It was now almost dark as Forester chivvied the hands about the deck, and the overcast covered the sky.
Drinkwater was floundering and he beat vainly for air as though his flailing arms could provide what he gasped for if he strove hard enough. He was curiously aware that he was drowning, yet equally convinced that he was dry, and that if he kept his arms moving he would survive. Yet the sensation filled him with terror. Somehow his subconscious mind registered the fact that this was not real, that the drowning was purely a vehicle for fear, and that it was only the fear which could touch him now.
As he grasped this and felt his heart hammer with increasing apprehension, he caught sight of something he dreaded with all the primeval fear of which his imagination was capable. She came upon him with ferocious speed, at first a faint glow in the distance, then with the velocity of recognition. Now she loomed over him and he felt the chill of her presence and her cold ethereal fist reaching for his lurching heart.
He would fain have averted his eyes, but her face, at once as beautiful as it was hideous, compelled his attention. And with her came the noise, a noise of roaring and clattering, of the scream of wind and of things — what things he did not know — tumbling in such confusion that it seemed the whole world had lost its moorings and only the ghastly white lady maintained her terrifying equilibrium, poised above him. Then she descended upon him like a gigantic succubus. He felt his body submit to her in a painful yet oddly delicious sensation while his soul fought for life.
Drinkwater woke in a muck sweat, the perspiration streaming from him and his heart thundering with such violence that he thought it must burst from his body. He imagined he had screamed out in his fright, yet around him all seemed quiet as he recollected his circumstances, making out the unfamiliar shapes of the state-cabin's furniture. As his heartbeat subsided, the last images of the dream faded. He could still conjure into his mind's eye the white lady, but she was receding, like the dying image of a sunlit window on the closed eyelid, identifiable only as an afterglow of perception.
For a moment he thought he had suffered a seizure, such had been the violence of his heartbeat, but it had only been a dream, and an old, almost familiar one. He tried to recall how many times he had had the recurring dream during his long life and remembered only that it had often served as a premonition.
The thought worried him more than the dream's inherent, terrifying images. They were so contradictory as to be easily dismissed, mere eldritch phantasms inhabiting the fearful hours of the lonely night when extraordinary, illogical contradictions possessed the power to frighten. But if it were premonition, what did that signify?
He lay back and felt his mortality. He was an old man. How many summers had he seen? Eighty? Yes, that was it, eighty summers and this his eighty-first...
He sighed. His heart, which had hammered with such insistence, would not beat forever and he had lived longer than so many of his friends. Poor Tregembo, for instance, whom he himself had dispatched with a pistol ball fired out of mercy to end the poor man's fearful suffering; and James Quilhampton, killed in a storm of shot as his cutter, Kestrel, had been raked in the Vikkenfiord ...
How he mourned Quilhampton. Better that Drinkwater himself should have died than poor James, so newly wed after so long a betrothal...
Drinkwater pulled himself together and shook off the last vestiges of the dream. He was no stranger to wakefulness in the night and knew its promptings were more substantial than a damned dream! Wearily he threw his legs clear of the bunk and fumbled for the jordan.
But even after relieving himself he could not sleep. The ship was rolling now, the tide having turned and the wind grown stronger. She hung in equilibrium, tethered to the sea-bed by her anchor and cable which would now be stretched out to the eastward, but with the strong wind in her top-hamper canting her round against its powerful stream.
'Some things', Drinkwater mused, thinking of Vestal's steam-powered sophistication, 'remain always the same.'
The rolling was persistently irritating. He was unused to the fixed mattress in the bunk and found the way his body-weight was pressed first on one side and then on the other a most disconcerting experience. He lay and thought fondly of his wife, knowing now, as he tossed irritably, that she had been correct in thinking him a fool for wanting to go back to sea.
'There is, my dear,' he could hear her saying, 'no fool quite like an old fool. Every dog has his day and surely you have had yours, but I suppose I shall let you have your way.'
It had been no good protesting that, as an Elder Brother of the Trinity House, it was his duty to ensure that the lighthouses, buoys and light-vessels around the coast were property maintained for the benefit of mariners.
'If you had never sent in that report about the deficiencies of the lighthouse on Helgoland they would never have heard of Nathaniel Drinkwater and never have elected you to their blessed fraternity,' Elizabeth had berated him. 'Either that or they wanted your knighthood to adorn their Court...'
'Thank you, Lady Drinkwater,' he had said, aware that her head, for all its customary good sense, had been turned a trifle by the title. God knew, it was little enough by way of compensation for all the loneliness she had suffered over the years, but perhaps, he thought, imagining her lying abed on the opposite side of the country listening to the rising gale, he should have spared her this last anxiety.
When at last he fell asleep it was almost dawn. He stirred briefly as the ship weighed her cable and her paddle-wheels thrashed the sea until they drove her along at nine knots. Then, acknowledging that the responsibility of command was not his, he rolled over and settled himself again. It was a supreme luxury to leave matters in the hands of another.
He woke fully an hour later as Vestal met a particularly heavy sea and shouldered it aside, her hull shuddering with the impact. A moment later the steward appeared, deferentially producing a coffee pot and the news that they had doubled Bull Point and that he might break his fast in the saloon in half an hour.
Drinkwater rose and shaved, bracing himself against the heave of the ship with the reflection that he had never, in three score years, proceeded directly to windward like this. He sipped the strong coffee as he dressed, cursing the need to perch spectacles on his nose in order to settle his neck-linen. Though never a dandy, Drinkwater had always tied his stock with a certain fastidiousness, and the one concession he made to fashion now that in his private life he rarely wore uniform, was a neat cravat. Satisfied, he pulled on a plain blue undress coat over the white pantaloons that he habitually wore, and walked through to the saloon.
Drew looked up and half rose from the table where he was hacking at cold mutton. 'Give you good day, sir.'
'And you, Richard...' The two men shook hands and Drinkwater joined Drew at the table.
'Did you sleep well?'
'Well enough,' Drinkwater replied. He was at least thirty-five years Drew's senior and had no wish to arouse the younger man's impatience with tedious references to a weakening bladder and those damned rheumaticks! Instead he would test the mettle of the man, for he knew Drew had made his name and a competent fortune in the West India trade before he was forty, and had been a member of the fraternity for some years. He was, therefore, Drinkwater's senior aboard Vestal. 'What d'you make of the weather?'
Drew pulled a face. 'Well, it ain't ideal, to be sure, but the worst of it went through during the night and it was short-lived. The swell will soon drop away We've a good chance of making a landing.' Drew smiled blandly and Drinkwater hid his scepticism. The situation reminded him of a terrible day ... but then so many situations reminded him of something these days. He dismissed the memory and forbore from alluding to it lest Drew consider him among those men whose present consists of boasts about their past
'Of course,' Drew expatiated, laying down his knife and fork and sitting back as Vestal gave a lurch, 'if we cannot scramble ashore we shall have to steam across to Lundy and anchor in the lee until there's a moderation.'
When they had finished breakfast, they repaired to the bridge. Vestal's long, elegant bow and bowsprit pointed directly into the wind's eye as she rose and fell, meeting the advancing ridges of water with her powerful forward impetus. Her engine was remarkably quiet, though the splashing of her paddles as they thrashed the water and drove the ship along made a counterpoint to the wind soughing in the rigging. The decks were wet with spray and recent rain, and the sky remained heavily clouded, though there was some break in the overcast to the south-westward.
Mr Quier was studying a pair of luggers on the port bow and clearly had the watch, but Poulter too was on the bridge and crossed to greet them. 'Good morning, gentlemen.'
'Mornin' Poulter,' Drew said, acknowledging his salute.
'Good morning, Captain,' said Drinkwater. 'Not the best of 'em I fear.'
'Alas no, Sir Nathaniel...'
'What d'you give for our chances?'
Poulter pulled the corners of his mouth down and was about to speak when Drew interrupted him. 'Oh, we've a good chance of it. We may have to lie off in the boat and pick our moment, but we shall have a shot at it, eh Sir Nat? You're game for it, ain't you?'
Drinkwater disliked being called 'Nat' by anyone not a close friend, and Drew's overbearing familiarity was as irritating as it might be dangerous. He looked at Poulter and replied, 'Of course I'm game, Drew, though I'd not want to risk the boat's crew contrary to Captain Poulter's judgement.'
The gratitude on Poulter's face was plain and Drinkwater sensed that these men had been at odds before he came aboard. Poulter's task was no easy one and Drew's presence on board was analogous to that of a fractious admiral, for while he must carry out the wishes, instructions and orders of the members of the Trinity Board embarked, the safety of the ship and her people remained the master's responsibility. Drinkwater recalled the dilemma with startling clarity, remembering Poulter's father in the same position many years earlier when he himself had held young Quier's post.
'Yes, yes, of course,' Drew was saying testily, 'of course, we'll see. But we can prepare the boat, nonetheless,' and he stumped off across the bridge. 'Here, sir! Mr Quier, sir! The loan of your glass if you please!'
Quier spun round and offered the glass with a hasty gesture, and Drinkwater met Poulter's gaze. Propriety would keep Poulter's mouth shut as it ought to secure Drinkwater's, but he was an old man and age had its privileges. 'You have been having a difficult time I think, Captain, have you not?'
Poulter nodded resignedly. 'There is an assumption, Sir Nathaniel,' he said with ill-concealed obliquity and bending to Drinkwater's ear, 'that we know all about the lighthouse service. For myself, I'm used to it, but poor Quier has suffered rather.'
Drinkwater nodded. 'I gathered as much. He seemed a little nervous of me last evening.'
Poulter smiled. 'You come with a formidable reputation, Sir Nathaniel. Quier's a fine seaman, but unfortunately he was overridden in the boat at Flatholm a day or two ago ... It serves ill in front of the men.'
'Of course. I shall endeavour to take advantage of my grey hairs, though he seems determined to have a shot at the landing.'
'Yes. The business at Flatholm was unfortunate in that Captain Drew was proved right...'
'And thus considers himself a greater expert than formerly, while Quier feels a touch humiliated, eh?'
Poulter nodded. 'Indeed. Quier was not at fault, merely a trifle cautious...'
'Because, no doubt, Captain Drew was in the boat beside him?'
'Exactly so.'
'Well, we shall have to see what we can do to moderate matters,' Drinkwater said.
'I hope you won't mistake my meaning, Sir Nathaniel, but...'
'Think no more of it, Poulter,' Drinkwater replied reassuringly and then, seeing Drew lower the glass and turn towards them again, he called out, 'Well, what d'you make of it?'
'It's not so bad,' Drew answered, leaning against the cant of the deck and waving the telescope at the headland that lay like a grey dragon sprawling along the southern horizon on their port bow. Its extremity dipped to the sea, and just above the declivity stood the squat lighthouse of Hartland Point, revealed in a sudden patch of brightness that banished the monotone and threw up the fissured rock, patches of vegetation and the white structure of the lighthouse and its dwellings.
'See, the sun's coming out!' Drew threw the remark out with a flourish.
A few moments later sunlight spread across the sea, transforming the grey waste into a sparkling vista of tumbling waves through which, it suddenly seemed, Vestal's passage was an exuberant progress. As if to emphasize the change of atmosphere, a school of bottle-nosed dolphins appeared on the starboard bow, racing in to close the plunging steam-ship and gambol about her bow under the dipping white figurehead.
'And the wind is dropping,' added Poulter with a rueful nod.
'I believe you may be right, Captain Poulter,' Drinkwater agreed, turning to judge the matter from the snap and flutter of the flag at the masthead. And let us hope it continues to do so.'
They had lowered the boat in the Vestal's lee. Poulter had set the fore-topsail to ease the roll of the ship as she fell off the wind, and the slowed revolution of the paddles kept a little headway on the ship, laying a trail of smooth water alongside her after hull, beneath the davits.
The boat had been skilfully lowered and they had swiftly drawn away from the ship, the men bending to their oars with a will. Once clear of the protection of the Vestal's hull, both wind and sea drove at their stern as they pulled in towards the land. Hartland Point rose massive above them as they approached, and Drinkwater stared at the surge of the sea as it spent itself against the great buttress of rock. He sought the breakwater and saw a short length of hewn stone forming a small enclosure, but it seemed that the turmoil of the sea within it was no better man outside, and this was worsening.
Off the intrusion of the headland, the tide sped up and they felt the force of it oppose the wind to throw up a vicious sea, dangerous to Vestal's cutter. Drinkwater could see that this sudden steepening of the waves surprised Drew. He caught his fellow Elder Brother's eye.
'There's an ebb tide in here,' Drew called, raising his voice in some wonder above the sound of the wind and the sea which was no longer making a regular, subdued hiss, but fell in a noisily slopping roar of unstable water.
'It's an eddy under the headland,' Drinkwater replied, 'it's not uncommon.'
'Sir, I think ...' Quier began, catching Drinkwater's eye.
'I agree, Mr Quier,' he nodded and looked again at Drew, 'there's no chance of a landing. We should put about.'
Drew was clearly reluctant and turned to stare again at the towering mass of rock. They could see two lighthouse keepers and one of their wives standing on the path that wound tortuously down the cliff face. One of the men was waving his arms to and fro across his breast in a gesture of warning and the apron of the woman fluttered in the wind.
'I suppose', said Drew offensively, 'you ain't as handy on your legs as you might once have been.'
'If that is put forward as a reason for abandoning our attempt, Captain Drew, I shall overlook the impropriety of the remark ...' Drinkwater retorted, aware of a sharp intake of breath from an incredulous Quier beside him. 'I prefer, however, to consider that common prudence dictates our actions.' He gave Drew a withering glance and turned to Quier. 'Put up the helm, Mr Quier, and let us return to the ship. Quier turned to the coxswain and, the relief plain on both their faces, the boat began to turn as the coxswain called, 'Put yer backs into it now, me lads!'
Drinkwater ignored Drew's spluttering protest and turned to cast one last glance at the forbidding cliffs, only to feel an imperious tap upon his knee. Drew was leaning forward. 'Sir, I am the senior!' he hissed, his face red with fury. 'I shall give the order!'
'Sir,' Drinkwater replied in a low voice, "tis seniority in a Pizzy Club, pray do not make too much of it, I beg you.'
Drew's mouth twisted with anger and he reluctantly sa
t upright, visibly fuming, his sensibilities outraged. Drinkwater, incredulous at the man's stupidity, turned his attention to the now distant Vestal. The men at the oars were going to have to work hard to regain the safety of her, for she alternately dipped into the trough of the seas so that only the trucks of her masts and the pall of her funnel smoke were visible, then rose and sat on the elevated horizon like an elaborate toy.
The boat's bow dropped into a trough and threw up a sheet of spray that whipped aft. 'God blast it!' snarled Drew. Then the stern fell while the bow climbed into the sky and breasted the tumbling wave. The men grunted unconsciously as the man at stroke oar set the pace. Drinkwater could see the oar-looms bowing with their effort.
He shivered. It had grown suddenly chilly. He looked up to see that the sun had once more disappeared behind a thickening cloud, and the joy went out of the day.
Aboard Vestal Forester, peering attentively through the long glass, had seen the boat turn. He lowered the large telescope and reported the fact to Poulter.
'Thank the Lord for small mercies,' Poulter said, relieved. 'D'you keep an eye upon it if you please, Mr Forester, while I run down towards them.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Poulter leaned over the forward rail and called to some seamen on the foredeck. 'D'you hear there! I'm running off before the wind for a few moments. Hands to the braces and square the foreyards!'
The hail of acknowledgement came back to them as Poulter rang for half speed ahead on the telegraph, ordered Potts to put the helm up, and watched as Vestal paid off before the wind.
Forester's glass described a slow traverse as the ship swung and then he was staring ahead. A moment later Poulter called, 'Very well, Mr Forester, I can see the boat perfectly now, thank you.' Forester lowered the glass and glanced forward as the men on the foredeck belayed the swung braces.
'Harrison!' he shouted. 'Pass word for the hands to stand by the boat falls!'
'Usual drill, Mr Forester.' Poulter's tone was abstracted as he concentrated on closing the cutter.
Ebb tide nd-14 Page 2