The Man who Missed the War (16 page)

The launch was still tied up to the raft, and he clambered on to it to examine the damage that had been done to the cargo container. In mounting the raft the launch’s bows had ripped a great hole in the container and smashed some of the wooden boxes inside it. The trouble now was going to be that the moment anything approaching a swell got up each wave that hit the raft would pour in and out of the hole and ruin the cargo. Philip had intended to do his best to fix a canvas screen over the hole, but on getting close to the wooden boxes he saw for the first time from the smashed ones that they contained only loose earth.

Evidently, having planned for the rafts to be abandoned to drift until they either became waterlogged and sank, or were battered to pieces on some probably desolate coast, Eiderman had felt that it would be absurd to waste good German Secret Service money on providing a genuine cargo.

At first, Philip was furious at this new trick which had been played upon him. Now only his own goods on Number One Raft could be used to provide evidence that various commodities might be thrown violently about during a crossing of the Atlantic by raft without harm coming to them, whereas he had been counting upon producing scores of additional exhibits from the mixed cargo on the other nine rafts. But he soon realised that the harm done to his experiment would be comparatively small. To have brought nine of the rafts over in water ballast would have been most regrettable, but being filled with wooden cases was a very different thing. If the cases arrived without becoming waterlogged or otherwise damaged, it stood to reason that whatever had been put in them would have done so too; so for his purpose the fact that the boxes were full of earth really did not matter.

Then he suddenly saw something else. The very fact that the boxes were filled with earth might prove his salvation if he ever had to face his trial for Eiderman’s murder. Provided the rafts
reached Britain safely, it would now no longer be his bare word against Thorssen’s when the defence sought to establish that the Norwegian’s late co-director had been a Nazi agent. Down in the cabin, Philip had the Raft Convoy’s manifest with the long, long list of goods that the Norwegian Company were supposed to have shipped with him. When it could be proved that all these bales and boxes contained only earth they would have to do some pretty remarkable thinking to provide any sort of explanation.

Although his thoughts had been occupied by Gloria for a large part of the two days and nights, since he had made his escape from the
Regenskuld
he had, mainly subconsciously, been very worried indeed about the probability that when he did reach Britain he would find himself arrested and extradited for trial to the United States. Now, if that happened, the boxes filled with earth would put a very different complexion on the matter, and this did a great deal to relieve his mind.

All the same, he felt that it would be wise to stick to a decision he had taken on his first morning at sea; not to send out any message on his radio until he was within one hundred miles of the coast of Europe and actually needed tugs to come out and tow him in. It was annoying, as before sailing he had promised to let his father know every few days how he was getting on by sending a short message which, it had been arranged, would be relayed by any of H.M. ships that picked it up. Fortunately, as it now turned out, Eiderman had persuaded him to avoid any publicity, so, although there was a definite news value about his voyage, he had no hook-up with any American Press or broadcasting services, which might have sent an aircraft out to look for him if he had failed to radio to them; and Thorssen’s firm, with whom he had arranged to communicate, doubtless assumed that he was lying low in some American coastal town or village. In consequence, although his silence might cause his father considerable anxiety, his best hope of reducing any chance of his being hunted by the American authorities and taken back to New York lay in maintaining it.

The raft with which the launch had collided as a result of Gloria’s desperate attempt to regain her freedom was Number Three in the string. Casting off from it, Philip started the launch’s
engine and did a tour of his whole convoy, stopping for a little at each raft in turn. He did not board any of them, but came near enough for him to have a good look at the sails on each and the coupling of the cables. The ten rafts were no longer in a line, but formed an irregular zigzag spread out over a mile of water, but none of the sails had so far blown out, and all the cables were in order. Ending up at Raft Number One, Philip next set about hauling in the cable that Gloria had disconnected. This was no light task but eventually he got it hitched to a small winch and, once he had recovered the sunken end, it was easy to re-shackle it to the gear in the stern of the launch. An hour later, having set an approximate course by the sun, he had the satisfaction of seeing that each of the cables in turn had gradually taken up the strain, so that now the string of rafts was once more in a straight line.

Just before midday, he got out his sextant and at twelve noon took an observation of the sun. For the thirty-odd hours during which the launch had remained tied up to Raft Number Three he had no exact record of their course, or the speed they were making. However, he knew that, owing to the favourable wind, their speed had been considerably greater than he had anticipated, and, having taken approximate figures, after half an hour with his book of logarithms he had completed his ‘day’s work’, which gave the surprisingly satisfactory result that the Raft Convoy had, by midday, covered some hundred and sixty miles of its journey.

Over lunch he told Gloria, hoping that she would be persuaded of the folly of making any further attempts to get back to America, and become resigned to the voyage, but her only comment was to remark darkly: ‘Ah, just you wait till we strike one of those hurricanes that whisk away whole houses and tear up great trees by their roots! ‘Tis then you’ll be askin’ me pardon on your bended knees for bringin’ me to me death in a watery grave.’

However, that afternoon she suggested that he should sit for her, and he willingly agreed, as he was both intrigued by the idea of having his portrait done and interested to see how good she really was. He was somewhat peeved when after a two-hour sitting she refused to let him see what she had done, but she
protested that to complete it several more sittings would be necessary, and she did not wish him to see it before it was finished.

When they woke next day they found that the wind had freshened and the sea was quite choppy, but Gloria did not appear to be affected by it, and cooked and ate breakfast without any suggestion that if it got worse she might be ill. Actually by ten o’clock the wind had dropped again, so Philip took the precaution of refuelling the launch from the main supply of oil, which was stored in one of the cargo containers on Number One Raft. Then, in the afternoon, he sat once more for his portrait.

During the following two days they were again blessed with sunshine and light winds from the south-west, so that their progress filled Philip with a quite justifiable elation. Having worked out his position as at noon on August 17th he found that in five days they had travelled three hundred and ninety miles from their starting-point, and, so far, every mile of it had been in the right direction.

It was just after supper on the 17th, after a fifth long sitting, that Gloria declared the portrait finished. She had rigged up a makeshift easel to which it was pinned, and getting up Philip walked over to look at it.

‘By Jove, that
is
good!’ he exclaimed, as he studied the excellent drawing. He had never before realised that he was such a goodlooking fellow, but she had brought out his fine forehead, kind eyes, and the line of his determined chin, so that, while it remained an unmistakable likeness, these gave the impression that he might well be a great leader of men in whom brains were coupled with physical attraction.

‘I think it’s absolutely grand,’ he continued enthusiastically. ‘And if you can do this sort of thing you ought later on to make a packet of money as a portrait painter.’

‘Sure an’ I will!’ she agreed with a laugh that had a slight edge to it. ‘ ’Tis a thousand bucks a time I’ll be charging for a portrait in oils the like of that when I get back from me studies in Paris. And d’you know why? But, of course, you don’t, so I’ll be tellin’ you. It’s like enough to that long face of yours for yourself to be thinkin’ you look like that. But you don’t. Not a bit of it!
That’s how you’d like to look—and maybe flatter yourself you do. An’ that’s why you’d pay me the big money if you were a rich guy and meself rented one of those Ritzy studios in Greenwich Village. Now, just take a look at yourself as you are.’

As she finished speaking she unpinned the drawing and disclosed another beneath it, on which, unknown to Philip, she had also been working during these long sittings.

It was again an undeniable likeness, but no one could call it a pleasant portrait. This time she had stressed the thinness of his face to the point of emaciation, made his strong jaw look sullen and given his big forehead a narrowness that suggested the bigot. It was the face of a stubborn man with a one-track mind, and it entirely lacked any quality which might be expected to appeal to a young woman.

The sight of it was admittedly a shock to Philip, although he knew that it was as much a libel as the other one had been an outrageous piece of flattery. He swallowed hard, stared at it for a minute, and then said quietly: ‘If I had needed anything to convince me that you have real talent this would have done so. It’s damn’ unpleasant. It isn’t true. But it is the work of a very clever artist.’

Gloria was so taken aback that she remained there tongue-tied until, after a moment, he turned and strolled away towards the engine-room.

He knew very well that Gloria had made the second drawing because, for some reason best known to herself, she desired to humiliate him; most probably in revenge for his keeping her with him against her will. That must be so, as had she done it only as a practice study she need never have let him see it. In consequence, he decided that it would do her a great deal of good to know how it feels to be humiliated, and he planned a sharp lesson for her, which he took the opportunity to deliver after supper that night.

‘You know, Gloria,’ he began, ‘I’ve been thinking about that second drawing you showed me this afternoon. Quite possibly I do look like that, and you obviously feel that it does us good to see ourselves as others see us. Unfortunately, I lack the talent to do a pair of portraits of you, but perhaps I can achieve the same effect by a word-picture. We won’t bother about the first, as I
have no doubt that you think of yourself as a Venus, although, actually, apart from the colour of your eyes and hair, you’re rather a plain little girl. What I should like to get at is the you behind the face, as all really great artists succeed in doing with their sitters, and as you did in a way with those two travesties of me on which you’ve been working so hard these past few days. But then again, I don’t profess to be a psychologist, and I don’t really know you well enough yet to name the things that are really good or bad in your character.’

He paused for a moment, then went on: ‘As a result, I’ll have to confine myself to mentioning a couple of points about you that you’ll do well to correct if you really want to get on in the world. The first is your way of speaking. There’s nothing objectionable about it and, in fact, a touch of the Irish brogue is not without its fascination. But, if you succeed as an artist and wish to gather the full rewards of your labours by not only painting the great and wealthy but also mixing with them on terms of equality, you will have to learn to talk English like an educated American—and not like an Irish peasant who has been dragged up in a New York gutter.’

Gloria’s blue eyes were flashing, and her mouth was halfopen to speak, but he held up his hand and fired his second shot. ‘The other point is cleanliness. Tomorrow morning it will be exactly a week since you left home. During that time, although the weather has been perfect, you have not once washed your head, and as far as I know you haven’t even had a bath. It’s true that owing to lack of space here we can only run to a salt-water shower, but that’s perfectly adequate, and if you’d turned it on I’d have heard the water running, because there’s only a thin partition between the shower and the engine-room. Now, most of the people who can help you on the road to success while you are still little known will do so much more readily if you talk their language; although that won’t matter if you succeed in painting really big stuff. Then, even the greatest leaders of thought and fashion and patrons of art will stand for your talking Cockney or Bowery at their dinner tables. But there is one thing that none of these people will stand—no, not if you were Michael Angelo himself. They will not ask to their houses a girl who smells! I don’t happen to be your best friend, Gloria, so I
can tell you quite bluntly that it’s time that you learnt to wash all over at least once a day.’

Her face had gone so scarlet during this brutal recital that her freckles had temporarily disappeared. Her mouth opened to speak, then closed; it opened and closed a second time. Philip sat there quite fascinated.

Suddenly she grabbed up the breadknife and lunged at him with it. If he had not jerked his head back he might have lost an eye. Next second she was on her feet and coming round the table at him. He sprang up and sidestepped swiftly, placing the table between them. Her blue eyes blazing murder, she glared across it, made a feint in one direction and with the agility of a cat leapt at him from the other. Dodging the blow, he jumped away to the far side of the table once more. He now had his back to the companionway. By turning and making a dash for it he felt sure that he could get on to the ladder and have the door slammed in her face before she could catch up with him.

He was terribly tempted to do it, but he knew that if he allowed her to chase him from the cabin he would lose face to such a degree that he would never be able to stand up to her on equal terms again. Even at the risk of receiving a nasty wound, it was up to him to get that knife away from her somehow, and prove that at least he was not a coward who could be intimidated by displays of temper in a girl.