The Man who Missed the War (15 page)

Putting a hand to it he tried to concentrate and realised that the launch must have piled up on something. His next thought was of Gloria, and he shouted her name. There was no reply. He staggered to his feet and slithered down the sloping floor to her bunk. It was empty; and her clothes had gone from the next bunk on which she had laid them.

With a sudden fear that the launch might be holed and in danger of sinking, he grabbed his dressing-gown and pulled it on as he stumbled up the short companionway. He saw at once what had happened. The starlight was quite sufficient to show that the launch had piled up on one of the rafts. But how, in God’s name, had it managed to do that, Philip asked himself? A moment later, he knew. The engine was still running. Clambering forward to switch it off, he swung himself over the edge of the engine-room hatch and came face to face with Gloria.

The light was still on there. By it he saw that there was a slight cut on her forehead, from which the blood was trickling. Her eyes were dilated, and her face was very white. Otherwise, she appeared to be unhurt and in full possession of her senses.

‘What the hell have you been up to?’ he snapped.

‘What the hell would you think?’ she snapped back. ‘Since it’s the lousy heel you are an’ won’t take me back to New York, ‘tis meself an’ the blessed Saints I must rely on to get me there.’

He grabbed her by the arm and shook her. ‘Tell me what you’ve done this instant!’

‘I undid the cable an’ turned the boat around. How was I to know that in less time than it takes to powder me nose ‘twould go crashin’ into a rock?’

‘You little fool, it’s not a rock we’ve hit but one of the rafts. Get out of my way!’

Thrusting her aside, he took over the controls of the engine, which was still throbbing rhythmically, and put the gear lever into reverse. There was an ominous grating for a moment, then the action of the screws took effect; the stem of the launch drew away from the raft and suddenly fell back into the water with a loud splash.

Stopping the engine, Philip waited for a few moments tense with anxiety. As a precaution against rough weather, he had had watertight compartments built into both the bow and the stern of the launch, so he did not think there was any great danger of her sinking under them; but he was afraid that she might have been holed forward which would cause the compartment there to fill and make the future handling of her most damnably difficult. If she were badly holed, the weight of the water would soon cause her to go down at the head and give the deck a new slant; but, as it remained level, he knew that the damage could not have been very serious.

‘You’d better get back to the cabin and bathe that cut on your head,’ he suggested to Gloria, and following her up on deck he proceeded, with the aid of an electric torch, to make as thorough an examination as possible of the launch’s bows and the smashed side of the raft. The launch seemed all right above the waterline, but one of the big metal cargo containers on the raft had been stove right in. He decided that it was better not to attempt to pick up the cable that Gloria had cast off till daylight, so, hauling the launch alongside the raft, he made her fast. On returning to the cabin he found Gloria back in her bunk and apparently asleep. It was still only a little after one o’clock, so he scrambled
back into his own bunk, and, after ruminating a little on how best to deal with his problem child, fell asleep again.

When he wakened it was full day and the first thing he noticed was that his feet were now several inches lower than his head. Evidently the impact of charging the raft during the night had caused the launch to spring a leak, as she was now down by the bows. The sole consolation was that it could only be a comparatively small leak, otherwise the forward compartment would have filled much more quickly. It was annoying, but it could be dealt with, and he decided that in the process of dealing with it the unruly Gloria should be taught a lesson.

Jumping from his bunk he wrapped his dressing-gown round him and went over to her. She was lying on her back with one bare arm thrown up round her head. Her breathing came very softly through moist, slightly parted red lips, and he noticed that her dark eyelashes were long and curly as they lay fanlike on her cheeks. She looked very young, and it seemed a shame to waken her, but he hardened his heart and, shaking her by the shoulder, called out:

‘Gloria! Wake up! The launch is sinking!’

Her eyelids fluttered up and the bright blue eyes stared at him, then with a gasp of ‘What! What’s that?’ she sat up.

Turning away he ran to the hatchway, only pausing with one foot on the first step to fling over his shoulder: ‘Come on! Quick as you can! I shall need all the help you can give me.’

Her dawning realisation that the cabin floor was sloping forward did the rest. In two minutes she had pulled on a skirt, a jumper and a pair of shoes, and came clattering along the deck towards him.

When she arrived he was plumbing the forward compartment with a long wire, which showed that there was water in it up to a depth of nearly four feet. He knew that the water had now reached its level and would not increase, but he turned a scared face to Gloria and exclaimed:

‘Good God! We’ve shipped four feet of water, and if it gets up to five we’ll sink! I must take up the floor-boards in the cabin so as to crawl along the bilge and stop the leak, but before I can do that we must get the level of the water down.’ Pointing at a small hand pump he went on quickly: ‘If you don’t want to spend
the next two months on the raft you’d better put everything you’ve got into that while I get the floor-boards up and work the other pump in the engine-room.’

Obediently she grasped the pump handle and began to turn the wheel for all she was worth, while he hurried back to the cabin. But when he reached it, instead of taking up the floorboards, he unhurriedly washed, shaved and dressed, and then began to prepare breakfast for himself. He was careful not to cook anything in case the smell gave him away, but he opened a tin of ham and another of pineapple chunks, and made himself a pot of tea.

An hour afterwards he thought he would go up and see how she was getting on, but first he ruffled his hair and smeared his face and hands with some black from the stove to give himself the appearance of having been slaving in the bilge.

With aching back and straining muscles Gloria was still turning away at the wheel of the pump, but she let go of it with a little gasp, and drew herself painfully upright as he approached.

‘Well, how’re you makin’ out?’ she panted.

‘Not too badly,’ he replied, drawing the back of his hand wearily across his eyes as though he were almost dead-beat. ‘I think we’ll save her—that is, if you can manage to keep it up.’ He took the depth of the water with his dipper again, and added: ‘You’re doing well. It’s down to two feet six, but I won’t be able to fix things till the deck is level. How often have you been resting?’

‘Just a few minutes, now and then.’

‘That’s right. I couldn’t do this and the job I’m doing at the same time, so you mustn’t crack yourself up.’

‘ ’Tis terrible hungry I am,’ she grumbled. ‘Couldn’t we be gettin’ ourselves some breakfast now an’ finish when we’ve eaten?

He shook his head. ‘No, that would be fatal. If you stopped pumping for half an hour the water would be back to four feet and we’d have to start the whole job over again. Rest when you feel you must, but remember that every minute of rest means two minutes’ more pumping later on.’

Having planted this disturbing thought in her mind, he added: ‘Neither of us must let up until the deck is level and I can get at
the leak.’ Then he hurried back to the cabin as though his presence were required there as a matter of the utmost urgency.

He had meant to go round all the rafts that morning to see if any of the cables were showing signs of strain, but that was impossible so long as the launch was out of action. There was nothing else he particularly wanted to do, so he picked up the latest James Thurber, which was among the books he had bought before leaving New York, and lay down on his bunk to enjoy a good laugh over that author’s brilliant nonsense.

After reading for a little, owing perhaps to his having been roused in the middle of the previous night, he became drowsy, and putting down his book closed his eyes. Over an hour slipped by before he opened them again, and then it was with a start, to find a flushed and enraged Gloria staring down at him.

‘So this is the way himself acts the great sailor, is it?’ she flared, planting her feet apart and her hands on her hips. ‘All his talk of savin’ us from sinkin’ by crawlin’ around down in the bilge while I’m sweatin’ blood at that pump. Ah, if only I had the strength of a man I’d be givin’ you the bum’s rush right over the side of the boat!’

Shooting his long legs out of the bunk, he stood up and faced her. ‘Now, listen to me! The sort of thing you did last night might easily have killed us both. We’re alone here and at the mercy of the ocean.’

‘You’re telling me!’ she interrupted, stridently.

He ignored that. ‘There’s no reason at all why we should come to any harm provided we both play the game. By that I mean take all reasonable precautions and good care of our equipment. But, if the launch or its engine becomes seriously damaged, it may well cost us our lives. A few hours’ hard pumping is not a very severe punishment for having risked both our necks, and there’s at least a chance that the memory of it may help to drive home what I’ve just said. Anyhow, one of us had to pump the water out of the forward compartment, and as it was your fault that it got in there I saw no reason why you shouldn’t be made to get it out. Now that you’ve got the water down I really am going along to try to stop that leak.’

She turned away suddenly without a word, and he could not tell if it were to hide tears of repentance or sullen anger. Picking
up a hammer, blow-lamp and other tools that he had put ready, he went up on deck.

It was, of course, actually quite impossible to reach the forward compartment by way of the bilge, and the real way into it was through a manhole in the small triangular foredeck. Having unscrewed the trap, he lowered himself into the dark, narrow space below, and, with the aid of his torch, began to look for the leak. It was some time before he found it, and, when he did, it was indicated only by a slow trickle of water seeping between the timbers. He was no expert at repairing boats, but knew just enough to check the flow temporarily at least, while thanking his gods that it was no worse.

The job had to be done by artificial light, and to complete it he had to kneel down in the smelly water that still remained slopping about the keel. In consequence, he had not once glanced up at the manhole by which he had entered during the half-hour it took to do the work. Now, on getting up from his knees, he saw with horror that while he had been busy the manhole had been replaced.

Filled with apprehension he first pushed then banged upon it, but it did not budge a millimetre. With rage and dismay he accepted the awful truth which had already flashed upon him. While he had been too occupied to notice, the incorrigible Gloria had stolen up, replaced the mantrap cover and screwed it down.

For ten minutes he pummelled and called and cursed and banged, but all to no purpose; so eventually he gave up and endeavoured to make himself as comfortable as he could until it should please his tormentor to release him. But he soon found that his choice of positions varied only in the degree of discomfort that they offered, since the space under the foredeck could hardly have been bettered if it had been designed specially for purposes of torture by a Gestapo expert. It was not high enough for him to stand upright in it, and the floor, curving sharply away from each side of the keel to form two of the three walls, sloped to such an extent that he could not even find a flat surface for his feet; and, in the meantime, the water washed and eddied round them. Eventually, he found that the least acutely painful position was sitting down in the shallow water on the keel itself with his
back against the stem post of the launch, but the keel was not very wide, so its two edges cut into his behind, forcing him to kneel or stand half-bent for relief at frequent intervals. After a time, there being no ventilation, the place became abominably hot and stuffy.

For hours on end he thought of all the jolly things that he would do to Gloria when he did get out; but when she actually released him at eight o’clock that night he did nothing. After the best part of ten hours in this ‘black hole of Calcutta’ he was so exhausted that he only managed to climb out with her assistance, and she was clearly a little frightened by the state to which she had reduced him.

It seemed too that she was not only frightened but distressed; as, when he collapsed upon the deck croaking hoarsely for water, the moment she had fetched it she cradled his head on her breast and began to murmur little phrases of comfort to him as if he were a baby.

When he had recovered to some extent she served the supper which she had already prepared for them both, and during the meal neither said a word about the tricks played on each other, which had caused one of them to spend a most exhausting morning and the other an extremely painful afternoon. Honours were now even, and by mutual if unspoken agreement they entered upon a truce. But they spoke very little over the meal or after it.

As the launch was still tied up alongside the raft there was no point in Philip going to look at the engine; but, after his suggestion that they should make an early night of it, to which Gloria agreed, he went up for a breath of air on deck. The weather was still fine, the sea calm, and what little wind there was still came from within a few points of South-East. Tomorrow, he thought, I must take an observation and find out where we’ve got to. That is, if that little devil doesn’t play some other dirty trick on me. But he really felt too tired to worry very much at the moment, and going below turned in, to fall asleep almost at once.

The next morning, again by unspoken agreement, the truce was continued. Immediately after breakfast, Philip took a sounding of the forward compartment and found that the water
had risen only three inches since he had patched the leak some twenty hours earlier. Provided it got no worse, ten minutes’ pumping a day would be sufficient to keep it down, and if the flow did increase he could always reduce it by re-patching, so he felt that he no longer had any cause to worry about the results of Gloria’s desperate attempt to get back to America.