Seagulls in My Soup (21 page)

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Rory, stop getting on my sod-din'
wick
! Is it nothing better you have to do but spout bloody poetry at hard-working poor sailors?” I retorted. “Here we are, only come in for a quick beer and a bite, and you're covering us with your damned Bloomsbury gloom.”

“It's an old Celtic tradishun,” he slurred, “for the bard to be welcoming the warriors.”

“Along with the women,” said I. That shut him up. Very conscious of sexual roles, they are, in County Limerick.

A half-hour later, when we arrived back at the salvage site, the pumps were still running, but soon the chains tautened and, as the stumps and masts of the two hulks took the strain of
Dreadnaught
's ten tons, the mooring wires and anchors holding them in place strained and squealed, moaned and groaned. This was the crucial moment. We stared down into the murky harbor water, at the spot where
Dreadnaught
lived out her agony. There had been a fresh southerly wind during the night. While it had not blown the oily muck away from the outer mole wall, it had piled the harbor water on the northern shore of the bay, and this had drawn a lot of the gunge with it, so we could just see
Dreadnaught,
the mere shadow of her, as she lay with her deck five feet underwater.

Suddenly, as we peered down, as if gazing on some exotic sea monster, the shadow moved. Only a short jerk, but it moved. The chains jerked and slumped back again. The seamen on the hulks' decks again tautened them up with their chain-ratchet tauteners, their “bit-nippers.” The pumps roared on.

José was sitting on the steps of his wheelhouse, eagerly consuming a fish pie his wife and brood had brought for him. As his eldest son, the pig-sticker, waited for him to finish with his lunch pail, I turned and saw the fat baby. It was waving that damned rattle and frowning at me. It looked like Churchill in 1940, even though it was being drooled over by Amyas, Francisco, the petty officer, and its mother.

I stared down again at the shadow of
Dreadnaught.
Suddenly, with a grating and grinding, a cracking and straining, the shadow disappeared, the hulks heaved and groaned, and all the positioning cables were brought up rigid, like the holding wires of a circus Big Top tent. The fat baby was forgotten now, except by its mother, of course. Every other eye was now watching the wires and the hulks. Francisco and Amyas were at my side. By now the jetty was crowded with well-wishers. The
swine
on the arrested killer boat glared at us.

“We got the bugger!” I said. “Look, the chains are almost vertical now. We pump out another few tons of water and she'll start to rise.”

“To come back to life, as it were,” said Amyas.

“Felicidades,”
Francisco said. “Congratulations!”

“Not yet. It's too early,” I told him. “Softlee, softlee, catchee monkee,” I added in pidgin English.

Even as I spoke, both
Rosalinda
and
Bloody Neverbudge
heaved upward slightly. Again the chains slackened off. Again they were tightened by the sweating seamen. Then, as we watched like worshipers seeing the Host being raised in slow motion, the two hulks rose. In silence, almost breathlessly, everyone watched—everyone except the fat baby, who was now forgotten and howling its fat head off behind us.

Slowly, inch by inch, the freeboard of the two hulks increased. Inch by inch . . . six inches . . . eight inches . . . foot by blessed foot . . . one foot, two feet, three, four, five, six . . . until, at long last, to the rousing cheers and
olé
's of everyone present, the dirty gray top of
Dreadnaught
's rusty-steel coachroof broke the water surface. Soon her deck was awash. In minutes, Amyas was onboard his beloved boat, hanging over the stern, bashing a rag-enshrouded wooden chock into the damaged stern gland. Soon, when
Dreadnaught
's deck was a mere inch above water level, one of the pump hoses was dragged over and plopped into her. After a few more minutes she floated again. A hundred spectators of a dozen nationalities, all cheered.

Dreadnaught
's exterior looked to me only a
little
sorrier than it had before she had been sunk. The mattress was only a little damper, and the oily ensign dripped harbor water, but apart from that, and the busted stern gland, I couldn't see much difference at all on her exterior. Of course the crowd and the seamen, most of them, didn't realize that, and so there was a long spate of ooh's and aah's of commiseration and pity for Amyas, even though he himself was now grinning like the Cheshire Cat, as the last mucky liquid came from
Dreadnaught
's insides, spurting out the pump hose. When the last burbling gush was over, he hauled
Dreadnaught
close to the wall and stood looking at me. The mustache ends were again cocked.

I squatted down. “OK, Amyas? Think she'll be all right now? We'll get you over to the hauling railway in a while, when the hulks have been returned.” I said this quietly, in case the hulks should hear me. “Everything all right down below?”

“Oh, fine. Of course, there's a bit of mess and everything will have to be dried out. The stove jets will need to be changed, but otherwise everything's about the same, as it were,” he replied, quieting his voice, for while he spoke I had lifted a finger to my lips. Spanish hearing is very acute.

Soon the crowd had melted away. Soon the hulks were sadly but, it seemed to me, proudly being escorted across the harbor to the graveyard. They were still wearing their new ensigns as the fishing boats pushed and tugged them across the calm waters. Now there was something indefinably
different
about them. It was as if they now had a fresh story to tell to the other condemned hulks when the soft night breeze disturbed their broken rigging wires and the tatters of their ancient sails. They were like old folks going back to the home after a day out with the lads and lasses. They had a new lease of life. They knew they had been useful, and had helped another of their kind—and they knew that they and others would remember the story, and that they might be called upon again, to help their own little world keep turning. But of course they were only two rotten, moldy, ruined hulks which had been used as pontoons for a few hours . . . that's all.

But not quite. Francisco had promised me that he would leave the ensigns rigged. One of his minions would raise and lower them every morning and evening. Amyas had painted, in big red-lead letters, a new name on the oldest vessel—
Bloody Neverbudge.
It was daubed all across her stern, where passing people would see it plainly. And under her new name he had written, in white paint, “Rescuer of
Dreadnaught
—November 1965.”

By dusk
Dreadnaught
had been hauled up by the horse-driven capstan onto the schooner repair slipway, over by the road to Santa Eulalia. She was safe and drying out slowly.

After supper Francisco took Amyas and me to Antonio's for a couple of beers at the table next to where the slumped O'Boggarty was fast asleep in his corner.

“You might as well sleep onboard
Cresswell
,” I told Amyas. “Sissie—she's my mate—won't be back for another day, and anyway, she won't mind if you sleep onboard then; too bloody bad if she does.”

“Oh, that won't be necessary. I'd be grateful if I can stay tonight,” he said, “but tomorrow I'm going to go 'round
Dreadnaught
with a blowtorch—I'll soon have her dried out again, as it were.”

“How about your welding set? Do you think it's knackered?”

“Oh, I can fiddle around with it, as it were, sort of fix it up. Give me something to do . . .” Amyas' mustache wiggled.

Then, at Francisco's prodding, we talked about the war; about the convoys and the battles in the Arctic. Amyas, it turned out, had been less fortunate than I. He'd had six ships sunk from under him. “Of course, now I suppose I can claim seven ships sunk?” he said, as young Francisco gazed at his face, fascinated, and I grinned.

The following day I accompanied Amyas over to the slipway and gave him a hand getting all his sopping gear—his blankets, books, tools, engine bits, cooking utensils, food, and clothing—out of his boat. We laid it all out to dry as best we could in the sunlight. It looked a sorry collection. A bit like a scrapyard. In the afternoon it started to rain, so we threw a great tarpaulin over the lot and retired to a little boatyard workers' bar across the road. That's one thing sailors learn—never fight the weather. Always go along with it, especially on shore. If we didn't, we'd be drooling lunatics before you could say “nice weather for ducks.”

“Of course I don't mind being on my own,” said Amyas over our third beers, “but I do miss having my missus with me. We'd planned to cruise around together for years before I returned, only she wanted a wooden boat, so I suppose it's just as well, really. She never did understand metal . . . and she hated engines. I used to fix up the neighbors' cars and lawn mowers and such while I was home on leave . . . Well, if someone's in a jam, as it were . . . and she used to do her nut. Never wanted me to take her out to the cinema and such . . . Stay at home with my slippers on in front of the fire. She was a good girl, but a real homebody, as it were. I don't know if she really would have liked
Dreadnaught
 . . . What do you think?”

“Well, women are a bit funny. Some of 'em like steel boats, some don't, I suppose,” I replied.

“Yes, they are strange creatures. I suppose you never really get to know them until you've been living with them for a while?”

“My old biddie's not too bad,” I said. “I keep her in the for'd dodger when there's nothing for her to do, and when I've got something on, I send her ashore, shopping and all those things. Gets her out of the way and keeps us happy. Bloody dog can't stand her, though. It's like he thinks she'll commit barratry any day; you know, pinch the boat while I'm ashore. But really she's all right, at least when she don't talk too much . . .”

Amyas laughed. “Oh, that's pretty usual. Seems they're mostly like that, I'm told, after they get to know you, as it were. Actually I find that type of thing sort of refreshing. At least it makes a change from the Old Man continually complaining about not getting enough revolutions . . . enough speed, or the steam-winch breaking down . . .”

He was silent for a minute, then he said, “Yes, I suppose the ladies are a bit like Scots captains, really. You just have to put up with 'em, I suppose. Still . . .”

He sighed.

Suddenly I had a bright idea, but it half-faded away again. “Anyway,” I said, “I was going to offer to pass Sissie on to you. She's not a bad hand; she loves hauling in the anchor and heaving mooring lines, especially when there's a cold wind and it's raining—she laps it up!”

Above our heads, the pouring rain battered the tin roof of the shanty bar. Amyas looked at me, interested.

I continued. “Problem is, she's leaving for Morocco in a few months.” I paused for a moment. “Anyway, I'll put it to her when she gets back from Majorca. See what she says.”

Then our talk went back to boats, and Amyas wound up giving me a full hour's run-down on the working of gas-turbine engines.

Lieutenant Francisco was onboard
Cresswell
early next day. In his hand he carried an envelope. He gestured over his shoulder as he slid down the ladder. “He's waiting on the jetty,” said he, after he had sung out a greeting.

Amyas was frying cod's liver and chips for breakfast. With Sissie absent we could relish sailors' favorites again. None of your bloomin' sickly pale eggs and underdone bacon now. I sat on my berth scratching Nelson's ear. I looked up at Francisco. “Who? Who's waiting?”

“The powerboat owner. Look, he drew the money yesterday. All four banks had to pool together to raise it. He wants a receipt.”

I stood up and looked over Francisco's shoulder. On the jetty was the man in the peaked cap, toothbrush mustache, and dark glasses. His face was expressionless as the glasses stared my way. I felt like charging ashore with my diving knife. Instead I reached under the galley stove, grabbed a roll of toilet paper—Spanish, a bit like wrapping paper anywhere else—and ripped off a sheet or two. I scrawled a receipt over the paper and thrust it into Francisco's hand. He looked down at it and read: “Received money for salvage of
Dreadnaught
and repairs to
Cresswell
and
Estrellita del Mar.
” Then my signature.

“You haven't written the sum of money,
señor.
”

“Oh, Christ . . .” I grabbed the paper again, with my hand still shaking in anger at the thought of that sod on the jetty. “How much is it?” I asked impatiently.

“One hundred thousand pesetas . . . I have it here,” he replied.

“Right . . . One . . .
What!
” I almost collapsed against Amyas, who dropped his frying pan, fortunately onto the stove.

“One hundred thousand pesetas,
señor.
That's what the general wrote down on your estimation, after he'd seen what you needed and the work required.”

Quickly I scrawled in the sum over the receipt, as I reckoned to myself . . . 2000 dollars . . . divide that by three . . . my hand shook even more . . . that's 660-odd dollars for
Dreadnaught,
and over 1300 bucks for the orphanage . . . and the whole operation had cost us only the price of a few beers . . . except for the fishing boats . . . two boats at twenty bucks . . . still left Amyas and me with more than 600 dollars . . .

I rammed the receipt into Francisco's hand.

“What shall I tell him?” the lieutenant asked.

“Tell him to stick it up his nose.”

Francisco turned to mount the ladder, wordlessly. I looked at Amyas. He was in a seeming state of shock. His mustache twitched. His hands trembled. I called to the lieutenant. “No . . . tell him thank you and to call again soon!”