The small outboard was bobbing under the counter. I was just about to swing myself down a rope, when a tall, elderly man dressed in a fancy dude yachting outfit erupted from the companion-way. I knew at once it had to be Sir James Hathaway whose presence on board I had completely forgotten.
'You the new skipper?' he barked. 'Damn well hope you can do better; than that dago who got us into this godforsaken hole! Wait until Axel gets to know about this. Confined to the ship. Disgraceful! British territory, too. What the devil goes on here? Not even allowed to communicate with the outside world. And what, may I ask, do you propose to do about it, young man? Never thought much of sailing ships. Always trouble of one kind or another…'
He'd have gone on ranting had I not matched decibels with him.
'Sir James,' I shouted, 'Sir James, just a minute please. Just a minute. Yes, I'm the new skipper. I've just arrived here. My name is Peter Rainier and I'm just off to discuss matters with Mr Dawson, the chief magistrate. I have instruction from Mr Thomsen, who appointed me not two days ago, to get this ship out of this hole, as you call it, and I intend to do it. Now, I have an appointment to keep, and if you'll forgive me, I must go.'
And without paying further attention to him, I slid down into the waiting outboard, kick-started the motor, and accelerated across the calm waters to the main jetty.
I tied up as a party of men, laughing and joking, came down the hill with their arms full of parcels. I stopped one of them with cartons of beer under each arm. He looked as big as the cathedral spire in the background. I guessed he was one of Tideman's sailor-paratroopers.
‘I’m the new skipper’ I told the men. 'I'm sorry, lads, but the party's off. All that stuff will have to go back. I'll sign any receipts for the supermarket's benefit. Then get yourselves back aboard.'
The big man hugged the cartons. He asked with the same eagerness as Tideman and Kay had questioned me, 'We're sailing, are we, sir?' 'Today?' demanded another.
I knew a good crew when I saw one. These were the sort of men who wouldn't baulk at putting the gaskets on a sail in the wild icy bedlam of a Southern Ocean gale at midnight.
I evaded a direct reply. 'I'm hurrying to an appointment uptown. I'll let you know.'
'No picnic either?' asked another. He looked more like a machineman than a seaman.
'You can go by yourself if you like,' I jollied him. 'But I won't guarantee I'll stop the ship and pick you up at Cape Pembroke as we pass by.'
That raised a laugh. I left the men arguing a little ruefully about lugging the stores back up the hill.
As I turned from the jetty past a row of so-English, red brick, bow-windowed houses with green, red and light blue roofs to walk the half mile or so to the magistrate's office, the machineman's voice reached me faintly. 'That new skipper's a bit of a bastard but I think I could go along with him.' It was more than I could say of Mr Ronald Dawson.
The chief magistrate's office, situated at the western end of the harbour between the Secretariat and the Town Hall, overlooked what was known as the Government jetty. His office was dominated by a framed print of Keith Griffin's fine painting of the S.S. Great Britain on, her maiden voyage. There was also a contrasting blow-up photograph of the famous vessel lying derelict in Sparrow Cove — just beyond The Narrows — before her historic salvage and restoration in 1970. An old ship's mercury barometer, nearly a metre long, all glass and brass, completed the nautical air of the office. The rest of the atmosphere was provided by Dawson's supercilious attitude.
His one concession to my being a fellow human being was his perfunctory handshake. Boxers in the ring do it more kindly when they are about to batter one another.
His eyes ranged over my workaday sailor's rig. 'My information is that you are to replace Mr Grohman as captain of Jetwind'
ЈMy information is that Grohman was never appointed to command the ship.' 'So?' 'I had it from the owner himself.'
Dawson had a way of drawing in the left-hand corner of his sandy moustache with his lower canine tooth after he had spoken, as if sharpening his next words.
I said, without mincing words, 'Grohman wasn't able to handle the situation after Captain Mortensen's death. He blew the record attempt — and his own chances.'
The canine tooth gnawed. 'That is only a matter of opinion.'
I shrugged. 'I didn't come here to discuss the merits or impropriety of my first officer's actions.'
'They enter very much into it, Captain Rainier. You may bluster and denigrate him, but you fail to recognize the peculiar and particular circumstances prevailing in this part of the world. There are some who consider him to have acted quite correctly.'
'If you're going to throw the Argentina-Falklands political situation at me, you're wasting your time. It has nothing to do with Jetwind’
'On the contrary, Jetwind has everything to do with it. That is why I have summoned you here this afternoon. Mr Grohman has a full understanding of the delicacy of the situation. It appears you don't.'
'Is that why he turned and scudded for port a thousand miles from any country's territorial waters?'
'You make your opinion of Mr Grohman very clear, Captain.' 'Because I fail to understand how a long-standing and nebulous territorial dispute can be used to justify what I regard as poor judgement and lack of command ability, to put it mildly’
He said pointedly, 'Captain Rainier, the entire legal jurisdiction of the Falklands Dependencies is under my sole control. That being so, I would rule that Mr Grohman acted correctly since he had a murder on his hands.' 'Murder?'
‘I cannot, of course, anticipate the outcome of the inquest on Captain Mortensen, but there is prima facie evidence of unnatural death.'
'Of course it was unnatural. I believe he was suffocated by being caught in the roller-furling mechanism of the sails.'
'We shall of course hear expert evidence on that,' he replied judicially. 'The true cause of death might have escaped an ordinary medical man, but in this case I was fortunate in that Sir William Hall-Denton was my guest.'
He eyed me to note what effect the name-dropping had on me. My silence expressed my knowledge of Sir William Hall-Denton.
'Sir William is a leading London pathologist,' he explained. 'A good friend and a passionate philatelic expert. You know, of course, of the Falklands' place in the realm of philately.'
I didn't. I was more interested in Captain Mortensen's death.
'Sir William interested himself in the case when the body was brought in. He established that death, in fact, was caused prior to the apparent suffocation in the sail roller. There was a small bruise at the base of the neck which pointed to the fact that he was probably dead by the time he was enveloped by the sail. He had most likely been struck by a blunt instrument.'
I said, marking time while I digested this news, 'Where is Captain Mortensen's body now?'
Mr Dawson indicated a building beyond the Secretariat. 'There. In the hospital mortuary.' 'So Grohman must either have known or suspected.'
Dawson lifted one shoulder. ‘It is not for me as presiding officer of the inquest to prejudge any witness.'
Dawson's news had thrown me. A question ripped through my mind — had I misjudged Grohman as a treacherous bastard when he had, in fact, had justification with a murder on his hands? Who had murdered Mortensen, and why? Then I got a grip on my racing thoughts. I reminded myself that Grohman had been far from any authority on the high seas. He, as captain, was the sole judge of the situation. There had been no reason to sacrifice the record. If he had suspected foul play, he could have proceeded, body and all, to the Cape.
'Well?' Mr Dawson's word gambit was that of a grandmaster who is sure of his kill.