Bill and The Mary Ann Shaughnessy

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘They likely know already,’ said Malcolm.

  ‘Somehow I doubt it,’ replied Jonathan. ‘But I wouldn’t be surprised if they took a stroll around this way before long, so let’s turn in, and should they come we could say we’ve been in bed for ages because we were tired with the trip.’

  Five minutes later they were in their bunks, Malcolm and Joe in the double one, Jonathan in the single, with Bill curled up at his feet. And there they lay talking in whispers and waiting.

  ‘Whatever the man Sloper is up to I don’t think the owner would be in on it. Do you, Jonathan?’ asked Malcolm.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Jonathan sleepily. ‘He seemed such a decent sort.’

  ‘Can’t trust anybody. That’s what me granny’s always sayin’,’ muttered Joe.

  ‘Why do you always quote your granny when you don’t like her?’ asked Malcolm now. ‘Bet you love her deep down,’ he added teasingly.

  ‘Love me granny?’ said Joe slowly. ‘I love her so much I wish she’d swallow a tin opener.’

  The last thing Jonathan remembered before dropping off to sleep was the three of them spluttering with laughter.

  Bill was uneasy; there were strange sounds all around him, and they weren’t caused by the wind alone. He had dropped into a fitful doze, then woken up with the cold. He now gave a low growl as a water vole softly bumped the side of the boat. When an owl hooted as it flew overhead the points of his ears quivered. This sound was followed by a scurrying on the river bank and a peculiar squawking as if pheasants had been disturbed. He lifted his head now and listened intently and growled a little louder. He felt a sense of uneasiness; things weren’t right. He sat up straight and sniffed. There seemed to be strange movements all around him. He growled again, louder this time, then moved up the bunk and pushed against Jonathan with his muzzle.

  Jonathan groaned, turned over, and, pushing Bill’s face away, muttered thickly, ‘Lie down, will you. Lie down.’

  But Bill did not lie down. Picking his way to the bottom of the bunk again, he dropped onto the floor and sniffed at the door. A strong gust of wind rocked the boat, and then his head was brought upwards by the sound of rain pinging on the cabin roof. He turned his body round and walked through the cabin and into the galley, and here his uneasiness increased for there seemed to be movement under his feet. He was now experiencing the same sensation as when Jonathan sat at the wheel driving the boat, only now there was no noise with the movement. The curtains at the dinette window were not drawn and he jumped up onto the seat and looked out.

  The squall of rain stopped as quickly as it began and the moon, coming out for a moment from behind thick scudding clouds, showed Bill a strange scene: what he should have been looking at was a green bank a few yards away across the narrow creek, but what he saw was a wide expanse of water seeming to stretch endlessly ahead. When the water suddenly gave place to trees, and a bank came rearing up to the window, he stepped back and fell onto the floor. The moon disappeared, the cabin was dark again and there were mutterings from the boys, a groan from Joe, a thick ‘What was that?’ from Malcolm, and a ‘Where are you, Bill? Come on; lie down this minute!’ from Jonathan.

  ‘Whoof! Whoof! Whoof!’ Bill spoke loudly. Standing on his hind legs, he pawed at Jonathan’s shoulder. ‘Whoof! Whoof! Whoof!’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud! Lie down, you idiot.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s cold,’ muttered Malcolm sleepily.

  ‘That’s likely it,’ mumbled Joe; ‘I’m not very warm meself. Let him come in with us.’

  ‘Whoof! Whoof! Whoof! Whoof!’

  Jonathan sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His mind clearing, he switched on the light and blinked as he said, ‘He doesn’t bark for nothing.’

  ‘Jonathan!’ Joe was sitting bolt upright now. ‘Do you feel something? We’re…we’re on the move.’

  Within a second they had tumbled out of their bunks and were in the cockpit, and as if they had been dropped onto a strange planet they peered through the windscreen into the darkness. Then with a yell Jonathan tore at the press-studs on the awning, pulling it down as he cried, ‘We’re adrift!’

  ‘We can’t be,’ said Malcolm. ‘I hammered in the rond anchors.’

  ‘Shut up, and wake up, man,’ shouted Joe now. ‘Can’t you see we’re loose in the main river…Oh heck!’

  ‘Switch on the petrol, Joe,’ ordered Jonathan now. ‘And you, Malcolm, put her headlight on.’

  As Jonathan tried to get the engine to start, the beam of light spreading over the water showed them that they were indeed in the middle of the river and being carried down broadside with the current.

  ‘Won’t she start?’ cried Joe anxiously as he bent down by the side of Jonathan.

  ‘No; she must be cold.’

  ‘Try the starting handle.’

  Without further ado Jonathan swung the starting handle and the engine ticked over for a moment, then lapsed into silence, and in the moment of quiet that followed Bill barked and Malcolm cried, ‘Oh, shut up you!’ Then pointing ahead, he gasped, ‘She’s making straight for the bank on the bend.’

  ‘Well let’s hope she sticks in the mud,’ said Jonathan, ‘else the Lord knows where we’ll land.’

  But the current took The Mary Ann Shaughnessy round the bend and once more they were in the middle of the river, and with the strong wind behind them they made crazy headway down it.

  Jonathan, trying the self-starter again, pulled out the choke at the same time. The result was a quick throb from the engine, and an audible sigh of relief from each of them.

  When Jonathan straightened her out he didn’t know whether he was facing up or downriver; all he wanted to do was to get her safely moored. But this was easier said than done because the silt was banked in places well out into the river. Time and again when he tried to steer her towards the dim outline of a bank her bows stuck in the mud. On the fifth attempt he brought her alongside a high bank, and Joe, scrambling off with the bow rope in his hand, held her while Malcolm, from the deck, pulled in the stern with the boathook dug into the bank. Then, the engine shut off, Jonathan looked over the side to see Malcolm and Joe standing holding the ropes, and together they said the same things: ‘Rond anchors.’ And Joe added, ‘We’ve got nothing to tie her to.’

  Peering along the bank, Jonathan said, ‘That looks like the stump of a willow. Pull her up a bit, but not too close in case there are roots sticking out.’

  A few minutes later they had the bow rope securely tied to the willow stump, and Jonathan drove the round end of the boathook as far into the earth as he could, and to this they tied the stern rope.

  Back on board, the boys, dropping onto the tumbled bunks, stared at each other. And when Joe’s teeth began to chatter, Jonathan said, ‘We’d better have a hot drink before we try to sort this out. I’ll make it. You two get into bed. And you, boy—’ he hoisted Bill onto his bunk. ‘Get under the covers there and be quiet…’

  When they had each drunk deeply from cups of steaming tea, Joe, holding the bedclothes up under his chin with one hand, asked, ‘What do you make of it, Jonathan?’

  Jonathan did not answer immediately, and when he did it was to the point. ‘She couldn’t have moved off on her own,’ he said.

  ‘Them on The Night Star,’ said Joe. ‘They were onto us. The mistake we made was not keepin’ awake.’

  ‘I hate to think that they would do it,’ said Malcolm. ‘I feel the man Sloper would, but not the owner. I still think he’s a nice man.’

  ‘Look,’ said Joe. ‘He’s bound to know what’s going on on his own boat, isn’t he?’

  ‘If he was there,’ answered Malcolm. ‘You didn’t see him, did you, Jonathan?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t see him,’ said Jonathan; ‘or hear him. I would have recognised his voice; it’s different from the rest.’

  ‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘we can easily find out if he’s aboard. As soon as it’s daylight let’s go back and see if he’s on the
boat. We’ll have to go back in any case for the anchors…that’s if they haven’t swiped them.’

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Malcolm now.

  ‘Half past two,’ said Jonathan, looking at his watch hanging from the book rack.

  ‘How long do you think we were adrift?’ asked Joe.

  ‘No idea, not the faintest. But I know this. If it hadn’t been for him’—Jonathan put out his hand and fondled Bill’s head, the only part of him visible from under the covers—‘goodness knows what might have happened.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ said Joe, jerking his thumb towards Bill. ‘Good old Bill. But there’s another thing.’ He looked at Jonathan again. ‘Why didn’t he bark when he heard them at the ropes, eh?’

  ‘That’s a question,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘It only goes to prove,’ said Joe, ‘that whoever loosened them was an expert at doing things on the quiet, for his nibs usually barks at the slightest strange noise, now doesn’t he?’

  Jonathan made no answer to this but his brows gathered thoughtfully.

  ‘Would the boat have turned over, do you think?’ Malcolm now asked with a slight note of apprehension in his voice.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Jonathan. ‘But she could have gone headlong into the river bank at some place where there are obstructions, such as piles sticking up, and had her bottom ripped…Oh well,’ he sighed; ‘it’s no use sitting up here until daylight; we can’t puzzle it out any further at present, so we might as well try to get some sleep for an hour or so, then we’ll go back as soon as it’s light and take it from there.’

  ‘Yes; and take it from there,’ endorsed Joe firmly.

  They talked spasmodically for a while longer; then again all was quiet in The Mary Ann Shaughnessy.

  Three

  But they didn’t go back to Burwell Lode at first light. It was just on eight o’clock when Jonathan woke up. Looking at his watch, he couldn’t believe what it told him and so, reaching up to the sideboard, he switched on the radio, and the sound awoke the others.

  ‘Coo!’ said Joe, turning his head into his pillow. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly eight by my watch, if it’s right.’

  The voice of the announcer filled the cabin now, saying, ‘A plane crashed while taking off from Rome last evening. There were no survivors of the thirty-six passengers aboard, three of whom were British…No trace has yet been found of the lorry driver, Edward Williams, but his lorry was found abandoned in a wood outside Windsor…Thieves got away with jewellery to the value of fifty thousand pounds from Green Glades, the home of Mr Charles Walmer, on the River Thames…’

  ‘Oh, switch that off,’ muttered Malcolm now under his breath; ‘I’ve got a beastly head.’

  As Jonathan switched off the radio Joe exclaimed loudly, ‘Aw, man, it could have been something. Didn’t you hear about jewels being stolen? It could have been them.’

  ‘Don’t talk rot, Joe,’ said Jonathan impatiently.

  ‘How could it have been the crew of The Night Star stealing from somewhere on the River Thames when here we are thinking that they pushed us off last night? They couldn’t be in two places at once.’

  ‘But he didn’t say the jewels were pinched last night,’ said Joe.

  ‘Well, use your loaf. They don’t usually give two days old news, do they? And look,’ Jonathan wagged his finger down at Joe. ‘Don’t start imagining things along those lines, else it’s going to get us into trouble.’

  ‘But, Jonathan.’ It was Malcolm speaking now, and very quietly. ‘What about last night? I mean the van, and the man you saw in the back of it.’

  In the act of pulling on his sweater, Jonathan paused; then, his head slowly emerging through the roll-topped neck, he looked down on Malcolm before dropping onto the end of the bunk again and saying slowly, ‘Yes; yes, you have something, but…but didn’t the announcer say the lorry was found in Windsor?’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Joe, kneeling up on the bunk now, his small body quivering with excitement. ‘But these gangs have got fast cars, and helicopters, and’—he stabbed his finger down towards Malcolm’s nose—‘boats like The Night Star.’

  ‘Oh! Oh!’ Jonathan was on his feet again, his head wagging. ‘There you go, taking it too far, as usual.’

  ‘All right, but let’s wait an’ see, eh?’ said Joe. ‘And when we get back we can have a look round. We can be taking Bill for a walk, and we could admire The Night Star, couldn’t we? There’s no law against that. We could even act dim and say we were blown off the bank in the night with the high wind.’

  ‘We’ll see when we get there,’ said Jonathan, starting up the engine. ‘And while we are going, you can both put the bedding away and tidy up generally, and we’ll have breakfast in the creek.’

  It was a good half an hour later when The Mary Ann Shaughnessy turned into Burwell Lode again because Jonathan had gone downriver for some distance before realising he was heading the wrong way and so had to turn round again and make his way back. They were all looking ahead expectantly as they rounded a slight bend in the river where it neared the Lode, but there was no white Night Star moored against the bank.

  ‘She might be round the corner in our place,’ whispered Malcolm.

  A minute later they steered into the creek, and there on the bank they saw their rond anchors, still stuck well into the ground. But there was no sign of The Night Star.

  As they tied the ropes once more to the anchors Joe said, ‘As you were sayin’, Jonathan, the wind was high, but it wouldn’t unloosen two of the ropes at once, man. An’ you tied one yourself. I could imagine mine coming undone but not your two half-hitches.’

  Jonathan said nothing to this for he was perplexed, and not a little worried, but the latter feeling he kept to himself.

  After they’d had breakfast they washed The Mary Ann down, polished her brass, cleaned the cabin and galley, then swam in the river to cool off, whilst Bill barked his lungs out from the bank.

  Then came the business of getting dinner ready, which made Joe remark that it was nothing but bloomin’ cleaning, cooking, and washing-up …

  They set out again, but did not see a sign of habitation until they caught sight of the majestic Ely Cathedral on the skyline and they hailed it like men who hadn’t seen land for weeks.

  As they turned at The Fish and Duck Inn into the old West River, Malcolm said, ‘Have you thought, Jonathan, that if we continue up here we’ll have to go through a number of locks?’ He lifted his head from the map. ‘This river, the old West, is a great length, ten or eleven miles long I think. The first lock is Hermitage; then there’s Brownshill lock, and St Ives; and, oh Lord, dozens of others after that.’

  ‘Coo!’ There came a long-drawn-out groan from Joe. ‘Just let your imagination roam an’ see us goin’ through them with his nibs here.’ He thumbed towards Bill who was lying at peace now on top of the locker.

  ‘All right, you’ve made your point,’ said Jonathan, trying not to laugh. Then looking at Malcolm again, he asked, ‘Are there any locks the other way?’

  After a moment Malcolm replied, ‘No. If we were to go back into the main river and up to Ely it looks as if we could travel miles and not see the sight of one, except at Denver Sluice, and that looks a big daddy of a lock.’ He turned and looked at Bill affectionately now, saying, ‘You’d like this one, boy; it looks as if it could swallow the Queen Elizabeth.’ Then turning to the map again he said, ‘There’s lots of rivers going off the main one: the Wissey, the Brandon, the Lark…’

  ‘Oh, there looks as if there’s a lock right up the Lark,’ said Jonathan. ‘But Uncle Tom didn’t think much of the Lark. I remember him saying it was very shallow at the top end and The Mary Ann’s draught was too deep for it.’

  ‘Well, shipmates!’ exclaimed Malcolm, straightening up. ‘There’s a phone by the second bridge along here, and after we’ve phoned home we can come back and do the lot of them. And no locks!’ He had been accompanied in t
he last three words by Joe, and they shook hands solemnly, then punched at each other and laughed.

  Now Joe, a spasm of excitement passing through him, jumped up onto the foredeck and, throwing out his hands, cried, ‘Look! No locks.’ Then taking his antics further, he went on in a loud voice, ‘Ladies an’ gentlemen. During the conducted tour on The Mary Ann Shaughnessy, I will bring to your notice points of interest. On your right…sorry starboard, we are passing eight cows. No sir, I am wrong again. Ten cows. Please to note their black-and-white faces. On the port side we are approaching what looks like the old dark house. Note it well, ladies an’ gentlemen.’

  Jonathan and Malcolm were both laughing heartily now, and Jonathan shouted up at Joe, ‘And for your interest, ladies and gentlemen, our guide is slightly misinformed, for the cows happen to be heifers.’

  ‘Well, ladies an’ gentlemen,’ Joe began again, ‘whatever the captain says…’ He stopped abruptly and stood pointing ahead to where a huge grey bird, lifting itself slowly from the bank, flew across their path, its long legs hanging like ropes beneath it.

  ‘Oh!’ Jonathan leant over the side of the boat, without leaving go of the wheel, and cried excitedly, ‘It’s a heron! It’s a heron! And look, there’s another.’ The herons flew away along the river bank. Then as the boat approached them again, they flew over the fenland and into the great expanse of sky.

  ‘What do you bet we won’t see a crocodile sliding into the great waters ahead of us?’ said Joe from the deck, demonstrating with a wide wave of his hand. ‘And on the next bend but one there’ll be a herd of elephants, you’ll see.’

  ‘There’s a boat coming.’ Malcolm was standing on the locker, his head through the hatchway, and now whispering excitedly, he added, ‘I’ve an idea it’s The Night Star.’

  Jonathan stood up quickly and Joe, stopping his fooling, dropped down into the cockpit, and they all waited as they rounded the bend, and sure enough the boat coming towards them was The Night Star.