LITMIR.BIZ

      At the other side of the narrow inner harbour lay the Viper in her old berth, and Black Jake was sitting on a hatch, looking across at the Wild Cat in the gathering dusk. He was alone on deck. Bill, the red-haired boy, was curled up on some sacking in the forecastle, forgetting in sleep the aching of his bones. Black Jake had taken it out of Bill that morning when he had come on deck and found the Wild Cat’s berth empty and the Wild Cat nowhere to be seen. He had been surly with his crew, too, when he had got them together in a hurry from their lairs in the town. And they had all turned furiously against him when, after all the work of hoisting sail and warping the ship out, they had met the Wild Cat, with Peter Duck at her wheel, coming back to Lowestoft, and Black Jake had turned about and brought the Viper in again. They had tied up to the quay once more, but then had stumped off back to their taverns leaving the whole ship in disorder, with sails lowered and not stowed. And Black Jake sat there alone on deck, biting his nails, and staring over the water at the Wild Cat.

      What were they talking about, over there, on the foredeck of the little green schooner? Could he be mistaken, when he himself had seen Peter Duck bring his dunnage aboard? What else could it mean when Peter Duck, after sticking to his wherry for so many years, had made up his mind to go to sea again? “Three captains aboard and two mates.” That fool of a boy had learnt that much anyhow, and what could it mean but the one thing. It was no ordinary voyage when so many officers were shipping together. That a voyage was planned he was sure enough. He had seen the stores going aboard, steadily, day by day, and such masses of them. As much as he had thought necessary for the Viper. No wonder, if they were bound for the same place. And then he thought of Peter Duck again. Black Jake bit his nails and scowled. The beauty of the evening meant nothing to him. He did not hear the old tunes played on the accordion in the Trawler Basin. He did not hear when the accordion-player rested, and some Irishman with a fiddle set sea-boots dancing on the decks of the trawlers. There was no room in his mind for anything but the one question: What was it that was being planned between old Peter Duck and that fat man who owned the little green schooner? Was Peter Duck after all these years going to tell that fat man over there what he had always refused to tell to Black Jake, or indeed to anyone else? What was that chart they were looking at? If he could get a sight of that it might be the answer to his question. If he could only hear what was being said as they crowded round the capstan head and peered into the chart. And then the great anchor caught his eye, hanging from the bows of the Wild Cat, its chain disappearing into a hawse-hole on the level of the deck. Black Jake stopped biting his nails. He stood up and walked to the stern of the Viper. Below him the Viper’s dinghy was lying. He looked up and down the deserted quays. He took one more glance across the harbour to the little group in the twilight on the foredeck of the Wild Cat, looking at the chart by the glimmer of a lantern. Then he swung himself over the side, lowered himself down the warp into the dinghy, cast off, leaving the warp dangling in the water, and rowed noiselessly away.

      He did not row straight across to the Wild Cat. Someone might have seen him. He rowed up the inner harbour as if to visit one of the moored ketches. No one saw that dark figure in the dark boat slipping silently along in the shadow of the quay. No one saw him work his way across to the other side among the anchored vessels. No one saw him paddling slowly, idly, as if for no purpose at all, under the quay where the Wild Cat was moored. He passed close under the bows of a rusty black trawler, waiting her turn on the slip. Above him in the twilight was the square green stern of the Wild Cat. He shipped his oars and, more quietly than ever, clawed his way along her steep, green side. The anchor was above him at last. He took his dinghy’s painter, made a loop in it and hooked it over a fluke of the anchor. The tide was flowing in and the slight current kept the dinghy steady where he needed it. He took a hold of the anchor, as high as he could reach. Quietly, quietly, he pulled himself up. A knee was on the anchor. He took a higher grip. A foot was on the anchor. He gripped the chain above. Slowly he raised himself. His head, at last, was level with the hawse-hole. What was that they were saying? Under his breath he cursed the chattering parrot.