The Little Ship

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘Cut them off.’

  He was a lot taller, though still not as tall as Guy. He’s sixteen now, she calculated. He and Anna are the same age. Guy was still messing about in the boat but the third figure had sprung out onto the jetty. ‘This is Otto,’ Matt said. ‘He’s staying with us. He’s from Germany.’

  ‘I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.’ The boy stepped forward to shake her hand very formally. He was just as tall as Guy with hair so fair that it looked bleached, and very pale blue eyes. Guy had jumped out, looking irritated. ‘That damned halyard keeps slipping … Oh, hallo, Lizzie. How are you?’ He didn’t seem to notice her new hair at all.

  They walked up to the house and went round to the side entrance to clean up at the tap. As they all went through from the kitchen passageway into the hall, Anna was coming down the stairs. She had changed into a different frock – a new one that she had brought back from Vienna. And she was wearing lipstick. She stopped when she saw them, one hand on the banister, and there was a moment’s dead silence before Guy spoke.

  ‘Hallo, Anna.’

  ‘Hallo, Guy.’ She smiled at Matt. ‘Hallo, darling Matt.’ She came down the rest of the stairs.

  Matt said, ‘I’m taller than you at last, Annie.’

  ‘So you are.’

  ‘This is Otto von Reichenau. From Berlin.’

  Otto bowed and clicked his heels. ‘Wie geht es Ihnen, es ist schon Sie kennenzulernen.’

  Anna froze. She looked at him coldly with her beautiful green eyes. ‘If you do not mind, I prefer to speak in English.’

  Otto was up by six o’clock. His father had always insisted on early rising and the habit had become so ingrained that he could never sleep late. He had taken to going for a walk before the others came down for breakfast. The old black dog was lying on a rug in the hall and thumped his tail. Otto could hear the cook at work in the kitchen as he let himself quietly out of the side door. Outside he stopped for a moment. It was a beautiful morning. The sun already felt quite warm and the birds were singing loudly. He could never remember hearing such birdsong in Germany. He skirted the lawn, his feet marking the dew. The croquet hoops and stumps were still there from the evening before and the memory of his humiliating defeat still rankled. He had never played the game before but that gave him no excuse to have finished last. The girl, Anna, had not played fairly. She had kept knocking his ball out of the way so that he had had no chance of making progress. Guy had won, Matt had been second, Lizzie third, Anna fourth and himself the very last of all. They had stood waiting for him to finish, watching him, and he had been so furious that he had missed the final hoop five times before he had managed to hit the ball through. They had all found it very amusing. ‘Bad luck!’ Guy had said casually. ‘You’ll soon get the hang of it. How about some tennis?’ But in his anger, he had refused.

  He had watched them play a doubles – Matt and Anna against Guy and Lizzie – and nobody took that seriously either. The grass court was full of bumps and holes so that they kept getting bad bounces, and the chalk lines were not clear in some places. He noticed several wrong calls and tried to correct them. ‘Your serve was out, Lizzie. It crossed the line.’ Guy had flapped a hand. ‘Doesn’t matter, Otto. Matt took it.’ Anna hit the ball so hard and so wildly that it kept going out and he had to go and retrieve it like a dog. He had begun to wonder whether she was doing it on purpose. Matt managed well with his crippled arm but he was no match for Guy. Otto pitied him. Physical imperfection was a grave misfortune. Ideally, the human race should be bred for perfection, just as racehorses were bred to eliminate all faults. A teacher at school had pointed this out to them. Otto had watched Guy’s tennis and seen that he was good. Of course he wasn’t playing anything like his best. He had been letting Lizzie do most of her own shots, but Otto noticed that he had poached just enough to make sure that they won in the end. By then it was no longer light enough to continue playing, otherwise he would have liked to take on Guy and make up for the croquet humiliation. He had studied his strokes carefully. Guy’s forehand was very strong, but his backhand was erratic and his second serve always fell too short. He was sure that he could beat him.

  Otto walked on down to the jetty. The river was flat calm, sea birds pecking about in the mud and seaweed at its edges. He had brought his camera so that he could take some more photographs, as his father had instructed. The scenery looked drab and featureless to him. He didn’t think any of it was a patch on the Schlei at Schleswig or that the North Sea was anything like as pleasant for sailing as the tideless Baltic. The Baltic was one of the most beautiful places he knew. Deep and clear and cold fiords. Sheltered inlets. Water shining between folds of hills. Green pastures and woods on the lower slopes with scattered farms and white cottages. Nothing he had seen in this corner of England could compare. As for the Ransomes’ boat, he had barely been able to conceal his scorn. He looked her over now, tied up at the jetty. Rose of England! Such a ridiculously grand name for an old tub. The contrast with his father’s yacht could not have been greater. Under sail or power, Nixe cut effortlessly through the water; she was graceful, responsive, elegant – a water-nymph like her name. She had three sails, a foredeck, a roomy cockpit and, below, a well-appointed saloon and cabin. And she towed her own dinghy. The Ransomes’ boat had no engine, two tiny lockers, and was clearly designed to wallow round the shoals taking on netloads of stinking fish.

  He watched the sea birds for a while, and the gradual creep of the incoming tide over the wet mud. The girl, Anna, was very beautiful, of course. When he had first seen her standing on the stairs he had been quite struck … so struck that he had almost been unable to speak. And then, in a little while, he had realized that she was a Jewess. There had been several families of Jews living in the same building as his father’s apartment in Berlin – until they had all moved away. His father had always been at pains to point them out and had forbidden him to have anything to do with them. So he had learned to recognize a Jew easily. And Berlin was full of things mocking Jews – cartoon posters of ugly, avaricious old money-lenders, crude slogans daubed on walls, boycotting banners carried in streets, books in shops … he had seen a children’s book called The Poisoned Mushroom all about how to detect the poisoned mushrooms – the Jews. They had only themselves to blame, his father said. The Jews had taken over too much for their own good: banks, stores, businesses, professions. They were everywhere. And all the time they grew richer and more powerful, trampling over the backs of the Aryan people. Jews were not Germans. They were foreigners, breeding like cuckoos in borrowed nests. It was time to be rid of them. To purge the Fatherland. Germany must be cleansed. The Führer himself had preached it at the big rally that Otto had gone to with his father in Berlin last year. Above the Führer’s head a great banner had proclaimed: The Jews are our misfortune. His father would not be pleased if he knew that the Ransomes had invited a Jewess; it would be wiser not to tell him.

  He walked along the edge of the shore for some distance, taking photographs. At dinner the evening before, he had brought up the subject of the Royal Navy with the captain, but his polite questions had been met with only the vaguest answers and the captain, far from seeming proud of his country’s fleet, had said something about ‘a few old buckets still managing to stay afloat’. Otto thought that he would never understand the English. Whenever they had something that they had reason to be proud of, they acted as though it was nothing special at all.

  By the time he had returned to the house, curtains had been drawn back at windows and there was a tantalizing aroma of frying bacon when he let himself in through the side entrance. He felt ravenously hungry. Captain and Frau Ransome were seated at the dining-room table and Guy was helping himself from the silver dishes on the sideboard. Frau Ransome smiled at him. ‘Good morning, Otto. They say on the wireless that it’s going to be lovely today. I’ve suggested to Guy that you all go off in the Rose with a picnic. Would you like to do that?’

  ‘Of course.’
He would have preferred to challenge Guy to a tennis match but he had been taught to defer to a hostess. ‘I should like that very much.’

  ‘Like to take the helm, Otto?’

  ‘Oh … thank you.’

  Matt, holding the jib sheet, watched The Hun scramble aft and take over the mainsheet and tiller from Guy. He seemed astonished at being invited to do so. The patched mainsail filled with wind and Rose swung round obligingly and headed upstream. Otto looked every bit as competent as Guy and Matt guessed that, like Guy, he must think the boat something of a joke. He had told them about sailing in the Baltic and all about his father’s wonderful yacht. Poor old Rose couldn’t compete. But Matt liked her. He felt safer and more confident with her than he had ever done with Bean Goose. There was something kindly about the way she responded and she was far more forgiving of mistakes. If any boat could ever cure him of his fear of the sea, Rose might do it.

  ‘Are you going to choose the picnic place, Guy? Because if so, I hope there will not be flies.’

  ‘You can choose it, Anna.’

  ‘You are in a very generous mood. What is the matter with you?’

  ‘What do you mean, what’s the matter with me?’

  ‘Well, it is most unusual. In general, you want to do everything.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Guy turned his head. ‘I’d go about pretty soon, Otto.’

  ‘OK. Ready about. Lee-oh,’ Otto said in his very correct English. He put the helm over and Rose heeled very gently; they all ducked their heads under the boom as it went over. He hauled in the mainsheet and Matt trimmed the jib. There was just enough wind to carry them along at a slow and stately pace. Anna stood up, shielding her eyes against the sun.

  ‘We must find a nice field with no cows. I think I can see one.’

  ‘Sit down, Anna.’

  ‘I cannot see unless I stand up, Guy.’ She stood on tiptoe, making the Rose rock. ‘Yes, there is one further on, on the left side.’

  ‘Port, Anna. Not left. How about somewhere to land?’

  ‘I cannot see that yet.’

  ‘We have to have a decent place to put the boat safely. We can’t just stop and get out, you know. This isn’t a bus.’

  Guy and Anna went on wrangling over it. The first spot turned out to be no good.

  ‘What is wrong with it?’

  ‘Not enough room for a boat.’

  The one after that wasn’t right either.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It was all mud, Anna. Rose would get completely bogged down. We’d have a frightful time pushing her off again.’

  ‘We could leave her in the water.’

  ‘There was nothing to tie her to, and we don’t happen to carry an anchor, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  Luckily the third was all right. There was a bit of firm beach – just wide enough to take the Rose – and Otto timed everything perfectly, bringing her in side-on, sails down, to drift to a stop. They dragged her up onto the shore by the forestay and the shroud, unloaded the picnic and carried it across to a shady spot under a tree.

  ‘Satisfied, Anna?’

  ‘The grass is not so good, but at least there are no flies.’

  ‘If I hear you grumbling about a single thing, I’m going to throw you in the river. That’s a promise.’

  ‘You would not dare to, Guy.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Supposing I can’t swim?’

  ‘You said you could. I presume you were telling the truth about a thing like that.’

  ‘Of course I was.’

  ‘Then you’d better watch out.’

  The rug was spread out and the girls unpacked the picnic and everything was fine, Matt thought, until Otto started to talk about Berlin. To hear him, you’d think there was no other city in the world to touch it. The streets, the squares, the monuments and buildings were magnificent, the stadium for the Olympic Games the greatest ever built. They all listened politely, except for Anna who suddenly said, ‘But you have Adolf Hitler and he is not magnificent at all.’

  Otto flushed. He said something sharply in German and Anna answered him in German too. Then she said, in English, ‘Otto believes Adolf Hitler to be a very great man. I said I thought that he is not very great, but very evil.’

  ‘Anna knows nothing of our Führer and yet she insults him.’

  ‘Shut up, Anna,’ Guy said lazily. He leaned on his elbow and took another bite of his sandwich. ‘Don’t be rude about Otto’s Führer.’

  ‘It is not a joke this time, Guy.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake … this is supposed to be a picnic.’

  ‘Have another sandwich, Otto,’ Lizzie said quickly. ‘The cucumber ones are awfully good.’

  ‘Thank you. I apologize. I forget myself.’

  Anna had turned her back on him and he still looked very upset. Matt couldn’t imagine getting upset about somebody saying things against Mr Chamberlain. Actually, they said them all the time. Lizzie was offering the sandwiches round again. He was rather sorry about the plaits; they’d been so much a part of her. Guy was lighting one of his cigarettes and there was another argument with Anna who wanted to try one.

  ‘You’re too young.’

  ‘That’s silly. You’re only eighteen.’

  ‘And you’re only sixteen. Your parents wouldn’t approve.’

  ‘They are not here so they cannot know.’

  ‘You won’t like it. It’ll make you sick.’

  ‘How can you know? You don’t know everything, Guy.’

  In the end, he let her take a puff and laughed heartlessly when she started coughing. ‘I told you so.’ He offered one to Otto who shook his head.

  ‘I think it is not very healthy, but thank you.’

  He was a rum sort of chap, Matt thought. He hardly ever smiled and he didn’t think he’d ever seen him laugh. Not once.

  On the way back from the picnic, Anna was allowed to take the helm, once they were out in midstream. Guy sat right beside her showing her what to do.

  ‘There is no need to tell me three times, Guy.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t do it properly the first or second. And if you don’t keep her to windward you’ll be in trouble. Look at the burgee.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The little flag at the top of the mast. That’ll tell you what the wind’s doing.’

  ‘I cannot look at everything at once.’

  They were rounding the bend after Shortpole Reach when the Chilvers’ Grey Heron came into view, Tom and Harry waving. Anna let go of the tiller to wave back so that Guy had to make a grab for it. The two boats passed within a few yards of each other and Tom yelled across.

  ‘Come over tomorrow afternoon for some tennis, all of you.’

  The Chilvers lived two miles upstream from the Ransomes, on the opposite bank. Guy, who had learned to drive during the Easter holidays, borrowed the Alvis and Otto sat in the front passenger seat with Anna, Matt and Lizzie in the back. They had the top down and Guy drove fast, roaring along and changing gear with a flourish. The house was older than Tideways, and a lot grander, too. ‘They’ve got bags of loot,’ Guy commented drily as they spun up the long drive. ‘As you can see.’

  The brothers were outside, knocking up on an immaculate court. No bad bounces like at Tideways, Lizzie thought; the grass was so smooth you could have played billiards on it. Tom and Harry came over, dressed in equally immaculate tennis whites. They were both fair and good-looking – Harry a younger and slightly smaller version of Tom.

  ‘How about some mixed doubles?’ Tom suggested. ‘OK with you two girls?’ He was looking at Anna as he spoke. She was dressed in a long white cotton skirt and a yellow silk blouse – not proper tennis things at all – and she had borrowed an old pair of Matt’s outgrown gym shoes. She shrugged. ‘We are not at all good, are we, Lizzie?’

  Tom smiled. ‘That doesn’t matter a bit. It’s only a game. How about you and I taking on Lizzie and a partner? Just for a set. Her to choose.’


  ‘If you like. You had better choose well, Lizzie.’

  She chose Matt because she didn’t want him left out of things and because Guy was too good. She suspected that Otto was, also. She felt all right with Matt. He wouldn’t mind in the least if they lost – which they did. Two games to six. Tom had aimed lots of his shots at her which meant, of course, that they kept losing the point. The balls came whizzing at her over the net, very fast and low, and often she couldn’t hit them at all. ‘Sorry, Matt,’ she said, as they came off the court. ‘I played awfully badly.’ ‘No you didn’t, Lizzie, you were brilliant. I went and let you down.’ He winked at her. ‘Still, as Tom says, it’s only a game.’

  The next match wasn’t a game at all.

  ‘OK, Guy. Harry and I challenge you and Otto. Best of three sets.’ Tom was smiling but Lizzie knew it was going to be a serious contest. She and Matt and Anna went and sat on the grass bank by the court. ‘Wake me up when they have finished,’ Anna said. She lay back and put her straw hat over her eyes.

  Lizzie had been right about Otto. He was just as good as Guy. In fact, his serve was better, she thought – very hard and very fast indeed and his backhand across the court was like lightning. Harry kept missing it which annoyed Tom. The score reached four all. ‘It’s going to be close,’ Matt whispered. At five four to Guy and Otto, with Otto serving and within a point for the set, there was an argument over whether Tom’s return shot was in or out. Tom maintained that it was in.

  ‘I saw the chalk go up. Didn’t you, Harry?’

  ‘Yes, definitely.’

  Guy said easily, ‘Actually, I’m pretty sure it was out, Tom. I had a fairly good view from here.’

  ‘The ball was out. I also see very well. It was beyond the line.’ Otto looked at Tom coldly. ‘You are mistaken.’

  ‘I saw the chalk go up, old chap, like I said. That means it was in.’

  ‘You suggest that I lie?’

  ‘I’m just saying you didn’t see it properly. Harry and I know this court pretty well.’