Blood Bond (4 page)

‘Don't worry. No one will step out of line. We'll all make sure Mary-Claire remains safe,' Theresa promised.

‘Why did Nigel mention Mark?' Jennifer asked excitedly. ‘Is he coming back?'

‘He told me before he left that he would come back one day,' Paul said.

‘Are you sure?'

‘I'm positive. He even told me that if things changed, and it was safe for him to enter Haver, I was to fly both the Union Jack and the Cross of St George above the West Gate.'

‘Which means he wasn't expecting to be back for some time,' pointed out Duncan.

‘So why does Nigel think he might be coming back soon?' Jennifer asked.

‘The letter!' exclaimed Diana.

‘What letter?'

‘Mark gave me a sealed letter addressed to Nigel before he left; I gave it to Melanie…' She faltered temporarily as she mentioned her daughter's name. ‘She put it on Nigel's pillow. Perhaps Mark wrote something that makes Nigel think he will be back sooner rather than later.'

‘Perhaps Mark was just trying to put the frighteners on him,' Susan suggested.

‘Then it hasn't worked,' Diana said bitterly. ‘Mark's done more harm than good. He's caused the death of my daughter for a start.'

‘You can't say that,' Paul stuttered, determined to defend his brother.

‘This bickering isn't doing any of us any good,' interrupted Duncan. ‘If we don't get to work soon we'll be in even more trouble.'

‘And Nigel will beat Mary-Claire,' Cheryl sobbed.

‘Can you manage the house for today?' Duncan asked Diana.

‘Somehow, but I'll need more labour tomorrow.'

‘Paul, can you organise your crew in the garden?' Paul nodded.

‘Jennifer, you take Charlene's children and check on the animals. Kimberley and Rebecca, man the treadmill and get the water tanks replenished.' The two young women groaned. ‘Diana and I will meet tonight and sort out new work schedules for everybody.'

Virginia turned to face her father and her aunt Diana. ‘What about the other schedule?' Terror and revulsion were evident in her voice.

‘If we don't get to work soon, there'll be hell to pay,' Duncan said as he walked away. The allocation of women was Diana's problem, not his.

 

Diana left Susan to clear away the breakfast dishes, do the washing up and start preparations for lunch and the evening meal. Theresa was sent to the laundry. They were behind schedule. Nigel and his sons changed their clothes daily. There was an ample supply of Tudor tunics but a lack of shirts and underclothes. If their shirts weren't washed and neatly ironed before the end of the day, there would be trouble.

With other duties allocated, Diana set out with Theresa's daughters in tow to service the staterooms where Nigel and his sons slept. They could hear whoops of delight from Lawn Court as the Chatfields enjoyed a game of bowls. Mary-Claire, her lead tethered to the statue of Venus, was curled up on the ground asleep.

Diana hurried off alone to the library. It was a huge room, crammed from floor to ceiling with thousands of antique books collected by
the Saville family, the former owners of Haver House, over previous centuries. She felt sure that somewhere among these ancient books she would find the information she needed.

Many of the books had obscure titles, or none at all. Methodically she began removing and opening each in turn to ascertain its content.

‘What do you think you're doing?' snapped a voice behind her.

Absorbed in her task, she hadn't heard Nigel return. He was standing at the doorway at the far end of the library, Mary-Claire's lead in his hand.

‘Dusting the books, Your Lordship,' she said, without turning around. She pretended to flourish an imaginary duster.

‘Dusting? Dusting! Get my room cleaned, you silly cow.'

She pretended to stuff the duster in her pocket, turned and went to leave the library by the nearer door.

‘By the way,' he called after her, ‘be sure to include Virginia's twins on your escort agency register.'

She turned to face him, outraged. ‘They're only thirteen!'

‘If they're big enough, they're old enough,' he said unrepentantly.

Diana stood her ground. ‘That's against the law, and you know it!'

‘Rubbish. There is no law now. And anyway, sixteen is just an arbitrary age set by misguided do-gooders. It's got nothing to do with reality. Do you think all those teenagers who used to get pregnant were raped? Anyway, if you train the other whores well enough and they keep us happy, we won't need the younger ones. It's up to you.'

Mark climbed up the companionway ladder to join Steven, Allison and Penny in
Archangel
's cockpit. The two young boys, Penny's son Lee and Jessica's son Tommy, were playing pirates on the foredeck, safely clipped to the lifelines. Although Tommy was a year older than Lee, he was shorter and looked younger. Adam and his teenage sons were below, playing cards in the saloon and Fergus and Jessica were asleep in their cabin.

‘Are you happy with your midday sight?' Mark asked Steven.

‘It'll do.'

‘What about the chronometers?'

With no satellite navigation they were totally dependent upon traditional navigation methods: taking sun sights to establish their position each day, and using a chronometer to help establish their longitude. Before they had sailed from Gulf Harbour thirteen months earlier, Mark had selected three chronometers from different vessels in the marina — one that needed to be wound, a battery-operated model and the very latest self-winding chronometer, to make sure
they kept time accurately.

‘They're OK.'

‘You sure?'

‘Of course I am,' Steven snapped.

‘Let's find out what those two children are giggling about,' Allison suggested. Penny nodded, and they both scurried forward, leaving Mark and Steven alone in the cockpit.

Steven realised why they had left. ‘I checked the chronometers soon after we left England,' he said, in a more conciliatory tone. ‘The wind-up chronometer had stopped of course, and there was a thirty-second difference between the battery-operated model and the self-winder. While you were laid low with your bullet wound I hung off Peacehaven on the Greenwich meridian and waited for noon. I confirmed the self-winder was accurate and reset the others to synchronise with it.'

‘Well done — I'm not sure I would have thought of that myself.' Mark's compliment seemed to help clear the air. ‘I do realise how keen you are to get home, son, but it makes sense to stop off in Brisbane.' Steven didn't respond. ‘We'll sail her as fast as we can. How are the Dalton boys shaping up as crew?'

‘Luke's fine, but Robert's full of himself as usual. Adam's not much use. He may have once owned his own yacht in England but he can't hold a straight course — he probably always steered by auto-helm.'

‘And Fergus?'

‘Fine, he's a natural. Of course, you can only get him on the helm if you can prise him away from Jessica for a few minutes.'

Mark sensed Steven's resentment. No doubt his son's desire to spend time with his girlfriend was being thwarted by his sailing responsibilities. ‘Let's set up a three-watch system,' he suggested. ‘You take the eight-to-twelve watch with Penny and Luke, I'll take the twelve-to-four watch with Allison and Adam, and Fergus can take the four-to-eight watch with Jessica and Robert.'

‘Fergus will have to learn fast if he's to be a watch captain.'

‘It's the easiest watch for you and I to keep an eye on. If the weather's bad I'll stay on watch for an extra couple of hours in the morning, till it's light. You can keep an eye on him in the early
afternoon before you go on watch if necessary.'

Steven nodded. ‘And what about the Suez Canal? We could save a lot of time through there.'

‘If it's still open.'

‘There are no locks on it. Even if it's been blockaded we ought to be able to get
Archangel
through.'

‘We can't be sure. Don't forget the war between Egypt and Israel shortly before the pandemic broke out. The canal might even have been partially filled in for all we know. We could sail down the whole length of the Mediterranean and then be forced to sail all the way back to Gibraltar. At least if we head down to the Cape of Good Hope we know we'll be able to get home.'

Reluctantly, Steven had to concede his father was right.

 

‘Good idea,' Adam said enthusiastically when, in the saloon over lunch, Mark announced his decision to introduce the watch system. But his attitude changed as soon as Mark stated the composition of each watch, his face betraying the fact that, as a member of the older generation, he felt he should have been the third watch captain. Robert's scowling face suggested he resented the decision too.

‘Each watch will also take it in turns, one day in three, to be in charge of cooking and cleaning ship,' Mark continued.

‘Lucky old you,' Luke quipped to Penny. ‘I hope you can cook.'

‘Who do you think you're handing out duties to?' Steven shouted from the cockpit, from where he'd been steering the yacht and following the conversation. ‘I'll be deciding who does what on my watch. That includes cleaning the heads.'

‘We're going to have to be careful with water,' Mark continued. ‘No more running taps. And one shower each a week.'

‘What?' Jessica exclaimed. Dark, pretty and, like the rest of her family, petite, the strength of her voice belied her size.

‘You can have as many saltwater showers as you like.'

‘Seawater just makes you sticky.'

Mark ignored the complaint. The sooner everyone realised this was no pleasure cruise the better. ‘My other concern is food.'

Before Mark and Steven had sailed for England from New
Zealand, they had crammed
Archangel
's lockers and bilges with bottled food and some of the precious stocks of tinned food they had manage to accumulate in the wake of the pandemic, as well as bulk supplies of vinegar and preserving syrup. They had saved the empty jars, expecting to replenish their food stocks before leaving England on the return voyage, but having escaped from Haver by the skin of their teeth that had not happened. ‘We'll continue to troll fishing lines of course, but our experience on the voyage from New Zealand to England suggests there aren't many fish out here in deep water. We've only got enough bottled food left from the outward journey to last a month — and then only if we're careful. If necessary, we'll stop at Cape Town and see what we can pick up there.'

‘Only if we don't catch enough fish,' insisted Steven.

 

With the watch system in place, life aboard
Archangel
fell into a steady routine. But tensions increased. Mark wasn't sure whether it was because of the cramped living conditions, the personalities of those aboard or simply the tedium of blue-water sailing. He did his best to keep everyone's spirits up, but the sense of unease remained.

His own mood was not improved by his lack of success with the single-sideband radio. Every day at noon New Zealand time, he would turn it on and twiddle the dials, trying to raise the Gulf Harbour community on the receiver Steven had installed there before they left. Jane had promised him that whatever happened, she would faithfully listen out for him for a few minutes at noon every day. While theoretically the system could bounce signals off the troposphere to anywhere in the world, in reality before the pandemic it had mostly relied on networks of operators relaying messages over shorter distances. Of course, now those networks no longer existed.

On the voyage from New Zealand,
Archangel
had lost contact with Gulf Harbour before reaching Cape Horn. Despite still being in the northern hemisphere, Mark would sit at the radio for long periods each day, searching the frequencies. His efforts were rewarded only by static.

Even worse was the growing tension between himself and Allison. He knew she didn't share his love of the sea, and wondered if, had
they had a conventional romance, rather than just snatching furtive moments together while imprisoned at Haver, they would have known more about each other's likes and dislikes. He even began to wonder if the twenty-year difference in their ages was a factor, or whether getting away from Nigel's cruelty had been more of an attraction for Allison than any real feelings for him. He found it particularly difficult to accept her continual hankering for England. He tried to reassure her that her mother would be fine, but now he realised that Allison was also missing her daughter Charlene and her grandchildren.

In the cramped quarters of
Archangel
, living cheek by jowl with so many people, it was impossible for them to have any time to themselves. Their lovemaking, initially so intense and passionate, had become stilted, subdued by their knowledge that the groans and moans which emanated from Steven's and Fergus's cabins each night were accompanied by stifled giggles from the two small boys bunked down in the forepeak. He would be pleased when the voyage was over, and he and Allison could rebuild their relationship. He was even beginning to wish he hadn't suggested stopping off at Brisbane.

 

But Brisbane wasn't to be the only delay to the voyage. Only four large tuna were caught as
Archangel
headed south — a welcome supplement to the crew's diet but making no material impact on their dwindling food stocks.

‘There's nothing for it,' Mark confided to Steven, a week out from rounding the Cape of Good Hope. ‘We can't risk setting off across the Indian Ocean with such a limited supply of food. We'll have to call at Cape Town. Our water's running low, too.'

They didn't have enough fuel aboard to operate the water makers, and although they had managed to collect rainwater during the regular tropical downpours as they drifted slowly and aimlessly through the doldrums, they hadn't stored enough.

 

Mark announced the change of plan to the remainder of the crew that evening. It was a beautiful night. As it was too warm to sleep comfortably down below, everyone had gathered in the cockpit.
Archangel
was sailing well, straining forward, her large sails illuminated by the moon and a silver wake foaming behind.

‘Maybe we'll find other people alive in Cape Town,' speculated Robert enthusiastically. For once he wasn't scowling.

Like Tommy and Lee, he was also being kept awake by the sounds emanating from Fergus's cabin. However, unlike the two younger boys, the sounds didn't fill him with mirth — they filled him with jealousy and teenage sexual frustration.

‘I wouldn't count on it,' Mark said. ‘We didn't see any signs of life on the voyage to England, and we haven't seen any so far on this trip, either.'

‘We've hardly been close to land,' pointed out Adam. ‘I'd have thought it would have made sense to check out a few places as we went along.'

‘I still can't believe that in the whole world only members of the Chatfield family have survived the pandemic,' Penny said.

‘Me neither,' agreed Jessica, ‘in the same way I've never accepted that Earth is the only inhabited planet in the universe.'

They all looked up at the heavens. The sky was crammed with constellations, many of them, such as the Southern Cross, new to those members of the crew who had not crossed the equator before. There were too many stars to count.

‘That star's moving,' Luke said after a few minutes. His finger pointed high above the mainsail.

‘It must be a satellite,' Mark said. ‘Or, judging by how bright it is, it's probably the international space station.'

The significance of this occurred to several of the crew in the same instant.

‘Do you think there might still be people up there — alive?' Luke asked.

‘Surely not,' scoffed Adam.

‘There could be,' Fergus challenged, running his fingers through his hair, chopped roughly into a Mohican style.

‘But it's been three and a half years since the pandemic.'

‘What if the scientists put every supply capsule they could in space, crammed with supplies, when the pandemic struck?'

‘Well … maybe … but three and a half years' worth? That's a lot of supplies.'

‘Well, even if they couldn't stay up there the whole time, they could have stayed there until the supplies got low and then landed back on Earth,' Penny suggested.

‘They couldn't get down without ground control,' ridiculed Adam.

‘Astronauts are a pretty resourceful bunch — remember the Apollo 13 mission? They got that spacecraft home safely.'

‘More likely there're just corpses floating round up there,' Adam said flatly.

A series of dull thumps sounded as a shoal of flying fish thudded against the hull and cabintop. The plight of the crew of the international space station was forgotten as everyone scrambled to secure the welcome bonanza.