Алистер Маклин - The Lonely Sea

The high-pitched, urgent shout cut through George’s painful daydreams like a knife. He hurriedly straightened himself to the full height of his painfully lean six feet, clutched at his spectacles and blinked myopically ahead through his thick-lensed glasses.

‘Quickly, quickly, you idiot, or it’ll be too late!’

George had a momentary impression of a barge, its bows fast on the bank and blocking threequarters of the canal, and, in its stern, a noisy and wildly gesticulating young female. All of this registered only superficially. George was not a man of action and his upper centres were momentarily paralysed.

‘Starboard, you fool, starboard your helm!’ she yelled frantically.

George awoke to life and grabbed the wheel. But, as said, he was not a man of action. He was not at his best in emergencies. Spin the wheel he did, and with tremendous speed and energy. But he spun it in the wrong direction.

A mile away on the Upper Dipworth green, smock-coated octogenarians stirred uneasily in their sleep as the sound of the crash reverberated across the peaceful meadows. But in no time at all they were again sunk in peaceful slumber.

Back on the canal, however, matters showed every sign of taking a much more lively turn. The shock of the collision had flung the female bargee, in most unladylike mid-sentence, on to the bows of George’s cruiser. At the same time, George had been catapulted forward. For the space of ten seconds they eyed each other malevolently from a distance of two feet.

The lady spoke first.

‘Of all the bungling fools! Are you completely blind, you – you – you roadhog?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘Or perhaps, poor man –’ this in a tone of vitriolic sweetness ‘– too much of the sun?’ She tapped her head significantly.

George rose to his feet in a hurt and dignified silence. With this latest injustice his cup of bitterness was full to overflowing. But he had been brought up in a stern school. He hoped he knew how to behave like a gentleman.

‘If either your boat or yourself is in any way damaged, please accept my apologies,’ he said coldly. ‘But you must admit it is unusual, to say the least of it, to see a barge sailing broadside up a canal. I mean, one doesn’t expect that sort of thing –’

Here George suddenly broke off. He had adjusted his spectacles and now saw the lady clearly for the first time.

She was well worth looking at, George admitted to himself dispassionately. Burnished red hair, intensely blue – if unfriendly – eyes, long golden limbs, a sleeveless green sweater and very abbreviated white shorts – she had, he privately confessed, everything.

‘Sailing broadside, you clown!’ she snapped angrily, brushing aside his proffered hand and climbing painfully to her feet. ‘Broadside, he says.’ She flexed a speculative knee, while George stood by admiringly, and seemed relieved to find that it still worked.

‘Can’t you see I’m stuck right into the bank?’ she enquired icily. ‘It’s just happened and I haven’t had time to move. Why on earth couldn’t you pass by my stern?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said George stiffly, ‘but, after all, your boat is lying in a patch of shadow where these trees are. Besides – er – I wasn’t paying much attention,’ he concluded lamely.

‘You certainly wasn’t – I mean weren’t,’ retorted the redhead acidly. ‘Of all the inept and panic-stricken displays –’

‘Enough,’ said George sternly. ‘Not only was it your fault, but no damage has been done to your old barge anyway. But look at my bows!’ he exclaimed bitterly.

The redhead tossed her head in a nice blend of scorn and indifference, swung round, picked her way delicately over the cruiser’s splintered bows and buckled rails and gracefully stepped aboard the barge. George, after a moment’s hesitation, followed her aboard.

She turned round quickly, stretching her hand out for the tiller, which lay conveniently near. To George, her hair seemed redder than ever. Her blue eyes almost sparked with anger.

‘I don’t remember inviting you aboard,’ she said dangerously. ‘Get off my barge.’

‘I didn’t invite you aboard either,’ George pointed out reasonably. ‘I have merely come,’ he added loftily, ‘to offer what assistance I can.’

She tightened her grip on the tiller. ‘You have five seconds. I’m perfectly capable of looking after –’

‘Look!’ cried George excitedly. ‘The tiller rope!’ He picked up a loose end, neatly severed except for a broken strand. ‘It’s been cut.’

‘What a brain,’ remarked the lady caustically. ‘Do you think the mice have been at it?’

‘Very witty, very witty indeed. The point is, if it’s been cut, somebody cut it. I don’t suppose,’ he added doubtfully, ‘that you go about cutting tiller ropes.’

‘No, I don’t,’ she replied bitterly. ‘But Black Bart does. He’d cut anything. Tillers, mooring ropes, throats – they all come alike to him.’

‘A thorough going villain, it would seem. Possibly you are biased. And who might Black Bart be?’

‘Biased!’ She struggled incoherently for words. ‘Biased, he says. A man who robs my father, puts him in hospital, steals carriage contracts, sabotages barges. Right now he’s on his way to the Totfield Granary to steal the summer contract from me. First come, first served.’

‘Oh, come now,’ said George peaceably. ‘Piracy on the Lower Dipworth canal. In 1953, England and broad daylight. I am, I have been told, a more than normally gullible character –’

‘Do you see any Navy around to prevent it?’ she interrupted swiftly. ‘Or any witnesses – this is the loneliest canal in England.’

George peered thoughtfully at her through his bifocals. ‘You have a point there. Fortunately, you are not alone. Eric – my man – and I –’

‘I’m too busy to laugh. I can take care of all this myself. Get off my boat.’

George was nettled. He forgot his well-bred upbringing.

‘Now, look here, Ginger,’ he burst out, ‘I don’t see why –’

‘Did you call me “Ginger”?’ she enquired sweetly.

‘I did. As I was saying –’

Barely in time, he saw the tiller swinging round. He ducked, stumbled, clawed wildly at the air and fell backwards into the murky depths of the Lower Dipworth canal, clutching his precious bifocals in his left hand. When he surfaced, the redhead was no longer there, and in her place was the ever ready Eric, boathook in hand.

An hour later the cruiser was chugging along the canal at a respectful distance behind the barge. George, clad in a pair of immaculate tennis flannels and morosely watching his duck trousers and jersey flapping from the masthead, had once again fallen prey to his bitter thoughts.

Women, he brooded darkly, were the very devil. Three months previously he had been the happiest of men. And today – this very day was to have been his wedding day. The least his fiancée could have done, he considered, was to have switched her wedding date with the same ease and facility as she had switched prospective husbands.

But women had no finer feelings. Take this redhead, for instance, this termagant, this copperheaded Amazon, this female dragon in angel’s clothing. Perfect confirmation of his belief in women’s fundamental injustice, unfairness and lack of sensibility. Not that George needed any confirmation.

‘Lock ahead, sir,’ sang out Eric in the bows. ‘And another boat.’

George squinted ahead into the setting sun. The redhead was steering her barge skilfully alongside the canal bank and, even as he watched, she jumped nimbly ashore, rope in hand, and made fast. Just beyond hers, another and much more ancient barge was gradually disappearing behind the lock gate. One gate was already shut, the other was being slowly closed by a burly individual who was pushing the massive gate handle. This, George guessed, might very possibly be Black Bart. The situation had interesting possibilities.