The Lonely Sea. Alistair MacLean

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СКАЧАТЬ she scoffed bitterly. ‘Protection!’ George followed her meaningful glance towards the white shorts and green jersey on the line. They were still dripping. ‘You couldn’t take care of a wheelbarrow. Can’t sail, can’t swim, can’t defend yourself—a fine protector you’d make.’ She breathed deeply and with fearful restraint. ‘Get off!’

      ‘’Ere, ’ere, Miss,’ said the aggrieved Eric, ‘that’s not quite fair. The guv’nor’s no sissy. ’E’s got a medal, ’e ’as.’

      ‘What did he get it for?’ she queried acidly. ‘Ballroom dancing?’

      ‘The lady, I’m afraid, Eric, is annoyed,’ said George. ‘Perhaps justifiably so. All dragons,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘are in a state of perpetual annoyance.’

      ‘What was that?’ the lady demanded sharply.

      ‘Nothing,’ said George, courteously but firmly. ‘You will now please retire to your bed. No further harm will befall you or your boat. Eric and I,’ he finished poetically, ‘will watch over you to the break of day.’

      Mary made as if to protest, hesitated, shrugged her shoulders resignedly, and turned away.

      ‘Suit yourself,’ she said indifferently. ‘Perhaps,’ she added hopefully, ‘you’ll both catch pneumonia.’

      For some time, there followed sounds of movement in the cabin, then the light was switched off. By and by the sound of deep and peaceful slumber drifted up the companionway. It was in many ways a pleasant sound—infinitely so, indeed, in comparison with the obligato of snores already issuing from the two faithful watchers in the stern.

      Sleep, however, was not universal. Far from it. Black Bart and his henchman were not only awake, but uncommonly active. The latter had stealthily vanished into the engine room of George’s cruiser: Black Bart himself was squatting on one of the submerged cross-beams bracing the piers of the jetty. Looped over his shoulder were about sixty feet of slender wire hawser. One end was secured to the pier, the other to the rudder of the barge, immediately below the sleeping warriors. The coils he let fall gently to the bottom of the canal.

      At 7.00 a.m. the following morning, George and Eric left the barge in a hurry. The frying pan wielded by the redhead was daunting enough, but far more devastating were her scorn and derision.

      At 7.30 Black Bart’s barge moved off, chugged along the canal for a couple of hundred yards, then stopped. Jamieson wanted a grandstand view of the proceedings.

      At 8.00 a.m., Eric appeared on deck, luridly cursing the villain who had drained all the paraffin tanks and refilled them with water.

      At 8.02 George made his hurried way along the bank to Mary’s boat in urgent search of fuel. He was driven off by unkind words and a bargepole.

      At 8.05, Mary cast off, and at 8.06, with a terrific rending, splintering noise, the rudder was torn off. Immediately the barge slewed round and thudded into the bank.

      At 8.08, George had run along the towpath and leapt aboard to offer help. At 8.09 the redhead knocked him into the canal and at 8.10 she fished him out again.

      Two hundred yards away, Black Bart was bent double, convulsed at the results of his own genius. Finally he straightened up, wiped the streaming tears from his eyes, and journeyed on towards the famous Watman’s Folly, the last stopover of the trip.

      ‘Ol’ man, I’ve mishjudged you—mishjudged you badly, ol’ man. Sorry, Bart, ol’ man. But you unnershtand how it is. Women! Women! Tchah! Did you see what she did to me? Eh? Did you see it?’ George was incoherent with indignation.

      ‘Sure, sure, Doc, I saw it.’ Black Bart swore fluently. ‘She’s a bad-tempered young lady.’ ‘Lady’ was not Bart’s choice of word. ‘Better rid of her. Sorry about the scrap at the lock, Doc. All her fault, the wicked little so-and-so.’

      ‘It’s forgotten, Bart, ol’ man, forgotten. All my own fault. Pals, eh, ol’ man?’

      The new-found pals solemnly shook hands, then returned to the serious competitive business of deplenishing the Watman’s Arms available supplies of West Country cider. It was powerful stuff. George appeared to be winning by a short head: but then George was pouring nearly all of his into a convenient window box. Black Bart remained happily unaware of this. He was likewise ignorant of the immense care with which George had arranged this accidental meeting—the Arms was a favourite haunt of Jamieson’s. Striking up an acquaintanceship on a friendly basis had been easy—after what Black Bart had seen that morning, George’s friendliness came as no surprise. Besides, George was spending very freely.

      ‘’S ten o’clock, Doc,’ said Bart warningly. ‘Chucking-out time, you know.’

      ‘Imposhible, ol’ man,’ replied George thickly. ‘We’ve only been here ten minutes. Tell you what, ol’ man,’ he continued eagerly. ‘Lesh make a night of it. Eh? ol’ pal? Come on.’

      Ten minutes later the old pals were staggering erratically along the towpath, singing in what they frequently praised as wonderful harmony, and swinging a demijohn of cider in either hand. First they passed the cruiser, then Mary’s barge with the jury-rigged rudder—Bart meant to attend to that later on—and finally boarded Bart’s barge.

      Bart’s barge lay close by Watman’s Folly, which was only ten miles short of the Granary. The Folly was what is known as a blind lock. It had lock gates at either end, but the outer end led nowhere. It just stopped there, overlooking the Upper Totfield valley—an embryo canal killed by finance. Like most blind locks, it had been sealed by concrete.

      Bart’s henchman welcomed them eagerly, and the night’s festivities really commenced. At half past one the henchman slid beneath the table. At a quarter to two George followed him, and at two o’clock Bart, in the act of draining the last demijohn, crashed to the floor in a highly spectacular fashion.

      George rose briskly to his feet, dusted down his clothes and strode ashore. First, he boarded Mary’s barge and rapped imperatively on her door.

      A light immediately flicked on and in ten seconds a tousled red head and sleepy, rather scared blue eyes peeped round the door. When she saw who it was her expression changed to something curiously like gladness, then merely to relief, finally to exasperation.

      ‘I know, I know,’ said George. ‘“Get off my barge”. Well, I’m just going. I am not,’ he added hastily, ‘keeping a watch over you tonight. Just came to tell you to be prepared to move early tomorrow. I don’t think Black Bart will be feeling particularly friendly towards any of us in a few hours’ time.’

      ‘What are you talking about,’ she asked wonderingly. ‘And just what do you propose to do?’ she inquired suspiciously.

      ‘Wait and see,’ said George ungallantly. ‘Perhaps I’m no sailor, swimmer or boxer but—’ he tapped himself briefly on the forehead—‘possibly I am not completely useless in every department. Goodnight.’

      He returned to his cruiser, collected Eric, and together they made their way back to Bart’s barge. They unhitched his mooring ropes, dragged the barge along the canal, opened the gates of the Folly, creaky and stiff with long disuse, and towed the barge inside. Once they had it safely inside, they closed the gates and George, producing a hacksaw, thoughtfully sawed off the handle of the sluice trap, so that it could not be opened to admit water.

      While СКАЧАТЬ