Run Before the Wind (36 page)

We talked for an hour, making lists of work against time available.

The boat would be hauled, her bottom cleaned, leaks sealed,

electronics inspected, and everything possible, in the time available, put right. This was Tuesday. She'd have three days ashore, then, on Friday morning, she'd be put back into the water, her compasses swung, then she'd be turned over to Annie and Roz for provisioning. Andrew Fortescue had laid on a navy lorry to bring everything over from Plymouth.

Mark pointed at a little ferry plying the river.

"That's the quickest way to town," he said.

"In order to drive over here, you have to cross the Tamar Bridge and go down a maze of country lanes. The ferry takes five minutes."

I looked around us. For the first time in what seemed forever, we had everything we needed at our disposal: a good yard, skilled help, and willing hands from the Fortescues and Plymouth's Royal Marines. Our four days of preparation time, short as it was, seemed an absolute luxury. I plugged Antonio Carlos Jobim into the tape player and poured myself another cup of coffee. His song Wave washed over us.

"Oh, that's lovely," Annie said, putting her feet on the saloon table and stretching.

"So long since I've heard it." Then her face took on a look of discovery.

"That's it," she said.

"That's her name!"

"Whose name?" Mark asked, looking up from his lists.

"The boat's name, dummy. Don't you think it's time she had one?"

And so, three days later, Annie stood on a scaffolding, a bottle of champagne clutched in her hands, tied with a red ribbon and held at the ready.

"I christen thee Wave!" she sang over the heads of assembled friends and yard workers.

"May God bless her and all who sail in her!" She swung the bottle, froth sprayed everyone, and the big yacht slid back into the water, at last properly finished, properly launched, and properly named.

Wave. I liked it.

MA EVE FOLLOWED the women twice more, and their pattern was the same. Each afternoon they ran small, domestic errands, then went to the supermarket. The quantities of food puzzled Maeve, until she picked up a Times and read a report of the race to the Azores, starting at noon on Saturday. Late in each day Annie Robinson and her friend drove down to the banks of the Tamar and took the little foot ferry across to Crernyl, the tiny settlement on the other bank. At dusk, they would return on the ferry with Mark Robinson in tow, him wearing a leg brace and using a crutch. On Thursday afternoon she followed the two women aboard the ferry.

Although she and Annie Robinson had never met face to face, being only a few feet away from her made Maeve a bit nervous.

She shook off this irrationality, though, and forced herself to relax.

After the five-minute crossing the two women walked briskly toward the boatyard, Spedding's. Maeve bought some crisps and a soft drink at a nearby shop, then followed.

So they had got their bloody boat built, after all. She looked at it, perched on its cradle in the yard, a workman lettering something on the hull near the bows. She couldn't make out the name. She walked closer, then sat on a rock, drank her Coke, and looked about. She could see Mark Robinson, his wife and the Fortescue woman, sitting high in the cockpit of the boat, talking. She grew angry at the sight of him. She would have dearly loved to blow the boat with them all on it, but there were problems. She had checked out this place, Cremyi, on a road map, and getting in here in a car, not to mention out, would be bloody awful. To get back to Plymouth, only a few hundred yards away, one would have to drive miles of country roads on a route that would be all too easy to block. That left only the ferry as a means of escape if something went wrong. She and Denny would be bottled up here; it would have to be somewhere else, and finally, after weighing all the alternatives, she knew where it would be. Denny would love it; it would be just his son of thing. But they had to do Poole first to keep the bishop and the mon signor happy.

Maeve rose and tossed her Coke can into a waste basket, dusted off her jeans, turned, and ran head on, forcefully, into Will Lee.

She was shocked speechless; she had had no idea he was in Plymouth.

"I'm very sorry," he said, laughing, putting his hand on her elbow.

"I didn't know you were going to turn this way. Are you all right?"

"Yes .. . yes, I'm quite all right, thank you. My fault, really."

She fought the urge to bolt, to kick him in the kneecap and run.

At least she had the presence of mind to keep her accent English.

She told herself that he had never set eyes on her out of a habit, that he couldn't possibly recognize her.

He smiled engagingly at her. He seemed taller, leaner than she remembered. It was easy to see why Connie had been so attracted to him.

"I've seen you around here, haven't I?" he asked, frightening her.

"Do you live here?"

"Ah, no ... that is, my parents live in Plymouth; I'm just down for a visit." My God, she thought, he's coming on to me. I've got to get out of here.

"I'm working on a boat for the race down here. Would you like to come and have a look at her?"

"Well, I .. ." She looked over his shoulder; the ferry was about to depart.

"Oh, thank you, but I really must catch the ferry.

Perhaps another time. Do excuse me." She stepped past him and ran down the path.

"Hey, what's your name?" he called after her.

She kept running, making the ferry in the nick of time. Once aboard and under way she looked back. He was waving to her. She forced a smile and waved back. God, that had been close, but he hadn't known her, she was sure of it. She wiped sweat from her brow. She was wet under the arms and in the crotch, too.

That night she told Denny the idea, and he laughed aloud. While she checked street maps of Poole and Plymouth for escape routes, he made the two bombs. The Poole one was bigger; it would need to be. The one for Plymouth had only to do the car.

Early Friday morning they drove to Poole in the Cortina and parked in a shopping center car park on the outskirts of the city.

They took a bus into town, and after walking about for only a few minutes, quickly stole a ne wish Rover, Denny hot wiring the ignition, while Maeve kept a lookout. Denny quickly picked the boot lock, tossed in the large, canvas sailing duffle and found a hole to run his wires through, forward into the passenger compartment.

As Maeve drove away, Denny sat in the back and attached the wires to a battery and a kitchen timer, tucking them out of sight under the passenger seat. A block from the Royal Marine base she stopped the car, and he got out.

"Just reach down, turn the timer all the way, then leave it."

"Right," she said.

"I'll meet you at the car as soon as I can."

He walked off toward a bus stop, while she applied bright, red lipstick, tied a scarf about her head, put on dark glasses and opened the top two buttons of her blouse. She drove to the base and stopped at the front gate.

"Good morning, sergeant," she said to the guard, who was a corporal, in her broadest, upper-class drawl.

"I wonder if you could direct me to the office of the public information officer? I want to see about using the tennis courts for a charity tournament."

"That would be in the main administration building, Ma'am," he said, leaning down to the car and never taking his eyes from her cleavage.

"May I have your name, please?"

"Mrs. Wells-Simpson," she replied and waited while he scrawled it on a clipboard, still looking down her blouse.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, saluting her smartly.

"Pass through."

She drove to the administration building, which also housed the office of the base commander, and glanced at her watch. She had a bus schedule to keep, and she wanted to time it right. She parked in a guest space, reached down and turned the kitchen timer all the way clockwise, and got out of the car, locking it behind her. She walked rapidly down the road for two hundred yards to the bus stop. Ten of her sixty minutes passed before the bus came. She got off at the first stop outside the base, walked three blocks, and took another bus. Forty minutes after setting the timer, she was at the car, where Denny was waiting. By the time the bomb went off they were well on their way to Plymouth.

They drove back to the caravan park and spent the afternoon listening to news of the explosion on the BBC, and making the trailer ready to move. Late in the afternoon Denny got into some dirty coveralls with the name of a garage on the back and put a five-gallon gasoline can and his tool kit into the trunk of the car, then they checked out of the caravan park and drove into Plymouth.

They parked several blocks from the ferry and walked there by separate routes. Maeve arrived first and saw the Fortescue Vauxhall wagon already in the car park. She stood on the street, frequently glancing at her watch as if she were waiting for someone. Denny approached from the opposite direction, carrying the petrol can and toolbox. Maeve had another quick look about, then nodded at the Vauxhall. While she kept watch, he unscrewed the tank cap and emptied the gasoline into the car. That done, he opened the boot and set his toolbox in the rear, then lifted the floor panel which covered the spare wheel. After a quick glance at her he worked for, perhaps, two minutes, then closed the back of the car, taking his tool kit but leaving the petrol can inside. He wiped the door handle carefully with an oily rag, then left, walking quickly up the street.

Good, Maeve thought. Anybody passing would think he had simply been called from a garage to put petrol into an empty tank.

When she was sure that no one had followed him, she walked away in the opposite direction. They met at the car, stowed the tool kit, dumped the coveralls into a waste bin, and drove away, out of Plymouth toward the Tamar bridge and Cornwall, a holiday couple down from London with their caravan.

"Is it all right?" she asked.

"You didn't do the ignition."

"Didn't have to," he chuckled.

"I did a pendulum switch instead. The pendulum hangs vertically between two contacts. The car is parked on a bit of an angle. They'll get in, and as soon as they drive onto level ground, the pendulum will swing and make contact." He grinned broadly.

"Big bang, petrol tank and all.

They'll barbecue."

"Good," she said. She didn't think Will Lee would come to the car with them; he never had; must be sleeping on the boat. It would annoy the bishop if an American politician's son got blown away.

Fortescue's wife was a bonus--wife of the commander of the Plymouth Royal Marine detachment. She smiled to herself; couldn't be bad. It was getting dark, now. They'd be back on the ferry soon, and she and Denny could stop thinking about Mark Robinson and get on with it.

THE FIVE OF US, Mark and Annie, Andrew and Roz Fortescue, and I sat in Wave's cockpit with drinks and relished the early evening. The big yacht was now as Mark had dreamed of her-complete and provisioned for her first blue-water passage. Every detail of the boat was in perfect order, though that condition does not last long on any yacht. Every instrument worked, and the leak in the stern tube had been put right. We had been talking about the car bomb at the Poole Royal Marine installation that morning, in which a number of marines and civilian workers had been killed and most of the main administration building destroyed. Mark and Andrew had both lost acquaintances in that attack and Andrew would be attending funeral services on Monday. The Irish Freedom Brigade, which I well remembered from the Berkeley Square explosion, had telephoned a newspaper and claimed responsibility.

Mark set his braced leg on the opposite cockpit seat and changed the subject.

"You know, there's something about this time that I really like, when everything has been done that can be done, when a yacht is ready for anything, and when there's nothing to do but have a drink and enjoy the anticipation." He laughed.

"In fact, this is almost the only time it's ever happened; usually before a race there's nothing but chaos, and things are still being screwed down and bolted on while you're jockeying for position on the starting line." He raised his glass.

"I give you a toast to those who made it possible--us!"

We drank to that. God knew the Fortescues deserved inclusion.

Roz's help with provisioning and Andrew's contribution of Royal Marine manpower had made the four days slip by smoothly and without panic. I glanced across the river and saw the ferry depart the opposite shore.

"Last ferry in five minutes," Roz said.

"Willie, why don't you come back to the base and have a hot bath and a last night ashore?

We'll all go down to the Barbican and have a good dinner. We might even find you a girl."

"Sounds good to me," I said. I had been living on this boat and on Toscana for weeks, now. It would be nice to sleep in a bed again, and the only girl I had even spoken to in Plymouth had been the one I'd nearly knocked down near the boatyard. Something about her had been terribly familiar, but I had been unable to think.