass us. Believe me, that was some relief.”
They made good time, and by four o’clock, seeing yachts at anchor in a cove, they went closer to look. As they entered the cove, they saw red and ochre coloured wooden chalets amongst the trees. Unoccupied, no smoke coming from chimneys, windows shuttered. The yacht moored at buoys, all winterised, with tarpaulins draping their decks. On the shingle beach, dinghies upside down up above the tide line, such as it was. The Baltic is virtually tideless. McBride spotted an unoccupied buoy.
“Pass me the boathook, it’s clipped to the cabin, on your side. Now drop the sail.” And Ben knew how to do it. Now sailing on jib alone, the boat came alongside the buoy, and McBride slipped the hook into the ring, pulled the buoy up out of the water, its green weeded chain dangling behind it, slipped the painter through, tied it off and went forward to take the jib down. The boat had already swung up wind.
“That’s it, job done,” said McBride. It was the first time in two and a half days that they had stopped sailing. Tonight, they would both sleep well.
“Have we got enough water under the keel. You didn’t check.”
“Didn’t need to, Ben. Look at the angle of the shingle beach. It shelves steeply down. That’s a clue. There are other yachts our size nearer to the beach. Another clue.”
“Come here,” said Ben descending to the cabin. He moved the GPS screen along the ledge. “An echo sounder.” And it was, previously obscured by the GPSs. Not a lot of space on the shelf.
“Well switch it on. I bet we’ve got eight metres under us. You guess before you put the switch down.”
“Six metres.” And Ben pressed the switch. “Gosh, ten point four metres.”
As the night drew in, McBride switched the white masthead light on. Not strictly necessary, he thought, since all the other boats around them had no lights displayed. But it showed enough light down on the deck to mo
ve about in safety.
Ben brushed past him, carrying something.
“What have you got there?”
“Fishing rod. Found it a day or two ago. We might have fish for dinner.”
“Instead of corned beef. What are you going to use for bait?”
“Corned beef.”
McBride laughed, and watched Ben cast the line out towards the shore, pulled it in towards him, so that the bait never fell to the seabed. He cast again, and suddenly the line was pulling away. Ben started reeling in.
“Caught something already? I find it hard to believe,”
“The skill that comes with long practice. I’m not kidding you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I’ve been fishing off and on since I was a kid. Lived in Cumbria as a child. We used to go down to the lake with a handline. Penny hook tied to the line. Very crude tackle. But the fish didn’t seem to notice that. You laid on the jetty, and you could see the worm wriggling on the hook. When a fish came along you could see that too. And you flicked the line, and it was hooked.”
While he was talking he swung the rod aboard, with a fair size fish maybe a couple of pounds.
McBride said, “Looks like a perch. I thought they were a freshwater fish.”
“So did I.” Ben expertly got hold of the fish, compressing the spikey dorsal fin backwards, so that he wouldn’t injure himself and extracted the hook. He shoved his finger down the throat of the fish and pulled sharply backwards. The fish stopped thrashing about, its spine broken. “I learned to that, too when I was seven years old.”
McBride disappeared below, came back with a bowl and a kitchen knife.
“We don’t want guts all over the galley. Do it on deck.”
Ben took the knife, slit the fish’s belly near the tail and drew the knife up to just below its head. He scooped out the entrails with his hand, and dumped them in the sea. He leaned over and filled the bowl with sea water, washed the fish and chopped off its head, tossing that overboard.
Back in the galley, he poured a little olive oil in a frying pan, added salt, placed the fish fillets scales up in the hot fat. Three minutes later he turned the fillets, gave them a further two minutes, and took the pan off the heat.
Sitting at the small table between the bunks, Ben said: “Watch out for bones. Perch are almost worse than herrings.”
They sat there pulling bones out of their mouths, but still enjoyed their first fresh food since they set out.
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