Road To The Coast

by John Harris

  His tones had the insubstantial friendliness he obviously used to wheedle his unhygienic hulk of a ship past every port doctor and authority in the world. They could even smell on his breath the whisky he was doubtless in the habit of offering to add weight to his arguments.

  They turned to face him, catching whiffs all the time of the sickly smell of hides and the stench of rotting potatoes that seemed to permeate the ship.

  ‘All weighed, all paid,’ Phizacklea said cheerfully. ‘Got all your luggage aboard?’

  ‘All we’re going to get,’ Ash snorted. ‘The bastard’s made off with it.’

  Phizacklea studied him for a second, then he spoke over his shoulder to the Second Mate.

  ‘Tell the pilot to stand by,’ he said. ‘We’ll be away in five minutes. Tell the Chief as well – if you can get his bloody nose out of that magazine of his, that is.’

  He peered round short-sightedly, then as he spotted Grace and the child behind Ash, they became conscious immediately of the hostility that drove away his unctuous cheerfulness. It was obvious at once, and harsh in his voice which changed abruptly, shedding the greasy friendliness for a grating suspicion that transformed all Grace’s feelings of security to doubt.

  ‘Here,’ he said loudly. ‘What’s this? One, they told me. I didn’t bargain for a woman and a kid as well. This ship isn’t fitted to look after women and kids.’

  Clearly, Captain Phizacklea had no mistaken illusions about gallantry. He stood in the gloom, a bland-faced figure whom they could see in the shadows only as a stomach and legs, one hand on his paunch, playing with a button on his jacket which was working loose.

  Grace drew the child towards her, feeling her bony angularity against her and the sudden shudder of apprehension that swept over her.

  ‘We don’t mind,’ she said quickly and a little breathlessly. ‘We don’t mind at all so long as we’re on a British ship.’

  Phizacklea ignored her. ‘We’re not a passenger-carrying ship,’ he went on to Ash with ill-concealed hostility. ‘It’s against all the regulations.’

  ‘Don’t strain a gut, old boy,’ Ash said easily. ‘We’ll pay well. I had a passage fixed. They arranged it from Santa Fé for me.’

  ‘They said one.’

  ‘Made a mistake.’ Ash was airily indifferent to the captain’s annoyance. ‘Three, it should have been.’

  He turned away, dismissing Phizacklea’s complaints with contemptuous unconcern, and as he stooped to pick up the few belongings the boatman had left them, Phizacklea addressed Grace, as though he thought he might make more headway with her.

  ‘A woman and a kid isn’t what I expected,’ he said. ‘I can’t cope with refugees.’

  His voice had risen to an angry whine, his flabby face reflecting the condition of his command, then he peered more closely at Teresa, his expression full of suspicion.

  ‘You English?’ he demanded suddenly, his gaze shifting from Teresa’s dark eyes to Grace’s hair. ‘I’m not having no dagoes aboard my ship. Women or kids.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m British.’ Grace’s arm went round Teresa and anger began to surge up inside her, an immense boiling frustration at Phizacklea’s narrow-minded hostility. ‘If you like I can treat you to a few choice words that nobody but Britishers know. Would that help?’

  ‘It’s easy to talk.’ Phizacklea’s small eyes, dogged suddenly with suspicion, hadn’t left her features as he spoke, and Ash put down the things he had picked up from the deck and straightened up in front of him with great deliberation, his eyes blazing. ‘God damn it, man,’ he said in a ringing voice that was loud enough and unexpected enough to make the pimply mate jump. ‘What is this? A bloody inquisition?’

  ‘You got proof she’s English?’

  ‘For God’s sweet sake, I don’t need proof to know whether me own wife’s British or not, do I? I married her, didn’t I? Promised to love, honour and obey, and all that cock. Till death do us part. What do you take me for?’

  Grace’s eyebrows had shot up at the relationship he claimed for them but it seemed to satisfy Captain Phizacklea and she allowed it to pass without comment.

  ‘OK, OK,’ Phizacklea said hurriedly, on the defensive immediately as Ash stared bleakly at him. ‘Only it’s been a proper bastard of a trip all round, this has. Riots all over the shop and soldiers coming aboard to inspect the papers. What with the flour going off and having to leave the Third Engineer in Santa Fé–’ he left the sentence unfinished. ‘Fell off the ladder-staging,’ he went on. ‘Drunk, he was. As if I hadn’t enough, too, with the agents and the owners pestering me all the time.’ He seemed to be working out on them his resentment against the authorities, the delay, even his dreary command, pinpointing all his private dislikes and hatreds in the fact that Grace and the child had arrived unexpectedly.

  ‘I’ve had the pilot on board all day – drinking my whisky too,’ he added, as though that in itself were enough to destroy his faith in mankind. ‘I’ve hung around these parts long enough.’

  Ash started at him coldly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Teresa, pale-faced and miserable with tiredness, and Grace, beginning to wilt at last with the strain of the last two days.

  ‘Then for the love of God,’ he said in that thunderous voice of his that sounded as though he were addressing the Brigade of Guards, ‘if you’ve been here long enough, how about wrapping up now and getting a move on before it’s too late?’

  Captain Phizacklea stepped back a pace as though he’d been struck.

  ‘That’s no way to talk to the master of a ship,’ he said.

  Ash seemed quite unperturbed by his anger. ‘You’ve been standing there for ten minutes now, he commented, dreeing your bloody weird. I’m not interested in your dulcet obbligato, and neither is me wife, and the Lord God of Stresses and Strains can look after your miseries. Let’s get going.’

  Captain Phizacklea stiffened and seemed to brace himself. For a moment, he looked as though he might argue and Grace began to fear he might try to turn them off the ship, but Ash faced him in the yellow light, high-nosed and unblinking, a commanding figure in his dusty clothes, his manner giving dignity to his peremptoriness, and Phizacklea finally capitulated and began to shuffle off along the deck, muttering to himself.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll be glad to get out of this bloody river, come to think of it, anyway, I always did say it was the asshole of the world. And this place’s right up it.’

  Ash grinned at Grace as he disappeared and for the first time since they had met the look she gave him was completely warm and friendly.

  ‘Known as the thunder and lightning approach,’ he said calmly. ‘Guaranteed to work every time, providing you’re bigger than he is.’

  Phizacklea was climbing the ladder to the bridge now and they could hear his gruff voice in the shadows, hectoring and fretful.

  ‘OK, Mister,’ he was calling. ‘Take her away and let’s be quick about it. Tell the pilot we’re off. South side of the island if he can manage it, and see he does.’

  His voice was drowned by the rattle of the winch on the forecastle head as the anchor began to rise from the mud, then Grundy, his jaw still gaping at Ash’s cavalier treatment of the fearsome Captain Phizacklea, snapped to life and they were all shepherded into a midships alleyway, their footsteps on the iron deck backgrounded by the ringing of the engine-room telegraphs and the soft voices of the crew. As they stepped through an iron door, dogged back against the deckhouse, they were brushed aside by a stocky figure smelling strongly of whisky.

  ‘Yon bloody steam gauge,’ it was muttering as though repeating a spell, as it clattered up the ladder to the bridge. ‘Yon bloody steam gauge.’

  ‘Second Engineer,’ Grundy announced from behind them. ‘Don’t worry about him. He’s like Phizacklea. Suffers from wife trouble.’

  ‘Suffers from something,’ Grace said thoughtfully. ‘And it isn’t good manners.’

  ‘This way.’ Grundy indicated
an alleyway which was notable chiefly for the greasy finger-marks on the white paintwork. ‘I’ll take you to the steward. Dodgin’s his name. He’ll look after you. I’m wanted on deck.’

  He took Grace’s elbow with the insinuating manner of one who considered that he knew how to behave with women.

  ‘Look out for the step.’ Still awed by Ash’s arrogant grandeur and the rout of Captain Phizacklea, Grundy went before them like a head waiter, almost bowing with greasy obsequiousness.

  ‘We’re not much to look at,’ he said apologetically. ‘But you know how it is with these old ships. Carry everything. Go anywhere. I’ve no intention of staying long on here, believe me. I’m after something bigger. Maybe a P and O boat.’

  He seemed to want to impress them, and particularly Ash, with his importance, posturing and fawning at the same time, eager to please, and desperately keen to appear efficient.

  ‘In here.’ They were ushered into a shabby little saloon where they were met by a hostile-looking steward in grease-spotted cotton trousers and singlet.

  ‘The passengers,’ Grundy announced importantly to him. ‘Captain sent ’em down.’

  ‘I can see, can’t I?’ the steward snarled, unimpressed, moving into his pantry with an armful of dirty dishes and making no attempt to hide the dislike he clearly held for Grundy.

  ‘OK, come on in,’ he barked as he returned, and began to pick up soiled clothing and scattered newspapers in a grimy black-nailed hand. He straightened up and stared at Grundy, who was still hovering round Grace as they stood grouped near the door, until the mate finally became aware of the glower, and went out hurriedly, his neck flushing redly.

  Dodgin glared after him, then indicated the saloon with a handful of newspapers. ‘Best we’ve got,’ he said. His voice had no apology in it, merely a veiled defiance, as though, like the Captain, he resented their being aboard.

  He pushed them farther into the little room with its square table and four chairs and the big copper urn on the chipped dresser by the door. It was a dark wooden box of a place, unrelieved by any decoration – utilitarian, ugly and untidy. The smell of hides and potatoes was still there with them. It had followed them along the corridor – completely inescapable, even through the odours of stale cooking that came from the galley.

  ‘It looks like Buckingham Palace,’ Grace said feelingly. ‘The way I ache at the moment, even a barn would look cosy.’

  In spite of the drabness of the ship, she felt a tremendous relief at the sound of English voices and the commonplace grumbling from the steward. Even the Captain’s hostility had the familiar ring of a harassed London bus conductor’s complaint about it.

  Ash pulled out a chair for her and Teresa flopped on the leatherette settee which occupied one end of the saloon, dark-eyed with tiredness. Within a couple of minutes she had fallen asleep. Ash studied her for a second, then he slipped out of his jacket and laid it across her. Grace watched him move away from the child, a pleased, gentle look in her eyes, then he raised his head and caught her glance.

  ‘Never could do with being too warm,’ he said.

  Grace smiled at him, then as the steward bustled through, she turned eagerly in her chair.

  ‘Are we leaving straight away?’ she asked, and Dodgin swung thin angry features towards her, reminding her suddenly of a weasel. His skin was pale and greasy from long hours over the stove and his narrow mouth was that of someone who was unlovely and unloved.

  ‘Christ, I hope so!’ His manner was ungracious. ‘We’ve been hanging about long enough. We’re running short of grub and water.’

  He tossed the clothing he was carrying over a chair-back and put down on another one all the newspapers he had picked up, reducing the saloon to its original state of untidiness. Moving to the door, he stopped, one foot over the step, and turned towards them. ‘I’m looking forward to Blighty, I can tell you,’ he said loudly and aggressively, as though he blamed them for the fact that he had ever had to leave it. ‘I didn’t sign on to get mixed up with revolutions and that lot, believe me. Suppose you’ll want some grub,’ he concluded, his tones leaving no doubt about his lack of interest in their misfortunes.

  As he disappeared, Grace stared around her, oppressed at last by the ugliness of their surroundings and the marked hostility of everyone on board. The Ballaculish was obviously, neither a handsome nor a happy ship, and what they had seen of her crew indicated that they, like the ship, were lost, forsaken and unwanted, vagrants on the face of the earth, without families or homes, or any of the normal roots that made a man have pride in himself.

  ‘My idea of a ship,’ she said slowly, ‘was a place full of jolly jack tars singing sea shanties. I was brought up on steamer trips from Southend with the bar open all the time and a man playing ‘Daisy’ on a banjo on the promenade deck.’

  Ash nodded. ‘I certainly did pick it this time, didn’t I?’ he said sombrely. ‘It’s as cheerless as St Pancras on a rainy afternoon. Look at the décor. Grey, brown and ash-midden drab. You’d better tie a brick round my neck and throw me over the side.’

  She put her hand on his impulsively. ‘I’m not grumbling,’ she said quickly. ‘Believe me I’m glad of it, whatever it is.’ You did all right to get us aboard. I thought we weren’t going to make it for a bit.’

  Ash turned from examining a notice on the stained panelling and forced a smile. ‘They’ll probably all seem sweeter in the morning,’ he said, trying hard to sound encouraging. ‘Maybe we’ll all feel better when we’ve had a night in a nice warm bed.’

  The bright capable look in her face melted to an appeal that softened her features and made her look younger than she was and more vulnerable. ‘Bed,’ she said wistfully. ‘Bed! Oh, God, use your influence to get me a bed. Any bed so long as I can go to sleep.’

  He grinned at her with that wolfish grin of his that always made her feel naked. ‘How’s it feel to find yourself married?’ he asked.

  She laughed softly. ‘No harm done,’ she said. ‘You did all right. Bless you, Buster, you’ve been doing all right for a long time now.’

  There was a new admiration in her voice and a deep friendliness that made him feel good. Staring back at her, comparing her with the hard-eyed women he’d met in that curious half-world he’d lived in where even ordinary human friendship had never been simple, he thought of the riotous time they could have had in different circumstances, for she looked as though she had as great a capacity for enjoyment as he had himself, and would never be satisfied with shuffling round the floor of some shabby nightclub for an evening’s entertainment. As he looked at her, he got a sense of uninhibited pleasure and happiness that made him think of day trips of Brighton, with old ladies full of port and Guinness shrieking with laughter up and down the promenade; of crowds and cockles, and the breathy jangling of a roundabout’s steam organ, and the strong sweet scent of old pubs. And something else too, he realized – the cool country cottages back home that he’d almost forgotten, and grass and buttercups and daisies; washing on the hedge and bread being baked, and children shouting. There was a tremendous wholesomeness about her that overwhelmed him with a sentimental nostalgia of which he hadn’t thought himself capable.

  He turned away to the porthole, reawakened to a pattern of life he’d left behind long ago and hadn’t thought of for years. He stared out into the darkness for a while, then he turned and grinned over his shoulder and beckoned to her.

  ‘Come and have a look,’ he said. ‘It’ll do your heart good. Put colour in the old cheeks. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re moving. We’ve been moving some time.’

  Then she noticed the faint shake of the ship that was its heartbeat, the slightest possible vibration as the engines turned over slowly and they moved away from their anchorage. Even as she stared about her, she heard the clang of an engine-room telegraph somewhere above her head, and the vibration was stepped up, so that she saw a chair begin to jiggle a little on the floor, sidling towards the table, and the crockery began to ch
ink together faintly.

  She joined Ash at the porthole, catching the breeze that was brought in by the scoop. The dark fringe of the river was sliding slowly backwards and they could hear the faint swish of the water along the side of the ship. The lights of Santa Rosa where the Saolito broadened out into the main stream and the red flashing light that marked the Punta de las Rosas came into view.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Ash breathed as he gazed at the moving pinpoints of gold and red. ‘Half an hour of this and we’ll be clear, and then it’s straight ahead for home. I’ve been down this damn river a dozen times and it doesn’t take very long.’

  His arm had found its way firmly round Grace’s waist but she didn’t notice as she watched the little town come alongside. Her heart too full of relief to speak, she saw the lights on the island and the Punta de las Rosas framed in the porthole, and she looked at Ash quickly, her eyes brimming with gratitude.

  He grinned back at her and turned away from the porthole. ‘Done it,’ he said ‘By God, I’ll buy you the most expensive drink you can think of when we get to Montevideo. Or a dinner. In the best hotel. All gilt mirrors and red plush.’ He gave her a smacking kiss full on the lips that took her by surprise. ‘Or a bed with a swan’s-down mattress and an eighteen-carat gold thundermug underneath.’

  She pushed him away, laughing, caught by his enthusiasm and unable to scold him.

  He was still standing in front of her, impertinent, impenitent, still laughing, when they heard a growling roar outside, a sound like an approaching jet plane in an empty sky that made them both swing round, grabbing instinctively at the table.

  The roar of the explosion made them jump and brought Teresa to her feet off the settee, startled and scared and screaming, her eyes still gummy with sleep, then there was a tremendous crash outside that set the cups and saucers on the shabby dresser jiggling together as though some invisible hand had jolted them, and they were all flung together, clutching at each other for support.