Lonely Road (27 page)

I took her out to give a wide berth to the land that night. When I judged Downend to be well abeam I turned and brought the sea on to her quarter, and set her on a course to pass some three miles off the Start. That took me well clear of the Skerries Bank and all the broken water that we should find there; whatever our quarry in the bawley might be going through, I had no fancy to get into any further trouble than we could avoid. The turn gave her a fresh set of motions in the wind-swept, screwing waves, and set us vomiting again.

All night we carried on like that, cold and alert, eating a little now and then and vomiting it up again. Dawn found us off Bolt Head with Salcombe on the beam, and on a straight course from the Lizard to the Start. As I expected, with the dawn the wind went round a bit; I judged that with the wind we had, about Force 8, their vessel would have all that she could do to lie the course, even assuming that they had a good big engine holding her nose up to the wind. So far as I could see, that course would take us four miles south of the Eddystone lighthouse.

We went rolling and screwing on our way. At seven o’clock I gave the wheel to Stenning and went aft. In the engine-room Fleming, white as a sheet, was trying to brew tea in the incessant motion of the ship; he smiled as I came down and said that he was quite all right, and wanted no relief. If he could make a drop of tea he would bring it up to the wheel-house. I went aft to the cuddy and found both policemen on the floor, sunk in a sort of coma after vomiting. They were in a bad way and no good to us at all; I left them there, and went back forward to the house carefully, on the soaked and heaving deck. In general the visibility that morning was about two miles.

At about half-past eight, in a short lull between the squalls, I saw the vessel dead ahead.

She was about two miles away, close-hauled and shrouded in the mist, lying sensibly the same course as ourselves. I judged her to be of about twenty tons; she had a trysail set and heavily reefed down. I only saw her for a minute or so; Stenning saw her first. Then she was covered in a rain-squall, but we knew that we were on her track.

I judged that we were then about five miles south-east of the Eddystone. I was unwilling to close with the vessel to a range of less than half a mile; I had no wish to have a hail of machine-gun bullets flying at us through the scud, and that was pretty certainly what we should get if we went close. I carried on our course, and twenty minutes later, when the squall passed by, we saw her closer, little more than a mile off.

I had a good view of her then. She was a bawley, and I saw three men. They were crouched in a heap on deck about the stern; if she had any cockpit it was a shallow one. As I tried to keep her in the dancing field of my binoculars I got a strong impression as of glasses staring back at me. Then the rain came again, and blotted her from view.

I held a discussion on her then, bawling to Stenning in the clamour of the gale. We decided to lie off and head a little to the north, aiming to pass within signal distance of the Eddystone and to pass the bawley some two miles to the north. Then we would lie to and intercept her course. I had in the back of my mind that we might head her off and make her bear away, and once she ran down wind I knew that she would never round the Lizard till the wind went down. We should have got her then imprisoned in the Bay, and we could take her when we wished.

I altered course more to the north. We saw her once for a few moments when she was abeam, and they probably saw us; a quarter of an hour later we picked up the Eddystone. Stenning is better with the signal lamp than I, and he went aft to rig it in the cuddy.

I sent a short message for them to transmit to Norman, saying
we were in touch, and got a short acknowledgment from that windswept tower. I did not dare to hang about for a reply but got the vessel on her course again, a course that would bring us out some three miles ahead of the bawley, by my figuring. We held on this one till about twelve o’clock, and then hove to upon the windswept waste to wait until the vessel came. I did not keep stationary, but slowly patrolled a two-mile line at right angles to her course.

We waited for two hours on that sickening, squalid beat, cold and wretched and soaked through to the skin. Fleming contrived to make soup and brought it up to us with sea biscuits to eat with it; I kept mine for an hour or two and felt the better for it, but Stenning was not so fortunate. We sent Fleming aft to do what he could for the policemen. He took them aft something to eat, but I don’t know that it did them any good to speak of. Stenning and I stayed in the wheel-house taking turns at the helm and on the watch, and at about ten minutes to two we saw the bawley again.

She was coming up to us; we lay dead in her course. We saw her in a lull between the squalls, perhaps two miles away. I put the tug to slow and waited in her path; the rain came down again and blotted her from view. We lay there waiting, straining our wet eyes into the scud. In half an hour that squall let up a bit and visibility improved; we stared around, but she was nowhere to be seen. By all the rules she should have been somewhere close to us by then if she had held on to her course.

Then Stenning picked her up. She had squared right away and she was running to the north, making towards Fowey perhaps, or Looe. I turned to Stenning and grinned sourly, and Stenning grinned at me. “Turned him,” I shouted, and he nodded back.

If the wind held we had him then. Already he was too far down the wind to hope to beat up round the Lizard, unless he had the luck of a good shift into the east. Rather than sail up close to us he had chosen to take his chance of dodging us inshore; I knew then that we were hounds, and we could put
him where we liked. I turned the vessel and we wallowed after him in that unpleasant sea, the aft cabin battened down upon the police and trailing a little oil upon the water as we went to still the combers that slid under us. It was bad country, but the hounds were running heads up by that time.

I gave the wheel to Stenning and became immersed in mental calculations of the tides. I did not think that he would try to land. His object must be to attempt to put us off, to keep out of our way till nightfall came, when he would try to beat away around the Lizard into safety. He had about seven hours of daylight left to do it in.

We came up on him and followed perhaps three miles away. Visibility improved throughout the afternoon; the rain got less, but there was no diminution in the wind. I kept as far from him as possible while keeping him in view; I meant that he should still feel free to dodge about. I knew that while he thought that he was free I could manoeuvre him to where I wanted him to be.

He held on for the land, and by about three-thirty he was close inshore, between Fowey and Looe. He turned eastwards then as if to make Rame Head and Plymouth.

Stenning turned to me. “Just dodging about up and down the coast till dark,” he shouted.

I nodded, and swung the vessel on a course for Plymouth that would bring us out ahead of him. “Slip downstairs and see what time high water is at Dover,” I said to him.

He stared at me in astonishment, but went, and I stayed at the wheel, brooding over the murder in my house.

Stenning came back. “High water at Dover eleven-eighteen,” he said.

I nodded. “Say five-thirty here.” He nodded his assent, puzzled, and I glanced at my watch. Then after a little thought I turned the vessel a point more to the east; it would be time enough if our friend turned west again at four-fifteen.

And at four-twenty he did so. We were right in his path then and some three miles ahead of him, just off Rame Head. He put his vessel right around, and headed back the way that
he had come; I laughed, and turned also, and followed him, heading four points to seaward of his course to convoy him along the coast again. “Dodging about,” said Stenning. He glanced at me uneasily. “They’ll get away as it gets dark, if someone doesn’t come and give a hand.”

I twisted my cracked lips into a smile. “Don’t worry,” I replied. “They’ll all be dead by dark.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, startled.

“Just that,” I said, and fell to brooding over the doings of the night again.

He stared at me, but said no more, and we went wallowing upon our course in the late afternoon. “He’s got to turn once more,” I said presently. “Just once. Slip down and get the chart that covers Dodman and the Shackles, will you?”

He brought it, and I handed him the wheel and fell to studying the chart. The Dodman point lies between Fowey and Falmouth, and the Shackles Reef lies flung out from it like a scythe, eight cables long. The tide runs in a race around those rocks in the first hours of the ebb, a full two and a half knots. I studied the wind. It had gone back a point into the east; I turned to the rain-sodden chart and set the point where our good friend should turn again.

At five o’clock I altered course, and made as if to steer for Looe. That made me cross behind him, not much nearer than two miles, and gave him encouragement to carry on.

And then I started to close up. I followed in his wake along the coast till it was evident that he could lie the Dodman and get down to Falmouth; then I went out to sea and passed him, and lay to by the Thresher Rock that marks the seaward limit of the Shackles, and is buoyed. Through the blown scud the clamour of the bell came mournfully to us over the waves; in the blown drifts of rain we saw the bawley labouring to us. “This is the end of it,” I said to Stenning; “if he turns. You’d better get those policemen up on deck for them to see.”

Over a mile away we saw the bawley come up to the wind, shiver in irons for a moment, and lay off on the other tack.
“He’s going back along the coast again,” cried Stenning. “What do you mean by saying it’s the end?”

I smiled against the beating of the gale. “He’s got a three-knot tide now setting him upon the Shackles. No vessel ever built could beat against that in this wind. In half an hour he’ll be ashore. Look at it for yourself.”

He grasped the chart and stood there bending over it. “Good God!” he said. “He’s embayed already, and he doesn’t know it!”

“That’s right,” I said.

He raised his head and stood there staring at me. “You put him there.”

I met his stare. “Yes,” I replied, “I put him there. You’d better go and get those policemen up on deck.”

He turned and went away aft, and I stood there watching in the fading evening light. It was ten minutes before they realised the hole that they were in. Then they shook out two reefs and tried to drive her out in little tacks as their sea room got less and less.

At seven-twenty-five I closed right up and drifted down a lifebuoy to them, carrying a light line. I had no faith that anything that we could do would help them then, but it would please the coroner. The line broke when they got the buoy, before they could pull in the hawser that I had laid out.

At seven-forty-five she struck, about three cables from the land. I had the tug about a cable’s length away; we lay there watching, helpless to do more than we had done. The mast fell as she struck, and she was swept at once by every wave. She went to pieces as we watched; I saw no sign of any men.

As it grew dark I drew away, and headed up for Plymouth. Off Rame Head, carrying a high sea on the quarter, we were badly pooped; the tug broached to and we were in a nasty mess. God sent us respite for a minute and a half, so that by the time the next one came we had things straightened up, and we passed the breakwater with the starboard engine dead and a foot of water sluicing in the engine-room. It was midnight when we anchored in the Cattewater.

W
E
were dead tired when the anchor dropped. Stenning came stumbling aft down from the bows, walking like a drunken man and muttering about a riding-light. I clambered stiffly from the wheel-house and looked round; in the Cattewater it seemed immensely calm and quiet, and the ship was still. Fleming came up and sat upon his engine hatch, and for a few minutes we stood there together, watching the lights from the town reflected on the rippled, oily sea. We had been out for little more than twenty hours, but we were very, very tired. It was the seasickness that did it, I suppose—that and the short, uneasy motion of the tug, that gave no rest.

At last I stirred. “Got to go on shore,” I muttered. I turned to Stenning: “See if you can get Mount Batten or the Citadel with that signal lamp, and ask them to send a boat, or have one sent. Say that it’s urgent. I’m going aft to turn those policemen out.”

I went down to the cuddy. They were sprawling on the bench seats, fast asleep; I stood there swaying in the fætid, reeking air, fumbling to light the lamp that hangs upon the bulkhead. They must have had a rotten time of it. Most of the time they had been battened down below; I had not felt that I could trust them upon deck in the conditions we had had, and it had been impossible to keep the cuddy open in that sea. They lay on the benches sleeping, exhausted and ill. I bent over the sergeant and shook him into wakefulness.

“Wake your man and come on deck,” I said. “We’re anchored in the Cattewater—at Plymouth. It’s about one o’clock, or getting on that way. We’re going ashore in a few minutes now.”

I went on deck again, glad to get out of the place, and found Stenning busy at the signal lamp. He had got a reply from the
Mount Batten seaplane station, and he was talking to them in quick flashes of Morse code. At last he stood up and turned to me:

“I think they’re sending out a launch.”

We stood and waited in the cold, dark night, interminably. From the shore we heard the whistling of trains and the long clank of shunting in the goods yard. The police came up and joined us by the engine-room, walking unsteadily upon the deck. At last we heard the motor of the launch; it came alongside with a sergeant in charge, and we persuaded it to take us to the Citadel.

It was striking one o’clock when we got on shore. The policemen led the way, and Stenning and I followed in their wake, down the long, empty streets towards the police station.

They knew about us there, but they had heard nothing of the wreck out at the Shackles. Nobody had seen that vessel go on shore. “They went on the Shackles in trying to get away from us,” I said. The police confirmed what I said, and that tale went, and has done till this day.