“They’re ready!” cried Jonathan. “Come and see!”
He scuttled down the ladder. Margaret knelt by the hatch and peered down to where the weird lamps flared with a steady roaring, while the auxiliary battered away at the night. Lucy was standing down at the far end, by the two further cylinders, her hands on a pair of cast-iron turncocks just above shoulder level. Margaret could see two nearer ones — she ought to have been standing there. Otto lay in the corner directly below her, and Jonathan made signs to him through the racket, meaning that he would do Margaret’s job as well as his own. He pulled briefly at a lever beside the nearest cylinder, and a spout of oily black smoke issued from the four cylinders, just below the turncocks. He glanced round at Otto, who raised the thumb of his left hand. Jonathan pulled hard down on the lever and left it down. There was a deep, groaning thud, followed at once by another, and another, and the whole tug began to vibrate as though two giants were stumping up and down on its deck. Lucy was already twisting her turncocks when Jonathan pranced round beside her and started twisting his. The beat of the heavy pistons steadied; the roaring flames at their heads died away.
Margaret straightened up from the clamorous pit and saw a slow cloud of greasy blackness boiling up from the funnel. When she looked back, Jonathan was already halfway up the iron ladder; she made way for him.
“Likea dream!” he shouted.
“What now?” said Margaret. She wanted to get off the boat as soon as she could.
“Lucy will stay down there, to set the engine to the speed I signal for. IT1 steer from the wheelhouse. You move off and open the first bridge. We’ll follow in five minutes, and you ought to be nearly at the second one by then.”
Margaret stood quite still. She knew there was something in the plan that didn’t fit. She was just turning away when it came to her.
“Some of the bridges open from the wrong side!” she said urgently. “I’ll have to wait till you’re through and shut them before I can ride on.”
Jonathan shut his eyes, as though he was trying to draw the mechanism on the back of his eyelids.
“I’m a fool,” he said at last. “They seemed so simple that I didn’t really think about them. We’ll have to go slower and let you catch up.”
“Let’s see how we get on,” said Margaret, and swung herself up into the saddle. She was cold, and there was a scouring northwest wind beginning to slide across the Vale, the sort of wind that clears the sky to an icy paleness, and keeps you glancing into the eye of the wind for the first signs of the storm that is sure to follow. But in the shelter of the docks the water was still the color of darkest laurel leaves, and smooth as a jewel.
Behind her the beat of the engines deepened. It was surprising how quiet they were, she thought, once you were a few yards away. But when she looked round she saw, black against the paling sky, the wicked stain of the diesel smoke. If it’s going to be like that all the way, she thought, we’ll rouse the whole Vale. But even as she watched in the bitter breeze the smoke signal changed; the black plume thinned and drifted away, and in its place the funnel began to emit tidy black puffs, like the smoke over a railway engine in a child’s drawing; the wind caught the puffs and rubbed them out before they had risen ten feet — not so bad, after all.
This last time she decided to risk going right through Hempsted village, instead of dismounting and leading Scrub down through the difficult track to the canal. They’d always gone by the towpath and the empty house before, in case any of the Hempsted villagers should become inquisitive about their comings and goings. But now it wouldn’t matter any more. Hempsted slept as she cantered through. This was one of the bridges that opened from the easy side; she lifted the two pieces of iron that locked the bridge shut and cranked the whole structure open; it moved like magic, with neither grate nor clank.
If she had been good at obeying orders she would have mounted and ridden on, but she felt she owed something to the villagers of Hempsted, though she couldn’t say what. At least they had left the children to work out their plot in peace — and that man had tried to warn her about the dogs. So she couldn’t leave them cut off, bridgeless (no one would care to shut a wicked bridge like this, even if they could remember how). Besides, she wanted to watch Heartsease come through.
Jonathan slowed down the engines and shouted something from the wheelhouse as the tug surged past, but she waved to show she knew what she was doing, and swung the bridge slowly (how slowly!) back to its proper place. She heard the beat of the engines quickening and saw the black cloud boil up again. Just as she was bending to put the first locking-bar back she heard a shout. Without looking to see who it was, she slung herself into the saddle, shook the reins, and let Scrub whisk her onto the towpath. Now, over her shoulder, she saw a little old man in a nightshirt standing at the other end of the bridge shaking a cudgel. She waved cheerfully back.
Heartsease was already round the next bend when Margaret caught up, the funnel still puffing its ridiculous smoke rings against the pearly light of dawn, the throaty boom coming steadily from the huge cylinders. She was surprised to find, as she cantered level with the boat, that even she felt an odd pride and thrill at the sense of total strength which the shape of the boat gave because of the way it sat in the water. She slowed to a trot to watch it.
At once Jonathan moved his hand on the brass lever that jutted up beside the wheel; the boom of the engines altered; Heartsease, no longer shoved by the propellers, began to lose speed as Jonathan edged her in towards the bank. He opened the door of the wheel-house.
“It’ll be all right,” he called, “provided you can keep that sort of speed up. You must think of a story, just in case you’re caught on the wrong side with a bridge open. What about . . .”
“They wouldn’t believe it,” Margaret interrupted. “We’ll just have to swim. That old stableboy who came when the Earl came told me horses can swim with a grown man on them. But Jo, try to keep your engine going the same speed all the time. It makes a horrid black cloud when you speed up. People could see it for miles, but you can’t in there.”
“Thanks!” said Jonathan. He shut his door, signaled down to Lucy in the engine room, and, as the water churned behind the tug’s stern and the black smoke rose again, steered out for the center of the canal. Scrub was happy to go. The wind was even colder now, out from the sheltering buildings.
Scrub was in good form, happy with the tingling early-morning air and the excitement of having something to do. Margaret was sure he knew how much it mattered, that he sensed her own thrill and urgency. The towpath was a good surface, hard and flat underneath but overlaid with rank fallen grasses which softened the fall of his feet. She had to rein him in firmly as they took the bend at the end of the long straight, and he was fidgeting with the bit all the three hundred yards down to the next bend. Just round it was another bridge. This one opened from the wrong side.
Already it was almost a routine, she thought, as she hitched the reins to the rail, hoicked up the locking-piece and began to crank. But as the bridge swung over the water there was a shrill burst of barking in the lane behind her.
Margaret panicked. In a flash she had untied the reins, flung herself up to the saddle and hauled Scrub round to set him up at the awkward jump from the end of the bridge to the bank. It wasn’t impossibly far, but it was all angles. He took it as though he’d been practicing for weeks, and climbed up to the towpath. From there Margaret looked back.