Trustee From the Toolroom (19 page)

'That's very kind of you, sir.' The aircraft navigator strolled up to them, beer in hand. 'As a matter of fact, that really would be a great help. I was coming on board tomorrow anyway to see Mr Fairlie. He was going to go over the charts with me.'

'Well, that's something, anyway. Bring your list along.'

"Thank you, sir. Here's luck.' He raised his beer.

'You're going to need it,' said Captain Davies grimly.

The air navigator asked, 'Is this Jack Donelly?'

'That's right,' said Captain Fielding. 'Keith's going with him to Tahiti.'

'Can he find Tahiti?'

'That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,' said Captain Davies.

The navigator sipped his beer in thought. 'Has he got a sextant?'

'Of course he hasn't,' said the captain. 'He looks to see which way the aeroplanes are flying. If there aren't any aeroplanes he looks for mangrove seeds. If there aren't any mangrove seeds he follows his compass, and that's probably wrong.' He turned to Keith. ' I was right - he hasn't got a motor in the ship, has he ?'

'No, sir.'

'Well, that's something. I don't suppose he's ever had his compass swung. Just watch he doesn't put a bucket down beside it when he needs it most.'

Keith nodded thoughtfully. 'I'll watch that, sir. It makes a big difference, does it?'

Captain Davies laughed. 'Try it and see.'

'Pity about the sextant,' said the air navigator. 'The track must be just about due south. A meridian latitude would give them quite a lot of information.'

'You've got to be able to add and subtract for that,' said Captain Davies.

Mr King drew the air navigator on one side. 'I've been thinking about that,' he said. 'I mean, he's made up his mind to go. A meridian sight for latitude isn't very difficult, is it?'

'It's the easiest sight there is,' said the navigator. 'You want a sextant and a nautical almanac, and a rough idea of Greenwich time. Then you've only got to add and subtract.'

'He could learn to do that, couldn't he?'

'Jack Donelly?'

' No, Keith. Keith Stewart. I mean, look at the things he does in the shop with mikes and sine bars and all that. He'd learn to manage a sextant in five minutes with somebody to put him in the way of it.'

The navigator stood in thought. ' It's an idea . . . where's the sextant coming from ?'

'I think I know where one could pick up one secondhand,' said the engineer. 'You know where King St crosses Nuuanu?' The navigator nodded. 'Well, coming this way, second or third side-street on the right, there's a Chinese shop - sells everything, you know. Old clothes, lacquer screens, Bali heads, all sorts of junk. I'm pretty sure I saw a sextant there.' -

'This trip?'

' This afternoon. I was poking around, got something for the wife.'

The navigator stood in thought.' It's an idea. There's not much time to teach him. We could write it all down for him, of course -just what you do. And it should be possible to pick up an old sextant in this place.' He stood in thought. ' Pity it's got to be this time of year,' he said at last. ' The sun'll be pretty near the zenith when they get down to Tahiti.'

'That makes it less accurate?'

'More difficult, anyway. I tell you what I'll do. I'll slip down to the ship after dinner and have a talk to Jim Fairlie - see if it's worth while trying to stuff something into him.'

Keith spent the evening cogitating in his bedroom, pencil and paper in hand. He had no wish to provision the
Mary Belle
with expensive delicacies to which Jack Donelly would be unaccustomed. He knew that if he were to live harmoniously with this man for six weeks in the' close association of a very small sailing vessel he must, adapt himself to Jack Donelly and live as he did. That did'not trouble Keith; what troubled him was that he had little idea what Jack was in the habit of eating. He did not know what cornmeal tasted like or how you ate it, and grits were a sealed book to him, but they were what Jack seemed to eat. It was pretty certain that he would like sweet things, though. He headed his list with —' Sugar, 30 Ib; and added - Jam.

He was certain of nothing else, and at the end of half an hour he had only six or seven items on the list. His mind drifted to the navigation hazards that they all seemed so concerned about. He got out the chart that Mr Sanderson had given him in Baling, Baling that now seemed so far away. There were certainly a lot of islands to be passed on their course southwards to Tahiti. They had names that he had never heard before, Maiden and Starbuck and Flint, and many others. He supposed they would be coral islands, similar to that which had destroyed
Shearwater.
If John'' Dermott, who was an experienced navigator, could not sail through this archipelago in safety, could Jack Donelly ?

His hand drifted to his pocket, and he sat in perplexity fingering the case hardened grey steel egg that he had made for Janice. Presently he got a scrap of paper and measured the distance between these islands. He had a hazy idea that the vertical graduations on the side of the chart gave you some measure of the scale, and by that the closest of these islands were two degrees apart. But how far was a degree? He sat in thought. Anyway, the earth was 22,000 miles round at the equator. He figured with a pencil on the chart. If that was right, the closest of these islands were over a hundred miles apart, about as far as it was from Baling to Weymouth. That didn't seem so bad. There was a lot of sea to sail on in between.

The difficulty might lie, as the ship's officers said, in finding one of them at all. It was very different in the Tuamotus where
Shearwater
was lost. There the islands all seemed to be on top of each other.

He went to bed before Dick King got back from exploring the night life of Honolulu, and slept fitfully, uneasy and worried. Next morning he was on board the
Cathay Princess
by half past eight. He found Jim Fairlie and showed him his inadequate list. The first officer took it, summoned the third, and told him to get out a mess list for two men for eight weeks, able seamen's scale, biscuits instead of bread. 'We'll compare his list with yours and see how they match up,' he said. 'There's one thing, though. If you're going to provision the ship, you don't have to pay Jack Donelly a hundred dollars.'

'He took Keith up to the chartroom on the bridge behind the wheelhouse. 'I've got one chart,' Keith said diffidently. He unfolded the one that Mr Sanderson had given him.

'Oh, good. You've got seven eight three.' Mr Fairlie slipped a chart back in the drawer. 'Now you want seven eight two and nine nine two.' He opened a volume of the
Pacific Islands Pilot
and showed Keith the chart index. 'These two - and that one you've got.' He paused.' I'd have liked you to have three o four five as well in case you, get set over to the west, but I haven't got it. Maybe you could get one in the town - Yamasuki would tell you where to try. Now look. I'm going to put these two together and pencil in your track. Do you know what I mean by compass variation?'

They worked on together. 'Well, there you are,' Jim Fairlie said presently.' Your track is one six six degrees, and, in theory at any rate, you don't hit anything. You don't have to sail over any dry land. You're in the clear the first part of the passage. Then you come to all this over to the west - Christmas Island and all that. Keep away from that - they let off atom bombs from time to time. Then you've got to go between Flint Island and the Carolines. They're about two and a half degrees apart - call it a hundred and fifty sea miles. If you're on course you probably won't see them. After that there's nothing till you hit Tahiti.'

They stood examining the charts and the
Pilot
for the best part of an hour, Keith making notes busily. In the middle the air navigator came in, greeted them, and stood listening in silence. They turned to the predominant winds, and studied the picture for January. 'You should have a fair wind all the way, easterly.' The first officer laid his finger on the page. 'A bit irregular on the Equator, in the Doldrums, but steadying again as you get farther south. All easterly. I don't know how much leeway that ship makes, but just watch out you don't get set over too far to the west. Jack knows about that, I think. I'd keep edging up to windward, ten degrees at least. You're very unlikely to go much east of track, but you might get down a long way west of it.'

They stood in consultation, Keith scribbling down notes. At last he said, 'Well, that's pretty clear. It's very kind of you to take all this trouble.' He smiled. 'The only thing remaining is to know how far one's gone.' He laid his finger on the line that marked the track.

From behind them the air navigator remarked, 'You've said it, chum.'

Jim Fairlie said, 'Jack Donelly would probably say he knows how fast he's going from the look of the water, how many miles he does in a day. Take note of that, and jot down what he says for each day. He may not be so very far wrong when you tot it up. But don't depend on him.' He paused. 'You could trail a log, but then it's not your ship. He might not take to it - probably wouldn't.' He paused.

'The proper thing for you to do would be to take a noon sight for latitude each day. As a matter of fact, we were talking about this last night.'

The air navigator said, 'It's dead easy, Mr Stewart. You'd better let us show you how to do it. Once you've got your latitude upon this course you know how far you've gone, and no argument. Have you ever handled a sextant ?'

Keith shook his head.

'Well, you're going to handle one now.' The first officer was opening a polished wooden box upon the chart table.

Keith was torn between technical interest and practical considerations. ' I haven't got a sextant,' he said, ' and I'm sure Jack hasn't.'

'You can probably pick one up secondhand quite cheap,' the air navigator said. 'As a matter of fact Dick King's off looking for one now, with Captain Fielding. Look, Mr Stewart. We don't want to read in the newspaper one day that you're dead. This latitude sight's easy for a man like you. You'd better let us put you in the way of it, and then go off and buy a sextant.'

They settled down to show him how the sextant worked. He was accustomed to precision instruments and had no trouble with it upon the stable deck of the 15,000 ton ship in harbour. In half an hour he was able to bring the sun down on to the horizon and read off its altitude with some accuracy. ' You'll find it a bit more difficult on Jack's ship because of the motion,' the first officer said. ' It's a matter of practice on a ship like that. Or any other ship, for that matter.'

They took him through the relevant part of the nautical almanac, and drew a little diagram for him to show what declination meant. 'You're behind Greenwich time,' they told him. 'When you're taking your noon sight you want to use the declination for ten o'clock at night on the same day. Twenty-two hundred. Look, I'll underline it for you each day so you won't go wrong. You can take this copy and we'll get another for the ship.' The air navigator bent to the task.

At a quarter to twelve they took him out on to the bridge and made him start taking the altitude of the sun on the horizon over Sand Island. 'Never go back,' Mr Fairlie said quietly. 'Maximum altitude is what you want."

When they were satisfied that he had got it they took him back into the chartroom to do the figuring. ' Height of eye here is about thirty feet,' they told him. 'With you -take about five feet.' They underlined the correction for him.' Now - away you go.'

He did the sum. 'That seems to come to twenty-one degrees twenty-three minutes,' he said diffidently.

'North or south?'

He studied the figures. 'North.'

'Quite sure?'

' I think so.'

' Okay. Now put a horizontal pencil line on that latitude, on the chart.' He did so. 'Not too bad,' the air navigator remarked. 'You're about three miles north of where we are, up in the suburbs somewhere. Still, it's not too bad.'

Keith stared at them in wonder, and at his pencil line. 'Is that all I'm wrong?'

'That's right. Twenty-one twenty is the right answer. I told you it was dead easy.'

He was amazed and naively pleased that he had done this thing; that he, Keith Stewart, looking at the sun through a precision instrument had established the position of Honolulu on the surface of the earth. He said something of the sort to his instructors. ' You're forgetting about longitude,' Jim Fairlie said. 'I'd like to teach you that, but there's not time. Anyway, it needs a watch and a wireless set and tables. It's not practical, I'm afraid. But learn this thoroughly, and you'll be all right - on the way to Tahiti, anyway.'

That afternoon he went off with Dick and the air navigator and bought a secondhand sextant for twenty-seven dollars and a depressed looking flock mattress for six fifty. Back to the ship to show his sextant to Mr Fairlie, who spent an hour trying to get out the index error and reduced it to about three minutes, and to have a session with the third officer about provisioning. Subject to the captain's approval, he found that the ship could provide practically everything that they would need on board the
Mary Belle
in the way of food. He mentioned an extra forty-gallon drum for water; the Third said that if he got the drum they could steam it out for him. He went and called Mr Yamasuki, who agreed to find a secondhand oil drum and get it to the ship.