The Key of the Chest (27 page)

He turned and a noisy snore in the lavatory drew his eyes. This white porcelain lavatory, with its pump handle and seawater flush, had had an extraordinary attraction for the local youth. They had never seen anything like it. The very thought of it made them laugh. Many of them had visited it in the dead of night when Erchie was fast asleep. The lavatory boat!

The doctor found Michael stretched on the floor. He had cracked his head, but he was squirming, he was getting up. The doctor helped him. The crack, however, had only increased his wrath. He was in a vile temper. The doctor saw that the desire to destroy, to smash what had brought this upon them was now psychopathological. It usurped the fear of death. It drew for a moment a blind anger across the doctor's own eyes, but he steadied himself, and turned away.

As he got to the cockpit a wash of green water came over the square stern. Mr. Gwynn was working back and fore the handle of the round pump. The sight eased the doctor's mood, but when he turned to the Stormy Isles, they seemed to have come much nearer, their cliffs rising out of the sea, curtains of foam, ever renewed, hanging in the air, the skerries boiling. Half an hour away at the outside.

‘Can't you get her right?' called Mr. Gwynn.

The doctor, hanging on as they got thrown into the trough, looked down into Mr. Gwynn's eyes. ‘No petrol.'

The eyes looked back. There was no humour in them now. But they were steady.

The doctor nodded, then turned away to look on the seas behind, as Michael lurched out.

It happens sometimes that one may catch sight of such a boat coming through seas in a dream. The up-jut of bow, lost, then rising again, lost, but coming on, the peak of sail dark as the fin of a basking shark.

The sight of it, less than half a mile away, had a powerful effect on the doctor, somehow powerful and piercing sweet, like music.

They followed his look and saw the lobster boat, creaming on the wave top, falling away, but coming again, coming.

Mr. Gwynn got to his feet. No one spoke.

‘What'll she do?' cried Michael.

‘I don't know,' answered the doctor.

‘They can never take us off.'

‘No, they can't take us off.'

‘Well, what the hell! What can we do?'

The doctor turned from that wild voice to stare at the Stormy Isles. There was sea-room yet.

Norman. Norman at the helm. William and Angus. They made no sign as they drew near. Their faces were quiet and impassive, their eyes on the
Stormy Petrel
, on her white pitching bulk.

The calm faces, the steady eyes, the silence among the three men. The music went over the doctor again and stung his eyes. It was a lovely thing to watch. His own people, the men of the sea, with seamanship in them. He could have yelled to them in heart's greeting. He could go down with them.

The wave that lifted the three men, left them, rushed on the
Stormy Petrel
and threw her. There could be no nearness, no precision. All a mad wallowing and tossing. Danger in nearness, fatal danger.

They were coming straight for them, straight at the cockpit where they sat, gripping the gunnel.

Then Norman must have spoken, for Angus, the slow-witted youth with the big bones and the ginger hair, whom Betsy loved, took up an end of rope and passed it under his armpits.

They were coming for them, right down on them. Norman turned his head slowly over his shoulder, looking back at the seas. Angus twisted round and faced the
Stormy
Petrel
, crouching. William lay back, a rope fender between his knees.

Norman had the sheet, which passed through a wooden purchase hole, in one hand, the tiller in the other.

They rose to be thrown at them, and fell away. Then they were coming. They were coming now. Listing over, seething, the sheet eased, the tiller pressing slowly against Norman's side, racing, racing in on the
Stormy Petrel's
stern, but already easing away, Angus crouching on his feet, no word spoken, nothing cried, and then Angus is up, he leaps, the
Venture
dips from his foot, but his open hands just reach the cockpit edge and grip, the doctor dives at him, so does Michael, Mr. Gwynn gets a hold, and Angus wet to the neck is in over, smiling to them in his awkward way, even while he is already laying on the rope with strong hands.

William, from the
Venture
, raises a hand in salute and smiles. A neat bit of work, desperately tried in a desperate moment.

Hand over fist, in comes the rope, the
Venture's
mizzen sail tied to the end of it. Angus throws a glance at the
Stormy
Petrel's
twelve-foot mast. Near its top there is an opening, like an eye in a needle. He nods to the doctor and says, ‘I'll take the mast down and maybe you could shove this end through?'

‘Yes, yes,' said the doctor. The fellow looked as if he were asking a difficult favour on a quiet afternoon. But the doctor had hardly gripped the rope-end, when Angus was on top of the deck, flat against the skylight as she heaved over, then on to the mast.

It was stuck, he couldn't loosen it, couldn't get it free. It came suddenly and at the wrong moment. It fell with a crash and, as the boat heeled over, Angus was swept away.
But he had seen the small iron posts, set far apart, with the thin wire rope threaded through them and running right round the edge of the high deck. Even as he fetched up against an iron post he dived for the mast and held on. As the boat righted herself, mast and man were swung the opposite way. Angus grabbed the skylight. The doctor got hold of the mast-top and threaded the rope through the eye over the single wheel. Before he had finished, Angus was spreadeagled, ready.

At the balanced moment he rose to his feet, light as a dancer, and stepped the mast in a trice, then was down again, busy with his ropes. All at once the wet sail flapped out, enveloping him. The
Stormy Petrel
began to nose round. The doctor leapt to the tiller. She was coming alive, rising out of her sickness, staggering a little, but rising, shaking herself, shaking the waves from her. Angus crawled aft, taking the sheet with him, slid off his stomach into the cockpit and trimmed his sail. Then he turned to the doctor. ‘You can feel her?'

‘Yes,' answered the doctor. ‘Here, come and take it.'

‘Och, it's all right,' said Angus, but he took the tiller.

‘Think you have plenty of room?' Angus did not reply for half a minute. ‘Yes,' he said.

‘She's doing better than I thought.' Then he added,

‘Though I wouldn't like to have to try and sail her into a wind!'

The doctor laughed, easing the pressure in his breast. Angus looked modestly pleased.

‘What brought you out?'

‘Someone saw you,' replied Angus. ‘And someone said that Erchie said last night he was going this morning for petrol to the merchant's at Badloan. So we wondered.'

‘I see,' said the doctor.

‘It's taking off,' said Angus. ‘It will be a good evening yet.'

‘Where are we going now?'

‘She can't do much but run before it. So we could just fetch Glaspool by keeping on. I suppose it's the petrol you're out of?'

‘It is,' said the doctor.

‘We'd get it there,' said Angus.

He took the outside passage, following the
Venture
, and as Mr. Gwynn stared at the cliff wall of the first island, spouting its white plumes on the air, he realized the merciless nature of what would have been their end. Michael was on the other side of the cabin door, also looking, with a slight congestion in his face, a stormy moodiness in his eye.

Mr. Gwynn called to him: ‘I think your
deiseil
worked after all!'

Michael's mouth twisted. ‘I shouldn't have given it the chance,' he muttered.

‘This business of getting them to save you is becoming chronic.' Mr. Gwynn laughed. He was full of mocking exhilaration. He could see Michael was having his difficult moment. So he prodded him again, taunted him.

Michael began to react. ‘It would have been a cleaner end, a damned sight cleaner, than some of you deserve.' His teeth flashed, but the colour deepened in his face.

‘Is the Roaring Cave far yet?' inquired Mr. Gwynn, with mirthful satire.

Meantime the doctor and Angus, both of whom Michael ignored, were seated by the tiller.

‘It's not like Erchie,' Angus was saying. ‘He's very canny and he knows the sea. Did you look everywhere?'

‘All over her. He used to carry a spare tin for'ard in the bows. It's not there.'

‘He would have taken it up to the house likely. Though why?'

‘Why? as you say.'

‘You're quite sure?'

‘You mean you'd like to look yourself? Go ahead.'

‘Oh no. I don't mean that.'

‘Go on.' The doctor took the tiller.

Angus somewhat shame-faced but with his light-blue eyes clear as sea-water, got up. A comfortably broad seat ran right round the cockpit. A wooden skirting dropped from its outer edge to the floorboards. Angus tried the skirting with a sharp kick from his toe that drew the attention of Michael and Mr. Gwynn. The skirting was
nailed into position. All three watched him as his eye ran along it and came to rest on a simple swivel catch, painted the same colour as the wood. He stooped and with difficulty turned it. A section of wood fell out. Slipping to his knees, he removed from its carefully wedged position a two-gallon tin of petrol.

‘I felt sure he would have it somewhere,' said Angus smiling.

No one moved for some time.

Michael caught the tin, weighed it in his hands. It was full. ‘God!'

The doctor kept staring at the tin. Then he lifted his eyes to Angus's face. ‘Did you know it was there?'

‘No,' answered Angus.

‘A bad business, Angus. We'd have gone to glory – with that tin there.'

‘But why did he shift it?' asked Mr. Gwynn.‘He always kept the tin forward in the bow. Didn't he, Michael?'

‘Always,' answered Michael. ‘Forget him, for God's sake.'

‘Excuse me,' said Angus.

Michael paused and looked at him. ‘Yes?'

‘It will not be the same tin. The one that he kept in the peak for'ard will be up at the house right enough. This will be the one that he will have hidden on himself.'

It was as if he gave all Erchie's character there, and the humour of it got hold of them and released them. It weakened them, too. They sat down and swayed in a mirth of nonsense and friendliness.

Then Michael dived into the cabin and came out with the petrol filler. The doctor screwed off the cap of the tank and together they emptied the tin into it.

‘How far will that take us?' asked Angus.

Michael turned at the cabin door. ‘That's a thought, isn't it?'

The doctor looked at Angus. ‘Like Erchie, you want to have something up your sleeve – in case?'

‘Maybe it would be as well,' suggested Angus.

They laughed and held a meeting.

‘I am wondering,' said Angus, ‘what they are going to do.
So long as they keep going ahead, we can follow at our leisure for a bit.'

The others had forgotten the
Venture
in their excitement. When Angus was questioned as to Norman's intentions, he answered, ‘He may run for Glaspool, too, and then maybe you could tow us home?'

‘Splendid!' cried Michael, coming to full life.

‘It's the tide,' said Angus. ‘It's with us just now. If it wasn't it would have been a different story.'

‘How?' Michael looked at him.

‘If the tide had been going against that sea…' He smiled.

‘You seem to have run us into a few risks, Doctor,' said Michael.

The doctor smiled and looked at Angus.

Thus encouraged, Angus said, ‘He was also wanting to have a look at the Roaring Cave.'

‘Was he?' Michael's voice was unexpectedly quiet and piercing.

‘Yes,' answered Angus. ‘He's making in now.'

Their heads shot round. They were past the first island and coming abreast of the second. The
Venture
was now running on a course that would give her a fair view of the tail-end of the third island and the Roaring Cave. As Angus drew clear of the second island, he made no effort to follow. Angus was waiting for the moment when the
Venture
would fall away on her southerly course. She did not fall away. She was coming round in a sweep.

‘She may be seeing something,' he muttered out of a drawn expression.

Michael went white, unable to speak.

‘Start her up,' said Angus.

When the engine was going, Angus handed the tiller to the doctor, leapt from the seat to the top deck, ran along it nimbly, and in no time had the sail secured. Back in the cockpit he at once took the tiller from the doctor. He never spoke. He had forgotten them. Round in a slow sweep came the
Stormy Petrel
. The
Venture
had passed from view beyond a vast lump of cliff and seething skerry.

‘Stand by her,' said Angus.

‘Right!' called Michael, by gear lever and throttle.

As they came round, they saw the
Venture
, sail down, with William and Norman on the oars, pulling for the narrow beach of the Roaring Cave. To one side of it, on a shelf of black rock, they saw a boat.

‘That's Charlie's boat,' said Angus.

Angus ran the
Stormy Petrel
up towards the
Venture
, slowing the engine with a flattening gesture from his hand. At his final gesture, Michael slid the lever into neutral. It was sheltered here, but there was a heavy heave in the water.

‘What now?' shouted Angus.

‘Hold her there,' answered Norman.

They stared at the abandoned boat. There was no sign of life.

‘Come with us, Doctor,' cried Norman.

William fended off as the doctor changed boats.

‘We're wasting petrol,' said Angus to Michael. ‘I'll try for bottom.'

As Angus got a hold with the anchor, the
Venture
drew near the beach. Landing was a nasty business and for a little while the two men hung on the oars. Then William took both oars, and, when the bow touched for a moment, Norman and the doctor leapt. As the water came surging about Norman's thighs, he heaved against the
Venture
, then waded ashore. As they lifted their eyes, Charlie appeared in the Cave's mouth, clad in a torn shirt and trousers.

They all saw him and Charlie saw them. He put a hand against the rock and stared out of his clay-grey face.

None of them spoke. No one called. Norman and the doctor went up the slithering stones.

‘Charlie,' said Norman, in a slow voice, warm with affection, ‘I'm glad to see you, boy.'

Charlie did not answer. He turned and went into the cave, staggering on the stones.

They followed him until he stopped. Lying under a ledge was the body of Flora, covered to the chin with the sail of Charlie's boat. The doctor got down on his knees. She was not dead.

The doctor got up and looked directly at Charlie. ‘She's sleeping.'

Charlie looked back at the doctor, but in a moment his eyes seemed to lose their focus. ‘I think so,' he said.

‘Don't worry. It will be all right.'

The eyes came back and focused on the doctor's face in a curious arid expression. ‘All right,' he said. As he staggered, Norman caught him. ‘It's all right,' Charlie repeated, drawing himself to his own stance.

‘Has she been like this long?' asked the doctor.

‘I think so, yes, for a time.'

‘We'll wake her up, and take her along.' Under the brown sail, Charlie's jacket and jersey covered her.

As her eyes opened and turned upon them they held for several seconds a curious wet glitter of blind light. Consciousness came through the glitter and dispelled it. From the doctor's face to Norman's the eyes travelled.

‘Charlie!' she muttered out of a hoarse throat.

‘Here's Charlie,' said the doctor.

Her eyes found Charlie. ‘It's all right,' he said, without moving. ‘They've come for you.'

She pushed herself into a sitting position, swaying against her supporting arm. She began breathing heavily. ‘Charlie!' she cried like a wild frightened child.

He came to her then. He made to stoop but fell over on his hip. ‘It's all right,' he said. ‘They've come for you. You're all right now.'

It was an extraordinary moment, because though she had not yet got back full consciousness, something deep in her detected an alien element in Charlie's voice and suddenly she gripped him and clung to him.

He held her for a little, staring over her head at the black rock wall.

The doctor decided she had a touch of fever. When they got her up, she swayed weakly on her feet. Norman put his arm round her. ‘Come you, Miss Flora,' he said with the warm courtesy that was native to him. ‘You lean on me.' His voice was gentle, his body strong and sure.

The doctor turned to Charlie. ‘Put these on.'

Charlie looked at the jersey and jacket, then put them on.

‘Now! Come along.' The doctor's voice was normal, friendly. ‘I smell smoke, do I? Did you manage a fire? Lean on me, if you want to.'

‘It's all right,' said Charlie.

They came out of the cave. Norman was now near the water line and carrying Flora. The doctor hurried forward. As William nosed the boat in, Norman and the doctor waded into the steep surf with Flora in their arms. They got her on board and then turned for Charlie.

But Charlie had stopped just outside the cave mouth, and as all eyes were turned on him he went slowly over towards his boat.

Every soul there knew, in one terrible moment, that Charlie did not want to come.

The point had been reached when it was easy to take life apart, one's own life, cleanly, and dispose of it. Beyond bitterness and the last clotted mood, life comes clean and clear again, and final, like a brittle stalk, like clean seawater. This point lies beyond the place where all defeats meet and make living no longer possible.

Having come so far and been defeated, been defeated in his pride, his manhood, his seamanship, it was no longer possible for him to go back. Charlie could not go back. He could not go.

Norman knew this in his blood, knew it in so dreadful and intimate a way that he dared not go to Charlie, dared not move. Norman knew that Charlie's legs would not answer him.

The seconds got drawn out beyond bearing while the
Venture
heaved dangerously and the water soused the two men standing in it to the arm-pits. Suddenly high above the pounding of the sea on the outer rock, rose the cry: ‘Charlie!'

Charlie, who was looking into his boat, turned his head.

‘Charlie!' Her voice broke. The tears were on her face and she scrambled to her feet to make out of the boat.

Charlie came walking down towards them and Michael knew, where the marrow crawls inside the bone, that there came a courage, carried lightly, without expression, of a kind he had never before encountered.

As Charlie drew near the water, William, lying strongly on the oars, lifted his voice cheerfully: ‘It's all right, Charlie, we'll come back for your boat.'

Thus William passed it off for Charlie's sake. As Charlie was helped into the
Venture
, Michael turned to Mr. Gwynn and beheld in the eyes a glimmer of profound feeling. ‘I'll light the stove,' said Mr. Gwynn and he went into the cabin.

From the
Venture
they all got on board the
Stormy Petrel
except William, who kept the heaving boats apart with a fender.

Charlie was quiet, did not look at any of them directly and spoke reasonably. With his three days' growth and bare head he had the appearance of an outcast, but there was a detached dignity about him.

Flora, after her outburst, was strangely composed. She had thanked them as they helped her into the
Stormy Petrel
, and had at once sat down, her body upright, but with a burning light in her eyes, quite different from Charlie's grey distant look. They were both obviously in a terribly weak condition.

Michael came out. ‘Right, Doctor!'

The two berths, which folded against the walls of the cabin, had been let down, and now the doctor took Flora inside. When he had got her stretched out, he felt her pulse.

‘The water, Doctor,' said Mr. Gwynn, poking his head round from the galley, ‘is a week old. Will it be all right?'

‘Fine,' answered the doctor, then continued his light comforting words to Flora. She smiled to him slowly and with such bright eyes that he thought, in her weakness, she was going to weep. The expression pierced him, and he turned away, hesitating for a moment before he stepped into the cockpit.

‘You'd better have a lie down,' he said to Charlie.

‘I'm fine,' said Charlie.

‘In you go, Charlie,' said Norman. ‘The lie down will do you good.'

Charlie murmured ‘All right' and went in.

‘Well?' questioned Norman.

‘I have enough petrol for about two hours' running,'
answered Michael. ‘On a calm day I have done it under an hour and a half.'

Norman looked at the weather. The blue was stretching over the sky. The wind would yet fall away completely. The sea was going down.

‘If you could give us a tow for a bit,' he pondered.

‘Naturally,' said Michael.

‘Only you mustn't cut it fine. If you could take us clear of the islands, we'll manage then. What do you think, Doctor?'

‘The sooner we get her into a warm bed the better. They're both far through.'

Norman nodded. ‘The tide will soon be on the turn. It'll be slack for a while. You get something hot to drink. You're pretty cold looking yourself and wet to your middle.'

‘It's a cold sea!' The doctor smiled, feeling the cold crawling over his skin.

Nearly three days of it, without food!… Involuntarily his eyes lifted to the great hole in the rock. Day and night, through the howling strom. Charlie would be a good companion to a woman then. He knew that by the way she had turned blindly and clung to him, turned to the warmth that body and spirit had already given her.

Mr. Gwynn narrowly missed a bad scalding when the
Stormy Petrel
all at once began to rock violently from side to side. Charlie was thrown out of his bunk and seemed for a little while to be unconscious. Flora, who had first been heaved against the boat's side, got an instinctive grip that held her.

More water had to be boiled, but in the end tea, with sugar and condensed milk, was served all round. The doctor attended to the two in the bunks. He did not ask them any questions, but treated them as normal patients who had come under his care. He had to support Flora with an arm round her shoulders while she drank. But neither of them seemed hungry. Charlie was completely uncaring. As Flora lay back, her eyes closed and the breath came from her as if her chest had been squeezed. Norman was anxious to be off. He had had a talk with William and Angus, who were now in the
Venture
. On a short tow rope, with William
and Angus seated aft, the
Venture
did her best to keep her nose up, as Norman, at the tiller of the
Stormy Petrel
, swept out the way they had come in.

The spreading blue of the sky brought a freshness to the sea. Norman got the engine speed he wanted. After a time, with the islands well astern, he turned to the
Venture
. William nodded, raising his hand. Norman pulled the slip knot and heaved the rope clear. Already the
Venture's
sail was taking the wind. Her head fell away and she started on her first long tack.

Again the doctor knew a swift surge of feeling at sight of the gallant craft and the two men in her. His eyes took a secret look at Michael and Mr. Gwynn and found them unconsciously staring at the climbing and plunging lobster boat, already falling behind, falling away, in the seas. They could not break the fascination. The doctor went into the cabin.

Charlie was on an elbow, about to get out of his bunk. Flora was finding the pitching distressing and muttered something in a rambling way, but the doctor eased her head upward as well as he could. When he glanced over his shoulder, Charlie was on the flat of his back with his eyes shut. He stayed there beside Flora, looking sometimes on her face, at the eyelashes, the fine temples, the delicate skin texture, the curves of the mouth, the nostrils, and finding behind the outward shape and the closed eyes that something of the lonely woman – which they had sought one night to give a name to, but could not. In unconscious rest, without the need to draw back, the nameless in her was very near. It was asleep like something in his hands, like something in a still place far within him. And suddenly, in a solemn way, as sleep or death is solemn, it was for ever distant from him, this face, this spirit, that was so near. In many a death scene, he had realized the uniqueness, the ultimate loneliness, of the human being. Now there was added something neither of life nor of death, that brought the realization:
This is woman
, and the revelation affected him with an untranslatable strangeness.

As the pitching slackened, he went out into the cockpit. They were entering Loch Ros, making for the calm of its
northern shore. Norman was taking no chances. If the engine stopped now, he could fetch Balcreggan on the southern shore under his mizzen sail.

The
Venture
was not following them. She could be seen well out to sea, fighting to give the Point a wide berth – and so home to Cruime. They would want to have her ready for the morning and the lobsters that the storm may have brought to their fishing grounds.

When the doctor saw folk making for the jetty below Ros Lodge, his face hardened. It was going to be difficult for Charlie. Then another problem struck him. Should he order Flora to be taken to Ros Lodge or should he have her driven direct to the manse?

He could order either course, whether the minister was there or not.

The problem so tormented him that his face became expressionless. He didn't know what to do. Ros Lodge was the last place in which he would wish to leave her. Yet to think of her in the manse, with her father…

Norman put the tiller over. Michael closed down the throttle and slid the gear into neutral. The
Stormy Petrel
glided into the stone jetty towards Erchie's waiting hands.

There were about a dozen onlookers and they had their dramatic moment. Then an elderly woman cried out and came waddling and sliding over the slimy stones. She was the housekeeper at the manse. The doctor looked into her face and turned to Michael. ‘If you get the trap ready, we can send Flora and the housekeeper to the manse.'

Norman, the policeman, and the doctor carried Flora up the jetty. Michael told Erchie to get the old mare into the trap.

‘Very well, sir,' replied Erchie, with a look at Charlie.

Charlie was on his own feet and began walking forward. Erchie caught his arm as he staggered.

‘It's all right,' said Charlie, stopping.

‘You'll come up to the house, Charlie, and rest there,' said Michael. ‘Let me give you a hand.'

Charlie bore their attentions for a little while, then on the dry gravel above the uneven stones, he stopped again. Erchie hurried away to get the trap ready.