The Merciless Ladies Read online

  ‘I think’, said Sir Clement, eating rapidly, ‘that a certain fine balance of imagination is necessary at the outset of all ventures. Enough to make the enterprise seem desirable, but not too much or the enterprise would never be undertaken.’

  ‘That’s exactly how I feel’, said Holly.

  ‘Fr’instance’, he went on, ‘had I known all the discomforts of that voyage to Australia I should never as a boy have had the courage to embark. But I have always been glad that I went. Pass the pepper, will you, Bill?’

  I passed the pepper and smiled at Holly and felt myself already defeated.

  Chapter Ten

  In dealing with the Lynns it was always useless to expect the rational behaviour of ordinary creatures.

  Paul was delighted with them. Unpleasant memories of the last few months, the shadow ofthe impending action, the stateness of overwork, the sham suaveness of the social new arrival, all these seemed to slip away.

  The Lynns went to see John Connor, and, after he had assured himself that they were in their right minds and had not been cajoled by us, he raised no objection. Nor did the Grimshawes. Except for the awkwardness of having a girl about, one extra would make little difference.

  The weather remained perfect, a slight westerly breeze with hot sun and cloudless skies, and the trip we took the Lynns round the island as an experiment was a too-complete success. Their tour of America had not been conducted without a good deal of lavish hospitality, and the prospect now of some discomfort and rough-and-ready meals was like a breath from home.

  So we laid in our stores. Water for a month, bread in tins, lime juice, milk and tongues and pressed beef in cans, potatoes, sugar, butter, honey and jam, dried eggs, a big shallow box of spring onions planted in soil, soap and paraffin and matches, all the stores we had brought on the outward journey with some additional quantity and in a little more variety. Some of the additional stores were packed in the fo’c’sle, and Paul made room for extra water by selling his case of whisky to the hotel where we were staying.

  We parted from Connor with good wishes and expressions of regret and weighed anchor exactly at dawn the day after. While it was still dark we had rowed out and taken our dinghy aboard. Both sea and land were very quiet, and there was an air of excitement and conspiracy about it. Very few lights in Funchal, and the island behind brooded dark and mountainous. A breeze stirred and moved across the ripples of the harbour.

  We raised sail and slipped slowly away from the land, the last land we should approach for a thousand miles, if all went well. As the night lifted, the sky opened its opal of early light, with delicate pale islands of cloud decorating the silent greens of the east. Then a few darker clouds gathered and the sun sprang up behind them like the opening of furnace doors.

  We had a free wind all that first day. Holly and her father had taken Connor’s rear cabin, which was the most private, the rest of the accommodation remaining unchanged. Paul, I noticed, had bought a sketching block and some crayons in Funchal, but he still made no attempt to use them. He talked a good deal to both Holly and her father, and the expression in his long-lashed blue eyes was more than usually intent. Undeterred by my warning, he began to ply them with questions about their own work, which was a new world to him. They were very patient with him.

  The sun went down that night brilliant but brassy, and clouds assembled in twos and threes on the horizon, pink and gold, with patches of washed green surrounding them. Dave Grimshawe caught my eye and jerked his thumb towards it, but we didn’t say anything. After all, we couldn’t expect all fine weather, and a few showery days would do no harm. Everyone was very happy and content.

  The night was clear and calm, with an old moon rising after midnight and the wind a gentle breeze on our port quarter. Morning dawned watery but fine, and the choppy sea changed in character. A long, dark swell began to come in from the west. Almost for the first time since leaving England we saw cloud and felt the strength of the element on which we sailed.

  The wind had gone north-west, but so far there was little of it. But the swell grew all day, until to us, who were accustomed to the swells of the narrow seas, it seemed of tremendous proportions. What affected one was not only the height of the waves but the great distances between them. From furrows ploughed in a field they had become hills and valleys. The cutter would lift to the top of one, light and airy, and it seemed without weight; in front of it was a great sleek-sided valley; you were on top of a ridge which stretched away for miles on either side, on top of a world of swift-moving water, then the vessel would slide down the side into a dark green, bottle green valley, the sails would flap, she would yaw a little; the valley was wide and dark and deep and there was no horizon to see, but some way off and approaching rapidly would be a rushing mountain of grey, swelling mast-high. She would answer her helm and shift back on her course and begin a slow climb, until the last moment when she would rise heart-lurchingly up and up like a cork, like a sea-gull, until we were again on top and gazing oyer all the rushing sea to the rim of the world.

  We had a light supper that evening in a quieter mood. Everything in the saloon creaked and slatted and groaned. The cutter seemed to be travelling through the water faster than she really was, and at times would twist and shudder disconcertingly. Every time we went down into a trough the sensation was like that of the Grand Dipper at a holiday fairground.

  Holly had spent the day on deck in flannel slacks and a grey jumper, but in honour of the evening meal had changed into a skirt and blouse. Her hair had grown wilder and more Holly-like as the day progressed, but this also she had restored to its recent semi-tidiness. Despite the self-levelling table, cups slid about all over the place and could never be more than a quarter full. Towards the end of the meal Paul rose and lit the hanging paraffin lamp, but this made things still more uncomfortable. It swung its light constantly and maliciously backwards and forwards, creating and reducing shadows every few seconds and giving a goblinesque effect to the scene.

  No sunset this evening; just a darkening of the clouds and a loss of the periodic horizon. Dave Grimshawe lit the navigation lights, and the night fell upon us.

  Holly went to bed with a sick headache. She said the lamp was giving her the jitters. I saw that Paul was feeling ill also, but he would not let me take his turn at the wheel. In fact I didn’t think the Grimshawes would allow him to take the wheel on a night like this, but I didn’t argue and, since there was nothing else to do, turned in. I remember hearing it begin to rain heavily just before midnight, but did not hear Paul come in and slept soundly until dawn.

  Paul woke me being sick. I condoled with him while I dressed and then went on deck. It was blowing now from somewhere north of west and raining too. We were scudding along on our fore canvas and a snugly-reefed mainsail. Sam Grimshawe was at the wheel and I struggled to him. Drips of water formed and fell from the ends of his moustache. I shouted that the glass was not falling any more, but he shook his head. Presently he removed his unlighted pipe and spat overboard.

  ‘Am – eck – ine – er.’ His words were blown away. On my asking for a repetition he was understood to say that we couldn’t always expect fine weather. This was the sort of remark to invite no response, so I told him I’d get some breakfast and then relieve him at the wheel for a bit.

  On going below I knocked at the door of the rear cabin and was told to enter. Holly was up and dressed but looking pale. Sir Clement was sitting up in his bunk in vivid crimson-striped pyjamas, his long legs dangling almost to the floor.

  ‘Rough morning’, I said. ‘It’s blowing a bit and wet. How are you both?’

  Holly pulled her mouth into a wry shape. ‘We’ve had a foul night, being sick in turns. I’m better at present, but Daddy’s still in the middle of it.’

  Sir Clement said:

  ‘The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith,

  Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the ferry.

  I find I dislike the sensation of seasickness more now than when
I was a lad. But it comes back to me like yesterday.’

  ‘Stay on your back today, Sir Clement’, I advised. ‘Don’t try to work and it will pass off quicker. I’ll get you a cup of tea with plenty of glucose in it.’

  ‘My dear Bill, there’s a hoodoo on my work’, he said. ‘First a dance band and then bad weather. Both produce in me the sensation of not wanting to live much longer.’

  ‘I need some air’, said Holly abruptly. She pulled on a béret.

  I followed her up the companion-ladder, which dipped and jerked as we climbed it. On deck I clutched a stay and put an arm round her to steady her against the first fierce thrust of the wind. After a moment or two one became used to the pressure. I noticed again how bright her eyes had become since she grew up.

  She shouted: ‘How’s Paul?’

  ‘In the same boat’, I said.

  ‘You needn’t be humorous about it.’ She looked at me. ‘Are you never sick, Bill?’

  ‘I feel queasy but nothing happens. That’s so long as I keep eating.’

  ‘Ugh! Well, it’s better up here. The air’s – fresh. It clears your brain.’

  The swell had broken up during the night, and sometimes flying spray was indistinguishable from the rain as it swept across the deck. Even on the lee side there was little protection.

  We stayed for about ten minutes, then went below. I brewed tea for the invalids and had a cup with Holly in the saloon. I judged she was feeling better because she was able to watch me eating a boiled egg and bread and butter without aversion. The conversation turned to Paul, and I told her something of his recent history.

  ‘And what’s he going to do when it’s all over?’ she asked. ‘He won’t get many portrait commissions if he paints them all like that.’

  ‘I think it was just a freak; a sudden break-away that won’t be repeated.’

  ‘It must be a bore to be famous’, she said. ‘And dangerous. If everyone kept telling me how wonderful I was I might in the end come to believe it. I wonder if great men have any sense of humour.’

  ‘It depends on the type. All embryo dictators ought to be sent on a voyage like this. It might save the world.’

  ‘You mean if the yacht foundered.’

  I laughed. ‘Not necessarily. If the wind merely blew hard enough and they found themselves bobbing about in a very empty sea.’

  She nodded. ‘Most sailors have a feeling for religion.’ She thoughtfully screwed a drip of water out of her béret and was silent. ‘I wish I had more.’

  I regarded her quizzically. ‘More religion? What’s the matter with it?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s like this beastly yacht, there one minute and not there the next. I’ve been dragged up in such an odd way, Bill. I’ve always been told the basic truth about everything. Truth in its component parts, so to speak. Food was so many calories and carbohydrates and proteins. Life began more or less with the slipper animalcule. The bloom on grapes had something to do with parasites or microbes. One had a bath in two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen. The reason beech leaves were such a glorious green was that they absorbed all the colours of the spectrum and rejected only blue and yellow. Father Christmas was a fairy story told to old-fashioned children to keep them good. Intelligent children didn’t need such a bribe. Religion by definition seems the same sort of story to keep adults good, and intelligent adults don’t need it.’

  Just in time I rescued my egg, which had decided to slide off towards the fo’c’sle.

  ‘This comes of being tipped about in your bunk all night.’

  Holly wrinkled her brows at me. ‘The funny part is, Mother’s a good Christian in spite of it all. A really good one; even though she taught me little enough. And Daddy … I think he feels that on his death-bed in a moment of perfect insight he’ll suddenly find himself able to express God in the terms of one pure, beautiful equation.’

  ‘I can’t help you, Holly’, I said, feeling depressed that I could not.

  ‘I know, Bill, nobody can. But I like talking to you. It’s such a rest from being sick.’

  ‘You’ve not really changed, you know’, I said. ‘ You’re still the same horrid little girl who used to follow me about the place asking awkward questions when I came for holidays with Bertie and Leo.’

  ‘Aren’t I?’ she agreed with pleasure. ‘One doesn’t alter much inside.’ She went on: ‘I’ve always – ever since I can remember – I’ve always wanted to know where I was going, wanted an aim and a purpose, and never really had one. I suppose I was born awkward. Some people just don’t seem troubled at all. Whereas Bertie seemed to find exactly what he wanted and go off to it without a thought. He doesn’t know as much as I do, but I think he’s much wiser.’ She stopped and made a face. ‘I wish we didn’t get so much of that going-down-in-a-lift feeling.’

  ‘The great thing is—’

  The door from the forward cabin opened and Paul came staggering in. He looked distinguished but incongruous in a black silk dressing-gown which would have been more suitable among the exotic decorations of the Normandie.

  ‘Hullo’, said-Holly. ‘Are you feeling better too?’

  He shook his head. ‘I wish the damned ship would sink. I wish this damned infernal jigging and jerking would stop.’

  ‘Keep in your bunk’, I said. ‘You’ll get over it quicker that way.’

  ‘I heard Holly’s voice.’ He waved a foot-square piece of strawboard he was carrying. ‘ I finished this last night before the worst began. It’s yours, Holly, both the responsibility and the result.’

  She took the strawboard from him, looked at it and coloured.

  ‘Oh, Paul, how silly …’ She half laughed. ‘ Thank you so much. I didn’t mean you had to do one. Look, Bill.’

  It was a crayon sketch. Against a background of blue leaves was a great green caterpillar. It was such a caterpillar as never had been seen on land or sea. However, one could not doubt its identity; the thing fairly crawled with life.

  ‘And now’, said Paul, staring hard at my empty egg-shell, ‘ I’m going back to be sick.’

  II

  Before noon the wind had shifted to north of north-west, and it stayed there without a break for five days. At the beginning there were heavy hail showers, but these stopped later and conditions were that much less unpleasant. The wind never approached a gale, but there was always the danger of a gale developing.

  The difficulty was to make any satisfactory headway without shipping green water. Most of the time we were beating into the wind, mainly on a north-easterly tack with three reefs in the mainsail, a reefed foresail and a storm jib. Two nights we hove to and lost some of the hard progress made during the day. And all this time there was the swell. Never a moment’s cessation from movement, from climbing and railing, climbing and falling. An endless succession of millions of hills to be surmounted and defeated, high ridges all hurrying heedlessly away to pour themselves out over the edge of the world.

  The main hatch, protected by both sliding and folding doors, was the one used by both passengers and crew during this period; the fo’c’sle hatch proved to be not entirely watertight and, even when we battened it down, continued to let water in.

  On the fourth day Paul slipped in the saloon and sprained his wrist. On the sixth day about noon the sky began to clear and the wind shifted north-east. Sam Grimshawe took his sights – always an unsatisfactory business in a vessel plunging about like a cork – and said we were about two hundred and ten miles north-east of Madeira. As the wind was not so strong, we set all sail and altered course to a north-westerly tack, which we maintained all through that day and the next night, which was clearer and intermittently starlit.

  Dawn broke quickly that morning and was over soon. The upper ridges of cloud in the east were lit with undreamed-of lights, mainly tangerine and chocolate brown. Round the horizon the broken clouds were edged with pink and orange above the dark, empty sea. Then in a space of seconds the warmth went out of the colour and the upper ridges
split into a raw, vivid yellow.

  I was up in time to help Dave Grimshawe take two reefs in the mainsail. We were doing this none too soon. The wind was becoming squally and the cutter was plunging too much in the steeper seas. We staggered to the mainmast as the cutter dipped. Sam Grimshawe at the wheel eased her up into the wind a little to spill the wind out of the sails.

  I took a turn with the topping lift to take the weight of the boom. A hail of sea-spray swept over us.

  ‘Let go’, said Dave.

  I lowered the throat halliard and then the peak.

  The wind roared through the rigging, but Dave took in no sail. As the gaff came down a few inches the sail slapped and slatted.

  ‘Go on!’ I shouted.

  Salt water dripped from Grimshawe’s beard. ‘The blamed thing’s stuck’, he shouted back.

  The mechanism which worked the roller reefing of the mainsail had jammed and the handle would not turn. I tightened the halliards again. Sam Grimshawe at the wheel saw something was wrong and luffed the cutter further up into wind hoping this would help to clear the trouble. She dipped more wildly than ever and water came aboard and nearly swept me off my feet.

  ‘I’ll get … screwdriver’, Dave shouted at me, and began to crawl back to the engine-hatch. Waiting a favourable moment, he dived down it, while I clung there with the sptay like a flail.

  She was getting her nose into them now, and as I watched she hit head on into the tip of a wave, like butting into a milestone, as Sam afterwards put it. When I had rubbed the water from my eyes the deck was awash and the cutter was heavy in the water and was not rising as she normally did to the oncoming seas.

  After what seemed an age Dave Grimshawe reappeared again and crawled forward with Sam shouting instructions after him. Fortunately at that juncture the first squall passed and we were able to make our adjustments before a second came up. But the cutter had taken in a lot of water, and it would be necessary to put somebody on the pump.