Operation Nassau (29 page)

Surprisingly, it was Trotter who laughed: a cackle of pure amusement which owed nothing to hysteria. ‘I tell you something,’ he said. ‘At least I know me heart’s good for a century, and you could shove a ball-point pen clean down me arteries. I may, of course, still go off me poor bleedin’ nut.’

‘Don’t boast,’ said Johnson. ‘She’s swallowed the net, but she may chew it up and discard it. At best she’s going at the same speed as we are. The wind may die, or we may be stuck on a sandbank. And talking of sandbanks . . .

Bad news comes soon enough. I hadn’t told him but of course he had noticed. Where the chart had been were four drawing-pins adhering to four scraps of paper. ‘It was torn off,’ I said, ‘when Harry fell into the cockpit. At least, it was gone when I took the wheel. It must have flipped overboard. I’ve looked,’ I added.

They looked as well, but the chart wasn’t aboard. And while they were looking, Trotter got up in the shrouds and started to call out the soundings.

Perhaps it sounds easy. He didn’t know the tricks of these waters: he didn’t know what the colours denoted. The person who knew them best was Harry; and Harry, it turned out, had no head for heights. Spry took charge of the sails, with Harry and myself to help him, while high above on the ratlines, Trotter leaned on the top, swaying spar and called out.

To this day, I remember the lesson. A light blue for ten to fifteen fathoms, said Harry. A light green, four to five fathoms; a pale green one and a half to two fathoms; the pale marine straw of the shoals, a fathom or less. They called that white water, and if we sailed there, we were dead.

Watch out, he said, for patches of coral and rock: yellow-brown, deep brown or black. Watch out for coral heads embedded in debris: grass, or sponges or marine vegetation. Then they are harder to spot. But look for the ring of white sand around the rock or the coral, where the fish swim and wait for their prey and their plankton, and the bed is fanned clear of grass.

Trotter had a clear voice: an enunciation ungainly but perfect through years of instructing obscure foreign militia when to jump through their hoops. He had well-trained responses and an ability to keep his head and his balance on a thin swaying ratline on a slow, tacking ketch. He called out what he could see, and we hauled on ropes and released and belayed them: we ducked as the booms swayed across and the next moment seemed to sway back, guided by Spry and by Johnson and by Harry, interpreting the crazy mosaic of that brilliant sea-bed into a channel which would bear the passage of
Dolly
.

And all the time the choked whine of
Haven’s
engine sang in our ears, cutting corners; always there; never falling behind. And I knew what Johnson was doing; stealing every inch to port that he could make with the channel: bearing left and always left; trying to win out of the shallows he had entered so desperately and reach the deep water where we had been once before.

Then, with our engine failed and wind dropping, we had been no match for
Haven
. Now, with full sail crammed on her,
Dolly
could draw away from the crippled storeship and run until she found help or harbour. Help, in the form of another ship which could take us on board, or could explode the
Haven
by fire from a safe distance. Harbour, only when we were free of our enemy.

But the shoals held us trapped. The channel wound round the sand bars, but whether it was the right channel we had no means of knowing. Sometimes the sand brushed our keel or our sides and we were all silent, wondering if, like a party astray in a maze, we had come up a blind alley, and, unable to reverse, must wait there to be caught. Dazed with sun and strain, my hands raw from the ropes, my back aching with something which would soon become total exhaustion, I wondered how the others were faring. The men might be stronger, but I wouldn’t give much for Harry’s mental endurance; and the strain Trotter was undergoing, up there on those swaying shrouds under the glare of the sun. About Spry I knew nothing and he showed nothing of weakness. But then neither did Johnson; and I knew more about Johnson than he had wanted me to know.

And still the sand closed us in. Sometimes ahead Trotter would spy freer water, and we would sail for it, letting the sails fill all they would. But always in the end the channel thickened and narrowed.

In one of these spaces, Johnson called Trotter down, and when I saw him, I knew he shouldn’t go up again, although he was convinced he could, and said so all the time he was resting. I gave him a drink and a wet towel and dodged along to attend to the sheets on the foredeck while Spry climbed the ratlines as lookout. But I knew I hadn’t Spry’s endurance, or his speed or his grip. In Harry and myself, Johnson had a pretty poor crew. And if Trotter came down with heatstroke . . .

Then Johnson gave Trotter the wheel and ducked forward to where I was crouching. ‘Dr MacRannoch,’ he said.

I said, ‘He can’t . . .’

‘I know he can’t,’ said Johnson mildly. ‘Neither can you, or any of us for very much longer. But listen to Trotter’s suggestion. We haven’t enough speed for skiing. But if we let out a warp, he thinks he can drop back to
Haven
on it and board her.’

I looked at him, but the dark glasses told nothing. I said, ‘The sharks. He’s tired. What if he loses his grip? We couldn’t stop. We couldn’t pick him up, could we?’

‘Not before
Haven
reaches us,’ Johnson said. Behind us, Harry was complaining. The main basis for it, so far as I could gather, was that if Trotter drowned, or was carelessly mown down by
Haven
, we should not only have lost ground, but be short of one man to sail
Dolly
. Johnson added, ‘Beltanno, if only three of us are left to run
Dolly
, could you go up that shroud?’

I was glad at least that he knew what was happening to Harry. And there was no avoiding the issue. If only Spry and Johnson were left to tackle
Dolly
, I should have to be pilot. ‘I don’t see why not,’ I replied.

He nodded, but his attention had left me. Trotter strode by, stripped to his trunks. He spoke, and Johnson put up his hand. Spry had already belayed a long coil of rope near the stern post. There was a light grappling-iron. I saw, at one end.

Johnson brought
Dolly
half up into the wind to let Trotter drop overboard, and for a moment I think we all believed she had lost way for good. Then Trotter’s head, shaking off spray, appeared in the water. We saw him lean over, exposing one brown, sinewy shoulder and his two powerful forearms, the broad fists clutching the rope. The wind filled
Dolly
’s sails. She drew away, and Trotter’s body, rising, began to cut through the water. His head in the crook of his right arm was turned left cheek upwards, drawing air from the vortex caused by the shape of his body resisting the drive of the sea.

He was a magnificent swimmer. We all knew that. We had watched him scores of times towed by
Dolly
’s launch skimming up ramps and leapfrogging barrels on water-skis. Broad and small with a body like muscular teak, he ignored his tiredness. He braced himself, foetus-like in the water, and was drawn through it, his gasping mouth taking the air as Spry, as fast as he dared, paid out the cable.

It disturbed his rhythm, the lengthening cable. The first time, Spry misjudged it and the rope suddenly slackened, slamming Trotter under the water. He rose half-choked, legs threshing to keep him on top and swimming, until
Dolly
drew off and the rope tautened again. After that, Spry kept the warp tight, releasing it little by little, his eyes on
Haven
as much as on the swimmer.

We had lost ground. The white boat was far closer: the gap getting shorter. There was only so much time this manoeuvre could cost. But Spry didn’t lose Trotter again; and Trotter, snatching glance after glance over his shoulder, must have seen
Haven’s
bows getting closer. He was almost upon her.

It was then that I found the wheel in my hands. ‘Good luck,’ said Johnson, and grinned briefly, and walked to the rail. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. I stared alter him, and then my attention was snatched back to Trotter by a shout from Spry and from Harry.

The swimmer was just ahead of the
Haven
. Trotter lifted a hand, raising himself out of the water, and Spry allowed to spin free all the coils of remaining free cable. We watched the spray settle. Trotter’s head came up, cropped in the sunlight, and his hands flashed as he gathered the rope. For ten seconds maybe, he waited: the small tough sergeant-major, his brown shoulders washed by the blue surging sea, watching the approaching white boat with its sheer sides and its empty wheel and its well filled with explosives.

Lifting himself like a seal from the waves, Rodney Trotter drew back the arm with the cable, and threw. The rope hissed through the air dropping a string of white water: a sparkle of spray left the grapple. We saw the iron hit the coaming of
Haven’s
white starboard bow, hesitate, and then drop down inside out of sight.

The rope tightened. As the launch swerved unevenly past him, it drew Trotter swinging out of the sea, hands working, one strong foot already finding a purchase. By sheer momentum he got two-thirds up her sides before
Haven
forced past him, swinging the rope to her stern and unsettling the grip of the grappling-iron. The rope came loose and he snatched instead, with both hands, at
Haven’s
topside.

He caught it, and, with the same movement, vaulted on to her deck like a gymnast.

Johnson stayed only to see Trotter board the
Haven
. Then, just as he was, he dived off
Dolly
and struck out towards the white boat and the sergeant.

Harry and Spry didn’t see him. Nor did Trotter, working fast by the square engine casing.
Haven’s
engine droned on, and the white water sheared at her bows. Above me a sail flapped and Spry called sharply. ‘Doctor! Take her about!’

I thought: we ought to stop. I should bring her into the wind. But
Haven
wasn’t stopping and the gap between us was closing: was shrinking again as it had in those first terrible moments. I brought
Dolly
round, my gaze half on our sails and half on Johnson’s head, black in the water. He had been swimming, but, as I watched, he leaned back and began to tread water. There was no need to go on.
Haven
was still advancing towards him.

Then, like a pronouncement from God,
Haven’s
engine coughed once, and was silent.

I remember that the channel had narrowed, so that we were forced to sail on. Spry took the wheel and I climbed that swaying ladder of ratlines in the shrouds, but my binoculars were as often on
Haven
behind as conning the sandbanks in front. I saw Trotter rise from stopping the engine, fling over a rope and let himself overboard to do something efficient, I hoped, to the rudder. I saw Johnson arrive and board
Haven
, using the same rope, as Trotter emerged from the water: we could hear clearly Trotter’s shout of surprise, and then the sound of their conversation, carried over the blessed, still waters. Below me, Spry and Harry had their binoculars on them also.

We saw Johnson edge round the well to the rear of the boat and come back after a brief burst of activity. He took a moment as he did so to have a look under the tarpaulin. Then he leaned out to help Trotter clamber aboard for the second time, spoke with him, and, scrambling round, settled in front of the helm.

We watched, buffeted by the stillness, as if we had been prepared for an operation, and did not realize even now that the operation was not going to take place. I think that was why, when
Haven’s
engine suddenly started and that deathly roar, the roar we had throttled, came suddenly into rebirth, Harry’s nerves burst into screaming disorder. He heard the noise, and he saw those white bows begin again to move, to quicken, to drive along freely and powerfully and with ease begin to overhaul us. He dropped the mainsheet, and ran for the starboard side deck, as once he had been told. Then he tried to throw himself over.

Spry and I caught him and manhandled him down to the cockpit, while Johnson throttled
Haven
well down and brought her docilely behind us and then up to and past us as
Dolly
, unattended, drifted herself into the sandbar. Spry had Harry immobilized by that time, and I got out the syringe and the ampoules and immobilized him further. Then we put him into the saloon.

Haven
warped
Dolly
off that sandbank; then Johnson let her float off behind, seacocks open, while he and Trotter climbed aboard on the cable. She sank very gently in the clear, clear water among the sponges and the sea grasses and the small coloured fish. I don’t think any of us felt anything: we carried our own precipitins, for the moment, against fear and danger and even relief. Besides, there was
Dolly
still to look after.

I climbed the shrouds again while Johnson took the wheel rather silently, a towel round his shoulders; and Trotter lay still and dripped on the after-deck without doing anything at all. He deserved it.

No one tried to disturb him, and very soon I saw open water and steered Johnson into it, and was allowed to come down. The sea all around us was mid-green and purple and blue. We were in deep water, and could begin to tack our way home.

I took the wheel in some of the long reaches and Spry and Johnson shared the rest. Once the sails were set on each tack, there was little to do. We took it in turns to go below into the saloon and stretch out on the cushions. Trotter recovered quickly, but Johnson slept for an hour. I left the wheel to go into the owner’s cabin to rouse him. Spry had made tea, on my advice, instead of pouring us alcohol, and I knocked and put the cup down by his side.

He grunted and opened his eyes. His hair was a mess, and he hadn’t put on his glasses since swimming, but his social adjustments as ever were effortlessly bang on the nail. He said, ‘I bet it’s sweet and weak, and God knows how you blackmailed Spry into producing it, but because I am suffering from fluid deprivation, I’ll drink it.’ He got off the bed, his beach shirt crumpled where he had been lying on it; put on his bifocal glasses and said, ‘Sit down, then, and let me look at you.’