“Naturally,” Portson observed. “That being the Neutral’s declared destination. And what did Maddingham do? Shut up, Maddingham!”
Said Tegg, with downcast eyes: “Maddingham took my hand and squeezed it; he looked lovingly into my eyes (he did!); he turned plum-colour, and he said: ‘I will’—just like a bridegroom at the altar. It makes me feel shy to think of it even now. I didn’t see him after that till the evening when Hilarity was pulling out of the Basin, and Maddingham was cursing the tug-master.”
“I was in a hurry,” said Maddingham. “I wanted to get to the Narrows and wait for my Neutral there. I dropped down to Biller and Grove’s yard that tide (they’ve done all my work for years) and I jammed Hilarity into the creek behind their slip, so the Newt didn’t spot me when he came down the river. Then I pulled out and followed him over the Bar. He stood nor-west at once. I let him go till we were well out of sight of land. Then I overhauled him, gave him a gun across the bows and ran alongside. I’d just had my lunch, and I wasn’t going to lose my temper this time. I said: ‘Excuse me, but I understand you are bound for Antigua?’ He was, he said, and as he seemed a little nervous about my falling aboard him in that swell, I gave Hilarity another sheer in—she’s as handy as a launch—and I said: ‘May I suggest that this is not the course for Antigua?’ By that time he had his fenders overside, and all hands yelling at me to keep away. I snatched Hilarity out and began edging in again. He said: ‘I’m trying a sample of inferior oil that I have my doubts about. If it works all right I shall lay my course for Antigua, but it will take some time to test the stuff and adjust the engines to it.’ I said: ‘Very good, let me know if I can be of any service,’ and I offered him Hilarity again once or twice—he didn’t want her—and then I dropped behind and let him go on. Wasn’t that proper, Portson?”
Portson nodded. “I know that game of yours with Hilarity,” he said. “How the deuce do you do it? My nerve always goes at close quarters in any sea.”
“It’s only a little trick of steering,” Maddingham replied with a simper of vanity. “You can almost shave with her when she feels like it. I had to do it again that same evening, to establish a moral ascendancy. He wasn’t showing any lights, and I nearly tripped over him. He was a scared Neutral for three minutes, but I got a little of my own back for that damned court-martial. But I was perfectly polite. I apologised profusely. I didn’t even ask him to show his lights.”
“But did he?” said Winchmore.
“He did—every one; and a flare now and then,” Maddingham replied. “He held north all that night, with a falling barometer and a rising wind and all the other filthy things. Gad, how I hated him! Next morning we got it, good and tight from the nor-nor-west out of the Atlantic, off Carso Head. He dodged into a squall, and then he went about. We weren’t a mile behind, but it was as thick as a wall. When it cleared, and I couldn’t see him ahead of me, I went about too, and followed the rain. I picked him up five miles down wind, legging it for all he was worth to the south’ard—nine knots, I should think. Hilarity doesn’t like a following sea. We got pooped a bit, but by noon we’d struggled back to where we ought to have been—two cables astern of him. Then he began to signal, but his flags being end-on to us, of course, we had to creep up on his beam—well abeam—to read ’em. That didn’t restore his morale either. He made out he’d been compelled to put back by stress of weather before completing his oil tests. I made back I was sorry to hear it, but would be greatly interested in the results. Then I turned in (I’d been up all night) and my lootenant took on. He was a widower (by the way) of the name of Sherrin, aged forty-seven. He’d run a girls’ school at Weston-super-Mare after he’d left the Service in ’ninety-five, and he believed the English were the Lost Tribes.”
“What about the Germans?” said Portson.
“Oh, they’d been misled by Austria, who was the Beast with Horns in Revelations. Otherwise he was rather a dull dog. He set the tops’ls in his watch. Hilarity won’t steer under any canvas, so we rather sported round our friend that afternoon, I believe. When I came up after dinner, she was biting his behind, first one side, then the other. Let’s see—that would be about thirty miles east-sou-east of Harry Island. We were running as near as nothing south. The wind had dropped, and there was a useful cross-rip coming up from the south-east. I took the wheel and, the way I nursed him from starboard, he had to take the sea over his port bow. I had my sciatica on me—buccaneering’s no game for a middle-aged man—but I gave that fellow sprudel! By Jove; I washed him out! He stood it as long as he could, and then he made a bolt for Harry Island. I had to ride in his pocket most of the way there because I didn’t know that coast. We had charts, but Sherrin never understood ’em, and I couldn’t leave the wheel. So we rubbed along together, and about midnight this Newt dodged in over the tail of Harry Shoals and anchored, if you please, in the lee of the Double Ricks. It was dead calm there, except for the swell, but there wasn’t much room to manœuvre in, and I wasn’t going to anchor. It looked too like a submarine rendezvous. But first, I came alongside and asked him what his trouble was. He told me he had overheated his something-or-other bulb. I’ve never been shipmates with Diesel engines, but I took his word for it, and I said I ’ud stand by till it cooled. Then he told me to go to hell.”
“If you were inside the Double Ricks in the dark, you were practically there,” said Portson.