Unknown - Heartsease

“Nineteen twenty-eight!” he said. “A genuine vintage tub, then. Isn’t there anything newer?”

“Yes,” said Jonathan, “the other tug, the one that’s not sunk I mean, looks much newer and much more complicated. But it’s in a mess, as though they were using it all the time just before the Changes came. But this one’s very tidy, with everything stowed away and covered up and tied down. I thought perhaps it was so old that they didn’t use it at all, but just kept it here, laid up. So they might have left it properly cared for, so that they'd be able to start it if they hadn’t tried for a long time.”

“Yeah,” said Otto, “that they might. And another thing — a primitive engine is a simple engine — unsophisticated, not much to go wrong, provided she isn’t all seized up. I’ll get Tim to lug me along for a look-see as soon as my rib’s mended, three more weeks maybe. And where’ll you sail us then, captain?”

“We’re in Gloucester Docks,” said Jonathan. “There’s a canal which goes down to the Bristol Channel. Margaret’s explored it. It’s about fifteen miles long, she thinks, and not many people live near it. The bridges over it open quite easily, though she didn’t try them all. There’s only one lock, out beyond the other docks at the far end. We thought we’d use the ponies to tow Heartsease right down there, and if anyone stopped us we could say it was a wicked machine and we wanted to get it away from our part of the canal — that would be a good argument in England now. And when we got there we could see if we could find enough fuel (or we could look for some here) and see if we can make the lock work. If we can we’ll try to start the engines and get out down the Bristol Channel, and if we can’t we’ll think of something else.”

“Sharpness,” said Otto. “That’s the name of the port at the far end; I remember it from my briefing. And another thing I remember — that the Bristol Channel’s just about the trickiest water in Europe. Tide goes belting in and out, six knots each way, and drops thirty foot in two hours; then the river’s nothing but mud flats and a bit of stream winding through the middle. We’ll need charts.”

“I’m hungry,” said Margaret.

“Right,” said Otto. “Food first, action after. What’s on the menu?”

“We’ve nigh on eaten all you brought last time, Master Jonathan,” said Lucy.

“We’ve brought enough for another three days, I hope,” said Margaret.

“Anyway,” said Jonathan, “the warehouse is absolutely full of tins.”

“Given you can find a can opener,” said Otto.

The shape of that forgotten tool was suddenly sharp in Margaret’s mind, like an image out of a lost dream.

“I’ll look for an ironmonger’s,” said Jonathan, “after I’ve burgled the offices for charts.”

While they ate the firm cheese and crisp-crusted bread (one thing about Rosie, she baked better than anyone

else in the village) they talked a little and thought a lot. Margaret was dismayed to find that they were less than halfway through their job; the most dangerous part was still to come. And she alone knew how huge and immovable "seeming were the steel gates down at Sharpness. She distracted herself from her worries by watching Tim coax the puppy into trusting him, so gentle, so patient that it was difficult to remember that he hadn’t all his wits. The puppy was quite wild, but with generations of man-trust bred into it; savagery and hunger and fear fought with these older instincts, sometimes winning, sometimes losing. At last there came a moment when it took a fragment of bacon from Tim’s hand without snatching and running away, then stayed where it was to let him rub the back of its skull with his rough, dirty fingers.

She looked round the cabin and saw that the others had been watching just as intently as she had, as though the fall of kingdoms depended on Tim’s winning.

“He’s not so hungry now,” explained Jonathan with his dry laugh.

“Tim, you’re marvelous,” said Margaret.

“Why do you want to name him after Mr. Gordon then, Miss Margaret?” said Lucy, soft and suspicious as of old.

“I don’t know,” said Margaret. “Mr. Gordon’s a bit like that, I suppose, savage and doing what he does because something in him makes him. But I thought it might be lucky too, I don’t know how.”

“Who’s Mr. Gordon?” said Otto.

It was not comfortable to explain, because if Mr.

Gordon had not lived in the village Otto might never have been stoned. Even so, they found themselves trying to make as good a case as they could for the terrible old man, partly for the honor of the village but partly for reasons they couldn’t put a name to.

Otto’s good hand kept fingering the puckered tissues which were left after the healing of his smashed cheek.

“To think of you kids living with all this and staying like you have,” he said when they’d finished.

“It’s Aunt Anne, more than anything,” explained Margaret.

“And that’s true,” whispered Lucy.

Jonathan didn’t speak, but got up and climbed the ladder into the square of daylight. Margaret went with him and found that the tug had now drifted a few feet away from the quay. For the first time she really looked at Heartsease by daylight — a dirty old boat, black where it wasn’t rusty, about seventy feet long; the bulwarks curved out from the uptilted prow about knee high, and became shallower as they reached the rounded stern; the cabin was at the fore-end, its roof barely a foot above deck level; then a narrow strip of deck beneath which lay the fuel tank; then the wheelhouse, which was really just a windowed shed much too tall and wide for the proportions of the boat. Behind that stood the big funnel, with its silly little hat brim running round it just below the top — she could still see the lines of color which showed which shipping firm the tug had belonged to. The funnel rose from the top of a low, flat roof, along whose side ran tiny rectangular windows, which could only allow the skimpiest ration of light through to whatever was below. The engine room. Under there must lie the iron monster which Jonathan was going to try to wake; it was the monster’s weight which set the tug so much down by the stern, making it (even at rest) seem to tilt with an inward energy as though it were crouched to tackle huge seas. And last of all came an open area of deck rounded off by the curve of the bulwarks at the stern. This was what Margaret had been looking for — a place where she could tether Scrub when the time came.

Jonathan had opened the engine-room hatch and was kneeling beside it, craning down into the gap, his trousers taut over his rump, his whole body as tense as a terrier at a rat hole. Margaret nudged his ribs with her shoe and he stood up frowning.

“Too difficult for me,” he said. “At least, I’m sure I could understand it if Otto would teach me. If you’ll show Lucy where the tins are I’ll look for charts and a tin opener.”

“Don’t you think Tim had better go with you, just in case?”

Jonathan agreed, and scuttled down into the engine room. He came back with a massive wrench, almost the shape of a caveman’s club. Margaret explained to Lucy, who frowned and stood biting her thumb in the cabin. It was difficult for her: danger for Jonathan meant danger for Tim; but they would never get away if Jonathan went into danger alone and was caught by the dogs; and Tim couldn’t decide for himself, so . . .

She sighed, shook herself and tried to explain to Tim that he was to go with Jonathan to stop him from being hurt. At last he grasped the idea that something was dangerous, and took the big wrench. Jonathan led him off. Every few yards he brandished the wrench and snarled right and left.