"Saturday evening, for an absolute cert," replied Vyse. "Glass is steady, sea calm. We'd make Southampton hands down by Friday morning, hand over the yacht and check the inventory, and catch the first train home on the following day."
Gerald Broadmayne was a strapping fellow of six feet two inches. In point of age he was "rising twenty-one." By profession, he was a sub-lieutenant R.N., and having just completed a two years' commission on the East Indian Station, was already beginning to be "bored stiff" with his "little drop o' leaf," to quote the lower deck vernacular for the sailor's equivalent for furlough.
Existence in Fowey, even with its mild climate, was apt to be a bit tedious in November, after a prolonged spell under the tropical sun. Yachting was his hobby, although circumstances prevented him from having a small craft of his own. Almost without exception his pals in Fowey had laid their yachts up, and there was not much fun knocking about in the harbour or spending comfortless hours in the Channel in an open or half-decked boat.
The exception was Rollo Vyse, a lad two years his junior, two inches shorter than the Sub, but with a decided excess of girth. His arms and legs were massive and muscular. In spite of his ponderous frame he carried not an ounce of superfluous flesh. His big frame, hardened by almost unlimited physical exercise, was destitute of fat. He would sprint well and run a mile without undue physical distress; swim like a South Sea Islander and dive like a duck. At school he was a terror with the gloves on. Twice in succession he was the champion athlete of the year of his school. Yet with all these accomplishments, he was far from being brilliant in educational subjects.
Fortunately, or unfortunately (that depended upon the future), Rollo had little to worry about. It was not necessary for him to earn his own living. He had an ample allowance, provided he kept within the bounds of prudence—which he generally did. In due course, Rollo Vyse would become head of a huge coal combine, when his sole responsibility consisted in affixing his signature to the Annual Report.
Nineteen fellows out of twenty so situated would have gone to the dogs. Not so Rollo Vyse. A thorough sportsman, he had no use for companions whose chief aim was to "sow their wild oats." He meant to enjoy himself—to make the very best out of his youth—and he did.
His favourite pastime was yachting. He did not take it up as a sport. Yacht racing did not appeal to him. It was the lure of the sea that held him. The greatest of the few outstanding disappointments of his early youth was his father's refusal to let him go to sea, either in the Royal Navy through Dartmouth College, or in the Mercantile Marine through that strictly-disciplined yet withal happily-run training-ship, the Conway.
Vyse was a yachtsman of the modern school. He knew little about cutters, yawls, and ketches. Seamanship in such he was ignorant of. He never had to handle a craft under sail alone. He had never experienced the thrills of a short thresh to wind'ard with a weather-going tide.
His first craft was the Ibex, an out-and-out power boat. Thirty-five feet over all, with a beam of six feet and a maximum draught of three-feet-eight, the Ibex was propelled with a pair of petrol motors giving her a speed of about eleven knots.
Her accommodation consisted of a spacious fo'c'sle with two "pipe-rail" cots; a saloon with settees on either side and a swinging table on the centre line; abaft a small galley, separated from the engine-room by a steel bulkhead with a sliding door that was supposed to be water-tight. The engine-room was large in proportion to the size of the boat, being nearly nine feet in length, with a narrow, railed-off gangway between the twin motors. Abaft the motor-room was a "sunk" deckhouse, containing the wheel and the engine-room controls. Right aft a large open cockpit with a short deck and coamings.