A Rogue by Compulsion Part 30

The _Betty's_ rig was not a complicated one. It consisted of a mainsail, a jib, and a spinnaker, and in a very few minutes we had set all three of them and were bowling merrily upstream with the dinghy bobbing and dipping behind us. Tommy jumped down and switched off the engine, while Joyce, resigning the tiller to me, climbed up and seated herself on the boom of the mainsail. She had taken off her hat, and her hair gleamed in the sunshine like copper in the firelight.

I don't think we did much talking for the first few miles: at least I know I didn't. There is no feeling in the way of freedom quite so fine as scudding along in a small ship with a good breeze behind you; and after being cooped up for three years in a prison cell I drank in the sensation like a man who has been almost dying of thirst might gulp down his first draught of water. The mere tug of the tiller beneath my hand filled me with a kind of fierce delight, while the splash of the water as it rippled past the sides of the boat seemed to me the bravest and sweetest music I had ever heard.

I think Joyce and Tommy realized something of what I was feeling, for neither of them made any real attempt at conversation. Now and then the latter would jump up to haul in or let out the main sheet a little, and once or twice he pointed out some slight alteration which had been recently made in the buoying of the river. Joyce sat quite still for the most part, either smiling happily at me, or else watching the occasional ships and barges that we pa.s.sed, most of which were just beginning to get under way.

We had rounded Canvey Island and left Hole Haven some little distance behind us, when Tommy, who was leaning over the side staring out ahead, suddenly turned back to me.

"There's someone coming round the point in a deuce of a hurry," he remarked. "Steam launch from the look of it. Better give 'em a wide berth, or we'll have their wash aboard."

I bent down and took a quick glance under the spinnaker boom. A couple of hundred yards ahead a long, white, vicious-looking craft was racing swiftly towards us, throwing up a wave on either side of her bows that spread out fanwise across the river.

I shoved down the helm, and swung the _Betty_ a little off her course so as to give them plenty of room to go by. They came on without slackening speed in the least, and pa.s.sed us at a pace which I estimated roughly to be about sixteen knots an hour. I caught a momentary glimpse of a square-shouldered man with a close-trimmed auburn beard crouching in the stern, and then the next moment a wave broke right against our bows, drenching all three of us in a cloud of flying spray.

Tommy swore vigorously. "That's the kind of river-hog who ought to be choked," he said. "If I--"

He was interrupted by a sudden exclamation from Joyce. She had jumped up laughing when the spray swept over her, and now, holding on to the rigging, she was pointing excitedly to something just ahead of us.

"Quick, Tommy!" she said. "There's a man in the water--drowning.

They've swamped his boat."

In a flash Tommy had leaped to the side. "Keep her going," he shouted to me. "We're heading straight for him." Then scrambing aft he grabbed hold of the tow rope and swiftly hauled the dinghy alongside.

"I'll pick him up, Tommy," I said quietly. "You look after the boat: you know her better than I do."

He nodded, and calling to Joyce to take over the tiller sprang up on to the deck ready to lower the sails. I cast off the painter, all but one turn, and handing the end to Joyce, told her to let it go as soon as I shouted. Then, pulling the dinghy right up against the side of the boat, I waited my chance and dropped down into her.

I was just getting out the sculls, when a sudden shout from Tommy of "There he is!" made me look hurriedly round. About twenty yards away a man was splashing feebly in the water, making vain efforts to reach an oar that was floating close beside him.

"Let her go, Joyce!" I yelled, and the next moment I was tugging furiously across the intervening s.p.a.ce with the loose tow rope trailing behind me.

I was only just in time. Almost exactly as I reached the man he suddenly gave up struggling, and with a faint gurgling sort of cry disappeared beneath the water. I leaned out of the boat, and plunging my arm in up to the shoulder, clutched him by the collar.

"No, you don't, Bertie," I said cheerfully. "Not this journey."

It's a ticklish business dragging a half-drowned man into a dinghy without upsetting it, but by getting him down aft, I at last managed to hoist him up over the gunwale. He came in like some great wet fish, and I flopped him down in the stern sheets. Then with a deep breath I sat down myself. I was feeling a bit pumped.

For a moment or two my "catch" lay where he was, blowing, gasping, grunting, and spitting out mouthfuls of dirty water. He was a little weazened man of middle age, with a short grizzled beard. Except for a pair of fairly new sea-boots, he was dressed in old nondescript clothes which could not have taken much harm even from the Thames mud.

Indeed, on the whole, I should think their recent immersion had done them good.

"Well," I said encouragingly, "how do you feel?"

With a big effort he raised himself on his elbow. "Right enough, guv'nor," he gasped, "right enough." Then, sinking back again, he added feebly: "If you see them oars o' mine, you might pick 'em up."

There was a practical touch about this that rather appealed to me. I sat up, and, looking round, discovered the _Betty_ about forty yards away. Tommy had got the sails down and set the engine going, and he was already turning her round to come back and pick us up. I waved my hand to him--a greeting which he returned with a triumphant hail.

Standing up, I inspected the surrounding water for any sign of my guest's belongings. I immediately discovered both oars, which were drifting upstream quite close to one another and only a few yards away; but except for them there was no sign of wreckage. His boat and everything else in it had vanished as completely as a submarine.

I salvaged the oars, however, and had just got them safely on board, when the _Betty_ came throbbing up, and circled neatly round us.

Tommy, who was steering, promptly shut down the engine to its slowest pace, and reaching up I grabbed hold of Joyce's hand, which she held out to me, and pulled the dinghy alongside.

"Very nice, Tommy," I said. "Lipton couldn't have done it better."

"How's the poor man?" asked Joyce, looking down pityingly at my prostrate pa.s.senger.

At the sound of her voice the latter roused himself from his rec.u.mbent position, and made a shaky effort to sit up straight.

"He'll be all right when he's got a little whisky inside him," I said.

"Come on, Tommy; you catch hold, and I'll pa.s.s him over."

I stooped down, and, taking him round the waist, lifted him right up over the gunwale of the _Betty_, where Tommy received him rather like a man accepting a sack of coals. Then, catching hold of the tow rope, I jumped up myself, and made the dinghy fast to a convenient cleat.

Tommy dumped down his burden on one of the well seats.

"You've had a precious narrow squeak, my friend," he observed pleasantly.

The man nodded. "If you hadn't 'a come along as you did, sir, I'd 'ave bin dead by now--dead as a dog-fish." Then turning round he shook his gnarled fist over the _Betty's_ stern in the direction of the vanished launch. "Sunk me wi' their blarsted wash," he quavered; "that's what they done."

"Well, accidents will happen," I said; "but they were certainly going much too fast."

"Accidents!" he repeated bitterly; "this warn't no accident. They done it a purpose--the dirty Dutchmen."

"Sunk you deliberately!" exclaimed Tommy. "What on earth makes you think that?"

A kind of half-cunning, half-cautious look came into our visitor's face.

"Mebbe I knows too much to please 'em," he muttered, shaking his head.

"Mebbe they'd be glad to see old Luke Gow under the water."

I thought for a moment that the shock of the accident had made him silly, but before I could speak Joyce came out of the cabin carrying half a tumbler of neat whisky.

"You get that down your neck," said Tommy, "and you'll feel like a two-year-old."

I don't know if whisky is really the correct antidote for Thames water, but at all events our guest accepted the gla.s.s and shifted its contents without a quiver. As soon as he had finished Tommy took him by the arm and helped him to his feet.

"Now come along into the cabin," he said, "and I'll see if I can fix you up with some dry kit." Then turning to me he added: "You might get the sails up again while we're dressing, Neil; it's a pity to waste any of this breeze."

I nodded, and resigning the tiller to Joyce, climbed up on to the deck, and proceeded to reset both the mainsail and the spinnaker, which were lying in splendid confusion along the top of the cabin.

I had just concluded this operation when Tommy and our visitor reappeared--the latter looking rather comic in a grey jersey, a pair of white flannel trousers, and an old dark blue cricketing blazer and cap.

"I've been telling our friend Mr. Gow that he's got to sue these chaps," said Tommy. "He knows who they are: they're a couple of Germans who've got a bungalow on Sheppey, close to that little creek we used to put in at."

"You make 'em pay," continued Tommy. "They haven't a leg to stand on, rushing past like that. They as near as possible swamped us."

Mr. Gow cast a critical eye round the _Betty_. "Ay! and you'd take a deal o' swampin,' mister. She's a fine manly little ship, an' that's a fact." Then he paused. "It's hard on a man to lose his boat," he added quietly; "specially when 'is livin' depends on 'er."

"What do you do?" I asked. "What's your job?"

Mr. Gow hesitated for a moment. "Well, in a manner o' speakin', I haven't got what you might call no reg'lar perfession, sir. I just picks up what I can outer the river like. I rows folks out to their boats round Tilbury way, and at times I does a bit of eel fishing--or maybe in summer there's a job lookin' arter the yachts at Leigh and Southend. It all comes the same to me, sir."