Priscilla's Spies

by George A. Birmingham

“She’s all right now,” said Priscilla, “and anyway there are two life buoys on board.”

Then Peter Walsh did an unexpected thing. He put the tiller down and began to haul in his main-sheet. The boat rounded up into the wind, headed straight northwards for the shore of Inishlean. She listed heavily, lay over till it seemed as if the sail would touch the water. For an instant she paused, half righted, moved sluggishly towards the shore. Then, very slowly as it seemed, she leaned down again till her sail lay flat in the water.

At the moment when she righted, before the final heel over, a man flung himself across the gunwale into the sea. In his hands he grasped one of the life buoys.

“It’s father,” shouted Lady Isabel. “Oh, save him!”

“If he’d stuck to the boat,” said Priscilla, “he’d have been all right. She’s ashore this minute on the point of Inishlean. Unless Peter Walsh has gone suddenly mad I can’t imagine why he tried to round up the boat there and why he hauled in the main-sheet. He was absolutely bound to go over.”

“Perhaps he wanted to land there,” said Frank.

“Well,” said Priscilla, “he has landed, but he’s upset the boat. I never thought before that Peter Walsh could be such an absolute idiot.”

The condemnation was entirely unjust. Peter Walsh had, in fact, performed the neatest feat of seamanship of his whole life. Never in the course of forty years and more spent in or about small boats had he handled one with such supreme skill and accuracy. Driven desperately by a squally and uncertain southeast wind, with a welter of short waves knocking his boat’s head about in the most incalculable way, he had succeeded in upsetting her about six yards from the shore of an island on to the point of which she was certain to drift, with no more than four feet of water under her at the critical moment. The Tortoise, having no ballast in her and depending entirely for stability on her fin-like centreboard was not, as Peter Walsh knew very well, in the smallest danger of sinking. He climbed quietly on her gunwale as she finally lay down and sat there, stride-legs, not even wet below the waist, until she grounded on the curved point of the island. The performance was a triumphant demonstration of Peter Walsh’s unmatched skill.

In one matter only did he miscalculate. Lord Torrington knew something about boats, possessed that little knowledge which is in all great arts, theology, medicine and boat-sailing, a dangerous thing. He knew, after the first immersion of the gunwale, when the water flowed in, that the boat was sure to upset. He knew that the greatest risk on such occasions lies in being entangled in some rope and perhaps pinned under the sail. He seized the moment when the Tortoise righted after her first plunge, grasped a life buoy and flung himself overboard. He was just too soon. A moment later and he would have drifted ashore as the boat did on the point of Inishlean. If he had let go his life buoy and struck out at once he might have reached it. But the sudden immersion in cold water bewildered him. He clung to the life buoy and was drifted past the point.

Then he regained his self-possession and looked round him. As a young man he had been a fine swimmer and even at the age of fifty-five, with the cares of an imperial War Office weighing heavily on him, he had enough presence of mind to realise his situation. A few desperate strokes convinced him of the impossibility of swimming back to Inishlean against the wind and tide. In front of him lay a quarter of a mile of broken water. Beyond that was Inishbawn. It was a long swim, too long for a fully dressed man with no support. But Lord Torrington had a life buoy, guaranteed by its maker to keep two men safely afloat. He had a strong wind behind him and a tide drifting him down towards the island. The water was not cold. He realised that all that was absolutely necessary was to cling to the life buoy, but that he might, if he liked, slightly accelerate his progress by kicking. He kicked hard.