The Maggie (10 page)

The Skipper was genuinely sorry. He said, ‘If I've offended ye in any way . . .'

Marshall raised his hands to heaven and started to climb down the steps to the
Maggie
. After he had climbed four or five rungs he looked up at the Skipper's guileless countenance. With a terrible effort of self-restraint he said, ‘But if you want to know the real reason I'm taking this cargo away from you, it's simply that nobody ever gets away with trying to make a monkey out of me!'

Chapter Fifteen

In the captain's cabin Marshall was trying to recapture some of the time lost on this crazy adventure. Seated on a rickety chair he had spread the papers in his briefcase over the small table. The oil lamp above his head gave a meagre light. All evening he had been sitting here, on guard, trying to concentrate on his work, while the boat rose to the swelling tide, rose and fell, rose and fell. He tried not to think of tomorrow, when they must put to sea. He stood up irritably and tried to turn up the lamp wick. Normally he could concentrate anywhere – in a car, a train, a moving plane. But here in the silent harbour, with only the slapping waves, the bark of a dog, an occasional burst of song from the inn, he found himself turning the same problems over and over in his mind. He leaned back tiredly in the chair. You couldn't carry efficiency in a briefcase. Then he sat up, determined not to be beaten. There were two whole days to be made up. Two whole days!

For a few minutes he drove his tired brain forward. Then, at a distant but unmistakable sound, he hesitated again. Someone was coming along the jetty, someone
singing. With laboured patience Marshall put down his pen.

There were several minutes of scuffling and puffing before the Skipper got safely on to the
Maggie
. He was singing again as he negotiated the deck.

‘I'm ower young to marry yet . . .'

Listening tensely Marshall heard him stumble over a bucket, fall, rise unsteadily, and stagger towards the lighted cowling of the hatch.

He came slowly and with great difficulty down the ladder into the cabin, first his feet, then his legs, his whole swaying body. He reached safety at last and turned with expansive generosity and good nature towards his guest.

‘D'ye know any of the old airs, Mr Marshall?' He sang in a melancholy voice, ‘I'm ower young to marry yet – hic.' He steadied himself against the table. ‘Ach, ye should have come with us. We'd soon learn ye . . .'

Unable to escape from the tiny cabin Marshall had his hand gripped warmly in the Skipper's rough palm. MacTaggart said, with emotion, ‘I have been thinking about our small dispute of this evening, sir, and I realise that you spoke in anger. A bit of luck with the weather, and we'll be sailing along to Glenbrachan just as smart as ye please.'

He seemed to sense that Marshall did not want to be embraced. He looked vaguely round the cabin, trying to concentrate, in the aura of whisky, on what he was saying. He took two steps towards his bunk, sat down and made a half-hearted attempt to unfasten a bootlace.

He continued, in a deep voice, slurring his words, ‘She's a bonny wee boat, a bonny wee boat right enough. Aye, I was born aboard her, Mr Marshall, sixty-one years ago. Did ye know that? Born aboard the old
Maggie
. Aye, and I'll die aboard her, too . . .'

He leant back happily, his speech becoming more and more indistinct as he added, ‘After a respectable . . . interval.' He passed into oblivion.

Marshall picked up his pen and tried to concentrate on his work again. He frowned as he sorted out his papers. He fumbled in his briefcase.

Like a bluebottle round the bone of his concentration the Skipper's voice mumbled incoherently, drifted after a while into heavy breathing, and then became a series of vibrating snores.

Infuriated beyond words, Marshall turned towards the recumbent figure on the bunk. The snores came from the very depths of slumber, rose, inflated, rattled out their challenge and died again into a brittle silence. For a few seconds there was a lull before the next one began. The smell of whisky seemed almost tangible in the small cabin. Marshall struggled vainly to open a porthole which hadn't been opened for years. Nursing his injured hand he turned again to the unconscious Skipper, whose snores were
coming smoothly now like the sound of an efficient but eccentric engine.

In exasperation Marshall shoved his papers into his briefcase, grabbed some blankets and the palliasse, and stamped up the ladder to the deck.

In the cool night air there was peace. From the cottages round the harbour a dozen lights shone warmly; the jetty was like a white path through the darkness; across the still water two cargo ships passed with winking lights. Marshall threw down the palliasse by the wheelhouse and, with a feeling of relief, sat down with the blankets wrapped round him like a cloak. In the stillness he began slowly to relax. There was nothing here to worry him, nothing he could do. Beyond any reasonable doubt he knew that the
Maggie
could not move until daybreak. He could relax and sleep.

From the forward hatchway a small gnomish head appeared. Bright eyes were watching in the darkness. The wee boy climbed on to the deck and came deferentially towards the passenger.

‘Would you like a mithfa tay, sir?'

Marshall looked at him, startled. ‘What?'

‘Can I bring ye a mithfa tay, sir?'

Marshall turned the words over in his mind – ‘A mithfa tay'. Presumably they were English, his own language. They only needed decoding.

‘Can I bring ye a mithfa tay, sir?'

Marshall waved his hand testily. ‘Well, whatever it is, no.' He watched the wee boy turn disappointedly towards the hatch.

Peace returned again, but not comfort. After a few minutes the deck assumed an uncanny torturing hardness, the metal rivets on the wheelhouse were small but irritating as a stone in the shoe. For thirty years Marshall had not suffered any discomfort more severe than a bumpy air crossing. Now, with flesh and bones still aching from the long car ride, he tried to wriggle first one way, then another, to find a position of comfort and sleep. This day was a complete loss. He was resigned to that. But it was essential to sleep well tonight so that at least some of tomorrow's hours might be saved. A cool breeze had sprung up and the wind blowing in from the open loch was chilling his body wherever the blankets slid away. He clutched at comfort with both hands, nestling into his blankets like a Red Indian beside a camp fire.

At last as warmth returned Marshall began to feel the first drowsy symptoms of sleep. His eyes were heavy, his thoughts blurred. It had been a long day.

Another figure came noisily from the forward hatch. This time it was the engineman with a bucket and rope. He stepped over Marshall's body and from the stern rail threw the bucket into the harbour with a resounding plop. When he drew it up, brimming with water, he clattered carelessly back across the deck, stepping over Marshall and spilling a good deal of water in the process.

Marshall stood up furiously. He looked wildly round the boat. For one moment he was tempted to find a room at the inn. Then he walked round to the other side of the wheelhouse. He opened the door. There was just room enough, he considered, for a man lying hunched up to
prostrate himself on the floor. Dragging the palliasse and blankets along the deck he wondered desperately whether there would be any end to his annoyances. Sleep: all he wanted was some small corner where he could be quiet and free from interruption. Grovelling in the darkness he managed to fix up an unsatisfactory bed, but when he lay down he found that he was so tired that sleep would surely come.

At first he did not hear the mate coming along the jetty. A low murmur of conversation, a hum of lover's talk like bees on a summer afternoon; then quite definitely they were there, only a few feet from the wheelhouse – Hamish and a girl. He could hear every word they said.

‘Did ye really mean what ye said, Hamish? Tell me the truth.. . . Am I really the one for you?'

Marshall opened his eyes, deliberately listening.

‘Ach, ye said that the last time, and then ye went away and didn't come back for over a year . . .' There was the sound of a kiss – ‘Ah, Hamish, me love . . .'

Marshall rose slowly on to his elbows.

‘Do ye love me, Hamish? Oh, Hamish . . .
Hamish
.'

Marshall's face appeared slowly above the level of the window. He stared out at the couple on the wharf with the eyes of a madman.

Chapter Sixteen

In the brightness of morning Marshall felt confidence returning. Although it was only an hour since dawn the sun was already warm on the deck. The cottages, the pub, the small grey chapel, were sharply delineated in the clear air. Across the water a heat mist was rising and the distant mountains were shrouded in haze. From the harbour wall the fishermen passed slowly across the smooth loch, rowing because there was not a breath of wind to fill their sails.

‘A fine morning, sir.' The Skipper, who had come to Marshall's side, seemed quite unaffected by the previous night's drinking.

Marshall looked at him with reluctant respect, the big nose, humorous eyes, the ragged beard that stuck out jauntily through every depression. ‘How far is it to go?'

‘To Oban, sir. Well, it's a gude long journey, a gude long journey.'

‘According to my map it's only thirty miles.'

‘Maybe so, maybe so.' The Skipper nodded seriously. ‘But I wouldn't want to drive the auld
Maggie
, ye understand? We'll take it slow but steady.'

Marshall turned deliberately to face him. ‘Look, MacTaggart. I know exactly what this old tub will do, I know she's about the slowest thing that ever put to sea, but I want my cargo in Oban
today
. Unless you go fifty miles or so off course even you can't prevent that.' He took out a small folding compass. ‘But I'm warning you, I can check a straight course as well as you. So don't try any tricks!'

The Skipper turned away, offended. ‘Ye don't have to speak to me like that, Mr Marshall. To go a long way off course with the deliberate intention of missing the CSS boat at Oban – why it'd be – it'd be dishonest.'

Marshall walked away to the stern. ‘Well, don't run the risk that I might think that of you.'

‘Of course,' the Skipper said to himself, ‘there might have to be a wee deviation now and then. For rocks or a big ocean liner or maybe a shipwreck.'

The
Maggie
, with steam up, was about to go. The mate and the boy were casting off. A girl watched them wistfully from the jetty.

‘Goodbye, Hamish.'

The Skipper and McGregor, who was standing beside the wheelhouse, were watching Marshall in the bows. McGregor was not like the Skipper; he could acknowledge defeat.

‘Ach, what's the use?' he was saying. ‘He'll have us in Oban by teatime even if we drift half the way. Fraser's boat won't be waiting to pick up his stuff before evening.'

Leaning out of his wheelhouse the Skipper said, reflectively, ‘It's thirty miles to Oban. A great many things can happen in thirty miles.

McGregor took up his meaning at once. ‘The engine . . . ?'

He may have spoken too loudly, for Marshall glanced back and then came along the boat to join them. ‘I was just thinking,' Marshall said, ‘about the things that might happen to prevent our reaching Oban by this afternoon. Engine trouble, for example.' He caught their quick, nervous glances. ‘I think I should tell you, gentlemen,
I built
a better engine than that when I was eight years old.'

The Puffer moved out of harbour into the open sea. There was nothing to hinder her progress, no squall, no current, no crossing boats. They waffled steadily along some three miles off the south coast of Mull. To Marshall, sitting in the bows, it seemed that their progress was infinitesimal. The mate was reclining against the hatchway with his concertina. The boy was peeling potatoes in the galley. McGregor stood on the engine-room steps with his elbows on the deck. Only the Skipper seemed to have any part in sailing the boat, and his efforts, a slight turn of the wheel every few minutes, could hardly be called strenuous. After an hour Marshall was fuming with impatience, but there was nothing he could complain about. The bows seemed to be cutting sharply enough through the water, and the course, from frequent checkings on his compass, was correct. The boy came on to deck and listened to the mate's concertina.

‘Mr Marshall, sir . . .'

Marshall turned and saw the Skipper beckoning him from the open window of his wheelhouse. He went back suspiciously. ‘Well?'

The Skipper said, ‘I have a feeling there's some fog coming on.'

‘Fog!' Marshall looked at him in astonishment.

‘It might be wise to put her in somewhere.'

‘Are you serious? How on earth could you know that there was . . .'

The Skipper said vaguely, ‘Well, there's the time of year, and a bit of a nip in the air after the heat, and the way the wind's fallen away . . . You might call it a seaman's instinct.'

Marshall looked round briefly at the perfectly clear sky. Then he strode angrily back to his seat in the bows. ‘Fog!'

Within the hour the sea was layered with fog as thick as cotton wool. From the aft hatch the bows were invisible, and from the forward hatch they couldn't see the wheelhouse. Marshall, who knew enough about the sea to recognise their danger, groped nervously about the deck. He could barely see across the width of the boat. Up in the bows he saw the distorted figures of the mate and the boy. He watched them distractedly. While the mate took soundings with a line, the boy was picking lumps of coal from a bucket beside him and throwing them with all his might into the grey nothingness ahead. After each throw he listened for the plop as the coal hit the water.