“Where the hell are you going?” I shouted down.
“Out to try to persuade Craig Jenson to let us past.”
“Some hope!” I grumbled, climbing down the ladder, clutching the spoiler. “Anyway, you’ll have to belay that. Chuck told me to finish rigging this.”
“You can finish it as we go out,” said Barbara. Before I could argue Midge had cast off and jumped aboard.
Perhaps the girls would be able to persuade Lieutenant Jenson to disobey his orders, but I doubted it. I set to work rigging the radar spoiler while Barbara picked her way among the moored boats crowding the Cove. The fog was thickening, but the Coast Guard cutter was still clearly visible lying offshore, her white topsides glinting in the misty sunshine.
I hadn’t much hope that we would ever have a chance to use the spoiler, but I worked at it because it was the only thing I could do. In Standish the armored column would be starting to form up. Astern of us the children were starting to go aboard Ranula. Ahead of us lay the cutter, making it certain that they wouldn’t get out of the cove. How the hell did Barbara think she was going to persude this Lieutenant Jenson to let us go? Her methods of persuasion were unorthodox and inclined to be dangerous. She might have some crazy idea—
I threw down my side-cutters and went up to the wheel-house. “Barbara, if you are going to try to ram that cutter—”
“Do you think I’m mad?” she said over her shoulder, without turning her eyes from the swell ahead.
“We’re only going to talk to them,” said Midge. “We’re not going to do anything dangerous. But I know one of the Petty Officers—from the time I spent in Clarport—and he might do something to help.”
“Pity you didn’t choose to sleep with Lieutenant Jenson rather than a Petty Officer,” I remarked, studying the cutter ahead.
“Mister Gavin, please get the hell out of my wheelhouses” remarked Barbara.
“It might be better if you did keep out of sight,” murmured Midge. “Give us girls a chance to see if we can charm those guys.”
“Do that, Mister Gavin,” snapped Barbara. “Get below! Two girls in a boat is one thing. A professional gunman is another!”
I cursed and went back to rigging the spoiler while Sea Eagle eased her way through the slight swell. When a voice from a bullhorn aboard the cutter hailed us and told us to go back into the cove, Barbara cut the motor and let our way carry us to within a few meters of her.
“Why can’t we go fishing?” she demanded. “You know us. You’ve never hindered us before!”
My curiosity overcame my caution. T went to the scuttle and peered through a gap in the curtains. We were almost alongside and a Lieutenant was leaning from the wing of his bridge. “Sorry, young lady. Orders.”
“Whose orders? I’m Barbara Bernard. And this is Midge. We just want to fish. We’re not going to break any laws.” “Sorry, Barbara.” Jenson’s voice showed that he was not enjoying his job any more than the Strike Forge Captain had enjoyed his. But, like the Captain, he persisted in doing it. “No boats to be allowed to leave Sutton Cove today.”
“Why not?” piped up Midge. “Who are those men you’ve got with you? What are you going to do to us?”
A group of men in combat gear were coming out onto the after deck of the cutter. Marines! A Marine landing party! In its death spasm the Affluence was befouling everything it touched.
A Sergeant stepped to the rail, leaning down, trying to reassure the young girl below him who seemed about to burst into tears. “We’re not here to hurt you, Miss. We want to help you.”
“You’ve come to take us away from our homes!” wailed Midge, starting to weep in earnest.
“No—it’s not that!” The Sergeant looked around helplessly, then fished a handkerchief from his pocket. He tossed it down to Midge. “Dry your eyes and go home. There’s a good kid!”
Barbara had come from the wheelhouse to stand beside Midge, and now started to weep with her. A weeping Barbara was a phenomenon which I had never seen before and could hardly have imagined. This must be a part of some elaborate scam the girls were attempting. Midge had promised they weren’t going to try anything dangerous but—
“Barbara, get back to the wheel!” came a bellow from the bridge. “You men, back from the rail!” All the Marines and half the crew were ranged along the cutter’s port rail, trying to reassure the sobbing girls. “Damn you! Mind my paint! Cox’n, move those men back and get fenders overside!” There was a thud as Sea Eagle nestled up alongside the cutter. Her skipper was a man who could worry about his paintwork while following orders which were helping to destroy a harmless community. “Barbara, you know how to handle a boat! And for God’s sake, stop blubbering. Nobody’s going to hurt you!”
By this time I was convinced that if anybody was going to get hurt it would be the Coast Guard. “Sorry, Skipper,” sniffed Barbara, from the wheelhouse, shifting to slow astern, backing away from the cutter. Then she put the wheel hard over, swinging our bows toward Sutton Cove, but with stemway on we began to bounce along the cutter’s topsides. Sailors ran to fend us off, Jenson started cursing, Marines continued trying to comfort Midge.
“Ahead! Go ahead—you silly little bitch!” Jenson yelled as we drifted, stern first, under the cutter’s counter.
“Sorry!” shouted Barbara, shifting to slow ahead. And then I saw Midge stoop and pull the lever which shot out the trawl.
A thousand meters of chronon trawl line went snaking out from the ejection port low in Sea Eagle's stern. So thin as to be almost invisible; strong enough to tow the cutter, it went spewing into the propwash as Sea Eagle moved ahead. Neither Jenson leaning from his bridge nor the sailors leaning from the rail seemed to notice it or realize that Barbara had maneuvered to drag the line across the cutter’s twin screws.
There was a plop as the buoyed tail of the trawl let go, but instead of inflating and floating, the buoy sank as soon as it hit the water. Barbara went to half-ahead and waved to Jenson who, thankful that she was returning to the Cove, waved back. Midge was waving to the Sergeant who blew her a kiss. Nobody aboard the cutter had yet realized that there was a kilometer of chronon line hanging across both propellers, waiting to be wound in when the cutter’s engines were next turned over.
By the time we reached the Cove the fog had thickened and the cutter was only just visible, still on station, still hove-to. “They won’t do much intercepting!” said Barbara as we went alongside the wharf. “Have you got that gadget of yours fixed, Mister Gavin!”
“I have, Miss Bernard.” I locked the final clamp. “One of these days I’m going to risk my life and paddle your ass!”
But before she could pick up the brawl Yackle appeared above us on the dockside. “How did it go?”
“Perfect! That cutter’s out of action.” Barbara did not elaborate. So Yackle had known what these two kids had planned!-
“Thank the Light!” He glanced at Ranula, ready to cast off, children and young mothers crowding her decks. “That armored column has left Standish. Mister Gavin—is your spoiler working?”
“Far as I can tell it is.” I climbed up to join him.
“We won’t need it now!” said Barbara, putting me down. “We may! We may! Mister Gavin—leave it operating. Barbara—you will escort Ranula out into the Bay and wait with her offshore.”
“But with tanks coming along the road—”
“Get movin’, young lady!” said Enoch, looming out of the fog. “We’re looking after the road. You’re needed at sea.”