Seagulls in My Soup (19 page)

Recovering my balance, I peered around. Apart from the engine bits, tools, batteries and electric cables, welding set, the steaming kettle that Amyas, beaming, held in his hand, and Amyas himself, everything in the cabin seemed to be
welded.
The cabin table was a steel plate welded onto two bent steel pipes that were welded onto the steel hull frames; the berths, one piled with rusty engine pieces and tools, were steel plate welded together and to the boat; the shelves, all quarter-inch steel plates, were welded to the damp steel ship's sides.

I spotted the library shelf. Fully expecting to find rusting steel books welded to the shelf, I clambered my way over to it. I inspected the titles:
The Sea Engineer's Manual; Emergency Repairs at Sea; Marine Engines and their Maintenance; The Marine Engineer's Practical Handbook,
and so on.

I turned from reading the book spines to see both Amyas and the mustache smiling at me. The whole scene, in the dim glow of the one tiny bulb, was as if the manacles workshop in some gloomy corner of Dante's inferno had gone on strike some five years before, and was now in the custody of a benevolent Victorian ironmaster. If Isambard Kingdom Brunei had come aboard that moment, I imagined, he would have doffed his top hat and for once in his life smiled.

Amyas was now pouring tea into two rust-spotted metal mugs on the steel table. He cocked one bushy eyebrow and the mustache at me. “Like it, eh?” Without waiting for my response he went on. “Of course, I'm refitting at the moment, as it were. I started this one in Gibraltar. Of course I don't stay in one place while I refit; sort of sail around anyway, as it were. Been to Sardinia, Corsica, Malta, Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, south of France, and Majorca while this refit's going on. Can't stand to be in one place for too long. I was in the merchant service for thirty eight years . . . got to second engineer. Then Suez came along and the old Line folded up and sort of left me high and dry, as it were.”

As he spoke he doffed his immaculate white-topped peak cap and hung it on a rusty steel bolt over his berth. His graying hair, rather long and lanky, fell all around his head, making him look like a happy walrus who has just surfaced from below a patch of long-stranded seaweed.

“That must have been quite a wrench?” I punned.

“Worst of it was, I lost my missus in the same year,” he said. The mustache drooped for a moment, then picked up again. “But anyway, we can't mope around, as it were, can we? So I decided to go to sea for a change. The Line was now defunct and the brokers had sold my old ship,
Princess of India.
Good old girl she was. Made the London-Bombay run four times a year, rain or shine, for sixty years, and I managed to get hold of one of her lifeboats—sort of rescue it, as it were. This is it.”

“What,
Dreadnaught
?”

“Of course, old chap. She was the forward lifeboat, starb'd side. Officers only. I used to take her 'round Bombay harbor for trials in the old days. Great fun. Used to take the lads for a spin, as it were.”

“So how did you get here, then?” I asked, fascinated.

“Oh, I bought her in Inverkeithing, in Scotland, three years ago. But she was in a terrible state. They'd let all the lifeboats go to wrack and ruin.”

“Did you refit her there, in Inverkeithing? I know it well . . .”

“Oh, no. It was autumn, you see, and what with the weather and the Scotch mist it would have meant a longish delay, so I slapped the masts in and sailed her direct to Gibraltar and started the refit there. A bit warmer, as it were.”

“But that's well over a thousand miles!”

“Yes, she was a bit sluggish at first, but the wind picked up off the Bay of Biscay. Only took us six weeks. Well, just under seven, as it were.”

“How did it go in Gib? I mean the refit?”

“Oh, I couldn't stay there long enough to finish it. The harbor mooring fees were too steep for us, so we took off on a little bimble into the Mediterranean, as it were. Went to Malta, first, but it was cheaper in Greece, so we went there.”

“But that's another thousand miles . . . more?”

“Only took eighteen months. Of course we didn't hurry. I mean the Med's too interesting for that—so varied, as it were.”

“When did you get the refit done, then, Amyas?”

“Well, as you can see, I'm still at it. There's no point in hurrying, unless, of course, it's an emergency, as it were. No engineer that's worth his salt wants to botch a job, you see. I know it might seem a little slow to some people ashore, but three years is not such a terribly long time, especially when you're alone on a job, is it? She sails quite well, even if she's a bit slow compared to
Princess of India,
for example, so I haven't missed much of the Mediterranean. Been in Spain, Italy, France, Malta, Morocco, Greece, Yugoslavia . . . No, little
Dreadnaught
and me, we've been refitting all over the place. Fixed quite a few other boats' engines, too. Of course I always help the local fishermen out before the yachts. I mean, they're working. They've their families to feed, as it were.”

“Do they pay you?”

“Oh, no, I wouldn't dream of asking for money. After all, I'm a professional ship's engineer, and the golden rule . . . if someone's in a fix . . . as it were.”

Amyas and I finished our tea. I had looked around his galley. It was such an incredible mess—rusty steel pans hanging over a rusty steel stove; and an ancient Colman's mustard can, so patchy with rusty brown that it would have given Escoffier a fainting fit. I invited my engineer friend over to
Cresswell
for fish stew.

“That sounds jolly good,” he said, accepting my invitation. “After all, it is Sunday. One really shouldn't do too much on the Sabbath, as it were.”

We finished our fish stew. Nelson avidly cleaned our bowls. Replete, Amyas and I adjourned to
Cresswell
's cockpit. There he talked of refits and gudgeon pins as I watched the Sunday afternoon parade, a procession of Ibizan locals out for their weekly
paseo
along the seawall. It was always a spectacle. Whole families, all together, from grandpas and grandmas down to minute week-old babies in costly perambulators resplendent with silk tassels and sunshades and shiny chromium wheels, and all the mature adults soberly dressed in black suits and black dresses with black shawls. The older women wore their best jewelry and the older men tried their best not to follow the younger women with their eyes. All the younger women, the single ones, promenaded in tight-knit groups of five or six, all flashing eyes and white smiles for each other. The younger men also trooped in tight-knit groups until they were within a few feet of the knots of nubile women. Then the young men's groups dissolved into a file, and a straggle of unspoken questions were shot at the women as they were passed. The young women duly giggled, and some even turned their heads to follow the youths, but you could always tell which young woman really fancied one of the men. That one kept her head still as she walked on, straightfaced, eyes front.

It was fun, watching the oldest game in the world. The West End and Broadway could do no better when it came to a show. The locals never seemed to notice the foreign boats or the people on them. This game had been played before the first boat floated. It was as if we did not exist. Which was as well, for Amyas Cupling and I had front-stall seats, and could enjoy the sights and sounds of the promenade without any embarrassment.

Amyas dealt with compression ratios and propeller pitches and a lot of other engineering esoterica, most of which was, and still is, a complete mystery to me. It was poetic, all the same. What could sound more helpful than “camshaft?” What could ring more solid than “block-lining?” Amyas' words, like “induction,” “compression,” “ignition,” and “exhaust,” sounded so much more romantic than my terms for the same things—“suck,” “squeeze,” “bang,” and “blow.” Amyas was an engineering poet, a poet-engineer,
as it were.

Toward three o'clock the little converted Spanish fishing boat, on the other side of
Cresswell
from
Dreadnaught,
moved slightly toward the jetty. I turned around to see if someone was playing with the mooring lines, and saw that it was a little old man in a black suit, just like the hundred other little old men who promenaded along the jetty that Sunday. As I looked up in his direction, the little old man bowed toward me slightly, with true Castilian courtesy. Somehow I knew he was the boat's owner.

I jumped up, just as Amyas was explaining some intricacy of third-stage expansion, and scrambled over
Cresswell
's stern onto the jetty. I heaved the little old man's mooring line to bring the boat closer, and helped him cross safely over the narrow gap between the mole wall and the stern of his little craft. Safely onboard and down in the cockpit, he turned and smiled at me, and bowed again.
“Muchas gracias, señor,
” he said. “Alfredo Ramero Gonzales Rodrigues de Valdez y Compostella.” (Or some such name; it sounded more like the Real Madrid soccer team than one person, to me.) “Please accept my deepest thanks, on behalf of myself and my vessel,
Estrellita del Mar
!” His Castilian was of the purity of a mountain stream.

I introduced myself and Amyas Cupling to the little old man. “
Little Star of the Sea
! What a beautiful name,
señor,
” I said.

The little old man bowed again. “Thank you so much,” he said, now in perfect English, Oxford accent and all, but with slight Spanish undertones. “If you have any need of me, please accept my invitation to come aboard and I shall make my best endeavors to be of assistance to you gentlemen.” He turned and unlocked the tiny main hatch of his boat, and went below.

I smiled at Amyas, who raised an eyebrow. We said nothing until I was back onboard
Cresswell
. Then I spoke in a low voice. Sound carries much more between boats than anywhere else.

“Funny little fellow,” I commented.

“Looks quite well-educated, as it were,” replied Amyas, also in hushed tones.

“Nice little boat, though. Looks converted when you first see her.”

“But she's not,” whispered Amyas.

“No, she's been constructed like that. Copy of a Major-can fishing vessel, built as a yacht. Nice job they've done of her, and she's very well kept. Jesus . . .” I remembered that I had not heard Amyas blaspheme. “Sorry Amyas,” I said.

“That's all right, old chap. I know you're not taking the Lord's name in vain. Don't forget, I was at sea for thirty-eight years.”

“I mean,” I continued, “just look at that paintwork. You can see they took their time with it, whoever painted her. And look at that gold-leaf trimming around the coachroof coaming. Holy smoke, it must have taken them a whole month to get that line around her alone!”

“Yes,” said Amyas Cupling. “Actually, I intend to do
Dreadnaught
much the same way.” He meditated for a minute. “When the refit's finished, as it were.”

“Yes, it wouldn't really make sense to paint her before you get her shipshape, would it?” I said, as I glanced around and over at the saddest-looking, dirtiest, scruffiest, rustiest tin-pot of a vessel I had ever clapped eyes on outside of a coaling depot. Under my glance, poor old
Dreadnaught
seemed to flinch and move as if she were protesting that it wasn't
her
fault. What did Amyas Cupling expect after the glories of
Princess of India
 . . . Tommy Lip-ton's
Endeavour
?

We went down into
Cresswell
's cabin again for me to show Amyas my library, so he could borrow one of my books. As he browsed through the titles there was a low rumble from out in the harbor. Amyas turned to me questioningly. “It's all right, Amyas, it's a powerboat coming in. Plenty of people up there to give him a hand. Take your time. I'll put the kettle on for another cuppa. Take whatever book you fancy.”

A minute or two later Amyas commented, “Well . . . I think I've read all of these, as it were.”

“Shakespeare?” I asked.

“Oh, years ago. I used to read him on the night watches, when I was third engineer on the old
Princess of Burma.
” Amyas dismissed the Bard. “But I'll tell you what, old man, as long as you're not using it today or tomorrow . . .”

“No, I've got my book for tomorrow. Verse. It's over on my bunk. You can borrow any book in the library,” I offered.

“Well, it's not in the library. Look, it's on this berth.” He held up my oil-stained engine handbook and read the title.
“Volvo-Penta MD2 Owner's Manual of Operation and Maintenance.
I'd really like to read through this, if I may borrow it, as it were.”

I was just on the point of saying “By all means,” when
Cresswell
lurched so violently that the steaming kettle was jerked out of my hands and clanked into the after cabin bulkhead. Amyas froze. I shot up the companionway ladder. Angrily I glared around. In the split second it had taken me to reach open air I already knew what the cause of the shock was. Now I saw I was right.

A great monstrous powerboat, eighty feet long, all gleaming white and silver, had backed right into the little old man's converted fishing boat,
Estrellita del Mar.
As the monster had backed stern-first into her, the tiny boat's anchor chain, a thin, quarter-inch one, had snapped, and the fishing yacht had smashed into
Cresswell
's starboard side. Now,
Cresswell
's sides, being constructed like the walls of Durham cathedral, would not give way as the motor yacht continued backing into the small fishing boat, crushing her against
Cresswell
. Something had to give. The laws of force and motion demanded it.
Cresswell
's anchor chain obeyed the laws and, although it was three-quarter-inch galvanized steel, it snapped like a piece of knitting wool even as, horrified, I watched. Then, as the big, bruising bastard from Barcelona continued racing his engines at full-speed astern,
Cresswell
smashed into
Dreadnaught.
It was no good yelling; the roar of the eighty-footer was far too loud for any voice to be heard. Then I saw the line.