Hamish stood up abruptly, with a clatter of glasses. “I’m off now,” he said to Henry and Emmy. “Good night. Good sailing.” And he strode out of the bar, banging the door behind him.
Herbert watched him go, reflectively, his head cocked to one side like a shrewd sea bird. “I wouldn’t feel too happy about Blue Gull for all that, if I were Mr. Rawnsley,” he said provocatively.
Alastair winked at Rosemary.
“Unlucky boat,” Herbert went on, in a voice vibrating with rustic wisdom. “Drowned her owner. Unlucky. And unlucky in more ways than one, if you ask me.”
“I understand Bill Hawkes is looking after her, and acting as agent for selling her,” said Alastair, in a voice of exaggerated innocence. Rosemary gave him a reproachful look, and suppressed a giggle. Herbert’s face darkened.
“Looking after her—that’s what some people might call it,” he said, with a sardonic snort. “Others might call it wrecking her, if they’d a mind to. I’m not making accusations, mind, but I know. No use pretending I don’t.”
“Now, look here, Herbert—”
“Remember Dulcibella?” Herbert asked darkly. “Sunk at her moorings for want of a bit of caulking. Remember Miranda? Mast snapped. Remember—”
“Hey, Herbert! Come and have a drink!” The big, florid man who had been talking to Alastair at the bar bellowed resoundingly across the room. Herbert, with a mumbled apology, got up and went to join him.
“Who’s that?” Emmy asked.
“Sir Simon Trigg-Willoughby,” said Alastair. “Local squire. Lives in Berry Hall, the big house on the point. Bit of an old bore, actually.”
“But the house is beautiful,” Rosemary put in. “We’ll try to take you over there one day this week.”
“The person who fascinates me is this Bill Hawkes,” said Henry. “Which is he? Does he really go round sinking boats deliberately?”
Alastair and Rosemary both grinned broadly, and Rosemary said, “That’s Bill over there by the door. The stout chap in sea boots.”
“He looks inoffensive enough,” said Emmy.
“So he is,” said Rosemary, “but he’s Herbert’s deadly enemy. The two of them are in a permanent state of feud.”
“Good heavens,” said Henry. “What about?”
“Boats,” said Alastair. “You see, they each run a boatyard, and everyone down here employs one or other of them to do repairs, keep the boat baled out in the summer, lay her up in the winter, and so on. Bill only opened up a couple of years ago, and before that Herbert had everything his own way. But Bill’s a young man, and a very efficient boatman. So more and more of Herbert’s clients are going over to the other camp. Of course, Herbert has one enormous advantage.”
“What’s that?” Henry asked.
“He’s the Harbour Master,” said Alastair, “and the Harbour Master controls most of the moorings in the river, which are Council property. So if you entrust your boat to Herbert, you’ve a much better chance of getting a decent position. Poor old Herbert—if he ever lost that job, he’d be done for.”
“I shouldn’t think there’s any fear of that,” said Rosemary. “Old Harbour Masters go on till they drop dead. He’d have to do something really frightful before Trinity House fired him.”
The bar door swung open, and a tall, lanky man with fair hair and a weather-beaten face came in. Alastair and Rosemary jumped up.
“David! So you’ve made it! Why are you so late?”
“Beastly car broke down outside Chelmsford. Petrol pump. Had to mend it.”
“Have a beer, David,” said Alastair. “Oh, by the way, meet our crew—Henry and Emmy Tibbett. This is David Crowther.”
“Sorry I can’t shake hands,” said David, with an attractive smile. He held out a pair of grimy paws. “Covered in oil from the car. Thanks, Alastair. I’ll come and help you.”
The two men pushed their way to the bar, and Rosemary said, “You’ll adore David. He’s one of the Fleet.”
“What does that mean?” Emmy asked.
“Oh, it’s just what we call ourselves,” said Rosemary. “There are five boats”—she checked herself, and amended—“there were five, I mean. Only four now. Ariadne, Tideway, Pocahontas—that’s David’s boat—and Mary Jane. We’re all friends, and we tend to sail in company and meet up for drinks in the evening. Then we all get together for a Laying-Up Dinner in London at the end of the season and make speeches and pretend to be a proper club. It all sounds very silly, I suppose,” she ended, lamely, “but we enjoy ourselves.”
David came back with three brimming pint mugs.
“Signal from Mary Jane,” he said. “Anne has to work in the morning, so she and Colin won’t be down till the afternoon. They wanted us to go on to Walton without them, but I said we’d just have a day sail tomorrow and meet them here in the evening. Hope that’s O.K. with you.”
“Fine,” said Rosemary.
“Actually,” David added, “I probably won’t go out tomorrow. Lots of odd jobs to do on board.”
“Lazy devil,” remarked Alastair, coming up behind him with the remaining beers. “Oh, well, we’ll just have to stooge around and show Henry and Emmy the finer points of sailing. When’s the tide?”
David gave him a severe look. “What have you been doing all the week—working?” he asked scornfully. “Too busy to look up your tide tables? High water 6.41 A.M. And I trust you’ll be up to catch it.”
David stayed for only one drink. “I’m dead tired and filthy,” he remarked, “and the tide’s going out fast. You may enjoy lugging your dinghy half a mile over the mud, but I don’t. See you tomorrow.”
It was some time and several beers later when the barman broke into one of Herbert’s lengthier reminiscences with his pessimistic chant of “Time, Gentlemen—if you please!” Herbert departed with alacrity, consulting a massive watch on a gold chain, and announcing that he never stayed until closing time because he had some consideration for Mrs. Hole, the poor soul, and her with her feet. Henry and Emmy finished their beer, and walked out into the cold, fresh night, feeling that life as they knew it was a million miles away, and that they were now and for ever involved in the small, slow, beautiful events of Berrybridge Haven. The beer lent a warming, sentimental glow, and the stars were shining in a black velvet sky.
“Now for getting aboard,” said Alastair briskly. “You drive the car down the hard, Rosemary love, while Henry and I get the dinghy.”
The tide was very low now, and Rosemary was able to drive the station wagon down the hard almost to the water’s edge, where she and Emmy unloaded it. Henry, his lyrical mood rapidly evaporating, found himself padding about on the damp mud with Alastair, searching for Ariadne’s dinghy by the light of the moon, augmented by a small torch. It was very cold. They found the dinghy eventually—a small, varnished rowing boat lying forlornly on the shore.
“Right,” said Alastair. “I’ll take the bows if you take the stern.”
“Where to?” Henry asked.
“Down to the water, of course,” said Alastair. He nodded towards the ink-black river, a quarter of a mile away across the silvery mud. “I should take your shoes off, if I were you,” he added, “and roll your trousers up. You’ll only get them soaked.”
Henry found it difficult to believe that a small boat could weigh so much. As he staggered through the chilly, oozing, ankle-deep mud, his alcoholic-sentimental mood suffered an abrupt sea change, and his thoughts turned longingly to hotwater bottles and centrally heated London flats. Soon, however, the satisfaction of manual labour asserted itself, and with it the realization of the true beauty of his surroundings. Panting from exertion, he stood with Alastair on the end of the hard, straining his eyes to follow the fast-vanishing shape of the dinghy on the dark water as Rosemary and Emmy rowed out with the first load of gear, and savouring the salty, nostalgic smell of the river and the quiet glory of the stars. Then Rosemary returned, the two men and the remaining picnic-baskets were loaded into the dinghy.