Stephen Morris (22 page)

Sir David walked to meet them. ‘Mr Morris,’ he said, ‘is that young man much hurt?’ He was a man well on in life, clean-shaven, with silvery hair and the hard features of the man who knows exactly where his interests lie. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this has happened. I’ve cruised for very nearly thirty years, and I’ve only once done such a thing before.’ His eyes turned expressively towards the young skipper. ‘That was under similar circumstances,’ he said.

The man that he called Morris gave an account of Dennison’s injuries. ‘He tells me that this is his first day out of a ten-days’ cruise – single-handed,’ he said. ‘He lives in London.

The baronet frowned, and fixed the
Irene
with his eye. ‘Can he manage by himself?’

‘I shouldn’t think so – not for a day or two.’

Sir David turned sharply from the
Irene.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Then we must manage for him. I’ll get a doctor off to see him. Then if it’s only rest he wants, we can have him aboard here. I’ll have his vessel towed to Cowes for refitting. She’ll take about three days. By the time he’s fit, she’ll be ready for him.’

He glanced at the hole stove in the varnished side of the motor-launch. ‘My launch must go ashore,’ he said. ‘We’ll run back to Cowes tomorrow. This young man can go in the companion state-room.’ He turned to the lean man. ‘I wonder if you would mind getting the doctor?’ he said. ‘In my name, of course. I’ll have you put ashore. Keep the boat and take the doctor off at once if you can get one. I’ll go aboard his vessel and see him when you get there. What is his name?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Morris.

‘The vessel?’

‘The
Irene.
’

Morris went on shore, rowed by a sailor; Rawdon and the baronet turned and went down into the saloon.

The owner gave a few brief instructions to the steward about the preparation of the vacant state-room. Then he turned to Rawdon. ‘A most unfortunate business,’ he said. He went to the bookcase and picked out
Lloyds Register of Yachts
, laid it on the table, and turned the leaves. ‘Here we are. Irene – Irene – Irene. This is the one, I suppose.
Irene
wood cutter, seven ton, twenty-seven foot waterline, paraffin motor, built 1903, Luke. Owner, P. Dennison.’

‘That sounds like her,’ said Rawdon.

The other did not reply; Rawdon glanced at him. He was frowning and staring absently at the bulkhead. ‘P. Dennison,’ he said. ‘Peter Dennison. It would be odd if this was one of them turned up again.’ He left his guest and crossed to one of the settees, dragged the seat cushion from it, and disclosed a locker beneath. He opened it; it was filled with bound volumes of old yachting journals. ‘P. Dennison,’ he muttered.

He selected one covering August 1911, laid it on the table, and opened it, turning the pages rapidly. He paused at the programme of a long-forgotten race.
‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘I thought we should find it.
Runagate
, fifteen ton, helmsman P. Dennison.’

He ran his eye rapidly down the letterpress. ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘“Much interest will be centred on the
Runagate
, whose helmsman, P. Dennison, is only sixteen years of age.”’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Rawdon.

Sir David closed the volume and replaced it in the locker. ‘I must go off and see him,’ he said. ‘You won’t mind if I leave you?’ He moved to the foot of the companion, then paused and came back into the saloon.

‘I say, Charles,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if we have him on board? I take it that if he comes he will be in bed for a day or so.’

His guest knitted his great brows together in a frown.

‘I don’t mind if you don’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t see that it matters very much if he’s the right sort. And I suppose another couple of evenings will see us through.’

‘I suppose so,’ said the baronet. He glanced out through a port over the water to the town, gabled and russet brown. ‘I don’t quite like to let him go to a hotel, and that seems the only alternative. Anyway, I’ll see what he looks like. If he’s the Dennison I’m thinking of, he won’t be any trouble to us.’

He went on deck. Morris had reached the
Irene
and was helping the doctor on board. Sir David called for the cutter’s dinghy, and followed him.

He boarded the
Irene
with some difficulty, and descended into the tiny, crowded saloon. There was no room for more than two to stand; on his arrival Morris perforce sat down on the settee opposite Dennison, who wished heartily that the lot of them would clear off and leave him to sort himself out. Sir David stood at the foot of the ladder and apologised in grave, incisive sentences, for the part his vessel had played in the encounter. Dennison responded lamely.

It transpired that he had no plans beyond an idea to ‘stay here for the night and clear up the mess in the morning’.

Sir David listened gravely. ‘I should like to suggest an alternative scheme,’ he said. ‘If you would care to come aboard the
Clematis
for a day or two, we have a vacant state-room. In that case, I could tow your vessel to Cowes tomorrow, to refit at Flanagan’s. That would take about three days; after that perhaps you would be fit enough to continue your cruise.’

Dennison smiled wryly. ‘Flanagan won’t have any men to spare,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s fitting out now. He wouldn’t look at a little job like this.’

The other did not smile. ‘Flanagan will do what I tell him,’ he said quietly; at the suggestion of power Dennison opened his eyes. ‘I can promise that your vessel will be ready for sea by the time you are able to sail her.’

The doctor broke in with commendations of the scheme. ‘You won’t be able to do anything with that thumb for several days,’ he said. ‘And if I were you, I’d stay in bed for a day or so to rest those muscles. You’ll be glad enough to lie up once they begin to stiffen.’

The truth of that statement was already painfully evident to Dennison. He made no more demur, but accepted the invitation. The meeting broke up; Sir David went on deck followed by the doctor. Dennison was left with the lean man.

‘I say,’ he said. ‘Was that Sir David Fisher?’

‘That’s him,’ said Morris. He yawned, and rose from the settee. ‘Look here, I’d better pack up some things for you. Don’t move; tell me what to get.’

‘Damn it,’ said Dennison. ‘I haven’t any clothes fit to wear.’

‘No ladies,’ said Morris. ‘There’s only four of us on
board. Sir David, his secretary, Captain Rawdon, and I. We can fit you up with anything you want.’

So Dennison left the
Irene
and was rowed aboard the
Clematis.
He paused on deck to pass a word or two with the skipper, who thawed a little as they wagged their heads together over the damaged launch. A joyous remark leapt to his mind, ‘If I were you, I’d carry your launch on the port side in future’, but he refrained from uttering it, and went below with Morris to a little stateroom beside the door into the saloon, and was put to bed in a luxurious little berth with soft blankets and, incongruous on a yacht, lavender-smelling sheets. By and by the steward came and rigged a little table that hung on to the side of his berth, and brought him China tea and buttered toast, and several varieties of cake. After that, being warm and replete for the first time that day and moderately comfortable so long as he kept still, he went to sleep. It was dark when he awoke; the lean man came with a supply of novels and an electric reading-lamp that plugged into a socket in the bulkhead. Dennison was accustomed to read in his bunk in a similar manner on board the
Irene
where there was a niche behind his pillow dark with the grease of a hundred candle ends. Presently came dinner.

After dinner he made himself comfortable for the night, turned out his light, rolled painfully on to his uninjured side, and tried to sleep. It was a long time before he succeeded. His side gave him considerable pain, and there was a dull ache in his thumb intensified by the gentle pressure of the bedclothes. Now that he was alone and the events of the day were over, he had time to think; the memory of the last few days came flooding back into his mind, and were the more poignant for having been forgotten. He was in pain, and he was cruelly disappointed; he lay quiet in the darkness, till the darkness seemed to enter and become
a part of him; a darkness that, perhaps, would never quite leave him – as it had never quite left Lanard. There would be alleviations, and the sting would go; other friendships would crop up, other ties and interests – but things would never quite be the same again as they had been in the Golden Age, when he had worked four years for Sheila.

Perhaps the gods are merciful. At all events, they relented a little in the case of this young man and gave him a puzzle to occupy his attention, much as a hospital nurse will give a puzzle of cardboard, glass, and silver balls to a child in pain. Dennison’s cabin opened on to the companion, close beside the saloon door. From the saloon came a ceaseless murmur of voices from the men inside; they had settled down directly after dinner and had talked incessantly, a rumbling discussion deadened by the bulkhead. About ten o’clock, there was a step on deck, and someone came down the companion jingling a tray of tumblers; the nightcap, thought Dennison. The steward opened the door into the saloon and the conversation became audible. Sir David was the first to speak.

‘Nine hundred and fifty miles,’ he said. ‘We will take that as the maximum, then. All right, put it down over there. Now before we fix definitely on that distance, I want you to consider, Mr Morris, whether you are quite satisfied with the margin of safety in taking your departure.’

The lean man spoke. ‘I think so,’ he said slowly. ‘I can’t say quite definitely till I’ve tried it, of course. It looks all right on paper. You see, you give us a kick behind that gives us thirty-eight miles an hour, and then there’s a hundred and ten feet clear before –’

The door closed again; the steward passed aft to the other state-rooms, whistling softly as he prepared the beds.

Dennison lay wondering, shaken for the moment from his misery. What on earth had they been talking about? Taking a departure might have reference to navigation – but margin of safety? And who was to deliver the kick behind that would give ‘us’ thirty-eight miles an hour?

The water lapped quietly along the side of the vessel beside his head; along the timbers came the faint chunking of the rudder, swaying beneath the counter in the tideway. Dennison stirred slightly in his bed, found a comfortable position, and fell fast asleep.

Over the cabin door, upon the glossy whiteness of the bulkhead, was a quaint device; the word ‘CLEMATIS’ traced in red stones, each circular and set in a little oxidised ring. The morning sun streamed in through the port and lit up the bulkhead, making the red stones glow with sombre fire. Dennison lay sleepily in bed and watched the shifting light upon the deck beams, reflected from the water. Things were beginning to stir about the vessel; there was a sluicing and scrubbing on the deck above his head, voices in the state-rooms aft, and presently somebody passed his door, whistling, went up the companion, and plunged over the side. Dennison lay listening to the silvery tinkle of the bubbles rising against the side of the vessel; he put down the bather as the lean man.

Morris poked his head in at the door as he passed back to his cabin; a tousled figure in a dressing-gown.

‘How d’you sleep? Oh, that’s good. I hope you noted my dive just now – I’ll carry the marks to my grave, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s years since I bathed before breakfast – not since I left Oxford.’

He returned in half an hour or so, dressed and impatient for his breakfast. Dennison was already halfway through his. ‘Ours isn’t ready yet,’ said Morris.
‘But I’ll have a lump of sugar – thank you. To bridge the chasm.’

He sat down on Dennison’s clothes. ‘Do you usually sail alone? I should have thought it was taking a bit of a risk.’

‘I sail alone a good bit,’ said Dennison. He was feeling more himself this morning; he glanced shrewdly at the other. ‘One isn’t run down every day, you know.’

He was not mistaken in his man; Morris called him by an unparliamentary name and took another lump of sugar. ‘In point of fact,’ he said, ‘it was you who ran us down, from what I saw of it.’

‘I say,’ said Dennison. ‘Are we going to Cowes this morning?’

‘I believe so. Going to tow your vessel up to Flanagan’s yard.’

Dennison frowned thoughtfully. ‘Sir David must be a pretty good man if he can get Flanagan to touch the
Irene
out of her turn,’ he said. ‘Do you think he has any idea of the rush there is in the yards at this time of year?’

Morris seemed to hesitate for a moment; when he spoke, he picked his words carefully.

‘I wouldn’t have any anxiety on that score,’ he said. ‘We’ve been doing business with Flanagan recently, and Flanagan will certainly do this for us. But as it happens, it won’t be necessary for him to make any alteration in his general routine. Sir David is fitting out another yacht at Flanagan’s; all that will be necessary is for Flanagan to take one or two men off her for a few days. That is the course Sir David will advise.’